insane

I have to watch Bunny Lake is Missing again. I’m not getting something.

You’re having an incestuous relationship with your brother with whom you live. Your kid goes missing. This brother never liked that she existed because she comes between the two of you. Some guy got you pregnant and you never married him — in the 1960s (movie version). Scandal!

Anyway, how did you not know that your brother was an insane psychopath all these years when you finally discover that he kidnapped your kid and hid her in the trunk of the car? Did he have a nervous break-down after working as a journalist? How does someone so insane hold down a job like this? Oh wait. That’s a stupid question isn’t it?

I thought of writing a short story, an essay about my three aunts. They are my mom’s sisters. They have their own children but they made me feel special growing up, still now. When I had crisis a few years ago, they all helped me. One flew up from Georgia and stayed with me for a few days.

My family was pretty tight when I was growing up so we spent a lot of time together, my aunts their husbands my dad all my cousins, grandma and grandpa. Grandma and grandpa were actually separated but showed up for all the family events anyway. This was all on my mom’s side. Even though I don’t speak to my aunts all the time, I still feel a bond because of those early days. They also had a brother, the only male, who was schizophrenic.

Shit I had a special relationship with him. When I was unemployed back in 2000, I would visit him at the institution every couple of weeks with one of the aunts that I mentioned. We picked him up, and ate out, usually at the same diner. He smoked several cigarettes and would impart nuggets of insane genius which I loved. I generally enjoyed talking to him. He passed away in 2004. Maybe I’ll come up with something to write about my beautiful aunts and uncle. I’ve held off because anything I come up with is just too maudlin.