My brother is crying again. He’s in my parents room. He comes shambling, shaking out into the hall, leaning against the wall, a dull knife in hand. God could only hope he was using that knife to shave his face or cut his hair -- he looks homeless -- but no, it has little shavings of blue plastic. The same blue plastic of the lockbox my dad keeps his gun in. “I’m sorry, I’m just gonna kill myself. I can’t do it anymore.” The words spew out of his mouth like he was some drunken vagrant praying to his plaster throne.

“God dammit. Not this s*** again. What the hell did you do this time?” I force the words out of my mouth between a groan and a sigh. All I wanted to do was play some Rune Scape, work on my exponents, eat some cereal out of a cup, and go to sleep. Instead I get this. I take baby steps past my brother in the hall, the smell of alcohol billowing out of him. To my parents closet I go, to see the damage he has done.

My father’s lock box was sitting in the middle of the closet, little plastic shavings on the ground. My brother must have forgotten that there are another two layers of locks that he couldn’t cut through to get to the gun, that jackass. I guess this is my mess to clean up.

Back out to the hallway I waltz, “Come on, let’s get you into your room.” I try to make my words as comforting as possible, I always take on a motherly tone when this happens. We struggle into his room, and I ease the knife from his grasp while he sits himself on the bed. Now to fix this mess. Just a little jump down the stairs, I always take them two at a time.

I grab things through my mental checklist: glue, blue spray paint, put the knife in the dishwasher, and start a pot of coffee. I struggle to glue back the tiny loop of the lockbox with the lock still on; it looks pretty well put back together, if I must say so myself, except for the large amount of white glue. This is where the spray paint comes in: I run to my own bathroom passing through my brothers room only to hear him crying and grumbling on his bed. Once I get to the shower, I violently shake the paint can and gently apply a large amount on my finger. Then I immediately sprint back to the lockbox and apply the paint... perfect. Except my brother drunkenly called my parents and told them what happened. So it is time to drink that coffee, I don’t think I’ll be sleeping tonight once the s*** hits the fan. I guess I can study later, I don’t have school tomorrow, and the fifth grade can wait.