american dreaming

Holy shit lets see how this works out.
Will, my brother, the white one, is in the family room watching Lonesome Dove. I've never seen the movie and don’t really care to ever see it, but chances are I will eventually. Just not this time.

See, Will is tight.

I'm not mad at will. But will is mad. And he likes Lonesome Dove and he is watching it and there really isn’t any reason for me to argue about it.

So I'm in here writing this. In another room.

I'm pretty drunk. I'm also stoned. I also took a bunch of colonozopan or colonipins or oxycottens or whatever earlier. Will bought em up with us. some meds he copped from a laid up friend of ours. Whatever.

It makes it easy to just lay down this story with out editing. But I'm still editing a bit. That’s just how I do.

Anyhoo, Gary, the step dad, is like a smoldering stick of dynamite. There is always something, ONE THING, that we do here while visiting that just makes him fly off the handle. For a while it was leaving the garage refrigerator slightly open all night after we had grabbed our last can of Budweiser. Admittedly, we were guilty of the crime a few times, but eventually we broke the habit, so that’s no longer n issue. But then it was leaving the beer cans uncrushed, half empty, on a pile on the garage bench. We would try not to do this, but every now and again we would be too close to unconsciousness to consider crushing all those canes, * and leave them for the morning sun to wash away. Still, we try.

But this time it was about something new. The TV. The brand new 42” wall mounted hi-definition flat screen TV with every available digital satellite channel beaming straight into their box.

The thing about the TV is it has a lot of different settings. And Gary likes his settings to stay the same. Will, having the exact same system at his house feels that he can change the settings to fit the best picture, HIS definition of the best picture.

Of course, this didn’t go over well. And Gary wasn’t happy.

He watched as we adjusted the screen. He seethed when we tried adjusting it back, but only succeeded in adjusting it more. larger, thinner, tinted differently.

First there were some grumblings. A few curses said under the breath. A glass of scotch downed too quickly. Then there was a trip to the kitchen and there were pots banging.

Will turned the tv off then on, hoping maybe that will correct things.

The whole time I'm screaming at him to change the picture from zoom to hi zoom, and then stretch, to see the difference.

Gary poured himself another scotch and slammed the cabinet door. He had had enough. He scolded us about the settings to the television picture. He went into how the satellite picks up if it is in HD our not, and if we change the settings, it won’t. We nodded and said uh huh. We said cool. Don’t worry. We won’t change nuthin. We figured that would be it. Those comments would suffice. Well, at least I did.

Will didn’t.

He said, “That’s not the end of it man. Trust me.” and he threw down the remote in disgust.

The picture screen was in full zoom and stretch. You could hardly see the earlobes of any face in close up.

And Gary slammed out the garage door and before he shut it he said, “I'm sorry if I'm being petty but that’s how I feel.” Then he shut the door.

And will said, “You wait.”

And Gary opened back up the door and said, “apparently I'm wrong for saying those things and I apologize.” And I heard my mother grumble behind him, and he said, “and if you want to sleep on the brand new, forty five hundred dollar couch than that’s fine by me. Its ok,” and he shut the door.

And will said, “see?”

And I thought of how happy I was to be part of a family.

*They have a wall mount can crusher; it makes it a little easier but still exerts energy