Chapter 13

When Saturday morning came along, I woke up late before going downstairs. Mom, Dad, and Sherwin were downstairs installing a new DVD player they brought earlier at the mall. The problem was that we didn't have any DVDs to watch. Sherwin told me to go to the video store and get some movies. I put on my clothes and walked downtown to the video store. Not knowing which movie to get, I asked the guy who worked there which movies were good. He told me to get The English Patient since it won so many Academy Awards. When I came back home, we watched the movie as a family. Mom, Dad, Sherwin, and I all sat on the couch and tried to enjoy ourselves. The movie turned out to be boring. Well, I thought it was a good movie, but Dad and Sherwin both fell asleep, and Mom stopped the tape when the sex scenes came on. Mom blamed me for getting a bad movie and told me to get a good movie next time I go to the video store.

I know Sherwin's supposed to be my brother and everything, but I'm really starting to hate him. Mommy drove both of us to the doctors after we finished watching the movie. When I walked in the doctor's office and smelled that strong, sweet smell of alcohol, I knew immediately I was getting a needle. I said, "No! No!" many times when the doctor took out her large syringe. Mom grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me to sit still as the needle went inside my arm. When it was Sherwin's turn, he held his breath when the needle went in. I could see sweat all over his face. If his skin weren't so dark his face would be completely red. I could almost see tears in his eyes. My brother must have been in so much pain. Strangely, when we were in the back seat of the Mercedes as it drove back home, Sherwin went on and on to my mom about how the needle didn't hurt.

"Didn't hurt a bit," said Sherwin. "I'm a man. I can take it... unlike some people." He turned his head in my direction.

Instead of screaming at Sherwin for being such a fake, Mom praised him endlessly.

"Keith, why can't you be more like your brother Sherwin?" she'd say. "It's just a needle. It doesn't hurt."

Sherwin's got a girlfriend now. It's some girl from school. There are about five phones in our house, so whenever Sherwin is upstairs in his room chatting to her on his cordless, I'm always downstairs listening to the conversation on the kitchen phone.

I went to the video store again and had to make sure I got something that didn't have sex scenes in it, so I got a movie I had already seen: E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. When I brought the tape home, Sherwin laughed at me even more. He said that only kids watched that movie. He refused to watch any movie made for kids. The third time I went to the video store, Sherwin came along. He recommended I get some horror or action movie. He found a video with the goriest and bloodiest front cover and immediately borrowed it. After the whole family watched it at night, both my parents were very happy with Sherwin's choice. Mom, who criticized me heavily for getting a movie with a small sex scene, didn't seem to mind the over-the-top violence as well as the torture scenes. Dad loved the special effects and said it was one of the best movies he had ever seen. Sherwin smiled proudly when Dad made this compliment. It was as if Sherwin thought he was the director or something. Many people buy clothes to create an identity for themselves. For Sherwin, hiring a movie had nothing to do with personal satisfaction. Hiring a movie was like buying clothes. The types of movies he got told other people something about his personality.

Sick of watching movies with my family, I told everyone I was going to the mall to watch a movie by myself. Sherwin then told me that going to the theatres by myself was the lowest and saddest thing I could possibly do.

"Like going to a restaurant, going to the cinemas is a social event," he said. "Only losers watch movies by themselves."

I didn't have to go to the movies alone since I received a call from one of my friends at school. They invited me to go to the mall to watch a movie with them.

The sun started to set outside as I rode my bike to the mall. Darkness began to fall. In most of the suburban houses I rode by, the lights in the living room were on. Through the thin curtain of each household I usually saw a television. It's amazing how many people actually watch TV.

At the mall, I wanted to watch Mystic River, but since none of my friends heard about that movie, we watched Finding Nemo instead. In the theatre, everyone around me laughed at the movie while I sat quietly and wondered why they laughed so much. It was hard having a sense of humour that differed from everyone else's. After the movie ended they asked me whether I liked it or not. I lied and told them it was okay. They were disappointed because they knew I lied.