WENDY RAINEY

Bonkers

My brother’s calling again.
I should pick up the phone
and talk to him,
but I don’t.
The last time he called,
I was on the phone with him
for forty minutes.
He accused me of laughing at him,
calling him names,
spying on him.
He said I filmed him
with hidden cameras,
that I controlled from my living room.
I sat in my chair,
phone pressed against my ear,
hands sweating,
heart pounding,
while he ranted.
Hey, dial it down a notch, man.
I’m not your enemy,
I finally said.
I told him
I would never call him
or anyone
those kinds of names.
So, you’re saying I’m a liar? he yelled.
I know you’re not a liar.
It’s your mental illness.
When I told him
I didn’t have a spy cam on him,
he screamed, DON’T ARGUE WITH ME!
The last thing I want to do
is argue with you.
Look, I’m sorry you’re going through this today,
I really am,
but I have to go to work now.
I hung up the phone.
He called back 7 times.
I let all his calls go to the machine.

He lives in a house with my other brother
who sleeps a great deal of the time.
He has an entire table covered with his med bottles.
When I go visit,
which isn’t often,
the television blares nonstop.
He talks about his imaginary girlfriend, Julia.
There are times when he knows Julia isn’t real,
and he’ll apologize
for not being able to stop talking about her.
Other times he talks about Julia
with such clarity,
such enthusiasm,
I don’t want him to stop.
I feel like I know her.
I can see her kind eyes,
her long dark hair whipping in the wind
as she rides her bicycle along the peninsula.
I picture my brother and Julia
smiling as they walk hand in hand
to the movies.
They go to the crab shack afterwards.
He leans in, kissing her a long time.

Is Julia with us right now? I ask him,
taking a sip of my coffee.
We’re sitting in his living room.
He looks up from NAKED AND AFRAID,
blaring on the television.
A nude man is roasting
what looks like a giant cockroach
over an open fire.
What?
No!
He shifts in his chair, facing me.
It’s just you and me here,
can’t you see that?
I shrug my shoulders.
Jesus Christ, he rolls his eyes,
laughing,
What are you, bonkers?

Wendy Rainey is author of Hollywood Church: Short Stories and Poems and Girl on the Highway. She is a 2022 recipient of the Annie Menebroker Poetry Award and a runner-up in the 2022 Angela Consolo Mankiewicz Poetry Prize. She studied poetry with Jack Grapes and creative writing with Gerald Locklin.