Help From Up North
Miss Ogamy and the Men
Help comes in unexpected forms. For days I had been praying for some relief from my own head and Excitement had been craving some relief from my mania. This week his little brother came to visit from Iowa. Excitement hadn’t seen his brother, Mr. Charisma, in almost ten years and in that time he had grown from a scrawny, timid teenager into a body building, charming man. Excitement was stressed, worried that I would have an emotional outburst and embarrass him in front of his sibling.
Sunday, Excitement kept us both busy, shuttling us from one tourist attraction to another. By the end of the day, Excitement fell asleep on the couch and Charisma and I talked late into the night. Then came Monday and Excitement had to go to work.
That would leave 9 hours with me home alone with Charisma. With the power steering out in one car and the clutch going out in the other, I had no way to take him anywhere. I usually spent my days cleaning, but I worried that he wouldn’t have much interest in scrubbing the kitchen with me. I shouldn’t have been concerned. Charisma and I had spoken over the phone and myspace many times over the past month and we’d always had plenty to talk about. The same was true in person.
Charisma and I spent the entire day talking. We talked about his childhood. We talked about school. We talked about girls and relationships. We talked about Excitement and his dark days when alcohol had him in its grips. He confessed that the real reason he had reconnected with him and come to visit was because he had been contacted by Excitement’s children from his first marriage. Excitement’s ex-wife had been spreading lies, saying that Excitement was a drug addict living on the streets. Charisma had come to Texas to find out for himself how Excitement was faring and to scoop him up and take him home to Iowa if he really had gone off the deep end. He told me how proud he was of the life Excitement and I had made together. He said he hoped someday he could find a girl who loved him as much as I clearly loved his brother.
