(Then/Now) Ken: We All Changed

Whew, I did it!  This was a tough post to write for several reasons.  Hopefully it sheds some light on Ken and the Adler family dynamic in general.  My plan is to have at least one more regular storyline post up later this week.  My best guess is Thursday.  Thank you for your patience with my somewhat erratic posting schedule!  It's what's easiest for me right now and what gets you guys the best posts I can write.
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When Heather died, we all changed a little.  The asshole that called himself our father increased his extracurricular activities and general dickishness.  Our mom retreated even further into the hollow, submissive, vacant-eyed persona she'd adopted as her own once our father's indiscretions and controlling actions became too obvious to ignore.  Jen tried to pretend like nothing was different, but she was more emotional, whinier, and much more needy.  She followed Brody around like a puppy, desperate for someone to just take care of her.  Brody, for his part, obliged her.  Actually, he took care of mom and Jen.  Always subtly--it wouldn't have done for mom to catch on and think that he thought she was incapable.  But she was.  Not physically, but emotionally.

Heather had always been the golden child.  Valedictorian of her high school class, captain of the dance team, and of course, Homecoming queen to boot.  It came naturally to her, and she graciously accepted each honor in turn, genuinely surprised but still charming as hell.  Once she was gone, Brody usurped the golden child role.  He had always been hot on her heels, but never quite at her level.  He was a natural choice to replace her as the brightest shining Adler child.  And I resented him for it, even though he had very little control over it.

Me?  Well...I watched everyone fall into their new roles and adjust to their new lives as I slowly self-destructed.  I was 20 when Heather died; just barely older than Heather herself was when some unknown, worthless motherfucker destroyed her car and left her to die in a ditch on the side of the highway.  We were close in age, and close as siblings.  Heather had covered for me when I was out getting into trouble, and I had facilitated the few devious and unwholesome things she'd managed between dance practices and tutoring at-risk middle schoolers.

I was close to Brody too, but in a different way.  Brody was still working on his filter, and I'd spent our elementary and middle school years protecting him in a way that Heather never needed.  It was almost weekly at some points:  Brody would run his mouth to the wrong kid on the playground (usually someone older and bigger, because the kid had more balls than brains at that point), and I'd have to swoop in and save the day.  I lost track of how many kids I beat up in the name of protecting my idiotic little brother.  Someone with a little more sense might have been embarrassed that his older brother had to save his ass on a regular basis, but I think Brody enjoyed it.  I can't say I blame him...no one else was protecting us from anything, so I'm sure it was reassuring to him to know that if nothing else, I had his back.

As he got older, he learned when to keep his mouth shut, and he no longer needed me to protect him.  He learned this lesson the hard way, mostly through butting heads with our father and becoming the victim of his special brand of psychological warfare.  This led to me cementing my black sheep role in the family by sticking my neck out to try to protect Brody (who, half the time, had no idea he was being manipulated and controlled) once again, this time from our own flesh and blood.  By the time Heather died, Brody had finally figured him out and he really didn't need me to watch out for him anymore.  I was displaced from two roles at the same time, and then had to watch Brody step seamlessly into Heather's role.

So I did what any reasonable person would do, and I drank myself into oblivion.  It started with a night or two a week, and it progressed until it was more nights than not.  And eventually, alcohol wasn't enough, and I was stumbling in the door at 4 in the morning, drunk as hell as higher than a kite.  I stuck mostly to marijuana but occasionally popped pills.  I also tried acid, Ecstasy, and almost tried heroin once.  I'm glad I decided not to.

My mom ignored my drinking and drug use for a long time.  It was like she couldn't even be bothered to worry about me when she was mourning one golden child, admiring the next, and trying not to screw up the baby of the family.  I was an adult now, free to make my own choices.  Brody, on the other hand, pleaded with me to clean up my act.  He hounded me to come to his football games, his track meets.  And I just couldn't.  I couldn't sit and watch him become the new star of the family.  He didn't need me anymore.  No one did.

I was surprised when my mom finally told me I needed to move out.  She had finally reached her breaking point, and according to her, she "just couldn't watch me ruin my life anymore."  I was pissed.  She hadn't tried to stop me from "ruining my life" prior to this moment.  Brody was gone by this point, and I'd never been close to Jen, so there was no one to advocate for me.  No one left who gave a shit.

I moved in with some "friends."  I say it like that because they were not so much friends as they were using buddies.  They were out of bedrooms, but they let me sleep on the couch in return for chipping in for groceries and utilities.  It was a really great place to be staying when all I wanted to do was get drunk, get high, and forget about all the shitty things.  I talked to Brody occasionally.  He called me, I never called him.  He told me all about his conquests, the notches in his bedpost always increasing.

Our conversations got further and further apart as I grew more and more disgusted with the way he was acting.  Don't get me wrong, I'd had my fair share of casual sex, but I couldn't hold a candle to my brother.  My baby brother that I used to beat kids up for.  Now he was out fucking every girl in Miami.

I haven't yet decided if my trip completely off the rails is related to my brother's antics, or the timing was a complete coincidence.  Either way, I found myself drinking even more, smoking even more, popping even more pills.  By the time two months had gone by since my last conversation with Brody, I was swallowing a handful of Vicodin every morning, chasing it with a shot of vodka, and following it up with a couple Ritalin to fight the more obvious side effects of the Vicodin.  I went to work with another handful of Vicodin in one pocket, and 1 or 2 Ritalin in the other.  I needed them just to get through the day.

3 weeks later, I'd lost my job.  I'd been late too many times, made too many mistakes, went home "sick" too often.  A month after that, I landed in detox after a drunken/high fight with the friend whose house I was still crashing at.  We'd yelled, thrown a few punches, and he'd finally told me to get out before he called the cops.  I'd stumbled out, too fucked up to have any idea what I was actually doing, and passed out in someone's yard.  They'd called the police, who'd taken me to detox, and there I was, shivering and sweating on a thin hospital mattress, positive I was going to die.

When I'd woken up there, I had no idea where I was.  I had only a hazy memory of someone waking me up and putting me in a car.  Everything after that was lost to the blackout.  I'd ripped an IV out of my arm when I woke in a panic.  I was so sick.  I needed a fix, but it clearly wasn't going to happen.

It took 5 days until I felt decent enough to attempt to eat something.  7 before I wanted to get out of bed.  It took the entire first month of rehab for the scabs to heal from where I'd scratched furiously at my skin as I detoxed, unable to shake the feeling of bugs crawling under its surface.  It was two months before I started to feel how I vaguely remembered feeling before I started drinking and using.

But with feeling "normal" again came all the feelings about Heather's death that I'd been fighting.  It was a solid year before I was ready to get back in touch with any of my family members.  Surprisingly, I ended up talking to Jen the most.  She'd always been the most forgiving of my siblings, and that hadn't changed.  She was the one that talked me into coming to Thanksgiving a couple times.

Things with Brody remained strained and tense.  He'd reached out to me a few times while I was in rehab.  He'd wanted to come visit.  I just couldn't see him though, I wasn't ready.  He took it personally, and I don't blame him.  He was the one that had gotten a call from the police the night they'd picked me up, because he was in my phone as "Little Brother", and was the only obvious family member.  Dad was in as "Asshole" and mom was under "Thalia" because I didn't ever want her to get that phone call from the police.  Even with as low as I was, I had recognized the possibility.  I wish he hadn't been tasked with filling in mom and Jen.  I was grateful that he hadn't told dad.  That was one of the best decisions he's ever made, and I appreciated it more than I'd ever tell him.

When Brody brought Olivia to Thanksgiving, I was confused.  She was nothing like how I'd imagined the girls he "dated".  She seemed like an actual nice girl.  I didn't know what to make of that, and I instantly got angry that he'd bring a perfectly nice girl around for a holiday as though he had any serious intentions.  I'd lashed out at her, hoping she wouldn't get too comfortable here.

Jen had made it very clear what she thought of my behavior.  She'd knocked twice on my bedroom door after dinner and then barged in without waiting for me to answer.  "What the hell, Jen?" I snapped.

"No, don't you 'what the hell, Jen?' me," she retorted.  "What the fuck was that?"

"What the fuck was what?" I asked mildly, even though I knew damn well what she was talking about.

"Why were you such a jackass to her?"

"Why were you so nice to her?" I challenged in return.

Jen's jaw dropped.  Even for being the most forgiving of my family members, she also had the most fiery temper.  "Because she's a guest and I have manners?" she shot back.  "Because she's Brody's girlfriend?  Because there was absolutely no legitimate reason to not be nice to her?"

I snorted.  "None of that means you need to be her champion.  She's not going to last, Jen.  Don't get attached."

"I see very little has changed," she muttered.

I sat up and put my hands on her arms.  "Listen to me, Jennifer.  If you want to talk about how little someone has changed, look at your other brother.  Your favorite brother.  He views women as nothing more than conquests, as challenges, as objects meant solely for his pleasure.  You think that 'nice girl' out there is going to put up with that for long?  She'll get tired of being bought soon enough and she'll be out the door.  I'm pissed at him for even bringing her here and giving mom hope that her golden boy might someday settle down and give her some nice prodigy grandchildren."

"No, you listen to me, Kenneth!" she hissed back.  "It doesn't matter what Brody's intentions are.  You can't just treat the poor girl like shit because you don't approve of Brody's....habits.  And you haven't heard the way he talks about her.  I have.  This is different.  She's different.  He's different.  So if you can't fucking behave yourself around her, maybe you should just go ahead and stay in this room by yourself tonight so you don't make a fool out of all of us.  She already has to deal with dad tomorrow, she doesn't need your bullshit too!"  Then, in true Jen fashion, she spun on her heel and stormed out of my room, leaving me with no chance to respond.

The entire exchange was enough for me to want to back away from family business again.  Mom called, Jen called, Brody even called a couple times.  I got the news of my father's idiocy through a phone call from an FBI agent.  I got the news of his death in a voicemail after Jen had tried three times to call and actually talk to me.

For some reason, when I listened to Brody's voicemail announcing that he had proposed to his girlfriend--the same one from Thanksgiving even, I'd decided to call him back.  I wasn't entirely sure what my purpose was in doing so.  His response to me calling him out for leaving his news in a voicemail was just as smooth and smarmy as I expected, and it grated on my nerves.  But when I spat out an insult about our dad, I was surprised by the regret I felt instantly.  Brody had been closest to him, despite how awful he was, and now he was dead.  And I didn't have any idea how Brody felt about that.  When I apologized, something in my head changed.  I suddenly wanted that apology to mean so much more than it did.  I wanted it to mean that I was sorry for not doing a better job of protecting him from our dad.  I wanted it to mean that I was sorry for not being there for him after Heather died.  I wanted it to mean that I was sorry he had to get the phone call from the police, and even sorrier than I refused to see or speak to him after that.  I wanted it to mean that I was sorry that I had let my life get so far out of my control that I had damaged our relationship in ways that it might not ever heal.

But I didn't say any of those things.  And I'll probably never know whether or not he felt those things in the silence that followed.  But I do know that when he cracked a joke, the entire tone of the conversation changed.  It wasn't even close to what it used to be, but it was better than it had been.  When I hung up, I wondered if it was possible to get things back on good terms.  I wasn't sure, but I knew I had to try.