I was nineteen years old and had just successfully completed my sophomore year of college. Life was good, as I had chosen to attend UC Davis, thus allowing me to live in the comfort of home with my father and kid sister. My younger brother, however, was going to an art school in SoCal to perfect his craft of animation. We're quite close, so I was looking forward to being able to hang out all summer. But after the events of his first night back, I concluded that he should have just stayed down there.
The day started as normal and boring as any other, mostly spent unpacking and swapping party stories. Soon night came, and at ten PM my dad called it a day like he usually does, leaving the two of us downstairs watching TV. Ever since we were sixteen we had gotten into the habit of raiding my old man's liquor cabinet for a few shots of whatever we could get our hands on, and today was to be no different. As soon as we heard our dad shut his door, I made a beeline towards the liquor. Only this time my brother stopped me, headed into the garage, and emerged with a bottle of Silver Patron, a bottle of Grey Goose, and two forty-ounce bottles of Steel Reserve.
I immediately reached for the Patron to do a couple of celebratory shots, and then mixed a bit of it with Coca-Cola. My brother cracked open one of the forties and began to sip away.
About forty-five minutes pass. I get a good buzz going, having had a few more of the Patron/Coke mix, but I notice my brother still has three quarters of his forty left. I insist that he chugs what is left, which he does. Then I get the genius idea of challenging him to chug the other forty. In a surprise move, he does it, and it's only a matter of minutes until his face and demeanor show that he is drunk off his ass.
We stick around for about another forty-five minutes before deciding to head upstairs to our respective rooms and call it a night. I fall asleep almost instantly, but am startled out of sleep hours later, at four AM, when my door bursts open. I look up, and in the darkness I see a tall, shadowy figure enter my room.
After allowing my eyes to adjust, I realize it's my brother. He takes a seat on the side of my king-size bed and says nothing. Still half asleep, I give him a kick to let him know he isn't welcome, and then roll over and shift back into dream mode.
I awake again at six AM, and that's when the putrid, rancid stench hits me. I immediately go red with embarrassment because I naturally assume that in my drunken sleep I have shit the bed. I cautiously run my hand over my ass to try to get an idea of the mess, but it comes up dry. I move my hand under covers -- and then I feel the squish. The sour, rotten odor intensifies.
I begin peeling my sheets back like Jack Woltz in The Godfather. Cue the Carmine Coppola score: I peel off the last layer to find everything from my knees down covered in watery mocha-colored shit. I would have preferred a horse's head.
Had it not been for the fact that I would have woken up the entire house, I would have screamed just like Woltz.
I wipe my legs off as best as possible with a clean section of my sheets and them all up and place them in a Hefty bag. I then take a shower to get the smell off and head to my brother's room, where I find him sleeping like a baby with shit stains on his boxers and sheets. I wake him up only to have him tell me he remembers nothing of the previous night and has no recollection of using my bed as a commode -- a claim he maintains until this day.
We cleaned everything up before my dad woke up so that he wouldn't hit the ceiling, but ever since then I sleep with my door securely shut and locked.
