Bertram's Blog

My chaotic and unreal life continues. I’ve written before about my out-of-control abusive brother, and readers have given me much advice, which mostly centered around calling the cops. My few dealings with the cops when they came in answer to neighbor’s complaints led me to believe there was nothing they could or would do, so I never called. My inability to follow this course of action bothered many people, but the truth is, as horrific as he is, I couldn’t see throwing him on the street for strangers to deal with.

But as it turns out, there is nothing I could have done, anyway.

My sister came to help with our 97-year-old father who is failing. He’s been in the hospital for the past two weeks, and is currently in a convalescent hospital for a short stay to get over a bout with pneumonia. When he gets home, he will need someone here all the time, and obviously, I couldn’t do it alone.

It took her a single night to get fed up with our demented, delusional, dissociative and very nasty brother. She called the cops. They came out but did nothing, simply told her he could be evicted but that neither of us could do it since we too are guests. And of course, my father is dealing with his age and health issues, and only wants me to keep his son away from him.

She spent yesterday and this morning trying to line up people who would be willing to get him back to Colorado, and once he was there, to chauffer him around and help him get all the benefits to which he is entitled. Of course, he wouldn’t go along with that. He claims to want to go back to Colorado, but seems unable to make the mental leap. He screams that he wants help, but won’t tell me what he wants me to do, and when I ask, he shrieks “Get me a beer, bitch.” As I said, not a nice man, at least this personality of his isn’t. He has one vulnerable, almost shy personality that seems to have all but disappeared during the past few months.

After we broached the subject of getting him back to Colorado, he slashed the tires on my sister’s car. (He claims he didn’t do it, and is outraged that we accused him, so either someone else did it, or he had a complete psychotic break.) She was so angry, she locked him out of the garage where he is camped, and he broke down the door to get back in. She called 911 again, told them he needs to be taken in on a 5151, which is the code for having him detained and evaluated for 72 hours at a mental facility. It took her at least thirty minutes to get them to agree to send a deputy to “assess” the situation, and another hour for the deputy to come out. (Interestingly, the deputy already knew part of the situation because he was one I had spoken to before.) My sister showed him her tires, the broken window (brother had broken the outside of a double-pane window about six months ago and the inside of that same window just a week or so ago), the broken door, the obscenities on the garage wall (all directed at me, I might add), and in the end, nothing was accomplished. According to the deputy, our brother wasn’t a danger to himself or to us, and so the system could do nothing. Even if our sibling got us so upset that we wanted to kill him, that wasn’t considered a threat, though, with a straight face, the cop warned us against such an action. Then, like the previous cop, he suggested we get my brother evicted. When we admitted we were guests here, he said there was nothing we could do. “Well, there is one thing,” he said, then hesitated. “What?” I asked. “You could let him badly hurt you,” he responded.” Yeah, right, like I’m going to on purpose let him hurt me in order to get him out of here so he doesn’t hurt me.

As for the tires, he said she could file a complaint, and both she and my brother would have to show up in court. I explained that he wouldn’t show up, and the cop said the courts would swear out a warrant, and if they found him, would simply set a new date. I said he already had warrants for not showing up for court dates, and the cop shrugged. (He’d come wearing a bullet proof vest, which made his shrug very stiff.) Apparently, if my brother is ever arrested again, the old charges and the new charge would be combined and a new court date set. This could go on for years until he racks up more than $500,000 in warrants. (He’s only up to perhaps $10,000.)

So, here we are, barricaded in, the doorbell muted, while our brother roams around outside the house, like some sort of insane Wee Willie Winkie, “rapping at the window, crying through the lock.”

I had always held the thought of calling the cops as a mental safety net, knowing there was something I could do when he went totally out of control, but that mental safety net disappeared when the cop drove away.

The one interesting aspect of the conversation is that the cop said he never had guests. Never. His brother wanted to stay with him, and he refused. In this state, there is no way to get rid of guests who outstay their welcome, even if you’re a cop.

[For those of you who are following Ms. Cicy’s Nightmare, don’t be surprised if you see a truncated version of this post in the story.]

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.