Pieces, continured

I slept late on my days off, as a habit.  I figured it was my day to do with as I pleased.  I have started taking my phone off the hook to keep it from ringing and interrupting my concentration   I had stayed up late with my collection, again.

I had dreams about them. Little pieces of paper in multi-colors.  They were everywhere I went now. I dreamed that I found one big piece of paper. When I say big I mean really big, this one was over six feet tall and it had a menacing face drawn on it. Evil, dark eyes staring at me as I walked down a windy street.  This menacing paper accused, " you took them from me" over and over again as I tossed and turned in my bed.  After a while I awoke all tired and a bit stressed from the dream.  I could see that paper clearly still now that I was awake. The face drawn on it was accusing me, and it was angry.  I lay in bed thinking about this for a while.  That is, until I heard a noise out in the front room of my apartment.  I had been sleeping, hadn't invited anyone over or anything, and so, I figured maybe someone had broken in.  Not that i had much that anyone would find of worth, really, but the idea that someone was in here uninvited.

I got out of bed, pulled on my robe, and opened my bedroom door.  I peeked out of into the hallway.   I couldn't see anyone in the hall, but I distinctly heard noises from what I guessed to be the kitchen now.  When you're half awake you don't always think logically. And so, I began to panic, thinking I had an intruder.  I came out of my room and walked a couple of steps in my hallway towards the living room.  Trying to decide if I should say something or not. What could I say? I'm coming out now, don't hurt me?  I decided to just walk out and surprise whoever it was. If it turned out badly, it did.

I rounded the corner from my living room and went into the kitchen. And there, at the stove was my older brother, Gabe, with his back to me, cooking something.
"Hey" I said.
"Hey, sleepyhead" he says back. "Was wondering if you were ever going to get up, or what."
"Some people call me before they break into my place and start cooking my food." I said to him.
"Some people answer their phones when I call them asking if I can come over and hang out." he said, "yours was off the hook when I came in."
Of course, I had known it was.  I didn't want the phone to wake me while I was sleeping, so I had taken it off the hook just before I went to bed.
"What are you making me?" I asked, coming over to his side in front of the stove now.
"You were sleeping, I got hungry waiting for you to get up. So, I am having some eggs and toast.  I suppose you want some too?" Gabe looked at me with his please say no look.
"I'd love some," I said and smiled back at him.  He didn't answer this with words, just a heavy sigh, which I knew meant he was going to make what I wanted.

I wasn't really thinking about anything in particular now.  I went back to my room and found some clean clothes to put on and brushed my hair and washed my face.  By the time I had done these things there was a plate on the dining room table waiting for me.  Scrabbled eggs and toast with grape jelly.  Gabe was already eating his as I came in and sat down at the table.

"So what's new?" I asked him between bites.
For a minute or two he pushed his eggs around on the plate with his fork. Maybe considering what his answer should be.
"Going to be needing a place to crash for a while," he said, not looking up at me yet.
I considered him for a minute before I said anything.  I was waking up now and the very first thing that came to mind was my pieces of paper in the baggy in the desk drawer.   I really didn't want to share that with anyone, not yet anyway. If Gabe moved in how would I keep up with that?
"So what's the story? Thought you had a good job and a little place of your own now?" I said a couple minutes later.
"Yeah, I did, but the guy I'm renting from decided to sell the place so he is clearing us all out.  I still have my job but not enough money to afford a deposit on another place at this point.  I'm making it month to month and nothing left over after that." He still didn't look up at me yet.
I could tell he had had to swallow his pride to ask me if he could stay here for a while.  I really wanted to say it was okay. And yet, something, well okay, I knew what, stopped me from saying it.
"No other options?" I said instead.
Gabe did look up at me then, I guess surprised that I hadn't just accepted him in.  "No." was all he said.
I thought about it for another minute or so.  I supposed I could stash my collection and notebook in my room someplace and just have my private time in there with it. He didn't even have to know about it all.
Not even thinking about the fact that he would surely question me spending so much time in my room, I told him he could stay as long as he needed to.
So, we sat and ate a quiet breakfast. After which he got up and put our dishes in the sink and told me he was going back to his place to pack.

Gabe had stayed with me before, I guess that was how he knew to come ask me now, when he was in a fix. He knew I would take him in. I knew it was a hard thing for him to ask too. No guy liked to have to swallow his pride and ask to be given something so basic as this. It made him feel less than, like he couldn't take care of things himself.  He never had to say this to me, but I knew how it was.  Gabe had been down on his luck for years now.  His wife had left him for some other guy eight years earlier. The only good thing about that was there had been no children to fight over.  He loved her, and it hurt to see her go, but in his mind it was better that she was happy, even if he wasn't so happy without her. That's the kind of guy Gabe had been as long as I could remember. Always willing to sacrifice for someone else's good.

After Gabe left I took my collection and the notebook I had started for it, into my room and tucked it into a drawer out of sight.  I knew Gabe would not look through my drawers. He had more respect for other people's belongings than to do something like that.  I would just have to get used to spending a lot of time in my room for a while, if I wanted to spend time with what had now become a big part of my life.  I sat on the end of my bed and thought for a minute about all of this.  Not about how much time the collection had started to demand of my time, but of how I was going to manage it while Gabe lived here with me.  I had no idea how long he would be here, and I had to come up with a way for him to understand that I needed the time alone in my room without him bothering me if I was in here for a long time.  My collection consumed hours and hours of my time.

I didn't think about why that was, I had stopped trying to figure out what it was that drew me to it. I had just surrendered to it.  My collection now had 138 pieces to it, just about every color you could imagine, some that way from age and dirt and some it was just the color of the paper... I could no more tell you why I wanted all of them, than I could tell you why a man in China liked tea.  I just did.  I almost took it out and started looking then, just thinking about it. But, I realized that I had other things to do.  I had neglected laundry for too long and a room or two could use cleaning before Gabe came and settled in. He would wonder why there was a mess, he knew me to be a neat person, at least the me he knew.  Really how well does anyone know anyone else?  Sure we grew up together but as we grew up he had his little world and I had mine.  He went away to college, I didn't.  He eventually got married, I didn't.  We became different as we got older. 

I got up and started on the chores I had to do.  As I did them I thought about how nice it would be to show Gabe he was welcome.  He said he was broke, well I figured that a good dinner would be just the thing to cheer him up.   As it happened one of the things I had learned well, that he hadn't, when I grew up, was how to cook and to cook well.   As I folded clean clothes I decided on what to make for him that night.

Gabe came back about 3 hours after he had left.   He gave a brief knock before he came in the front door.   Even if it had been locked he could have come in, just as he had that morning while I was sleeping.  He had a spare key to my place, and I had always had a spare to his place. We did that just in case...but had never discussed what either of us figured the "just in case" actually was.  It had just been a good idea.  When he came in, I told him he didn't need to knock anymore. To make himself at home.   Then I told him had better figure on being here for dinner, I was cooking, and he had better be hungry.

Taking charge huh? he said with a bit of a smile on his face.
You know it.  When was the last time you had a good meal, man?"  I asked him.
He said something quietly about the diner down the street being pretty good when he went there.  But it didn't sound convincing to me at all.  He knew the company was better here anyway.
"What's on the menu tonight then?" he asked.
"Well," I said, "when was the last time you had a good steak?"  His face lit up and that was my answer.
"Okay, grilled steaks it is."  I said.
Gabe had been on a burger and fries type budget for too long, I though.  He knew better than to offer to help cook. He knew I was the better cook in the family and that I didn't like to share the kitchen when I did it.
I told him to settle in and I was going to the store.
The store I went to was only a couple blocks away, so I walked...picking up pieces of paper for my collection as I went. I found a total of 4 of them total going there and back on opposite sides of the streets each way.  I stuffed them into my pocket for later. But really, I didn't want to wait to get to them.

All during dinner, which Gabe really seemed to enjoy, I thought about them, I wanted to look them over more closely and document where and when they were found and each detail about them...then I would compare them to the others I already had.  I don't think I let on that anything was distracting me. I answered Gabe's every question without delay, and we had a long talk about the time when we went to Italy as teenagers.  There were some good memories there for both of us.  Gabe said that sometimes he wished he could have stayed there.  I knew without him saying so that the world had been a simpler place before we became adults and had so many things we needed to be responsible for all the time.  It had been the same for me too.  Italy had been the place we could just explore and not worry about making sure things were taken care of all the time. We did pretty much what we wanted then.

Gabe told me then how he had been for the last six months or so.  We hadn't talked to each other much in that time.  Me consumed with the collection, and my daily life suffering in the process, and he becoming depressed, lonely and finally getting a notice that he had to move out of his place. I had scarcely thought of him, let alone anyone else. All I had wanted to think about was my collection. And even still while I sat there talking to him, I felt like those pieces were burning a hole in my pocket, saying "Come on, take me out, look at me."  I resisted doing that pretty well really.  I wanted Gabe to see me as the same person he always had.
But deep inside, I knew I wasn't anymore.

I sat with him for what I thought was an appropriate amount of time that evening eating and talking and even for a bit after dinner. Then I made an excuse and went to my room and locked the door behind me.  I didn't think about what Gabe would think of my doing this, it was the furthest thing from my mind. I pulled my collection and note book out of the drawer, and put them on the bed.  Then I took out the four pieces I had found that day. I wrote down all the details about them that I could and I started to compare them to the rest of what I had collected, making little notes about them as I went.   Unaware of the passing of time. Unaware of anything but what I had before me. I could go in here and I would forget all about Gabe being in my living room or anyplace in my apartment.  I basically forgot about him while I was in here. In my own world again.