More: Merde Maelstrom

So, mom has been in Shady Pines since around August. She wasted precious time "deciding" to stay (Hobson's Choice was in October), when we all could have used that time to empty out her house in a more casual manner.

When things looked like they were organized and on their way to get the house ready for sale, our brother's life pretty much imploded, as was indicated mid-month in December.

So in the meanwhile, my sister's boss has decided to buy the house. Initially with the intent to "flip" it, but also has made an arrangement to allow our brother to live there (pay rent, utilities and property tax, too), and at some time in the future, the house will be sold to our brother, assuming he doesn't fuck things up.

One of my super powers is to see problems before others. And even though I voiced my concern to my sister, the plan continued. I thought SURELY if something were to go sideways it would be AFTER the sale of the house. And to date, no, the sale has not been finalized yet. ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN. I envisioned the brother working on his car, outside, loudly drinking beer with a few of his asshole buddies, and someone contacting the HoA on him. But no. That would be an IDEAL situation.

The weekend before last, a collection of absurdities occurred. First, he was stalking the YentaBeast on FB, and when she said she was going to do a number of things, one of which was see her therapist, he blasted her back with, "Liar. He's in Jamaica."  

Then, despite being advised by our sister to NOT have the YB drop his kid off at the house, he did precisely that. Prior to the YB arriving, he was outside walking his dog. This detail amuses me, given that the dog shits so much IN THE HOUSE that I bet the dog is pretty much empty while he's out on his walk.

And the YB shows up with the kid in tow. And a screaming match ensued, culminating in him tossing the sack of still warm dogshit in the car WHERE HIS KID IS. The neighbors called the cops, and while the cops were en route to respond to a domestic dispute, with Fred Sanford-like timing (ELIZABETH! I'M COMIN' TA GET YA!), the brother's defibrillator starts zapping him. And upon arriving and making a report (see? a paper trail is being established--and will no doubt work well to support a restraining order), they then took him to the ER.

Six hours after getting out of the hospital, he then, cluelessly, calls his daughter to see if she wants to go out to dinner with him. And no-shit-Sherlock! She doesn't want to go out to dinner with him, after he terrorized her with a bag of dogshit. When our sister informed him how this is going to play out, and how he'll be lucky if after the divorce he'll be able to see his kid with SUPERVISED visits, his response was, "What's the big deal? The shit was still in a bag."

What he fails to realize is that divorce is an act of war. Every action has to be calculated. And well, he's given YB the upper hand, and if "I" were the YB, I'd sure as shit get a restraining order on him and have grounds to do so, given he terrorized their kid. 

The mind reels, and the question everyone comes to initially is, "What kind of father would throw dogshit on their kid?" And this is usually met with me saying, "The same kind of father who would throw (like a spear or javelin) the front fork of a bicycle at their kid." Yep. My dear-old-dad did that very thing TO ME (I was about 11 or 12--close to the age his daughter is right now). And luckily I am a supreme clutz and the grass was wet and I slipped and it was a near-miss. He threw it with such force, the bike fork stuck in the side of our wooden shed. I have no doubt in my mind he could have killed me, and just because I did NOT die that time, doesn't make what he did to me any LESS awful. 

So my brother has the worst characteristics of both parents: dad's seething resentment/emasculinity/hostility, and mom's lack of impulse control. All of this is going to lead to him not only losing ANY kind of contact with his kid, but no doubt, if he doesn't get a grip on reality, and start paying bills and quit half-assing things, he's going to totally sabotage having a roof over his head.