My Uncle Keith

My uncle is a fucking asshole.

Yesterday, he had my sister, her boyfriend, and the baby drive him up to Massachussetts to get more of his medicine so he could stay down here. Never mind the fact that he could have borrowed my grandfather's car and driven himself, as opposed to making my sister make the drive with her disabled baby.

As a favor to him, I got my friend Mike, who's a mechanic, to agree to come up and take a look at his car and fix it, if possible, for a reduced price. Since Uncle Keith went to MA with my sister in her car, and since my car is waiting on a backordered part and his car wasn't working, the only other car available for my use was my grandfather's car. So as a favor to him, I went down to the Bronx to pick Mike up and bring him up here to look at the car.

I then had to take Mike to an auto parts store to get some parts for the car. We went to Medallion Auto Parts in Port Chester. When we came out of the store, I found that the driver's side door had been hit by someone. There was yellow paint on the door (a yellow SUV was parked next to us on the way in, but was gone on the way out), the door handle was broken, and of course the door was creased in. I tried to call my sister to let her know, but she didn't pick up. I tried to call my grandfather, in the hospital (it's his car, after all) but his line was busy. So given that I've had experience with this sort of thing before (my car was hit in a parking lot while I was shopping and when I contacted the policy, they were basically like "so what do you want us to do, they guy's gone?"), I went up to see my father at work and then went to the bank to get the money to pay Mike and go back and finish fixing the car.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I, stupid me, agreed to lend my Uncle the money for Mike to fix his car. Stupid me, of course, because there's about a 0.0000000001% chance that I'll ever see that money again.

So last night when my sister/Alex/Uncle Keith get home, they get all upset. But I explained what happened, and my sister at least was OK with it. My Uncle called me a "fucking idiot, you stupid fucking idiot." Of course, I said that I would pay to get the door fixed, as I was responsible for the car. But Uncle Keith apparently didn't believe me. He wanted to go to the store and see if they knew the guy who owned the SUV and track him down.

So this morning Uncle Keith woke me up at like 9am and told me to get working on getting the car fixed, he was taking it to see my grandfather and to call him if I had any news, blah blah blah.

He just came back a few minutes ago, storming into the house. He tells me, "Pack up your shit and get the fuck out of the house." He calls me a "fucking liar, no good worthless fucking piece of shit." He said that he went to the auto-parts store to track down the owner of the SUV, and a store employee told him that he saw the car hit a telephone pole that's in the parking lot. Then he says that he matched the paint that's on the telephone pole "and it's the same fucking paint." He told me that he told my grandfather this, and it made my grandfather cry, so "that was enough for me." He then got in my face and became very threatening, physically, and told me to get the fuck out of the house. He told me that my grandfather said "don't even bother cleaning his room, just tell him to get the fuck out." He said those were my grandfather's exact words (my grandfather, if you know him, doesn't swear). He said he doesn't give a flying fuck where I go or what I do, just get the fuck out of the house. He told me that if I go upstairs and lock my door he'll break it down and throw it in the garage. He also told me to tell my friend not to bother to come back to finish fixing the car.

He also told me that he'd break my neck if I called my grandfather to plead with him.

Alex was downstairs pretending to be washing dishes, with a big shit-eating grin on his face the entire time. But that's another story.

I don't know how much longer I can hold on. I called my father to ask him to come get me, and he said he was on his way.

Here's a copy of an e-mail I sent to my father a few days ago:

Dad,

I'm lending Uncle Keith about $100 so he can get his car fixed and go back home -- he's incredibly annoying, and I'd rather be out of the money than continue to put up with his BS.

Grandpa's going to be in the hospital until at least Monday -- he's in more pain today, and they're doing physical therapy with him.

Marie (his "lady friend") went into Greenwich Hospital today -- they think she had a stroke.

Mom's getting a divorce. She wants me to come up there and help her with the paperwork and try to get Jack deported and a bunch of other things. She said he offered her $20k or something like that, and wants to know if she can get more, but she doesn't want alimony from him.

Uncle Keith is being as annoying as ever. He made a comment about my hair in front of Elaine (the baby's physical therapist -- she's a pretty cool person). He said something like "What the hell is THAT on your hair?"

Are we having fun yet?

I should point out that the "THAT" on my hair to which he is referring is hair dye -- I've been coloring my hair for the past few years (wild colors, not ordinary colors -- it helps me feel more alive).

Read more about what he did in Part II.