The doorbell rang over and over. I woke up and looked at the alarm clock and saw it was three thirty in the morning. I put the pillow over my head and tried to block out the noise. I figured whoever it was would leave the front porch in a moment. The doorbell kept ringing to the point I realized the ringer had no intentions of leaving. I was surprised my parents had not gone to the door yet.

  Finally I’d had enough and got out of bed. I went down stairs and saw my parents heading to the door too. As I reached the last step My father held his hand up for me to stop but I followed anyways. My father looked through peep-hole in the door to see who was ringing the doorbell.

  “That looks like…” he stopped before he finished the sentence and opened the door.

  “Frank?” asked my father looking at the figure in the doorway.

  “Hello brother.” was all the figure said. He shook my father’s hand and came inside.

  My father and the figure went into the kitchen and me and my mother stood still looking at each other. I didn’t understand what uncle Frank was doing here but I knew it was nothing good. Finally my mom put her arm around me and we went into the kitchen with dad and uncle Frank.

  “Sherman!” said uncle Frank as I came into the room. “How have you been, my boy?”

  “The past 931 day sense the last time I saw you were quite good… although today isn’t going so well.”

  “Haha! You always did have a wicked sense of humor.” said uncle Frank as if he found what I said funny. “Let’s see how old are you… twelve?”

  “I’m thirteen.” I answered. I left my mother's side and sat down at the table where my father and uncle were sitting.

  “And when’s your birthday?”

  “In three days.” I answered. “Why do you care?”

  Uncle Frank ignored my question. “Oh yes so your birthday is September 13th? And you’re going to turn fourteen. The age you are when you receive the money your grandmother… also known as my mother, left you. I’m so happy I can be here for your special day.”

  “Two things! One, I’d prefer if you weren’t here on my birthday and two I don’t give a fig about the money grandma left me.”

  There was then about a minute of awkward silence. My uncle was quiet because he wasn’t sure how to respond to my comeback and my parents were quiet from the odd tension between me and my uncle.

  “Would you like tea, Frank?” asked my mother breaking the silence.

  “I’d prefer wine, but yes tea would be fine.”

  “So Frank,” started dad. “What brings you to Florida?”

  “Just thought I’d stop for a visit.”

  “Yeah we’re always happy to see a wicked family member at three thirty in the morning…” I said under my breath but uncle Frank heard me.

  “What did you say?” asked uncle Frank.

  “I said uh… that life without you has been very boring…”. I’d tried to come up with something more believable but that was the best I could come up with on the spot.

  “Here’s your tea,” said my mom.

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  “Thanks, Carol.” said uncle Frank.

  “It was my pleasure. How long do you plan to visit?”

  “I won’t need to stay for long. I’ll just be here till after Sherman’s birthday.”

  “What do you mean you won’t ‘need’ to be here for long?” I asked.

  Uncle Frank ignored my question and continued. “I realized how long it had been since I saw you all a few days ago so I bought plane tickets and came down here. I made hotel reservations but after my plane landed and I got to the hotel there was a mix up or something and they didn’t have it listed that I had reservations. I had to come here because I had no other place to stay.”

  “I know somebody I can call who would be glad to take you in.” I said with a small smile.

  “Who?”

  “The police, I’m sure they’d gladly take you back to jail.”

  “Sherman, a word in the hall, please.” said my father.

  I stood up and gave my uncle a stare with cold dead eyes that made my uncle trimble shake and tremble. It was a look my friend Shifra had taught me to use on my enemies. I followed my dad into the hallway.

  “You need to stop.” he told. The hallway was still dark because it was still night and so I couldn’t even see him but I could tell from his voice he was right in front of me.

  “Stop what?” I asked.

  “Being rude!”

  “I’m not being rude. I’m simply stating the facts to my uncle.”

  “You are being rude! You’re uncle is our guests and regardless of how you see the man, I taught you to treat your guests kindly. So I want you to go back in there, an apology to your uncle and I don’t want to hear you call him ‘butt head’ or ‘fart face’ or any other names again!”

  “One, I’m not apologizing to any man who went to jail, and two, nobody calls anybody ‘fart face’ and ‘butt head’, but if they did there’s no better person to be called that than uncle Frank!”

  “You’re uncle is a good man!”

  “He went to jail for five years!”

  “And he has told us many times he’s a different man now.”

  “He tried to kill Shifra!”

  “For the last time, no he didn’t.”

  “He poured her a glass of tea and we both saw him pull out a bottle some deadly chemical in her cup!”

  “How do you know it was deadly?”

  “Because he tried to hide the fact he put it in the drink and it just looked deadly!”

  “‘It just looked deadly’ is not a valid reason.”

  “But the fact he tried to hide it is a valid reason to believe he’s evil.”

  “Maybe it was sugar?”

  “Why would he try to hide the fact he put sugar in her drink?”

  “I don’t know, Sherman! I do know that my brother is no killer!”

  “Oh then uh tell me this, what did he go to jail for five years for?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Well let’s make this agreement, I don’t apologize to him, until I know what he went to jail for.” I said marking the end of the conversation. I went back into the kitchen.

  “Your mother tells me that your friend Shifra has moved to Tennessee.” Said my uncle as soon as I came into the kitchen. “She was a kind girl, I bet you miss her.”.

  “Oh yes very much.” I said. I didn’t agree with my dad that I’d been rude to my uncle but he was talking to me about someone I cared about and if I wasn’t about to be sarcastic about a friend.

  “Where did she move again?”

  “Frankly, Uncle Frank, I don’t think that’s your business.”As I said this my father looked at me. His eyes were telling me not to be rude.

  “She moved to Tennessee,” said my father. I was so mad that I wanted to charge my father down. My father wasn’t a bad man but he like everyone else had weaknesses. His weakness was that he didn’t want anyone thinking anyone in his family was a failure, let down, or simply put a bad person. This was a true problem because everyone is a bad person and the people who don’t believe they are a bad person are the worst people of all of them. So when I continued to not give my uncle what he wanted because I did not trust him he punished me by doing exactly what I didn’t want my uncle to know. I had no idea what at the time uncle Frank had against Shifra but he’d tried to kill her once and I had a feeling he wasn’t done trying till he had finished the job.

  “Dad!”

  “Enough!” Yelled my father. I groaned and walked out of the room.

  “Where are you going?” my mother called after me.

  “Back to bed!” I yelled.

  I went upstairs and jumped into my bed putting my head in my pillow and screamed into it. I looked at a picture on my bed of me, my parents, my grandmother, and uncle Frank. I looked hard at my uncle in the picture. “What are you doing here?” I asked quietly.