The Loser

“Loser!” my brother Jake would often mock. “The loser,” was my official moniker. I truly believe that was my first name until a doctor stepped in and took pity, changing it to Freddy instead of the aforementioned descriptor.

My mother often would say that people have invisible signs on their foreheads. Hers was, “Non mi interessa,” which made her ineligible to any bachelor that would cross her path. That was until my father stepped in. Their love was short, sweet and tragic. Worse than Romeo and Juliet, or Maria and Tony, she would sigh longingly.

“What was he like?” I asked her often.

“Like an extra Musketeer. Your father, Aki, didn't fit but he somehow made it anyway,” She fluttered her lashes, her eyes misty.

Her cafe, Salty and Sweet took a few hits literally and figuratively with Covid-19 squeezing her out to dry. My father was with my mother, Sera, for only a few months before he was accidentally shot by his so-called brother, Manuel, a Columbian cartel.

About a month after he passed away, she realized she was going to have us. Jake and I were twins. However, we were nothing alike. I wanted to be a basketball star. My brother was a book-worm in secret but a jerk in public. I never made try outs. Jake got all the girls even if he just happened to glance at them. He had the, “rizz,” as they say.

My forehead permanently says, “The loser,” even if my mother calls me a winner.

New York is home to delicious bagels, cheap slices of pizza and my favorite: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Realistically, even as I fell in that weird, gooey substance by my favorite Thai Kitchen, I knew these mutations wouldn't make me a winner.

My choices to help did.