Three Brothers

            We didn’t have much growing up, but we had space.  Life was great; we had eighty acres of woods and we ran pretty wild.  My brothers and I were always doing something.  Dad gave us plenty of work to do, such as weeding the acre-large garden he’d decided to plant, helping him carry logs for the cabin he was building, feeding the animals before sunrise, and burning the trash.  There were five of us but, I was closest with Erik and Jimmie.  If we weren’t doing work, we were swimming in the pond, climbing the trees, and getting into trouble.  Erik had the reputation of being the pyromaniac.  He set the bathroom on fire one time, putting paper into the grate of the gas furnace.  So, when the mattress caught on fire, everyone suspected he had started it.

            Anytime one of us got into mischief, and dad didn’t know who the perpetrator was, he would line the five of us up, to coax a confession.  He’d use one hand to unbuckle his belt and slide it off in one smooth motion.  It was quite impressive actually.  He’d double it up and crack it in the air.  He sure did love to hear that crack.  The mattress had been laid outside to dry in the sun, after one of the younger ones had a nighttime accident.  Someone had probably used a magnifying glass, just to see if it would burn.  Well it did, and dad wasn’t happy.  We couldn’t afford to replace things like that.

            Whenever dad had us in “the line”, there was either talking or there was whipping, but never both.  He started with the oldest and worked his way down, waiting for a confession or, barring that, at least an accusation.  Trouble was, none of us ever tattled.  That didn’t make us shining stars; we didn’t always confess either.  So, this could go on for a while.  This time it took three rounds.  I remember, Jimmie had yelled, “stop the beatings!”  He hadn’t done it, but he’d wanted to get it over with.  To this day, we never really found out who did it.  Such was our solidarity.

            When I turned nine, our idyllic life in the woods came apart.  Dad got a notion to move to California and Mom wanted nothing to do with it.  We were given a choice.  Our power trio went with Dad across the country.  After all, he was our hero.  The other two stayed behind with Mom.

            We moved in with Cathy.  She was a real witch.  Her 18-year old son loved to grab us by our shirt and underwear.  He’d throw us across the room and drag us along the rug.  One day, Erik, being the oldest, said, “You know?  There’s three of us and one of him.  We can take him.”  The next time he tried bullying us, we jumped him and beat the living piss out of him.  He never bothered us again.

            The move to California was just the beginning of our nomadic life.  After that, we moved every year, sometimes twice, traipsing back and forth across the country.  It was quite an adventure, moving to new places all the time and we always had each other’s backs.  Dad always had a new girlfriend, and he was always running away from the old one. Then, one day, he met Sky.  She was the crunchy granola type.  He married her immediately.  None of us saw that coming.  He moved us into her house with her two cats, and told us to call her mom.  After that, dad stopped having time for adventure.

            The dynamic between us brothers and our father changed after that.  Our power trio started to disintegrate.  I started looking for companionship and excitement elsewhere.  I always found it.  Girls, alcohol, drugs, you name it.  I was able to get away with many things I probably should have been arrested for.  Erik and Jimmie did the opposite.  They never got the girls.  They just weren’t cool.  So, I was dumbfounded when they both got girlfriends, first one, and then the other.  And, I’m not talking average girls, these women were gorgeous.  I was even more shocked when the relationships became serious.  They were still together after graduating high school.

            Erik and Jimmie both joined the military and they were gone for a while.  But I liked working with my hands, and snagged a local apprenticeship with a carpenter.  I became close with the girls, and they started to like me better.  I wasn’t going to restrain myself; these things just happen.  My brothers both stopped talking to me after that.

            On my eighteenth birthday, I came down with my first attack.  The paralysis came on suddenly.  It took over the entire left side of my body.  It lasted for days that turned into weeks.  I found out that I had a disease called multiple sclerosis.  That bout of paralysis eventually went into remission, but there would be others that followed.  By the time I was 30, I was confined to a wheelchair.  My years became progressively lonely.  At some point in this venture, I started to face myself.  I didn’t like what I saw.

            I am 40 now.  I have made terrible decisions, and have so many regrets, I couldn’t name them.  I live in a single room, bed-ridden, in diapers, being fed through a tube in my stomach.  I am trapped in this body. The doctors think I will not last the month.  Erik and Jimmie are standing on either side of me.  I can no longer speak.  This is the first I’ve seen them in 20 years.

I’ve often wondered if they could ever forgive me.

            “Where’s your hair man?”  Jimmie says, and chuckles a little, “I guess we all look alike now.”

            Maybe they can see the laughter and sadness in my eyes.  I wish I could tell them how I feel.  Erik places his hand on my shoulder.  Then Jimmie does the same.

“It’s okay Cory,” Erik is saying, “we’ve got your back.”

“Yeah bro,” Jimmie is echoing, “we’ve got your back.”