brother

When I was born an only child, the frozen ground was covered in snow. The birth was difficult and mother nearly died from it. They said I was a difficult child from day one. I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up. I had a bad temper and I took my frustrations out on the neighborhood kids. I never meant to hurt anyone. It was just a phase my mother would say, he’ll grow out of it, his father had a bad temper, it must be in his genes. Because of these genes I grew up lonely. Mom worked long hours and I was often left to fend for myself. Most dinners consisted of toast and baked beans. 

One day mother came home with a box and told me I was in for a surprise. I remember she looked worn out, gaunt as if she had lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time. I noticed a hospital band on her wrist but in my excitement it never registered and I soon forgot about it. The box was big and brown. She sat it down carefully on the kitchen table. “Open it slowly and be careful not to upset it” she said. There were tears in her eyes that contradicted the smile on her face and I didn’t understand but I also didn’t care.

As I opened the box she quietly said” today is a very special day, today our family gets a little bit bigger.” As I peeled back the edges I saw the tiniest ball of fur nestled in soft blankets and I realized it was a small puppy. A yellow runt with bright blue eyes the same color as mine.

“He’ll be a brother to you” mom said. “He is a part of our family now and it’s your job to look after him, to teach him things and to play with him.” She looked sad as she said this and I couldn’t understand why. The excitement built inside me as I did a little dance around the kitchen

 

Time went by as time does and my brother and I grew older. We spent countless hours running around the neighborhood playing games and pulling pranks on the other boys. “Look at my brother, he’s a way better friend than any of you” I sneered. I was never lonely anymore. I loved my little guy with his bright blue eyes. We were inseparable. 

 

I was only five or six years old but I’ll never forget the last lesson my father ever taught me before he walked out and never walked back in. spike was an old coonhound. I loved the way his long floppy ears covered his eyes and felt soft as rabbit fur. He had bitten my mother and she had to get five stitches in her left calf. Spike would never hurt a fly I yelled red faced and stubborn. However, on that day I saw a look in his eyes that scared me and chilled my insides. I knew that he had the scent of blood in his head. Father said that spike was sick and had to be punished for hurting mom. “You have to learn to be a man someday” he said “that might as well be today.” We took spike out back behind the old shed. Father told me to stand behind the giant oak tree in the corner of the yard and to keep my eyes open. “This is going to be hard to watch but being a man means being strong and sometimes lessons must be taught.” At the time, I didn’t know what he meant but I saw the same look in his eyes that I had seen in spikes. I know now that violence pushes itself forward from deep within a man’s heart and exits swiftly out his eyes. 

Father took out his old hunting rifle and shot spike in the head. It was quick and loud and the tears poured out of me. I had never seen the color red in so vibrant and deep a shade. The blood was crimson and slowly seeped out of the wreckage that was once spikes rabbit soft head. I remember that on that day a part of me changed, I felt a curtain, a membrane of iciness slide over me that never left. 

 

I’m twelve years old and the snow is laying in thick drifts on the frozen ground. The treetops sway in the steady wind like a crewless ship on a stormy sea. The idea of death as an impenetrable finality is not a thing that a small boy should have to understand. 

The pain was intense and my insides felt like they were on fire. The feeling started deep within me. It worked its way up to my heart and seeped through my eyes like a steady forest fire. The violence had been building inside me for many months and I knew it originated in my genes, the genes my father had given me.

My blue-eyed brother and I were wrestling in the snow in the backyard and I loved him so very much. He must have seen the look in my eye, that look that had been my fathers, that had been spikes. He became scared, his blue eyes grew deep with fear. I was on top of him pinning him to the ground with my legs across his throat. I knew that he couldn’t breathe but I didn’t care. In a panic, he desperately clutched and scratched at my leg. In a last final effort, he sank his teeth into my calf and tore the flesh. I knew I would need stitches. 

My father’s ancient rifle was heavy, abnormally heavy in my hands. His voice echoed from somewhere deep in my head. I heard him whisper “now is the time, now is your time to be a man, now is the time for punishment.” The winter sun was frozen red and the treetops were hushed and still. The fire in my eyes couldn’t melt the icy membrane and I had to make my father proud. The trigger was pulled and the pieces that made up my little brothers’ head were no longer in working order. I would miss him. I loved him so very much but lessons had to be learned, punishments must be dealt.

I buried his body behind the shed. The frozen ground was hard to dig. I was soaked in sweat as the last of his body disappeared beneath the muddy snow. 

The next morning when I went into the kitchen I heard my mother crying into the phone. She looked scared and panicked. The tears streamed down her face in little rivers that pooled on her top lip. She whispered into the phone in a tear soaked voice “my youngest son is missing, he is only six years old, he has bright blue eyes.”

Blue eyes I thought.

Lessons learned I thought.