#5 - My Brother

Lucky Little

#5 - My Brother

BAM! Boyd punches him right in the nose knocking him to the ground. Big Brother to the rescue! Next thing you know Booger jumps in and stands in front of me with his fists up ready to fight. Booger didn't know nothing about fighting. Kinda funny for a minute seeing him stand like that though, I was proud of him all the same. Just met me and already willing to get his big butt kicked for me. Now that's a friend.

I remember like it was yesterday. One summer, that summer, playing in the back yard with my brother Boyd. It was the summer before I started going to school for the first time. The last day of summer before this big boy became a school going boy. He was 10 and I was 6. We had a great time. That day we would run and play and wrestle around, jump through the sprinkler then roll around in the dirt until we were both covered in mud, then back through the sprinkler again. Life was all laughter and play. We loved our mom and dad and they loved us. Our dad was our knight in shining armor all dressed up with his badges and patches, handcuffs and pistol. Our mom just loved to laugh so we would always be putting on some act or just being silly to get her laughing. There’s just a joyous twinkle in her eyes when she gets to laughing. Those were great days. Even though we didn’t have much there was plenty of love in the house. Me and Boyd got along just like two brothers should get along, our mom and dad kissed and hugged each other all the time, they kissed and hugged us all the time and everybody said I love you to each other all the time, I mean all the time. We were a family. I belonged to this family. Many times over the years I have wished that time would have stopped right then. But then I guess most of us probably have that time that we'd like to go back to that was before 'it' happened. Can't say I'd change a thing though.

We lived in a pretty tough neighborhood as it was. Police officers don't make much and my dad was never one to try and keep up with the Joneses. It was close to downtown and the police station so my dad could catch the bus. Being separated from my big brother for an entire day of school made it ten times worse. My first day to go to school was one I’ll never forget. Even though my memory is so sharp, that whole '1st day of school' experience has escaped me except the incident in the hall. I couldn’t wait to see Boyd and start blabbering on about how I love school, and the bathrooms are so big, and my teacher is so nice and so pretty, and introduce him to my friend Booger, and it’s a beautiful day for our walk home down the trail beside the bayou and….

"Hey, there he is!" I tell Booger. "That's my big brother Boyd, with the red hair!" Booger says, "Red hair, why he got red hair?" Seemed like a silly question to me. I said "I don't know, why is your hair curly?" as I laughed a little and stretched my neck to look above the big kids and re-spot my brother again. So I see him down at the other end of the hall and I want to shout his name but I know that wouldn’t be cool so I bite my lip…there are a few boys around him that I’m thinking are his friends, because he is so great, I know, he’s my big brother. But then they start pushing him, hard, into the wall. I see him putting his arms up to protect himself like he does when we play fight, but the one boys punches him really hard, between his arms right in the middle of his chest, knocking him back into the wall again.

Now I’m steaming mad and pushing through kids to get to him….when BAM, some kid out of nowhere punches me in the eye. I had wrestled around with Boyd a lot but I'd never been hit like that. Wow, that kid can punch. I felt like I did when I wrecked my bike and slammed my head on the street. I fell to the ground and saw stars for a few seconds. I realized that I was still awake and even better I wasn't crying! Do not cry Bobby. You're a big boy, act like one. I'm thinking to myself, see, it's not a hurt thing, it's a baby thing, do not cry. Babies cry. You're a big boy. Get mad. I was getting mad now. As I start to get up, BAM, out of nowhere Boyd punches the kid right in the nose and knocks him to the ground. Boyd yells like a parent, “You better leave him alone”! I’d never seen him so angry. I’d never seen him hit so hard! On top of that, Booger came to my defense too. Booger was a real big boy, black boy, but he was real slow in the head. Kids in my class were making fun of him so I decided to be nice to him. They didn't realize, Booger may have been a little slow on school stuff but he was sure funny. In just one day he must have made me laugh about 20 times. He sure stood up for me that day. He had that crazy look in his eyes that was down right scary. I figure Booger could do some harm if you got him out of his right mind. He had some power in them big arms. Some kids clapped and some kids laughed. But it was the one girl that was just left and to the back of me that I will never forget. Like she was the only one I could hear, so clearly. I heard her say to her friend, “They adopted, see them two, they brothers, they don’t look nothin’ like each other, you see that, they momma and daddy done gave them away, they adopted”.

It seemed like the whole hallway packed full of kids just went into slow motion. Even as a 6 year old it just all started to come together. Feelings that I had that I was different. Feelings that something was up and I wasn't supposed to know about it. Not so much from what my parents had said or done but it was always very mysterious the way their friends treated us. Even the teachers and doctors as if they knew something we didn't, and it was about us. On one hand like we were special but on the other like we were different, and not like a good different. Why do I have brown hair, brown eyes and get a tan and Boyd has red hair, blue eyes, freckles and gets sun burned? What is adopted? What momma gave who them away? Why did she say that word, adopted, so ugly sounding? I snapped out of it about the time Booger gave me a big hug and said, "Don't you worry Bobby, me and your brother got your back." My brother. My friend. My brother?

My eye started swelling up pretty fast. As me and Boyd walked home down the side of the bayou kids were looking over and pointing at us. I figured it was because Boyd just beat up two big kids. Or maybe they were talking about how our momma gave us away. I wanted to ask Boyd about it but I didn't want to talk about it. I couldn't keep my tears back thinking how weird I felt. Kind of alone all of a sudden. Boyd asked me if my eye hurt and I told him yes even though it didn't. My whole face was numb and felt like a balloon. "He got you pretty good", he said with a little laugh. "You took it like a big boy Bobby, I'm proud of ya." I wondered if he knew we weren't really brothers. I started crying real hard. I held my eye like it was hurting, but I didn't even feel it. It felt good to cry.