Recalling

Life is often funny in a cruel way. I was the good son. I did all the right things. I went to college. But my brother was the one that got away with everything. I don’t resent my lot in life. I just wonder why I bother to be nice and decent when doing good always backfires on me.

There were two of us – my brother, Ben, and me, Christopher. I was the older of the two, the firstborn. But Ben was always the stronger one – the aggressor. The old man loved him. He hated me. Because I reminded him too much of my mother. We both suffered at the hands of the old man though. He’d wake us up in the middle of the night after hitting my mother. She’d be sobbing in their bedroom and he’d come over and flick his cigarette butt at us. The one who got burnt was the lucky one, because he’d kick the other one off the bed. He’d yell at us for being useless and for costing him money to feed and clothe. The next day, we’d go to school with black eyes or bruised bodies. I don’t remember when getting beaten up was an exception. I feared him, and I feared for my mother. Ben turned to anger, and he started becoming more and more like our father.

Ben found solace in being the school bully, and later on, the leader of the high school gang. I found solace in books and withdrew into myself. And mom, well mom found solace in me, because I was the quiet one, the thoughtful one.

By the time I was 16, and Ben, 14, our paths took the final turn that would keep us apart for the rest of our lives. Miss Rogers, the teacher who nurtured me and helped me survive that time, believed I was eligible for college because I’d been skipping ahead of the rest of my year a few times. I sat for the exams, and I got into college. Not long before that, Ben had started running for a local drug dealer. And he had his own gang, did drugs, sold drugs in school and packed a gun.

It was a full scholarship, but I stil had to commute to and from campus. Between classes, I worked at Mr Cho’s grocery store at the intersection. He was a nice Korean guy who’d moved to the States a long time ago. He treated me well. Sometimes, he’d invite me for dinner with his family. His son, Robert, became a good friend. It wasn’t until much later that I realized those invitations came always when fresh bruises on me could be easily seen.

This bringing back a lot of memories. And for all that much of that remembering is painful, it is therapeutic at the same time.

Why am I at the library today, writing this? Because Ben came back last night and beat the shit out of me. He wants money. I don’t know why, I thought he was doing pretty well for himself pushing drugs and pimping.

I looked in the mirror this morning, and a ghost gazed back at me. I can’t shave because there’s a big cut where Ben slammed the tray into me. There’s clotted blood at my nostrils. But my moustache is semi hiding that. I look like the wreck that I’m describing here.