So, how does this work entirely?

You have to type whatever I say?

But not what you say.

Right.

May as well start.

You know for someone that is suppose to be listing and typing, you sure do talk a lot.

Want a drink or something before we start? No wait, don’t put that in there.

Too late?!

What do you mean too late? It’s never too late, all you have to do is highlight and delete.

Fine whatever let’s just get started.

I want to clarify a few things first, my name is Edward. I lived in a shack of house that brought about nothing but pain, honor and pride. You see, I’m the older brother of the family. My younger brother… well I rather not talk about him at the moment.

It’s been years, I’m thirty-eight now, with a son of my own. It took three tries but I have my son. I can’t wait to see the girls chase after him. It’ll be quite a sight to see him grow-up. I can only imagine that he’ll turn out just like me. I mean, I wasn’t all that bad while growing up in fact I’d say I was a perfect child. HAHAHA… who am I kidding I was a rambunctious kid. I bit the butts of the cute girls at the K-mart. My parents had their hands full with me. Couldn’t handle me for nothing. Did whatever I wanted and got whatever I wanted. Why do you think they had my brother? He was someone they could control.

Wrong? What do you mean wrong?

I’m doing this because I don’t know how to write, I know how to talk, I know how to tell a story. I know how to be me. Do you know how annoying it is for someone to act and try to be like you, when you don’t want them to? No matter how old I was he would always try to be like me.

Yes, I know he was my little brother, but still he needed to find his own life. His own thing to do. He did and ended up becoming a writer. Guess he wanted it more than I did. Or at least my parents babied him until he was ready to go out on his own. I, on the other hand, wanted money didn’t matter where it came from so long as I was being paid for a job well done. I didn’t want to be under my parents thumb like he was. Yea, he was able to reach his dream. Well, forget about it and move on.

When he was in college he wrote a piece called “Sacrifice.” I thought the title was interesting especially since he stole my birthright. “Stolen” would’ve been a better title for it. He said it was a fictional memoir piece. Technically, it was a memoir. But it wasn’t his memoir, it was mine. That story was based off a memory I had kept telling over and over. He stole that memory from me. It wasn’t even a memoir; it was a memoir based off my memory. And the extent he took the story too. I can’t believe he would lie so much.

First of all I still remember the day it was June 19, 1973. Mom wasn’t cooking rice and beans she open a can of refried beans and reheated the rice my Grandma gave us the night before. That was her usual “home-cooked meal.” He made it sound like she bought a McDonalds cheeseburger and called it prime rib. He was right about me being under the bed when my Dad came in through the door. But what he didn’t tell you was that he was slobbering all over his blanky. Did you know, he had this interesting way of sucking his fingers?

Most normal kids, like me, they would just suck on their thumb. Of course he was an idiot. He would suck on his middle and ring finger, but before that he would wrap his blanky around those two fingers so that the blanky would be rubbing against his nose. To this day, I have yet to meet another person that did that, he still is the only one. He would do things a different way just to do it. It didn’t matter to him how he looked to other people so long as he felt comfortable he didn’t care.

What was wrong with it? I’ll tell you what was wrong with it! He had no pride in his appearance! I hated that, he had a name to live up to. He needed to live up to my father’s name. My father fought all his life to get his family taken care of. He fought in the mud, worked in the dirt and built his family a home. Not a house, mind you. Anyone can buy a house to live in. But it took my mother and father to build a home. And then for him to write that story basically degrading my parents. Our parents. I don’t care how many people said it was a beautiful piece. I don’t care how many people said they loved it. Fact of the matter is my Dad and Mom weren’t shown in the greatest of lights.

Anyways, back to the story. I remember I was watching something, cartoons. I forget what but that doesn’t really matter. But when I heard Betsy I did run straight to my room, locked the door and hid under the bed.

Betsy? She was by dad’s truck at the time. It was brown. Old. It had construction stuff in the back. But under the bed I couldn’t hear nothing much in the other room. I’m not going to bother to guess either. I didn’t care really. I was safe. My mother wasn’t going to let me be spanked.

Yes, spanked. That’s all that happened. It wasn’t a beating like my so-called “brother” described. He was right though, usually when my dad saw two legs sticking out from under the bed. He would just walk away take a shower and watch T.V. I would come out near dinner time he’d rub my head and we’d just watch T.V. He’d always smile and tell me, “One of these days, that bed isn’t going to be a safe place.” He was right, the day came and I got the spanking I deserved.

I deserved it because, well as cliché as it may sound, I was a bad kid because I wanted the attention. What do you expect he was the baby! So he got all of their attention, he didn’t have to do anything and they loved it. He had them wrapped around his finger. He blow bubbles with his drool and they run to get a camera. When he slept they would give him all the attention. I still remember, this one time. We were going to bed, they put him in his crib covered him up ‘cause it was a cold night. They kissed him then they walked away. It was like I wasn’t even there. All I got was a flick of a light switch.

Is it any wonder why in all of our childhood pictures every time there’s a picture of him the next ten pictures have me in the shot with him. I tried everything I could. At first I was the good kid, I was the smart one, I didn’t make that much of a mess when eating. I was able to read billboards almost as soon as I could talk. I was biting butts well because I wanted attention. Even if it was negative attention I wanted something. I didn’t want to feel like I did that cold night.

The spanking lasted quite awhile actually. To this day, I still say neither of us gave up. I still remember when my ass was in the air the belt never moved up or down. Each hit was squarely on the butt. My dad would scream, “Are you going to school tomorrow?!”
I screamed, “NO!”
Whack.
“Are you going to school?!”
“NO!”
Whack. This went on for maybe ten fifteen minutes. By the end of it, I didn’t say yes, he didn’t say I give up. My brother separated us. When my father heard him screaming he dropped the belt and me. I remember my face being red. I was sweating a lot. My ass was so beet red that it hurt when the wind blew in from the window. But I got up. That’s the one thing my father always gave me. I got up. I walked to the kitchen and of course my mom blamed me for whatever happened to my brother. I looked him, my brother. I looked at him and believe what he’s done, even when I’m a bad kid, even when I’m getting spanked, even negative attention, he manages to wrap them around his finger. I use to have that power and I wanted it back.

I did the only thing left. I went to school. Got good grades. Hell when he started school he was missing a lot. More so than me. My dad always wanted to do the same to him but he never got the chance. My mom said she could barely bear to see what he did to me, but to do it to him would’ve been too much. But I always liked hearing, “Why don’t you be more like your brother.” Especially when my mom said it, cause then he wasn’t getting any attention, I was. When report cards came out, he would hide his or say he lost it somewhere. But me, I would always been sure to tell them when they came out so that I would get the attention and hear those ever loving words, “Why can’t you be more like your brother?” He tried. So hard. But he never could. I felt bad for him though.

Because I would set the standard to point where I knew he wouldn’t be able to reach it. He would try his hardest and still fail, I liked seeing that. I liked putting him in that situation. Remember what I said when we were going to bed as kids?

I left out something, we use to have a night light. I use to be able to see him and he use to be able to see me. Well he must’ve known something was wrong that night. You see, when my parents left the room he was laying there just looking at me and I was looking at him. A few minutes later he reached out his hand for me. You want to know what I did?

Nothing. I flipped over looked away and went to sleep. If he had the attention of my parents, then why should he have mine?

Do I miss him? I don’t miss him as much as I hate him. You tell me, you were his wife. How did it feel when you found him in the tub? Like I said, I hate him more than miss him. He didn’t get back up. If he wanted to me be like me he would’ve gotten back up. Maybe my father should’ve spanked him. He did what my father was afraid of, he gave up.

(First Publication Milestone: Voices of East Los 2007)

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