Prompt 50--Thin Line
Jul. 7th, 2007 11:55 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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tamingthemuseTitle: My Brother's Keeper
Fandom: None
Pairing: None
Rating: G
Summary: There's a fine line between meanness and cruelty and they crossed it at the wrong time.
There’s a thin line between a lot of things. Between love and hate, between poverty and wealthy, between stupid and smart. The thinnest line exists between meanness and cruelty and children know where the line is drawn and just how easy it is to cross.
When my brother was eighteen months old, he tried to pull an electric cord out of an extension cord and found out he wasn’t strong enough, so he put it into his mouth. The electricity arced between the prongs and burned his mouth, melting it into an unrecognizable mess that exposed his baby teeth clear back to his jawbone. Where his mouth used to be was a grayish mass that looked liked playdoh that had been played with too much with dirty hands.
I knew that there was something wrong with him when he stopped pestering me and lay still under the edge of the bed. His little feet stopped kicking and I can still close my eyes and see them, encased in his footed pajamas, so still and quiet that it made me scream out loud.
There was a pounding of feet as my elders came running. My grandma got there first, picking him up off the ground and throwing him over her shoulder, beating him on the back. My mother started screaming my grandfather went to the bathroom to get a washcloth and then they cradled him in their arms and saw the mess of his face. I think that the wailing could be heard out in the streets, even outside the closed up house because the neighbors started knocking on the door.
I ran in the bathroom to vomit.
Guilt ate me alive. If I’d only stopped reading to play with him, it would have been different, I know. Things were as they were though, and looking back can’t change time, only by looking forward, so I became my brother’s protector. My brother’s keeper.
Ten surgeries later, he had a mouth that was half the size of a normal mouth and too small for anything besides quartered Jell-O cubes and hot dogs, cut into pennies and halved again. We fed him this way for a year or more, cutting up his food and dropping it into the quarter-sized hole that the surgeon had left us for him.
We loved him, my sisters and I. We fed him through the tiny hole, kissed the scar that marred his beautiful mouth, held his hand and played with him. We were his playmates and his guardians until he started school and then we were in separate classes and couldn’t protect him anymore.
He tried to hide the tearstains when he got on the bus in the afternoons, but you can only hide so much from older eyes that have seen the cruelty up close for longer than he had. I tried and tried to get him to tell me who had hurt him, who had said something to him about his mouth, but he would never tell.
Seven more surgeries and he almost had a real mouth. His words were more audible and understandable, but the teasing at school went on. They called him monster and other more painful names that I couldn’t bear to hear but all the threats in the world weren’t enough to keep it from happening. I knew that one of these days I would have to make good on my threats and my opportunity finally came, faster than I expected it to.
On the bus that afternoon, I overheard some of the other boys teasing Joey once again about his mouth and the way that he talked. As I felt the anger rise, I determined that enough was enough and as we got off the bus, I grabbed one of the boys by the neck.
I don’t remember much after that; most of what I know comes from neighbors’ recollections and my own mother’s stories. She said that I kicked that little boy down the street, his feet flying into the air with every kick all the way to my house.
I pushed him to the ground in front of my brother and told him to apologize. In a shaky voice, he did, then asked if I would let him up off the ground.
I did and he ran as fast as he could away from my house.
It was a small victory, one that I would never have to deal with again. Nobody ever teased my brother out of fear and I never had to show anyone that I wasn’t afraid of confrontation any longer. Joey eventually had enough surgeries that he looked normal and whole again and his speech cleared dramatically when his mouth was fixed.
The good part? I was and always will be my brother’s hero. I suppose that’s all a big sister really needs.
Fandom: None
Pairing: None
Rating: G
Summary: There's a fine line between meanness and cruelty and they crossed it at the wrong time.
There’s a thin line between a lot of things. Between love and hate, between poverty and wealthy, between stupid and smart. The thinnest line exists between meanness and cruelty and children know where the line is drawn and just how easy it is to cross.
When my brother was eighteen months old, he tried to pull an electric cord out of an extension cord and found out he wasn’t strong enough, so he put it into his mouth. The electricity arced between the prongs and burned his mouth, melting it into an unrecognizable mess that exposed his baby teeth clear back to his jawbone. Where his mouth used to be was a grayish mass that looked liked playdoh that had been played with too much with dirty hands.
I knew that there was something wrong with him when he stopped pestering me and lay still under the edge of the bed. His little feet stopped kicking and I can still close my eyes and see them, encased in his footed pajamas, so still and quiet that it made me scream out loud.
There was a pounding of feet as my elders came running. My grandma got there first, picking him up off the ground and throwing him over her shoulder, beating him on the back. My mother started screaming my grandfather went to the bathroom to get a washcloth and then they cradled him in their arms and saw the mess of his face. I think that the wailing could be heard out in the streets, even outside the closed up house because the neighbors started knocking on the door.
I ran in the bathroom to vomit.
Guilt ate me alive. If I’d only stopped reading to play with him, it would have been different, I know. Things were as they were though, and looking back can’t change time, only by looking forward, so I became my brother’s protector. My brother’s keeper.
Ten surgeries later, he had a mouth that was half the size of a normal mouth and too small for anything besides quartered Jell-O cubes and hot dogs, cut into pennies and halved again. We fed him this way for a year or more, cutting up his food and dropping it into the quarter-sized hole that the surgeon had left us for him.
We loved him, my sisters and I. We fed him through the tiny hole, kissed the scar that marred his beautiful mouth, held his hand and played with him. We were his playmates and his guardians until he started school and then we were in separate classes and couldn’t protect him anymore.
He tried to hide the tearstains when he got on the bus in the afternoons, but you can only hide so much from older eyes that have seen the cruelty up close for longer than he had. I tried and tried to get him to tell me who had hurt him, who had said something to him about his mouth, but he would never tell.
Seven more surgeries and he almost had a real mouth. His words were more audible and understandable, but the teasing at school went on. They called him monster and other more painful names that I couldn’t bear to hear but all the threats in the world weren’t enough to keep it from happening. I knew that one of these days I would have to make good on my threats and my opportunity finally came, faster than I expected it to.
On the bus that afternoon, I overheard some of the other boys teasing Joey once again about his mouth and the way that he talked. As I felt the anger rise, I determined that enough was enough and as we got off the bus, I grabbed one of the boys by the neck.
I don’t remember much after that; most of what I know comes from neighbors’ recollections and my own mother’s stories. She said that I kicked that little boy down the street, his feet flying into the air with every kick all the way to my house.
I pushed him to the ground in front of my brother and told him to apologize. In a shaky voice, he did, then asked if I would let him up off the ground.
I did and he ran as fast as he could away from my house.
It was a small victory, one that I would never have to deal with again. Nobody ever teased my brother out of fear and I never had to show anyone that I wasn’t afraid of confrontation any longer. Joey eventually had enough surgeries that he looked normal and whole again and his speech cleared dramatically when his mouth was fixed.
The good part? I was and always will be my brother’s hero. I suppose that’s all a big sister really needs.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-08 07:14 am (UTC)I actually did similar for my little brother, just with a bit less kicking.
Well done.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-08 11:58 am (UTC)a powerful story.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-08 12:34 pm (UTC)I love this so much. *hugs* This was awesome.
~Nebula
no subject
Date: 2007-07-08 01:11 pm (UTC)Another beautiful one this week. Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-08 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-08 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-08 05:34 pm (UTC)♥
no subject
Date: 2007-07-08 05:37 pm (UTC)I guess that it would only be fair to tell you that this, too, is a true story. This really happened to my little brother, and I truly did the kicking. It was one of my mother's and his favorite stories to tell and it still makes me blush.
Just another little glimpse into my soul, I suppose. It's all the little threads that make the tapestry of a life. Each thread is a story, each incidence a weave in the pattern.
Love you, Steph.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-08 07:41 pm (UTC)And you just brought tears to my eyes. Actually, you did an hour ago, and I've only now been able to sit here and respond. I don't even know what to say, but I didn't want to wait any longer to say whatever it was going to be. You are just remarkable, and I am so very, very blessed to know you. Love you, too, hon.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-08 08:05 pm (UTC)♥ you so much!
no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 03:24 pm (UTC)And I'm not going to even try to say why. To dissect your story with more words would be so wrong.
I'll just say, you have a powerful way with words and leave it at that.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 08:02 pm (UTC)