As I took out alone
into a vast,
barren winter forest,
the sky started kaleidoscope changes.
Whites faded orange and grays bled red.
I had walked through woods like these before,
maybe a million or more when I was younger.
It was different now, I had to do this.
They were sure to be coming.

It was cold and the trail was roughly a trail.
I remember all the times that I had romped
in the autumn leaves with my brother.
Catching lizards and snakes near the streams.
Noting poison ivy left and right,
beware of sticker trees, quick mud, deer ticks-
as a cold wind licked my eyes
reminding me of where I was.
I had remembered long winters with
hard centers impossible to bite through,
but this was different, the woods were more dense,
the horizon line had thick snow,
same as below my feet.
These trees seemed quieter
as if they were respecting the dead.

Like a thousand soldiers
lined up to salute a fallen comrade.
I could of sworn I saw them at boot camp,
when I graduated, cheering me on;
a licensed killer
nice and polished for their approval.
Or were they there when I refined my skills
with the special forces.

My Grandfather was there,
he told me how proud he was,
but how worried he felt
looking into my eyes.

I swore to him that I wouldn't forget
the Reservation.

He called me an, "Amber Sorcerer of Survival."
His words resonate like a drum beat in my head.
He was hardcore,
he wore moccasins,
he was the heart
of the tribe.

Grandpa died
three years ago.

The trees were sturdy,
stubborn carrying snow on their broad shoulders.

The young branches
would sometimes bend low like an apology.
The older ones now and again snapped and broke,
giving up the struggle.

The sky is now shades
of storm blue
and night black.

It felt like I hadn't moved,
but I was miles from my plane,
miles from where I began,
and I could not stop,
least not today.

This photo is bent back,

hello Brother,

he's still smiling here.

We are sitting on the hood

of the old

blue

Impala,

his hair looks golden,

his skin soft and tan.

That summer,

Mom had a breakdown,

That summer,

Dad made my brother

look after her,

until she was committed.

She must have

shook

him

hard,

his faults

burst

open

letting the addict

out.

As I watched him

stumble

I never noticed

he sold me his

virtues

like pieces of his soul.

He could really play baseball then.

My best friend,

my twelve year old

big brother.

In that shirt

he was an Angel,

that's the last year he won.

Now, his demons

look down on him.

Did I steal his life,

quietly learning from each mistake?

Or did he crucify himself

to save his

clumsy,

little

brother?

The Temper

Many times it seems, I have defended my brother’s transgressions, but on Christmas night there would be no more sympathy. While driving home from midnight mass I let my infamous temper grow. I fed it with the cries of a disappointed mother, and the sighs of a father dejected and withdrawn. I played over and over the promise that he made, and the pew seat saved until the very end. Like great bellows to a fire I let my mind run through the past six months, ten months, maybe year and a half of stealing and lying my brother had sewn into the fabric of our family. As our black car whipped through side streets and avenues, I remained quiet and stoic like a mountain lion invisible and dangerous.

To simply let forth rage would be the act of a barbarian and would be discounted quickly as the second wrong of the night, but I had other intentions for the late hour when my brother would inevitably return. I had noticed my brother had a form of cancer that was as equally unseen as those that grow within, but his was all around him and as insidious as death itself. My brother had been changed from a loving son to a teen immersed in addiction. So, to act on him in rage would only be a rip in his invisible, heavy cloak of addiction, but what I had in mind was to purify him with hate. What is a brother that loses his except a son of his parents?
As we pulled into the driveway, Christmas day was well upon us. The house was as dark within as the night was outside, and I observed my defeated parents turn to one another and offer some consolation. The sublime holiday turned to surreal as a long-standing tradition of Christmas gift exchanging took place with only three people instead of four. We passed gifts to one another as solemn as those respecting the dead, which seemed befitting since the one person missing had been replaced with a shell of himself for the last year and a half. I recalled the Christmas passed and how my parents tilted the scale of gifts so obviously in the direction of my brother. They had hoped to earn some respect in their crusade to stop his senseless self-destruction. I remembered how unimportant this display made me feel. I had been the same son to them; surely but this was of less concern to me than my brother.

My father opened my gift and smiled in a way that made it obvious that my generosity was only a small bandage on the wound that he had suffered this night. A halfhearted, “Thanks,” and an equally weak embrace congratulated me on my effort. My ire grew. My parents went into the kitchen only a few steps from our Christmas tree and talked the talk of beaten fighters, and as many that are defeated, they began to pass blame from one another to themselves. I had time to plot my course that would run this night while sitting alone under the blinking star of the fake, plastic tree that looked queer in a home without any other Christmas decorations. In fact, I was the only one that even made effort to erect the sad, green, over-grown pipe cleaner from the dusty crawl space. It was as if my brother had turned into a vampire and usurped the lifeblood that once vitalized this family. Tonight all this was going to change, and if I had to put a stake through the chest of the devil himself I would see an end to this conflict.
In accordance to my plan, I said, “good night,” to my parents in the kitchen and took to my room to wait for the stirring that would set me into action. Although I was three years his junior, I had grown quicker and larger than my brother had. I was ready for battle. I knew that he would come home tonight in an awful condition doing one of his obscene dances that spoke volumes of where he had been and what he had done. His eyes would be half-closed; his demeanor would be callous and loud. The volcano inside me that had lain dormant for years was about to erupt. My father said that I learned to be this way from my mother: my mother said I learned to be this way from my father. Wherever I had developed my temper wasn’t important, it was only certain that I had it. Maybe I had foreseen my brother’s falling from grace years earlier as he often was the recipient of my madness. My rage enveloped my brother many times before. Once at a baseball field I beat him with a bat, and another time after a long bitter fight I called him out of the house and shot him with a bee-bee gun. My accuracy was unnerving: my coldness was astonishing. All of these events had long passed, and my temper now was only a story that I told to scare younger cousins. Something was happening now; I heard chairs in the kitchen slide and the front door shut.
“Bob! Look at your son!” I heard my mother shouting.
“What’s wrong with me?” my brother answered with swaggering impudence.
“Don’t talk to your mother that way! Where have you been Dave?” My father’s voice was deep and serious.
“I was out. I met up with some friends, and went to church.” my brother started his tale.
“To church huh?” my mother added.
“Yeah church. We went to St. Joe’s like you asked.” The lie was complete.
“We were at St. Joe’s, and your father waited for you in the back of the church the entire mass.” My mother was losing tone to her voice like a sick, weak cat.
“I was there,” my brother continued humorously.
“Dave where were you? Were you getting high?” my father took her place in the firing squad. I knew that it was time for me to get into the mix. So, I quietly got out of bed and stood at the top of the stairs looking down on the argument.
“Whatever, I’m going to bed.”

“Like hell you are! You owe us an explanation! It is Christmas damn it!” My father grabbed my brother by his arm, and my brother shrugged him off violently. As he was about to turn and head up the stairs, I spoke.
“What is going on down there?” I asked in a faint, groggy voice that implied I had just woken up.
“Look you woke up Aaron!” my mother charged. As I watched the argument below, I saw my father predictably grab my brother’s arm again. This time I saw my brother lash out trying to throw a punch in response. The effort was a bad one, underscoring the condition he was in, but his fist managed to hit my father in such a way that made my father fall back on himself and tripped over his feet. No one seemed to notice as I lurched down the stairs with my eyes fiery focused on the malignant disease that had just attacked his own father. My brother turned only in time to show me his heavy eyes and slouching posture as I leapt onto him. My mother, who was helping my father get up, watched as I began to unleash a wicked beating on my brother. He threw his arms forward to try and fend off the blows, but only managed to include his arms in the beating. Finally, my father threw me off of my brother. My brother got up, wiped some blood off his face, and came after me, landing a kick in my side. Now my father jumped in between us and tried to stymie my brother.

Getting up, I began with a hateful discourse that made everyone in the room shutter, “You are not my brother! You are not part of this family. You are a lowlife bastard to do this to your own family on Christmas. I hate you. I don’t want anything to do with you from now on. If dad would get out of my way I would kill you right now!”
On my last statement my brother laughed a little and said, “Come try it big boy!”
The vision in my eyes seemed to blur with intense anger, and I looked for some way to flush this emotion out. I turned and saw next to the fireplace a cast iron poker. With the precision of a blacksmith, I grabbed the poker and whirled around to catch a glimpse of my prey. Three sets of eyes turned gray and wide seeing me with the weapon, my father went for me first and then my mother. My brother shrank back into the flickering of the tree.
“I am going to kill him! Let go of me! I hate you! You hear me? I hate you!” I made sure to pronounce each syllable with sickening disgust. I watched as the shroud that enveloped my brother melted off of him enough that he looked over to me using his own eyes. His eyes were tired and sorrowful. I knew then that I had accomplished something. My parents and I danced together. They wrenched the weapon from my grasp. I stayed fixated on my brother as a long moment passed between us. We were not unalike. My mother’s crying and my father’s accusations all seemed to fade into a place far from the few seconds my brother and I shared admiring each other. I wasn’t looking in a mirror, was I? As he fell to the ground under the weight of his own epiphany, I noticed his head tilt awkwardly like the way a dolls head limps when unheld. The blinking lights strobed over my sprinting parents as they hurried to my brother’s side. It was then I noticed. It was everywhere. Blinking lights turned into sirens and more lights. Time passed like the lighting of a match. I.V. drips and beeping machines announced his passing. Sanctified and delivered I had released my brother of the devil for good.

The Broken Knight

It is early evening in January. Patches of snow form random patterns on yards of townhouses in northeast Baltimore. Cars speed up and down on Loch Raven Boulevard making a continuous humming sound. A front porch light is lit, and a young woman stands behind a storm door looking outside.

“It wasn’t them.”
“Are they coming together?” a man’s voice asked from within the house.
“I’m not sure.”
“Why do you always get so nervous when your parents come over?”
“I’m not sure why.”
“Can you come get your daughter?  She is trying to climb up my leg.”

“Okay.” The young woman walks through a sitting room and dining room and enters a narrow, long kitchen. The kitchen has white cabinets along one wall. The kitchen appears clean and orderly, and has the aroma of garlic and cheeses. A young man is adding ingredients to a sauté pan.
“It smells good,” she said bending down to grab a small child less than a year old. “Isabel, dear, what are you doing? Let’s leave daddy alone for now.” The woman turns in response to a noise. “I think I heard them.”
“Again?” he said.
“Not them,” she replied disappointedly.
“Can you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Can you keep your mother out of the kitchen?”
“I’ll try,” she said.
“Please do. I have enough trouble getting dinner together without her.”
The woman walks to the door and looks outside onto the street. “They’re here. I guess they did take separate cars. I don’t see my dad. The twins are here though.”
“I think your dad said he was coming from a concert.”
“Not on a Tuesday. He probably said he was coming from rehearsal.”
“That sounds right.”

While holding the baby, the young woman opens the storm door. “Hi, Keith and Kyle. Hi, mom.”

Twin boys enter the house followed by a middle-aged woman. The twins respond in unison, “Hi, Jodi.” The boys make nervous half smiles and take off their jackets.

“Hi, Jodi. Hi, Isabel,” the middle-aged woman said. “Can I hold her?”
“Sure,” the young woman passes her baby to her mother.
“Mom, can Keith and I go play chess downstairs?” Kyle asked.
“Go ahead.”
The twins run recklessly through the dining room and kitchen. Quickly, the two boys open a closed door in the kitchen and run down a set of stairs.
“Hey, you guys, take your shoes off please,” the young man in the kitchen says. “And don’t use my good chess set. I’ve already had to super-glue one of my knights back together because of you guys.”
The middle-aged woman enters the kitchen holding the baby. Jodi follows behind her. The kitchen is hotter than the other rooms in the house.

“Hi, Brad. How are you?” the middle-aged woman asked, and kisses the young man on the cheek.
“Hi, mom. I’m good. How are things on your end?”
“Great! Great! We have been so busy the last few weeks.”
“Jodi, can you check which chess set the twins are using? I think I hear marble down there.” The young man gestures towards the staircase.
“Okay,” Jodi replied.
“Last week was so exciting. The twins had a basketball game, and they were playing against this really hot team. The twins’ team is good, but this other team is supposed to be really good. On the other team, they had this one guy who was almost your height,” the middle-aged woman began.
“No! Use the other set under the counter,” Jodi said halfway up the basement stairs.

“Shut up!” a child’s voice yelled up from the basement.
“Don’t tell me to shut up! God!” Jodi walks up the stairs holding a marble chess set in her hands. “I am going to put this in our room because the twins won’t listen to me.”
“Thanks,” Brad said.
“The game was really close. In the third quarter, you wouldn’t believe it the twins’ team took the lead. It was a riot. Then, in the fourth quarter, the other team took the lead.” The baby starts to whine. “The thing is, this team they played is in the nine-ten age group. The twins’ team is in the eight-nine league.” The baby whines louder. “Then Keith makes this shot from really far away. I thought it was a three-pointer.”

“Why would the twins play an older team?” Brad asked.
“I’m not sure,” the middle-aged woman replied.
“Mom! Isabel is crying.” Jodi enters the kitchen and takes the baby from her mother.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I should give her a bottle now anyway.” Jodi opens the refrigerator, and takes out a baby bottle. Jodi nudges her mother out of the way as she puts the bottle in the microwave. The middle-aged woman stands in front of the refrigerator.
“Isabel looks awfully small. Have you taken her to the doctor lately?” the middle-aged women asked.
“Mom, I have told you before Isabel is right around average in height and weight,” Jodi answered.
“I don’t know. I guess she just looks small,” Jodi’s mother said. “Brad, I have got to tell you the rest of the story about that game. It went down to the last minute and finally the older team won. It has been so hectic lately with all the twins’ functions. We have been non-stop from work to school activity with them.”
“Huh.” Brad replied.
“Work has been really tense also. A family filed a complaint against me, and I may lose my nursing license. It was that day that I was on a new floor, and two of my patients died. One of those patients was dying while I was in his room. I didn’t notice the signs, the respiratory discomfort and increased heart rate, and went on to the next room. Later that night, the family of that patient came to visit. The family discovered he was dead. I told them that it wasn’t my fault because he had a ‘do not resuscitate’ order.”
“Mom, can you back up a second? I’ve got to get in the refrigerator.” Brad asked. The middle-aged woman moved away from the refrigerator enough so that Brad could squeeze into it. Brad grabbed a container of heavy cream and closed the refrigerator.

“Mom, did you talk to Dad? When is he getting here?” Jodi asked.
“He should be on his way. He wouldn’t stop home first, would he?”
“Are you asking me?”

“I’ll call him. Is that ok?” the middle-aged woman asked moving toward a phone in the kitchen.
“Go ahead.”

“I got the machine. He isn’t there.”
“He was at rehearsal, right?”
“Yes, uh huh. He had a double rehearsal today.”
“Then he is probably coming straight here.”
“I assume he is. So have you guys decided what you are going to do when Brad finishes school?”
“We are putting both of our resumes on-line, and we will see which one gets the best offer.”
“So, there is a chance that Brad will be home with the baby.”
“There is a chance.”
“Brad you must be excited that school is almost over. How long have you been there now, nine years?”
“No, I have been there seven years.”
“And you are going to have your Bachelors in communicating?”
“It is a mass communications degree,” Brad answered.
“What did I say?”
“You said communicating.”
“Aren’t they the same thing?”
“No, they are not.”
“Jodi, you know your father got his degree in four years. A year after that, he got his Masters.”
“I am quite aware,” Jodi answered.
“Where is your father?” the middle aged woman asked to herself.
“He told you he was coming, didn’t he?”
“Are you going to make any coffee? Because I would like a cup…if you are going to make some,” the middle-aged woman said.
“I can make some coffee,” Brad answered.
“Mom, dad told you he was coming, didn’t he?” Jodi asked.
“Thanks, Brad.”
“Mom?”
“He didn’t say he was coming in so many words, but he is coming. We haven’t seen much of one another lately, but I know he is coming.”
“Why haven’t you seen much of one another?” Jodi asked.
“Jodi, can you tell the twins that dinner is ready?” Brad asked.
“Boys! Dinner is ready! Come up and wash your hands!” After Jodi called downstairs, the shuffling of feet could be heard in the basement.

The middle-aged woman walked out of the kitchen. She walked through the dining room into the sitting room. Finally, she came to a halt at the storm door. The middle-aged woman looked out into the dark street. Puddles of melted snow had refrozen, and cars sped up and down the road. “I’m sure he will be here soon.”

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