Nothing happened. Everything happened. It never seemed wrong at the beginning but nothing ever seems wrong when you're a little kid. Stealing cookies when your parents aren't looking seems like a perfect plan. So did this. But it wasn't like sneaking baked goods from a tray. It was about it. We had only been little boys. Little boys in a dusty room all alone. It started so innocent and carefree. How most boys are. Before they change. How at first they're these little jabbering monkeys that wake up to each day, excited about everything that they could learn and then you end up like me. Hateful and hurting. Like when I look at Davey's little brother whatshisname. I see myself when I was that age. Bursting with energy and not at all jaded. Jaded. Maybe that's what I am. Tarnished like that old jewelry box of my mother's that papa can't bear to part with. But after what happened between us, it's hard to be the same.
When we were little, before the taunts and before the dusty room, I remember playing in the newspaper room. It was like an old paper graveyard back there. Torn sheets and balled up paper. Papa hated us playing back there but you would always tell me he'd never find out. But papa terrified me. He still does. If anything sets my blood to a cold, watery substance that could leak out at any moment, it's papa. He's just so big. Big like you. I'm small like mama was. Small and pale and vulnerable. Papa always hated me. The dusty room was the final straw. When he saw us, he grabbed me and threw me repeatedly against the wall. You tried to help but you were still small like I was and it didn't really help. He was yelling and screaming in Italian—words I didn't know—and claiming that this was why I was born. Why mama had to die because of me. So I could seduce you. But it wasn't like that. It couldn't have been like that. Then somehow the kids at school found out. They never taunted you. They knew that you would kill them if they laughed. They picked on me because I had been so different then. Weak different. I used to cry so easily then. I look back and see a different boy. A little crybaby sucker who got beaten up. And the rhyme. That goddamn rhyme they'd chant after me. Incest is best. Incest is best. It seemed to put a label on it. A branding that deemed it wrong. I felt so dirty.
The dusty room was where it at all began. The dusty room was where it continues. Hiding behind papa even now because he would probably kill me for it. Except now I can't do it. Now that I know what you did to her. That I was almost an uncle. You didn't know that part. I saw Davey and he was talking to Cowboy about it. They were talking about killing you. I wouldn't have let them. I would've killed them myself if they tried that. Or maybe myself. You hurt me more than those boys on the street. More than papa when he banged me against the wall or the dark glares he gives me now whenever mama's birthday rolls around. How could you do that to her when you have me? That sounds girly and pansy but it makes me get this cold, empty feeling inside. The feeling of betrayal. Betrayal deep down in my body. Hidden under the sneers and threats and glares and smirks. It's like a monster inside me, gnawing away at my stomach, knotting it and crushing it with its monster claws.
I think Davey knows. That kid's pretty smart when it boils down to it. But he gives me these sad puppy looks that make me want to punch him in the face. I would too if he wasn't constantly flanked by Cowboy. Those two were nearly joined at the hip. Lousy couple of fags. Fags. Some people could call us that. But they aren't with us when we're in the dusty room. They don't see the…thing between us. But it's stopped now. Because you had to go and fuck Davey's sister for no goddamn reason. It makes me sick just thinking about it. Thinking about you pinning her against the wall and pushing her skirt up and…the very thought makes me want to throw up.
You told me once about your visits to a girl. You said you wanted someone who wasn't me. The complete difference in every way. You explained her to me. Blonde hair, blue eyes, curvy in all the right places. Different from me in every way was right. She knew about us. She'd mock us. She'd go 'What? Do you want me to be him? Bowler hat and pink shirt? Is that it?' You'd smirk and tell her that you didn't want that. Then you'd fuck her. And that was what made me sicker than the thought of you raping Sarah. How you'd go to this girl and fuck her senseless and then come back and do the same to me. Yet I always took you back. That's what brothers do.