Chapter- The beginning
A man's eyes are the portal to his soul, or so they say. Danny's eyes were the rusting cellar doors leading to his prison. No matter how long I searched and no matter where I looked, I couldn't find the key to free him. He was my little Danny, my gift from God in the form of a little brother. People looked at him and couldn't find a person, but as I'd spent my whole life getting to know him, he became so complex that it literally stole all meaning from the word "retard." That's who he was to my father. Not Danny, "tard child". When he was really mad he didn't even put enough energy forth to say child and instead Danny was just "tard". At times when he was really drunk it was mutated into "mmtoard". My father was one of the only people I was exposed to for the first 13 years of my life. That can't be healthy.
I spent every moment taking care of Danny and when he wasn't there I passed my time worrying about him. He was physically old enough to take care of his 9 year old self, but mentally he would never be independent. When his diaper was full, I was the only one willing to change it. No wait... I was the only one willing to go near him. I guess it wasn't my job to relieve him of life, only to make sure he suffered as little as possible while still alive. It was God's job to free him and for some sick reason he found it necessary to keep him trapped for just a bit longer. It was as if he hadn't suffered enough. As if I hadn't endured enough pain caring about him. I shouldn't complain though. Danny was worth every shock of pain my shapeless body could withstand…and more.
I should probably start at the beginning of my story and work in chronological order. Bear with me though, because as easy as that sounds, nothings ever been more difficult for me. Nothing but my life that is. Sometimes it's hard to keep track of what happened when, and I can't begin to describe why it happened. It all just seems like a sea of pointless happenings. Ones that weren't as petty as they were pointless. A life molds a person and I look at myself now wondering how I'm not completely insane. The more I was exposed to what was wrong, the more I began to discover what was right and the more I wanted to experience it. Having to pull something beautiful from a pile of dog shit is no walk in the park, unless we're talking about a park in Detroit.
I had a name (still do), but it never made any difference, because I was continuously treated as some inanimate object. I was #3, a name designated by my father, meant to describe my placement in the "long" line of children he had. It was even crueler that Danny was given #10. I always told him he was #1 in my eyes. In my eyes, he was the only human being that wasn't entirely disturbed. I loved him. I never needed to say it, but I always did, because I knew he liked to hear it. It brought a goofy smile to his face, raised the sides of his lips, crinkled his button nose, and squinted his bright blue eyes like the characters in manga. I would giggle, causing a chain reaction that led him to hysterical chuckling. Then I would wipe the drool from the corner of his mouth. He always kept me smiling because he was always in the best mood. But when he was in pain, I could feel my heart throwing itself around inside of me.
I sang him to sleep, a song our mother sang to me every night. After she died, I had the hardest time falling asleep. She didn't die because of Danny, no matter how much my father believed that. I'm not quite sure why she died. I've accepted that God does that a lot. He kills people off and no ones really sure why. My mother always said we can't be mad at him for it. I thought it was maybe because he'd kill us off too.
Well any-who, the song I sang to him was a nice little tune. It made both of us feel safer. It brought my mother back to me. That warm fuzzy feeling tingling on my skin and throughout my whole body. That was what it brought back.
My sweet little darling
Asleep in his bed.
I tuck him in softly
And kiss his sweet head.
I thank God he gave me, my sweet little boo.
Love knew I'd be happy when it blessed me with you.
Of course when my mommy sang it to me it was "her" instead of "him". He was always asleep by the "you". I was hardly ever asleep. My mind didn't want to calm down. So I sat next to him, while he cuddled up to his bear that he named "Einstein." He thought that since he wasn't smart, his bear should be. I tried to explain to him that there's more than one kind of smart. He wasn't very agreeable about anything though. I liked when he was asleep and couldn't argue with me. He went away in his sleep and it made me feel better for him to be far from the turmoil and the life he'd been cursed with. My father really believed that Danny was a creation of the devil, because when he was born our mother died. It was a hard blow on his happiness. Our mother was the only thing that held him upright. He was trapped in his mind, by his own mental illness, but when she was alive, he was so busy being trapped in her love that he forgot how to cry. When she died he became an expert at it. As much pain as he caused Danny and I, I felt terrible for him, because he was my father….. I loved him. It would have crushed anyone's spirit to see him like he was. He was never alright without mom and he was mad about being so down. He hated himself, which quickly turned to hatred toward us. Somewhere beyond it, trapped deep within his mind, was a world where he loved us. The only world that we ever should have lived in, where Danny was our angel and mom's death made us stronger. That's way better than a world where a father won't even hold his newborn son and attempts to leave him at the hospital. I remember holding that same baby that my father condemned and how beautiful he was. And in that moment of his sleep, I went back to the moment of his birth. He looked just darling with his eyes shut peacefully, dreaming about God knows what. I wished I could get inside his dreams so I'd know what he was thinking. But just as he couldn't leave his mind, I couldn't enter it.