Boston Tea Party. December, 16, 1773.

Sydney Smith

The shocked, warm smile on his face when I open the door makes my stomach churn. "Alfred? You've grown quite tall, haven't you, lad?"

I smile, trying not to let the bitterness seep into my voice when I speak. "I didn't know you were coming."

"I returned to England just in time to make it on the ship."

As he walks in, he looks at me awkwardly, not able to mess my hair like he had when I was younger.

He turns, putting water in a kettle and on the burner. "How have you been, Alfred?"

A cold, harsh chuckle scrapes from my throat. "You mean other than the ridiculous taxes you've imposed on me?" I laugh, shaking my head. "Wonderful. Just spectacular. You've been doing great, I assume?"

"Alfred-" The tea kettle whines, as if trying to cease Arthur's insufficient excuses. He sighs, looking at me sadly as I sit in my chair.

The stark contrast between his soft, young face and the contemptuous scowl he wears as he sits at his table anguishes me beyond belief. I hadn't realized the true density of feeling reflected in his smile until now, when it remains hollow and frozen, sarcastic and harmful. Shutting off the burner, I turn to his cabinets, noticing a lack of china. "Where are your tea cups?"

"Tea? I don't drink tea anymore, so I sold the cups."

I pause for a moment. Those had been gifts, the bloody...With a sigh, I calm myself, taking two coffee mugs and pouring the boiling water into them, dropping a tea bag into each. He doesn't drink tea now? The tax and new acts passed should help the price, as long as Alfred doesn't find out about the new taxes. With a heavy sigh, I set a mug in front of Alfred as I sit down with my own.

"Thanks, but I'm not thirsty."

"Alfred, drink the tea. It's good for you."

"I'm not thirsty."

"It just came off the boat with me from England." I mutter, an authority in my tone as I inhale the fresh scent of the hot tea.

"I don't need the damn tea, Arthur!"

His indomitable anger seems to distend as he stands, his large hands slamming against the table's wooden surface with a loud clap, an exclamation point at the end of his peremptory statement.

"Alfred! Calm yourself!"

"No! I won't! You can't just come here, out of the blue, and expect me to just...to just..."

"To just what, Alfred? Is there something wrong with me visiting my baby brother?"

"Exactly! You waltz into my house like its no big deal and you treat me like I'm nine! Well, sorry to disappoint you, but that was the last time you visited! I'm not a baby anymore!"

"Listen now, you are a child until I say you're an adult, do you understand?"

"I can't believe you! You can't just-"

"I," I shout, my voice growing stronger and louder. "Can do whatever the bloody hell I want, because you are still a child!"

"I'm a foot taller than you!"

"You, are throwing a temper tantrum like you did when you were nine, and you'll be treated as such. Now drink your tea."

"No."

"Drink the damned tea, Alfred!"

"I won't! I won't keep sitting at your feet and worshipping you whenever you deem it favorable! I'm not an idiot! I'm not a dog! I'm a person! An adult, no matter how much you don't want me to be! I won't keep being ignored!"

"Sit down!"

Alfred's chuckle slips into the air, anguished, accompanying the vitality of his argument in all its turmoil. "I won't. That's the whole point! Haven't you even heard a word I've said? Of course not!"

"I have heard you, and I understand-"

"No. No, you didn't. You just think I'm some stupid kid striving for attention."

"Alfred, sit down, drink your tea, and we'll talk about it."

"NO! I'M NOT GOING TO DRINK THE STUPID TEA!"

"I'm trying to help you!"

"Shut up! You're not trying to help me!"

"I am! You need to calm down and talk with me, not yell at me."

"I've tried that! You never hear me! Never! Can you hear me now?"

"Alfred! Calm down!"

"How can I calm down?"

"Drink the tea."

"What is your fascination with the tea? I'm not drinking it!"

"This is the last tea you'll be getting directly from England in a while, so-"

"What?"

I freeze, Alfred's confused, incredulous eyes boring into my own.

"A...A new tax."

"Another tax?" Alfred's anger seems to halt, brewing under the skin. "Get out."

"Excuse me?"

"Get out. Get out, Right Now."

"I just got here I'm not-"

In hindsight, it wasn't a very...kind thing to do. But it sure as hell helped with the anger I'm feeling. These are my thoughts. The thoughts I'm thinking as I survey the broken mug on the floor, the tea bag and scalding beverage all over my elder brothers face. That ought to get his attention. Perhaps he'll finally see how angry I am?

"I see. I'll leave then."

A small smile rises to my face. No doubt he's belaboring my action as childish and rude and immature in that stuffy head of his as he walks out the door, taking a towel with him. I can hear him viciously wiping himself off once he gets out the door.

"Take your damn tea and go back to where you came from or wherever the hell you are most of the time."

I hiss, the faint splash of the sea, strange due to its distance, after my words, and growl numerous curses as I open the door, throwing his china at his feet. "Found the china, Arthur."

My hands are tucked in my long coat pockets, the biting, sea encrusted boston air whipping across the plateaus of my wet, tea trodden face as I walk down main street. The bits of broken china in my pockets clink together, nicking the porcelain. Not like it matters anymore. Alfred's course voice rings in my ears, and my downcast eyes see the anger in his expression, not the cobblestone street. The towel at my neck smells of the fine tea it dried off my face, with the undertone of Alfred's husky, smoky, coffee laced scent.

I don't dare look up towards Heaven, knowing the swirling clouds above glare down at me mockingly. With a heavy sigh, I walk down the street with the gait of a reprobate, sure in my belief that I am indeed my little baby brother's favourite anathema.

The hatred he wore on his face seeming, to me, a sacrilege proved this without a doubt in my mind. And thinking myself an astute gentleman, find myself at a great displeasure, knowing, in my culminating shock and discomfit I was fundamentally intellectually prostrate, handicapped. All from the sloppy childish assails of my blue eyed brother. Though, as immature as his arguments were, I still, from some phenomenon, find myself struggling to breathe. I angrily blink away a plaintive tear, the only show of emotion on my stolid face.

Sitting at my table, my frigid blue eyes stare forward with a dead gaze, the yellowing sun filtering through my windows bouncing off the drops of tea on my wooden table with a warm sheen. A heavy pounding on my door and a jovial shout from my buds draws a sigh from my dry lips, as I walk to the door, throwing it open.

"Al! Did you hear-is that tea?"

The three men in front of me grin, pushing in past.

"My brother," The word is coated in contempt as it slips past my lips and into the air. "paid me a visit."

"Well we showed him, didn't we?"

"What do you mean?"

"We -the Americans, that is- dumped the stuff in the sea."

I laugh, a hearty boisterous expansive laugh, spreading through my house like a teasing statement. I don't care! I'm happy, I'm glad!

"Come with us, Al!"

"Where?"

"Where do you think? Drinking!"

An appreciative smile lingers on my face, and as they slap me on the back, and clamp their hands on my shoulder, I feel myself relaxing, hungry for a distraction.

As the rambunctious crowd of inane laughing fools walks in, the ringing in my ears delays the supposition that the blue eyed idiot that I can see in the throng of the group in my fuzzy vision, is indeed my little brother. Setting down my ale, I watch him laughing with a rebellious vitality, and his friend, loudly denouncing the "Constipated British assholes" and their "Stuffy arrogant damnation", brings me to my feet, pulling my retorts from my throat.

"At least we...have enough sense to carry ourselves...like maature gentlemen!"

Alfred's eyes reflect his possé's, the rancour floating in the swirling blue an atrocity. They all stand, and as I open my mouth to repeat myself as they have asked, a powerful punch makes me stumble backwards. As the revolutionists surround me, the kicks and punches come from each direction, incapacitating me.

They part only to allow Alfred to fill the space, his loud deep voice, onset with a powerful will and subtle enigmatic pride swelling me with hope.

"That's enough."

I smile an imperfect, broken smile at my baby brother, whose dejected eyes look down at my bruised form.

His two peremptory words brought attention to the bartender. "Can you deal with him, Al?" His words spoke of familiarity, asking a friend for a favour.

"Sure, I can take care of it."

One, indomitable, herculean blow compels an ubiquitous blanket of black nothingness to descend on my senses.

"And out my door, Al."

I sigh. "Seriously?"

"You can carry him, we know you can. Also, you knocked him out."

"But, Ben, he's Al's brother, and..."

"Even better. I can guilt you into not dumping your drunken kin on me."

"I can take him!"

"It's fine, Tom. He is my brother. And, in all likelihood, his drinking is probably my fault."

"Thank you."

With a disgruntled nod and grumble of acceptance, I bend down, throwing Arthur's limp and suprisingly insubstantial body over my shoulder. Thomas, Frederick and James watch me leave, a concerned look in their eyes.

As I walk down the street, I feel the questioning glances of those still walking in the darkened evening. When I get home, I drop Arthur on my rocking chair, taking a towel and wiping up the tea off my floor and table. I take my candle from the cabinet and put it on the table, the gentle, welcoming light distending from it after it's lit doesn't match my malcontented mood. Sitting down at the table once more, I turn my head, gazing at the unconscious, beaten form of my brother, an unrefined dribble of drool running down his chin; a satisfying bruise remains where I hit him, along with a split lip and two black eyes. The longer I look at him, the more I survey his inebriated and damaged condition, I begin to feel sympathy towards the man sitting in my chair. With a heavy sigh of resignation, I retrieve a old dusty blanket I used when I was younger and gently lay it over my sleeping brother's body. A humanoid, adoring admiration shines in the mercy that resides in my light blue eyes as I bring a chair next to him to wash out the wounds on his face with a handkerchief soaked in warm water.

I wake up with a horrendous splitting headache, not to mention the aches covering the rest of my body. I bring a hand to my face, my fingertips grazing over my features, to find them bruised but not bloody as I thought they would be. Upon looking around, I find I am indeed in Alfred's chair. Something akin to surprise, confusion, and apparent gratitude washed over me at this revelation, the smell of what seemed to be coffee floated towards me, and I scowled despite myself.

"You're up?"

A groan escapes my lips, pulling the blanket over my head as I grumble back a response.

"Unfortunately."

"Just feel lucky I didn't leave you there."

"What...happened?"

"You got wasted. And then you got the shit beaten out of you."

"Oh."

An awkward silence creeps into the gap that is growing between us, and I scramble to eradicate it before it can push Alfred farther from me.

"Alfred."

His voice is tired and exasperated with a tinge of tender bitterness.

"What?"

"I...I'm sorry."

"Me too. I'm sorry that won't work this time. "

"What the bloody hell are you talking about?"

"I'm not going to just forgive and forget everything you do anymore."

"What do you mean?"

He sighs, slipping on a shirt as he tromps down the stairs. "You know exactly what I mean."

I don't dare tell him I can not possibly comprehend an unforgiving Alfred. Because, ever since I met him, he's the only one who always forgives me, no matter what. I suppose it's wrong, letting him think all this time that I'm some deity to be worshipped, but I could never consciously let the one person who always accepts my apologies see how horrid I truly am.

"Arthur?"

Alfred's blue eyes are looking worriedly into mine, and I can see the full range of emotions lingering inside his eyes, indescribable in their complexity.

"Hm?"

"You alright?"

"Not really. I'm still... A little foggy."

"Hungry?"

I nod, though my positive response is only a pleasantry, slipping into the lull of Alfred's deep voice, and slowly fading into a gentle, fragile sleep.

By the time I finish his eggs, Arthur is asleep again. My anguished blue eyes reflect warm tenderness stark in contrast to the abhorrence that conflicted me earlier. The bane of my earlier existence sits asleep in front of me, sagging down under the blue blanket I'd lain over him last night.

The obtrusive, welcome dawn light brings a light to my face, abetting my culminating efforts to wake up.

I eat Arthurs eggs, as not to waste them, cracking open a bible and reading two chapters of John.

By the time I close the well worn covers, The sun is brighter, glistening off the new blanket of Massachusetts snow, painting the morning of December 17, 1773 a pure, innocent white, unbeknownst to what had happened that would soon come to be what I truly believe is the beginning of the indispensable end.

The cold causes me to shiver, and as I stand, I hear a somniloquy, my name, uttered under Arthur's breath.

He wasn't supposed to be able to tax me. It was back in 1767 I decided not to drink British tea. Three years ago he stopped the tea tax, so...I thought this was over. He pretended for three years, made it seem like he'd had a change of heart, the indecisive bastard. I was going to forgive him, last night, when I saw him. He was trying to work with the tea merchants on my shores to hide the damn tax from us, too. He was keeping things from me, again, a recurring habit.

"Why?" My voice is broken unexpectedly when I speak.

"Why are you taxing me? And trying to make me dependent on you? You ...You didn't use to be this way. I can take care of myself, and...yet you're so skeptical of letting me. I don't like it...not at all, Arthur. "

He stirs, his hand clenching something his sleeping eyes alone can see. I don't remember him doing that the last time he came. As I get up, laying my jacket on my shoulder, I reach for the door handle, but a rustling behind me halts my action.

As Alfred turns towards me, the sun is illuminating the room from behind him, reminiscent of the times he would come to see me when he was younger. A sudden, jolting throb of nostalgia clenches me, rocking me onto my feet.

"Wait! Alfred, hold on."

He shoots me a pained visage, and slowly lets go of the doorknob. "What?"

"I- I was just trying to make the tea less expensive, I swear."

"It's not legal to tax me when I'm not represented in parliament. You know that."

"But, Alfred-"

He sighs, taking his coat off his shoulder, and resting it on the coat hanger. "Arthur, It's not about the price of tea."

"What do you mean?"

"It's about speaking for what's right."

"Speaking up and dumping three hundred and forty two chests of tea into the harbour are two very different things."

"I'll pay for the tea, alright? I just don't want you to think I'm going to roll over and pretend you're not taxing me."

His eyes burned with a determined, fiery blue gaze.

"Why do you care so much about the taxes, anyhow?"

"Because...I...I'm America. I'm not your foreign lackey."

"Lacquey? For the love of God, Alfred. You make it sound like I'm some bourgeois pompous arse."

"Well..."

"Alfred!"

"Hey! You didn't use to be like this! You didn't! I know it! But now, you aren't the same! You aren't!"

My voice softens as I reach out to Alfred. Shaking his head, he looks at me with that tortured, desperately searching gaze. When I take his hand, I try to pull him closer to me, to pat his head in comfort, but he pulls back from me, eyes clenched shut, retracting his hands from mine like he did when I took that splinter out of his finger when he was four. Still, as then, a tear peeks from behind his eyelid, but he refuses to let his suffering show. "No. No, Arthur! I won't. I won't do it. I'm going to work. Stay here. I don't want to have to carry you unconscious through town again."

"Al, Al!" I call out to him as he leaves, slamming the door in my face, allowing me a glimpse of melting snow. The sun, the sun is still shining here. Always. So different than in England. The sun here is so different than anywhere else. It's reminiscent of Alfred, I think. So phony, a true banality, to say he's like sunshine, isn't it? But it's painfully true. Perhaps this is why it constantly rains in England? Indeed, sometimes I do doubt the existence of a British sun, I assume I've been wrong. In truth, the British sun isn't in Britain at all. It resides here, in these now rebellious thirteen colonies. As I walk about, I make my way upstairs out of curiosity. The stairs creak from usage, and the one door they lead to is closed, yet unlocked. I open it, no guilt in my countenance, as I step in. It appears to be serving dual service as Alfred's sleeping quarters and his study. The colour of the walls are a tan and brown, a large Alfred-sized desk littered with papers in one corner, and a undersized bed with loose, rough bedding thrown on in a slipshod manner. Tacked to the wall are clusters of pictures, drawings, and paintings that at first seem familiar, and then a strong sense of recognition bolts through me. Many are from when Alfred was very small, mainly paintings. Each one takes me back to a time when Alfred's small face lit up with a powerful euphoric expression whenever he saw me. Some of the more exact ones, drawn by other people, some I remember drawing with him, every one is there. In pristine condition, aligned in chronological order, the oldest at the bottom, most recent at the top. I reach out with my hand, stroking the pictures gently, the smell and feel of each reach far into my heart. "Alfred." I whisper, contemplating. What do I do? He's slipping, what I have always feared most, above all else. He's beginning to see my true nature,the skeletons in my closet, haunting me. And I definitely can not lose him to Antonio, or Francis, I'd die before I let that happen. He's not strong enough to be a country, all by himself. Too young, gullible, naïve, and innocent. And I can't be here all the time. And at that moment, I make my decision.

When I get home, sweat dripping on my brow, the usual stark silence and unkept blue blanket greet me, but not a certain Englishman. "Arthur?" I throw my jacket on the coat hanger, craning my neck to look for him. "Hey, Arthur?"

Silence.

"Great. Arthur, you stupid idiot," I grumble, irritation winning out over concern. "What did I tell you? I hope you're not in a ditch somewhere, those are new. "

"Excuse me, Alfred, where-"

"G- Where are you?"

"In the kitchen...why?"

I scramble to the kitchen to find him, covered in flour, trying to cook something or other.

"What's with the terrified expression?"

"Out! Out of the kitchen! Before you burn my house down!"

"You should have more faith in me! You haven't been eating French food have you?"

"No! Well, "

"Alfred."

"Mattie gave me a few pastries, but that's all..."

"Mattie?"

"Matthew. You know, Canada."

"Canada?"

"My twin brother?"

"..."

I almost laugh, but spare Mattie the despair in the end. He seriously forgot Matthew's existance?

"What are you trying to make, anyway?"

"...bread..." He mumbles, pulling out a black log looking object. It's sunken in the pan, and I laugh.

"It don't look like bread."

"I was just trying to make something for us when I teach you to shoot."

"Arthur, I already know how to-"

"Hmm?" His expression reads of potential fury, so I just nod in approval. "Yeah, sure, guns? I have one upstairs." I say, heading up the rickety stairs, which I really should fix, and grab my musket. I am one of the few in Boston with a gun. Then again, I've been in this militia longer than everyone else as well. The American manufactured guns aren't very standardized, and are made of mainly European parts, but it'll get better. "Brown Bess'll work, right?"

"Yes, I reckon. But what'll we eat?"

"Let's see what we catch, and then we'll know."

"I suppose." Arthur mumbled, scrutinizing the musket that he's taken into his hands. His mind seems elsewhere, preoccupied with a desperate hope I can't comprehend. I fasten my loose, coarse wool hunting shirt over my vest with a thick leather belt, my coat abandoned on the back of a chair at my table. A likewise rough leather hat completes my distinctively American getup, my worn, dirty stockings in stark contrast to Arthur's pristine white ones, with a collaborating cleanliness to the rest of him and his garments. His coat's light blue colors are accented with golden colored thread work, summing up the fine quality of clothing the British retain still in their debt after the Seven Years War. I take my powder horn, the strap diagonal across my chest, allowing the horn to rest at my side. Arthur returns my brown bess to me, and follows me out of the house. The glares shot his way are harsh, burning and hostile. New England is not a safe nor comfortable residence for a British soldier, and hasn't been since March fifth, three years ago. I remember that day. It had started when I threw a snowball, (Ok, maybe a rock) at him, and had escalated until he hit me. Eleven people were shot that day. Five died. I shake my head, turning to reassure that Arthur was still behind me. Try as I might to avoid them, my head is plunged in deep, heavy swirling thoughts all the same.

Once we reach the threshold of the forest, Alfred enters without fear, silently stepping through the brush. The snapping of twigs underfoot are testament to the lack of experience I have acquired by only marching the wide, organized streets of Europe.

He leads me farther and farther into the winter foliage, and I try to keep pace with him, forever afraid of letting him out of my sight. I can not help but reminisce. He used to cling to my legs, begging me to stay when he was a small lad. Was it really so long ago? I wasn't afraid of letting him go, for I always knew he would return to my arms. Looking at him now, as he turns to wait for me, I selfishly yearn for those days when that feeling between us was mutual, a co-dependence that soothed and consoled me in those days gone by.

I see now, Alfred is truly the quintessential soldier, resisting the attrition of arduous work as I stumble behind him, sweat ornating my brow.

"Alfred...hold on..."

Alfred stops, letting me lean against a tree as I catch my breath. I breathe heavily, panting to fill my lungs with renewed chilled Boston air. My warm breath drifts on a current in a matter not unlike fog or puffs of train smoke. With a heavy sigh, Alfred walks over to me, rubbing the back of his head. "You okay? You look a little blue."

I nod. "Is this far enough, Al?"

"You're the teacher, aren't you?"

"Yes, I suppose. " I search around, before I discover a patch of clear snow, and ducking, narrowly avoiding a speeding snowball. "Alfred!" I turn, to see Alfred's blue eyes twinkling with a childish exuberance.

I grin, before crouching down and packing snow into a small ball that fits in the hollow of my hand. I bring my arm back to launch it into the air, before a solid impact of ice slams into my face, reeling me backwards.

"Crap." I bite my lip, walking over towards the Brit, supine in the pristine snow. "Hey...Arthur...? Are you alright?"

A hoarse chuckling emits from him after a second, following with his standing, and rubbing a fistful of snow in my face. "You git!"

"I didn't think I was actually going to hit you in the face!"

Arthur growls, before a eerie smirk makes its way onto his visage.

"What's that look for? Arthur..?"

"Alfred..."

"What?"

"Bloody Ankle-biter, I'll get you back for that one!"

"Oh, really? No way, I'm a way better shot than you."

"You want to test that theory out?"

I laugh, uncapping my powder horn, and loading my brown bess. "Oldest first."

Arthur's cocky grin as he grabs my musket makes me arch an eyebrow in question.

He notes his target, a large knot in a tree, white from a snowball I threw. He kneels, taking aim, and missing, lead ball disappearing into an abyss of white and brown. I grin, loading my musket when he hands it back to me, and taking a strong stance.

Before I pull the trigger, I feel a hand on my shoulder. "Alfred, open your left eye."

"Huh?"

"Keep both your eyes open."

"Uh, yeah." I mumble, opening my eyes wide, and compensating for the usual inaccuracy of the firearm. I breathe out as I pull the trigger, the gun an extension of my body, the lead ball imbedding itself in the knot of wood.

"When did you learn to shoot like that, Alfred?" He looks concerned. Why? Almost scared, I think.

"I come out here and shoot in my free time, with the..."

"The what?"

"Nothing."

"The what, Alfred?"

My voice drops to a incomprehensible murmur. "The army..."

Arthur goes silent, his bright green eyes downcast, darkening in an expression of shame and grief I can't understand. I look the opposite direction as he does, the darkening sky telling me to return home. "It's getting dark."

I wasn't aware of such a force until now. I certainly didn't expect Alfred to be a part of it. Though, it does make an awful, terrible lot of sense. It chills me, more then the darkening night sky and the flakes of snow floating down to land on my head and shoulders. The entire slow, melodic walk through the forest is silent, save for the sound of beasts roaming the darkening wild. A howling of wolves echoes, this time of limbo between day and dark, this smoky dusk, is their time, as they roam this frozen American woods.

By the time I follow Alfred into his house, all is sleeping and dark. He prepares a small dinner for me, leaving for the sanctuary of his room wordlessly. I feign a sleep, waiting till the moon is high and wide and fat, and seems ever so close, to quietly stand. A creak of the stairs as I ascend makes me halt, before I proceed once more. The darkness filling Alfred's room hides his face from me, but I can feel his innumerable heat radiating from him in the December chill. The closeness to him now mocks me, irony sapping at the true distance, the far away awkwardness now. Even as I reach out to touch his hair, the gap, filled with a frightening frigid nothingness, scares me, freezing my whole self. My green eyes droop with a longing and sadness, as I bend over, brushing Alfred's hair off his forehead, and kissing my baby brother's hair line one last time. As I walk out, a harrowing emptiness begs for my tears, and I wait. I wait until now, as I stand on the cobblestone streets of Boston, to weep.