Disclaimer: I do not own the Clique
Do you remember how much you used to like the way your mother tucked you in bed at night? The feeling that you were safe, secure and loved? Well, for people like me, those memories exist only in the pages of a fairytale tucked very far away. Instead of getting tucked in by a loving parent, my covers were tightened by Harris.
When I was a young kid my mother had a complete mental breakdown brought on from severe postpartum depression that eventually landed her in a hospital, and soon in the convertible of a guy named Enrique into the desert of Nevada. My father soon cracked under the stress of raising two boys on his own and he turned to self-medication in an amber bottle. He was hurting terribly from being abandoned by his wife and wasn't mentally stable enough to deal with it.
My father was looking for love in all the wrong places. Instead of crawling into bed with the woman who had completed him, he soon found solace in a slew of young lovers. While our father was busy getting himself drunk as a mule and horny as a rhino, Harris took on the responsibility of caring for me. He was forced to become a father at the age of eleven. I can remember all too well many nights when Harris would make me a bowl of cereal or a Poptart for dinner because our father was off pursuing a new woman. Or he'd draw me a bath and help me put on my pajamas without hitting any sore spots.
I cannot exactly pinpoint the exact moment when my father turned belligerent, I think I was eight and Harris had just turned twelve. All I know is Harris and I got thrown around quite a lot, especially him. I only possessed half of the recessive gene that could only have come from my mother's once lovely gaze while Harris was the true emerald. Sure, not everything turned physical, we mainly suffered taunts and threats, but sometimes when you live in a testosterone-soaked war zone, some shit is bound to occur. Even if I had carried the green-eyed trait through and through, I wouldn't have caught the brunt of it. Harris always had a way of protecting me the best he could, even if that only meant I took one less blow.
If I had been left only to answer to my older brother everything would have been fine. But unfortunately, I did go out into the public eye, and some grew concerned as my bruises grew larger and more frequent. Teachers, school nurses, counselors, it seemed everybody descended on me at once to get the true story of the Fisher household out of me. I would never tell them anything though. Harris had always told me never to tell them what happened behind closed doors. He was the closest thing I had to a positive authoritative figure, and there was absolutely no way I was ever going to betray him. If keeping my past a secret was going to keep Harris, then I would remain an enigma.
Despite me remaining loyal to Harris, administrators grew more and more suspicious. Several times in that first year after our father discovered his strength I would meet my brother in the principal's office where we'd be interrogated. Harris continued to warn me to not spill a single bean. He told me that if they had absolutely any evidence, Child Services would come and split us up. Even at nine years old I understood the concept of never seeing my brother again, a fate I just couldn't bare.
I remember one particular night when I found my father on the couch. I was almost startled because it had become such a rarity that he would be home, not to mention without the company of some strange woman or passed out with a bottle in his hand. I cautiously walked in, afraid that if I made a single flawed move I would set off a nuclear bomb worthy of World War III. He asked if I had had any dinner. Weird huh? Well, the fact of it was Harris had already made me some toast and Smuckers so I said I had. My father laughed. Not just a titter either, a full on belly laugh. It was so hearty, a laugh that I hadn't heard in months; years even, so I began to laugh too. Then Harris came into the room, and everything turned sour.
Harris was thirteen. A teenager. Practically grown up. While I could be bought by a single good-natured laugh and almost forgive my scars of two years, Harris could not. He was older, more mature. He just glared. Our father then posed the same question to Harris that he had posed to me. Harris, unlike me, was not ready for a simple yes or no answer. He commented that in fact he had- a single piece of dry toast from his labored hands. Apparently I had gotten the last of the strawberry jelly, and this was not the first time something of that nature had happened. My father tried to say he was sorry he hadn't been home early enough to feed us that night, totally disregarding any memory of the past 23 months of hell.
Harris was not prepared to let him just forget. This was the first time that either of us children had confronted our father to any extent. Usually we had wordless smack downs, but not tonight. And suddenly the harsh look on my older brother's face made me cringe. Harris told our father very blatantly that he and I had been left to fend for ourselves for a very long time. At first our father was playing the nice guy, all apologetic and understanding. But soon, he started growing agitated that a thirteen-year-old kid was tearing him a new one. He made promises that things would be better, but his tone grew tired. Harris wasn't ready to let the matter drop, and I understand why.
Soon the tone in our father's voice grew more then tired, it grew angry. He told Harris that he should let the matter drop, everything was over.
"OVER?" Harris' face grew redder and redder. By habit I hid behind him. "LIKE HOW IT'S OVER BETWEEN YOU AND MOM?" Our father was taken aback by this, and was stunned in his place for a second or two, giving Harris more time to retaliate.
"WHY DON'T YOU GO OUT WITH ONE OF YOUR WHORES LIKE EVERY OTHER NIGHT?" he screamed; I could see the tears forming in his eyes, but he would never let them fall. That's one thing I always knew about my brother, no matter how many punches he had to roll with, no matter how much he had been hurt, he would never let you see the result. In my nine years of knowing him I had only seen him cry twice, both times he didn't know I was watching.
The second those last words left Harris' lips, our father got this dark, murky look on his face. I knew that snarky look all too well; it was the face that had greeted me many nights, which usually resulted in another trip to the nurse or administrator's office. Our father flew across the room and started punching Harris with such ferocity that I lost any self-restraint. I couldn't bear to see my protector, my world being so manhandled that I leapt out of nowhere on his back and started choking him. That was the first time I ever physically responded to my father or tried to help the only living sole that had always helped me. And for one split second I felt great.
Of course, being only nine, this only distracted him for a second, only to get me off of his back, like he was swatting at a fly or mosquito on a balmy summer night. Harris was able to duck away, but not for long. Soon he had to throw himself back into the line of fire to get me to safety. Before our father could land the whack he was powering up on me, Harris had grabbed my arm and locked us in our bedroom, our fortress where we always seemed to retreat to. Our father pounded on the door and roared for at least twenty minutes before he lost interest or strength, I'm not quite sure which.
"Cam." Harris looked at me seriously, and I could see the dent on his cheek where he had just been struck "don't ever do that again." I blinked, but didn't say a word, extremely attentive to anything he had to say.
"W...what?" I sputtered when his green eyes continued to look at me to make sure I was paying complete attention.
"Don't provoke him. It'll only make things worse." He wasn't scolding me, but he was so serious that I had to take note. I half wanted to point out that he had started yelling first, but I voted against that. He had just lost his temper, as anyone would. I lowered my eyes and twiddled my thumbs.
"Sorry..." I whispered as I continued to look at my hands.
"Don't be sorry, just listen to what I tell you." I had already known this little tidbit was crucial to my survival so I only shook my head affirmatively. He sighed then led me by the shoulder into my bed, reminding me that we had school the next day. Funny enough, it wasn't the events of that night or anything related that didn't make me want to close my eyes.
"Harris?" I looked up at him as he changed his T-shirt before sitting on the bed adjacent to mine.
"Yeah?"
"Did you really give me the last of the Smuckers?"
He took a second to absorb the simplicity of this question before responding 'yeah.'
I smiled a little bit to myself. "Thanks."