100 Years of Solitude
Scene 2
When I saw him lying on the ground, surrounded by socs, the adrenalin that I received before big fights and football games went into overdrive. This was my brother. A fourteen-year old kid who had lost his parents and was struggling just to keep moving on. And they had to choose him to be their entertainment.
Dally, Two-bit, Johnny, Steve, and I ran after them, throwing rocks at their disgustingly expensive daddy-paid-for car. I hoped with all my being that they would wreck and be strangled in their seatbelts and leather jackets. At that moment it didn't even matter that my own parents had died in a car accident. I hoped they died. I really did.
The gang and I retraced our steps and rounded the corner where my two younger brothers sat talking in strained silence. Pony smiled at something Soda said and I wanted to smile too. Soda could make fun in the worst situations.
"You okay?" I asked, or something along those lines, hating how gruff and uncaring they came out. Pony's eyes clouded over, trying to keep me out of his head, and he nodded. I knew it was a lie. I also knew he would never admit to me that he was hurt.
Since our parents death our relationship had changed drastically. He hadn't changed and I hadn't changed, but out positions had switched. I hated it. I hated not being able to be his brother anymore. Of course I didn't show it then. Instead I went on about how he needed to think. How he was never thinking. And yes, partly this was true, but partly it was my frustration at not being able to stop the beating before it happened. I had failed him, it seemed. What kind of brother was I?
Soda stuck up for him like always, and I once again felt like the odd man out. I was forced into this situation of being the guardian and that made me the bad guy. I didn't want to be the bad guy. I just wanted to be twenty. That was it.
I hadn't realized how far away from brothers Pony and I had gotten to be over the past few weeks that had turned to months. I wondered how Dad had always seemed to cool and in control. Pony never looked at him like he did at me. With a mixture of resentment and fear. Had I done the right thing?
I realized then, perhaps for the first time, while watching my brother hold a handkerchief to his bleeding head, that parenting was nothing like football.