Brothers
The older kid keeps hitting Kenny, over and over again, demanding that he say something. But Kenny doesn't speak. He never speaks. He is doubled over in pain and crying. He spits blood onto the sidewalk and receives another blow to the stomach.
"Come on and say something, you fucking retard!" The older kid says.
You can't take anymore. You swing your leg backwards and connect with the soft spot between his legs. Immediately he lets you go and drops to the ground clutching his crotch.
You pick a rock up from the ground and walk up behind the older kid as he prepares another punch to your brother's gut. With all the force you can manage, you bring the rock down on the back of his head. He goes stiff for a moment and falls to the ground like some old Warner Brothers cartoon. A patch of darkness wets his hair, and he lies very still.
Kenny is crying and you hold him and shush him and do your best to comfort him. The other kid runs away and you walk home with Kenny.
Two days later the older kid that you hit in the head with the stone dies. He'd been in a coma ever since you struck him.
You killed someone. First you allow your little brother to be abducted by a child molester, and now you've killed someone. You are a walking catastrophe unfit to live.
You hate yourself. You briefly consider suicide, but realize that killing yourself would be too easy. You should suffer.
You start drinking from your fathers beer stash more readily now, and smoke pot with some of your acquaintances at school. You do anything you can to escape for a little while, to step back from the harshness of reality.
A few more years go by and you are in high school, fifteen years of age. As you walk home from school you notice an old man being mugged by some kid a little older than yourself. The kid is beating repeatedly on the elderly man and demanding money.
"Come on and say something, you fucking retard!" The older kid says.
You can't take anymore. You swing your leg backwards and connect with the soft spot between his legs. Immediately he lets you go and drops to the ground clutching his crotch.
You pick a rock up from the ground and walk up behind the older kid as he prepares another punch to your brother's gut. With all the force you can manage, you bring the rock down on the back of his head. He goes stiff for a moment and falls to the ground like some old Warner Brothers cartoon. A patch of darkness wets his hair, and he lies very still.
Kenny is crying and you hold him and shush him and do your best to comfort him. The other kid runs away and you walk home with Kenny.
Two days later the older kid that you hit in the head with the stone dies. He'd been in a coma ever since you struck him.
You killed someone. First you allow your little brother to be abducted by a child molester, and now you've killed someone. You are a walking catastrophe unfit to live.
You hate yourself. You briefly consider suicide, but realize that killing yourself would be too easy. You should suffer.
You start drinking from your fathers beer stash more readily now, and smoke pot with some of your acquaintances at school. You do anything you can to escape for a little while, to step back from the harshness of reality.
A few more years go by and you are in high school, fifteen years of age. As you walk home from school you notice an old man being mugged by some kid a little older than yourself. The kid is beating repeatedly on the elderly man and demanding money.