Author's note; This piece was 75% done when "Princess" was posted. It was originally meant to be a quick bridge from chapter 1 to chapter 3, told from Maddie's point of view to answer a lot of things that Steve doesn't know yet. As I started finishing it I began to tinker. Here is the result of my tinkering. I hope you enjoy this........SH
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Princess: Interlude
As I drive down the road on this fine December morning, in the second hour of a ten hour trip I reflect on the changes to my life since last summer. I also have plenty of time to analyze the recurring dream that woke me this morning, and the past several mornings. It haunts me because my mother and grandmother claim we Murphy women have prophetic dreams.
The psychology class I had originally wanted to take had filled up within minutes on registration day. Many Psych majors were going to have to postpone their graduation for another semester. The Dean of Science therefore decided to offer a special summer course for those affected students. A course of seven hour classes, five days a week for six weeks figured to get us all the credit we needed to graduate on time. I was actually trying to graduate early and this kept me on that track.
During one class, we had a discussion on family dynamics and sibling rivalry, leading to a discussion of my family and our treatment of my younger brother Steve. I talked about how my parents loved me so much, and bought me whatever I wanted and Steve was pretty much taking up space. During this particular discussion there was a scuffle off to one side of the room. I looked over to see several guys forcing a football player out of the room. I wondered what had gotten them all worked up, but figured it didn't have anything to do with me so I paid no more attention to it.
The next day my professor asked to talk to me after class. When I got to her office, she was there with the football player from yesterday.
"Ms. Sheppard, please have a seat. This young man is Byron Childress. He is graduating as a junior and has been drafted into the NFL." Byron wouldn't look at me. He just sat there wringing his hands and staring at the floor. "Mr. Childress has a few things he would like to say to you, he had to take a day to calm down, and now feels he can speak evenly and not get emotional. Mr. Childress?"
He sat there for the longest time. He seemed to carry a weight greater than any he carried on the football field. When he finally spoke, his tone was low, soft and pleasant. "I envy you Ms. Sheppard. Not for your money. Not for your upbringing. Not for your material things that your daddy buys you." I felt slightly offended at that but wasn't going to show it.
"I am originally from a neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles. Believe me, most of the stories you hear about South Central are true. And you don't hear half of the things that happen. Most Los Angelinos don't hear of them, so don't take that as an affront. My momma gave birth to two boys, myself and my younger brother Clarence. She also had three daughters, Clarice, who's older than me and has three boys of her own, and Shantell and Mari."
"Moms worked three jobs, seven days a week to keep food on our table. She made us read the bible and no matter what, family disputes were settled before they were an hour old, or she'd know why. Clarice was always in charge. If one of us younger kids got into trouble, moms came down on her for not keepin' tabs on us. I'd rather slit my own throat than disappoint my momma or Clarice. When Clarice got pregnant and moved to her own place, I became the one in charge. It didn't make no difference if I had football or schoolwork or what, I had to care for the younger kids while moms worked."
"One Friday night while I was playing in a football game, Clarence went out and got mixed up with some gang members. He and several of his friends stopped these guys from messing with Shantell and her friend Juana. The next evening Clarence and his friends were gunned down as they walked to the church for bible study." He shook and tears were rolling down his face. "You don't know what it's like to face your momma, to tell her that you fucked up and allowed her child to die. If I could, I would trade places with Clarence in a heartbeat!" He looked up and locked me in his gaze, "You can't say that. You won't trade your Mercedes down a class to help your brother. Us older brothers and sister have to look out for our younger siblings damn it! Who else they got? Who else?"
I haven't lost Stevie yet, and damn it I'm not going to. I realized just how badly my brother has been treated by me and my parents. While my parents were never abusive to Steve, they barely acknowledged his existence. Most times it was like we were a family of three with a tag-along.
My dad would hand me money for just about anything I wanted. Steve borrowed $120 from him once when he was 12. He went and bought a used lawn mower and Weed eater from a small engine repair shop, along with a couple of gas cans and some gas. He left every morning as the sun was coming up and came home just after sundown, and at the end of two weeks gave dad $150. He kept mowing lawns every day until fall and winter hit. Then he bought a rake and snow shovel and continued to make money that way.
When Steve was 13 he had some kind of flu that left him so weak he couldn't even leave is bed to use the bathroom. Neither mom nor dad would do anything to help him. He lay in his bed for five days straight. My father chastised him for peeing in his bed, and started calling him a bed wetter, even in front of other people. The only person who got him through it was Wendy from across the street. She would bring him soup and help him clean up and nursed him back to health. He loved her. I truly believe that if she hadn't been killed with her older brother on seven lakes road one winter night, four years ago, that Stevie and Wendy would be together still. They would have taken each other's virginity. He took her death very hard. Luckily he had some friends to help him through it.
One Christmas my dad's only sister, Aunt Karen asked my dad to allow her and my uncle to take Stevie to live with them. My dad refused and even quit speaking to her for a period of time. That was about the time that Stevie ceased interacting with the family.
When I described my brother as an annoying little jerk off, I was asked to give details as to why I felt that way. I couldn't give one, that wasn't dismissed as normal teenage behavior.
My professor asked me to meet her after class. "I have some big concerns about your brother's mental health." She told me. "The emotional isolation he's been subjected to can cause many issues. Does he have any self destructive habits? Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, anything like that?"
I didn't feel he drank any more, or less than any other teen I knew, but I shivered when I thought of his car that he never seemed to feel was fast enough.
After a few days of classroom discussions I decided I was going to make things right with my brother. One girl talked about her brother beating up a guy who hit her, well my brother is smaller than I am but it would be nice to feel that kind of love from him.
When I got home a week before the Fourth of July I tried to talk to him. He had become quite adept at avoiding me, and there were many places he could go that I didn't know about. I thought about all the times I harassed him to be more like me in school and to try harder to be like me and I understood why he avoided me so.
