Post by bj4life on Jan 10, 2013 18:01:32 GMT -6
To feel the cold biting bitterly at my exposed skin made me feel weak to the bone. It didn’t help any that my younger brother, Dre, was breathing on my neck, unconscious, and his blood seeping through the handmade bandage onto my back.
“Hang in there lil’ bro’… we’ll get yah help soon. Yah hear?”
I told him for the millionth time that day. Oh why hadn’t he listened to me when I told him to go back home? Foolish and stubborn little brother always wants to be with his older even more foolish and stubborn sister. And yet I love him to death, the little brat. It was freezing and I think I felt a drop of rain fall onto my neck. I was really hoping it was Dre’s disgusting drool.
I was wishing I were home at that very moment. In my warm comfortable bed, listening to the shouts and screams of my younger siblings, and the loud commotions of arguments with my older siblings and parents, I would much rather be there than here. Why’d I run? I loved my family and all those who surrounded me. Yes, they irritated me sometimes. Shoot, who am I fooling? They irritated me all the time. And yet that was family and I love them. But I couldn’t stay. I had to run. They had threatened to hurt my family and me. I couldn’t let them do it. I just couldn’t. At the age of seven I watched hatred of race take place before my very eyes as my older brother, Kevin, get beaten to near death. And afterwards was again beaten, but to death. It was the most terrifying experience of my life. Kevin died for looking at an attractive white woman and the white men didn’t like that. Ma, Pa and the rest of the family were devastated but the trauma didn’t have as much effect on them as it did to me. I would go to sleep and dream about the horrific event and I would hear Kevin screaming to me “Ahhh!!! Maddy please help me!!!” And all I would do, all I could do, was just stand there and watch him die over… and over… and over again.
I didn’t want to suffer the same fate that Kevin had and die. I definitely didn’t want to see my family get hurt either. So I ran home packed a few essentials and left. I left everything I loved in New York because I thought I was protecting them. I was replaying what the white man at the store was saying in my mind. It was the words that kept motivating me to leave and keep moving forward.
/*- “If yah don’t pay that extra dollar, you lil’ nigger girl, we gonna beat it out of yah so hard that your family will feel the pain. And then we’ll go to yuh nigger family and make sure they feel the pain. HAHAH!! Yah got that lil nigger girl?!?!”
So I had no choice but to leave. I knew I couldn’t afford what I wanted and neither could my parents. So there were no other options. I had to leave. I left not knowing what lied before me. I left not knowing how a twelve-year-old girl was going to survive on her own. I left not knowing that an ignorant eight year old had been following me all the way to the outskirts of New York. When I realized that he had followed me I begged Dre to return home, but he refused constantly and kept saying that he would miss me too much. Man, this kid was annoying and stubborn but the fact that he said that he would miss me too much made me forget all of that and make me love him more. He was such a kiss-up and I’m falling for it. Plus I realized he wouldn’t make it back home on his own to that retched place of unfairness. So I figured that he would be safe with me. Unfortunately, I was to find out real soon that I was dead wrong.
The sun’s setting was always my favorite part of the day. The sky is always so pretty and the clouds are floating around the sun like flies around light. And of course Dre had to be the annoying little brother that he is and get directly in my view. Now that I thought about it and looked at Dre, I realized one of two things must be true. Either I was really short for a twelve year old, or Dre was really tall for an eight year old. He stood tall and excited as the idea of traveling with me coursed through his blood. I was about to stand by him and see how much taller he was to me, when suddenly I heard voices come up from behind us. I knew that Dre had heard them to because his body tensed and swiftly turned around. Strolling up the road were two white men, one was extremely muscular but kind of short. The other man was semi thin with sandy brown hair and pale blue eyes. They both stopped. They looked at us, and then looked at each other, then two pairs of eager eyes were locked onto me. They looked at me as if I were prey. After that everything happened so quickly. Dre ordered me to run in a strong commanding voice, but I can still sense that he was scared. Strangely enough though, I immediately obeyed. The men chased us into the woods. They nearly caught us if it wasn’t for what had happened next. As the men were drawing nearer to us, Dre unexpectedly stopped, turned on his heel and swung a knife right into the chest of the muscular short man. The other man hesitated for a moment as he watched his comrade fall to the ground dead, and then struck Dre in the face. He fell with a hard thud. Dre didn’t move. The man began to advance towards me. I cried as loud as I could for help as the man grabbed my arms and began to try and pull of my clothes. I saw all the hate and evil in his eyes as he found pleasure in causing me pain and putting fear into my heart. Then all of a sudden, the cold pale blue eyes rolled back and the man released me as he hurdled to the ground. And there, standing behind him, was Dre with a huge branch in his hands.
“Maddison…” Dre said weakly. Then he fell unconscious and scraped his stomach on the same branch as he fell to the ground as well.
Immediately I knew I had to get him back home to receive some medical aid. So I ripped some cloth from my clothes so I could use them as bandages for Dre’s wounds to his head and stomach. Then I carefully put him on my back and began to walk back into the city of New York to return home. Turns out that Dre wasn’t as heavy as he looked. I was so stupid, what I had done? And what’s worst is that I endangered the life of my eight-year-old little brother! How could I have done that? I can never forgive myself for what had happened to him and the innocence he gave up trying to protect me.
“Hang in there lil’ bro’… we’ll get yah help soon. Yah hear?” I told him that for the millionth and first time that day as the rain begun to drizzle on us. d**n… all I wanted was to buy an orange.