There is only one thing that I regret on the daily about myself and the selfish years I spent away from my family. I regret leaving my little brother behind. I regret that he was the collateral damage in my war against my parents, but more specifically my dad. He didn’t deserve that from me because all he has ever given me from the day that he was born was his love and his trust.
He and I had one of those large splits (9+ years) which comes almost part and parcel with the modern Black family. His biological father was Mr.PENN, and if you were to ask me about my father, DALLAS, I wouldn’t have been able to describe him. Mr.PENN was the only dad that I ever knew. DALLAS had been a computer engineer when he and my mom were married. Back when computers had fuse bulbs and were the size of living rooms. He worked for Columbia University and the perks there included a plush apartment on Riverside Drive. My mom always tells me about the maids’ room. That was all before the alcohol and that white bitch heroin became his new fidelity.
Crestfallen and abused my mom returned to the safety of Queens. To her mother’s mother’s house in the quiet neighborhood called Corona. She returned to college after having left Howard University to elope with DALLAS. She worked during the day. She attended night classes at New York University. That is where she met Mr.PENN. I know this story because mom still has the mind to recall it. As far as I knew when I was a kid there was only Mr.PENN.
KITO which is Ibo for precious jewel was born on a cold March Friday in 1979. He was a handful of trouble for someone who had become accustomed to being alone. KITO and I had to share a bedroom because my dad’s younger brother lived with us too after their dad had passed away in Petersburg, VA. KITO was always into my shit like my AFX collection, my baseball cards and my most prized possessions, which were my comic books.
My mom told me that he liked to mess with that stuff because he saw the attention that I poured into my hobbies. Try telling an eleven year old that he has to let his kid brother ‘read’ his comic books. I mean he couldn’t even read and he drooled on my books. Nonetheless, my dad would make me share with my brother. His lesson to me was to watch how he took care of his own brother because one day he and my mom would be gone and there would only be KITO and I left remaining. So I begrudgingly shared my time and my toys. To tell you the truth it really wasn’t all bad having a kid brother. He was my Saturday morning cartoon remote control. He knew how to mix a can of soda with a cup of Kool-Aid. He was my personal umbrella holder.
My dad never stopped drilling the idea into my head that I had to look out for my brother. And I did as much when ever we were outside in the neighborhood. I was years older than all of his peers and I was one of the popular kids in our enclave so he was protected and secure. That was until I became a teenager. Whatever hormone that clicked inside of my brain that told me that I no longer needed to heed my parents’ advice doomed my relationship with my brother. I argued and fought with my parents often and poor KITO would be in his room under the covers crying. What else would you do if you were six years old and the people that you depended upon for guidance and support were at each others’ throats.
My problem was that I was still so selfish. Nothing mattered to me, but me. I wasn’t mature enough to understand that my fractured relationship with my parents put my brother in no man’s land. He loved my parents dearly, but I was his idol. This has to be similiar to the emotional ravine that children of divorce face. My behavior in their house and my illicit conduct outside of it left my parents little choice but to expel me, even though it was before my eighteenth birthday. I can remember the tears in my brother’s eyes when I packed up a duffle bag and an oversized black garbage bag. I don’t think he thought he would see me again.
I knew that wasn’t the case at all, but I was so stupid and reckless and I was determined to prove a point to my parents. I thought that my brother would be taken care of since my dudes that I came up with were still close by. VICEBERG was one of my oldest friends and his mother was my baby brother’s GODmother. S.W. was another dude that I had trusted with my life on many, many occasions. I thought that I could trust him with my brother as well. My ego was naive and self-centered so instead of leaving my brother with friends I had unwittingly left him with the wolves. They devoured his heart and his mind and left him without hope in utter despair. There will be some stories that I relate to you in this forum that are for adult eyes and ears only. You will learn about my wanton depravity, my failures and my almost execution. These unadulterated stories are not for children and by relating these events to a child you create an emotional void that is almost impossible to fill.
I can’t blame those boys for filling my brothers head with my nonsense. It was my job to be my brother’s keeper and I failed miserably. My brother went to the other side of the neighborhood just as I did. When I fell into the throes of cocaine and methamphetamine abuse my kid brother was being turned on to chronic by one of the dudes I previously mentioned. All the while being told that I was doing the same thing that he was. I realize now that was my fault, and my fault alone.
My brother’s arrest for assault and robbery is because of me. My brother’s failure to complete high school is my doing. His jail sentence can be traced to the night that I left my parents’ home. On these pages you will come to see how my immature foolish ego has caused me to lose everything that I ever cared about. However, all is not lost yet. Although Mr.PENN has joined the great GOD in the sky the old Earth still remains. As does the precious jewel.
GOD please help me to reclaim my precious jewel.
