CHAPTER ONE
The smell of diesel and the twisty roads in Colorado make me puke on the bus twice. The first time I felt it coming up my throat, I grabbed a big plastic bag to puke in. The second time I had to puke on the floor. I’m having a hard time keeping my feet out of the mess. I’m all scrunched up with my legs curled to the side. To make things worse, my little brother Michael has stretched out and fallen asleep with his head on my thigh. This may not sound bad, but Michael has a big head for a six-year-old. Mom always says that if he ever grows into his head, he'll be bigger than my dad. That’s how big his head is. Anyway, Gabby, my little sister is asleep in the seat next to the window with her thumb in her mouth and like usual, mom and dad are across the aisle looking like they need a hit of something.
I’ve been sitting in this weird position with Michael’s head on my lap for almost two hours when my leg begins to feel dead. I mean no feeling at all, except that tingling thing that happens. Tingles are running up and down my whole leg, so I try to shift Michael’s head to see if I can get my leg to wake up. He won’t budge so I grab a handful of his hair and yank his head up. I guess I yanked harder than I should have because he woke up screaming and fighting. I drop his head and his chin lands between my legs and smashes my left nut. So, OK – that hurts, and I screech. The next thing I know, my dad’s out of his seat and smacking me across the face. Michael’s wailing like he has been run over by a car and Dad’s giving me the evil eye, which means we both better shut up or there will be another blast to my face. I wrap my arm around Michael’s big head and cover his mouth with my hand. “It’s OK,” I whisper and brush Michael’s curly hair out of his eyes. He isn’t really hurt. He’s afraid of Dad so I figure if I talk to him, he’ll stop crying and neither of us will get smacked again.
“Tyler,” Michael whines again. “Tell me about when Dad was nice, and we lived in the brown house.”
“OK, but you have to shut up if I do.” I don’t want to talk about the brown house; not just because the story I tell Michael is all lies that I made up, so we don’t have to relive our real life in the brown house. Every time I tell Michael about the brown house, my mind takes me back inside that disgusting place, and it was never the happy home Michael thinks it was. I know I should tell Michael that the brown house was a nightmare, especially for him; tell him there were no stars on the ceiling, no SpongeBob decorations, no animals on the wall, and no spinning mobiles.
The brown house moves in and out of my subconsciousness and I know I won’t get it out of my head until my brain is through with its head trip. It has taken me to the tiny bedroom that baby Michael and I shared in that piece of shit-brown house. I smell his diapers and see his bottles caked with brown scum and chunky milk scattered on the floor. I’m amazed by how young we are in this flashback, especially Michael. He can’t walk, crawl or talk. I watch him roll around on the mattress smiling, holding his toes, and bubbling spit. He sees me and reaches both of his hands up to me, and I take them. I pull him up so he’s sitting. He puts his hands on my face and pats me. I bite at his fingers, and he pulls them back into his chubby little belly. I bite at him, and he rolls on his back, laughing and kicking at me. When I pull him up again, I see him puff up and know he’s getting ready to cry. I can feel my stomach tighten into a ball as I try to pick him up before he starts his wailing, and my dad can hear him. I see the hungry look on Michael’s face and know he will explode soon, which will bring my dad. I see the scream on Michael’s face before I hear it. I see myself put my hand over his mouth, but it does nothing to stop his wailing. I hear my dad coming down the hall. My mind has taken me above the bed. I’m looking for a place to hide my baby brother, but the only thing in the room is a piss-stained mattress and dirty bottles.
I feel terror when the door opens, and my dad comes after Michael. I close my eyes, but it’s a head trip so my eyes won’t close, and the vision won’t go away. I have no choice but to watch my dad grab Michael and carry him upside down to the stairs. Every time he goes down a step, he pushes his knee into Michael’s back. Michael swings forward and slams back into my dad’s knee. I pinch myself to try and stop the head trip, but it doesn’t go away. Instead, I watch myself follow my dad and my baby brother down the old rotten stairs to the basement. My mind pulls me above the playpen my father set up for Michael’s punishment. I feel a sense of relief when my dad drops my baby brother. I take a deep breath. My dad didn’t bash Michael’s head on the stairs like he sometimes does, and he didn’t throw him down like he usually does when he’s mad. I’m looking down at my dad and my brother from above, and don’t come down until my dad leaves the room.
I can feel myself picking up my brother. His mouth is open all the way and he’s screaming. He hits his red face with his tiny, little hands. He kicks and pushes both of his feet into my stomach at the same time. I rub his face and whisper in his ear. I tell him that he’s alive and dad is gone, but he keeps crying. I know we will have to stay down here until he stops screaming or my dad comes back to inflict real pain. Michael’s a baby so I can’t tell him that all he has to do is shut up so we can both leave the basement. All he has to do is just shut up. He doesn’t know the game yet, so he keeps crying and kicking and I keep holding him.
My mind flashes to the stairs where my mother is sneaking down, not as Mom but as my Superhero, my partner against crime and criminals like my dad. When Michael was a baby, she was willing to take on the powers of evil who threaten her children. She didn’t have super strength or superpowers or even laser eyes, but she had burning words. She used these nasty little words to jab, jab, jab at her opponent and was never afraid to use those nasty words to protect her boys.
When she gets to the bottom of the stairs, I see she has a bottle in her hand and puts it in Michael’s mouth before she takes him from my arms. She cradles him into her chest. I watch her eyes when she feeds my baby brother, and I can see the love she has for him. She whispers “thank you” to me and takes my hand and I can feel her love. When I was eight, I think I truly did believe my mom was a superhero, righting the wrongs of my dad, stashing food in the basement to use as a weapon against Michael’s hunger, and literally stepping between me and my dad when he was coming after me with a belt or a spatula. She’d poke at him with her nasty words and divert his attention. If he kept coming at me, she’d jab harder. Sometimes she’d take the belt for me, but that’s what superheroes do for their children. Yep, that was the mom, the superhero, I remember as an eight-year-old.
“You had stars in your room, right, Tyler?” Michael’s voice yanks me back to the bus. “Sure, Michael.” I shake my head, trying to get the brown house out of it.
“And I had a special room, too?” Michael continues, retelling the lies I have fed him.
“Yeah, you had a zoo room.”
“I had animals on my wall and a bear thing that made music and turned around and around.” Michael’s getting excited and he always talks loudly when he gets excited.
“SSSSSSH...” I hiss. “Don’t talk so loud.”
“And Dad really did laugh, huh Tyler?” He’s getting all worked up again. “Dad laughed when he fed you pickles. Right, Tyler?” “Yeah, he laughed like crazy when he fed me pickle and peanut butter sandwiches every time we went fishin.”
This is also an exaggeration. It’s not exactly a lie. I did eat pickles and peanut butter every time Dad took me to 2nd Street to deliver packs of drugs to the ladies lined up in the street, or to find Sterling Silver to pay her cash for a small rock. The ladies would laugh and wink at me, show me their boobs, and pinch my cheeks. Dad would sit back and enjoy the show. He was so proud of himself. He’d learn how to use his eight-year-old son to divert the cops and keep himself safe. As far as I know, my dad was never busted on 2nd Street. Plenty of other places – just not on 2nd Street. Michael starts giggling like he’s out of control.
“Shut up. You’re gonna get us in trouble.” But he keeps giggling. I touch my face and it’s still hot from where Dad had smacked me. “Shut up,” I say, louder.
Suddenly he stops giggling and looks at me. “Dad doesn’t laugh anymore, huh, Tyler?”
“Look,” I hold up my hand and point into the sky. “That’s cool.” There’s a huge tower that’s all lit up with blue and white twinkling lights with the biggest star I have ever seen resting like a giant, melting snowflake on top. The sun is going down, so the star is getting brighter and brighter. “Wow! Is this Junction?” Michael asks. The bus makes a groaning sound like it’s farting and stops. “Must be the Junction.”
