Hope you enjoy this! Happy Birthday mother! A Night in 1998: Flesh and Blood Seven. One. Two numbers. Seven boys and one girl. My oldest sibling on my mother’s side, is my sister. I am the second oldest son. I have one full blood brother who is younger than me by 358 days. All loved equally for they are all my brothers and she is my sister. All 6 of brothers, the only girl on my mother’s side, and I hold a very strong, almost unbreakable, bond. I am closest to… well I cannot say, nor can I say who I am the furthest away from. I am okay with saying, ‘when there is a reunion among the oldest of us, starting from my younger brother to my oldest sister, there is a willing of companionship’. My older brother showed me how to act. I always looked up to him. I always looked up to her as well; my older sister. Both were crazy so that made me out to be crazy followed by my younger brother. Following him are my two younger brothers who are close in age (just like my older sister and brother and me and my younger brother). Then the two youngest one who are now in high-school show grate potential for making our family prouder than what we already are. Oh and add crazy to all of us. A bond, something that demands trust and a bit of crazy. 8 children with four older and four younger brothers. It is safe to say, I like to disappear from where I am at; from time and place. I am sure I do it more often than others. You could probably catch me doing it within the first five minutes of meeting me. Sometimes when I am stressed out, angry, or even lonely and sad, I find myself running away. I disappear in thought. If I am face against an obstacle in my head I picture the incident playing over and over again with the different possible outcomes. Say if it is bills, like rent, I imagine cutting my losses by burning the apt. complex building down and becoming a bum on the side of the street without any care of the world. Or, just finding that I have 1.9 million dollars on my bank account and then just buying out the apt. complex and building a cemetery, at least the residents wouldn’t be high on cocaine or meth and the kids would not keep me up in the middle of the day. They would be fast asleep just like me but at least I would be dreaming. Responsibility is an issue for me but I am not a coward to admit it. If it is a specific someone, I normally imagine that I am some voodoo black magic practicing witch doctor and then just using my magic to become famous then hire someone to kill that specific someone. Or I could just use the magic to wipe them off the face of the world but that is not as fun as to think about with the end outcome. But if there is a period of depression, or when I am alone and too lazy to get up to turn on the telly, I retreat to a memory of mine. One that contains my brothers and my sister. Then I am not so alone. I tend to go back to an autumn’s night in 1998 in the great state of Idaho. This is a time where my two youngest brothers were not around and the next in line were infants. That date sticks out in my mind as it pierces the meaning of memory; it is what comes to me first. My sister was babysitting on us… (Pun intended). We have been a bit poor, we did come from poverty, but what one lacks can be compensated in other ways. We were poorer than the average white family in Idaho, but we were ‘Mexican’: we were poor but at least there was never a dull moment, never a time we would find ourselves alone in this obscene world; like I said we were ‘Mexican’. Politically now-a-days, ‘Mexican American’, but back then I even saw it in their eyes that we were all the same. My two best friends didn’t even speak a word of English and their names were Santiago and Esau. Racism is seen by all ages, but that is not what this is about. We had managed to move into a half burnt down house which was boarded; segregating the damaged portion from the ‘usable’ half. We didn’t have heat the first few days of moving in, and it didn’t matter. We huddled together, and I was quite the little heater. Now-a-days I am a big heater and hate human contact. Back then, it was a mother of four who worked night shifts. She was checking out the night prowlers at the local convenience store along with a step father who was finding himself supporting the love of his life and her children and their two infants. Strict and quick to discipline. He was a big masculine man, with a hint of brut, bold and scary. He also worked a day job and a night shift. So going back to the house. It was Victorian Architecture with a large yard and fenced. Fenced on the burned down part to keep from on-lookers and fenced around our yard to keep the leaves from our great oak tree’s leaves from reaching pavement. As a child, it would have betrayed my code of conduct if I choose not to explore what was on the other side. To roam around the creepy old house was always a challenge I had excepted. It had dead trees and brush everywhere. If I had been an ‘Evil Doer’ this would be the entrance to my humble abode. It was a great house none the less of its defaults. This house was the same where my older brother caught a flame by heating up by the stove. I tried telling him to stop drop and roll. He put it out in the shower. A night I never will forget but not as dominate as this one, probably for the fact I fell asleep from crying for what this meant. It was also the house where I had got into my first fight. I beat up some bully at school. His name Malachi. I punched him to the ground then proceeded to kick him for not letting me play on the black top. He had tormented me for the past few weeks, only because I was brown. So I snapped and after the matter, I felt guilty ran and cried by the light post in the school yard and so it happened. The light post had been along the path the Principle would walk during the recess brake, he found me sobbing like I had been hurt, “What is the matter?” he asked. In response, now remember there is a sobbing skinny Mexican kid with buggers running down along with his tears and he says to you, “ I-I… I beat up some kid! He was being mean and I didn’t want to hurt him but he makes me soooo mad!” He drove me home that day. Once learned, my family had congratulated me for sticking up for myself. I was angry for what they were saying. I should be happy that I was capable of hurting someone. This was that house. Nights have been supervised by my Oldest and only sister, following routine. Watch us, cook for us, let us watch the telly (which happened to be a big screen, something of 54”) or she would make us do our homework. The Disney Channel was my all-time favorite. How we obtained it? Through my father. My sister then wash dishes followed by watching a few shows with us. Then it was off to bed… unless, I asked her to stay up. I was only 11 years of age. My greatest weapon was the puppy dog eyes. We played hide and seek, Olly-oxen-free, or tag. The best nights we would improvise. This was one of those nights. We bunched up socks, used for ammo as indicated. We took shirts and wrapped them around our faces, with the neck-hole now our eyes and the sleeves of the shirts as the tie-backs and knotted. We dubbed this game Ninja. We took place first inside the house in a free for all Armageddon. Pit in war against those you loved. If you were not careful you were to be out-cast, labeled decease. I was one of the first to die in the first round. I saw my older brother and sister go at it. My younger brother waited to see who got out. ‘Smart’, I thought. Smarter than me… “Not next round.” I sat and watch a movie with twins pitting parents to fall in love with one another, Parent Trap. I felt the romance in the air, wait, no it was a sock to the face, innocent by-stander. It was a new round and I was too drawn to the telly and that was a warning shot. Round 2. It ended quickly. My younger brother was sought out by yours truly. I also took out my older brother, he wasn’t paying any mind to me, as he was fighting with my older sister. Then we laid it down, against all odds, I gladly took second place. We boasted for a bit. Whose kill were whose. Mostly mine. Then we spit-balled with ideas to improve the game. We came to the conclusion. We all have on sock bomb each and the limits have been broaden to outside. If inside, we were to reload on ammo and for as much as we can carry, only shoot inside; retrieve only one sock bomb if heading back outside. They would hide and wait, but not me. We eventually lost track and started to play for shear thrill. Admitted defeat if defeated and then once that got old we picked teams. The dead would be revived like that of Lazarus by Jesus. The night carried away. The coldness would get to me and I go back to watch TV for a bit then say to hell with it and head back outside. It was getting really late and I could tell for the fact that the Parent Trap was on the same part I left it. It was repeating. As the time progressed the local authorities took wind of this when I was in side. One found my sister in a tree with my older brother nowhere to be found. They had gone leaving only a warning. My sister claims the look on the officer’s face was priceless once she took off the shirt from her face. The game had gone on, I looked outside and saw the Sun rising. There was the screeching of the family van pulling in the drive way. I hear my sister cry out, “Holy crap, moms home!” Like we had actually became ninjas, my older brother dives through the window. Runs to his bed. The driver door shuts with a boom. My sister comes in from the back like a bat out of hell and runs to her room. My little brother had gone to bed a bit earlier so he was already fast asleep. I had realized that my mother probably had seen the telly on and so it was too late for me, unless… Unless I fake. I let my body go limp, and shut my eyes. The keys ring in the door lock. I take my consciousness, and let it go, I am tired of running around any way. My mother comes in and not daring to look, I laid there. She walks over to the telly and turns it off. She comes over and picks me up and carries me off. I could smell the smells of the Maverick on her clothes. I was put to sleep by my mother. I wake up able to say, “Though I am crazy, I still love my flesh and blood.” By Cordero R. C. Hernandez
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 21:38:57 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015