Body Scars

 

The pain wakes me up.  I try to bend my middle finger, it is  throbbing and stiff. I shake my arm to get the blood circulating.   My middle finger, this  used to be my favorite finger the one I used to flip off the world. I close my eyes and try to forget the pain and then I remember.

  I am fifteen when my mother discovers my father is having an affair.  She takes to her bed, with her astrology magazines, chocolate Turtles and bottles of cheap red wine.

I am in charge being the eldest. There are four kids and 30 dogs in the back yard that need taking care of.  Doing laundry I go into my younger brothers room looking for

dirty clothes.  I open his closet and there on the floor are open tubes of airplane

glue.I look around the room, windows are closed, curtains are closed and no car

or airplane models.  My 10-year-old brother is hiding in his closet sniffing glue

while my mother hides in her room reading her horoscope.

I go to my parents’ room where my mother hides under the covers with the curtains drawn and tell her about what I have found, she doesn’t respond.  I go back to my brothers’ room to get the tubes out of his closet and he is there, when I ask him about the glue he gets angry and I see hate and fear in his young eyes.  He slams the door close and I try to stop him, the door crushes my finger.I’m screaming  “open the door” he doesn’t for a long time.  This is the only time I ever see him being cruel.

My finger stops throbbing.  I close my eyes and think of my brother one of my best friends, eighteen years dead.  Gone but still with me.