My life
changed forever on my sixteenth birthday.
It was seven
o’clock, June 9, 1984, when I woke up to the sound of breaking glass and a
vicious argument coming from the kitchen of our small two-story house. The only
voice I could hear clearly was the one that belonged to my older brother, Jake.
“When did
you plan to tell us you were leaving?” he yelled.
Jake had
never gotten along with our parents, and the fact that they seemed to enjoy
fighting with him didn’t help my brother’s explosive temper.
“What the
hell do you care?” my mother snarled. “You’re moving out at the end of the
week.”
“I care
because Nikki’s my sister. I’m not letting you take her away!”
Take me
away? What was he talking about?
My train of
thought was interrupted when something heavy hit the wall downstairs. I jumped
out of bed and headed for the stairs, still wearing the shorts and T-shirt I’d
slept in.
I hit the
bottom step just in time to hear my mother yell, “You’re damn right we ain’t
taking her. You’ve been taking care of that little brat most of her life, Jake,
and now she’s all yours. We’re done with her.
To say that
Jake had been taking care of me was an understatement; raising me was more like
it.
I rounded
the corner to the kitchen just as my mother finished her sentence and was so
distracted by what she’d said, that I didn’t see the broken glass. I stepped on
a piece with my bare foot and cried out in pain, causing my mom and Jake to
turn in my direction.
One look at
my brother, who looked every bit the badass he was known as, told me that he’d
just gotten in from the night before. Dressed in worn leather motorcycle boots,
blue jeans, a white sleeveless shirt, and the black leather wristbands that had
become a permanent part of each arm, his clothes reeked so heavily from stale
cigarette smoke that I could smell it ten feet away. The only thing that looked
halfway decent was the long curly brown hair that hung to the middle of his
back and the neatly trimmed goatee he’d been wearing the past few months.
I wanted to
ask what was going on, where my parents were going, and why they didn’t want me
to go with them, but a warning look from my brother told me to be quiet.
“Go
upstairs, Nikki,” Jake ordered.
Since I
never questioned anything Jake told me to do, I turned around and headed back
toward the stairs.
There was a
lot more yelling after I left."
From my seat
at the top of the stairs, I listened and watched everything as I worked to free
a small piece of glass from the bottom of my foot. When it was out, I leaned
back and threw it across the yellow shag carpet that covered my bedroom floor.
“Why are you
doing this to her? She’s just a kid!”
“Nikki
doesn’t need us. She never has.”
“She’s
always needed parents, Mom. You’ve just never been there for her.”
“Then why
should we start now?” she asked sarcastically.
“So you’re
going to ruin Nikki’s birthday by telling her she’s being abandoned by her
parents?”
“No,” my
mother said, “you are. I ain’t wasting any more of my time on her.”
“How can you
be so cold? Nikki’s never done a damn thing to you and you treat her like
dirt.”
The front
door slammed, and I heard my father’s slurred speech. He was drunk. Again.
“Give it a
rest, boy. We’re leaving and that’s that. Your sister goes with you when you
move in with that no good best friend of yours this Friday. If you and Charlie
don’t want her, she’s getting dropped off at Social Services and the State of
Maryland can have her.”
My mind was
spinning. Drop me off at Social Services? Did my parents really hate me enough
to give me away?
“You lousy
son of a bitch!” My brother walked in front of the staircase, picked up an
overturned wooden folding chair and hurled it through the doorway.
My mother
screamed and glass shattered.
“You’ll pay
for that, boy!” My father staggered toward Jake, fists clenched, and took a
swing at him. Jake ducked just in time and delivered a powerful blow to my
father’s abdomen, causing him to double over and fall to the floor.
Everything
went quiet.
As seconds
passed, the three of them stared at each other in silence. When my mother went
to my father and helped him off the floor, Jake turned away and began climbing
the stairs.
Ten minutes
after the fight started, it was over.
I’d stopped
letting anything my parents said or did reduce me to tears a long time ago. But
that time was different and I cried in spite of myself.
My parents
hadn’t wanted any more kids after Jake was born, and had reminded me hundreds
of times that I was an unexpected, unwanted surprise. They resented me for
being another mouth to feed when they barely had enough money to pay the bills.
Being abandoned by them was my final punishment for accidentally being born.
As much as I
hated to admit it, I was really hurt.
My brother
stopped in mid-stride when he noticed me, then slowly made his way up the rest
of the stairs and extended his hand. “Come on,” he said, softly.
I took his
hand and let him pull me up, then followed him into his room and sat down on
the edge of the bed.
Wiping away
tears with the back of my hand, I watched my big brother light a cigarette and
waited patiently as he stared out the window.
It seemed
like Jake had always been tall and muscular, but when I looked at him, his size
still amazed me. He stood six feet six and towered over me by nearly a foot and
a half. When I was four, I looked at him one day and said, “You’re big.”
He smiled
and knelt beside me. “Oh yeah, Nikki? Well you’re little.”
That’s when
he started calling me Little. He didn’t do it all the time, mostly when I was
upset or he was trying to be funny. The name still fit me though, because at
sixteen, I was only five feet
two inches tall and a hundred and ten pounds. Jake always joked that the last
ten pounds were from the weight of my hair, dark, thick, and curly like his,
but not quite as long.
When he
eventually turned away from the window, Jake rested his left arm on the top of
a dresser, the half-smoked cigarette dangling low between his index and middle
fingers. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
“It’s not
your fault.”
Jake moved
away from the dresser and squatted in front of me. “Please don’t cry, Nikki.”
He cupped my face and brushed at my tears with his thumbs. “You don’t need
them.”
“I know.”
Jake was
right. He’d taken better care of me than either one of my parents could have
done if they’d tried, but their rejection still hurt.
“How did you
find out they were leaving?” I asked.
“I stopped
for cigarettes on my way home this morning and ran into Dad’s old boss. He told
me he was sorry things didn’t work out at the warehouse and wished us good luck
with the move.”
“Where are
they going?”
Jake took a
long drag on his cigarette, exhaled, and sat down across from me. “North
Carolina.”
“Why?”
“It has to
do with Dad’s bad back. Apparently, Mom’s cousin got him a desk job at a
trucking company.”
“Are they
really giving me away?”
I knew the
answer to that question before I asked it, but needed confirmation from Jake.
If he said something was true, then it was.
My brother
gave me a sympathetic glance. “I would have fought Mom and Dad if they’d tried
to take you, Little. You don’t belong with them.”
I nodded to
let him know I’d heard him, then bent my head and buried my face in my hands.
Jake put his right hand on the back of my neck, leaned forward, and kissed me
on top of my head. “I’m gonna go take a shower. Pack your stuff. You and I are
moving in with Charlie...today.”
My brother
walked me to the door, and I gasped when he opened it and our father was
standing only inches away holding a half empty bottle of Boone’s Farm wine.
Jake
instinctively put a protective arm around me.
My father
raised the bottle to his lips and took a long drink. He pushed past us into
Jake’s room and stood by the dresser. We turned around to look at him, and
without warning, he grabbed the bottle by the neck, raised it into the air, and
brought it down hard on the corner of the dresser.
I screamed,
and glass and liquid flew everywhere.
Never taking
his eyes off my father, Jake grabbed my right arm and pulled me behind him,
then shoved me into the hall.
I watched in
horror from the doorway as my brother took a six-inch silver butterfly knife
from his back pocket. He flipped it around until it was open, and before I knew
what was happening, Jake had my father in a headlock with the knife to his
throat. “You’ve hurt your daughter for the last time, you worthless drunk.”
My father
struggled to break free, but Jake’s hold was too strong. “What are you going to
do, boy?” he managed to say.
“Kill me?” “I wouldn’t
waste my time,” Jake said through clenched teeth, “I just wanted you to feel
for one second what Nikki has felt her whole life.”
Jake
loosened his hold on my father’s throat so he could talk.
He laughed.
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“Fear and
helplessness. What it’s like to need help and have no one.”
“She had
you.”
“Good thing,
too. Who knows if you would have even bothered to feed her if I wasn’t around.”
Jake closed the knife as quickly as he’d opened it and let go of my father,
giving him a shove toward the door. “Get the hell out of here.”
My father
came to a stop a few inches in front of me, grabbed a handful of my hair and
yanked hard. “You’re dead wrong if you think we’re signin’ away our rights to
this one,” he told Jake. “We may just need her someday.” He let go of my hair
and shoved me out of the way before staggering down the steps and out the front
door.
I was crying
again by the time my brother came over and wrapped his arms around me, stroking
my hair like he had when I was younger. When I was calm, he let go and walked
me to my room. “You don’t have to be neat about packing, just throw everything
in trash bags. We’ll sort through it when we get to Charlie’s.”
Jake left me
and I heard his heavy boots walk down the steps. I took a box of trash bags
from the hall closet and started to put my stuff in them.
My brother
turned on the shower fifteen minutes later, and I sat down on my bed to take a
break from packing. Holding Brownie, the white, furless teddy bear Jake had
given me for my seventh birthday, I closed my eyes and sent a silent prayer to
whoever was responsible for making Jake my brother.
He’d given
up a lot for me.
Most kids we
knew moved out of their parent’s homes the minute they turned eighteen, but
Jake lived in our house until he was twenty-two. My parents didn’t care that he
hung around so long, but I was never sure if that was because he paid them one
hundred dollars rent every month, or because as long as he was there taking
care of me, they didn’t have to.
Jake had put
band-aids on my skinned knees when I was hurt, solved my problems, taught me
things I needed to know, and included me in as many things as he could with him
and his friends. By the age of sixteen, I’d seen and done a lot of things most
kids only saw on TV or in movies.
He even
walked me to and from school everyday for the one year we were in the same
elementary school. Occasionally, a few of his friends would walk with us, and I
used to love listening to them talk. It didn’t matter that they never included
me in their conversation; it just felt good to be part of something.
My brother
walked me to my class in the morning and was always waiting for me on the
playground when the afternoon bell rang. Even if he had somewhere to go after
school, he always made sure I got home okay first. When he got to junior high,
I had to walk to school by myself, but he was always there to walk me home.
* * * *
“Hey, kid.”
I turned and was surprised to see Charlie Griffin standing in the doorway, then
realized that Jake must have called him to come over and help us pack.
Charlie was
Jake’s best friend. He was two years older than Jake, but the guys graduated
from high school in the same class. They met in fifth grade; the year Charlie
should have been starting junior high. He was so far behind because he started
school late, then was held back a year when he moved to Maryland from Southern
Virginia.
Only an inch
or two shorter than my brother, Charlie was just as built, and was known for
the bandannas he always wore on his head that covered his short dark hair. His
outgoing personality made him a lot of fun to be around, and with warm green
eyes, a deep voice, and heavy southern accent, Charlie was very popular with
girls. He had almost as many following him around as Jake did.
He played
guitar and smoked Marlboro’s like my brother, and had been living on his own
since he was seventeen, painting houses on the weekends to support himself. His
apartment was about ten minutes away, but he spent more time hanging out at our
house than anywhere else.
Of all
Jake’s friends, he was my favorite.
I gave him a
half smile. “Hi, Charlie.”
He moved the
rest of the way into my room and sat down on the bed next to me. When he
spotted the bloody piece of glass I’d taken out of my foot, he picked it up and
examined it. “What kind of excitement did I miss over here this mornin’?”
I knew my
brother had probably already told him everything, but I answered his question
anyway. “Jake broke a window and punched my father.”
Lighting a
cigarette, he glanced at me sideways. “You okay?”
That was
probably the two hundredth time in the eleven years I’d known Charlie that he’d
asked me that question. I’d been caught in the middle of some violent fights
between Jake and my parents over the years, and every time I called Charlie in
a panic to come over and get my brother calmed down, he always came in my room
and checked on me first.
“Yeah. This
one was about me.”
Charlie
wrapped his left arm around me. “I know, kid, but it’s over now.”
Grateful for
his company, I rested my head on his shoulder.
“After
today, there won’t be anymore fightin’.”
Charlie and
I sat in silence for another minute before he stood up and started looking for
something to flick his ashes in. I handed him a small trashcan.
“Are my
parents still downstairs?”
He threw
away the piece of glass and held his cigarette over the can to let the ashes
fall. “I don’t think they’re here,” he said. “Your dad’s truck is gone.”
I breathed a
sigh of relief.
My parents
almost always took off together after they had a fight with my brother. I had
no idea where they went and didn’t care, as long as they stayed away long
enough for Jake and me to pack our stuff and get out of the house.
I laid
Brownie on the bed to finish packing.
“You want
some help?”
“No thanks.”
I put the last of my meager belongings into a green trash bag, “I’m done.”
Charlie
stuck his cigarette between his teeth and told me he’d start taking my bags
outside.
When my
things were loaded in Charlie’s red, one-ton 1974 GMC pickup truck, I went back
inside and offered to help carry some of my brother’s. He sent me down with his
electric and acoustic guitars. “Stay outside after they’re loaded,” he told me,
“the only things left are too heavy for you to lift.”
I’d had two
hours to come to terms with the fact that I didn’t have parents anymore; and
while sitting on the tailgate of Charlie’s truck, I realized I had mixed
feelings about it.
I felt
relieved not to have to live with their insults and abuse anymore, but was also
sad. No matter how bad they treated me, they were still my parents, and the
pain of knowing they didn’t want me was going to hurt for a long time.
Once Jake’s
furniture was outside, I moved over to sit on the front step while the guys
loaded it in the truck.
Twenty
minutes later, my brother came over and sat beside me. “We’re done. Are you
ready to go?”
Without a
word, I nodded and got to my feet. As I turned to go into the house, my brother
grabbed onto my arm and pulled me close.
Wrapping my
arms around Jake’s waist, I rested my head on his chest. Listening to his
heartbeat through his T-shirt, I relaxed and thought that maybe things weren’t
so bad after all.
He gave me a
squeeze and backed away. “Life’s gonna be different now, Nikki. Better.”
I believed him. “Thanks for taking care of me, Jake.
I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’ll
never have to find out.” He walked into the house and motioned for me to
follow.
My brother
and I each laid our house keys on the kitchen table and walked back out the
door; neither one of us bothering to take one last look around the house we’d
grown up in. Maybe it was because we wanted to get out of there before our
parents came back, or because Jake didn’t want to keep Charlie waiting. Or
maybe...we were both just ready to say goodbye to that part of our lives.