Brother's Keeper

On the day I left St. Ignatius asylum after twenty-seven years, my eyes were filled with tears. I trudged down the narrow hallway towards the exit for the final time, focusing on the sunlight streaming down the stairs in front of me as my heart pounded and a smile came to my face. I was tempted to run to those stairs and to the freedom beyond, but instead walked slowly, choosing to savor the moment. I had dreamed of this day on so many nights, but to be living it now was better than any dream. I listened to the echo of my steps against the worn tile floor, and relished the feel of a faint breeze against my skin. For the first time in a very long time, hope bloomed within me.
When my foot reached the first step, I found it suddenly difficult to push my way up to the light beyond. I had wanted this for so long but now that it was here, doubt paralyzed me. What if freedom was not all I thought it would be? What if the world was only an asylum without walls?
But then my brother's voice chased these thoughts away.
"Jonah!" he said. "What are you waiting for? Come see me, little brother! I'm here to take you home!"
I heard the love in his voice and felt ashamed. Today, I decided, I would bear no grudge against him. Today, all his past sins would be forgotten. We would simply be brothers, happy to be reunited.
"Sam, I didn't notice you there." Now my feet were light upon the steps and I bounded up to greet him. I nearly hugged him on impulse, but at the last moment, caught myself and extended a hand instead. But he shook the offered hand for only the briefest moment, and then embraced me without embarrassment. The hug freed the tears from my eyes and when he released me, I saw that he too was crying.
"Let's go home," Sam said, blinking his tears away.
I climbed in the passenger side of my brother's Lexus and rode far beyond the city limits toward his large plantation style house in the country. We rode in silence for the first half of the two-hour trip, feeling mutually awkward in one another's company. There seemed to be so much we needed to say to one another, yet neither of us knew how to begin. Finally, I was compelled to attempt small talk to ease the tension.
"How's your practice going?" I asked.
As soon as the question was out of my mouth, it occurred to me that perhaps my brother had not wanted to think of his profession today.
"It's going well enough,” he answered. “You know I haven't taken a day off like this in five years?"
"Well I guess it's a big day for both of us. I haven't been outside those walls since I was thirteen years old."
I grimaced at the sound of my voice, knowing I’d said the wrong thing once again. Sam answered with pursed lips.
"You know I tried to get you out sooner. I tried to get you released right after your operation, but there were those who were determined that you serve your full sentence. I have a lot of pull in certain circles, but there was only so much I could do."
"Brother, I wasn't complaining. I know you did all you could, and I appreciate your efforts."
"Twenty-seven years is a long time, Jonah,” Sam said. “A damned long time."
I thought he was going to say something else, but he chose not to. The rest of the ride passed in silence except for Sam pointing out various long-standing landmarks along the way. He was anxious to see what I remembered and impressed to discover that almost nothing had escaped my memory.
His house was far removed from the city. It was a home befitting the wealth of its owner and its location suited his preference for isolation as well. My brother, Dr. Samuel Mason, was a brilliant man who enjoyed all the luxuries money could by, but treasured solitude above his riches. He had never married and seemed satisfied not to be. He was a man wedded to his work.
As we rode down the long driveway to his home, which could have been rightly called a mansion, I felt his eyes on me. I realized he wanted me to be awed by his wealth and fame, but for some reason, I was hesitant to grant him this satisfaction.
I'd seen the segment about him on the network evening news program seven years ago. My brilliant brother had discovered how to restore the intelligence of those afflicted with Down's syndrome through surgery. It was a revolutionary breakthrough that had earned him a Nobel Prize and worldwide fame. In every interview, he stated that his own brother was the inspiration for his research and he intended for me to be one of the first recipients of the surgery as well.
A surgeon personally trained by my brother gave me the gift of intelligence on April eleventh, two thousand nine. I woke the following day with the feeling that I had lived my whole life underwater, but had at last poked my head above the surface. It was the difference between being inside of a dark closet barely large enough to stand in, and lying on a grassy plain on a clear day with nothing but space around me in every direction. My entire life I had existed in a haze, but now the fog had lifted at last.
For six months, my newfound capacities terrified me. Nightmares besieged me, and on many days I thought I would truly lose my sanity, and fit in more readily with the denizens of the asylum that was my home. But in the end, I adjusted and prospered. More than that, I remembered everything that occurred before. I recalled all that my formerly handicapped brain had once hidden from me.

Sam showed me to my room. Taped to the wall was a banner that read, 'Welcome Back, Jonah!' I was touched and felt tears threaten once more. I might have kept them at bay if I had not spied my childhood stuffed monkey resting on my pillow.
"My God, Sam, you kept Georgie! I can't believe it! " I said, reaching for the monkey and holding it against my chest.
"It was the least I could do," he answered. "Brother, after all you've been through, it was the least I could do."
We passed the rest of that day in pleasant conversation, setting aside the past and becoming the brothers we had never truly been. My first day home from the asylum was easily the best of my life.

The days went by, and my busy brother was often gone. He worked long hours and traveled to distant places for countless speaking engagements. We developed a marriage of sorts. I kept up the house while he was gone, and even cooked for both of us on the rare nights he was home. It was mostly a pleasant time for me, especially in comparison to my former existence at the asylum. I often took long walks about the countryside, and fantasized about making a life of my own someday, maybe even having a wife and family and a career of my own.
Nights alone were difficult. It was then that I had too much time with my thoughts. One night as I sat in my brother’s favorite velvet chair, I spied a familiar object by the hearth: a fire poker. On impulse, I picked it up and after only a few moments, found what I was looking for: a faint crimson stain on one side of its business end. I studied it, mesmerized by its existence, running my fingers across it and letting my mind drift to the night it came to be.

I remembered the sound of rain pelting against the roof of our home with the force of a herd of galloping horses. Thunder boomed and jagged flashes of lightning flashed across the sky. The electricity had been out for over an hour, and our family had sat at the dinner table eating sandwiches by candlelight.
The tension among us matched the weather. The cause was Sam's report card. He'd failed to make an ‘A’ in a single subject. To my father, this was tantamount to failing. Sam had never before brought such a poor grade home to our father before. He sat across from me, his head hung in shame, awaiting the worst. The man had not meted out a punishment yet, nor even raised his voice, but even someone as stupid as I could see the fury in him. His lips were pursed and his eyes were blazing. He slammed his tea glass on the table after every swallow, still holding the offending report card in his fist as if it was as hateful as a cancerous tumor. I watched my father as fearfully as Sam, knowing in the dim way I knew things that the harsher the punishment my father handed out to Sam, the worse my brother would, in turn, punish me.
I knew he hated me. There was no way I could understand the reasons why in those days although they became quite clear to me later.
Sam was an only child until my parents adopted me at the age of three. I did not remember life before coming to the Masons, and had no desire to do so. My parents showered me with unconditional love and affection in spite of my disability. I could do no wrong in their eyes. On the night the fire poker became forever stained, I was thirteen years old and could barely write my name. But Mom and Dad acted as if my every move was a thing to be adored and fawned over.
I remember painstakingly drawing a picture for my mother that depicted my family standing outside of the church after the morning service. My mother, father and I were depicted with bright smiles. The three of us were circled with hearts. In my picture, even the sun and the church smiled as they beamed down upon us. Removed from the family, in my drawing, stood Sam. No smile lit his face for I'd never seen him wear one in life. I had drawn a straight line for his mouth as he looked away from the rest of us, staring into nowhere. Above the drawing, I had done my best to write: 'I love Mommy and Daddy.'
When the picture was completed, I rushed to show it to my mother. She made such a fuss over it that one would have thought it as brilliantly created as any work of art by a master. She did not seem to notice that I excluded her older son from the family circle and did not include him among those I loved.
But Sam noticed.
An hour later, I still clutched my masterpiece and shone with the glow of my mother's praise. I wandered into the room I shared with my brother, but did not see him enter behind me, and close the door.
He spun me around to face him, his face twisted with rage. He jerked the picture from my hands, and shoved me to the floor. I tried to scream, but he slammed his hand so tight over my mouth that nothing emerged but a muted bleat.
"You little retard! I'm sick of you!" he said. His eyes burned with hatred. "Let me show you what I think of your stupid picture." He wadded it up into a crumpled ball and forced it in my mouth.
"Now eat it, or I'll kill you right here and now. I'll get away with it too. You know why? Because things happen to retards! You know that? Retards like you have accidents all the time just because they're about too stupid to live. You whisper a word of this to Mom or Dad and I will kill you and that's a promise. You got that through your thick, retard skull?"
I was too terrified to answer, but managed to chew and swallow my picture without choking. I couldn’t help peeing my pants. As soon as he felt the wetness, he released me, and kicked me in the groin.
"Retard!" he said. "Now I’ve got to change my clothes because of your idiocy! Remember, dimwit. You tell Mom or Dad about this and I'll kill you. That’s not a threat. That’s a promise."
I didn't tell.
From that day forward, my brother found every opportunity to torture me when my parents weren't looking. He'd pinch me hard enough to make me bleed, thump me in the testicles, stomp on my bare feet, give me Indian burns, and constantly remind me of what a retard I was. The government shouldn't allow idiots like me to live, he said. We were just a drain on society's resources. I believed him and never whispered a word about his abuse to my parents.

Then came the night of the storm and the fire-poker. Until that night, Sam had revealed his dark side only to me.
My father was given to anger, especially in matters concerning my brother. Sam was expected to be perfect and to excel in every aspect of life. To my brother's credit, he did his best. He was a top student and a standout athlete. People said he was destined for greatness and of course they were right. But in his own mind, he was never good enough for my father.
My mother, in contrast, was the picture of pacifism. She feared my father. She may have thought his expectations of my brother unreasonable, but would have never dreamed of speaking a word in opposition to him. When she saw his anger coming, she simply climbed within herself and waited for the storm to pass. She had already found her inner sanctum that night as we all waited for him to explode.
"Explain this grade to me!" he said at last, shaking the report card at my brother. "Explain what's so damn hard about English for Christ’s sake!"
My brother said nothing at first. He only sat with his head down, studying the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he'd taken a single bite from.
His silence only served to accelerate my father's rage. His face went red and the blood vessels in his neck appeared on the edge of exploding. He spoke in a low, terrifying growl that made me want to whimper aloud in fear.
"You better answer me when I talk to you boy! Or goddamn it, I'm liable to do something we'll both regret. The good book says, 'spare the rod and spoil the child' and I'll be damned if there's going to be any spoiled children in this house. You get an attitude with me, son, and you're only making your whipping worse. Now tell me why you can't make an 'A' in a class teaching you a language you've been speaking your whole insufferable life."
Sam raised his head and looked into my father's eyes. He might have been frightened before, but now he swallowed his fear. Rage had conquered it. This time, he had no intentions of backing down in the face of my father’s wrath.
"You want to know what 'spoiled' is, Dad? Why don't you take a good look at this little moron across the table? You fly into a rage because I make a 'B' and you and Mom about fall over yourselves any time this little idiot strings two sentences together. I'm sick of it, Dad! You want something to scream at me about, old man? I'll give you something to scream about."
I watched, astonished, as Sam went to my father and jerked the report card from his grasp. Then he ripped it into shreds, letting the pieces drift to the floor at his feet. My father gaped, too shocked to react. He had not dreamed his son could be capable of such unbridled defiance.
"You know what, Father?" Samuel continued, spitting the title. "I think I'm going to give you something to really get angry about. God damn you father. God damn you to hell. With the last curse, he turned his back on the man and stalked towards his bedroom.
My father finally found his voice.
"Boy," he said quietly. "If you know what's good for you, you'd better come back here and face what's coming like a man."
"Ha!" Sam said, without turning around. "If I know what's good for me...," he mocked. "Here’s a new plan, Dad. From now on, I’m going to do just what I please, and you’re going to leave me the hell alone. How about that?”
In response, my father growled a primal grunt and leaped from his chair with a quickness I had not dreamed he possessed. He tackled Sam from behind, and the two of them crashed to the floor. Father thrashed him with all his strength and fury, but somehow, Sam managed to slither out from under him and deliver a blow of his own to my father's head. The two of them fought on the living room floor like wildcats, neither seeming to get the best of the other. Their struggle moved ever closer to the fireplace. Suddenly, Sam twisted again and there was the sickening sound of a cranium striking the brick corner of the hearth. Then the fighting ceased and my father's blood flowed like a crimson river in the dim candlelight.
Samuel rose over him, his eyes wide with fear or anger. I couldn't tell which. I realized then that I had been screaming at the top of my lungs since the incident began and was unable to stop myself even now. Without feeling in control of my body, I stood and went to my father.
"No," I wailed. "Daddy, No!" I fell onto his body and wrapped myself around him. In only a moment, his blood soaked me.
"You hurt him. How could you hurt him?" I wailed to my brother.
"Shut up, retard!" he answered. "I've had about enough of you too!" I looked up and saw his fury was not yet quenched. He stood above me, poised to strike me with the fire poker, murder in his eyes. He swung with all of his strength and I cringed in expectation of the blow. But before it fell, I was shoved aside and the poker struck my mother instead.
He dropped his weapon when he saw what he had done, and fell to his knees in front of her, cradling her broken head, but being careful not to allow her blood to stain his shirt.
"I'm sorry, Mother. I didn't mean..." he sobbed. But she couldn't answer him, for the dead can't speak.
He examined my father, also being careful to avoid the blood that still ran freely from his wound. Sam determined that he too, no longer drew breath.
Then he stared at me as I gazed back at him, paralyzed with terror, expecting that he would soon murder me as well. Somehow I found my voice.
"You're a monster," I said.
"Me? You're the one covered in your parents’ blood," he answered.
I was horrified to see that he was right.
Sam called the police and blamed the double homicide on his mentally retarded brother, and for twenty-seven years, I was locked away.

As the years passed, Sam did his best to redeem himself. He never said another cruel word to me, and wrote me many letters of kindness during my time at St. Ignatius. As time passed, it seemed he came to believe his own lie, that it was I who murdered our parents in a mindless rage retardates such as me were prone to. But somewhere within him, I did not doubt that he knew the truth.
While I wasted away at St. Ignatius, my brother used my father’s lucrative life insurance policy to send himself to medical school, and to eventually become a nationally renowned surgeon and researcher. He became obsessed with finding the cure to Down's Syndrome, to solving the mystery that extra chromosome presented. He must have believed, on an unconscious level, that by curing me, he could absolve himself of his sins of that night.
But some sins cannot be forgiven.

I felt ashamed to have such memories of my brother as I lounged so comfortably in his home that night. He was certainly a far different and better person now, far removed from the cruel boy I had known him to be in my youth. I enjoyed his company as well as my freedom. I realized my future lay before me like an ocean of possibility. I was free to pursue any life I wished, and yet I could not move on until I had settled the matter of my parents’ death to my satisfaction.

My brother came back from his business trip two days later. In anticipation, I had prepared a special meal for both of us.
"Jonah," he said, as he stepped through the door. "Something smells delicious."
"It’s almost ready, brother. Let me pour you some wine."
"I appreciate this," he said while we ate. "But you should know it's not expected of you."
"Oh, I like to cook," I replied. "It's just my way of thanking you for the hospitality you have shown me since the day I came to live with you."
"Well, thank you," he said. "You know what, Jonah? I know we had our differences growing up, but I'm so glad we've put the past behind us."
I nodded, but didn’t answer.
After supper we sat in comfortable seats in front of the fireplace, sipping our wine. He smoked a pipe as soft jazz played on his stereo. I could see his eyelids growing heavy, and knew he was on the verge of dozing off to sleep.
”Sam,” I said, loudly enough to rouse him. "I recognize that poker by the fireplace. It's a peculiar item for you to want to keep."
”Oh, I keep it for sentimental reasons,” he answered. “It used to be in our parents’ house.”
"Yes, I remember it. Have you ever noticed the stain on its point?"
"No, I can't say that I have.” His indifferent tone infuriated me, and I was glad to have righteous anger to fuel me.
"One could say it's the stain of your sins," I said. "You should give it a closer inspection."
"Brother, what are you talking about?" He picked up his wine glass, and took a swallow.”
I crossed the room, and retrieved the poker. It was only when I cocked it back to swing, that comprehension dawned upon his brilliant face. I struck his skull three times with the weapon: one blow for my mother, my father, and myself. The blood that ran from his brain was almost the same color as the wine in his glass.

When the deed was done, I took his body to the cemetery in my brother’s vehicle, and buried him beside my parents. It was a sad chore, but I owed it to him to give him an honorable burial. I did love him in spite of his past misdeeds after all. I left the car where it was, judging that he would have no further need of it, and lacking the skill to drive it well myself. I hiked all day through the countryside, and deep into the forest. I had a world to see. Too long, I had been locked away, first in my own mind, and later behind cold walls. Perhaps the authorities would catch up to me eventually and bring me to justice. If they did, I would not resist. I would only say that I had done my duty as they were doing theirs.
Sometime past nightfall, I left the woods, and found myself in an open valley. Above me, the stars twinkled, and a full moon shown down upon me. I lay on the grass and smiled at the beauty of the sky. As I drifted off to sleep, I was thankful for the life my brother had granted me with his brilliance, and relieved my debt with him had been paid. At that moment, my future seemed as bright as the stars that shined above me.