The boy had
survived, no, endured the beating of his young life. Rather, the beating of a
lifetime. A beating no one should experience. Yet he had. Beat up, bruised, a bleeding
lip, his jeans ripped, now sobbing quietly, he had endured and survived. Bobby had
cried out only once during his lesson. His awareness and understanding of the
old man had told him that crying out would only prolong the assault. He remained
quiet even after the old man had gone inside.
It wasn’t his
fault. I had cried out to stop it but the old man had simply brushed me aside. I
felt terrible and guilty for his beating but didn’t know how to stop it, or how
to comfort him. Then his sister screamed as she came out of the house to his
side and consoled him. Her sudden appearance had even prompted the old man’s abrupt
withdrawal. Bobby though was still upset, hurt and mad. Not so much for the
beating, but because he had known that if anything happened to me there would
be consequences, and he hadn’t listened to that warning voice in his head.
Bobby didn’t
deserve that beating, though in the back of his mind he had known it was a
possibility. He knew that simply being four years older made him responsible
for me, responsible for not letting anything bad happen to me, yet it had, to both
of us actually, “something unacceptable” in the old man’s eyes. And he had to learn.
And Bobby learned.
Bobby and I were
riding his horse, Trotter, bareback on the shoulder of the highway when a log
truck driver, being funny, gave a loud blast on his airhorn. Startled, Trotter
had reared up and we both had slid down the horse’s back and crashed, me onto
the gravel and Bobby on top of me. I was bruised and had a couple of scrapes and
one was bleeding a little, and I had cried but I was not badly hurt. Nothing
was broken, just scrapes on my arms and a little tear in my shirt. Realizing I
was okay I had stopped crying. I couldn’t let Bobby see me cry.
Bobby had raced
to retrieve Trotter and together we returned the horse to its pasture. Then as
we walked, or trudged, the three or four blocks back home I could tell that he was
worried and I said we should make up a story that I was in a fight, and I
laughed. But Bobby didn’t. He had said that it wouldn’t matter. The old man
would see my scrapes and bruises and lay in to him because he had allowed something
bad to happen to me and that was unacceptable.
Suddenly, I
felt terrible for Bobby.
And he was
right. The old man, sitting on the porch-steps as we approached, saw my
scrapes, bruises and slightly bleeding arm and demanded to know what happened.
I began to say I had won the fight, but Bobby jumped in and told the truth. The
old man grew mad, stood and began yelling. I screamed, “ it wasn’t his fault, it
was the truck driver’s”, but the old man ignored me. In a rage he attacked Bobby.
It was worse than we imagined.
But now, now
it was done. The lesson complete.
Now, with his
cuts and bruises and bleeding lip, which would all heal in time, Bobby lay
where he had last landed, his spirit broken. And so was our relationship. I liked Bobby and had hoped
he would be my big brother forever. He was twelve, I was only eight. We were
step-brothers and in the short time we were acquainted he had treated me as his
little brother. Until now. Bobby never acknowledged or spoke to me ever again.