The Book of Mark

The Rainbow Adventures! continued

...................."At least we won a few of 'em" I said to Alvin after about the 6th game. "I'll see you tomorrow. ". I headed home, took me a shower, and laid down to take me a nap.............................. (Later that night) Suddenly my room door busts open, "boom"! My mother is backing into me and my brother's room trying to shield herself from my dad as he was attempting to throw a pitcher of ice cold water on her. (What is it with crazy people and cold water?) My dad's name was William. Me and my brother Michael called him by his first name because he wasn't our real dad. "William stop! You gon' scare the boys!" my mother said. Then he faked at her. Once, then again, then he let it fly. My mother ducked just in time. Unfortunately my brother didn't. My mother was standing right at the foot of his bed as she ducked and Whoosh! Michael caught all the freezing water to his face and body and all over his bed. His body looked like it almost went into shock from the coldness of the water. "What is wrong with you?" my mother asked. "Aw he'll be alright" William said. And he went scootin' off.

William once had the most promising gig in Phoenix at the time. He was a baker that worked in the Sunbeam Bakery on Washington street on the Eastside of Phoenix. And he was making some real good money for back then. Then one day one of the pans of bread he had just taken out the oven and placed on a rack fell off the rack and he caught it with his left hand. Unfortunately he did not have his oven mitt on at the time he caught it and severely burned all the nerves in the fingers and palm of his left hand. What started out to be a few months off for workman's compensation ended up being a permanent vacation. He begin drinking heavily and the alcohol mixing with the medication he was taking spurred some very violent results. I tried to get my brother to stop crying before William decided to come back to our room. "Michael calm down man!" I whispered, trying to get him quieted down from his crying. "But it's cold!" he replied as he continued to sob. "I know man but you don't want William to come back in here! You know how he gets." "I can't help it" he replied. "I can't stop shaking". It always hurt me to see anything bad happen to my little brother. Even though he was only 10 months younger than me, I was always so much bigger than he was. So even though I was only slightly his older brother, I was his much bigger brother. My brother was born very prematurely, and I found out in later years that he was very sickly all the time as a newborn. So much to the point that our biological mother put us both in a foster home when Michael was just a baby and I just more than a year old....................... William came scootin' back into the room. "That's why yo' momma gave you away!" William said. "You don't know why their mother gave them up!" my mother replied. "Why would you say something mean like that? You don't know nothing about their mother!" "Shut Up Josephine!" yelled William. And at that same time his right hand came from out of nowhere and slapped my mother real hard across her face. "Leave my mother alone!" I yelled trying to be my mother and brother's protector. But what good was I? I wasn't but 9 or 10 at the time. "Oh I got something for you" William yelled as he headed back to his room. I'm sure that meant he was going to get his belt or something like that. "You 2 get out of here" my mother said quickly. "What about you?" I asked. "Go next door to Otis house and call the police!" my mom replied. Otis is Rusty's daddy. I removed the screen from my room window and unwound the window as fast as I could, lifted my brother out the window, then climbed out the window myself as fast as I could. Me and my brother ran through the backyard tot he back gate and down the little stretch of alley in the dark. We came around the corner by our neighbor's house on the right side, past our house and went to Rusty's house which was to the left of our house. I tried not to knock too hard because it was night time and I didn't want to scare anybody. (Knock, knock, knock, knock) where my little taps on the door. "Who is it?" I could hear Rusty's mother call out. "It's Mark and Michael from next door" I tried to say loud enough for her to hear me. She opened the door, "what's wrong?" she asked. "William is at it again!" I replied. "Momma said call the police". So she did. As we waited out in their front yard for the police to arrive we could still hear William yelling and screaming at Momma. Breaking up stuff as usual. Finally the police arrive. They go in and calm everything down. Then they come over to me and my brother, escort us into the house and tell us to grab a few things to take with us to spend the night away from home. I asked my mother why we had to be the ones to leave the house? "Why can't they make William leave? He's the one doing all the screaming and stuff!" Back then they could not forcibly make anyone leave their home unless their were some type of charges being filed against that person. And momma never seemed to file charges against him. So the 3 of us always ended up being the ones who had to find somewhere to sleep for the night. Giving him time to cool down and return back to a sane state of mind. My mother's nephew Harold, we called him HJ, came to pick us up to spend the night at his house. He lived not to far around the corner from us on Roeser Road. So me and my brother, still in our pajamas, grabbed a few clothes and a favorite toy, got in the car and headed over to HJ's.

His house seemed so much bigger than ours even though they were part of the same neighborhood. They assigned us one of the rooms for me and Michael to sleep in. I waited until I knew my little brother was warm in his change of clothes and was asleep comfortably in the bed they made up for him before I prepared myself for sleep. It was just something I took comfort in. Knowing that God has allowed me once again to look upon my little brother who just moments ago was so frightened and afraid, and now was so blissfully and peacefully asleep with not a worry in the world. It was amazing how such a feeling could be experienced in the absence of William. And what a relieved feeling it was, every single time. After several minutes of watching my brother sleep, and wondering how long we would have to live this way, I allowed myself to become a victim of the same peaceful and blissful slumber that my brother was taking part in. We made it through another night. But how many more nights like this would there be?..................................