“Yeah,” he says. A few months ago, that question would have sent him into a frenzy of excitement. Now he says it kind of flatly.
“What about some pizza?”
“From where?” He asks the question suspiciously.
“Luigi’s?”
“Right answer,” he grins.
We ride the bus to the shops where there’s a Luigi’s and an ice cream parlor. I treat him to a slice and some ice cream and as he eats he starts to feel better.
“Why do they bully me?”
There are so many possible responses to that question. I could tell him that they’re probably just sad inside, but studies have largely disproved that theory. It occurs to me that so much of my life has been spent making excuses for bad people doing bad things, and I’m not going to do that to my brother.
“Because they’re little pieces of shit and someone should throw them in the river.”
He snorts into his soda hard enough to make it splash up. That makes him laugh outright, and in that moment he’s my little brother as I remember him.
“I’m sorry you’re having a bad time,” I tell him. “But bad times don’t last forever. I’ll talk to Mom about…”
“About what?” he says. “She’s busy all the time and she can’t do anything. She’s going to be mad at me for this.”
“She won’t be. I’ll talk to her.”
“I wish she listened to me. She only listens to you.”
Mom’s been busy. She has five-year-old twins now, Bracken and Eternity, then there’s Sasha, she’s eight, Jake, twelve, Eva who is sixteen, and Serenity who is eighteen. Being the eldest of seven is hard sometimes, but I like helping out where I can.
My dad left when I was two. Serenity and Eva have the same dad, and they visit him from time to time. Jake’s dad is a different guy I never even met. Sasha, Bracken, and Eternity are all from the man who would be my stepfather if I wasn’t too old to need a daddy, and if he were ever home. John is fine as far as Mom’s boyfriends go. He drives trucks long distance interstate and sometimes isn’t home for weeks at a time.
“When you get older, you’ll realize that’s kind of a blessing,” I tell him. “But you can always come visit me if you need some time away from it all. Just make sure to let Mom know, okay?”
“I’m going to get kicked out of school again, aren’t I?” he says miserably.
“No,” I tell him. “You’re not. Because those kids are going to stop bullying you.”
“How? Every school I go to, someone picks on me.”
I feel so bad for him. Jake just wants to fit in, and there’s always some shitty little asshole willing to take advantage of that. He’s smart, he’s sensitive, and he’s struggling for so many reasons.
“I know,” I say. “I’m going to try to help. What were their names, again?”
I get their names. I don’t know what I’m going to do with them, but it feels like a good thing to at least have the information. Maybe I can talk to the parents.
I ride on the bus with Jake back to our neighborhood, trying to talk to him about happier things while knowing he’s still not very happy at all.
The twins are dismantling something on the front lawn. I don’t know what, and I don’t stop to check. It looks like a toy of some kind. Their father likes to send gifts back for them while he’s on the road, and they like to rip them apart, little animals like they are.
Mom is doing the dishes with a harried annoyance.
“Hey, Mom,” I say. “I got Jake from school.”
“You can’t keep getting kicked out of schools, Jake!” she says, turning around with her hands covered in suds.
“He didn’t do anything wrong,” I say.
“Go and do your homework,” she says. Jake escapes out of the room as quick as he can. Sasha is at the kitchen table doing her homework. She’s a quiet kid, and I know she’s going to be okay because she’s more focused on work and things than half the adults I know.
