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| My Brady |
Happy Life After War Day!
For Marc and Angie, I was going to put up a profile like
last week’s, but after some thought, I realized nothing can give you a clearer
picture of who they are, were, than letting you see it as it happened. The
following is an excerpt from their back-story, which hasn’t been released yet.
Prologue
Marc: Age 12
There are a few things you should know about me before we go
any further together.
I was born lonely and I’ve spent almost every day of my life
that way. Existing in a home with no laughter, no emotions at all but
indifference or coldness had me longing for someone who could brighten my life
even before I was old enough to recognize her. Isolated and forced to deny who
I was, I lived a separate life from the other Gypsy’s in the neighborhood.
A second thing you should be aware of is how badly my mother
crushed my faith with her rabid hatred. To say she loathed our wild, heathen
roots, would be putting it mildly and despite being nearly full blooded Gypsy,
I was raised in a home that was Christian. From the clothes and furnishings, to
the regular attendance of every meeting, prayer chain, and baptism we were
invited to. There were crosses and plaques and so many scripture lessons that I
got lost in them. Literally. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe. It’s was more like I didn’t know which theory
to pick; our heritage or this new culture that didn’t fit me right.
The last thing about me that matters, was that I loathed our
way of living and just as soon as I got the chance, I planned to leave for
good. That promise to myself was what helped me through all the mornings I
started out on my knees, praying to a God I hadn’t heard of until my dad left
us. The rest of our huge clan loved the system Mother Brady had set up, especially
the men. We were sent out of town every year to learn the family business,
allowing for mostly unsupervised exploration of the world. How to sell and be
respectable, that’s what the Brady’s were known for now. Not for being Gypsy
spawn, as Mother Brady referred to those around us who refused to hide their
heritage. And I hated it. It felt wrong. I loved our culture, the small bits
I’d been able to learn behind her strict back but I didn’t cross her, not then.
I knew who was boss.
A last note; I’ve noticed that life is full of irony. Laying
unseen on the fringes of our day to day schedules, it’s everywhere but we can’t
see it until it’s too late to be changed into something wonderful. Like the
love that blindsided me. I spent years waiting and longing for the time to come
when I too would be allowed to go out of town for training and escape my lonely
existence. Then Angie filled my heart and I spent a decade hating each and
every time I had to leave her. Life is often ironic. And painful.
Angie: Age 7
There are a couple things you really need to understand
about me before Brady takes us any further into my private hell.
The most important is that I’m older than my age at any
given time. I always have been. People say it’s because of what I’ve seen and
heard during my short life but it’s really because of who I am, deep on the
inside.
I also have a lot of secrets. I don’t mean the kind you
giggle about with friends. I mean the kind you carry your whole life. Like my
mother being a Gypsy whore. Don’t frown. It’s only the truth. I’ve been hearing
it since I was a baby and I can’t tell you how many of her “friends” patted my
head on the way out our trailer door. That’s how I ended up with a new step
father. And my first awful secret.
Georgie is big and loud and likes to have me sit on his lap
and wrestle. I don’t like him very much but at least he doesn’t hit me like he
does momma sometimes. I figured out if I don’t tell him no, he don’t get mad at
me. I still get scared though. It’s like he’s waiting for something and it’s
about me. I hate being so little! They lie to me all the time and I have to
pretend I don’t know what they’re thinking.
But I do. That’s another one of the things I’m hiding from
the world. I can hear thoughts. Yes, even yours. I can also talk to ghosts.
Well, one. The Witch inside has been whispering to me ever since I can
remember. She was burned at the stake a very long time ago and was able to
transfer her soul into a community well. The first person to drink from it, my
Gypsy relative, was invaded. Now, we’re born with it, every seventh generation.
That’s me. The neighborhood ladies tell me it’s supposed to get stronger as the
person gets older. Scary, cause it’s pretty strong now. It’s the reason I found
My Brady. Which brings me to my other huge pretense.
Being at home was a bad thing for me all through my
childhood and I spent as much of it as I could exploring and hiding. Sometimes,
when I was very bored or upset, I’d follow thoughts. I liked being able to
track people down, it was fun, but I never showed myself. On one of those
adventures, I found a boy of eleven sitting in the rows of corn that lined one
side of our trailer park.
I’d followed his thoughts because they were a mirror of how
I was feeling. Alone, almost desperate, he matched the pull of that need with
the open misery I saw in his eyes. This was someone like me. I’d never known
that before.
He was scared and ashamed too because he had to pretend he
wasn’t Gypsy and because his family was so cold to him. He had all sorts of
hard rules and he was only allowed to be around the right kind of people. Even
at seven, I knew that wasn’t me.
The boy stayed in the corn all day, sometimes talking to his
self but mostly just quiet and thinking, trying to find an escape. It was how I
spent most of my own free time and I can’t tell you how strong the urge was to
come out. It began a bond that was unbreakable.
When he got up to
leave, I was careful to stay back but my heart called out to his. I didn’t want
him go yet. And he looked at me! Or at least it felt that way and I realized I
knew him. I’d seen his picture on the wall of my new stepfather’s den. The boy
was my family, a forbidden side of it that I hadn’t even met. Despair, thick
and smothering, settled over me and I crept away.
But stay away, I couldn’t. Less than a week after first
spotting My Brady, I was trailing him where ever he went in the neighborhood.
It didn’t matter that his mother loathed me even more than the other Gypsy’s or
that my new stepfather had put his hands up my dress in exchange for letting me
out to play so early. As long as I got to see him, I was okay. He quickly
became my unknowing light in the darkness.
A month after that, I couldn’t stand to be away during
school hours too and began ditching my classes for his. I’d linger behind the
bushes and watching him read, laugh with his friends, and stare out the glass
with an expression I longed to ease with the comfort of my little arms. To say
I was obsessed would be an understatement.
You see what I mean about my age? I was years ahead and only
Brady understood.
So those were my burdens. It was as if all nine planets had
collided at my birth, creating an inescapable hell that followed me most of my
life. Can you guess which secret I would have given up the quickest? My gifts.
Why? Because hearing into people hurts! I’d get up and pass my mother’s door
and hear her jealousy of my youth and my looks. Then I’d sit across from her
new husband and try to choke down a meal while he thought of his plans to watch
me in the shower later or peak under the blanket while I slept. To start every
day that way! If I hadn’t known, I could have at least stolen a few hours of
happiness without worrying about what was coming later.
As it was, I spent the years between four and seven in a
blur of fear and loneliness, praying for someone to be my friend. When I
finally found My Brady, I couldn’t let go. I needed him too much.
Chapter One
Marc & Angie
My mother hated anything that reminded her of our Gypsy
caravan background. For one of the family to flaunt it openly was a sin not
easily forgiven. We had relatives that were missing from the holiday gatherings
for years over such breaches of Mother Brady’s rules. Some were never allowed
to return, where others, like me, simply refused to go back under her thumb.
Why she refused to accept who were really were, was no
mystery. Her own parents had been killed by an angry mob after a Gypsy couple
had robbed and murdered a bank teller in town. My grandparents had been in the
wrong place, at the wrong time and it gave my mother a fear that only grew when
my father abandoned us shortly after being exposed for a thief and adulterer.
From that moment on, she and everyone suddenly under her reign had to conform
or be driven out. Considering that she inherited all the loan notices and
property deeds, there wasn’t much argument. A fanatical defense against the
horrors of her teenage years, my mother grew into a cold person afraid to love
or show emotion, even to her children. As a result, we didn’t have much feeling
for her either, beyond fear.
Appearances seemed to be all that mattered to her and since
a house with no love was all I’d ever know, I didn’t understand the power of
the warmth I was missing. I just accepted that my elder brother and sister held
value in her eyes and that I on the other hand, was a potential embarrassment
waiting to happen. I stayed out of trouble as best a Gypsy boy can and kept
grades and friends that she approved of. The Neighborhood kids, I never spent
time with. They danced on the sidewalks in front of their parent’s fortune
shops and played their music openly. My mother would cross the street to avoid
these reminders of her past and she fully expected us to do the same. The only
person I ever knew that crossed her on it and wasn’t punished, was her brother.
Georgie not only married without telling her, it was to a
Neighborhood “business woman”. A Gypsy Madam who ran a rustic fortune telling
shop as her cover for taking in male clients, it was exactly the type of people
my cold as ice parent had been pushing away. Man, the fight!
It shocked everyone
when Mother Brady allowed his wife to officially enter the family. I never
found out why she gave in but I’ve always been grateful to her for that one
thing. Because Georgie’s new bride had a little girl that I instantly felt
something for. It wasn’t love at first sight, not at those ages, but it was
powerful, just the same.
“This is your uncle’s new wife. Frona.”
My mother’s tone told me she didn’t like the loudly dressed
woman filling her doorway and I kept my voice cool. “It’s nice to meet you.”
The Gypsy woman wasn’t very big but the colors of her skirt
and top were confusing to my twelve year old eyes. We never had red or purple
in this house. Mother barely tolerated blue jeans.
“You must be Marc.”
I nodded, knowing not to put my hand out to her but the
fortune teller didn’t seem to notice the insult.
“Maybe you can help me?”
I felt the Matriarch beside me tense and kept my mouth
closed. I wasn’t sure why this woman was here or why my mother wasn’t throwing
her out and it made me uneasy.
“Angie needs the bathroom. Can you take her?”
“Humph!”
That one snort from Mother Brady told me I shouldn’t agree
and I opened my mouth to give her directions but a stunning little girl of
about seven stepped from behind my newest aunt and I froze.
She was pale, like paper, with tangled black curls that hung
to her tiny waist. So pretty! I’ve never been sure exactly what it was that
drew me so hard. It could have been the way she looked at me, like I was
already hers, or maybe how cute that little face was, but I’ve always thought
it was the warmth in those sky blue eyes. I was helpless against it.
“Please?”
Her angelic voice snapped me back into the cold reality of
my world and I nodded, already able to feel the waves of disapproval now
filling the hall. I would pay for this. “Come on.”
My mother watched us all the way down the long corridor,
sharp gaze no doubt filled with surprised speculation. Until that moment, I’d
done what she wanted and I’m almost sure she began laying plans right then. I
think maybe she knew, watching that beautiful Gypsy girl lead her least wanted
child down the hall, that later, when we were older, there might be trouble.
That’s the kind of parent Mother Brady was. Sharp. Merciless.
“In there.”
I waited outside the door, wondering if I could escape my
coming punishment until later. Mother wouldn’t forget but I could for a little
while. Standing there, I’d almost forgotten why I was in trouble at all and
when the bathroom door opened, I jumped.
“Sorry.”
She giggled at scaring me and the sound of it had me
grinning back. She was a cute kid. Too cute for this family. “S’okay.”
I turned to take her back but stopped at her words.
“Do we have to? She doesn’t like me.”
Smart kid. And I had just been thinking about escaping for a
while. Did this matter? I shrugged. “Probably not.” That made her smile, a full
shine of happiness that no boy would have been able to resist, let alone one as
isolated as I was.
“Where can we go?”
I was running through the options when her stomach growled,
answering the question. “The kitchen. Come on.”
My steps were slow and I looked over to find her watching me
with those eyes. What was it about them besides the fact that they were violet?
“So how do you like being a Brady?”
She shrugged but didn’t answer and I felt something I
couldn’t place right them, with her so close. I realized later that it was one
of the many things we had in common. I didn’t care much for it either.
“You go to school yet?”
She nodded, little hands shoved into the pockets of her
white dress like she was afraid to touch anything, even by accident. “Crosby.”
That meant my mother hadn’t really accepted her or she’d be
going to private classes with the rest of us. It also meant that I’d never get
to see her and even then, the sense of loss was there for me.
We moved quietly down another huge hall, surrounded by
saints and dark colors but neither of us paid attention to these things yet.
There would be time for guilt later. Right now, it was only Marc and Angie
rebelling and I grinned at her suddenly.
“You sure are quiet
for a girl.” That seemed to please her but it didn’t draw the smile I’d been
looking for.
“Momma said to and...
Mother Brady scares me some.”
For the first time in my life, I felt the urge to protect
someone other than myself. It was a world apart from the boy who only wanted to
get by so he could get out and I grinned again.
“She likes bigger food. You’re too small.”
Those seven year old eyes frosted over and that cute chin
became a stiff line. She didn’t tell me she hated those words or not to ever
say it again but I felt both as if she had. Her age was a touchy subject, I
thought, not knowing it would become one for me as well.
I nodded, not
realizing what had happened. “I won’t. Sorry.”
Our eyes locked and when she stopped, so did I, curious and
a little confused as to how she seemed so much older but it was more than that
too. Her eyes held me and outside, thunder crashed heavily, making the ground
shake.
We only stood there for a few seconds but it felt like
forever. In those stunning blue eyes, I could see so much! There was another
world in there, one that I wanted desperately to know of. In there, I’d always
be wanted.
She looked away (let go of me) and I yawned, instantly tired
and even more confused. What had just happened? Her eyes were blue now. How was
that possible?
“I’m sorry. “She hesitated, sounding miserable “You can take
me back now.”
Her eyes were lit up like a city skyline and I could almost
see her skin start to glow. No way was I taking her back yet. I wanted some
answers first.
I shook off that
sleepy feeling as best I could and got us moving. The last minute was already
blurring and I struggled to remember all of it. Later, when I was alone, I’d go
over it and figure out what it meant. That it did mean something, I took for
granted. It had been too strong to ignore.
I could feel her stealing looks at me, maybe to judge if I
was angry with her and I understood that whatever had happened, had come from
her and then went back into her. And also that she was keeping some really big
secrets. As someone who knew that look in the mirror too well, it was easy to
recognize.
The cook looked as surprised as I felt to be leading that
little Gypsy girl into his perfectly polished kitchen and I didn’t ask him to
do anything that might get him fired. I
led her by the steaming pots of chicken soup that were destined for local
shelters, fighting the urge to look back and see what she thought of the grand
house my mother had put together over the years. Was she impressed?
Intimidated?
I waved a hand at the table, where a plate of cookies and
baskets of fruit sat with perfectly matched precision.
“What ever you want.” The words had a ring of familiarity
that had my insides twisting. Did I know her from The Neighborhood?
She pulled an apple free with care and I handed her a napkin
to hold under it, thinking her choice had made me uneasy. Who turns down
chocolate chip cookies?
I watched her from
the corner of my eye, almost unable to look away as she bit into the fruit. Years
later, I recognized it as an Adam and Eve moment but right then, all I could
see was her age. I had a playboy under my mattress (and a backup on the top
shelf of my closet) and I considered myself nearly grown. What did I want with
this little baby?
“I won’t always be this little!”
The cook smiled at what he assumed was baby talk but I froze
again. She’d heard my thought!
“Of course not. You will grow and be even prettier.”
We ignored him, lost in that first discovery and I opened my
mouth, unsure what was about to come out.
“Marcus!”
Very glad of which way I was facing, I snapped my mouth shut
and schooled my face before turning to see both parents in the doorway, their
clothes clashing in a horrible warning.
“Yes, mother?” My
tone was perfectly bored but my pulse had tripled.
Two sets of narrowed eyes went over us and the cook, who’d
flinched back, terrified.
“What are you doing?”
My Mother’s voice was
like stone but before I could dig a hole, Angie saved us.
“He gaves me apples!”
The little girl let out another giggle, this one so annoying that I took a step back.
“Gave me one apple.”
She corrected herself, sounding exactly her age and I hoped
she knew I didn’t mean it as I rolled my eyes. “Can I go now?”
It sounded like I couldn’t
wait to escape and I left under my mother’s curt nod but I could feel her
surprise, her pain. My Angie.
I hid in the front tree as soon as I was out of sight and I
stayed there, waiting, thinking. No one I’d ever known had affected me so
strongly and when she and her loud parents stepped from the house, her eyes
went straight to mine, as if to say it was the same for her.
Even across the distance, there was a spark, a sense of us
being connected. It said there were things ahead that we weren’t ready for but
I couldn’t look away, even after I felt my mother’s sharp eyes find my hiding
place too. That little girl was someone I wanted to know and I set my mind to
it right then, that I would.
What I didn’t count on was how determined my mother now was
to keep us apart and with her years of being in charge, I stood little chance
against her manipulations. Many of them, I didn’t even recognize for what they
were.
“I saw the way you were looking at her, Marcus.”
I’d been expecting the ambush and flinched like I hadn’t
heard her steps outside my door.
“I always make you jump.” She moved into the room, an
imposing figure in her black and white suit. “I wonder why you are so easy to
spook.”
Right now, it was because her cold eyes had gone first to my
bed and then to my closet.
“Sorry, mother.”
She was silent for only a short pause and I tried not to
tense.
“Do you like her?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
I added nothing for her to build on and no lie to be trapped
in and her eyes narrowed under those thick glasses.
“You’ll stay away from her.”
I would not! My thoughts were often the opposite of the
words forced to come through my lips.
“Okay.”
I went back to
combing my hair, trying not to watch her. Did she know about my magazines? I
barely heard her move and then she was behind me in the mirror, cold blue gaze
trying to dig into my heart and see what evil I’d allowed into our lives.
“It’s a sin. Lusting for your family is incest and I’ll not
stand for it.”
I didn’t try to tell her it wasn’t like that. She wouldn’t
have understood and by the time it was over, she’d have twisted my words into a
confession.
“You’ll be punished.”
I nodded again, trying to ease the damage I was about to
take. “I am sorry, mother. They were so bright!’
Her face softened a bit, thinking I hadn’t liked it either.
“Yes, but temptation is everywhere. You must be strong enough to resist. How
can I send such a weak boy out of town next year?”
That was hitting below the belt but with her eyes watching
me, I hung my head and pretended a shame I felt only for allowing her to
treat me this way. Soon, the day would come when she couldn’t keep me here.
“You’ll spend the summer working for your aunt Judy.”
I looked up in surprise. I’d been asking to go since I
was ten and the change of subject threw me off, distracted me. “What?’
Her eyes never changed but her tone was as warm as I’d heard
in a long time. “You’ve been a good son, an obedient
son, and I’m being lenient with you this one time. It’s still punishment. There
are cows and pigs to be branded, hay to be baled, and horses to be cared for.
You’ll work, but you’ll also have fun with your cousins. Next year, you’ll
start the training. Best get those childhood notions out of your system now.”
She drifted from my room a few minutes later, the plans for
my departure the following morning already set. Not wise enough to see how I’d
been tricked, I was vaguely unhappy to be leaving Angie so soon after meeting
her but I was overjoyed at getting to work on Judy’s farm. I was being set free
a year early.
Played like a banjo around a campfire. Clever, simple, it
began a pattern of hurt that repeated over and over through our years together.
I was always being ripped out of Angie’s life.
Marc and Angie
This story will be
released in late 2012- early 2013.
Next Week: The Twins
"This
is Safe Haven Refugee Camp. Can anyone hear me?
Hello?
Is anyone out there?"
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