My brother had emotional problems with me as the new arrival.
The manifestations were over the years varied and many.
When I could not play tennis as he tried to teach me at age eight – his anger mounted until he drug me across the asphalt tennis court at the local PSJA high school. My knees were bloody and ripped. The scabs took over a month healing – I told Ruth. Marie, and Mimi that I had fallen down.
At age ten, I knocked over one of his tennis trophies and broke an arm holding a racquet. We were alone in the house and he threw shoes at me and one of them hit the ceiling in Ruth’s bedroom.
The impact made a cut in the acoustical tile and left a long scar.
When Ruth noticed, I told that it happened with a broom handle.
When I was eleven, one day in the fruit packing shed Charles held my buttocks down on the conveyor belts where they turned around each other and caught my cheeks with a pinched black and blue mark that turned yellow and purple.
About a week and a half later, Ruth entered the bathroom – saw me after a bath – and caught site of the marks.
This was the first time I explained what had happened after she had several questions.
There was a long silence and then she asked, “And the Knees?”
“The bedroom ceiling?” I remained silent.
She let me finish my bath and dressing and then she took me outside and said I could not be alone with Charles again.
The anger never quite went away.
When he came to visit me in Illinois in summer 2006 he listened well to my traumas and we revisited life as siblings and years on differing paths.
After he left, he sent me a bill for all of his trip expenses.
I sent a check in full.
Entry – August 4, 2007
