It happened on Friday, September 9. I was preparing to perform at Freehold Intermediate School. I was in the Cafetorium waiting for the elementary kids to clear out. I just sat observing all the wild, fun energy of K-5 graders, thinking about my own daughter, and her venture into this realm within a few years. It spread oodles of smiles upon my face. At one point, there were these two brothers walking in, holding hands. One looked to be in the second grade and the other one appeared to be in the fourth grade. The older one continued to hold his younger brother's hand until they could identify where the younger one needed to be. Once that was established, the older brother watched as the younger one scurried across the floor to meet a new friend, then he (the older brother) found his own seat.

I was struck by how beautiful that image was, the two brothers taking care of one another; the older one assuring that his younger brother was going to be safe. I pondered how quickly siblings can forget how to take care of one another; how in time those two boys may never be as close as they are now. It made me think of my brother Roy and how he used to take care of me. He was my protector, my hero growing up -- no one could harm me. He was my big brother, my Bunny, and I was his Wingy. He watched to see if I sat in the right seat. He allowed no harm to come to me. He got angry with me when he found out that I drank a beer when I was 11. He told me that he would beat me up if he ever heard that I drank again. He protected me against neighborhood kids who wanted to beat me up because I ran my mouth so much. He told them, "You gotta come through me first," and then they walked away. I remember one time how he took the brunt of a beating from our father who tore into us with his belt; he covered me with his body as my father's heavy hand whipped and whipped. I did the screaming, my brother took the welts that time. I remember crying when he ran away from home for a week during high school; I remember crying again when he left for the Navy, hoping that I would see him again. I recall feeling scared when we hadn't heard from him in months while he was in Guam. Then there was my senior year in college and I had broke the security codes of my college's phone system, and called my brother. I completely broke down when we spoke because I hadn't heard from him in such a long time. I lost it. I was inconsolable. I was going through so much -- graduating, the memories of what Dan had done to me, my future, my past, the whole package. I wanted to tell him that I just wanted to play baseball with our baseball cards again, smacking around pieces of balled-up foil as if we were the true heroes on those cards. I wanted to be so much younger again.

Then he was kicked out of the Navy.

He came home for a short time. He didn't tell me not to drink anymore, because he was drinking and smoking frequently, but he was still my brother, and he was still "cool". Then my first year in grad school, he started to do Crack-Cocaine, and Crack cured him of his alcohol addiction, and it took me years to realize that I had lost my Bunny, my big brother --

These days, I guess I'm the older brother, the rescuer, and I never got the manual to read when I was younger. So, I'm winging it. He lives in two extremes nowadays: an addict of the streets or as a religious fundamentalist zealot. It's tough sometimes for me to choose which one I prefer. I just want him to be out of his pain, to forgive himself, to forgive Dad, to move on. He left when he was 17 and never grew a day more in his relationship with our father. He's still a teenager and he turned 36 this summer. I didn't call him for his birthday this year. I wanted to call, but it's too much sometimes . . . just enough to put you in the space of a dark winter night with no warmth around, and I wasn't ready to make that trek right then.

I was preparing to perform at Freehold Intermediate School on Friday and I saw two brothers holding hands, taking care of each other, and the older one watched the younger brother walk to his seat, making sure he was going to be safe.

And I started to cry uncontrollably, and I had to cover my face and walk away.