I can clearly remember my folks coming back from the hospital with my little brother held tight in my Ma's arms, I wasn't much more than two years old and there's not much that I can remember before that, but I remember that day like it was yesterday.

 

My Pa took the tiny bundle from my Ma and knelt down to show me my new brother.  He was wrapped up tight in a soft grey blanket so I couldn't see anything more than his small face; all wrinkled up like the world was leaving a bad taste in his mouth already.  ‘You listen well now Frank,' my Pa told me, ‘and try to understand what I am telling you. This here is James Edward Earl and from now on you have a responsibility to this child as his elder brother.'  I had never seen my Pa look so serious before and I knew that what he was telling me was important, even if I didn't understand it all clearly. 

 

‘You are gonna be about the most important thing in the world to James as he grows up and it is up to you to protect and help him in life.  Nothing is so special to a young boy as his older bother and he is gonna look to you to show him the way.  It's a big burden for you to take on, but I know that you are gonna be man enough for it.'

 

My Pa unwrapped the blanket so that he could free James' arm and took my finger and placed it in James' tiny hand.  As soon as he felt my touch his hand closed tight around my finger, gripping me with more strength than I though a baby could have.  ‘You are connected now,' Pa said, ‘you and James are brothers forever and you must always remember this moment and be there for James when he needs you.'  While my Pa spoke James opened his eyes and looked right at me, then his face crinkled up and he started wailing fit to wake the dead.  

 

My, but that boy could holler. It seemed that the house was never free of his crying from the day he came home.  I tried to help my Ma but I could tell that even she didn't know what to do with a baby that cried all the time.  For two years my brother cried every moment that he was awake.  My Pa took him to see the local doctor and even drove as far as the city to visit the big hospital there but nobody could help us.  James cried all day and all night, every day, even on Christmas when there was supposed to be peace on Earth.  I came to hate that crying and resent how it took my parents attention from me but whenever I thought like that I remembered how my Pa had said I was to look after James and I would feel guilty and try to help my Ma more to make up for it.

 

Then one day he just stopped.  Nobody could say why he stopped just like nobody could say why he started.  I guess maybe he just ran out of tears. 

 

Whatever the reason, it was like I had a new brother, one that laughed and wanted to play and just like that, we were inseparable.  Wherever I went and whatever I did, James wanted to be there doing it with me.  He was still very young so he couldn't do things as well as me, but there wasn't anything he wouldn't try.  He would try to run as fast, shout as loud and climb as high as me and because he was just a baby still, he would fall and fail more often than not.  But no matter how often or how hard James fell he would never cry, he would pick himself up and try again, and again until he succeeded.  I never saw my brother cry again, it was like he had done a lifetimes crying in his first years and didn't feel the need to do any more. 

 

The time came for me to go off to school during the days, leaving James behind, but he would wait for me at the end of each day at the top of the drive so we could race home along the gravel path.  He lived for the weekends when I would be home and we could go off together and explore the forest that bordered our home.  We would sit up at night after lights out and make whispered plans for the next days adventure, laughing quietly with excitement at the thought of having two whole days to ourselves. 

 

My folks never minded when we were gone all day ‘cause they knew that I would never let any harm come to James and anyway it would be impossible to make him stay at home without me.  When we'd get in the forest we'd go straight to our fort that we had built out of fallen branches and dead leaves.  It was there that we would meet up with my friends from school and play war against each other amongst the trees.  Even though James was the youngest the boys didn't mind that he tagged along ‘cause he never whinged or tattled and was always happy to go along with whatever mischief we had planned. 

 

We all grew up together, running through the woods, pretending we were soldiers.  James came to my school and fitted in with my gang of friends.  He was the only boy from the younger classes that we would let hang around with us and he was accepted by nearly everyone, with the sole exception of Billy Peters.  Billy came from a rough family and it was widely accepted amongst us boys that his Pa was a drunkard and his Ma was a witch.  Billy was in my year but wasn't a part of any gang and had the well-deserved reputation as the school bully, but he'd never caused any problems for us and we just avoided him as much as possible.

 

It was towards the end of summer vacation and a big group of us kids were involved in a large game of war in the forest.  It seemed like every kid from school was there that day, even the girls were whopping and hollering as the game intensified.  Suddenly through the chaos of noise came the chant of ‘fight, fight, fight' from a dozen throats.  Like everybody else I forgot all about the game and hightailed it over to where the noise was coming from, running fast and hoping that I would get there before the fight was over. 

 

There was a circle of kids around the action in a small clearing all yelling and cheering.   I pushed my way through to the front and stopped dead, my own cheer stuck in my throat, as I saw that one of the combatants was James.  Billy had him on the ground in a headlock and blood was flowing from a split in James' lip.  As I watched, frozen to the spot, Billy pulled back his fist and hit James in the mouth again.  As his fist connected he snarled ‘You say Uncle now or I'm gonna hurt you real bad'.  James spat fresh blood from his lip and shook his head, silently refusing to submit to Billy. 

 

Billy pulled back his fist, knowing that he was going to hit my brother again seemed to release my legs and I rushed forward until I was standing in front of him.  I was scared but angrier than I had ever been.  ‘Just you let him go Billy' I said. ‘You let him go right now or I will be doing the hurting on you.'  Billy stood up, dragging James to his feet as well and glared down at me.  He had a good couple of inches on me, but I wasn't going to back down and leave James to be hit again.  ‘I told you to let him go Billy' I stepped forward until I could feel his breath on my face ‘You do it now or I'm gonna have to whip you here.'

 

Billy slowly released his hold and allowed James to slip from under his arm.  As soon as James was free he rounded on me ‘Damn you,' he yelled ‘I don't need you to fight my battles.  Just you leave me alone.'  I was so taken aback at the venom in his tone that I didn't see Billy line up on James until it was to late to prevent his fist smashing into the unprotected side of James' face.  James was focused on me and didn't see the punch coming, it hit him just behind the ear and he dropped to the ground like a stone.  I looked at Billy laughing at my brother on the ground and something inside me just snapped.  I pulled back my fist and threw all my weight behind it as I aimed it at Billy's face. 

 

He probably would have been alright if he hadn't turned his head to look at me, as it was he ended up presenting me with a beautiful shot and my fist drove into his face with every once of muscle I could put into it.  I felt his nose burst like a ripe tomato and a sharp pain in my own hand as his front teeth snapped off and I cut myself on the jagged stumps.  Billy went down hard but I didn't even notice as I was already turning to check on James.  He had regained his feet and blood from his lip splashed on me as he swore ‘Fuck you. I could have taken him myself. Leave me the hell alone in future.'  I had never heard my brother swear before, was not even aware that he knew such words and I stood mutely as he pushed his way through the crowd and walked away. 

 

I left for boarding school two days later.

 

I didn't see much of James over the next two years.  I'd come home for the school vacations and he would be there but somehow what had happened in the forest that day still lay between us like a wall that neither of us could climb. 

 

We buried my Ma the second year I was at school.  The cancer came and took her before I even had a chance to say goodbye.  I cried when they lowered my Ma into the ground but James just stood by her grave with his eyes as dry as a midsummer day.  We never did speak of it.

 

When James was old enough he joined me at boarding school, but since Ma had died he was different.  For a start he didn't want to be James any more, he said that James was a boy's name and he was no longer a boy.  He insisted on being called Jimmy and I had to get used to that. 

 

He had also learnt how to fight. 

 

When we were kids James didn't have a violent bone in his body, but somewhere between me leaving home and him becoming Jimmy, he had found a deep well of hatred inside him.   I never saw him start a fight or pick on a boy weaker than him, but whenever there was a fight at school you could be sure that Jimmy would be in the middle of it.  He wouldn't back down to anyone, no matter how big, and he seldom lost.  He would just keep coming back at his opponent no matter how many times he was knocked down, until eventually he won. 

 

After a year at the school Jimmy didn't fight anymore, he didn't need too, all he had to do was look at a boy with that fire in his eyes and the boy would back down.  He even scared me when I saw him look like that.

 

 For a start we would go home for the vacations but the house seemed empty without Ma and my Pa had lost a part of himself when she went.  He had started with drinking and spent most of his days just sitting in his favourite chair, staring out the window, with nothing but a bottle of Jack for company. 

 

Eventually Jimmy stopped coming home.  I would still go out of loyalty to my Pa and we would pass the days sitting together in a silence broken only by the splash of liquid as he refilled his glass.  Sometimes Pa would ask me where James was, he never called him Jimmy, and I would lie and say that he had stayed at school to study.  I never knew where my brother went during these times. We didn't share confidences anymore.

 

I felt bereaved of my family, my Ma dead, my Pa drunk and my brother gone away.  I threw myself into my studies to fill the gap that I felt inside and to my surprise I was awarded the offer of a scholarship and the chance to go to college. 

 

The night before I left Jimmy had made one of his rare trips home and came into my room late at night, waking me when he sat on my bed.  He sat in silence for a while and I waited for him to speak.  I couldn't see him clearly in the dark, just his silhouette against the lighter wall behind.  ‘I know we haven't been close lately' his voice was quiet and soft in the night, ‘and that's my fault.  I've needed to work a few things out and I'm still not sure about some stuff.'  He paused and I thought he was finished, but he continued.  ‘I'm going to miss you Frank, I just want you to know that.'  He got up and left before I could answer, leaving me alone in the dark. 

 

I didn't see him in the morning before I left.

 

I enjoyed college, I liked the freedom and the ideas and the learning.  I tried to keep in touch with Pa and Jimmy but I never heard back from them and I was soon so busy with my own life that I would catch myself and suddenly realise that I hadn't even thought of them for weeks.  I still tried to get home for vacation but the contrast between my Pa, who seemed to have given up on life, and my new friends, who were so open to all that life could bring, was such that I found it increasingly difficult to tolerate the oppressive mood in our house. 

 

During my first two years at college Jimmy would come to visit me, at first only for a day but as time went on he came more often and stayed longer.  He seemed a different person from when I had last seen him; he had found his joy in life again and was once again the laughing brother that I had known growing up.  Jimmy said that he was doing well in school and that he might even think about trying to go to college as well. 

 

My new friends all took to Jimmy straight away, he just had a knack with people.  He would come up on the weekends and we would all go out as a group, score some illegal booze and have a good old time.  If my male friends liked Jimmy, the girls took to him even more.  They flocked around him like moths to a flame but he never got arrogant about it like some people, and I never saw him take advantage.  He just smiled and laughed and never seemed to take anything too serious.  I had never seen my brother happier and I hoped that he had found his way back from wherever he had been in his dark time. 

 

Then one day he just stopped coming. 

 

When I didn't hear from Jimmy for a few months I rang home but my Pa said that he hadn't seen him at all that year.  He said that Jimmy had just come home one day, packed up some things, and left.  Pa's voice was slurred with drink and I wondered if maybe he just couldn't remember Jimmy being home.  I rang the school to see if I could reach Jimmy there but when I asked for him the women on the phone told me that Jimmy had been expelled more than eighteen months ago after he had hit a teacher.  He had not been back to the school since. 

 

I had no idea where to start looking for Jimmy and my worry over his absence laid a pall over the remainder of my school year.  Not long before the college closed for vacation Jimmy came back.  It had been six months since I had last seen him and he looked tired, his eyes were sunken into his head and his face looked drawn and thin.  Despite his looks he still seemed cheerful enough although his humour was less natural and more forced.  Jimmy stayed with me for two days and by the second the suspicion that had been growing in me since I first saw him had taken a firm hold, leaving a sick tight knot in my belly.

 

I had avoided calling Jimmy on his lies about school and living at home as I knew it would most likely cause a fight and I wanted to make sure Jimmy was okay before I risked upsetting him.  But I knew it had to be done and on Jimmy's last night I confronted him in my room.   I told him that I had called the school and that I knew he had been expelled and that he hadn't been living at home for more than a year.  Jimmy's face darkened and he got the fighting look in his eyes that I remembered so well.  I thought he was going to hit me but instead he just walked across the room and yanked open the door.  I reached him in three quick steps and grabbed him by the arm, despite his anger I saw him wince and I knew I was right.  I locked eyes with Jimmy and I could tell that he knew I knew.  He could have pulled away from me; I was so scared of what I might find that I don't think I would have stopped him, but instead he just stood there and stared at me as I pushed his sleeve up to expose the needle marks that nestled amongst the bruises on his arm. 

 

I had suspected, but seeing the ugly scars, the evidence so starkly tattooed on his skin, drained me of the ability to move.  I had no idea what to do next and could only stare at the evil marks while I felt my world spin around me.  Jimmy removed my unresisting fingers from his arm and rolled his sleeve down to cover the shame.  I raised my eyes to his and we just stared at each other for a long moment, then Jimmy walked out the door. 

 

I let him go, God help me I didn't know what else to do.

 

I spent that vacation with my Pa at home.  Pa had gone so far down the road of the bottle by that time that I doubted he would be able to find his way back even if he had the will.  Sometimes he would ask me where James was, I don't recall what I told him and I don't suppose it really mattered as five minutes later he would forget that he had asked me.  Sitting there in the dark with my Pa slowly killing himself with liqueur while my brother was doing the same with a needle in his arm was where I made the decision to stop my own drinking and partying.  The price just seemed too high. 

 

I tried to find Jimmy. I asked everyone who knew him, I searched his old haunts and I took the bus and walked the lonely streets of the city.  For the first time I saw drug addicts and prostitutes, I saw men and women beaten by life, I saw the great wave of hopeless humanity that had broken against the unyielding fortress of steel and cement of the city's streets.  But I did not see my brother.

 

I went back to college for my last year.  I felt ready to move on from the school system, I felt old and worn, removed from the youthful cheerfulness of the other students. 

 

I did not expect to fall in love.

 

I had known Betty since my first school.  She had been in the same year as Jimmy so, although I was aware of her, she had not mixed with my gang.  She had already done her first year at my college but I hadn't managed to bump into her in all that time.  I won't say it was love at first sight but it can't have been much off.  It wasn't long before we were stepping out together and by the end of the year I was sure that this was the woman I wanted to marry.  I felt alive and free; Betty filled the hole inside me where my family's love used to live.  I still missed and worried about Jimmy but my own life had become so busy that I let looking for him slide while I concentrated on my final exams and life with Betty. 

 
We had agreed that once I graduated I would get a job locally and support Betty while she finished college.  Once she had graduated we would get married. I had met her parents and while they approved of our union I had delayed talking to my Pa, partly because I was ashamed of Betty meeting him in the state he was in.  In the end I left it too late. 
 
It was the county sheriff who phoned me with the news.  He said that my Pa had been dead for a long time before he was found.  That animals had got to him before people. 
 
I chose to bury my Pa in the same plot as my Ma, that way my folks could be together again at last.  I hoped that would make my Pa happy again.  I tried to contact Jimmy but nobody had heard anything from him, it was as if he too had left this world.  It rained the day I buried my Pa.
 
The day after the funeral Jimmy came back into my life.
 
He must have walked some distance in the still pouring rain, as he was soaked to the skin and shivering like he had the fever.  He all but collapsed into my arms and I carried him to my bed. There was no weight to him and I could feel his bones protruding beneath his long coat.  His eyes were flickering shut and I was not sure if he even knew where he was.  I stripped off his sodden clothes, feeling sick as I exposed his wrecked body covered in needle marks.  The tracks had spread across his body like leprosy.  No longer confined to just his arms, they covered his hands and spread from his feet up his lower legs. 
 
Jimmy stayed with me for a month. 
 
For a start he was real sick, he sweated and vomited and I thought he was going to die.  I was too scared to go to the hospital; I was sure they would call the police and Jimmy would be taken from me and locked away.  Betty helped.  She came in response to my frantic phone calls and she helped me bath and clean and comfort Jimmy while he battled with his demons.  Betty had known Jimmy at school and she cried at the sight of what he had become, but she never once flinched from helping me.
 
Slowly, step-by-step, day-by-day, my brother got better.  Some colour returned to him, first to his face and then to his emaciated body.  He recovered his appetite and, as he ate, his strength.  The scabs covering the needle marks healed over, leaving pale scars that stayed white against his skin, as he tanned and browned in the spring's gentle sun.  Best of all, his eyes lost their deadness and his gaze turned outwards, away from his personal darkness and towards the world of the living. 
 
When I looked into his eyes I could see my brother again.
 
Jimmy and I took to taking long walks in the free time I had between classes and with each mile that passed beneath our feet Jimmy grew stronger.  He talked a lot on those walks, not about where he had been or what he had been doing, but about what he was going to do.  I can't describe how happy it made me to hear my brother making plans for his future, to know that he believed he had one.
 
Betty and Jimmy got on well together and the three of us made the most of the early spring weather to get outdoors as much as possible.  Neither Betty nor I drank so it was easy for Jimmy to avoid the party scene that was such a part of college life.  He swore that he had had enough of drink and drugs and that he was never going down that path again.  I so desperately wanted to believe him that I didn't listen to the fears that dogged my sleep. 
 
I did not understand the nature of Jimmy's illness well enough to hear them clearly. 
 
At the end of the month Jimmy moved in with a friend and found work in a local garage.  My final exams dominated my days but I tried to spend as much time with Jimmy as possible.  I felt that it was important that I was with him.  I think I was scared he would disappear again. 
 
Betty and I got married in a quiet ceremony two months after I graduated.  Jimmy stood up for me as my best man.  I had already secured a good job in the local bank and was in a position to support Betty while she finished her schooling.  Jimmy was doing well and was enjoying his job and I as I stood at the altar beside him I offered up a silent prayer of thanks to God for bringing my brother back to me. 
 
I missed my Ma and Pa.
 
Our lives settled into the steady rhythm of work and study.  Betty and I were blessed by our first pregnancy and she had to waddle to the college hall to sit her final exams.  I was called from work on a Tuesday to see my son delivered.  Jimmy was there to share the moment with me.  We christened the boy William Francis Earl, after my Pa.  Jimmy was made his Godfather.
 
When young William was a year old we had a double party to celebrate his birthday and the news that Betty was expecting our second.  At the height of the party I stood back to enjoy the sight of our house filled with friends and laughter and thanked God again for the gifts he had given me.
 
Two weeks later Jimmy was gone again.
 
I never knew what caused him to leave, what triggered his relapse, his slide back into his dark side.  I tried to find him.  I searched the city again, down streets that I had not trod for years.  The depravities, the misery, the wasted lives were still there as I had last seen them.  Only there were more of them.  I tried, on my soul I can swear that I tried, but I had a young child and a wife who was expecting another. 
 
I tried, but in the end I had to let my brother go.
 
I knew as soon as I read it, perhaps I had been subconsciously expecting it.  There was nothing in the short news article to indicate the identity of the man but I knew.  I just knew.
 
The coroner's office was cold.  I was escorted down to the cellar where they kept the bodies.  The Bodies.  The coroner led me to the last table in a line of five and paused before lifting the sheet clear so I could see. 
 
It was Jimmy. 
 
He had been murdered, the gaping knife wounds in his chest looking like larger versions of the needle marks that littered his body.  I cried the tears that he had never seemed able to find. 
 
We buried Jimmy alongside my parents.  Before we left I knelt by my Pa's headstone and asked him to forgive me for failing in my duty to Jimmy.  I hoped he understood. 
 
Betty gave birth to another boy. 
 
We named him James Edward Earl.
 
After my brother.