I knew I shouldn’t feel this way but I hated him. My brothers were dead because they wanted to be like him. “The army made me a man!” “Women love a man in uniform!” Day after day, story after story he filled their heads up with this bullshit about honor and loyalty and truth! Bullshit that got them killed! Wars that weren’t being fought because we were enslaved or attacked but wars that were being fought for nothing. He didn’t talk to me much because he thought I was a coward, I didn’t talk to him because I thought he was a fool.
I was the youngest and the smallest and the quietest. My father was the life of any room he walked into, loud, funny, friendly. My brothers were just like him, they had his broad shoulders and quick temper. They all played football and boxed, stayed outside until our mom had to drag them in. I don’t think there was a day that went by that they didn’t stuff me in a closet or a trunk or spray me with a water hose.
No matter how much they roughed me up, it was always only them. Whenever someone tried to pick a fight with me because I was smaller, I had their height but not their size, they were in for a surprise. Years of getting tossed around by my siblings gave me the quickest hands in our house since that was the only way I could ever win a fight…
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