If I had one super power...

When I was a little girl, probably about 8, I awoke to pounding on our front door. I ran out of my bedroom and stood by the little hallway watching my dad as he stood in a crouching position pointing at invisible dangers just outside the door yelling for my mom to get the kids together because we had to leave or we would all die. He was drunk. Not just regular drunk where you slur your words and keep toppling but the blind stinking kind of drunk where you start hallucinating.

My mom was doing her best to calm him down and trying to pull him inside but he was adamant we were all in danger. She was finally able to convince him she would get our things while he rested and he wound up passing out to wake up the next day with no memory of the night before.

This was the beginning of my vigils. I found myself unable to sleep nights after that because I thought something might happen while we slept and nobody would be there to protect us or sound the alarm. The twisted mind of kid, right?

Thursday night, as I was heading back to bed after getting up from bed to use the bathroom, I heard pounding at my front door and I woke Andy up before I went to open it. As I was walking to the front of the house, I heard my mom say “it’s Rick, he probably forgot his key”. This made me angry because for weeks I’ve been telling him to take his keys with him. I opened the door, ready to chew him out but… the next image will be burned into my brain until the day I die.

There stood this kid, looking shocked and afraid, slumped forward with one hand extended towards me dripping with blood. If that image wasn’t bad enough his gut wrenching words shattered my heart. He simply said“Bee, help me.”

I pulled him inside and he rambled on incoherently about how something fell and hit his head but he was going to be okay. I sat him down and noticed he had been hit over the head multiple times as he had lacerations from the top of his head to just above the nape of his neck.

My first animal instinct was to get in my car (what? haven’t you seen animals driving before?) and retrace his steps to see if I could find whoever did this to him and beat them within an inch of their pig fucking lives. I would show no mercy. That was the first thing I wanted to do because I didn’t know how to fix it or make him feel better. They hurt the little boy I practically raised as my own. The same little boy who sat at the edge of his seat biting his nails one Christmas waiting his turn to open his gifts for he was sure his big sister had gotten him the Super Nintendo he wanted. And he was right.

I came back to my senses when I realized we needed to do something about his injury. He refused to go to the hospital and my mom, she was in shock too I think, assessed the situation and decided to monitor him and if we noticed any changes in him or if he continued bleeding we would forcefully take him to the ER that is only 5 minutes from my house.

We walked him up the stairs and tended to his head as best we could. At one point I looked over and noticed my mom staring vacantly at the wall as his girlfriend Maria cried softly. They may have caused him physical harm but the emotional distress they inflicted on my mother... the urge to go looking for those assholes was near irresistible.

I couldn’t sleep after that. I lay awake running through scenarios in my head feeling helpless and useless. I was angry at him for putting himself in such danger. I was angry at my father for being an alcoholic who abandoned his children. The majority of us were able to push ourselves and ignore he was never around but Rick is the one it seemed to affect the most. This was evident that night as he kept calling himself a fuck up and then kept asking for his "old man", a writer friend of his who he calls his father.

I thought and thought about the best way to proceed with what happened. File a police report definitely even if it was against his will. I slowly pieced together what may have happened so we could give the police a somewhat clear record instead of incoherent ramblings since he hs no memory of what happened.

He and Maria had stopped at bar for a few beers after getting off the Metra train after work. When it became late, my mom called to see where they were so Maria decided to leave and tried talking Rick into coming home too but he said no. Inebriated people can be obstinate. She walked home alone. Thank God nothing happened to her!

At around 1:30, Rick called my mom and said he was heading home and my mom said she still heard bar noise. At 1:45 he called her again and said he was now walking home and this time there was no background noise. Rick tends to be very emotional when he’s been drinking and he feels the need to tell people how much he loves them so at 1:50 my mom’s phone rang again but just once and then stopped. This is the time we think he was attacked from behind.

From the injuries on his head, it looks like he was hit once right at the top of his head and when he didn’t go down, they went to hit him again. He raised his left arm defensively and was hit on the arm because he has a deep wound on his mid-arm. They tried hitting him 2 more times and as he was stumbling to the left they wound up hitting him in a total of 3 different spots on the back of his head. He still did not fall because he is as stubborn as they day is long and I'm sure even though he wasn't in complete control of his senses, his instinct was to make them work for it. And plus, it takes more than that to take one of us down. I’m assuming a car came by or something startled them into not finishing the job because he made his way home with no further incident and arrived at 2:05. I remember looking at the time when I heard the first knock.

I believe someone followed him from the bar and thought him an easy mark for robbing. The fucking bastard(s) almost killed my little brother for, get this, ZERO dollars. Since they couldn't bring down the obstinate bull, they didn't go through his pockets or take his messenger bag.


I've never been of the 'turn the other cheek' philosophy. I'm more of the 'do on to me and I'll flatten your ass' or as they would say in olden times 'eye for an eye' so may they experience the same fucking thing we did with one of their loved ones.

Our life… sometimes I wish I had nothing to write about.