ANGEL HARRISON
“Annie get over here! How many times do I have to tell you to stop painting the walls? Is it so hard to listen to me? Scrub it off!” my mother’s voice rang harder and louder than ever before. I stood in front of the scene staring with wide eyes. I am in my white undies and my thumb fits snuggly in my mouth as I glance over at what is going on. My sister looks mad, raging with anger. She is thirteen, and I am four. I stare at her till she looks my way, then I grin. She laughs at me “You know nothing; you are the luckiest baby in this world, Angel. Maybe it comes from the name?” I continue to stare and smile, it’s rare she talks to me, she’s always busy with this or that, and so she pushes me away or screams at me…kind of like what mother does to her. Finally I get away, tired of looking at my sister scrub paint off of the white walls. I wobble around the house looking for something to do, someone to talk to. “Bibby!” I yell. In front of me stood the man I love the most other than my daddy. I smile into my oldest brother’s eyes, “Bibby!” I yell again. He doesn’t look down at me, instead he ignores me. Why? Why is Bibby being so mean?
“Billy, so what are we going to do? You say we shouldn’t split up, so now you must think you’re the head of the fucking family, so you decide what we are going to do!” I cringe at the sound of my mother’s voice. Mamma’s being mean. Is what rings through my mind, I stare at the two of them staring each other down.
“I’m gonna get a good job, I’m old enough. I think I can get the job at the fitness center up in town, I know a guy there who practically promised me the job,” My mother just sighs loudly and walks away, to release her wrath on something else. Suddenly I realize that daddy hasn’t come home yet, I couldn’t read time but I know that daddy should be home by now. “Bibby, where’s daddy?” for a four year old I was told that I was a little slow. In the truth I knew I wasn’t but, I knew I had trouble pronouncing names. Bibby heard me say that he looked down into the soul of my eyes and then gritted his teeth. “So nobody told Angel!” he screamed to the house. Silence was his reply. “Fine baby girl, I’m gonna tell you, daddy isn’t coming home anymore, he’s gone,” I didn’t wait, I bawled immediately. I needed my daddy to come give me a hug and pick me up, I miss daddy! Bibby, sympathized with my tears and picked me up into his kind arms, I love Bibby. So I was the queen of the house for the rest of the night, Bibby didn’t once let me go, he even gave me my bath, it’s like he knew I would need him to get though such a sad time.
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It’s a month later and it’s December. My birthday is December seventh. I wake up and climb out of my small bed and walk around the house. The house seems rather silent except voices coming from my sister’s room. I walk over to her door and here her whisper “Don’t you dare tell mamma now Billy, I’m only telling you cause I know you would understand,”
“I don’t understand shit. What are you saying you’re running away, where the fuck are you going to go?
“I don’t know, all I know is, mom has been beating me down since the day dad died and I’m gonna end up like Cinderella without the happily ever after part. All I’m doing is asking for a little money,” Bibby laughs.
“A little Annie is five bucks; you’re asking for five hundred dollars, no one’s got that kinda money now-a-days,” Annie starts to cry and Bibby leaves pushing the white door into my face. I fall on my back and start to cry. He walks right past me.
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I am five today! It’s really exciting to be a year older! Well, only for me, my sister’s birthday is today as well, I thought she would be happier. But she seems so sad. Bibby told mama about Annie’s plan, then mamma got even meaner, and I don’t love Bibby anymore, he ain’t the same no more. I hug my sister for her present. She smiles down at me and places my gift on my forehead, a kiss. If you ask me though, my gift was that she started to notice me and we got closer and closer. I walk to mamma after awhile and ask her for my present. She laughs at me. I stare at her; I don’t know what I said that was so funny. She tells me I’m in her way, and then she walks away. I stand there angered deeply. Where is my other brother in all this? My other sibling, simple, he was in a boarding school that he had originally hated but grew to love. It was for troubled kids, cause apparently he was troubled. I never knew him. I was about to though; all day mamma was on the phone asking him time and time again if he was ready to come home. His name is Brien. Annie says it’s kinda funny how she kept asking him if he was ready when he didn’t have any choice, we didn’t have enough money to keep him in the school.
I am starting to get hot, it’s two o’clock and Brien is due at two thirty. Mamma is going frantic around the house drinking a glass here and there and cleaning up everywhere. Finally the door rings like it hasn’t forever. And that’s when it hit me, people haven’t been coming over, there use to be some people hanging out in our house every now and then. Now it was no more. I am so excited I run to the door first, and like usual I’m was in my undies, I pull the handle of the door with all my might and it creaks open. I look through the crack and see a friendly looking boy. I pull it wider till his whole body is in view. He stares at me for a second and for some reason I want to run and hide, more out of shyness than anything else. Then he looks confused for a moment until he realizes I was the baby in his mother’s pregnant body when he was sent to the boarding school for trying to kill himself. He is sixteen, two years younger than my Bibby. “Hi, you must be Angel, and you sure look like one!” then he smiles. I smile and giggle ‘cause he just seems nice. Then I take his hand and pull him in “This is my house!” I tell him, proud of every nook and cranny. He grins down at me, I watch though as his grin diminishes when he looks at mamma who is staring at him now. “Hello Brian, how are you?” she says.
“I’m fine mamma, I’m all good now,” Then he pulls his hand away from mine and runs toward his mamma, they haven’t seen each other in five years. The two of them embrace and let go at around the same exact time. She looks him over and over and over. I smile even though I don’t understand any of it. Then there was a lot of noise and commotion and crying as Bibby and Annie came out and embraced their brother. Along with exclaims of ‘You look so grown!’ ‘Wow, so I hear you’re a man now’ ‘I hope you like dinner I made chicken pot pie, you’re favorite’ ‘I hope you aren’t planning on leaving us now, you know dad already left,’ that last comment made by his sister jabbed onto him and on to all of us, even me. There was a long silence before Brien finally broke it. “Thank you all for forgiving me for my silly attempt to kill myself a very long time ago. I promise you I will never do that again, but that’s all I can do, promise, you all will have to trust me,” Everyone then erupted into tears and all hugged each other, I was even brought into it by mamma who picked me up and kissed me on my cheek. I missed mamma.
Dinner is good. It’s been a long time since I tasted real chicken in here, I wonder how mamma got such good chickens. I was given a small piece and I want more. “Mamma, I want sommore chicken!” I beg. She shakes her head and glances at the new guy. I sigh. I sit back down and then look at my new brother, “Brien, can I’s habe sommore ef your chicken?” He nods at me and I use the scooper to scoop some more chicken pot pie, mhmmmmhmm! I look around the table and everyone’s talking and laughing, I feel good again. So I say “Bibby, when’s daddy gone come back from where he’s is, you said he’s gone, when is he commin back?” There was dead silence. Nobody still had any closure over my daddy leaving; I think he’s going to come back. “He isn’t coming back sweetie,” my Bibby says. I look at him surprised out of my mind. “Nu uh, he’s coming back,” I tell him. I see mamma ready to choke me dead, but I keep going, “You all may not want him back, but I want him to see Brien!” That did it mamma screamed at me
“Angel San Harrison, you march that butt of yours upstairs RIGHT NOW! And I don’t want to hear another word about your daddy coming back, he’s gone, he went to heaven, and he ain’t EVER coming back, do you hear me girl? Do you hear? Now get up there!” I’m asking for trouble, but something inside me shakes my head,
“No,” I whisper diffidently. My mother walks up to me grabs me off my seat and slaps my behind so hard, everyone cringed. I start to cry, then my new brother tells mamma to set me down now. She sets me down. So I only received one hit. But that one hit I received was enough to make me have a slight resentment to my mother tucked away inside.
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This time was my favorite time of the year, as it also was the time we use to have the most people over, Christmas time. It was the Christmas month. And boy did we have a Christmas surprise! My brother is a Christian. It came out on a Sunday when he asked if we would like to join him at church. My mother looked like he was from another universe. “Since when do we go to church Brian? Goodness, what I have to put up with!” mamma was starting to treat Brien like the rest of us now since he’s already been here two weeks. Brien’s my new Bibby, I love him more now. Mostly it’s because Bibby’s always busy since he’s working two jobs. Even Annie’s got a job now; she works at the hair salon from three to six. “I guess I should’ve told you first then mamma, I’m a Christian, I became one over at that boarding school you sent me to, and it truly changed my life. Thank you mamma,” He said all this warmly and with a smile. Mamma didn’t say anything back. He and I share a moment where our eyes meet, “Do you wanna go with your brother to church honey?” He asked, I’m about to say yes when mamma cuts in
“You really think she can go with the rags of clothing she’s wearing, look here boy, she isn’t going to church till she’s at least ten, then she can make the decision on her own,” mamma says. I can tell Brien’s a little bit disappointed. Maybe he don’t like going to church alone, I dunno, all I know is I feel bad for him.
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