The Gift by Gary Acevedo

THE GIFT
by Gary Acevedo Note: this story is copy righted and posted with permission from Gary Acevedo


I remember it was the same year my father had lost his job. He had missed work for a time long enough, that even today, I am left with the memory of using candles, to light our house. They had cut off our electricity. Even my only sweater bore holes, and my socks resembled Swiss cheese. We had never before considered ourselves as being poor but the gathered financial hurdles of the past year had left us quite bad off. Oft' times the charitable neighbors offered their kind assistance, but dad was proud. He'd refuse charity. I couldn't understand the whole situation, and it seemed to me that my smaller brother, Jerry, who had mowed lawns all summer long, owned 80% of the family's wealth! This seemingly great amount of money sat heavily in a large piggy bank on top of his dresser drawers. Occasionally I'd sneak in and grab a little. That was only when I had a worthy cause. I never felt that guilty about it either. I would think to myself, "He can't exactly be saving for college." Not in his condition he wasn't.

Jerry, who was a year younger than I, twelve, was different from other people. He entered this mocking world a mongoloid. He looked different in a funny kind of way and had the mentality of a six year old. He also had a speech problem. His voice was very low and gruff and he pronounced a lot of syllables wrong.

The difference, had separated us, as the ugly weeds that separate those flowers_ in a garden who are only crying out for a world in which to grow in harmony. Yet, there was a time, once, when we were very young and fresh and new to life, when we used to be so close. We were as baby cubs climbing the tree of life. Though we might have stumbled many times, we stumbled together. In those first innocent years, there were no two children who were closer. We shared many moments of laughter and tears. Laughing at ourselves or other people, crying over spankings, chuckling over our sneakiness, and huddling #ether when we were scared by the darkness that can fill so much of a child's world. In our sharing of life's bitter and sweet, all the joys and sorrows, we grew fonder of each other than we knew how to express.

I had grown up understandin Jerry's speech and until I became pre-school aged, I never detected that somehow Jerry *as different. Jerry was just Jerry and I loved him.

While we were still young enough to be innocent and curious, I can still remember very early one special memory. We were chatting about a powerful thought.

"I wonder what it's like to he dead." I asked him. "Hmm" he mumbled as usual.

"Who would I miss the most if they died?" I seemed to ask myself.

"Who would you miss the most, Jerry?" "You," he said with a slightly frightened gaze.

"Yea, I think I'd miss you the most too." He smiled and closed his eyes.

Due to finances, we only had one bed for both of us, and that night I must have fallen asleep with my arms around him. I was glad we only had one bed.

I guess I never realized how well our mother had kept us under her wing until I had to started daycare and suddenly something began bothering me.

Nobody else was like Jerry. No one talked like him, or smiled so simply. Month by month along with other friends and children so came the painful realization; something was "wrong" with Jerry. Reality had whispered louder and louder with every day that Jerry was different. His difference was an illness, a disease that took him from me and changed him continuously until he was no longer my brother, instead, a simple animal. A misfit who had caused me enough embarrassment to make me hate him.

Though many times I had tried to sum up Jerry's condition, my pondering always left me with the unanswerable question, "Why? Why him? Why me?" I felt I was being denied the pleasures of having a normal brother. I'd tell myself that no brother at all would be better than having Jerry to live with. Often, to satisfy my anger and resentment, I became very cruel towards him. Why? Who can define embarrassment without questions?

One time I remember I'd gone to play some ball, and as usual he'd shadowed right behind me. The guys wouldn't let me play, because to keep the two teams equal, they'd only let two boys join in at a time. Nobody wanted Jerry on their side and that kept me from playing too.

It had happened many times before. Each time mounted resentment. Each time I hated him. There wasn't a moment that went by without him getting in the way. This time the mountain of hate inside me exploded and I turned on him, "Look, you stupid lookin' creep, why ya gotta follow me around? Leave me alone and go home." Then I slapped him, again and again, cause I wished he was dead. I couldn't go anywhere without being embarrassed. Everyone was always referring to me as 'the one with the M.R. for a brother.' I didn't want to be embarrassed. I wished he was dead.

He finally went home crying.

I told myself that I didn't care, but on the way home I started worrying about the chewing out I would get from my parents when they found out that I'd hit Jerry. I was so guilty that my head was swarming with confusion, and I felt like running home to get my punishment over with. As I walked in the door, I really felt sorry.

My head was down - but the parents said nothing to me. I entered my room bewildered until Jerry came up to me with wet eyes. Ironically enough he apologized to me. He was sorry for making me angry.

I also remember one time that summer we'd gone to the beach.

Naturally I had to be the one to look out for Jerry, but after a short while all the kids around us started staring at us with those extra large piercing and curious eyes when they noticed Jerry way different.

I couldn't take it anymore and I knew that if I ignored him long enough he'd "get lost." Well, he got lost all right, only he got lost for a long time. They'd begun to think maybe he drowned. Pitifully enough, I told myself, I couldn't care less. Hours later, after mom's eyes had been cried dry and the minor search had ended, an old man brought him back on top of his shoulders. Jerry's head was down. His eyes saw only a sad eternity. The old man said he'd found him about two miles down the beach, behind an old outhouse, sitting in the sand and crying. You know, it seemed Jerry did an awful lot of crying.

Well, as time passed, thoughts changed, leaves fell, and snow came, everyone began looking towards Christmas. I was looking at a dream. There was this beautiful watch in the jeweler's window. This watch had a brilliant gold band. It really wasn't too expensive, but too expensive for us. I knew it was impossible, but I liked to imagine that Christmas morning would find me wearing it. Every time I passed the shop I'd stare at it forever.

I woke up Christmas morning in a rush to open the one gift that was for me by the fireplace. We didn't have a tree that year. My face turned to a grin upon opening the neatly wrapped gift. It was a great looking sweater. I really needed one too. "Thanks a lot, dad," I shouted, but noticed how tired he looked so I asked him, "did you stay up all night with Jerry again?" "Yes," he replied, "he's getting worse."

You see, Dad was referring to Jerry's cold. Jerry was very sick. About a week before Jerry and I had gone tubing in the snow. Jerry ended up at the bottom of the hill, head down in a snowdrift. He lay there kicking and yelling for help, but again, memories of past embarrassing moments brought out my cruelty, and I actually watched him dying until I was satisfied. When I finally dug him out, instead of realizing what I had done, the poor dumb idiot, jumped up and grabbed me, crying and between his gasps for air and his tears, he tried to thank me for saving his life. Anyway, he'd caught pneumonia and my parents had spent the last two nights with him.

"Let's go join your Mother and Jerry," Dad said. Jerry's room smelt of medicine and Jerry really looked horrible, but his eyes were all lit up. I didn't know why because she was kinda' smilin, but Mom had been crying. She sniffed softly and said, "Jerry's got a surprise for you, Jim." I figured he was gonna hit me with another one of his homemade,
butcher-paper, water colored type Christmas cards he'd made. I could count on one every year. He tried to jump out of bed but soon found he was so weary he could barely move.

He wobbled over to his closet and pulled it out: Another card, just a flat sheet about a square foot big, and written in red water color, "TO MY BIG BROTHER: WHOM I LOVE THE MOST."

While I was reading it something strange caught the corner of my vision. Something in the background caught my focus. I noticed the broken pieces of Jerry's piggy bank in the corner. I was about to ask what happened to all the money when he slowly reached under his bed and pulled out a small box. He wiped his nose with his P.J. sleeve, then stood there with his arm stretched out, his eyes lit up with a special fire and with all the love he could muster up in that low gruff voice he said, "Wary Kwishmash, Shimmy!" I opened the box in a daze.

There it was. It was shinning, gleaming, reflecting the snow flakes through the window; the watch, the beautiful watch with the gold band, the one I thought I'd never see again. I couldn't even stop looking at it.

Then he gave me a bear hug and asked, "Shimmy, were my pweshent?" I looked up at him, over to the broken pieces of his bank in the corner, the watch, then back at his questioning eyes, and I didn't even have the courage to look him in the eyes and tell him I'd forgotten him. I just grabbed him and started bawling like a baby.

He never lived to say "Happy New Year," he died two days later.
It was Christmas Eve again, snowing again too. I'd just gotten off the phone. The parents called to say Merry Christmas. I'm in college these days. I lay back down on my dorm bed with my arms folded behind me and started to stare at the only object hanging on my dorm wall: an old, homemade water colored, Christmas card. I checked the time on my watch--the one with the gold band, just a few moments until Christmas. I gazed up at the wall again and read the words aloud, "... whom I love the most."

Then, once again I could see his eyes and I could hear him say it again, "Wary Kwishmash, Shimmy." Only this time I had to answer back as loud as I could: "Merry Christmas Jerry, Merry Christmas."
Dedication: To all who have brothers.