To My Brother

[reverie]

Stand and Deliver: Why I Choose Not to Hate (Written for a social justice class at my seminary)

 

My brother was murdered by an African American man in 2004. My brother, Eric, was twenty-eight and had been attending a Trucking School in Atlanta. His murderer was 35 years old had been attending the same school as part of his parole. He had spent the last 17 years in prison when he was released it either 2002 or 2003. Although the details where never made completely clear to me, I learned that he had been previously convicted of two counts of man-slaughter, which the District Attorney informed me was more than likely a plea bargain struck to protect his older friends who had been a part of the incident that took two lives in Atlanta so many years ago.

 

My brother had been given the man rides to the school and buying him lunch for the past two weeks even though he had informed my brother of his recent incarceration and the fact that his older brother was currently serving time for murdering a police man. My brother generally didn’t discriminate and treated almost everyone he met like a friend he had known for years. The man perceived this as a weakness and took advantage of it when he kidnapped my brother and his friend Jackie at gun point, demanding 10,000 dollars from an ATM card. He had seen a receipt for my brother’s other friend, Jess, and falsely concluded that the receipt from Jess’ bank account belonged to my brother.

 

I held on to my anger for a very long time, but never wished for vengeance. I figured nothing could be done to the man that would ever bring back my brother, and I was not going to let my hate for what he did kill me too, so I quietly forgave him, and decided to learn more about the institutions that had created him; institutions that could lead a man to commit such a brutal planned out attack. This is a major part of why I am here, and I wrote this poem about it. (Graphic Warning).

 

 

To My Brother

 

Pointing the .44 to the back of Jackie’s head,

The man who will murder you says,

“Crash this car, your friend dies.”

That’s what Jackie tells Dad as I sit stoic

on the deck waiting for a lie in his retelling,

a misspoken clue of why your friend

was not found bludgeoned to death

by a misfired gun like you.

 

The man, a black man, wanted cash, ten thousand from the card.

 

Idiot asshole mother fucker, this man has been in jail

so long -- seventeen years, half his life --

he does not know what a card can give,

or care that the banks have closed

or that the money isn’t yours, and only

becomes more enraged when you decide that

“No!,” you will not take him into Jess’ house

You decide “he’ll kill her too.”

 

Jackie abandoned you as you sat

gun to your head in a Kroger parking lot.

Instead of walking to the ATM; he ran,

he actually ran from you into the store

screaming for a cop.

 

The policeman at the back of the store

ran too, just in time to see your car’s

taillights swerving out into the night.

 

They finally found you in the daylight,

face broken, body sprawled out

over and across the front seat.

 

Like your murderer and your friend,

I too am selfish. I only want a fair chance

to live my life as I deem it, but do not always deserve.

Yet, you chose death my angel, my brother.

No signs of attack, only defense as you

held your arms around your head

taking blow after blow of that pistol’s blunt impact.

Cheek caved in, eye socket broken,

you died, so someone else might live.

As I morn, I try to be inspired:

I decide that I too must die, so that we might live.

Ambition, comfort, and conceit offered up

as you did before the distortion

of a deprived human life, a refraction

of our superior hate and fear.

Edited January 4, 2009 by reverie

[Peredhil]

Very graphic and brutal, like the act. But I respect highly the uplifting determination of the ending. One of your best, Rev'.