When I was six years old, my mother moved my brother and me into a tiny, nondescripthouse in Northport, Long Island. It sat sadly atop a stack of long, winding1 concrete steps.
The dull little structure had a few tiny rooms running along either side of a steep,creaky staircase, which led up to even smaller rooms. My mother was often working orout at night, so Morgan was left to babysit me. He had no skills to look after a little girl.
He would leave me alone and go run wild with his teenage friends. One night, while leftalone, I was watching a special on 20/20 about children being kidnapped — totallyinappropriate for a six-year-old. And it so happened that at that moment, some kids in theneighborhood decided2 to throw rocks at the window. Their voices broke through the darknight, chanting, “Mariah, we’re gonna get you!” I was terrified by the news, by the kids,by the night, by the house, by my absolute aloneness.
I wanted my brother to love me. I was impressed by his strong energy, but it alsoscared me. This little house couldn’t possibly bear the weight of all of our pain and fear—especially my brother’s. It was such a raw time. I was a scared little girl, my mother wasprofoundly heartbroken, and my brother—well, let’s just say he was more than simply anangry teen, especially in high school. He’d outgrown3 anger by middle school and hadgraduated to full-on rage. As a young teen, my brother was bursting with creative andathletic promise. But earlier in his life he had been bullied4 and beat up for having adisability and being a mixed-race kid. The visible difference he wore on his skin alwaysdistanced him from the white boys in Long Island and made him a target. Children can bemean, but when ordinary meanness is combined with racism5, it takes on a peculiarbrutality, one very often sanctioned by (and learned from) adults. My brother most likelycaught some hell from the Black kids too. I’m sure his distance from their kind ofdetectable Blackness, the kind that gets you roughed up by the cops for nothing, stirred upa resentment6 in them that came out in the form of physical blows and name-calling.
My brother was broken early on, and the only tool he had to defend himself wasdestruction. He would fight everything, his demons7 and everybody else, especially ourfather. The relationship he had with our father was not one that helped him rebuild—instead, it ground him down even further into his inner outrage8. A broken man cannot fixhis broken boy. My brother was shattered into pieces, scattered9 to the wind, and ourfather’s outdated10 tools of militaristic discipline were inadequate11 to help him collecthimself and prepare him for manhood. The misunderstanding and emotional distance withour father was my brother’s perpetual and crushing agony, and it resulted in his absoluterage.
For most of my childhood I was caught between my brother’s fury and my mother’ssad searching. Rage and despondence are both highly damaging, but, I think, one turnsinward and the other turns outward. When they collide, it can be catastrophic. By the timeI was in kindergarten, catastrophe12 was already routine to me. When we lived in Northport,mini explosions erupted between my mother and brother daily. I conditioned myself to bestill and wait for the outbursts to pass over. Most of the time I tuned13 out the words andreasons behind their fights—the “why” was big-people territory. To me, their argumentswere just a blur14 of intense voices at high volume, punctuated15 by ruthless cursing.
One particular night, however, I distinctly knew the source of the argument: mybrother wanted to use my mother’s car, and she wouldn’t let him. Certainly they’d hadhundreds of fights over the car, but for some reason this night felt different. I was payingattention. Typically, their fights would start off the way I imagined normal fights betweenmost teenagers and parents did, but this one wasn’t like that. It began at blow-up level andrapidly escalated16 into violent obscenities being hurled17 across the room. Hurtful words flewback and forth18 like bullets ricocheting off the walls, gaining strength with each new round.
There was no escaping the crossfire19; the screaming shot room to room, up and down thestairs, and the entire house became a battlefield. There was no safe place. I felt the airtighten as my mother and brother came face-to-face, mere20 inches of electrified21 angerbetween them. I was terrified. My whole body stiffened22. Eyes opened wide, I fixed23 on thespace between them and cried out, “Stop it! Stop it!” over and over again, through mytears. I was hoping maybe my cry could slip into that space and disarm24 them for amoment.
Suddenly there was a loud, sharp noise, like an actual gunshot. My brother had pushedmy mother with such force that her body slammed into the wall, making a loud crackingsound. I saw her frame go rigid25; for a moment she appeared frozen against the wall,pinned up like a painting, her feet lifted several inches off the ground. Next thing I knewshe was totally limp, as if her bones had melted, folding onto the floor. It was a splitsecond. It was an eternity26. My eyes were still fixed in place, only now I was looking at mymother collapsed27 in a crumpled28 pile on the floor. My brother stomped29 out and slammedthe door, shaking the house one last time, and sped off in her car.
I stood there for a moment in the eerie30 silence. I could hear myself breathing, but Icouldn’t tell if my mother still was. A chilling clarity came to me, just as a soft part of mychildhood left. Without taking my eyes from my motionless mother, I pulled myselftogether. Picking up the receiver of our one telephone, I felt it heavy and cold, pressedagainst my small ear. My little fingers pushed down the square buttons in a familiarsequence. It was the number of one of my mother’s friends, whose house she wouldsometimes visit to hang out. Since I was only six years old, hers was one of the fewnumbers I had memorized.
Clearing my voice so I could be heard over the telephone’s static hum, choking ontears, I did my best to calmly tell her, “My brother really hurt my mother, and I’m homealone. Please come help.” I don’t remember what she said. I hung up still feeling focused,my eyes still fixed on my mother’s body. I went into a sort of trance.
I don’t know how long I stood there, just that I snapped out of it at the sound of a loudbanging on the door. I scurried31 to open it for my mother’s friend, and several policemenrushed in. I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying, but I watched as they hurriedover to where my mother was lying. Next thing I knew, she was moving. The moment Irealized she was alive, the spell of shock broke, and a gush32 of fear and panic rushed overme—the dawning realization33 of what had actually happened, what had almost happened,and what unknown future was waiting. I tucked my small body into a ball, held on tomyself tightly, and quietly began to cry. I could hear the faint sound of my mother’s voiceas she stirred back to consciousness. Then I heard a crystal-clear voice, ringing out justabove my head. It was a man’s voice, a voice that I will never forget.
One of the cops, looking down at me but speaking to another cop beside him, said, “Ifthis kid makes it, it’ll be a miracle.” And that night, I became less of a kid and more of amiracle.
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1
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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outgrown
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| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去分词 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
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bullied
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| adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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racism
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| n.民族主义；种族歧视(意识) | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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8
outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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outdated
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| adj.旧式的，落伍的，过时的；v.使过时 | |
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inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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tuned
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| adj.调谐的，已调谐的v.调音( tune的过去式和过去分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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14
blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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punctuated
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| v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的过去式和过去分词 )；不时打断某事物 | |
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escalated
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| v.（使）逐步升级( escalate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）逐步扩大；（使）更高；（使）更大 | |
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hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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crossfire
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| n.被卷进争端 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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electrified
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| v.使电气化( electrify的过去式和过去分词 )；使兴奋 | |
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stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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disarm
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| v.解除武装，回复平常的编制，缓和 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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stomped
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| v.跺脚，践踏，重踏( stomp的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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eerie
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| adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的 | |
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31
scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gush
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| v.喷，涌；滔滔不绝(说话)；n.喷，涌流；迸发 | |
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realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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