He hadn't come home that night and my father was pissed.
"What did he say when he left?"
"'I'll be back.' That's it." Mom said, for the fiftieth time.
"That's it?"
"That's it."
Dad made a flustered noise and threw his hands in the air as he paced back and forth through the kitchen. "It's like he does it on purpose! It's one in the morning and he's not even home yet. 'I'll be back!' Did anything happen before he left?"
"Annissa was here. But only for a few minutes. Then after she left, he said, 'I'll be back' and so far, he's not back." Said Mom.
"That girl..." He grumbled.
We stayed up for another hour, before we turned in.
"As soon as he walks through that front door..." My Dad said, after calling his cell phone for the fifteenth time and getting no response. "He's getting it."
We all assumed he was out doing something stupid. Dropping acid, running around. He probably wouldn't be back till tomorrow evening. We went to bed.
He came home early in the morning, about seven thirty, pale as a ghost. His hands were shaking on the door knob as he let the light from the hallway into my dark, shaded bedroom. I rubbed my eyes and I stared at him, bleary eyed. Confused but somewhat unconcerned in my 'you-just-woke-me-up' haze. And then he collapsed. Like a sack of bricks.
I sat up in bed. "Tay?" When no response came, I swung my feet around and approached him, a little unsteady from sleep. "Taylor?" I knelt down and looked into his bruised face. "Taylor, my God, what happened? Are you okay?"
He shook his head 'No,' and struggled to pull himself up. With my help he stood, and silently he walked out of my room and to the hall bathroom. I heard the shower start, and then I heard him vomit. I approached the door cautiously, a loud crashing immediately propelling me into action. The door was left open a crack, but I knocked. "Taylor? Taylor! Are you okay?" Still he didn't answer me, so I pushed open the door. He was covering his head as if anticipating another crash, half sprawled out, half curled up on his side on the floor. The shower curtain and curtain rod were in the tub, gathering water from the shower. It looked like he had torn the curtain down and then dropped to the floor. He was doubled over in pain, crying and moaning when he tried to move.
"Go away, Isaac. Don't look at me. Please." He said, covering his face like a child would when playing hide-and-go-seek. I knelt down beside him and I helped him sit upright, causing obvious discomfort. For a moment, he took his hands away from his face to help prop himself up.
"Taylor, what the hell happened? Where on earth you have been?" He was wild eyed, and obviously hadn't slept at all that night. I could tell he wasn't on drugs, though, which almost made it more terrible - the vacancy I saw in his wild eyes. He didn't answer. "Taylor, talk to me. Look at me. Please. Can you stand up? Are you trying to take a shower?"
"I can't stand. Everything hurts. I'm dirty. I'm so dirty. Let me go."
"Tay, maybe you should go to the hospital..."
"No, let me shower. I need it. Please... I can't sleep... I am so dirty." He clawed his shirt up over his chest and I helped him pull it over his head. He covered himself with his arms and put his hand in my face. "Don't look... don't look." But I did look, and what I saw of his bare naked chest was an entirely visible rib cage painted black and blue.
"Tay, listen. I'm going to go get Mom and Dad. You stay here, okay? Work on getting your pants off, I'll be back and you can take a shower."
I tore down the hallway, and without a thought went to shake my Mom in her bed.
"Isaac? What's wrong?"
"Wake up. Taylor's hurt. He's in bad shape. I don't know what's wrong. I need you to come right away." "What happened?" My Dad said, groggy from the other side of the bed.
"He won't tell me. He's trying to take a shower. He just got home, and I think whatever happened tonight is just hitting him, because he is having a lot of trouble moving."
My parents followed me back to our bathroom, and when we opened the door again the floor was flooded with water, and the curtain was on the floor. Taylor was naked, reaching his arms over the edge of the tub, and rubbing the water over his body. I could see his back was bruised as well, but not as badly as his chest, and on the inside of his thighs there was dried blood. I walked up behind him and touched his shoulder gently. He jumped about a mile in the air, and moaned in pain. "Taylor, Mom and Dad are here." "I'm so dirty." He said, preoccupied. "I can't get the dirt off."
"I'll help you stand, just stay still, okay? Dad will help you too. Tell us if we're hurting you." My Dad and I lifted him off of the ground as gently as we could. He weighed next to nothing, but it was the bruises we were concerned about. He seemed to be swollen everywhere. He started screaming when he was standing. He looked at my Mother and shook his head violently with tears coming out of his eyes. "Don't look at me. Don't look at me. Don't touch me. Please... Please..." One hand reached to cover his privates, the other reached to cover his chest.
"Taylor, calm down, please, you can take your shower now. After this we have to take you to the hospital, okay?"
"I don't want to go to the hospital." He said, crying.
"We need to make sure you haven't broken anything. Just listen to me, okay? Stay awake. Help us out here, Tay!" My Dad said.
My mother didn't react outwardly, but I could see it in her eyes as she stood in the doorway in her nightgown. He was swollen, and blue, and thinner than a rail. It made us all cry later, when he was fast asleep, when he couldn't hear our tears for fear they just might make what was happening in his head that much worse.
I stepped in the shower, boxer shorts, t-shirt, and all and my father helped Taylor in with me, leg by leg. He moaned in pain and continued to tell us he could do it if we just let him go, but if I loosened my grip he stumbled, so my father and I kept a firm grip on both of his arms as he and I stood, getting soaked under the shower water. "It hurts... It hurts..." He cried. He filled his mouth with water from the shower and leaned over to spit it out several times. "It hurts. My mouth... I can't get the taste out of my mouth..."
"I'm sorry, Taylor... I'm sorry." I said. It was all I could think of saying. He looked so terrible and frightened. Whatever it was, and whatever contribution I may have made, I was sorry.
My father handed him a bar of soap, and he rubbed it over his face and across his chest. He couldn't bend over to clean the mess of his legs, so my mother came in with a wash cloth and some extra soap to clean him up. He cried at all of the touches. When he was done washing his front side, we turned him around and he hugged me desperately as my parents both scrubbed his back and his legs. My father reached for the handle when we thought he was done and he said No.
"My hair..." He said weakly. "Wash my hair."
He had grown significantly calmer, hugging me on wobbly knees. He bent and reached for the edge of the tub, my Dad and I springing into action, holding him, as he lowered himself out of the tub and kneeled down on the ground. My mother held his head under the bath faucet and washed his hair for him. He was crying now, but he was not hysterical, like before.
"Mommy... Mommy..." He hugged her as tightly as he could after the shower water went off and we draped him in towels. He covered himself protectively in towels and she helped dry his hair. He was so damaged. So completely and utterly fucked up, right then. Nobody knew what to say. Quietly, he apologized to her as if he had done something awful.
"I know. It's okay, baby. We'll bring you to the hospital right away. Okay? And everything will feel better." She said, rocking him gently back and forth.
"I'm fine. I don't need the hospital."
She touched his face, and that was her only response. My father knelt down next to him, "Tay, listen, you have to tell the police what happened to you, okay? Tell them who beat you up."
He shook his head. "It's done now... there's no point."
"Alright, well you go lie down for a little while and I'm going to call the hospital. You need to get dressed, can you do that?"
He shook his head again, to what I don't know. My mother and father helped him stand and he placed his hand on the sink. "I... I have to use the toilet."
"Okay Taylor, we'll leave you alone." My mother said soothingly. Her words never had sharp edges when her children were hurt.
He shook his head and coughed up some tears. "No." He wiped his eyes, keeping them downcast. I saw the blush rise to his cheeks. He struggled around his words. "I can't. I ... My knees are weak... I hurt..."
"Do you want Dad to stay with you and make sure that you'll be okay?"
He nodded. We both helped him stand as Mom kissed him on the cheek and left the room. My Dad tried to hold him on his own, but it only caused Taylor pain. I had to stay.
"Do you mind if Isaac is here?"
Taylor shook his head, seeing no other way, but tears were streaming from his eyes and his cheeks were red with humiliation. I could see in his face how completely worthless he felt and how much he wished we didn't have to be standing there. Later it occurred to me, though, that maybe - even though he hated this, he didn't want to be alone.
"Do you want to sit?"
"No." He said. "It hurts."
"We won't look." My Dad promised him, and we both turned our heads toward the back wall of the bathroom, holding onto Taylor's chest and waist. He held his towel with one hand, trying to cover as much of himself as possible without conflicting his activity. His legs were visibly shaking under the little weight he still had on them. His arms, interestingly enough, seemed to be the only functioning, unbattered part of his body. He squeezed more tears from his eyes as he finally got it together to do his thing. He pissed only in spurts, and I could feel the tenseness of all of his muscles under my grasp.
"It burns... It fucking burns..."
My Dad and I both looked at each other, horrified. Why would there be burning? His genitals were red and raw, and visibly swollen. I didn't mean to look, but for a moment, we had to.
"Tay, did you get hit?"
He shook his head. He was like the bobble head that always said no.
"Tay, you're swollen. Listen, you need to point this out to the doctor when you go to the hospital. There could be some serious damage."
"No!" He practically shouted it. "No! It's not that important. What's a doctor gonna do? It'll heal on its own. It'll all heal on its own."
"Are you done using the toilet?"
"Yes." He wrapped his towel around his waist again. My father carried him to his bed where he curled up and covered his face with his pillow. "I don't want to go to the hospital, just leave me alone. If you take me there you won't ever see me again! They'll lock me up! They'll take tests, they'll see my records, they'll ask. You know they will. You know it."
"Your health is more important!"
He screamed into his pillow, stubbornly.
"You're acting like a child! Get up and get dressed."
He sat up and he grabbed the clothes my mother picked out for him. A comfortable T-shirt, boxer shorts, and some sweat pants. With some help he pulled his clothes on, and before we even carried him to the car he fell asleep. He lay in the backseat, restless against my shoulder all of the way to the hospital, and by the time we got there, he was able to walk to the doors holding my shoulder.
"I drove all of the way to the panhandle and back tonight. I drove that far like this, and nothing hurt this bad until I was walking up the stairs, and suddenly it all hit me at once."
"You drove to the panhandle? Why?"
"I couldn't think of anywhere else to go. I was thinking of driving to California and calling you when I got there, but she wanted to go back."
"Who?"
"Annissa."
"You were with Annissa?"
He nodded, and in the emergency room we were asked to fill out forms describing his condition. My Dad, too, noticed the blood in the seat of his pants, and neither of us wanted to acknowledge it. I stared over his shoulder and watched him struggle with the words. Bruising and swelling all over chest, back, face. Genitals sore. Anal bleeding. I did not dare myself to put two and two together. I tried not to think about it, the suspect feeling that Taylor was not just pulled into some alley way and pushed around by some thugs. That the bruises were of more malicious intent, and it was causing him to be restless and weepy.
When it was his turn to see the doctor, my Dad was going to let him go alone, but he freaked. "No. I need you. No..." So my Dad followed him inside, leaving my mother and I in the waiting room.
"Did you tell the girls we were leaving?"
"Yes, while you were in the bathroom. Avery was waiting in the hallway, she wanted to know what had happened."
"What did you tell her?"
"I said, 'I don't know.'"
"Did you call his psychiatrist?"
"Did that, too."
I stared at her for a few moments and she stared back at me. There were early morning sunspots on the floor of the hospital near her feet that diverted my attention for the split second before we both burst into tears.
When the doctor used the word "Rape" it sounded so clinical. Like it was a disease. He's suffering from Rape. He was Raped. The word sounded so strange, like a foreign sound, a syllable I did not recognize as from my own vernacular. Rape was not something that happened. Not to people I knew. Not in any sort of way I had to face myself, anyway. The stories I had heard about girls getting raped were mystical, and oftentimes unsurprising. Boys did not get raped. Much less boys that were twenty two years old and related to me. Much less my brother. But I knew, though I didn't understand. As if I were Chinese, or German, or French. I knew by the shape and the sound of the word the innate violence it beheld. It was sharp edges all around. The kind of thing, like a burr, or the sharp pointy rocks at the end of a waterfall, that you avoid at all costs. There was no way to say it gently. It was Rape. A short stab of a sound. Rape. Rape.
We had waited for them for hours. I couldn't imagine why it would take so long. At least, without someone coming out every now and again with an update (e.g. "He broke his foot and needs a cast" or "He is getting stitches"). My mother and I talked for a little while, but not about him. Otherwise, we occupied ourselves with the various tabloid magazines, word searches and things like that... but hospital waiting rooms get boring fast, and we yawned through the next few hours, antsy and anxious for some news from the other side.
I remember saying it, "Is he giving birth in there?" It was a joke, but my Dad just looked sad. Defeated.
"He won't let the doctors touch him. They gave him pain killers, so he's calmed down now, but... it's been difficult. To say the least."
"Well is he okay?"
Dad shrugged. "He's sleeping now. They finished all of the tests. He fractured a rib, which is the worst of it."
My father was skimping the details. The worst of it, really, was when the doctor took us into his office and said Rape over and over. My mother was crying. The unpleasant word was never once uttered in front of Taylor, who couldn't get comfortable in the hospital bed. He was staying the night. Mom stayed with him while my father and I went home to cook dinner for my sisters and brother, all home from school. We didn't know what to tell them, so we didn't.
We were due to leave for LA in six days. All of our stuff was packed, flights reserved, and our home in sunny California awaited. I didn't know what to do. My brother was shell shocked and killing himself. They wanted to admit him in Tulsa. To a home. My Dad protested, "He doesn't need doctors right now. He needs his family."
He returned home after two nights in the hospital and we watched him with special care. He seemed okay, for the moment. He made it through his days. On the third day, our flight was still on. We were due to leave soon and he took a drive to say goodbye to Annissa. "She's staying with a friend." He told us. "I promise you, I'll be fine. I just have to go. Please..."
We had to pick him up at the police station that afternoon. He was shaking and mute, and I instantly hated her. If there is one feeling in the world that is worse than watching your brother die, it's this one: Helplessness to change a situation that desperately needs to be changed. The need to wipe away a memory, or even the notion that something like this exists in the world is a feeling far worse, far more terrible than even death. Even the death of an 18 year old boy who walked down the street at the wrong time. This time the death was of the soul, and it was much more subtle in its torture. My brother had died less than a year ago and now I was watching my other wither away in front of my eyes, and it was her fault. She did this to him. She did it.
I couldn't even hide the tears anymore when he looked empty into my eyes....there was nothing good I could tell him. Nothing I could think of that could make a future seem okay to him - I wasn't going to pretend to believe in hope, anymore. How could there be hope when what you think you have hope for is destroyed at your feet? Taylor: Bright, smart, funny, optimistic, passionate, energetic, intense, genius Taylor... reduced to a babbling fool. There was one thing in my life that mattered. One third of it was dead and cold under the ground and one third of it had a mind of mush. Hope? What's that?
He closed his eyes to fall asleep, and all I could think as I stared at him from across the room was that he may as well have been dead.