“It’s not like it used to be… you can’t mess around anymore.” The man’s deep, disgruntled voice shot through my ears, to my feet, and back up again. Hearing his voice in my head on replay every time my conscience kicks in. No time for play, and no time for fun. The harsh sounds of my father telling me to grow up still occupy my brain 10 years later. It’s my job to be the responsible one, my job to take care of my mother and little brother. My job, to grow up and leave my childhood behind, because it’s not like it used to be. For me, the age where messing around stopped and maturity began was 9.
My father died 2 weeks prior to my ninth birthday. I remember visiting him and my mother in the hospital, right across the street from our basement apartment of the Smith’s who lived just upstairs. Carrying my little brother on my back, we made rounds from the cafeteria to my mother’s room, delivering her favorite vanilla pudding, and then to my father’s. As I walked into his room, brother and pudding in hand, I saw my dad muscle up the strength to lift his arm enough to motion me over with his index finger. Something about the look of desperation in his eyes told me to send my brother away, out of the room. I swallowed a lump with that look he gave me, as I directed my brother to go to my mother’s room and wait.
“But she’s always sleeping.” little jakey whined as I pushed him out the door. I remember looking down at my feet, before turning back around to face my dad. In an attempt to avoid his eyes as I got closer. Lining the heel of one foot to the toes of my other, following the lines of the cracks between the tiled hospital floor. Once my stomach hit the elevated bed, I could no longer tightrope walk the line between his eyes, and my own comfort. I had to look at him, but still, my eyes remained fixated on the speckled red, yellow, and blue that danced on the sad tile.
“You’re almost a man now Jonah, it’s time to show a little responsibility.” Father said with the same sting as the sentence that rings through me to this day. After a beat, he grabbed my chin. For a dying man, his grasp sure did feel strong. He forced me to look at him.
“Don’t you understand anything boy? It is your job to watch over that brother of yours, you hear me?” He said, chin still clutched in his icy hands. He moved my chin down and up again as if it reassured my understanding of what he was telling me. Tears started filling my eyes. Too scared to blink and admit to the cowardly act of crying in front of the strongest man I knew. Then that’s when he said it, and with those words, the monitor let out a scream.