It's My Little Brother's Birthday Today

I remember when Dad came home from the hospital in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It was 1961. He said "Guess what Mommy had?" I said, "Another boy" and walked away. Michael Benjamin was my third brother. I wanted a sister. I wanted a sister so bad that I would have nothing to do with this screaming, cholicy brat of a boy. I disliked this kid so much that I had a nightmare. In the nightmare I carried Michael, wrapped in his baby blanket, to the street, where I threw him in and a truck ran over him. The nightmare must have been enough for me to cry out because the next thing I knew, Daddy was there comforting me.

Shortly after Michael's birth, we moved to Charleston, South Carolina. Dad had been promoted and we got to live in new Navy housing. I distinctly remember Mike sitting in his highchair, throwing his food around and dumping his bowl on his head. I also remember him falling off the sofa and breaking his arm. That was just the beginning of what were a series of unforunate events for him. At some point, I began to soften and as a way of offering peace, I offered Mike my well worn Raggedy Ann to play with. He was standing in his crib as I held the doll out for him. He took it and sat down, holding the red and white striped legs, one in each hand. The next part was so horrible that I shugger to this day to think of it. Michael lifted Raggedy by the legs and pulled. He pulled so hard that Raggedy was split right down her middle, exposing all of her soft innards. I screamed! I cried! Raggedy Ann, my life-long companion, was dead! It was along time before I would have anything to do with kid again.

To make matters worse, Mike's birthday is only two days after mine which meant I now had to share my day. No longer did a get my own special day. I had to share with this dirty little, screaming brat that killed, no, murdered my Raggedy and had temper tantrums on a regular basis. You know the kind you see in T.V. shows and movies where the kid throws himself on the floor kicking and screamimg? Well, those are the kind of temper tantrums I'm talking about. He had those well into pre-adolescene.

Mike seemed to just have a harder time of living than the rest of us kids. He was always getting into things like the time he drank Pine-Sol (twice in one day) and had to have his stomach pumped. He was always getting stitches, but the worst thing, I think was when he was five and in a car accident.
He was the only one of us kids to stay in Indiana with my Dad and step-mother when we were returned to my mother. It seems that My Aunt Helen and Uncle Dick decided to pack up the station wagon and head for the lake. What was suppose to be a wonderful fun filled day turned tragic when Aunt Helen ran a stop sign. As I said the car was packed. Along with my aunt, uncle, and Mike where my twin cousins and their sister and brother and my Uncle Charley, a dear man but rather dim witted. Well Mike and Uncle Dick were in the far back seat of the station wagon. Remember the ones that had the seat that faced backwards? Anyway, upon impact, Mike and Uncle Dick went flying out the back window. Uncle Dick and Uncle Charley died of their injuries shortly after getting to the hospital. Mike, by the grace of God and the body of Uncle Dick, was not killed. He was however, seriously hurt. He had a concussion and his head was a mass of stitches, which always remained tender. His body was broken in so many places that he spent a good deal of time in a body cast. When the cast came off, he had to learn to walk again.

Yes, Mike had a lot of problems and the cards always seemed to be stacked against him. Maybe some people are just meant to have little clouds hanging over them like Joe Btfspic, that charter from Lil' Abner. By the time he was 16, Mike dropped out of school. I'm not too sure about this part of his life because I had moved to Indiana. I would hear bits an pieces about him. He worked for a carnival for awhile, stole a car and wound up in jail in Georgia. Since he was young and it was a first offense, he wasn't in long. But then he met a woman that was old enough to be his mother and had a bunch of kids. He married her, but that didn't last long. Eventually he came to Indiana and was trying to get his life together. He was working steady and living nearby in a new mobile home park. He was even going to church and had professed his faith. But as fate, the cards or Joe Btfspic would have it, it didn't last long.

In January of 1988, our mother was not doing very well. She was in the end stages of lung cancer. I went to Massachusetts to be with her and Mike followed. After six weeks, she was gone. Mike took it real hard. He drank so much that if he didn't have alchohol poisoning, he was pretty darned close. I had to get back to my own family so left Mike and my other siblings to sort themselves out. When Mike returned, he brought a woman with him that he had met in a bar and had know only 2 weeks. She seemed pleasant enough, but something wasn't quite right about the whole thing.

We started seeing less and less of Mike. He didn't go to church anymore and we did not feel welcome at his home. Mom (step) though something was very wrong but could not put a finger on it. Then came the call. You know the one in the middle of the night that jolts you out of a sound sleep? It was Dad. He was calling from the hospital. Mike had been shot. He didn't make it.

There was no sense going to the hospital, Dad and Mom were on their way home. I dressed and went to tell my youngest sister who had moved to Indiana too. Then I went to Dad and Mom's. I had to be near them. It was all so confusing and terrifying. Who did this? Why? Would they try to shoot the rest of the family too?

The police detectives did an excellant job in collecting information. They found the murder weapon, a shot gun, in the river where it had been thrown. They began to round up suspects. They found out that four men had been involved. They knew that Mike knew his killer. Before he died, he told the paramedics that "John" did it.

As it turned out, Mike had made some very bad choices and this one cost him his life. Evidently, the woman that he brought back from Massachusets and later married, had be in trouble with the law. She had lost custody of her children because of dealing drugs. She brought this activity with her and Mike went along for the dealiest ride of his short life.

The nigh he was killed. He was sitting in his kitchen working on a plastic model car, a long time hobby of his. He heard noises outside and went to investigate. When he did he was confronted by four men. They had come to rob him of drugs and money. Remember the temper he had? He wasn't having any of that and chased them until at one point, one of them turned and shot him in the chest at close range with a shot gun.

Eventually all of the men were found. They all stood trial for conspiracy to commit robbery and were sentenced to not more than 6 or 7 years in jail. Not one was charged with Mike's murder, which to me will remain an injustice. The four are all free now. Mike is a pile of ashes burried in Immaculet Conception Cemetary in Marlborough, Massachsetts.

Today, I wish he was here to share my birthday. He would have been 45.