Warrior Spirits

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Sometimes I stare at the pictures I stole from his sneaker box, the ones that he didn't want me to see, including one of a man he killed. It is not tears that come but the impossible question of forgiveness. Brains and blood were once safe and alive in this being. My brother blew open the back of his head and took a picture of the gore coming out. He believes there is a ghost in his room. Sometimes he feels a breath touching on his shoulders and back. I know it is the spirits of those he killed, and helped to kill, following him, reaching for him, asking him their own silent questions. Perhaps he surrounds himself with crosses because he knew they would come.

It is only when he is drunk that his guilt emerges from under the amber smog of Jack Daniel's. 'Sis,' he asked one night, 'would you rather have me do whatever I needed to do to come home, or die because I couldn't do what I needed to do to come home?' In his question lay a plea for forgiveness. Sitting across from him in my room, I didn't know how to answer. If he had been killed, would that make me support this war? How would I feel toward Iraqis?

My brother's possible death demented our family. I prepared for it every day, imagining what his funeral would be like and what I would tell my future children about their uncle. It became impossible to live with my parents. My mother's changing moods left us isolated from each other. My father's blustering support of the war ('I hope we level that whole damn country of ragheads') was infuriating.

My brother's recent 25th birthday celebration was a breaking point for me. On that night, a bunch of his old friends joined him to mark the occasion. I wanted to be close with everyone, sharing in the celebrations and camaraderie. Before we left for a bar in the city, we clustered into my brother's room. He began to do his usual flaunting of pictures and videos, much to the enjoyment of his friends. I sat farthest from his computer, turning my eyes away. My brother's friends eventually fell into an awful silence. Moving from my seat, I wanted to see what they were watching.

A young man, who appeared to be in his early 20s, was centered in my brother's computer screen. The man was blindfolded and sobbing as he rested his head on his knee. Heavy metal music filled the speakers as my brother forced headphones onto the man's ears. You could hear my brother laughing while saying, 'You're gonna die,' pushing the camera into the young man's face with his left hand and slapping him hard with his right. I watched tears of agony escape from the prisoner's cheeks and fall onto his pants. He was heaving from the suffering. Arabic was pouring out from his mouth. No one understood the words, but I knew he was begging for his life.

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