Last Night I Sang to the Monster Read Online Free Page B

El Paso, Texas? And my mother didn’t even like her father. My dad’s father was born in Mexico City. My mom’s father was born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. My dad’s father was an artist and a musician. My mom’s father was an accountant. So I was named after an accountant from Ohio, a guy who my mother hated—and my brother was named after an artist-musician from Mexico City. Shit. I always got the short end. Shit. My brother’s full name is Santiago Mauricio Gonzalez, and me, my full name is Zachariah Johnson Gonzalez.
    I’m skinny like my mom and Santiago is big like my dad. And I must have looked like my mom’s dad because my skin is so white—not like Santiago’s. Santiago looked like his name. I guess I looked like mine. Maybe we got the names we deserved.
    I know the deal. You don’t get to pick what you look like.
    You don’t get to pick your name.
    And you don’t get to pick your parents.
    You can’t pick your brother, either. Mine didn’t exactly love me. The guy didn’t love anybody. He didn’t know how. That wasn’t his fault. He just didn’t get that love thing. He was mad all the time. He used to hit me. He broke one of my ribs once. Everyone pretended that it didn’t happen. Including me.
    Another time, he came home drunk and beat the holy shit out of me. Yeah, look, I didn’t cry. I didn’t yell. See, when my brother hit me, I sort of went away. I don’t know how to explain that. I guess I got that from my mom. I don’t know exactly where I went, but, look, I just went away. That’s all I can say about it.
    One time, my dad had taken my mom to the movies. That was a big deal because they never went out. When they came home, my brother was gone and I was all black and blue. I don’t want to go into the details of what I looked like. It tore me up to look at myself in the mirror. I told my dad that some guys at school had jumped me as I came out of the library. I didn’t get the feeling that he was all that worried. That made it easier because Santiago said he’d fucking kill me if I ever told anyone. I didn’t go to school for a few days. That was okay. Well, it wasn’t so okay really. No, no, it was not okay. I had to study extra hard to catch up.
    I really loved Santiago. I always loved him. It was like he was the sky and the air. It felt that way when I was a little boy. I knew that even though he was way into mood-altering substances and he had this really bad temper that there was something really beautiful inside him. Just because no one else could see it didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
    I remember this one time, he was about thirteen and I was about ten. I don’t remember why exactly, but I heard him crying. So my feet just took me to his room. I sat next to him on his bed and I said, “Santiago, don’t cry, it’s okay.”
    He put his head on my shoulder and he cried like a baby. His tears soaked my t-shirt and I felt as if my skin was soaking in everything that had ever hurt him. And I was so happy. That sounds screwed-up, I know. But I was happy. Because I was with my brother. I was really with him. That was thefirst time in my life that I knew that he loved me, that he really loved me. And I wanted to tell him that I loved him back. I just didn’t know how to say it.
    When he stopped crying, we caught a bus and went to a movie. I was happy and a part of me wanted to hold my brother’s hand. I know that’s really weird and when I think about it I wig myself out. I’m always thinking really crazy things.
    Sometimes, after Santiago would hit me, he’d cry and tell me he was sorry. And he would buy me things, you know, like a CD of Rage Against the Machine or Juanes. He knew I really liked Juanes. It made me happy that he’d buy me CDs I liked.
    Once, my brother came home really messed up. I don’t know what he was on. He started beating the crap out of Dad and then he started in on me. I missed school again for a couple of days. Missing school made me really