To Better a Life

Just a Boy Without a Brother

Author's Note: I half don't expect anyone to actually read this since there's only two other stories in this category, but hey, I gotta try, right? This has been nagging at me since I watched this movie for the tenth time a few nights ago, so I wrote it down. It's obviously unfinished, for my brain has many things in store for Derek Vinyard, but any updating I'll be doing will be random at best. I'd go into detail, but the only thing you truly need to know is that I'm a very busy young woman. This little chunk isn't really a first chapter. It's more of an introduction, but I feel it would seem overworked if I added anything else. Please note that any derogatory or offensive language is the view of the portrayed characters and not my own. Please read, review, and enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not have or claim rights to any of the characters or plots portrayed in this entire piece (meaning in this and in future chapters) that were also portrayed in the film, American History X.

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

–Abraham Lincoln

These are the last words my brother would ever put on paper; his talent for the written word buried beneath the burden of rewriting a history paper after pissing off one of Doris's old boyfriends. The irony—the paper was prompted after me, the former skinhead and all around fuck up of the family. These were also the last words the funeral director spewed into the microphone at Danny's funeral right after he babbled for an hour about how the 'poor young man' never got to see the age of adulthood.

What an ignorant bastard. If the man had ever met my brother he'd have known the opposite was true. Mostly thanks to me, with some credit to the nigger who shot our father, Danny never had the chance to finish being a child. Tailing me to the pointless grocery store raids and other bullshit I filled my time with a little over three years ago, Danny was more than exposed to the ways of the D.O.C. The tattoo, which I had nearly thrown up upon seeing, that hid beneath Danny's shirt sleeve supports my argument. I couldn't even begin to imagine the scars Danny carried after watching his older brother curb-stomp a man.

So while the rest of the congregation was suppressing tears while Sir. Ignorant expressed his regret that Daniel Vinyard had never made it to 18, I was trying my best not to march up there and illustrate the definition of sin; however, with my obvious aversion to returning to Chino, I resisted.

It's been two weeks since the funeral. I've mostly spent it on the streets. Though dangerous since the D.O.C. and the majority of the minority alike were gunning for me, being in the apartment was worse. My mom tells me over and over… and over that she doesn't blame me for the shooting. She doesn't have to. We all know the truth even though none of us have the guts to say it aloud. That gang kid didn't shoot Danny because of a confrontation in the school bathroom as the newspapers like to tell it—Danny died because he shared my name, my blood, my anger, my hatred. His death was my fault. Doris might insist that she doesn't blame me for any of it, but she still won't look me in the eyes.

Davina has taken up responsibility for Ally since Doris has taken up two packs a day and a nearly constant cough. How my younger sister balances school, a five year old girl, and the insomnia we all seem to have acquired, I don't know; I usually don't stick around the apartment long enough to find out. Call me scared if you want. You can even call me an insensitive zealot skinhead. Call me grieving, call me psychotic, call me scarred, or call me a nigger—I couldn't tell you which is true anymore.