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Grade
11

  No one really knows what happens inside a criminal’s head, I think. The smartest psychologist of course can theorize, but do criminals really think like the rest of the crowd? A million dollar question. 

    What if I told you that I shared fifty percent of DNA with a class-A criminal? Looking at me, would you believe me?

I’d like to think that I know what goes on inside my brother’s head. I like to think that I’m the only one who knows him, that I’m the only person he cares about. I’d like to be able to say, scream, yell, shout, you don’t know him like I do, you haven’t seen him, you don’t share the same blood, shut up about my brother! Bro. Big brother. Best friend?

Perhaps I should say I’d like to pretend, not I’d like to think. I’d like to think shows that I have a chance with these things, in the near future, he’ll come back, hug me with hands I know are blood-free, whisper, Apple! How you been? But I’d be lying to you, I’m sorry. 

I’ve never seen my brother, he began his criminal career before I was born. He’s probably forgot my name, forgotten he still has a home here, I don’t care, it’s fine. But maybe I’m exaggerating. I’ve talked to him, talked to him on those dramatically grim, little phones you see in those prisons in Hollywood movies. But after I turned ten I was never allowed back. It’s not a good place for you. I could barely understand my mom through the heavy traces of a Chinese accent, but the way her finger stroked my baby soft cheek and used her sleeve to wipe my runny nose, running it over the arch of my eyebrows, I felt the impact of her words. 

I’m sixteen now. In six years, a lot happens. From ages zero to six, you grow from a small pea to the size of a tiny human big enough to sit in a desk to read, write, speak. From ages ten to sixteen, who’s to say what can and can’t happen? 

***

At some point in the six years between age 10 and age 16, my brother sent me a greeting from prison; I first saw my dad was holding it in his right hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other. I pretend like every paper that mentions him is a message he sends me, everyone can see it, but only I’ll understand what it means. 

This time, he left me a message telling me he was getting on death row for first-degree murder. 

Behind the island, my mom laughed, out of derision or disbelief, I couldn’t tell. My brother was a longtime enigma in the family, my dad called it a mutation, my mom said they picked up the wrong baby at the hospital. 

“No, no, no. Do not say my brother, just say a man. He is stranger to our family. We do not birth disappointments,” my mom would always reprimand me. 

He shares our last name, I’d rebut, he’s ours. I don’t know why I owed it to him to defend his honor, or whatever of it he had left, but it came naturally to me. Perhaps I just always wanted the idea of a big brother, this was somehow the closest I would get and it felt nice to have something to protect.

“Will we have to watch his execution?” I waited for the reply that seemed to never come. 

***

    We decided, or rather, my mom decided that we would go visit him once before his execution to see if he was “worth paying respects to”. How do you pay respects to someone writhing around in a chair, only stopping when the chemicals seize the life from his heart? I want to know.

    When we arrive at the prison, I’m nervous. The kind of nervous where you’re about to give a presentation in front of a judging crowd but you forgot the words. 

***

    I see them leading my brother to us by the elbow. He looks no different than how I expect him; he’s got my mom’s sly, almond eyes and the rascality of my dad’s flat nose and drifting upper lip with the classic spiky hair of Chinese boys. Seeing him in his cliche prison jumpsuit and handcuffs, I feel so fake, so confused, expecting a director to jump up and yell cut and everyone will instantly relax, laughing and talking about how his acting was so good and he’ll unclick his handcuffs and unbutton the jumpsuit, saying Apple, how was my performance? Did you like it? And I’ll respond, yes big brother and give him a hug and we’ll go home and perhaps we’ll learn about other criminals on the news, but none of those criminals will be my big brother. He’s not a criminal, is he? I don’t want him to be. 

    My brother arrives in front of us, sitting squarely in front of the shatterproof window, eyeing us hungrily, not like a predator and prey but like a woman window shopping; everything he wants and cannot have. Maybe the director fell asleep, he forgot to yell cut. Please let this scene be over, I pray. 

    He initiates the conversation.

    “How are you, Apple?”

    Hearing my name in his voice, so deep, unique, the kind you could instantly hear and know who it was, struck a chord with me. I should never have doubted that he would forget my name. I placed my fingertips on the glass and if he finds it odd, he doesn’t show it. He just smiles. I see and sense no malice in the wrinkles of his face. 

    “School is hard. But I’m going to graduate soon,” I force, should I feel bad for talking about my accomplishments when he has no more chance to accomplish? He just smiles, a sadness in his eyes. Maybe he wishes he could see me graduate. 

    “You must be excited,” he says. “At least you can do what I never did. I’m the proudest big brother in the world.” 

Perhaps it’s a joke, I think, seeing the way his upper lip lingers in the scoundrel smile of his, beaming. I just smile. I wonder what he'll eat for his last meal. Maybe he'll request dimsum. Or some classic steaming white rice, like we would eat around our wooden dinner table if we were a normal family.

    Oh god, please, director, where are you, yell cut already. I can’t take this.

***

    A month later, my brother’s verdict has been confirmed. His life is officially over. I used to say my life was over when I brought home a B-riddled report card home. I vow to stop.

    I know it when I’m in the cafeteria at lunch. I know when people make a wide berth around my table, like we’re magnets of the same charge and they simply can’t break the barrier surrounding me. 

    In front of me lies my cardboard lunch tray. On the right, I have mac and cheese, the powdery slop dished out from metal trays. On the left, I’ve got a small paper boat of celery and carrot sticks. I’m drinking chocolate milk from a straw. This reminds me of my brother's last meal. I pretend like I'm him. First I sip the chocolate milk, thinking about how my big brother would savor it. Would he eat the vegetables or mac and cheese first? I don't know, but I pretend I do. How do you eat knowing your death is minutes away? Maybe I should inspect every particle before I swallow; relish my last moments with my bodily functions. The rest of the cafeteria becomes silent as I block them out, it's just me and my brother and our feasting together. 

Oh, big brother, what are you eating for your last meal?