We were reading Of Mice And Men at school at I was thinking alot about the character Curley, I know all characters have depth but Curley’s backstory was never discovered. So I thought I would try writing about what made him how he was, what made him so aggressive, so jumpy about bigger men, so territorial about his wife, what made him such a passionate character.

It has been seven years. But even so, the memories are still so raw. I still walk past the eldest sycamore where his voice plays on like a broken record my head. It has been seven years. And yet, whenever my father looks at me, I can still see a certain hatred. This vexation that he has clung to for so long. He has condemned me to a lifelong endurance of blame. We never truly speak about it, never lay things out in the open to see. Our unspoken words lie open like an unfinished book, never truly gone from our minds, never having closure as to the ending, and always laying there on the desk as a reminder.

It has been seven years. And it has never ceased to haunt me.

It was a summery morning. Darkness had not long but surrendered to the luminescence of the light. Amid the pondering clouds, the sun set the horizon ablaze like a burning match. Morning dew peppered the sleepy grass. The smell of fresh bread awoke me from a deep slumber. I shuffled down the stairs and for a moment, I watched my father with such a prideful expression painted across his face as he showed my brother how to harvest the crops.

My father was a tough man whom showed little interest in anything but the profit we earned. That and his unwavering belief that my brother was the smart descendant who would one day take the farm on in his stride. My talent in fighting was never enough, I would never be enough.

The whine of the door opening dragged me back from the abyss of my  thoughts. “And Curley, remember what I told you?”

His unfaltering stare fixated on me. It took me a while to remember what he was talking about.

“Yes Pa.”

His still persistent stare told me he required more. “I am to walk him all the way to school and ain’t never gonna leave him on his own. I ain’t gonna let nothing happen to him.”

I obediently kept my promise to my father. Well, for the first few weeks at least.

A grey sky hung over us, like a shadow cast by a building on a clement day, on our walk to school three weeks after his first day. He was getting on my nerves, rambling on about his adventures on the farm. I threatened to sock him a couple times if he said another word. But of course, with hearing those threats on a daily, he had learnt to gain immunity to the fear one obtains from such words.

Once we had arrived a few yards within my school, I picked up the pace. Hoping that I could keep a safe distance between us so as to not attract vindictive stares and tormenting questions about my obligations to walk my baby brother to school. This had been the unspoken rule that we had followed for the last three weeks. However, something had been different that day. Be it how his eyes flickered for a moment when I threatened him, or how the clouds had lined themselves up across the sky.

All I knew was that something was different. So it didn’t surprise me as it ought to have when he appeared through my peripheral vision.

“What do you think you’re doing?” My voice lacked a certain sharpness that was required to exaggerate my point.

He didn’t answer.

“I’m doing this for your good. Trust me, it’ll make you the subject of bullying.” Once again, my tone suggested it was best suited for a situation where a child had eaten to much candy.

He didn’t answer.

“I ain’t doing this for meanness. The kids there, they pick on whoever shows the merest trace of weakness. And this,” I gestured us, “this is a weakness.”

He didn’t answer.

“Hey Curley!” My heart sank to a depth I didn’t even know existed.

I turned around.

The Big Bully. This was what he was known as. And if his name doesn’t sum up his personality then I don’t know what does. He had a name. Once. But that was long ago, long ago before he decided to crush all the remaining humanity left inside him. Up till that day, I had yet to find someone who didn’t shiver at his sight. He was a plump figure, arms like large sausages and a face like that of an amputated pig. Behind him were his friends. But it seemed whenever that word was used in relation to this boy, invisible quotation marks were used.

“Who’s this?” He cocked his head and fixed his eyes on my brother.

I didn’t answer.

“Is he troubling you Curley?”

I didn’t answer.

“Do you know him?”

“He asked you a question.” One of the boys behind him said, pronouncing each word as if a proclamation of his power.

Time was cruel as they stood there before me. It stretched as if hoping that disgusting moment I turned on my own flesh and blood, would earn an especially big place in my memory. My throat went exceedingly dry as a spoke one word. “No.” My breathe clogged my throat. “No, I don’t know him. He was just coming up to me and ain’t leaving me alone.”

The corner of his lips lifted into a snarl. Once again malicious time awaited my falter. It played the scene in slow motion. And years after I could still remember the exact way his first punch had hit him. Like a wolf playing a bit with its food before really cutting him into pieces as they had evidently rendered countless others. Then the kick. Then second kick. Then my brother flopping to the floor. And for a second that stretched to eternity in my memories, he looked up at me. A look of pure discombobulation and sadness. Not anger. Not hurt. Not betrayal. Just disappointment.

Through it all he said not one word to divert the course of his beating.

Through it all I did not one thing to stop it either.

When it was over, when they had left him barely alive, the Big Bully cracked his knuckles and turned to me. It was so fast that I didn’t even realise he had done it until I lay groaning on the floor.

“Next time, answer immediately when you are asked.” Everything in me urged me to fight back. I had boxed since age ten. I had beaten more people than I knew how to count. But the Big Bully was, as his name suggested, very big. And something else in me, a more rational part, told me I couldn’t beat him.

Then, two other boys picked me up with such strength I wondered if I was hallucinating. They didn’t need another show of strength for me to obediently trail after them.

I knew not to spare a mere look towards my brother, lest I wanted to have another round on the receivers end of his vengeful fist.

By the time the end of school rounded, the guilt had washed away. I had warned my brother. He knew what he was doing when he disobeyed the rule. It was his fault. To hell with my promise. I couldn’t spend all year walking him to school and sticking up for him. So I left him.

I took off with some friends. We headed to a lake not too far off from the farm. Played about in the river and then headed home. Upon entering my house, my pretense of light-heartedness fell away. There was tension in the air, every floorboard creaking with pressure. My father, eyes filled to the brim with a silent rage I could never imagine capable in a man.

I knew his question before it exited his mouth. “Where is your brother?”

I gulped, but in the silence I felt I might as well have screamed my guilt out for everyone to hear.

I ran.

Endlessly.

And as I did so I promised myself that I would never again fear a man bigger than me. I would always protect what was mine. I would do anything so long as my brother was okay. I turned a corner, then another, then another that I could hardly remember had ever been there.

And then I saw him.

His body. It lay limply at odd angles. His eyes were rolled about in a strange manner. I fell to the ground, I didn’t know what to do. Crying out to God, I shook him and shook him. When he did not wake I lay him down and stared at him.

I placed my blood stained fingers where his pulse should have been and I felt nothing.