He sat at home, drawing pictures of mountaintops in a brown crayon, sprawled across the floor next to the family dog, Babs. His dad—my dad—watched him happily from beyond the edge of the paper, and from the kitchen, the sound of our mother washing dishes could be heard.

I peered over Jeremy’s shoulder; my brother liked to draw, but hated drawing on the carpet. The surface was too soft. But mommy’s company was coming over, and she didn’t want any crayon marks all over the good coffee table.

On top of Jeremy’s mountain was a crude stick figure, arms raised in a triumphant V, a smile across his peach-colored face. Jeremy put down the peach crayon, and carefully selecting black, wrote his name above the figure.

Below the lemon-yellow sun and Jeremy on his mountain were two dead stick figures, laying in pools of maroon below. In black crayon, Jeremy had scrawled the words Mommy and Daddy.

“Whatcha drawing there, champ?” our dad asked, oblivious to the bloody figures on Jeremy’s design.

“Nothing,” my little brother replied, content in touching up his childish drawing.

They weren’t bad parents. They cared for us when we were sick. They took us places, like Disneyworld or the movies, and we would always be their little Eddie or their little Jeremy. They bought us things, like video games, expensive electronics, and the like, but they couldn’t buy our love.

My brother Jeremy felt it a lot harder than I, but there was no love. Daddy didn’t give attention, especially not to the fact that mommy didn’t care. They recognized his hatred, and lavished presents on him. Jeremy figured this out, and used guilt and guile to be able to get anything he wanted. King Jeremy the Wicked ruled his world, and he could control and commandeer our parents so well it was like looking at a hypnotist.

I didn’t care either. Life just passed by, Jeremy’s resentment growing, and our parent’s apathy grew, and the lethargy of living simply existed. Jeremy had no friends. He didn’t speak in class. At least, not until that day, when I was thirteen, and he was eleven.

We went to the same middle school in the same shitty little part of Midwestern America. Clearly I remember picking on the boy, even though I was his brother. I was cool, I had to fit in. If I could take it back, I never would have laid a hand on him. I thought he was a harmless little fuck, but we unleashed a lion in him.

I shouldn’t have done it. I knew his built-up anger from years of loveless cohabitation with our parents, his outcast status among his peers in school. I called him a baby in front of my friends. I pushed him. He absolutely went insane, throwing a violent tantrum, punching me in the chest so hard I almost couldn’t get up. The recess lady came to rescue me; he gnashed her breast brutally, drawing blood.

I got up, but he hit me with a surprise left. My jaw dropped open…even today, I can still feel its sting. My friends pulled me up, and Jeremy stopped his raging. He knelt down at the recess lady’s feet and cried like a baby…I felt even worse for that. His class spat on him and kicked his fragile skull as he lay motionless. I wanted to reach out and stop, but by God, I couldn’t.

Jeremy was sent immediately to the principal’s office, and his parents were called in. I was in the nurse’s right next door to Principal Steven’s room, and I heard the whole thing. Jeremy was slapped on the wrists with a detention, and sent home. What surprised me though was how little my mother cared. My dad at least made an effort to appear angry or concerned, but my mother acted as though it could be the farthest thing from her interest.

Daddy didn’t give affection, and the boy was something mommy wouldn’t wear. They were both flawed. My mother had no time, no love. Our father was slightly paranoid, and he kept two things in his cabinet. An Ithaca shotgun, and a handgun. The handgun was Jeremy’s weapon of choice; maybe because the shotgun was too heavy.

In class the next day, Jeremy walked calmly up to the front of the room as the Pledge of Allegiance was being recited by the innocent 6th-graders. His classmates sneered and hissed at him as he broke ranks, and even the teacher didn’t stop them.

“I have something I want to tell you,” Jeremy said simply. He pulled the gun from his jacket, placed it in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

That was the day…that was when Jeremy spoke.

I try to erase this from my memory, just like they had to erase my brother’s blood from the blackboard. It started it all, what can I say…Jeremy spoke in class today.

That’s what I thought, as the police pulled me out of class and brought me into the office, where my weeping father and sickened-looking mother stood waiting to pick me up. Jeremy spoke in class today.

All the rest of the night lying in my bed as my parents talked in the next room. Jeremy spoke in class today.

All my life…

Jeremy spoke in class today.