Blues echoed in the background filling the rooms with a calming affect. I wasn't
comfortable with all the new faces, but my girlfriend insisted I come over and
help take up liberated space in her new home. After a while of enough bullshit, I
found a peacefulness out on her back porch. I could smell the sweetness of a
bulky orange tree full of over ripe fruit. I walked over to the tree, crunching
leaves beneath my ever step, and chose a robust fragrant orange. As I turned in
the darkness I heard a voice. Andrew sat on the roof over the porch. It startled
me at first. "What the hell are you doing up there?" My voice was obviously
shaking from the cool air. "Nothing. Just trying to get away from everyone. I
just don't fit in here." There was a silence. I could hear the crickets cherping
and decided to calculate the temperature by listening to how many chirps in one
minute then added 29 and came up with it being about 50 degrees. For a while we
didn't say anything else to one another. I stood and ate my orange slinging the
peelings over the fence. "Well, I guess I will rejoin the lovely people she
invited over, perhaps I can amuse myself  and watch TV or something. Wanta come
in ?" "Naaaa. The sky is clear enough to frame out the big dipper. Why don't you
grab a beer and come up on the roof?" "Ok, be right back." He sounded strange.
Lost almost. Now the thing about Andrew, was that he was the father of my
girlfriends baby. Some freak sexual thing two years ago and she chose to have it.
He was alot older than Mary. And Mary by no means loved him. Her excuse for not
being able to love him is that he has a small dick. Such a lame excuse. Never the
less Andrew continued to carry a torch for her. He made time to take the baby off
her hands, and contributed to all aspects of raising her. He was there when she
was born and was gonna be there till the end, or so thats how he saw it. Mary
used him more than she intended and he knew it and somehow it never bothered him.
He was hitting almost 60 and Mary had just turned 40. Old blues hippies I called
them. Andrew was a guitarist holding out to still make it in the music world.
Making money here and there at old timers night clubs.He was a dead look alike of
Carlos Santana. Not an ugly man but no gem either. Mary is a gorgeous, supple,
sensual dirty blonde. She was the kind of woman not only men are attracted to but
women approached her as well. She had a spritual aura that pulled you in and left
who you were behind. Her eyes were a light envious green. She could catch you
with a glance. "So how do you expect a fat chick like me to climb on the roof
without falling and bouncing through a window ?", I laughed out words while
climbing up the latter. " Oh stop it and get up here!" As I reached the top I
suddenly was scared that he and I would end up crashing to our death in Mary's
backyard crushing the orange tree to boot. But we didn't. We sat in silence for a
long while till he asked me a question. One I wasn't ready for. " So Ana.....have
you ever fallen in love? The kind of love that tears your heart to a million
pieces? " "Nope. Can't say I have. I have loved only a couple people in my life
but it never worked out the way I guess I needed it to, so I settle with good
friends and hope that some day,  My prince will come along," I sang to him as I
answered. " I loved once in my life", he said gazing out into the sparkling
darkness. " Mary?" " No. Someone else long ago. I loved her with all my
everything and she loved me the same." " So what happened?" I wasn't sure I
wanted the answer to this, but it was entirely to late to go back now. " She left
me." Silence. We sat there in the deadest silence I have ever felt. Just sat
there. Then without warning he began to tell me a tale I wasn't sure I wanted to
hear. But I listened without interupting. " My mother as beautiful as she was,
was a bit of a lover of all men. She liked to party. She would spend alot of time
in the bars when her husband was working on the road. She had a long affair with
a indian dude. He was a cherokee indian. Big man, or so I was told. I was told
she never loved him but he had money and loved my mother, and fancied taking her
out on the town. Back then a loose woman was bad news, and often exciled from
locals.  She dressed different than women did back then too. I have pictures of
her in tight pants with the top button undone always, and a short white linen
shirt. Her hair was a soft deep black, long past her hips. She had dark eyes,
almost black that I am sure caught mens eyes. Even the pictures catch my eyes
everytime. And you know I learned later she hated shoes and bras. And you know,
my mother had very ample breasts to say the least." " You talk as though you
never new her personally Andrew." " I didn't. She muted my very soul the day she
gave me away. She got pregnant from that Indian guy, and didn't want me. She
couldn't raise a half breed in a small town. When I was about 6 days old she
turned me over to my grandmother. The man that should of been my father, the man
she was married to, didn't want me either." As his story went on I listened to
every harsh detail of his life. His grandmother tried to do right by him, or so
he thought in some twisted way, but his grandfather couldn't get over the fact
that he had indian in him which didn't make much sense since they were immigrants
from Mexico. "Can you record all this Ana?" He stoped mid sentence to ask me
this. " I really am not much of a writer", I told him. " Just write what I tell
you." " Sure Andrew", regreting agreeing to this. " So I never saw my mother.
When I was about 2 she got pregnant again by another man. Not her husband. Again
he said get rid of it. Back then abortions were hard to come by. So she carried
the baby to full term and once again handed the bundle in pink to my grandmother.
I was never told she was my sister. We didn't even know we were related till we
were older. I learned at an early age not to ask questions, they always answered
with a lit cigarette, or a back hand to my face." " What was her name?", asking
only when a pause occured. "Tina." As the party below continued we sat under the
stars on the frail roof, and I listened. He continued with horror stories of
abuse both towards Tina and himself. They shared a common bond. They were both
throw away kids with no stable space. "As we grew older we did everything
together. We went to school together, played together, ate our jelly sandwhiches
together, and cried together, and still it never occured to us that we were
brother and sister. There were so many kids in and out of the house always. My
family was full of secrets. Years later I learned my mother was a product of my
grandfathers daughter and himself. But my grandmother never said a word, and she
knew. " I suddenly was so lost. A family of horrible secrets. Insest and sexual
abuse. Torture and insanity. I wrapped my coat tighter around me trying to get
warmer. I didn't want to hear this at all. Andrew had been my friend for years,
and all along I thought he had it together. He seemed so wise, so intuned with
life and nature, and all along he was more broken than I ever was. " Tina and I
slept together all those childhood years. When I came to be about 17, I realized
things about me were changing. I had slept with her for years. She was becoming a
woman. No one ever said, don't sleep together any more you two are getting too
old for this. And since school wasn't the thing for me I never went past the 6th
grade and chose to work the fields, so I didn't learn about sex and all that. I
remember, Ana, this isn't too much for you is it? I mean, I just want this
written down and don't want to make you uncomfortable. I don't trust anyone
else." " I can handle it Andrew. I can handle it." I was saddened for him.
Seriously saddened. I was also arroused , knowing what was coming. " I remember
one night getting in bed. I had erections all the time but never one in bed with
her, or one that I was aware of. She was asleep. Silently I slipped my hands
under the covers and pulled my sex out slowly. It was wet just on the tip. I felt
the pulsating deep with in. I began stroking it like so many times before in the
deep corn fields in the bright sunlight. Pulling at it and moving closer towards
her. She moaned for me to move over. But I didn't, I keep stroking it. I
whispered for her to awake. She didn't. I whispered again. She turned over
slowly. I remember asking her to touch it. She just laid there. No expression. No
voice. I remember pulling the covers off and kneeling in front of her, to her
side, pulling and stroking my cock. I watched her eyes as they darted across the
room avoiding mine. I  jerked off hard that night ejaculating on her face and  in
our bed. She never said a word, and never talked about it. I wanted her. I was
innocent and pure then. Several monthes later I went to bed early so I could
masterbate in privacy. I laid back against the old framed head board in darkness,
pulling my sex out and stroking. Tina walked in on me. She just stood there and
watched me. Stood at the end of the bed. No smile, no expression. After a while
of these episodes on many ocassions, I had to talk to her about how I felt. We
had grown apart a little since she went to school and I didn't. She never brought
friends home and no one ever called for her. I always wondered how she kept her
home life so seperate from her life outside. I never had anyone so it was easy
for me." " Did you two ever make love Andrew?" I had to know, I am not sure why,
I just had to know. I find my brothers not sexually attractive in the slightest
just because I know they are my brothers, and felt a little sickend by this story
and a little turned on. " Yes. We did. 5 monthes before my 18th birthday I
decided I was leagally able to leave on my own and had saved enough money to get
out of this hell hole, I took her. " " What do you mean  'you took her'?" I was
nervous. "And by the way , does Mary know all this about you?" " She only knows
bits and pieces. I raped her. She came home late one night, and I waited in our
bed. She undressed put her nightgown on and crawled in bed next to me. I was
arroused instantaniously. I turned over and pulled her night gown up. For what
seemed like a long time I studied her body. She was so perfect. She struggled
only a little bit as I tore her gown off, but never screamed. I remember smelling
her. Like an animal I pulled her panties to the side and gorged her with my sex.
I had to take her that way. I knew in my heart she was my sister, but suppressed
it in everyway. I moved violently against her frail frame. I wanted her to taste
the riches of both our cum, but she refused. Some of it is a blur, but I remember
turning her over and entering her from behind. I watched her tiny knuckles turn
white as she grabbed the steel frame. Sounds harsh, but taking her that way made
me feel like she was mine. I bit hard into her left shoulder as I came.I drew
blood. The next day she didn't say a word. Never asked why. It wasn't till years
later I learned my grandfather was raping her for years. She was just expecting
that someday, I too would take her. She just thought it would be sooner than it
was. I left that summer. Rented a small apartment in Stockton out close to the
river. I played guitar in the evenings and worked my days away. I missed her
terribly. But she came to me one night in the fall that year. She and I saw
eachother everyday. We made passionate love in every way you could think of. She
began talking to me again like when were children. We shared our love for art and
poetry. This went on for about 3 years. Finally when I was 21 and her 19, she
moved in with me. We never had to marry because our last name was that of my
grandfathers. We suspected we were related in someway, maybe cousins. I always
knew, in some weird way I knew. We looked nothing alike, as her father was white
and mine indian. We were never told who our mother or mothers were, so we
suspected we were distant cousins. We had left the past and the hurt behind, we
never looked back, never visited the grandfolks, and didn't want to. They didn't
know we were livivng together till the grandfather died, when I was 35. We had
virtually no contact with any of them at all. But my Aunt showed up on our door
step one day to let us know of his passing, and realized Tina and I were living
together, and had a child together." " You have another child Andrew?" I was
almost sick in some odd way. " Yes, she lives in LA. But she has no idea who I
am. Her mother has told her I am dead, I don't blame her. I have pictures of her,
since she was little and recent ones Tina has sent to me." " So what did the Aunt
tell you?" This was like a novel, a bad novel I thought to myself. " She was
appauled. I explained that we were told we weren't related as kids, and we fell
in love, whats the problem. Tina walked in just then and my Aunt began telling
her she was a whore no good for nothing kind of thing. I calmed everyone down,
and we began to talk. I found out that we had the same mother, different fathers.
I also found out we had like 6 other brothers that my mother kept. We then found
out about our mother being a product of insest. We all cried that day. Things
were never the same between Tina and I. We had purchased a house in Bakersfield
by then, and I had my own buisness landscaping. She was a nurse in a ICU
department in a big hospital. And we had this beautiful little girl. It was a
fairy tale in its own. Two cars, money in the bank. I loved her more than life
itself. She was my soulmate. I would have lived the rest of my life in that
secret. But it fucked Tina up in the harshest way. Our little girl too was the
product of insest, and Tina felt she needed to get away from me. Raise her under
a different name and move further south where we had no family to invade their
life.  So....what do you think of love now? What do you think of who I am? " I
paused and swallowed. I could here Mary's laugh. I could here the blues whaling
away. I could feel the frost covering Mary's lawn like a blanket of  harshness.
It fit the feeling. " Well Andrew, I don't know what I feel, I don't think it
matters as it is your life not mine. I have passed the boundries of insest as a
child, but broke the pattern with my own kids, so much I have only had two
partners my whole life. Sex is scarey for me. I have learned since, that it can
be enjoyable, as love can be too, but I have never loved my siblings in this way.
But I understand you didn't find out till later." I sighed a heavy sigh and lit
another cigarette one of twenty I smoked that night up there in the chaffing
coldness. He sighed to almost regreting he ever told me any of this. I sensed it.
I reminded him that I would never tell anyone. He smiled. His whole life had been
a struggle to get through it all. And all those beautiful songs he wrote, all the
heart wrenching lyrics had been for her, Tina. " I still love her Ana. We knew in
our hearts we were brother and sister. I think we knew since she arrived that
summer day. I knew the day I took her in that garage bedroom of ours. My
grandmother knew, but she let it all happen. I guess that era in the 50's ,
people just didn't disclose dirty laundry. My Aunts and uncles were all moved out
by the time I arrived, they left at early ages to get away from the abuse. Why my
mother ever gave me to them knowing who they were is beyond me, and to give a
girl is worse. I hate her you know? And still she is alive." " Where is she now?"
" She lives in a old folks home in Merced. You know the man that should have been
my father, he just died. I went to see him shortly before he died. He said he was
sorry for everything that happened to me, he could of stoped all of it. He also
said he loved me. That angered me, since he never knew me." " You know this is
one harsh story. And still there are details that I am not aware of huh?" " Yeah.
But I just wanted you to know about my first love. You asked me once about my
first love and if you remember I told you it was a long story. I believe it was
shortly before you were gonna meet some guy in San Fransisco. Right?" " Oh yeah.
I remember." Again we sat in a silence. There was a breeze now and the coldness
was lifted. People were laughing and carrying on in the distance. We opened our
ale at the same time and guzzled them down. Quietly. We must of sat there for
about and hour, till he broke the silence and told he had to go it was time, he
was getting too old for late nights in the cold like this. " Thanks for
listening. Are you okay?" " Yeah, but I worry about Morgan." Morgan is Mary's and
Andrew's baby. " Never worry about her. She will know this stuff when it is time,
when she is older." " I mean about you sexually abusing her, I mean , not that
you have but it crossed my mind a few times." " Never worry about that Ana, that
will never happen. I have no desire for anyone sexually, and further more never
for my daughter, seriously. I was totally open with you, if I thought I had a
problem in that area, I wouldn't of told you. And Mary knows most of this , but
without details. Look I really gotta go....call me this week, and I will set you
up that tower, and thanks. Email me this..ok?" " Yes Andrew, will do." I sat
there for some time longer. Looking for the stars that were being covered by
thick clouds. I wondered why people have no heart. About little kids that have to
live through nightmares like these only to be set up for pain the rest of thier
life. I climbed down from the roof that night and slipped out the side gate and
went home. I couldn't get home quick enough. I watched my kids sleep for a few
minutes and tucked them in, thankgod they will never know this kind of life,
thankgod they will be normal. And I realized how important my job was to keep
them safe from people that could hurt them, and they will never know, I said to
myself, and they will never know.