My Brother's Keeper

MY BROTHER’S KEEPER

  By J. T. PEARSON

  Copyright 2013 Joseph Pearson

  CONTENTS

  Part 1

  Part 2

  Part 3

  Part 4

  Part 5

  About the author

  Other short stories by JT Pearson:

  Novels

  Contact

  My Brother’s Keeper

  Part 1

  From the journal of Charles Stanford: June 4th 1978

  If you’re reading this journal it can only mean one of two things; you’ve either pilfered it from my study or I have died and you have stumbled upon it while recording the assets of my estate. Whichever the case, so be it. This entry might resemble a confession rather than the usual mundane recordings of a man’s personal life. Call it what you will.

  I have come to terms with the serious transgression that I have committed against God – for He is the one true and only creator, and I confess that I knowingly trespassed in His domain when choosing to conspire against Him, supplying the funds to the company that trampled on his sacred dominion. We posed as His feeble imposter, while attempting to tamper with His creation. That said, I’m also guilty of a transgression which common men regularly commit, one that involves a woman and adultery. For these sins I fear that I will never be forgiven and an eternity in hell will be my eventual and just fate. The following is my account of the series of events that led me to this dismal place.

  I was born more gifted than my brother Franklin, better off in every way worth measuring. He was both my physical and intellectual inferior but I loved him as much as life itself. Our parents died when we were still very young in a horrific accident involving a train. So all Franklin and I had was each other for most of our lives. We were very grateful that the couple that adopted us chose to keep us together. The Stanfords didn’t provide much affection but they gave us a stable home where we didn’t want for much. My brother and I both attended college after school and studied business. After graduating we formed a partnership and ended up doing very well with a chain of restaurants and hotels to show for it. Our success afforded us the opportunity to retire young and live very well, traveling whenever we felt the urge, beautiful apartments, the finest suits and watches. But it was our relationship that was the most valuable of all things to us. I mentioned that I was both brighter and more of a physical specimen than Franklin and sometimes that made him jealous of the many things that came to me easily. Women, being one of them. I always had a rotation of beautiful women that I courted whereas Franklin always struggled in that department, even with his wealth he couldn’t seem to attract a woman that would stay any longer than for a couple of trips, some experiences out on the town, a little fine dining. He had no reason to be jealous of the relationship I had with women. They really weren’t any more significant than the random dates that Franklin had. None of the women ever amounted to anything other than a good time. But in our later years it was Franklin that managed to finally obtain what had eluded both of us throughout our lives. That significant and meaningful relationship.

  Franklin was more excited than I’d ever seen him when he spoke of his girlfriend Elaine. So, of course, I insisted on meeting this creature that sounded more like a dream than flesh. Elaine was quite a bit younger than Franklin and I. Twenty years to be precise. I immediately feared that Franklin might’ve had a common gold-digger in pursuit but it didn’t seem to be the case when I met her. She was a vibrant lusty forty three – teaming with energy - opinionated and argumentative. I struggled with being drawn to her, captivated. This was the woman that Franklin had told me he loved. She was strictly forbidden. But chemistry is chemistry, and the two of us shared and argued and debated and laughed well into the morning, long after Franklin had fallen asleep on my couch. This woman was to me like other men describe cocaine – like a rollercoaster ride. I couldn’t help but want her. I hated the fact that she was with Franklin and for the first time, something deep inside of me resented my brother. I realized that in order to keep my relationship with my brother intact that I had to avoid this woman as much as possible. I pretended to Franklin that I found Elaine completely vile and asked that he never let the horrible creature set foot inside my home again. It was the only way that I could think of to save us all. But Franklin, not desiring to be without either of us, insisted Elaine and I find some common ground, that we avoid heated, angry, passionate debates - and find a way to coexist. We were doomed to play this love triangle out.

  Over the following year, as I spent time with Franklin and Elaine, as hard as I tried not to fall in love with her it inevitably happened, and her with me. We started meeting secretly behind Franklin’s back. I was terrified at the thought of my brother finding out and hating me forever but it wasn’t enough to keep me from her. Elaine brought up the idea that we should just tell Franklin. She’d explain that she had fallen out of love with him and into love with me. I forbade it. Franklin’s feelings hadn’t changed. He was still deeply in love with Elaine. It would’ve devastated him and ended up leaving him with neither of us in his life. I couldn’t stand the thought of my brother being all alone in the world and emotionally broken. Elaine and I continued this charade, unable to find a way out of the trap that we’d prepared ourselves.

  After the three of us had just enjoyed a spectacular evening, Franklin and I celebrating our sixty forth birthday with Elaine, he revealed to us that he had cancer. I was crushed by the news, but determined that we would find a way to beat this mutiny within his body together. As he described the visits with doctors that he’d kept secret from us he sounded as though he’d already given up. Apparently he had been told by specialists that his condition was advanced to the point of an inevitable death. They told him to get his affairs in order and prepare his loved ones for the end.

  I wasn’t ready to give up. I took it upon my own to contact scientists that were leading the good fight against this evil disease. I had heard remarkable results had been achieved destroying cancer cells by slipping human genes into the DNA of goats and producing a chimera that could provide cancer fighting cells to harvest and introduce to an ailing body.

  I described my brother’s condition to the doctors at GBC Biotherapeutics but to my profound anguish they regretfully informed me that technology had not quite advanced to the state necessary to save my dear Franklin. I told them that money was no obstacle, that I was extremely well off and that I’d be willing to part with a sizeable portion of my fortune in order to save my brother, but it was of no consequence, they simply couldn’t do it.

  It seemed that my brother spoke of nothing but his disease from the day of his announcement. I recognized that Elaine was growing weary of his new identity. She said that there was no way that she was going to waste any more time staying with him and that if I wanted to continue to see her that I’d better accept it. I saw this coming and yet there was nothing I could do to keep it from happening. I decided that she should let him down gently, explaining to Franklin that the two of them had grown apart over time. After Elaine had disappeared from Franklin’s life, the two of us would start our affair up again quietly, never letting him know what we were up to. I was surprised by how little she seemed to care about Franklin’s feelings. She had said that she loved this man at one time. Now she cared so little for him that she didn’t really seem to care whether Franklin learned of our deceit or not. Elaine had many enticing attributes but compassion was not one of them. When Elaine left Franklin it consumed him.

  Franklin, sick, weak, and lonely, fell into a deep depression (our family line has always been susceptible to depression and mental instability). I feared that Franklin would use his medication to end his life prematurely. He begged me to br
ing Elaine to him because he was too sick to go to her. He wanted to talk to her again and explain that he needed her back and that he loved her more than anything. I talked him out of it, but I was too cowardly to confess my transgression. And as we’d planned, Elaine and I started up again behind Franklin’s back. How could anyone do that to their brother? I didn’t know. I really did love him.

  It was weeks later when one of the men I’d spoken with at GBC Biotherapeutics, Dr. Harold Kripps, contacted me and inquired whether my brother was still alive. I told him that he was, but just barely. He asked whether we could take a meeting together. He said that he still couldn’t save my brother but he might be able to do the next best thing. I had no idea what he meant but I must admit that he had me intrigued. What would come to pass would completely change my view of the world.