All struggles Are essentially power struggles. Who will rule, Who will lead, Who will define, refine,
confine, design,
Who will dominate. All struggles
Are essentially power struggles, And most are no more intellectual than two rams
knocking their heads together.
EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING SUNDAY, AUGUST 17, 2025
MY PARENTS’ USUAL GOOD judgment failed them this week on my brother Keith’s birthday. They gave him his own BB gun. It wasn’t new, but it worked, and it looked much more dangerous than it was. And it was his. He didn’t have to share it. I suppose it was intended to make him feel better about the two years he still, had to wait until he got his hands on the Smith & Wesson, or better yet, the Heckler & Koch. And, of course, it was supposed to help him get over his stupid desire to sneak out, and the humiliation of his public confession.
Keith shot a few more pigeons and crows, threatened to shoot Marcus— Marcus just told me about that tonight—then yesterday, he took off for parts unknown. He took the BB gun with him, of course. No one has seen him for
about eighteen hours, and there’s not much doubt that he’s gone outside again.
MONDAY, AUGUST 18, 2025
Dad went out looking for Keith today. He even called in the police. He says he doesn’t know how we’ll afford the fee, but he’s scared. The longer Keith is gone, the more likely he is to get hurt or killed. Marcus says he thinks Keith went looking for the guys who beat him up. I don’t believe it. Not even Keith would go looking for five guys—or even one guy—with nothing but a BB gun.
Cory’s even more upset than Dad. She’s scared and jumpy and sick to her stomach, and she keeps crying. I talked her into going back to bed, then taught her classes myself. I’ve done that four or five times before when she was sick, so it wasn’t too weird for the kids. I just used Cory’s lesson plans, and during the first part of the day, I partnered the older kids with my kindergartners and let everyone get a taste of teaching or learning from someone different. Some of my students are my age and older, and a couple of these—Aura Moss and Michael Talcott—got up and left. They knew I understood the work. I got the last of my high school work and tests out of the way almost two years ago. Since then I’ve done uncredited (free) college work with Dad. Michael and Aura know all that, but they’re much too grown up to learn anything from the likes of me. The hell with them. It’s a pity, though, that my Curtis has to have a brother like Michael—not that any of us gets to choose our brothers.
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
No sign of Keith. I think Cory has gone into mourning for him. I handled classes again today, and Dad went out searching again. He came home looking exhausted tonight, and Cory wept and shouted at him.
“You didn’t try!” she said with me and all three of my brothers looking on. We’d all come to see whether Dad had brought Keith back. “You could have found him if you’d tried!”
Dad tried to go to her, but she backed away, still shouting: “If it were your precious Lauren out there alone, you would have found her by now! You don’t care about Keith.”
She’s never said anything like that before.
I mean, we were always Cory and Lauren. She never asked me to call her “mother,” and I never thought to do it. I always knew she was my stepmother. But still… I always loved her. It mystified me that Keith was her favorite, but
it didn’t make me love her any less. I was her kid, but not her kid. Not quite. Not really. But I always thought she loved me.
Dad shooed us all off to bed. He quieted Cory and took her back to their room. A few minutes ago, he came to see me.
“She didn’t mean it,” he said. “She loves you as though you were her daughter, Lauren.”
I just looked at him.
“She wants you to know she’s sorry.”
I nodded, and after a few more assurances, he went. Is she sorry? I don’t think so.
Did she mean it. She did. Oh, yes, she meant it. Shit.
Thursday, August 30, 2025
Keith came back last night.
He just walked into the house during dinner, as though he’d been outside playing football instead of gone since Saturday. And this time he looked fine. Not a mark on him. He was wearing a clean new set of clothing—even new shoes. All of it was of much better quality than he had when he left, and much more expensive than we could have afforded.
He still had the BB gun until Dad took it away from him and smashed it. Keith wouldn’t say where he’d been or how he’d gotten the new things, so
Dad beat him bloody.
I’ve only seen Dad like that once before—when I was 12. Cory tried to stop him, tried to pull him off Keith, screamed at him in English, then in Spanish, then without words.
Gregory threw up on the floor, and Bennett started to cry. Marcus backed away from the whole scene, and slipped out of the house.
Then it was over.
Keith was crying like a two-year-old and Cory was holding him. Dad stood over both of them, looking dazed.
I followed Marcus out the back door and stumbled and almost fell down the back steps. I didn’t know what I was doing. Marcus wasn’t around. I sat on the steps in the warm darkness and let my body shake and hurt and vomit in helpless empathy with Keith. Then I guess I passed out.
I came to sometime later with Marcus shaking me and whispering my name.
I got up with Marcus hanging on to my arm, trying to steady me, and I got to my bedroom.
“Let me sleep in here,” he whispered once I was sitting on my bed, dazed
and still in pain. “I’ll sleep on the floor, I don’t care.”
“All right,” I said, not caring where he slept. I lay down on the bed without taking off even my shoes, and drew my body into a fetal ball on top of the bedclothes. I either fell asleep that way or I passed out again.
Saturday, October 25, 2025
Keith has gone outside again. He went yesterday afternoon. Cory didn’t admit until tonight that he took not only her key this time, but her gun. He took the Smith & Wesson.
Dad refused to go out and look for him. Dad slept in his office last night.
He’s sleeping there again tonight.
I never liked my brother much. I hate him now for what he’s doing to the family—for what he’s doing to my father. I hate him. Damn, I hate him.
Monday, November 3, 2025
Keith came home tonight while Dad was visiting over at the Talcott house. I suspect that Keith hung around and watched the house and waited until Dad left. He had come to see Cory. He brought her a lot of money done up in a fat roll.
She stared at it, then took it, dazed. “So much, Keith,” she whispered. “Where did you get it?”
“It’s for you,” he said. “All for you, not him.”
He took her hand and closed it around the money—and she let him do it, though she had to know it must be stolen money or drug money or worse.
Keith gave Bennett and Gregory big, expensive bars of milk chocolate with peanuts. He just smiled at Marcus and me—an obvious “fuck you” smile. Then, before Dad could come home and find him here, he left again. Cory hadn’t realized that he was leaving again, and she all but screamed and clung to him.
“No! You’ll be killed out there! What’s the matter with you? Stay home!” “Mama, I won’t let him beat me again,” he said. “I don’t need him hitting
me and telling me what to do. Pretty soon, I’ll be able to make more money in a day than he can in a week—maybe in a month.”
“You’ll be killed!”
“No I won’t. I know what I’m doing.” He kissed her, then, with surprising ease, took her arms from around him. “I’ll come back and see you,” he said. “I’ll bring you presents.”
And he vanished out the back door, and was gone.
❏ ❏ ❏
CIVILIZATION IS TO GROUPS what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation.
Civilization, like intelligence, may serve well, serve adequately, or fail to serve its adaptive function. When civilization fails to serve, it must disintegrate unless it is acted upon by unifying internal or external forces.
EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING
