Remember the Time

Chapter 49

December 25th, 1997

"Mike." Tito walked as fast as he could, trying to keep up with his little brother. "Michael!"

"What?" Michael shouted, stopping in his tracks. He refused to make eye contact with his brother.

Tito finally caught up with him.

Only moments before, Michael completely lost it on Jermaine. It was like all the adrenaline from becoming a father and nearly losing his wife blended with his blind rage towards his brother, creating the perfect storm.

"Michael I'm trying to figure out what went wrong in there." Tito explained.

"Why is everybody talking to me like I did something wrong? Why not say something to him? He's the one all over the news pretending like he has even a fraction of an idea of what's going on!"

Tito sighed. "Look I know what he did was wrong. But we're all brothers, man. You can't be doing all that in front of all these people. I mean you got a family now, you got to think before you just start beating the hell out of people."

"You don't get it, do you?" Michael questioned, narrowing his eyes. "All my life he's been competing with me. With singing, with attention, with girls- You know he used to take my girls? They come back there wanting to see me but he told them that I 'didn't like that kinda stuff' and that I only liked them if he 'had' them first. What kind of shit is that, Tito?"

"Mike don't tell me you're still mad about shit that happened over twenty years ago." Tito looked at him incredulously. "We were kids then, man."

"Yeah but you know what that did to me? Because he used to tell me they wouldn't-" Michael looked around to make sure no one could hear him--there was no one else there. Lowering his voice into a whisper, he explained, "He said that 'they wouldn't fuck me because I was ugly'."

Tito pulled back. "What?"

"And then he used to tell Joseph that I wasn't getting any because I wasn't 'interested enough'. Then Joseph used to beat the hell out of me because I wasn't screwin' any of those girls. He thought I was a little 'bitch'. But he didn't know that I wanted to but Jermaine wouldn't let me." Michael explained. "Then when I got older, I was like fifteen years old, Joseph and Jermaine bought hookers and locked me in a hotel room. They were so nasty Tito I know they had diseases and stuff. Jermaine locked me in that room and wouldn't let me come out until I 'was a man'. And Tito I didn't know what to do with them."

"Hold on a second, hookers?" Tito asked.

"Yes! I'm telling you-" Michael snapped his mouth shut--his eyes downcast. He opened his mouth to speak again. "Do you know after I got burned he knew he was out of a check so he convinced Mother to ask me to do that tour?"

Tito looked down with guilty eyes. Even though it was Jermaine who talked their mother into asking Michael to do the Victory Tour after suffering near-fatal burns, Tito himself didn't protest the idea.

Michael sighed, clearly trying to maintain a little strength in his voice. "I've never experienced a person be so cold to me."

December 31st, 1997

Mariah was carefully walking around her room, using the IV pole to hold herself up.

"Hey!"

Mariah jumped, clutching her chest. Her heart was still weak after suffering cardiac arrest.

Michael walked into the room, smiling, with his mother close behind. Michael asked Katherine to stay behind to help around the house while Mariah was on bedrest. The rest of their guests left, sans Pat and Alison, a few days earlier.