LOOK WHO I FOUND

        After being adopted by the Sneeds in that little country town. I only had a few memories, but they were all nice. All but one. The day my dad came to get me and take me back to Dallas. I remember, I cried the whole hour and a half trip. Growing up, talking about Chris with the family was taboo. No one knew where he was at, or who he was with. But from the first day that I got back to Dallas, I swore on my mom's grave that I would find my brother. After a while, I promised myself that I would find him before I go to college. And I did that.
I remember the day. I was about 17 years old and I sat on the living room floor of my Aunt Robin's house. My cousin's fiancé was listening to my aunt Robin as she told her the story of the Beaty boys and what happened to my mom. As she got to the part of the story about Chris and how he was away somewhere lost and had been for most of our life, I looked up at my cousin's fiancé and she was in tears. She had never experienced anything like that. She asked why no one had tried to find him. We informed her that the only info that we had was the name of my brother, (Christopher Beaty). The name of the family that adopted him, (the Sneeds). And the name of the town, (Teague). She then went to get a map, and we located Teague. To our surprise, it was not all that far. So my cousin's fiancé offered to take me there if I provided the gas for the trip. That very next weekend we were on the road. I'm a city boy at heart, so when I say this town was country, please believe me. One gas station and one grocery store. As we pulled into town, I wondered how I was going to find this family. Hell I didn't even know if they were black or white. So as we pulled into the gas station, I asked the first black person I saw. "Do you know the Sneeds?" the older man nodded yes, and instructed me to follow him, "They live across the tracks". So we followed. As we crossed the tracks, the paved road turned into a small dirt road. Like some shit off of Mississippi burning or something. But we followed anyway. As we pulled up at this house, the driver of the car in front of us pointed in that direction. As we came to a stop, unsure what my next move would be. My cousin's fiancé pointed at this kid coming out of the house and said, "He looks like a little brother". As I looked at him, the first thing that came to mind is, "he looks just like my dad". So I got out of the truck and approached this kid. My first question was what is your name? He replied, "Little Billy". Wow I thought, maybe I got the wrong kid, because my brother's name is Chris. So I then asked if he had any brothers. He replied, "Yes, I have an older brother". That's when I got excited. "What's his name?" I asked with a big ass grin on my face. His response confused me even more, and knocked that damn grin off my face too. "Willie", he said. "My big brother's name is Willie". Now I'm lost. But looking at this kid I just felt inside that this was Chris. So I kept pressing, even though I could see him getting nervous and uneasy. "So growing up, you don't remember any other brothers?" he replied, "well, I do remember this kid that used to stay with us when I was little, but he was just a friend and his parents came to get him." With tears swelling in my eyes I told him, "that was no friend that was your brother. That was me, I'm your brother." He looked at me for what seemed like eternity, and began to cry. Hell I didn't know if I should leave or hug him. (Hell, I was on probation at that time so I didn't want noooo trouble). After a while, he told me to follow him and we walked down this country ass road around the corner.
    Now I still have memories from being with the Sneeds before my dad came to get me. But the only people I remembered were Mr. and Ms. Sneed, the older brother Willie, and my brother. I never remembered seeing anyone else. So now, 12 years later, I have my brother directing me away from the house I remembered. We walked up the steps to another house around the corner. As Chris knocked on the door, I was totally lost as to what is happening. This older lady opens the door and speaks to my brother. "Hey lil Billy". My brother speaks and then asks her if she knew who I was. She looked at me and then at Chris. Then she looks at me again, and as her eyes rested back on my brother, her response throws me ass first into the twilight zone. Mine you; I have not seen this town or anyone in it since the age of 5. Now, standing here in front of this strange lady, she says, "yes lil Billy do you know who it is?" Chris replies, "He says he's my brother." "That's who he is lil Billy" as she grabs me and hugs the life out of me, she is almost in tears, "Joseph, where have you been". "Everyone has been worried about you." You see, twilight zone. This shit is getting bad. This was aunt Pam. We then walked two houses down to another house. They called all kinds of people over and they all remembered me, but I remembered no one. After an hour of seeing all these people that I did not know or remember, I still had yet to see the ones I did remember, Mr. and Ms. Sneed, and Willie. After a while Aunt Pam tells me that Ms. Sneed was very sick, bed rest. And she will call first in order not to shock her. After it was Ok'ed to go to the house, we all went to see Mr. and Ms. Sneed. It was beautiful. I felt like my life was complete, I found the missing piece. Boy was I wrong. I believe, this is the part of my brother's life that no one really understands. At this point he just had an eye opener. Imagine someone walking up to you at the age of 15 or 16 and telling you that your life is fake. Your mom and dad are not your mom and dad. Your brothers, cousins, aunts, grandparents, all, not real. Then once that settles in, when you ask about your real parents. One is dead, and no one knows who the other is. Imagine these people you've been calling mom and dad your whole life are not even your real parents. Tell me, could you swallow that .Shit, not me .another thing that I found ironic during this experience was when I discovered, everyone in this small town knew the truth but my brother. How can a whole town keep a secret from one kid? I remember I met this big booty country girl during my visit to this town. (This was during my Mack daddy years, don't judge). Anyway, one evening as this girl and I talked on the phone, she told me that her mom wanted me to come over. She wanted to see me. Now first thing popped in my head was, wow now this was some country shit. Like back in the day when you meet a girl, you had to meet the parents. I was not used to that shit. Where I came from, you met, talked, and even slept with girls without knowing if they even had parent. (Shit I hope reading about all this sad shit you didn't think I was some kind of angel? Just wait I plan to tell all the bad stuff I've done also. If you know me, you might realize that you really don't know me. Lol) anyway, not to get off track. So here I am walking down this dirt ass road to this girl's house to meet her mom, hey whatever it takes to get that. So as I walked in her mom walks up and hugs me. She begins to tell me how she thought about me a lot and wondered if I was ok. She told me how she used to change my diapers. Besides being confused as hell, I couldn't help but ask myself, "If this girl is my cousin, I can still hit it because I was adopted, so technically we are not kin. (I said stop judging me). So after she got all of her hugs out the way, I told her that I did not remember her. She then told me that everyone in the town knows the story of me and my brother. She said some of the parents even told kids the story of our mom on the run from this man who was supposed to kill her and her kids. And how she brought her kids to this small town to try and hide them from him. And how my dad came to get me and Chris was left behind, and our mom ended up getting murdered. Funny how the same kids my brother went to school with, the same people he saw everyday knew the truth. But all those years he had no idea. That's why people don't understand why I can find him at 2 in the morning passed out on the train tracks from taking Ms. Sneed's high blood pressure medicine. But you'll have to ask him about that. I'm just the one that found him