MY BROTHER, MY MENTOR

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Jun 22, 2008

David, well, he chose his path. That path led to prison. And two months ago, at age 25, David's path ended in the cemetery.

But DJ still senses David, especially when he is playing sports. He felt him when he stepped up to the plate for the Topeka High School baseball team just a couple of days after his brother was gunned down. DJ looked up to the sky.

Come on, brother. Help me out.

DJ swung at the first pitch. Crack! A line drive at third base sending the winning runner across home plate. DJ paused at first base and smiled.

"I just knew he was there," he said.

***

(From DJ Wakes' essay, "The Meaning of Life") It makes me wonder why he died so soon and why god chose him, but as I thought about it god chose all of us. He chose all of us to be here, he chose all of us to be here for some reason.

***

There was always time for a matchup between the Packers and Patriots.

DJ and David would wake up early before DJ had to leave for seventh grade, flip on the TV and send their players scurrying onto the field while they clutched their video game controllers. David was so predictable. He would always pass while DJ - the soon-to-be standout quarterback at Topeka High - tried to confuse him with a mix of running and passing plays.

They bonded during those months, those few months when David was waiting to begin serving a two-year sentence for possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute.

"That's when we got really close," DJ remembered.

Their father, Dennis Wakes, had hatched a plan when his three sons, daughter and stepson were young. Maybe, he figured, he wouldn't ever have the money to send the children to college. But if they were athletes, as he had been at Highland Park High School, perhaps that could be their path to something better.

But by the time David faced his sentence in a camp at the federal prison in Leavenworth, he had long given up sports - at least those not played in video games. He stopped playing basketball partway through Highland Park. He finished high school as a dad. David boxed himself in with responsibilities and bad choices.

During those purgatory months before prison, David looked at the little brother who seemed so much like him. They had different moms - David's was black, DJ's white - yet they looked alike, especially in the summer when DJ's skin would darken in the sun. "Our little chocolate drop," his parents called him. Even as babies, they held their hands similarly, and both awkwardly clutched their spoons with pinky fingers loosely pointed out.

So alike - minus the mistakes.

David became determined DJ wouldn't make the same mistakes.

"In a sense, he was kind of like living through DJ again," Dennis said.

Even from prison, David tracked his brother's successes in the newspaper and sent advice through the mail.

"I'm real proud of my lil brother doing good in school and sports," he wrote on lined notebook paper in a letter to his dad dated Nov. 11, 2005. "I hope he stays on the right track and don't let anyone interfer with his goals. I don't want him to miss up a good thing like I did."

***

Now what's funny is my brother was a crazy guy. He didn't always choose the correct decisions or the proper path but he made sure I did, and if I didn't he sure did let me know about it.

***

The calls would come randomly.

Do you know where DJ is?

Yes, Dennis would tell David. He is eating at Taco Bell with his friends. It's OK.

With DJ now in high school and David out of prison, the big brother assumed a watchdog post. DJ was to do as David said, not as he did. DJ would get his education, go to college, get out of Topeka.

Dennis remembers the basic tenor of his approach: "If I see your butt on the street doing anything, I'm kicking your butt and then telling Mom and Dad."

DJ has a gift, David would tell his fiance, Kendra Riley. Certainly, his athletic talents have attracted the interest of college coaches, but David saw something more. Even without sports, DJ could make good.

"He knows DJ's potential and what he can do," said Paula Wakes, DJ's mom. "We all do. DJ can go far."

***

There are so many obstacles and tribulations that people try to add up and calculate to see if you lived a successful life. But I don't think that! I think that if you touch someone or make a difference then you did your job.

***

The Wakes family knows how people think - that tendency to try to package someone's life under a simple title. Drug dealer. Bad guy.

But life, they know, isn't so simple.

The brother who went to prison also was the brother who would go out of his way to shower affection and gifts on the family. DJ would ask for shoes, and his parents would buy him a decent pair of Nikes only to have David show up with the more expensive Air Jordans, a reward for doing well in school. At nearly each of his football, basketball or baseball games, DJ could count on seeing his brother in the stands - hands full of nachos - looking somewhat amused at the rest of the family shouting, "HELLO WORLD!"

David was the father whose 18-month-old daughter, D'Asia, would wake him up in the morning, and he would roll over, kiss her and call her beautiful. Whatever decisions David made, ones the family often didn't agree with, they understood. He wanted to be the provider.