The Little Brother (16 page)

We stared at each other, not knowing what to do. I'd never exploded like that before and it scared me. My arms and legs still
tingled with adrenaline, and it took a long time for my breathing to settle.

“God, Even,” he said at last, using the same aggrieved, underappreciated tone as our mom. “I didn't know that you wanted to watch that movie so bad. Next time, just tell me.”

A
FTER OUR FIGHT
, Gabe tried to get me to stay—“We'll watch the movie together! I'll watch it with you!”—but I went for a long drive on the 55 freeway instead, to nowhere in particular, only in the direction of Saddleback, a saddle-shaped landmark formed by the ridge between the two highest peaks of the Santa Ana Mountains. Despite my love for the ocean, when troubled I revert to my Cucamonga roots and seek refuge inland near mountainous terrain. As a kid, I used to like to imagine myself mounting the mountain-saddle like a cowboy on a horse.

Looking at the landscape in the copper glow of smoggy sunlight, I wished I could go back to my childhood vision and ride away like John Wayne.

But instead I turned around and came home.

Dad and Gabe sat in front of the TV, finishing a dinner of pork roast, biscuits, potatoes, and corn.

Gabe gave me a wary glance and said, “Hey, little brother,” to let me know that he didn't hold a grudge.

I couldn't eat—the smell made me sick—so I went to Dad's bathroom and procured two of his sleeping pills from his cabinet.

One would have done the job, but I took the second just in case, and pocketed a few Demerol for the future. The mere thought of
having another dog-beheading dream, or of not being able to sleep, scared me.

When I came back into the room, Dad was giving Gabe the same lecture he'd given me earlier, about being cautious and always using a condom, since people—girls—would try to take advantage. He mentioned the phone call from Tove's dad. I could see only the side of Gabe's head as it went down.

The sleeping pills kicked in quickly, and soon I slept, as if someone had taken a mallet to my head.

19.

JULY 8

I
WOKE EARLY ON
Tuesday to a quiet house. Dad wasn't up yet to brew his coffee. I sat at my desk chair for a few minutes and waited to hear him. I would've liked to have slept much longer, but the sleeping pills' efficacy seemed to expire in a burst of wakefulness. Outside my window I saw the early-morning, lilac-colored sky and the front lawn sparkling with dew, and I heard a few birds singing to each other.

The neighbor's fat tabby cat, Walrus, sauntered past, pausing to give me a deliberate stare. I tapped my fingers on the glass. Walrus's hair rose on his back, and he sprung from view.

I tried not to, but I thought about the video. A flash went through me, a hit of a visual of Tove and my brother—implanted as clear as if I were seeing it again—and in a trance, I slapped my cheek hard to make it go away.

I rose and watched in morbid fascination in the bathroom mirror as the handprint on my face went pink, pinker, ending in red.

I wanted something—I didn't know what it could be—to relieve my anxiety. Then it occurred to me that this might be the
way it would be from now on: permanent, tireless, endless isolation and unease.

But later that morning—after my hand-slap mark faded, and after I showered and dressed—Mike stopped by for a visit.

“You're not answering your cell,” he said, slouching in a chair in the living room. “And you're not checking your messages. Your phone's turned off. What's up?”

His face was flushed. He'd been working out at the YMCA beforehand, his sideburns and some of the surrounding hair still wet with sweat.

Sitting on the couch near him, I ran a hand through my hair, not sure what to say.

“No, it's cool,” I said. “Everything's fine.”

“Really?” he said, trying, not very successfully, for sarcasm. A flash of anger and impatience crossed his face, surprising me.

We didn't speak for a long time. He picked his fingernails, something he did when he was uncomfortable. It was like he knew I was lying and he couldn't look at me.

I felt taken aback. “I'm sorry,” I said finally, my voice saturated with emotion. I wanted to let him know about everything. But I didn't think I could tell him. That he cared meant a lot to me.

“Sorry for what?” he said.

“I don't know,” I said. I could hear Gabe in the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets, making himself something to eat. Dad had already left for his office.

Mike listened to Gabe's noises as well, and he noticed something in my observance, saying, “It's Gabe, isn't it? What happened?”

“What?”

“What happened with Gabe? Your face's really red right now.”

“It's not Gabe,” I said.

He went quiet again, picking at his fingernails.

“You don't know me as well as you think you do,” I said. “There's nothing going on.”

He looked at me but said nothing.

Gabe walked through the living room, nodding at us in passing, eating a slice of toast, and I felt my body stiffen.

After Gabe left, Mike continued to stare at me, and I saw that he knew I was full of shit.

I had to look away, overcome with a rush of emotion, afraid that I would cry or do something stupid.

My heart sped in panic, and I felt as if the blood were draining from me. For a second, the walls and furniture seemed to slip and shift in my vision.

“Oh,” he said, as if to help me, “I almost forgot. Emily's birthday is today. She wants you to come to dinner tonight. She asked me to ask you.”

I laughed in relief. The idea of escaping into their family appealed.

“It's not her birthday party,” he said. “That's next weekend. So don't get a big head. You're not invited to that. This is a family dinner.”

I threw a couch pillow at him and he caught it lazily with one hand, and then—when I wasn't looking—he whipped it back at me. It hit my shoulder and then skittered behind me on the floor.

We both raced to retrieve it, each grabbing a corner, wrestling for control. I laughed along with Mike, and it surprised me a great deal.

Gabe passed through the living room again on his way out the front door. He gave us a sullen stare, and then he left. We heard his truck start and then move down the street.

“Something bad happened,” I said.

Mike waited.

It took a while but I told him. Everything I'd been hiding inside me came out. Mike made it possible. He got the whole story.

Every now and then he looked at me with a pained, sorrowful expression. He spoke only twice to say, “Slow down, you're talking too fast,” and “Oh, shit, Even, this is awful.”

Somehow, I got off track and told him about how Tove had been my first kiss—fourth grade, behind the handball courts—and how I wished I'd told him about her that night at our house, before we'd left for the girls' volleyball party.

“Promise you won't tell anyone,” I said when I'd finished.

“Sure,” he said. “What are you going to do?”

“Wait.”

He invited me to the beach (“A swim in the ocean always helps me,” he said), but I declined.

He hugged me before he left, saying, “Let me know what you need. If I can do anything, let me know.”

When he released me, I could see the tears in his eyes. “That poor girl,” he said.

After he left, I lay on the couch and watched
Wheel of Fortune.
I felt better, but I also worried that Mike would let his parents know, and that they'd tell my family what I'd done.

I zoned out in front of the TV. One of the contestants on the game show—a giggly black woman with dimples—was about to solve the puzzle. But she spun and landed on Bankrupt—that awful
Waaahoooom
falling bassoon sound—leaving the puzzle for the greedy, bespectacled lawyer.

“I'd like to solve the puzzle, Pat,” he said, blurting out the answer in a self-satisfied voice to lights and music and applause.

Unable to stand it, I switched the channel to a remake of
Carrie,
not recognizing any of the actors, and settled in for the entirety. But it was so dull that I fell asleep on the couch.

When I woke in the afternoon—the room stuffy and somewhat dark (no lights on) and the TV off—my dad was standing with his back to me, wearing khakis and a yellow collared shirt, his hands clasped behind him. He stared out the sliding glass door toward the pool and the garage.

I knew something was wrong immediately, and I sat up. “What's going on?” I asked. “Why are you home early?”

“Even,” he said, not turning around, “I'm afraid there's been some trouble.” His voice had a detached quality that spooked me more than his words.

I didn't respond, waiting for him to continue.

A very long pause, and then he said, “I need a favor.”

“What?” I asked, with a rush of dread.

He turned to face me and said, “I want you to admit something first.”

I would've admitted to anything to appease him right then. But it scared me to no end to think that he might be talking about my turning over the video camera.

“Okay,” I said, “what?”

He didn't answer right away, pausing to take his glasses off and wiping them with his shirt. To anyone else, he might've looked emotionless, but I could tell that he was upset. His eyes looked unprotected without his glasses, small and strange.

He put the glasses back on, then fumbled in his pocket for his crumpled pack of Newports, lighting one with a shaky hand.

After flicking the match, he placed it in the ashtray. He took a few anxiety-reducing drags, blinking at me.

“Admit,” he said finally, cigarette knuckled between his pointer and middle finger, “that as your father, I know more than you. That I'm smarter than you.”

Involuntarily, I laughed, not expecting a contest of intellect.

He gave me a long, patient stare. A thin ray of sunlight struck the side of his face and torso. He took a pull on his cigarette, and the smoke came out of the side of his mouth in a hazy-dirty puff.

“Okay, sure,” I said, clutching a couch pillow to my chest. “You're smarter than me,” I said, and I believed it, too.

Silent for a moment, fixing me with his grim stare, he flicked his ash onto the floor (something I'd not seen him do before; he'd always been careful to use ashtrays). Then he said: “Take the wicker couch from the garage and get rid of it.”

I was too stunned to say anything.

He continued to smoke and observe me. “Just take it somewhere,” he said. “What about your friend, what's his name?”—he hit his forehead with the heel of his cigarette hand, trying to remember—“Matt—”

“Mike.”

“Mike. Take it to Mike's or someone else's. Just get it out of here.”

“Why?” I asked, but I knew that he'd just asked me to remove crucial evidence.

“I got a rather alarming phone call,” he said, “at my office. A couple of detectives”—he looked down—“from Cucamonga.”

“Oh, god,” I said.

He glanced back at me, reticent. “Your brother's in big trouble this time,” he said. “I'll bet it's that crazy girl, the one from that crazy Jewish family. The detectives came to Gina's house to get Gabe this morning, but they called me, and he's coming here. They're all coming here, since what happened, they've determined, took place in our jurisdiction, which is good—it's great, really—since we've got Krone and Jimenez looking out for us.”

“What did the detectives want?”

“They have his camcorder,” he said. “Gabe told me it got stolen. It's got Gabe's name and Gina's address on the warranty. That's how they knew where to go. There's some video on it—something bad, something happened in our garage on the Fourth, it's time-stamped on the video. I won't say what they said it shows. But it's bad.”

He shook his head and took another hit from his cigarette. “Gabe,” he said, blowing smoke, “actually thought the detectives were returning it. He said to me on the phone, ‘Dad, honestly, it got stolen, and I thought they were being cool and giving it back to me.'”

He paused to share an incredulous stare with me.

Then, quite unexpectedly, the doorbell rang, and rang again, and someone knocked less than a second later, impatient.

We looked at each other, my dad swearing under his breath, and then he said, “Whatever you do, don't panic. It's going to be okay, Even. I'm going to take care of everything. I promise.”

20.

I
T TURNED OUT
to be Assistant Sheriff Scott Jimenez at the door, in his full uniform, so that it looked to me at first like a costume, along with a lieutenant. “Hello, Dan,” Jimenez said, giving my dad a significant look. He directed a less intense expression at me and tried, with little success, to lighten his tone. “Hello, Even.”