The Little Brother (22 page)

“Oh, shit,” I said. “What happened?”

He gave me a grimacing grin that looked like it hurt. “Fuck if I know,” he said. He had to lean forward and talk in my ear because of the noise, his boozy nicotine breath tickling my skin.

“Minding my own business,” he said, “walking to my car in the 7-Eleven parking lot, and I got jumped. A big motherfucker. Starts pounding me into the street, right next to my car. Kicked my stomach, bruised my ribs.”

He paused, leaned back, and gave me a strange, knowing stare. Then he came forward to my ear and said, “I said to him, ‘Take my money,' and I tried to give him my wallet, ‘Take my watch,' but he didn't want that. He just wanted to fuck me up.

“After he beat the shit out of me—I'm not kidding, man, he beat the shit out of me, pounded me into the ground—the dude spits in my face and says, ‘That's what you get, rat.' Dude called me a rat. I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a rat.”

I glanced back, worried that the vegetarian, pot-smoking blond might be listening, but she had already struck up a conversation with someone else. I watched her for a second as she leaned forward and laughed, touching the other guy's arm, and then I turned back to Joe.

“Jesus,” I said, “I'm sorry,” and I was, knowing that he possibly got the beating meant for me.

But he couldn't hear me, and took my elbow, guiding me to an alcove near the dining room that was less noisy.

I repeated my apology.

He gave me his hurt-looking grimace-smile and said, “Yeah, man, it was bad.” A brief pause, and then he said, “I've got to get out of here. I'm going to leave soon.” Dead serious, he gripped my
forearm. For a confused second, I didn't understand, thinking that he was making way too big a deal out of leaving the party. But then he said, “I've got a cousin and some family in Canada, and a friend in Mexico also says that I can crash with him. I'm not sure where I'm going. But I'm leaving. It's bad, bad. They're coming after me. Got pulled over the other day for going sixteen miles per hour in a fifteen-mile-per-hour zone, and the police officer hands me a ticket, says that I was going thirty-five, and he says to me, ‘Be careful, the law doesn't look kindly on heroin dealers.'”

He let out a long, distressed sigh. “You and me both know,” he said, “that I deal weed, maybe a few pills. I've got to pay the bills like everyone else.”

A small group of people were sitting in a circle on the tile floor doing whip-its in the kitchen, and one of them shrieked with laughter. We waited for the noise to die down.

“But I've never sold heroin or crystal meth or crack,” he continued. “I won't touch that stuff, won't sell it. God, no. Call it principles, I don't give a fuck. A little cocaine, some speed, maybe once or twice and then I stopped, but I never sold that other shit, ever, and I won't. But this cop's letting me know that he doesn't care. They can nail me for anything, and I've got priors, for loosey-goosey stuff, a shoplifting, a public intoxication from riding my bike fucked up on the boardwalk.”

“They can't do that,” I said stupidly.

To my surprise, he took my hands in his own. “I can't go to jail,” he said. “You need to do something for me.”

I felt sick and rather hot—and weird, to be holding hands with him. “What?” I asked.

“Sara,” he said, looking at me, his voice firm. He clutched my hands tight and pulled. “Don't let them fuck with her. Don't let them hurt her.”

In a stupor, I nodded.

He released my hands and let out a bark-like laugh. “Fucking A,” he said. “Fucking A! Everything's going to be all right!”

“Did she tell you?” I asked.

Immediately, his disposition changed, as if I'd slapped him. He stared at me, incredulous.

“Do you know what happened?” I persisted. “Did she tell you?” In my defense, I hadn't told anyone besides Mike about the video camera and was anxious to have a shared moment. Besides, I was pretty sure Joe already knew.

He took his hat off and ran a hand through his hair. It frightened me to see that his hand trembled. “Shut up,” he said quietly. “Don't be a dumb shit.” He shook his head. “You fucking dumb ass,” he said.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

He nodded, still chagrined, and put his hat back on. He could barely look at me. “How're you going to help her,” he said, “if you can't keep your fucking mouth shut?”

“I can,” I assured him. “I can keep it shut.”

“Okay,” he said, without much confidence.

He was quiet for a few moments as he watched me, considering, then he said, “She's had a tough time already, a hard life. She doesn't need this. She's scared.”

“I know,” I said.

“Do you?” he said—a pause. “If they can do what they did to that other girl, think about what they can do to Sara.”

He lit a cigarette with a Zippo, clicked the lighter shut, and stood smoking, watching me with an expression of frustration and worry. Then he said, “I'm leaving tonight. They think it's me, and let them think that if they'll leave her alone.” He looked around him and said, “She likes you, trusts you. Listen, someone might be following me. I don't know, maybe I'm paranoid. But I need to leave. I don't want them to see me talking to you. She's going to call you in about a week. Wait a bit first, after I leave. Just in case. You're going to meet with her and help her. You're going to tell her that you can keep your mouth shut, and then you're going to keep it shut. You're the only one that she can talk to about this. Tell her that you'll protect her, and then do it. Tell her that you can protect her from your dad and your brother.”

“Okay,” I said.

His hand went to my arm and gripped me for a second, and then he left quietly out a side door.

I
LEFT
M
IKE
at the party and returned to my room at the Woods'. It was small and comforting, like a cave, a stack of books beside my futon, and I cracked the sliding glass door to give myself some air. The air had that misty-rain feel, barely coming down. I listened—the rain was too soft and vaporous to make noise. I could barely hear the television coming from the Woods' living room.

Though I hadn't inhaled much from the vegetarian girl's joint, I now felt stoned. I lay on the futon. The sheets and comforter were from a queen-size mattress, and the excess material spooled around my legs. It felt like I could hide there forever.

I opened my laptop and checked my email. The Internet was slow compared to at Dad's house, but I had nowhere to go. There were fourteen emails from my mom. I read the first:

       
F
ROM:
Gina Hyde

       
T
O:
Daniel Hyde, Gabriel Hyde, Even Hyde

       
D
ATE:
Saturday, January 18, 2004 4:17 PM

       
S
UBJECT:
Gabe and Trial

       
Now we're going to trial right after the school year ends. Summertime. I'm telling you, this whole thing is a bunch of nonsense. You boys are going to get dragged in the mud. You have the rest of your lives, in two or three months, no one would have remembered what happened or cared about one out-of-control moment that happened when a bunch of teenagers engaged in a bit of foolishness. Tove Kagan, if she'd been smart, would have just taken some money and forgotten the whole thing. She's got her whole life ahead of her, and nobody dwells on past mistakes. The whole thing is so ridiculous. This girl slept with all three of you boys the night before. She's easy. We had a name for girls like her when I was in high school but I'm not going to say it. She came over that night expecting to have sex with you boys. You went over the line with the pool stick and because you weren't thinking, add to that alcohol, and that's a bad combination. But I have always taught you boys to be good boys. If a bunch of girls had stripped you naked and done things to you, would they go to trial? NO. Had the video never came out, no one would be trying to destroy you poor boys' lives. You are supposed to be sacrificed and go to prison and be irrevocably damaged because this girl likes to have sex with you and then it got out of hand? Ask yourself, a
girl her age already so sexually active? That says to me one thing. Bad parents. You boys were presented with a forbidden opportunity and you did what boys will do. You grasped the opportunity and didn't realize the seriousness of your actions. You didn't even know you might be breaking a law! Every high school class has a low self-esteem girl that will have sex with anybody. So you boys are going to go to prison because of that? And this girl, had this video never been discovered, would have continued to be a slut as a result of who she is. Now all you boys are going to be picking up your shattered lives for the rest of your lives because of who she is. Not right. That's why I'm so glad we're fighting this thing.

       
Proverbs 1:8

       
Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching.

       
Love,

       
Mom

I read the second email, which I saw that she'd sent five minutes after the first:

       
F
ROM:
Gina Hyde

       
T
O:
Daniel Hyde, Gabriel Hyde, Even Hyde

       
D
ATE:
Saturday, January 18, 2004 4:23 PM

       
S
UBJECT:
Money

       
This is for Gabe but I'm sending it to YOU TOO. Make no mistake. This is about money. I'm just a regular middle-class woman, while your father has reaped the benefits of having worked his whole life to become a successful businessman. Yes, we've had our
difficulties, and I'm sorry for the pain we've put you boys through. I'm sorry we couldn't save our marriage. But your father is a good man. He is guilty of loving you children too much and not being able to be with you enough.

               
Tove Kagan is a rebellious and troubled young woman. She and her family have a reputation for being greedy. She viewed you as a way to escape her horrible less than great family and life. She saw that your father is rich and lives in wealthy Newport Beach and she saw an opportunity. She wanted attention. If seducing you and your friends would give her that, she was willing to do it. You, like all young men with raging hormones, thought only about your immediate sexual gratification with a willing young woman but definitely used exceedingly poor judgment in having sex with her. All four of you teenagers willingly participated in behavior such as drinking and having sex in which you are too young to engage in. Yet my pastor was explaining to me that young people do not always use good judgment or think of the consequences of their actions. But why punish you boys more? You're already being punished for what you did that night because now people will know. That's enough. It's going to get worse, now the newspapers are going crazy. Did you hear any more about that 48 Hours television show? I think it's a good idea that your PR lady said to have a show about teenage sex because then you could teach other boys not to go out of hand like you and to be careful. You are a polite, quiet, loving young man. I know that you will show that on 48 Hours and that people will understand that what you did is not worth ruining your life for one little mistake. Sure you were searching for your identity and acceptance, but I never did feel good about that Kevin Stewart and I never met Kent Nixon before.
They don't come from good stable Christian homes. I don't want you to be punished more.

       
Chronicles 16:11

       
Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually!

       
Love,

       
Mom

I deleted the remaining twelve emails, shut my computer, flipped off the lamp next to my futon, and stared for a long time at the shadows on my ceiling. Then I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew I was at a party and there were people everywhere and I saw Joe's cowboy hat and went to him.

He pointed to a door and his face was not his but Gabe's face but with a stitched lip like Joe's. I opened the door and went inside and there was someone—a girl—on the bed with her back to me under the covers and she whimpered, so I went to her and got beneath the covers.

Then I understood that it was my futon and that the girl was the vegetarian girl from the party and she wanted to have sex with me and I wanted to have sex with her and that I didn't want it to be her but I wanted it to be Sara.

What happened next was so awful that I don't think I can write it. But I will tell you that it wasn't the vegetarian girl from the party and it wasn't Sara and that I started doing things to her that I'd seen on the video camera.

I shot up from the futon with a scream and awakened, sweating and breathing hard, and for some reason, my hands went to my throat, where I felt the bumping thrum of my pulse.