The Little Brother (29 page)

“What do you want?”

He cupped his chin with the fingers of one hand, as if in thought. “It's probably gonna be a mistrial,” he said. “Just so you know. One holdout, thankfully. A female juror. But I'm sure your daddy already told you all this.”

He straightened his posture and brightened. “You know what would make me feel better?” he said, as if he were just coming up with the idea. “To write a story about how Gabe's own brother turned over the camera, because he's guilty, and Daddy couldn't pay enough money to make it go away.”

“Can I have a glass of water?” I asked.

He left for the kitchen and I heard him moving around, opening and closing cupboards, as if he didn't know where he kept the glasses, and then I heard the sound of the faucet. Maybe it wasn't his apartment. It looked generic. No photographs and rudimentary decorations, like an apartment in a TV commercial.

He came back with a glass of water and set it on the coffee table.

But I didn't drink it.

Then I said, “So write it.”

He glanced at me sideways. “I'd be stupid not to,” he said.

I didn't say anything, recognizing a coldness in his tone and manner. In that moment, he reminded me of Dad, a comparison that would no doubt have bothered both Michaels and my dad a great deal.

“It's a juicy story,” he said.

I had no desire to argue, which is what he seemed to want from me.

“I need to go,” I said, lifting myself from the couch.

“Hold on,” he said, raising a hand.

I let my backside fall back onto the couch.

“Relax,” he said. “I'm not going to write about it.”

“Why?”

He gave me a pained look. “Because,” he said angrily, “I promised my source that I wouldn't.”

I digested this information in silence.

“I want to know why,” he said.

“Why what?”

“Why you did it.”

My vision blacked out for a second and a buzzing noise reverberated in my head. “I need to go,” I said, and this time I stood and walked to the door.

He followed close behind me. “Your dad's gonna find out,” he said, “that is, if he hasn't already. He's probably getting the phone call right about now.”

I opened the door, but before I got outside he said, “The Kagans.”

I glanced back; the expression on his face was impossible to read.

“You should know the source,” he said. “They're protecting you. God knows why. I just want to understand, figure some shit out, hear you say it. But I can't write about it. I promised Tove. I'm her reporter, so that's how it goes.”

The Kagan's PI, he went on to explain, had found out that I'd gone to AA meetings for Gabe, met Sara, and probably heard Tom L. speak at the church.

“Tove doesn't want to hurt you,” he said, “and her parents agree. But they disagree about letting your dad know.”

Before I could respond, he shut the door between us.

That was the last time I saw him. Though he kept his word and never wrote about me or Sara, I still avoid reading his articles.

33.

I
DROVE BACK TO
Dad's for dinner as I'd promised, and the sky was darker now, with a bright, lopsided moon. As I walked up the front walkway, I smelled honeysuckle.

I would tell Dad and Gabe, I decided, before the Kagans' PI or someone else did. I felt an urgency to get it over with, and a desire to capitalize on that urgency.

I didn't trust Michaels or necessarily believe him about the Kagans at first. But it didn't take much longer for me to understand that the Kagans had indeed hired a private investigator to counteract my family, and that he'd been a good one.

I now believe that Tove was the one who didn't want to tell my dad, but that her parents wanted to hurt my family by letting them know.

I saw our neighbor mowing the lawn, and he nodded and raised a hand to me, so I waved back.

As soon as I stepped inside, I knew something bad was happening—the air had a static, menacing feel—just like I'd known on July 5 when I'd come home to Gabe and Kevin in the living room.

But this time I found Dad and Gabe.

Gabe was sitting in Dad's recliner and Dad stood in front of him with his hands outstretched. I wouldn't have been able to see them too well in the dark, except that a flickering light came from the muted TV.

“What's going on?” I asked, coming toward them, a panic fluttering in my chest, and then I saw Dad's pistol in Gabe's lap, a Glock 19 purchased legally with a weapons permit, another benefit of his relationship to Krone. I'd known Dad owned the gun but hadn't known where he kept it. It made sense that Gabe had found the gun before me, just as he'd found Dad's pharmaceuticals stash.

Gabe glanced at me for a second. “Goway, goway, goway,” he slurred. “Allufyougoway.” He sounded very drunk. I saw that he had the gun gripped in his hand, his finger on the trigger.

“Even,” Dad said, remarkably composed, or at least faking it. He had a cigarette fingered in one of his outstretched hands, and though he was talking to me, his gaze didn't leave Gabe. “Perhaps you can help. I'm trying to explain to Gabe why he should hand me back my gun.”

Gabe continued to shake his head, mumbling to himself. I noticed Dad's Rolex on the coffee table next to an ashtray.

I took a few steps toward Gabe. Dad said, “Easy, Gabe. Easy now,” reaching his hand out.

But before he could take the pistol, Gabe jerked in his chair, bringing the muzzle toward his temple, and he shouted, “Goway!”

We both stepped back, Dad's hands in the air. “Okay, Gabe,” he said. He leaned forward and ground his cigarette into the ashtray, saying equably: “Gabe, I understand that you think we'll be
better off without you; I understand that's the way you
feel.
But it doesn't work like that.”

“No,” Gabe said, his tear-streaked face clenched in anguish. He wiped the hair from his forehead with his forearm, the gun unsteady.

“It's almost certain,” Dad said, “to be a mistrial. No jail, Gabe.”

Gabe shook his head.

“Gabe,” Dad said, “this is
good news
.”

“You hate me?” Gabe asked.

I waited for Dad to console him, and then I realized with an earth-swaying shock that he had been speaking to me.

“No,” I said, the gun and Gabe and everything blurring in my tear-blocked vision, “no, Gabe. I love you.”

“You're my little brother,” he said, his eyes shining. A small, appeased, shy smile.

“Yes,” I said. “I'm your little brother”—the tears coming hot—“I love you, Gabe. Everything's going to be okay.”

He shook his head, his face anguished again. “No,” he said. “No, it's not,” and he raised his gun hand.

Dad and I closed in on him.

Everything happened so fast. I remember glancing at the TV and the feel of the metal on the side of my hand as the gun fired, and a Budweiser commercial, a close-up of the water-beaded bottle swirling in an icy blue light.

The smell of smoke and metal and flesh—somehow I knew that the flesh belonged to me even before I acknowledged that I'd been shot—conscious of a burning in my left foot and leg, and I turned
to see Dad holding Gabe's arm and hand in the air, and the gun pointed upward.

Dad wrenched the gun free while Gabe stared at me in horror, and then they were both staring at me.

I couldn't understand what had happened, and then I looked down to where it felt like fire on me and I saw both the blood pooling up from my sock and a brown-edged burn streak on my jeans, the blood beginning to darken around it. “Oh, shit,” I said. “I think I've been shot.”

Dad, holding the gun by the handle like a soiled piece of toilet paper, walked to the kitchen and set it down somewhere, flipping on the living room light on his way back.

My forearm went to my eyes to shield the burst of light that made my wounds hurt more and brought an undeniable attention and reality to our situation.

I crouched to the floor. With my back against the couch, I peeked through the space beneath my elbow.

Gabe's head went back against the recliner, his eyes horrified. Blood had speckled his shoe, and he looked as pale as I'd ever seen him.

Dad came and knelt beside me.

I let my arm down and squinted against the light.

He took off his glasses and rubbed them on his shirt. “Even,” he said, “listen. We don't have a lot of time. The neighbors might have heard the gun go off.”

“I've been shot,” I said.

“I know,” he said, his head bowing for a second. “I know, Son.”

“I feel like I might faint,” I said.

“Hold on,” he said, putting his glasses back on. “Don't do that.”

Gabe looked at me in terror. “Did I do that?” he asked. “Did I shoot you?”

Dad stood and said, “No, Gabe. We all went for the gun and it shot off a round. It was an accident.”

I put my forearm to my eyes again. Despite the pain, a sense of calmness came over me, and I heard myself say: “You need to leave now. Give me the gun and leave.”

I heard nothing, so I moved my arm. Gabe had his head in his hands and Dad stared at me. An acknowledgment passed between us, and he said, “Okay, Even.”

I placed my forearm back over my eyes and kept them covered, listening to Dad moving into the kitchen and Gabe crying. Then I felt a weight on my lap, and I set my hand on the warm metal of the gun.

“Are you sure about this?” Dad asked.

I nodded, my eyes covered.

Before they left, I asked our dad to turn off the light.

I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911. “I accidentally shot myself,” I told the female dispatcher, and as soon as the words came from my mouth, I understood that it had to be true.

I'd shot myself while fiddling with the gun. A stupid accident.

The dispatcher wanted to stay on the line with me while we waited for help, but I hung up.

In my head, I went over what I would say to the paramedics and officers when they arrived, and I covered the gun with my fingerprints to hide any others.

Something like relief blossomed inside me, interspersed with my physical pain. A sensation not entirely unpleasant, like a heightened, aching hurt and an equilibrium and acceptance.

I lay on the floor in the blessed dark with the gun at my side and waited for the sirens.

34.

T
HE BULLET HAD
skimmed my shin, burning my jeans and leaving a shallow wound. It pierced through my left foot: The entrance wound was at the top and the exit wound was at the bottom near my ankle.

I underwent an open irrigation and debridement to remove any retained bullet fragments.

Fortunately the bullet had made a clean exit, the residue lodging within my soft tissue, missing the metatarsal bones.

I have two circular scars. Both turn pink in extreme weather.

Within a week of the gunshot, I could walk without the aid of a crutch with a wary heel-to-toe gait in my bare feet.

Although there's no neurovascular impairment, whenever I use my foot for an occasion requiring physical endurance, such as a long walk or more than a half hour of heavy lifting, or if I'm under physical stress, I experience hot, shooting pains: ghost memories of the actual gunshot.

But I'm told this is purely psychological.

Dad brought me the newspaper clipping from the
Orange County Register
in the late morning following the shooting. I lay in the hospital bed with my left foot wrapped and read:

       
An unidentified Newport Beach teen accidentally shot himself in the foot Monday night while trying to unload a Glock 19.

       
The teen also suffered a minor injury to his shin when the weapon unintentionally discharged, deputies said in a press release.

       
The teen was taken to Hoag Hospital and is expected to make a full recovery.

       
No one was present during the accidental shooting. The sheriff's department declined to provide the teenager's name or any other identifying information, beyond what was detailed in the press release.

Dad pulled a foldout chair close to my bed, opened it, and sat. He looked like he didn't know what to do with his hands, like he needed a cigarette. Gabe, he let me know, had been admitted to a Laguna Beach hospital for depression and chemical dependency. No verdict yet, but any moment now.

The usual hospital noises rang out—beeps and clanks and buzzers going off—and it smelled like lonely, antiseptic death.