Unforgivable (4 page)

He turns around suddenly and grabs my shoulders, hard. “Listen to me, Marcus,” he says, so serious it scares me. I start to cry. “You have to hit people where it hurts most. We're not tough, so we have to be smart. Do you hear me?”

“But why'd you have to call them that word?” I whimper. “Dad said we're never supposed to say that word.”

“It's a bad word,” David says, and I feel a little better with this confirmation. “The worst. You should never say it.”

“Then why'd you say it?”

He sighs, and I know the world is so much heavier for him than it is for me. “You know how war works?” he says. “It's about showing superiority. They were winning, right? They're tougher than us. We can never beat them at their game. The only way we were going to win was if we change the game. That's called strategy. It's called psychological warfare. We have to make them small.”

“Why?”

“So we win.”

“But why?” I cry.

“Jesus, Marcus. So they won't kick our asses, that's why.” He puts his arm around me and pulls me close. “You're going to have to learn how to take care of yourself someday. I'm not always going to be here to protect you.”

“I can take care of myself,” I say, wiping my wet nose on his sweater.

“I won't let anyone hurt you, little brother,” David says. “I promise.”

I believe him. I always believe him.

We walk the rest of the way home, not talking. When we finally make the turn that marks the official line between Oakland and the charter city of Piedmont where we live, things immediately feel different. Better. Safer. But even though the coast is clear, I keep my hand squeezed tight around David's. The flame of a tiny new terror ignites: I don't know how I'll ever be ready to let go.

WHEN I GET HOME, I WANT NOTHING MORE THAN TO GRAB some food from the fridge and go to my room and listen to music, but Dad corners me in the kitchen. He's home at a time normal people get home from work, which is not normal for him. He's been doing this lately, being around. He actually ate lunch at the kitchen table on Saturday. He even knocked on my bedroom door a few nights ago to ask if I wanted to watch TV with him in the living room. I can't remember the last time he was even on my side of the house. I can't remember the last time someone even turned on the TV in the living room.

“How are you?” he says, with an unrecognizable smile. He's in khakis and his old Yale sweatshirt, and the clothes look strange on him. For the last several years, he's been someone who only looks right in a suit or his judge's robes. The last time I saw him in this ensemble was probably when I was a little kid, when he was still
attempting to play the dad role. Before David started falling apart. Before Mom.

“Fine,” I say, not meeting his eyes.

He puts his hand on my shoulder, and it makes me jump.

“I mean it, Marcus,” he says. His face is softer than it should be. He's looking me in the eyes, like maybe he actually does want to know how I am. “You've been moping around the last few days. Is something wrong? Is something going on with that girl you've been seeing?”

“How'd you know I was seeing anyone?” He's never met Evie. He's never come close to meeting Evie.

“I notice things, Marcus.”

I can't help but laugh. Bullshit.

“Have you thought about the internship at my office?”

“I've kind of had other things on my mind.” That's the understatement of the year.

“I hope you'll at least consider it. It starts in two weeks. There are several applicants who are waiting anxiously for our response.”

“So give it to one of them.” I shake his hand off my shoulder.

“Marcus, it's a great opportunity. Not everybody gets a chance to work at the Supreme Court. It's quite a privilege. I hope you don't take that for granted.”

Yes, Dad, I know. It's a privilege to have you as a father. Your expectations of me are a great fucking privilege.

“The internship will be impressive on your college applications. You are thinking about college, aren't you?”

“Of course I'm thinking about college,” I say, gritting my teeth. “But I'm still a junior. I don't have to think about it too much yet.”

“Some people would have already done some school visits and interviews by now. You've at least looked at some of those brochures, haven't you?”

He's talking about the pile of glossy pamphlets that has been collecting dust on the hallway table for the past few months, invitations from every college in the country that have gotten my name off some list that tells them I go to Templeton, which makes them drool for my family's money.

“Yeah, a little,” I lie.

Dad sighs. Funny how he never worried about David.

I step toward the fridge. When I open it, I'm shocked to see real food—vegetables and fruits and ingredients for cooking, not the usual prepared meals and condiments. “You went shopping,” I say.

“Monica and I went shopping. She's going to make us dinner tomorrow night. I want you to be here, Marcus.”

I don't respond. He's been trying to get me to meet his current girlfriend for weeks, but I keep avoiding it. And now, more than ever, I don't want anything to do with her. I don't want any part in his trivial love life when mine is falling apart. I find an apple and a hunk of cheese in the fridge. I grab a box of crackers and a granola bar from the cabinet.

“I really want you to get to know her,” he continues as I pretend to still be looking in the cabinet. I don't want to look at him
right now. “You can't keep brushing her off. She means a lot to me. You mean a lot to me. I want you two to be friends.”

I turn around in a rage. How can he be talking about this right now? Pretending his new bimbo of the month matters when the girl I'm in love with just got out of a fucking coma and isn't allowed to see me?

“Yeah, Dad,” I say. “Sure, we can be friends. That totally makes sense since we're probably pretty close in age.”

I expect a reaction. I want a reaction. I expect him to hit me, to yell, to at least storm away. But he just sighs. He just stands there. I want to hit him. I want to knock that smug look off his face. But he is, and always will be, so much bigger than me.

“I guess I deserve that,” he says, then emits a strange sound. If he were anyone else, I'd say it was a chuckle. “But for your information, Monica is forty-four and CEO of a successful tech start-up that's about to go public.” He seems to register the look on my face that says this news means nothing to me. “I'm serious about this one,” he says.

“Congratulations, Dad,” I say, and I walk away.

THE DINING ROOM IS A MUSEUM, A PLACE FULL OF THINGS no one touches. But tonight is special, Mom says. It's Dad's birthday. The kitchen is a war zone, bombs of flour exploded on counters, floor, walls. Measuring spoons and cups thrown around. Boxes and cans and jars in disarray.

We are sitting at the dining room table. Mom dressed us up. David kicks me under the table for pulling at the neck of my sweater vest. “It's scratchy,” I whine.

“Shhh,” he says, but I don't know why we have to be quiet. It's just us three. Mom's sitting way over on the other end of the table, her face pale under her makeup.

“Mommy, you look pretty,” David says.

She smiles, but it is her own special sad kind of smile. “Thank you, honey.”

“When is Dad coming home?” I say. David kicks me again, but I don't know why. He knows so many things I don't, like when
to talk and when not to talk. Like when Mom is sad or Dad is angry, even when no one is talking.

Mom says nothing. We've been sitting here for a long time. My stomach tells me we should have eaten by now. The food is in the fancy bowls we only use on holidays, covered by matching lids. There's no way it can still be warm.

There's a cake in the kitchen, a surprise. Mom made it from scratch. David and I watched YouTube videos with her about how to make flowers out of frosting.

“You boys must be starving.” She sighs. “Why don't you make yourself a couple of plates and take them upstairs?”

“Are you sure?” David asks.

“We can eat in our rooms?” I say. “Like, while we play video games?”

“Just for tonight,” she says with a weak smile. “It's a special occasion.”

David sits next to me in the back of Dad's car, arms crossed on his chest, his face pinched in an angry pout. I don't know what he's so upset about. Most boys would jump at the chance to shoot a real gun.

We drive by the sign for the Chabot Gun Club. “Here we are,” Dad says from the front seat. I can't remember the last time we did something, just the three of us. I want David to be as excited as I am.

I follow Dad to the front desk, David trailing behind. “I have a lane reserved for one thirty,” Dad says. “Bill Lyon.” As he fills
out forms, I look around. Out the window, many of the lanes are occupied by people like us—fathers teaching sons how to shoot. Half a dozen old men sit on a bench and folding chairs near the front desk, as if this is a living room, comfortable in a way that implies they've been sitting there for a long time. David is still near the entrance, looking at a glass cabinet full of old pictures and trophies.

“I tell you,” says one of the old men, in a raspy smoker's voice, “this is the only place left in the whole Bay Area where the Second Amendment is still alive and well.”

“Yep,” says another.

“This town sure has gone to shit.”

“Uh-huh,” says another.

“What with all the bike lanes and gay marriage.”

They all nod their heads in agreement.

Dad hands me a pair of plastic safety goggles. I feel a little less tough than I was hoping to.

“I don't want to wear those,” David says.

“You have to,” Dad says. “It's the rules.”

“I don't see what the point is if I'm not even going to touch a gun.”

“David,” Dad says in his taking-no-bullshit tone, “put the goggles on now.” He so rarely talks to David that way, it makes me feel uneasy, like the world is suddenly tilted in the wrong direction.

David takes the goggles and follows us out the door to our lane under the wooden shelter of the handgun range. He's got his arms crossed on his chest. “America's obsession with guns is
so screwed up,” he says, but Dad ignores him. “Did you know that every day, eighty-eight Americans are killed by gun violence? Did you know that every month, forty-eight women are shot and killed by domestic abusers? Did you know that American kids are sixteen times more likely to accidentally be shot and killed than kids in other developed countries?”

“How do you even know that?” I say, but David ignores me.

“I hate guns,” he says as Dad sets a black wooden box down on a small table. “I don't want to touch a gun. I don't want to fire a gun. I don't want anything to do with guns. And I'm ashamed and appalled that you think so highly of them.”

“Oh, get off your high horse, David. You're fourteen years old. You know nothing about the world.” Dad opens the box and inside is a shiny silver old-fashioned revolver. It's the first time I've ever seen a gun in real life, besides on a police officer. And I'm going to get to touch it. I'm going to shoot it. Dad is going to show me how. He thinks I'm big enough.

“A fourteen-year-old is smart enough to know that guns kills people,” David says. “In fact, guns kill fourteen-year-olds all the time.”

“David, shut up!” I say. I am not going to let him ruin this for me. A girl in the lane next to us giggles. Her boyfriend has his arms around her, showing her how to hold his gun.

“Just touch it,” I say. “It's not going to hurt you.”

He pokes at the gun with his finger, then pulls it away as if burned.

“Be a man, David,” Dad says. “Men know how to handle guns.”

“Maybe I don't want to be your version of a man,” he grumbles under his breath, and Dad pretends not to hear.

“Do you want to be a woman?” I say, trying to make him laugh, but he rolls his eyes at me, slumps into a plastic chair, and takes out his phone and starts poking at it.

Dad tears the phone out of David's hand and shoves it in his pocket. “You are going to pay attention,” he growls. “You are going to learn how to do this.”

Birds chirp. The trees of the Berkeley hills surround us. On the other side of this patch of forest, people are golfing and hiking and having picnics. They can probably hear the guns going off. If a deer walked into the shooting range, I wonder if we'd be allowed to shoot it.

As Dad shows us the boring stuff—how to clean the gun, how to load it, how the safety works—I try to ignore David sulking beside me. He's like a sponge, sucking out my joy and excitement. When it's finally time to shoot, I feel strangely sad. This day is nothing like I'd hoped it would be.

I'm a terrible shot. I had imagined myself as some kind of action hero in a flashy movie, but I'm a kid in a run-down old shooting range who, after several rounds, only hits the target once, on the very edge of the paper.

After everyone's done shooting, the ranger announces the cease-fire and I walk down the lane to replace the target I hit. I roll up the piece of paper with one tiny hole in it, careful not to get any creases in it. I will put it in the box where I keep my most treasured possessions. When I return, Dad looks at his
watch. “Time's almost up,” he says. “One last chance, David.”

David sits there for a while, silent and still, in his own little world. I load the gun for myself, expecting David to keep pouting until it's time to leave.

But then he stands up. He says, “Okay.” He walks over to me and pulls the loaded gun out of my hand. He turns to face the target. He raises the gun, aims, and shoots the six bullets in quick succession. They all hit the target, one just shy of a bull's-eye.

“Wow,” I say.

“Ha!” Dad exclaims with joy. He pounds David on the back with fatherly pride. “That's my kid genius. That's my big man.”

David winces and says nothing. I've never seen him look so small.