Beard With Me

by Penny Reid

  "Billy, I didn't start the fight."

  "Okay." Lord, give me patience. Please.

  "I swear on the grave of Grandpa Oliver, I didn't throw the first punch."

  "With your fist," I murmured, the words out before I caught them.

  Give me patience. Give me patience. Give it to me.

  It was my momma's most mumbled prayer. Not, Lord, teach me patience. No, not that. A few years back she told me, “Never ask the Lord to teach you anything, he'll teach you a lesson you'll never forget. Just ask for what you want. Ask Him to give it to you, no strings attached. It's less dangerous.”

  Cletus released a loud breath. "Of course, with my fist."

  Give me patience. Lord. Dear Lord, give me patience . . . any minute now. I'm waiting.

  "How else do you start a fight if it isn't with your fist?"

  "With your words, Cletus!"

  Dammit.

  Dammit!

  I balled my left hand tightly and pressed it against my mouth, inwardly chuckling at the irony of the moment. I'd just started a fight. With my words. The Lord wasn't giving me patience, but he sure was demonstrating the impressiveness of his sense of humor.

  Cletus tensed, and then I felt him bristle. I felt the energy change in the cab as he gathered his armor of indifference and weapons of wit.

  He just wants to fight. Always. All the time. With anyone. It didn’t matter who. He just wanted to rage and dominate and destroy. That's what he wanted. All the damn time.

  Before he could launch his first attack, I exhaled loudly, unfurling my hand and moving it from my lips to my forehead, rubbing against the headache there. "I'm not your enemy, Cletus. I'm not a foe. I'm not seeking to outsmart you or prove you're wrong."

  "That's ’cause you can't outsmart me."

  I wouldn't goad him, not that I didn't also have that same instinct, but because someone needed to set the example of restraint. Someone had to be the adult, the voice of reason. Our momma provided the gentle variety. The stern kind had defaulted to me.

  "That's because I have enough sense to know it." I chuckled a tired laugh. I was so tired.

  "What?" he snapped.

  "I don’t aim to outsmart you. I have the good sense to know you're smarter than me."

  The energy changed again, Cletus's posture losing some of its stiffness, the moment diffused. For now. And that was the problem. Every day with Cletus was like handling a ticking time bomb. He might've been diffused for the moment, but he'd just go and arm himself again whenever the notion struck him.

  "I know you’re not my enemy.” Now he sounded tired. “But what should I have done? Prince King was—"

  "Do I care what Prince King was doing? Do I care what any of those trash biker kids do? No. And you shouldn't either."

  "They're not all trash."

  "Fine. They're not all trash, but they're all surrounded by trash, and anything that spends enough time in a dumpster eventually becomes garbage."

  He gasped. "That's harsh, big brother."

  "That's fact, Cletus. I know I can't tell you what to do, you'll just do the opposite."

  "That's not true.” He sounded insulted. “I take your words under advisement."

  Under advisement.

  Well, thank God my fifteen-year-old brother who has already been held back a year for all his troublemaking, who keeps getting suspended for fighting at school, and who always seems to be beating the shit out of people outside of school is taking my words under advisement. Never mind he isn’t doing anything to change himself, never mind I keep lying to cover for him and bail him out and stop him from wrecking his life. Never mind all that.

  Honestly, at this point, if Cletus didn't end up in jail for assault and battery—or manslaughter—I'd consider it a miracle, and that weighed on me more than anything these days.

  More than grades and school, more than the team and football and that scholarship I needed, more than keeping Samantha happy, more than my job at the mill, more than ensuring Momma and Ashley and Beau and Duane and Roscoe were safe and cared for. Cletus was wearing me down. And for the first time in my sixteen years, I didn’t know what to do.

  I couldn't say, "You need to get control over your temper." Because he wanted to fight, and he didn’t see a problem with it as long as the folks he was beating on were nasty to him.

  The only thing I could do was point out how what he was doing, what he wanted to do and the choices he made, how all that impacted others. So that’s what I did.

  "What are you going to tell Momma? Hmm? And Ashley? How about Roscoe? You want him following in your footsteps? You like the idea of him fighting with trash like King?"

  Once more, Cletus snapped his mouth shut. This time the movement was so sudden, his teeth made a clicking noise. My brother flinched but was otherwise silent.

  I turned on Moth Run Road, slowing the truck because we were almost home. I wanted to give him time with his thoughts before we arrived. I wanted him to stew in them, maybe find remorse for his recklessness before we walked in the door.

  Predictably, he didn't say anything until our driveway loomed. "I, uh, I thought maybe I'd tell Momma I fell out of a tree."

  "So, you're going to lie to her."

  "Billy—"

  "You're smart, Cletus. Tell me, if there's nothing wrong with what you're doing, then what's the harm in telling everybody the truth?"

  "Don't try to out-logic me."

  "I'm not." I flipped on the blinker even though there was no one behind us, my gaze moving over the fence bracketing the driveway. It needed repair. I looked away, beating down a familiar frustration.

  I didn't have the time. I needed to study for my trigonometry test and write a paper for European history. Football practice had gone longer than usual, which had worked out since it meant I'd been at the right place at the right time to break up Cletus's latest scuffle.

  And I wouldn't have time over the weekend. I had a shift at the mill all day Saturday and I'd promised to spend Sunday helping Samantha's father rebuild the engine of his hobby car. That left no time for me to fumble my way through fence repairs.

  As my attention continued to move over the old house, a gnawing unease settled low in the pit of my stomach. This place needed work, and not the kind of work I was skilled enough to do or had a knack for. Cletus and the twins didn’t have the temperament for measuring and double-checking. If I gave them hammers, they’d turn into woodpeckers.

  I did have the temperament, but I didn’t know what the hell I was doing and rarely had the time to read up on structural house repair. There were only so many hours in the day.

  Aside from Roscoe—who was still just a kid, so the jury was still out on him—the simple truth was that the rest of us were good with fixing machinery, but crap at most handy work.

  Well, all of us except my older brother, Jet. Problem was, he was shit at everything else, including being a decent person. And I’d sworn after he left us never to ask him for anything.

  I ripped my stare from the sagging gutter and the rotted porch beams. Allowing myself to get frustrated at the state of the house was wasted energy. Instead, I scanned the yard. That did nothing to improve my mood. Duane and Beau were in the process of ripping apart an old tractor and various mechanical parts littered the grass. I'd asked them to pick their mess up maybe a hundred times, but I wasn't asking anymore.

  I needed them to listen to me about waking up each morning and going to school, doing their homework, being respectful to their elders, and not causing mischief. Bits of machinery in the yard, making the house look crummy from the road was something I could deal with if they stayed out of trouble.

  Well, stayed out of serious trouble, that is. Those two couldn't stay out of trouble if trouble were a mountain surrounded by a twelve-foot electric fence and guard dogs. Even then, they'd still find a way to fall on top of it.

  "Another lie then? That's what we're doing?" I asked, allowing my voice to communicate the weariness I felt. Never m
ind the fact that I’d come to the same conclusion. I couldn’t handle seeing heartbreak on my momma’s face, and I’d do—and have done—just about anything to keep her from hurt.

  Cletus had the decency to squirm in his seat. "Lie is such an ugly word. I prefer fiction.”

  "A lie."

  "A story."

  "A lie."

  "A story. One that'll delight and entertain."

  "Oh. I see.” I nodded. “So, a lie?"

  Cletus huffed. "You know what your problem is, big brother?"

  Darrell Winston's prolific sperm.

  "You need to lighten up."

  Placing my truck in park, I pressed down on the emergency brake and twisted at the waist to face my brother and his absurdity.

  "Lighten up,” I repeated flatly.

  "That's right. I mean, take for example this ride home. Not once did you ask me who won the fight.”

  “I don’t need to ask, Cletus. I was there.”

  “And another thing, it's about to snow inside the car and you're driving without the heat on. Your heat broken? Or do you just not notice that I’m freezing my balls off? Do you even feel cold?” His voice cracked at the end of his sentence, reminding me that he was just fifteen. Just a kid.

  Once more, I gritted my teeth. "I feel the cold Cletus. But turning the heat on wastes gas." Every single one of my paychecks went toward saving for college. Every single one. Momma gave me money for gas, groceries, and such out of her meager paycheck, and I wasn’t wasting her money just to make my delinquent-minded kid brother more comfortable on his ride home after picking a fight with Prince Fucking King.

  "Then you should get a more fuel-efficient mode of transportation, so you don't freeze me to death. Think how that would look. What would Momma say if you delivered me home safe and sound, with the rigor mortis?"

  “Rigor mortis?” I didn’t smile, but I wanted to. Despite being a pain in my ass, Cletus cracked me up.

  “That’s right. Rigor mortis. You know, the dead people.”

  “Where’d you hear about rigor mortis?”

  “I didn’t hear, I read. You know how I’m a fan of books? Well, they teach me all this nifty information about the world.”

  That was true. Everywhere he positioned himself in the house was surrounded by books: his bed, Grandma Oliver’s chair, his spot at the dining table, the bathroom. He was like Pig-Pen from Charlie Brown, but rather than dust it was books. Ashley was this way as well, but with fiction instead of history, biographies, encyclopedias, and manuals.

  “You need a different car.” His tone was sullen and he glanced around the cab with distaste. “This rusted piece of junk doesn’t suit you.”

  Now he was just being rude. "Yeah. Okay. You're right. Let's just go down to the dealership and buy a new car. Can I borrow some money, though?"

  Cletus gave me a funny look. "No, you may not."

  “Well, in that case, we’re outta luck.” I made an aw-shucks sound and shrugged. "I don’t know if you’re aware of this, Cletus, but cars cost money.”

  Even beneath his bloodied face, I could see his expression turn mean, which was why I wasn’t terribly surprised when he said, "Not all cars. You could ask Jethro to—"

  "Get out of the truck, Cletus. Just, get out." That’s it. I’d officially reached the end of my rope with him. He knew better than to bring up our oldest brother, nothing made me madder.

  Darrell, our daddy, was a cross to bear, and his motorcycle club, the Iron Wraiths, were a thorn in my side. That’s all. I didn’t give two shits about either of them.

  But Jet? He was the only person in the world I hated. I hated him so much, I couldn't think, I could barely breathe with how it choked me, because Jet was Judas the Betrayer. He’d chosen thirty silver coins over us, over me and Momma and the rest of us, and for what? A leather jacket with a sewn-on patch? A brotherhood of degenerates? The approval of our father?

  Jethro cared about exactly three people: himself, our daddy, and last I heard, his best friend growing up and everyone in town’s favorite person, the pretentiously perfect Ben McClure. And that’s it.

  Well, good riddance.

  I shoved open the driver’s side door and stepped out, my shoes crunching on the icy grass, the frigid air doing good things to cool my temper. It hadn't snowed, but it was threatening. Early November wasn't typically the season for snowfall. However, this year had been especially cold. I'd already had to fix the old furnace in the basement two times since September.

  Cletus also exited the truck, grabbing his backpack from the back seat and struggling to fit it over his shoulder. From the look of things, he’d done something to his arm, and it hurt. My brother may only have been fifteen, but he was already big and bulky, but not quite six feet. I sent a prayer of thanks that he’d finally grown to look more like a man. When he was little, his blond curls and pretty eyes hadn’t been a good combination with his hair-trigger temper.

  Giving up on his backpack, he let it hang at his side and came over to where I was, his expression still mean. I could tell he planned to finish his earlier thought and I readied myself.

  "I don't see why you won't consider a loaner from Jet."

  I swear. Cletus just never knew when to quit.

  Glaring at my little brother, I bit my tongue instead of throttling him. He had all the appearance of being in earnest, asking me to seriously consider taking one of Jet's stolen cars and calling it my own.

  "You know why," I said, looking away from him, my tone gruffer than I'd intended.

  Where had I failed Cletus? And when? How could he not see how wrong that was? How could he justify it enough to ask it?

  "You know he doesn't steal from—"

  I spun on my little brother, for the first time since I'd separated him from Prince King after practice. I masked nothing of my thoughts, letting him see how bitterly disappointed I was, how angry, how infuriated.

  "Now you listen to me. Don't you ever, ever ask me that kind of question again, you got it? You already know stealing from folks ain't right. We are not those people. Jet made his decision, and that's on him. But you, me, Ashley, the twins, Roscoe, we're better than that. There is no gray, there is only black and white. You don't take something that belongs to someone else. There ain't enough justification in the world for thievery. You want something, you work for it. You earn it. You got it?"

  Cletus returned my glare, but I could tell his mind was working, looking for loopholes, ways to rationalize doing what he wanted. I had to turn away again before he could see my disgust.

  This.

  This impulse to take what we wanted, because we wanted it, this was our daddy. Honestly? Seeing it in my siblings made me love them a little less, made my cares feel heavier. Pointless. And not for the first or even the millionth time, I cursed the blood in my veins. Everything Darrell Winston touched, he ruined, made ugly. And part of him made up part of me.

  I cringed at the thought. God. I couldn’t wait to leave for college. Just one and a half more years. I could not wait.

  Slamming the truck door, I marched away from Cletus, grumbling, "What is it going to take for you to choose right over wrong?"

  "Right and wrong isn't always black and white, Billy," Cletus grumbled in return, but he did sound chastised, an edge of repentance in his tone. "But I see your point, and I accept it as valid. I won't bring up Jet’s cars again."

  Finally, I wanted to say. Finally, I'd gotten through to him on something. I'd take the victory.

  Cletus's dog greeted us on the front step, wagging her tail at the sight of my brother. The animal stood from a collection of blankets under the broken chains of the wooden swing, stretched, and walked over to me first. Head bowed, she nudged my knee, giving me a look that seemed cautious.

  I patted its head. "Why does your dog always look at me like it's afraid?"

  "It's ’cause you're the alpha and she wants your approval. Come here, girl. Come here."

  With one more wary glance, the dog
moved past me and to Cletus, meeting him with exuberance markedly different from the reserved, half-hearted greeting I'd received.

  "Alpha," I snorted, shaking my head.

  "Pack mentality is key to canine survival. You're the alpha, so she doesn't want to do anything to piss you off. It's a sign of respect."

  "Looking at me with fear is a sign of respect?" I asked flatly, pulling my keys from my back pocket while I made a mental list of everyone's whereabouts.

  Ashley walked over to pick up Beau and Duane from their middle school every day—sometimes with Cletus, sometimes not—while I either went to football practice or work. Then she’d walk the twins to the library, where our momma was an assistant librarian. By now, they were all likely on their way home.

  Roscoe was over at the Paytons’, which is where he went every day after school unless it was Momma’s day off, then Simone Payton and Roscoe rode their bikes here. I glanced over my shoulder as I fit the key into the lock, searching for my littlest brother's bike. He always forgot to put it in the Quonset hut, so he typically left it on the front lawn until he used it again the next morning.

  Spotting no bike, I made a mental note to call the Paytons, and I returned my attention to the door. I twisted the lock, but in the next moment the doorknob was yanked out of my hand by someone opening the door from the inside.

  "Hey. There you are. What're y'all having for dinner? I'm starving."

  Before I could react to the sight of my prodigal brother—or his question—he turned away and marched back inside, calling back at us, "Where's the beer? I can't find any."

  What the . . . ?

  I thought I was too tired to be angry.

  I wasn't.

  Fury pounded between my temples and wrapped around my lungs like a vise, squeezing, suffocating.

  “Wait, Billy—wait,” Cletus said, sounding faraway.

  But I paid him no mind. I was already in the house, mindlessly marching into the kitchen, and grabbing my older brother's arm. Whipping him around, I punched him in the stomach.

  He bent over, holding his middle, wheezing, coughing, and laughing. "Well, hello to you too, Billy."