The Unwilling

by John Hart

  “Does George Dickel count?”

  Jason tipped up a bottle, and all the resentment showed on his face: the intrusion, the questions, the last years of his life.

  “Gibby is not a favorite son. He’s just young.”

  “Same age as Robert when he was drafted.”

  “That’s different.”

  “It’s not a bit different. And you know the tragedy of it all, the inside joke?” Another slug of whiskey. “Gibby was the toughest of us all, back in the day. Thirteen years old, and he could keep up with us both: hiking and dirt bikes, hunting, fighting. The kid was unflinching. And what is he now?” Jason pointed with the cigarette. “It’s pitiful, what you’ve done to him.”

  “That is patently unfair.”

  Jason sighed as if suddenly bored. “What do you want, Dad? You want me to fuck off or leave town or stay away from my only brother? If that’s it, then say it and leave. Nothing good will come of it, but at least we’ll understand each other.”

  French struggled for a response, but was out of simple answers. He loved the boy, but didn’t know him. “Tomorrow, then? Brotherly things?”

  “Gibby was supposed to tell you.”

  French nodded. He had nothing else. “Bring him home safe, all right? Nothing stupid or dangerous or criminal.”

  “Roger that, Detective.”

  Jason drank again, and French wanted so much, just then. He wanted to slap the anger from his son, to pull him up and squeeze him so hard there’d be no question of favorites or history or love. He wanted to say, You’re my son, goddamn it, and I don’t care what you’ve done or what you are or even that you hate me. He wanted to hold his boy until his heart was flooded and the sun rose and his arms hurt. Instead, he nodded again and walked away.

  4

  I was awake when my father came home, and knew from long experience how clumsily he’d try to be quiet. With all the late nights and long cases, I’d expect him to know every loose floorboard in the house. He didn’t. I heard a creak in the hall, and a rattle of ice as he stood for long seconds outside my door. When I was younger, he’d wake me up to talk, usually on the bad days when a case went sideways or someone particularly innocent was hurt or killed. He never talked about the details, but even at twelve or thirteen, I understood that he wanted to speak of normal things, to see his own children tucked away and safe. Nights like that came more often when Robert went to war, and ended abruptly when his body returned. Now it was like this: my father in the hall, the rattle of ice.

  When he left, my thoughts returned to Jason and the cliff.

  No hesitation.

  He didn’t even look.

  Turning on a lamp, I opened a shoebox filled with pictures of Robert, some taken when he was a boy, and others he’d sent from Vietnam. I studied those the most on nights like this. He looked frightened in a few and, in others, mostly lost. Not everyone would see that, of course. They’d see the good looks, the half smile. But I’d known Robert better than most, better even than Jason. He’d taught me how to study hard and play hard, to find my place in the world. Every year, though, it was harder to remember him, so I looked more and more at the pictures. It’s what I saw of him when I closed my eyes: Robert in the jungle and looking left, or standing with other men by the edge of a burned field. Even the day he dove from Devil’s Ledge was blurring in my mind. I saw Jason instead, and felt the pull of him, too. What did he want from me? Why was he home? I knew what Robert would say, if I could ask him about tomorrow.

  Live large, Gibby, but be smart.

  You hear what I’m saying?

  You feel me?

  I stared at the darkness for a long time, then pulled on jeans, took a cigarette from my mother’s purse, and slipped outside to the porch. The stars were pale, the air cool. I lit the smoke and felt something like a war inside. Be like Robert or Jason. Be a good son. A bad one. I thought of stealing whiskey, but did not.

  I’d be drinking soon enough.

  And lying, too, it seemed.

  * * *

  It happened on the same porch—nine in the morning, my father close behind as I tried and failed to slip away unseen.

  “Gibby, Gibby. Wait.”

  He tried to keep the cop off his face, but it was hard for him, trusting. “Yeah, Dad?”

  He was barefoot beneath jeans and a T-shirt. I’d been avoiding him. “Where are you going?”

  “Just out.” A half lie.

  “Back to the quarry?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Hanging with Chance?”

  “Yeah, maybe. I guess.”

  My father frowned, and looked at my car in the driveway. It was a Mustang convertible, kind of old. I’d bought it used. It had a few dents, the big engine.

  “Listen,” he said. “I spoke to Jason last night.”

  Shit …

  “You did?”

  “He told me about today.” I expected more of the cop eyes, but that’s not how it was. The old man looked open and understanding, and … I don’t know … younger. “Your mother doesn’t need to know about it, okay? Let’s keep it between us.”

  I looked for the trap; didn’t see it.

  “I’ve been thinking about it, is all. He’s the only brother you have left. Good or bad, that’ll never change.”

  “But don’t tell Mom?”

  “Just be smart,” he said. “You feel me?”

  I nodded once, and there it was again.

  The ghost of brother Robert.

  * * *

  Jason was hungover when I pulled to the curb. He sat with his boots crossed in the gutter and a bottle of beer pressed against his forehead.

  “You’re late.”

  I killed the engine, but didn’t get out. The top was down, sun beating in. Jason took a long swallow, and got to his feet. The house behind him was small and littered with trash, his clothes as dark and worn as a country road. In spite of it all, Jason looked ready for anything, the smile ironic, the rest of him long and lean and coiled. He drained the bottle, tossed the empty, and hefted a cooler into the back seat. “You had breakfast?” I shook my head, and he opened the door. “All right, then. I’m buying.” He named a place, and guided me across town to a diner that served a mix of soul food and Korean. “But the chicken and biscuits,” he said. “You have no idea.”

  He was right about that. I didn’t.

  “Good, huh?” He took off the dark glasses, and his eyes were surprisingly clear.

  “You come here a lot?” I asked.

  He pointed at the cook behind the counter, a wiry black man with gray in his beard. “Nathaniel Washington,” he said. “I knew his son in basic training. Darzell.”

  “Did he … you know. The war?”

  “What? Die?” The same ironic smile. “He drives a cab downtown. Good guy. He introduced me to this place before we shipped out. Don’t have much use for the Korean food, but the rest of it…”

  He gestured, as if to take in the smell of chicken and collards, fatback and ham hocks. Spread out in the booth, he seemed relaxed. The quiet gaze. The easy smile. We finished breakfast and ordered sandwiches for the road. “Tell me about the girls,” I said.

  “Girls?”

  “Yeah, you said—”

  “Ah, the girls. Well, women, really. You been laid yet?”

  I looked away, embarrassed. Girls were a mystery wrapped in sweetness and cruelty. They generally terrified me.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “These girls are nice. You’ll like them.”

  After that, he watched the city beyond the glass. Shadows deepened in alleyways across the street, and bright light etched the pedestrians, the homeless, the big cars with chrome fenders. I was drawn by his lazy confidence, his stillness, the way he held his cigarette.

  “What?”

  He caught me watching, but I had no easy answer. People said we looked alike, but he was exotic to me. “How many people did you kill?”

  It was not a fair question
so early in the morning. He gave me a long look, neither upset nor giving.

  “Not today, little brother.”

  My disappointment was hard to hide. Sex. Death. Experience. These were the things that made him a man and me something less.

  “Listen,” he said. “I get it. People talk. We’re family…”

  “I heard twenty-nine, just in your first year.”

  He shook his head, stubbed out the cigarette. Did that mean more than twenty-nine? Less?

  “I need a drink.” He rose as the old proprietor delivered a bag of food to the table. “Thanks, Nathaniel.” Jason passed across a wad of bills without really counting them, then shouldered the door and led me into the heat. “You ready for a beer?”

  “I’m driving.”

  “Nah, I got it.” He circled the hood and slid behind the wheel. I waited a moment, then got in, too. “Bottle opener is in the cooler.”

  I looked around. No cops. No one seemed to care. Rooting through the ice, I found bottles of Michelob, and pulled out two, opening them and handing one over. Jason drained a third of it in a single pull, then eased onto the four-lane and turned east. I kept the bottle between my legs, sipping nervously when we hit gaps in traffic.

  “Nice car,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Robert and I had to walk.”

  I looked for resentment, but didn’t see it. I could have told him how I’d paid for it mowing lawns and fueling boats, but I didn’t want to break the mood. His fingers filled the grooves on the wheel, and he whistled at the easy acceleration. In seconds, we were doing sixty in a forty-five, and he was smiling like a man fresh out of prison. He took us farther east and then north, bending around the city until we reached an expensive area filled with bright glass and trees and off-street parking.

  “About these girls…” He pulled to the curb. “Don’t let them scare you.”

  “I don’t. What…?”

  “Ladies!”

  Jason swung out of the car as two young women appeared from a nearby condo. I saw a blur of terry cloth and thin shirts and bare, smooth skin. They giggled down a flight of steps and met Jason on the sidewalk, each one rising on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. The shorter one leaned in as if whispering. “Is this him? He’s cuter than you said. See, Sara. I told you.”

  Both were staring, both braless and tan. The blonde wore a headband with a turquoise stone in the center of her forehead. The shorter one with dark hair wore it feathered.

  “All right,” Jason said. “Ladies in the back. Little brother rides with me.”

  “Aww…”

  “I’ll share later. Now, come on. Load up.”

  He gestured at the car, and the young women piled in, the tall blonde speaking first, her voice soft and calm. “I’m Sara,” she said. “This is Tyra.” I responded as best I could, but was lost in a cloud of perfume and legs and the quick glimpse of a pale, curving breast.

  “Oh my God, he’s blushing. That is adorable.” Tyra leaned over the seat, and I felt her breath on my neck. “What’s your name?”

  “Gibby.”

  “How old are you, Gibby?”

  “He’s eighteen,” Jason said. “His birthday was last week.”

  “Oh my God. So adorable.” Tyra squeezed my shoulders, laughing, but my eyes found Sara’s. They were blue, shot with green, and they watched me from a calm, still place. “It’s very nice to meet you, Gibby. Is this your car?” I stammered something, and she leaned forward, showing a second glimpse of the same pale skin. “It suits you, I think. The lines of it.”

  She leaned back after that, and looked away. I felt a flutter, an emptiness. Jason’s knowing smile returned.

  “All right, boys and girls.” He fired the big engine. “Who’s ready to party?”

  * * *

  The party started in the car and moved, over an hour’s drive, to a gravel road that twisted through undeveloped forest at the southern shoreline of the state’s largest lake. Sunlight slanted in, and water glinted beyond the trees. Pale dust rose behind the car as Jason took us farther from the neighborhoods and boat ramps and parks. The girls were on a second bottle of wine, talking a lot and asking questions that Jason apparently wanted me to answer. He rarely replied to any of them, choosing instead to smile or tip back a beer or say something like, You know who has a funny story like that?

  Thing was, I did have funny stories. Whenever he said that and looked my way, I knew exactly what to say and how to say it. Maybe it was the beer, or maybe his confidence was contagious. Whatever the case, the girls responded. Tyra liked to laugh in a full-throated way, her lips as pink as the inside of a shell, her teeth as glistening and damp. Sara’s responses were subdued but more gratifying. She’d touch my shoulder and lean close, her smile softer and intimate and small. As a spell, I wished it to remain unbroken. The streaming hair. The heat of her hand.

  “Where are you taking us, anyway?”

  Tyra raised her voice to ask the question, but Jason didn’t respond. He turned right when the road forked, and bounced us down a weed-filled track that ended at a meadow filled with wildflowers. Beyond it, the lake stretched for miles, a spill of glass fringed by forest and hills and high, empty sky. When the car stopped, Tyra stood, pulling off her sunglasses. “Oh my God.”

  We got out of the car, the stillness remarkable in its perfection. “How’d you find this place?” I asked.

  “It wasn’t me. It was Robert.”

  I took a few steps into the meadow. Flowers carpeted the earth, a thousand colors, a thousand shades. Wind made jewels of light at the water’s edge. “Why didn’t you ever bring me here?” I asked.

  Jason moved beside me and pressed a fresh bottle into my hand. “I didn’t know about it.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Robert didn’t bring me, either. Not until he left for the war.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He came home right before he shipped out. Remember?”

  “Of course.”

  “He brought me here before that last dinner, just the two of us. The sun was setting. It was cold. He said he found this place when he was sixteen, and wanted me to know about it, just in case. Beyond that, he didn’t say much. We had a beer and watched the sun go down. He was scared, I think.”

  “Why did he keep it a secret?”

  “We were twins, right. That meant we shared most everything, whether we wanted to or not. Birthdays. Clothes. Even girlfriends got us confused. I think he liked having this place for himself, alone. Do you blame him?”

  It was a fair question, given the beauty and the stillness. I wondered who owned it, but only for a moment. My thoughts turned to Robert. It was easy to see him here all those years ago, alone or with a special girl. It hurt that he’d brought Jason and not me, but they had been twins. I forgot that sometimes.

  I’d forgotten the girls, too.

  “Who wants to go for a swim?” Suddenly Tyra was beside us, one hand on Jason’s arm. “How about you, big boy?”

  She shrugged off her top, laughing. The shorts followed, and she was naked, running through the flowers. I’d never seen tan lines on a naked girl, never seen a naked girl at all.

  “Hold this.”

  Jason pushed a beer at me, and sauntered into the field. He took his time, and Tyra enjoyed it. She turned and feigned shyness, then splashed waist-deep into the water, covering her breasts as Jason disrobed with a slow dignity I could only imagine in myself. He was marked by war and prison-pale, but muscular and confident and steady. I didn’t think I could be jealous of Jason, but suddenly was.

  “They’ve been together a few times.” Sara appeared beside me, her eyes on Jason, but on Tyra, too. They met in deeper water, kissed once and long, then stroked out from shore, splashing each other, laughing. “We don’t have to swim,” she said. “Come on. I found a shady spot.”

  I didn’t know if I was relieved or disappointed. She took my hand in an almost careless way and led me to a bald spo
t beneath a weeping willow where someone had long ago placed Adirondack chairs, the wood of them silvered and smooth. Sara sat me down, then put a hand on each leg, leaned in, and kissed me lightly.

  “I thought we’d just get that out of the way.” When she drew back, her lips were slightly parted, the smile in her eyes alone. She took the chair beside me, but left fingertips on my leg, a proprietary touch that delighted me. “Tell me about Gibby French.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Have you ever been with a girl?”

  I answered honestly, but the day was like that. “No. Not really.”

  “But you’ve had girlfriends?”

  “Nothing serious.”

  “That’s good. I like that.” She sipped wine, and her profile was flawless.

  “How about you?” I asked.

  “Men, yes. Relationships, no.” She showed the blue-green eyes. “Does that shock you?”

  I shook my head—a lie—and tried to match her frankness with my own. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “What do you do for fun?”

  “This is a good start.”

  Her hand moved on my leg, but absently. Her eyes had drifted shut, and a half smile played on her lips. I stole a glance at the length of her legs, the thin shirt, and the small, perfect breasts. It lasted a second or two before I looked away, ashamed of myself. I didn’t know what to do or say, and Sara knew as much.

  “Just breathe, Gibby French. It’s a lovely, lovely day.”

  * * *

  It was a lovely day. We spoke of things large and small. We drank and laughed, and once, midsentence, she kissed me again. It was longer that time, and certain and real. Afterward, we watched Jason and Tyra swim, looking away only as they emerged from the lake to make a secret place deep in the flowers. For a moment, then, it was awkward, but Sara didn’t care for awkwardness. She stood with the grace I’d come to expect, then settled onto my lap, her palms warm on my face as she kissed me. It was a woman’s kiss, and different from the ones I’d known from girls at school. There was no fumbling or self-consciousness or doubt. She made a shadowed place of her hair—a private world—and in that world she made the rules, too. She pressed hard and drew back, a giver and a tease. She put my hand inside her shirt and squeezed, her fingers over mine as time, for me at least, folded and stretched.