Nigel picked up the briefcase and sat on the sofa. I watched as he fumbled with the combination lock, the apprehension evident on his face.
“Don’t worry, there shouldn’t be anything in there that bites,” I joked.
Nigel opened the briefcase. The seventeen-page report was front and center.
“It took nearly sixty man-hours,” I boasted. “Some people, like myself, take the time to do their job, while others, and I’m not calling any names, spend all their time doing whatever it is you do.”
I was stunned by the look on Nigel’s face as he stared at the report. It wasn’t a disbelieving, or surprised, or even thankful expression. I don’t know how to describe it.
I leaned forward in the recliner. “What’s wrong?”
Nigel’s guilt-ridden gaze answered for him. The workshops and the report were fabricated to cloak what he was really doing.
“Nigel?” I walked over to him and picked up the report. “Was all the time and effort I put into this for nothing?”
Nigel stood and slogged to his bedroom without responding. He didn’t have to.
“You lied.”
* * *
Nigel wasn’t around even when he was here.
* * *
“What’s for dinner?”
“The same thing we had yesterday. Sorry. I forgot you missed dinner yesterday, so you still wouldn’t know. I suppose you could look in the refrigerator and see, but you may have forgotten where the refrigerator is.”
“Caleb, I asked a simple question. Please don’t make a big deal over nothing.”
“Trust me. It’s not a big deal. I’m saying that you’re never here. Not counting the two hours you sleep and the four hours you spend plucking your eyebrows, you’re here an average of three hours a day. And you spend the majority of those three hours getting dressed to leave or concocting lies about where you’re going.”
“I’m not here around the clock because I work.”
“So do I. Wait. I forgot. You work while I sit here every day and watch you work.”
“Caleb, it’s been a long day, and I really don’t feel like this tonight. I have apologized a thousand times for lying to you. But in case you need to hear it one more time. I’m sorry! Now let it go!”
“You ungrateful bastard! Who in the hell do you think you are? Some kind of castrated God because you get to decide my fate?”
“You really don’t want to know who I am, but I’ll tell you anyway. I’m a man stuck in a life that he hates! A man who detests the bullshit life he’s been forced to live! That’s who I am!”
“Forced? Forced?”
“Caleb, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said…”
“Forced?”
“Caleb, please don’t blow this out of proportion. You know who I am. First and foremost, I’m your brother. Your big brother. And that means…”
“Forced?”
* * *
Until today, I presumed Nigel was living a life of penance. I didn’t know what happened to me and our parents, but I’ve always believed that Nigel was somehow responsible. That was why I never tried to talk about Mom and Dad with him. I thought he caused whatever happened, so I didn’t want to bring it back up. I thought all the sacrifices Nigel made and still makes were out of obligation. That he was sharing his life with me because he destroyed mine. But Nigel said he was forced to live this life. Being forced to live a life and living a life of penance exist on opposite and parallel ends of the benevolence spectrum.
My mind had been racing and thinking inconceivable thoughts that all converged into a single assertion: If Nigel isn’t living this life for atonement sakes, then he had nothing to do with the tragedy that claimed Mom and Dad. And me.
* * *
I almost died two days ago, and now I’m certain Nigel wants me out the way so he can live the rest of his life unhindered. Why else would he open the front door and let the world inside, only to stand there and watch me drown?
He said he was going to a reception for a distinguished lecturer visiting FAMU, but I knew better. I was tired of pretending to believe all the shit he had been spouting, so I told him he was lying. I didn’t know whether he was pissed off over whether the truth slapped him in the face or whether the stress of trying to be here but wanting to be there had him all wired up. Whatever the reason, I’d never seen him so angry…so vindictive…so far past his end.
I’d stayed away from Nigel since he returned from wherever he went Saturday night. I heard him when he was getting dressed for work and I saw him as he backed out the driveway every morning. I saw him in the evenings when he pulled in the driveway, and I heard him stumbling around the house like he’s in an unfamiliar place until way past midnight.
* * *
I’d known for years that this house was my grave. Now, I needed to know how I got here. How did I die?
* * *
This morning, Mrs. Retired Walker teetered toward the starting point of the hiking trail at Myers Park. She stood to the side and waited while others charged by. When the last procession of walkers and joggers were off and away, Mrs. Retired Walker stepped up to the starting line. She looked down the trail and smiled. She kissed her frail hands, blew the kiss into the wind, then turned and walked away, never looking back. She started down the sidewalk but stopped suddenly. She looked directly across the street at the house. She stared at the front window; at me. I could not believe it. I didn’t think the Retired Walkers knew I was here watching. A smile replaced her pitiable expression as she waved. I forced a smile and waved back, realizing that I was seeing her for the last time when she turned and walked away. Before I knew it, I was unlocking the front door. I begged my hands to turn the doorknob, but my pleas went unanswered. So, I ran to the den and yanked the curtains open. Circle Drive. Towering oaks. Stately magnolias. Myers Park. People coming and going. The world was still outside my window, but she was gone from it. And that was when, for the first time that I could remember, I cried.
* * *
Yesterday forged through the barricades around 207 Circle Drive. Today, on my thirtieth birthday, I remembered being seven. I was walking from the kitchen to the living room when someone turned on a projector inside my head. I was bombarded by shards of indistinct images that knocked me off my feet. I cowered on the floor until the pictures came into focus and I realized I was recalling a real childhood memory.
I was a seven-year-old standing on a chair in our kitchen in Richmond looking inside a clear mixing bowl as electric beaters blended two sticks of butter and two cups of sugar. A box of blue birthday candles was on the table next to a box of chocolate. Mom was there. She was sifting flour in another bowl. Nigel was sitting at the table trying to make me laugh by cracking eggs into a measuring cup and pretending to eat the shells. Then Dad walked in the kitchen and kissed Mom. “I’m taking the birthday boy out back to cast a few lines,” he’d said and turned his back to me. “Let’s go catch your birthday dinner.” I’d climbed up on his back.
I’d heard Nigel say, “Catch one for me, Lil’ Daddy.”
Mom had said, “I’ll let you guys know when lunch is ready.”
I’d waved bye to Mom and Nigel as we walked out the door and headed toward the creek behind our house.
Today, for the first time, I recalled more than a hazy face or a barely audible voice from my childhood. I remembered Mom and Dad and the sound of their voices. I remembered looking up at the cloudless sky and seeing Heaven. I remembered feeling sunlight frolic across my face. I remembered walking on grass. Joy. Life. I took out Nigel’s photo albums and found three pictures of Nigel, Mom, Dad, and me on my seventh birthday. The pictures coincided with my memory. I really was seven.
* * *
Nigel stood in the hallway contemplating whether he should knock on my bedroom door. He wanted to apologize, tell me happy birthday, and give me my birthday gift. My hand was on the doorknob. I was tempted to open the door; I wanted to tell him what I remembered about my seventh bir
thday. Neither one of us got what we wanted tonight.
* * *
I hadn’t been sick enough to need to see a doctor since we moved here, but this morning I woke up feeling something between nauseous and numb. I wondered if any doctors in Tallahassee still made house calls. The last time I actually saw a doctor was when Dr. Allen Bedford overcharged us to put me in a medically induced deep sleep and fly with me from Richmond to Tallahassee. Now that I think about it, I woke up in the same bed feeling the exact same way that morning.
* * *
A red envelope was on the table in the living room this morning. It was a Valentine’s Day card from Nigel. I picked up the envelope, carried it to Nigel’s bedroom, and placed it next to an unused roll of paper tape on the nightstand.
* * *
What happened?
* * *
Angela and Donald Taylor, Arnette Wilkerson, Clarence Brown, Denise Moody, Greta Lambert, Jerome Josey, and Andrea what’s-her-name weren’t in class this morning. Five more students were absent, but I couldn’t recall their names.
Nigel’s lecture was on reporting crime stories. I was watching, as usual, so as he discussed an article superimposed on a projection screen, he spoke to me with his eyes.
“After the lede, the reader knows that a masked robber walked into a convenience store with a gun and walked out handcuffed with a sore behind,” Nigel explained.
His eyes told me he was sorry.
“The reader is hooked,” Nigel told the class. “And now the reader has to read on.”
Please forgive me, his eyes pleaded.
The students began to laugh halfway through the article.
“How stupid can you be?” Bernard Williams yelled. “Who in their right mind tries to rob a store when their mom’s the clerk?”
Nigel pointed at the screen. “The article doesn’t tell us if he was in his right mind, but this young man tried it.”
“How come the robber’s name or the name of the store doesn’t appear in the article?” Mikah Cook asked.
The back door opened and Nigel looked toward the back of the lecture hall. His eyes lit up, although he restrained his smile to keep it from leaping off his face.
Another student, Ricky Jones, answered Mikah’s question. “Because his parents owned the store and they asked the police to arrest him, but no charges be filed.”
“Professor Greene, is that legal?” Bernard asked.
Nigel didn’t respond because he had forgotten where he was.
I moved closer to the TV screen and followed Nigel’s gaze.
A captivating woman, wearing a navy blue skirt and jacket, walked down to the third row from the back and sat in an aisle seat. She was too refined to be a student. She was already polished. I watched her eyes speak to Nigel. Her sunny smile kissed him.
“Can they do that, Professor Greene?” Bernard asked again.
She pointed at the screen and Nigel turned to see what she was pointing at. That’s when he remembered he was in the middle of our lecture.
“Are there any questions about the article?” Nigel asked the students.
I didn’t know who she was, but I’d bet anything that Nigel’s new life was with her.
* * *
Nigel wasn’t home, so I was alone in the dark. Every light in the house was on, but that didn’t stop the darkness from creeping inside through these hollow walls and doors.
* * *
* * *
Am I more afraid of the world outside or the asphyxiating loneliness inside this house?
* * *
Nigel had never stayed out overnight, but he went out last night and didn’t come home. It was almost noon and he still hadn’t made it home. But, I was not going to panic or call the police because he wasn’t here by choice.
* * *
There goes my life.
SPRING
CHAPTER 17
Could brothers share one life?
One world?
One love?
* * *
Spring arrived on time but, after three sprightly days on the job, Nigel decided to take advantage of some unused vacation time. Despite the guest-of-honor’s absence, thousands of spectators bundled together to watch the annual Springtime Tallahassee Parade. The normally festive parade languished as local and state government officials waved gloved hands and area TV news personalities coerced smiles through shivering lips and overdressed clowns and mimes tried to mimic with frozen faces. After seeing beauty queen after beauty queen in lavish gowns and knee-length coats riding floats covered in wilted carnations and roses, Forestry Queen Jogie Brown’s arrival in a confetti-colored gown with spaghetti straps was met with exuberant cheers. Young and old snatched off their jackets, gloves, hats, and tams and tossed them in the air. The gaiety spread up and down the parade’s downtown route, and soon Nigel, Karen, and Caleb, who were standing on a park bench across from the courthouse, hurled their winter garb in the air.
“That felt good,” Nigel said, putting his arm around Karen, pulling her closer to him.
Karen was standing between Nigel and Caleb. Most of the time, Karen enjoyed their incessant competition for her attention, but today, she was annoyed because their antics were distracting her from the parade.
Caleb leaned over and asked Karen, “I know you’ve seen your share of parades, but have you ever been in one?”
“No,” she answered. “But I’ve always wanted to. When I was a little girl, my parents took me to every parade within fifty miles of Orlando. It didn’t matter what kind of parade, we were there. I always imagined that I was marching with the lead band or riding on the prettiest float.”
“Well, it’s time for you to march in your first parade.” Caleb jumped off the bench, pulling Karen behind him, then ushered her toward the street.
Nigel lamented his decision to bring Karen into their story as he sat on the sofa watching Caleb graft himself into his morning. In Nigel and Caleb’s world, a pinch of uncertainty outweighed a ton of happiness. Nigel was overjoyed at seeing Caleb so elated, so alive. But so in love? So in love with Karen? That was entirely different. For fourteen years, Nigel shared his life with Caleb, never expecting a day would come when he would have to share a woman he loved. He didn’t think he would ever be in love. Still, Nigel did what he believed he had to do to stop their world from collapsing. He told Caleb about Karen. And as he sat watching Caleb, he wondered if his decision only delayed their ending.
“Where is the Marching 100?” Caleb asked as he stared at the ceiling and imagined he and Karen were watching the parade from the corner of Park Avenue and Monroe Street.
“You saw the entire parade on TV, so you know when…”
“I need you to tell me,” Caleb cut him off. “So…?”
“Tallahassee Memorial’s float came next,” Nigel answered dryly. “It was covered with red and white carnations. A couple of folks dressed as doctors, nurses, and healthy, happy patients rode the float.”
Nigel began second-guessing his decision before the words came out his mouth. It was the day after the Valentine’s Ball. Nigel spent the night at Karen’s house, but he was up at sunrise and kissing her goodbye a few minutes later. He hurried home, recognizing the sobering fact that he would have to explain where he had been and what he was doing to Caleb. He drove around for hours contemplating what he would say to Caleb. It was the first time since moving to Tallahassee that he had been away from home overnight. And, although it had been weeks since Caleb even spoke to him or they were even together in the same room, Nigel was sure Caleb fretted as he sat in the black recliner by the window waiting for him. It was early afternoon when Nigel put on the right blinker, turned in the driveway, and saw Caleb sitting by the window.
Caleb spent most of the day planning and preparing for life without Nigel. He wasn’t afraid. He didn’t need Nigel. At least that’s what he repeatedly told himself until he was convinced he really didn’t. He was determined to be his own man. To stand on his own feet. To
live his own life. But as soon as he saw the Lexus turn into the driveway, the thought of a life without his brother became unbearable. Debilitating. Like dying. For the second time that Caleb knew of, his tears induced a tempest and a cresting wave raced behind him as he hastened to his bedroom.
Nigel saw the dejected look on his brother’s face before Caleb ran from the window. It took nearly ten minutes for Nigel to turn the key and unlock the front door and five more minutes to turn the doorknob. Anguish surged out the doorway like a tsunami and soaked him. Drowned him. Nigel panicked. He dived inside and shoved the door closed. He threw his keys and jacket on the floor as he bolted toward Caleb’s bedroom.
“Caleb!” Nigel turned the doorknob, but the door was locked. “Caleb!”
Inside, Caleb sat on the floor with his back against the door. “Leave me alone,” he cried.
“Open the door, Caleb.”
“Get the hell out of here, Nigel. You don’t have to force yourself to stay because you feel sorry for me.”
“Caleb, please open the door.”
“Save your pity for someone who deserves it. You didn’t do this to me, so you’re off the hook.” Caleb’s tears turned caustic. “Don’t worry about me, Nigel. I’ll be out of your way soon. Real soon.”
“Shut up!” Nigel kicked the door. “Shut up!” He kicked the door again and again. The lock conceded and the door slammed into Caleb, knocking him over. “Don’t you ever say that again! Don’t even think it!” Nigel stood in the doorway. “Listen, Caleb. I’m not here out of pity. I’m here because you’re my brother.” Staring into his brother’s eyes, Nigel made the regrettable decision…to bring her into their life. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to keep her a secret. Her name’s Karen.” His confession disarmed Caleb.
Our First Love Page 12