TEN
My father kept all the keys. He canceled the phone service. He rarely left the house. His new rule was that one of us had to stay home with him at all times. Me, mostly. I wasn’t allowed out of my room without permission. We were on winter break. My brother spent his days at the grocery store. Each shift he’d try our mom from a pay phone, beg her to call him back. She picked up once—the first time. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “There’s nothing I can do.” That was it, all she said. She hung up immediately and never answered again. She’d chosen to save herself. It didn’t matter. We didn’t need her. We were done relying on anyone but ourselves. My brother lifted a few dollars from the register whenever he could. My job was to locate where my father stashed the car keys. Next payday we were stealing the Jeep, driving straight to Kansas. We would show up at her door unannounced, force her to help.
Inside the apartment cracks of daylight plagued my father. The blinds stayed drawn. The mirror in the living room was covered with a sheet. The folding room screens that once separated my father’s office from the living room now blockaded the glass porch door. For a while he’d moved a pizza box from window to window to keep the light out. Finally he just sealed the windows with cardboard and duct tape. Darkness complete, he began obsessing over the ideal placement of objects around the apartment, the folding and refolding of the linens, the washing and rewashing of the dishes, the constant leveling of the New Mexico paintings he’d finally hung, as if he believed he could tinker his way toward perfection. As if he believed he could win us back if he kept the perfect home.
I knew all of this because he sometimes sought me out.
“Son?” He knocked. “Come out here. I want to share something with you.”
In the living room my father told me to sit on the couch. He hadn’t bathed since Kansas. He hadn’t changed his clothes either. His lips were cracked. His fingernails filthy, overgrown. Band-Aids hid the burn blisters on his thumbs. There were sores on his face from picking his skin. He took a seat Indian-style on the floor. I’d never seen my father sit that way. The newfound flexibility of his thinning body jarred me. He emptied a bag of weed onto a plate, sorted out seeds and stems. His hands shook like he had a disease.
“You were my decision,” he started. “Did you know that? Your brother was an accident. He wasn’t planned like you. To be honest I didn’t even want him. I should have guessed how he’d turn out. But as soon as he was born, I knew we needed a second child.” He looked up at me. “Do you understand what I’m driving at? You wouldn’t exist without me. I thought you up. Trippy, right? Far out. That’s what bonds us together. That’s the glue, boy. Some cultures might even believe that you owe me your life, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes,” I said.
He nodded thoughtfully.
“You know what I was thinking about the other day?” he went on. “That time I took you fishing. I didn’t take your brother, did I? Know why? You’re special, that’s why. Your first cast you dropped the lure right on the fish’s head. I knew then, I mean I really knew, like really knew that you had magic in you, son. The same magic I have. You got it from me. It’s your birthright. That’s another reason our connection is so special. Like when you reeled in that fish. You followed my every instruction, didn’t you? It was like you were an extension of me. I mean, that was amazing, right? Like truly amazing, don’t you think?”
He glanced at me for affirmation. Weed fell from the rolling paper, missed the plate. He struggled to pick the flecks of pot out of the shags in the carpet. He concentrated deeply, sweeping his tongue again and again across his top lip. He was trying to turn me against my brother. Had his attempts always been this naked? My brother wasn’t in the boat that morning because he was sick. The three of us had fled to the Ozarks in the dead of night while my mother slept. They’d been in a fight. My father didn’t care that my brother had a fever. He left him in the motel room with a bucket of ice and the TV on. It was more important that she wake up to find us gone.
“What do you think of your brother?” my father asked. He was back to work on the joint. “He’s not like us, is he? He doesn’t get it like you get it. He’s jealous. I’ve see it in his eyes. He hates you. He even told me that. He knows you’re special. There’s something special about you, boy. It’s a blessing. It’s in your DNA. That gene skipped your brother. I’m not trying to be mean. At some point a father has to be honest about his children. What can I do?” He laughed. “One out of two ain’t bad.”
His mood changed in an instant. His anger suddenly rose. He closed his fist around the failed joint, threw it at me. He shouted for me to go into his bedroom. There was something in his top drawer he wanted me to grab. He said I’d know what I was looking for when I saw it. I jumped up from the couch, followed orders. His outburst had startled me, but once in his room I took the chance to look around for the car keys. First I scanned the top of his dresser. Then I opened each of his drawers as quietly as possible. His clothes were folded, stacked neatly. I checked both top drawers too. One was for socks. The other was full of junk—sunglasses, bristled brushes, a checkbook, an old watch, several blackened spoons, a colorful array of transparent lighters. I saw what he wanted me to grab. From the smell alone I knew the pipe wasn’t meant for pot. It was stubby, silver, cylindrical. There was a rubber tube on the mouth piece, and inside the burned bowl was a scorched piece of the copper scouring pads we kept under the sink. I was afraid to touch it, to smell it, cautious of any contact with it at all.
I froze when he called my name. I came running with the pipe.
In the living room he loaded it with pot, took a hit.
“Do you trust me?” he said.
“Of course,” I lied.
He took another hit as a demonstration, then passed it to me.
“No, thank you,” I said.
His look was so hateful I stopped myself from protesting. My priority was to keep his trust. I grabbed the pipe, took a tiny hit.
“Again,” he said. “Just like I showed you.”
I took another.
“Bigger,” he said.
With the third hit I coughed up smoke. My lungs burned.
“You know, the natives of this land used to share peace pipes with their enemies. It was done to seal alliances. We aren’t enemies, though, are we, son? We’ve always been allies. I’ve always been your biggest fan, haven’t I?” I nodded. “Then tell me what your brother is planning. I know he’s up to something. He’s always working an angle against me, that little shit. What’s up his sleeve? Tell me. Tell me now. What’s he got planned?”
“Nothing,” I insisted. “He’s not planning anything.”
“That the truth? Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I promise.”
Terrible thoughts flooded into my head. I saw my father standing over my brother’s body. I imagined bits of flesh stuck in his long savage fingernails. And that grin of his that looked like a snarl. I knew I’d be next, but I wasn’t afraid. I felt oddly powerful. My chest expanded. I thought to suck the air right out of my father’s lungs from across the room. It was thrilling to picture his breath drawn from him. He wouldn’t be able to cry out. He’d be unable to utter a single sound.
“There’s an enemy among us,” he said. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours,” I lied again.
“You’d tell me if you knew something, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course.”
“We have to stick together.”
“We will.”
“Swear.”
I swore.
He stood up, came close, kissed my forehead.
“Good boy,” he said. “That’s all. You’re excused.”
In my room I paced, feeling the urgency to tell my brother that our dad was out to get him. Then I stared at the wall, replayed the conversation with my father, searched for hidden meanings that might explain how our mother could have just given up on us. I examined my face in th
e mirror. I was sweating, my heart pounding. My mouth was dry. My wrist itched. With every movement a piece of my clothing seemed to chafe my skin. I stripped down to my underwear. I pulled all the electrical cords from their sockets. I couldn’t stand the buzzing. The fearlessness I’d felt only moments before had fled from me. I was petrified, shut in, losing control of my thoughts. There was no way out of myself.
My father’s instruction had not helped me reel in the fish that day. After I’d hooked it, the line had gotten wrapped around its body, ripped up its gills. The fish didn’t fight at all, just planed across the water’s surface. When we got it into the bucket, it flopped around, bleeding. I felt responsible for its suffering and obligated to watch it die. My father thought I was being morose. He moved the bucket away from me, placed a rag over the top. I cast my line once more, and—even now as I waited out this nightmare hunkered down in the corner of my room—I got lost in the beauty of that day. The sun was bright. The water at the surface of the lake was molten. The first patches of fall had blossomed in the tree line. Small waves from a soft breeze swayed the boat gently. Enormous rocks slept beneath us like dormant elephants. And then the fish would tail-slap the bucket again.
* * *
I watched my father cross the street to the pay phone. I’d peeled back a corner of the cardboard he’d used to seal my window. I’d been studying his habit from here. Every few days he’d make a call from the corner. Then he’d come back home to wait. A half hour later a white Civic with tinted windows would honk outside the apartment. My father wouldn’t even let his dealer inside anymore. He’d go out to the parking lot to meet him.
When he was out of sight, I darted to his room, searched beneath the bed, under the mattress, between the pillows. I threw open the drawer to his nightstand. I tried the little table that shelved his television and VCR. I patted down his clothes hanging in the closet. I even checked his shoes. I scanned his bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet, looked beneath the sink. Short on time I ran to the peephole in the front door. My father wasn’t back yet. I racked my brain for where to check next. I tried his office. I opened up the desk drawers, lifted the files out of the filing cabinet. I even sifted through paperclips and emptied the cup in which he kept pens. The keys were nowhere to be found. I was cutting it close. I’d have a few more minutes when he stepped out to the Civic. I hurried to my room, closed the door.
He walked back into the apartment seconds later.
An eye on the street, I waited for the Civic to arrive, my thoughts scrambling. My dad wasn’t as predictable as I’d assumed. I needed to put myself inside his head, think like he thought. I needed to make a decision. I desperately reviewed the places I’d already checked, unsure where else to look. I settled on his dresser. I’d been jumpy a few days ago when he sent me in for the pipe. Maybe I’d missed something. Maybe he was arrogant enough to have already pointed me in the right direction.
The Civic pulled up, honked. My father walked out the front door. I shot to his room. I went straight for the pipe drawer, sorted through his paraphernalia. The keys weren’t there. I lifted up the stacks of folded clothes from his bottom drawers. There was nothing beneath them. I opened his sock drawer last. In my eagerness, though, I yanked the entire thing out of the track. Socks went tumbling all over the floor. I rushed to collect them. I had only a few more pairs to grab when I felt something solid hidden in a single black dress sock. I reached in, pulled out the key ring plus a wad of bills. I’d found his money stash. From a quick count the total was maybe five thousand dollars. Fury consumed me: How long had we been scraping by? How guilty had we felt over any expense? We didn’t even dare ask for the things we needed. And how many months had my brother been working at the grocery store, making sure we were both OK?
But I was also dancing inside. We were going home.
I heard the front door open.
I was caught. There was no escaping his room in time. I started to panic. I couldn’t risk blowing the whole operation right now. I had just found the keys. There’d be another chance to grab them in a few days. I’d be quicker then, in and out. It would be safer too. I stuffed the key ring and the cash back into the black dress sock, grabbed the last few pairs left on the floor, tossed all of it into the drawer. I jumped up. The drawer slipped easily back into the track. I was still facing the dresser when I heard my father stop dead in his doorway.
“What are you doing?” he said. “Why are you out of your room?”
I thought of only one thing to do. I opened his top drawer, pulled out the pipe, brought it to him. “I’m an extension of you,” I said. “Right?”
His anger fell away, but his suspicion was still strong.
“Like with the fish, remember?” I asked him. “That’s what you said.”
His eyes swelled with love.
“You’re a good boy,” he said. “You’re my only good boy.”
My father put a rock in the pipe, smoked right in front of me. I watched him come to life in the living room. His muscles tensed, eyes dilated and darting. He raved about the injustices he’d suffered throughout his life. “Did you know that I was fired the year you were born? Two babies and a wife. The Amalekite sure as hell wasn’t working.” He jumped topics. “My mom died so young. And my father preferred my brother. Your brother is actually a lot like mine. My brother stole my father from me the same way yours is trying to steal you.” Then, breaking down, he said, “I’m being ripped apart at the seams, son. There’s a monster inside me trying to get out. I never wanted kids. I’m not built for them. I never wanted them.”
When my brother got home, I told him all that had happened. The places I’d searched, how close I’d been to getting caught, how I’d found the car keys in the sock drawer. I told him that I watched our dad smoke crack. I emphasized his paranoia. And I warned my brother again about our father’s vendetta against him. My brother was distracted, withdrawn. He seemed to be communing with some private fear. I’d saved the money stash for last. When I told him, his eyes lit up. They finally focused on me. “Holy fuck!” he said. “You’re fucking kidding me. Holy Fuck!” Then he told me he’d been caught lifting cash from the register today. He’d run from the premises, penniless, the paycheck we needed to get away gone.
* * *
There was a knock at our apartment the following morning. I peeled back the cardboard, peeked out the corner of our window. A cop car was in the parking lot. My brother tried hard to keep his cool. I told him to stay put. I got up, opened our bedroom door. My father was looking through the peephole. He turned to me, unfazed. I’d expected him to be terrified. He raised his finger slowly to his lips, turned back to the door. The cops knocked, announced themselves. They knocked again. And then a fourth time. My father kept his composure, waited them out. When the cops left, he didn’t address me. He didn’t even look in my direction. He didn’t seem to care what they were here for. He shuffled away from the door—the picture of calm.
The cops returned every day after. My father grew more and more agitated. He refused to leave his bedroom except to check the peephole whenever they knocked. He’d then hurry back to his room. To keep his suspicion low we decided that my brother should pretend to still be going to work. He went out early in the morning to avoid the cops, came home late at night. He waited in the park all day for me to come running with the cash and keys. My father hadn’t called his dealer since the last time, so I hadn’t had an opportunity to retrieve them. At dark my brother took risks to keep us fed. He looted the expired food from the grocery store Dumpster. He also kept me up late these nights to go over the plan, always asking questions. “What if he catches you going through his drawer? What do you do then?” I had to be ready for anything, he said. I had to be prepared. He told me not to act out of desperation. He made me promise. He even folded back the cardboard from our window, unlocked the sash. “This is your escape route if there’s trouble,” he said. “If you have to run, meet me in the park.” I knew he felt terrible that our
freedom now relied solely on me. He wouldn’t forgive himself if something bad happened. It’s why he insisted we go over and over the details.
We never guessed, though, that our dad would make me page his dealer for him.
My father was vile that day, crashing hard. I pleaded with him.
“I don’t feel safe,” I said. “Please don’t make me go.”
He grabbed me by the arm, dragged me to the front door, threw me out.
As I walked across the street I kept my eye out for my brother. Even though the park was on the other side of the building, he was supposed to have situated himself somewhere he could look onto both the phone booth and the back porch. I didn’t see him, but I hoped he saw me. At the pay phone I did as instructed. I dialed the number my father had written on a piece of paper, typed in his special code, made sure to hit pound before hanging up. I hurried home knowing I’d sneak into my dad’s room the second he went out to the Civic.
Back inside the apartment my father asked me if I’d used his special code.
“Yes,” I said.
“You make sure . . .” he started.
“I hit the pound button,” I interrupted him.
He glared at me. I kept my eyes away from his.
“You make sure to hit the pound button?” he finished his question.
“Yes,” I said.
He nodded. “Go to your room.”
A half hour later he was in my room, agitated. “Where the fuck is he?”
“I swear,” I said. “I hit the pound button.”
“And the code?”
“And the code.”
He was adamant that I’d made a mistake. He told me to go make the page again.
“Why don’t we wait another fifteen minutes?” I suggested.
I barely got the sentence out. I came to on the floor, blackness receding, the right side of my face turning hot. My father was standing over me. I rolled onto my knees until the dizziness passed. Then, a hand on the wall, I made my way to the front door.
One of the Boys Page 9