Crimes Against My Brother

by David Adams Richards

  And Ian did think of suicide at that moment—and eventually Annette was told this.

  “My God,” she said, somewhat thrilled. “I don’t want anyone to kill themselves over me.”

  “Why not?” Lonnie said, and pontificated on life, liberty and love: “It’s the way of the world—it’s all in how you move your sweet little ass.” Two years previously, he would never have been able to talk to her so freely—but two years is a long time. And during those two years Annette was continually told she must get from the world what she could; that people were out to use her, so she must use them. Now, it seemed, she had everyone on a string, and it was a beautiful string. It arced out like her body against the pale evening sunlight, wearing a light summer dress. The string moved, and the young boys danced. And Lonnie sat with his cigar, the tip of it wet with his spit, and listened to the tapping feet against the hardwood floor.

  So, for a time, Ian went away from the other two boys, and those two became closer to each other than Ian was to either—for Harold said that Ian’s jealousy was not his concern; it was, in fact, only one person’s concern: Ian’s alone. Besides, Annette did not love Ian and had made that clear—and Harold said that since this was clear, Ian should not harbour a grudge.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Harold would say to Lonnie Sullivan, in a bragging fashion. “He should soon get over it, shouldn’t he? I’d never be caught harbouring no grudge over a woman!”

  “You are by far the best lad for her,” Lonnie would say. “I always said you was.”

  And Ian was alone.

  This is how it came about that one night Ian got close to the Sheppard brothers, who were going to raid Sydney Henderson’s store. By this I do not mean a retail store, I mean Sydney’s store of smelt nets in his shed. The brothers wanted to take them and sell them to Lonnie Sullivan, who would sell them again to his friend downriver. Still, when it came to it, something prevented Ian from doing what he’d told the Sheppard boys he would do. He remembered Sydney working with him and Harold and Evan, and sharing his Thermos of tea—and he’d also heard that Sydney’s wife, Elly, had been accused of theft. Now, people who knew her said she couldn’t have done it—and yet, much was to be gained in gossip and fun by saying she had.

  “No,” Ian said to the Sheppard brothers that night, “it is not right. Sydney has a wife and a boy and girl over there, and is just making do. His wife probably didn’t steal McVicer’s money, anyway.”

  “He’s an enemy of ours.”

  “That means nothing to me. You aren’t doing it, and I will stand at his store all night to make sure.” Ian did not know why he said that; he did not have anything but contempt for a man who would not protect himself. But still, it is what he did say.

  The next day he took his fishing rod and went to upper Hackett to catch trout. He had been alone—that is, without his friends—for five weeks now. He could not speak to Harold, nor did he want to see Evan. So he was alone, and he came to the river’s bend—called Toe—in the late afternoon. There were raindrops on the water and he walked down over the shale bank to Lion’s Den Pool. He was alone in the midst of all his agony, and yet he soon had two fish. He laid them up on the shore, keeping an eye out for mink that would steal them. He was changing his leader when a man moved downriver toward him, and he realized it was Sydney Henderson—the man who had made a pact with God, an idiot making a pact with the vespers of an idiot.

  Ian wasn’t planning to speak, but Sydney did—he came over to Ian, and exclaimed, “You are lucky—two nice trout!” He said this even though he had more fish than Ian in his own basket. He watched Ian work his way down through Lion’s Den and then come back, and he sat with him a moment.

  “So God keeps putting you out, don’t he?” Ian said. “Your goddamn Catholic God. Elly herself is now being accused. I’d go after anyone who accused my wife—I would tear them apart.”

  Sydney laughed. “Elly did nothing and I know that. And those who accused her do too. You will have hardship in your life, as well as me—and even more, I do think … though I am not so sure, and don’t want to presume.”

  “Presume what?”

  “Oh, I have made a pact with God, or at least people say so. And people say it is an impossible one.” Sydney laughed. “Some lads even stole my smelt nets to see if I would attack them.” Here he smiled and sniffed, and looked down at the clump of weeds growing up through the rocks. “But you have made a worse pact—a pact that is virtually impossible to keep, really. You have made a pact with men. Yes, I have heard about that too—up on Good Friday in the snow. And I do not know which of us is in the more difficult position, but we will see, we will see. I know this God business is a terrible responsibility—almost impossible, Joseph Conrad said. But this man business—this blood-brother business—it’s like making a pact with a shadow of smoke. And your wife someday will be accused of thievery too.”

  “By who?”

  Sydney did not answer.

  “By who?” Ian said, grabbing him, and suddenly realizing how strong the man actually was.

  “By you,” Sydney said.

  Ian watched as Sydney worked the pool and hooked a fish up against the far bank where Ian wasn’t able to cast and then asked Ian if he wanted it.

  “No.”

  “But you were in this pool first, so I do not mind.”

  “No—of course, not at all. Go on down.”

  Yet Sydney released the fish anyway. He said, “It is most awful to be betrayed, and it is just as bad to be accused of betraying friends when you did not. Life is hard enough without that.”

  Ian would remember this conversation years later, when Sydney Henderson died. And he would think then, how right Sydney was. But none of that mattered in the moment.

  Ian went home filled with envy—envy over Harold and Annette, and envy that Evan and Harold were still such friends, while he seemed to be on the outside. In this desolate moment he thought of what Henderson had said. And he felt he had no blood brothers at all.

  “Lucky” is what Henderson had called him—but in what way?

  I knew when I was at Yale about all of these events—in dribs and drabs news came to me, as if by whimsy, and I would suddenly hear that Harold had got into a fight at the station, and Evan was seeing Molly Thorn. But during this time in my life I had dined out so much on being understanding and progressive toward everyone except those I had once known, I simply sniffed when I heard anything to do with my remote and tedious birthplace far to the north, a place many of my new colleagues did not know existed, nor ever care to know. I have come to accept my foolishness, to realize that no one was more intolerant than many of the academics I met during those long-ago days. But back then, I believed I was the one in the know. And that those three boys were not.

  So I ignored much of what I heard. Until I read this headline in a paper that my mother sent down to me: GLEN DEW DIES IN FALL FROM BONNY TOWER

  There was only one person Harold truly loved—his brother, Glen. And so I must mention this incident briefly, for it cast a shadow over everything else. And we must understand now, and keep it in mind, that not a moment went by that this tragedy didn’t take its toll. Was Harold’s fight at the police station before or after this event? It was sometime later, I am sure, that he was thrown in jail. Still, what happened to Glen must have been the genesis of the coming storms.

  Evan Young got his nickname “Lucky” because he lived, while a younger boy was electrocuted and died, on a transformer tower. The boys had been hired to clean off bird nests from the tower. It was a job Lonnie Sullivan had been asked to do, and he planned to hire the three sixteen-year-olds, Harold and Ian and Evan, for twenty dollars apiece.

  Lonnie waited for the boys all morning. But on that day Ian was not at home, the loss of Annette having made him solitary. Harold would be back only in the afternoon because he had promised to take Annette to town. So Lonnie waited in his car—angered not only that Harold was not forthcoming but tha
t Annette was the reason.

  “He likes the money, but he don’t like the work,” Lonnie said to Evan, who was waiting with him. “And all Annette wants is attention. Well, we will see! We will see. Someday I will pay her back as well. She pretends to, but she does me no favours at all.”

  Of course this was not true about Harold, and Evan told Lonnie so. And then Harold Dew’s brother, Glen—only fourteen years of age—said he would go up instead.

  “Harold didn’t mean nothing,” Glen said. “Don’t fire him. Let me go.” For Glen worshipped Harold and longed to please him. And everyone knew, as he roamed about the lanes and backfields of Bonny Joyce, that Glen was, as they said, “Not quite right, not all there.” And this is why Harold knew his blood brothers would protect the boy, come what may.

  Without hesitation, Evan told Glen to stay where he was; there were others they could get to do the job.

  “No—there is no others. So you go, Glen.” Lonnie spit a bit of cigar out the door of the car.

  “I don’t want him up there,” Evan said. “I can do it by myself to save you money. He’s not good on his feet, and it’s a long way up.” He looked at Lonnie with the eager and urgent gaze of a man wanting to convey a message of importance without speaking—a message about Glen’s world of play, his childlike being.

  But Lonnie smiled in a fatherly way as Glen said, “Oh, I don’t mind.”

  Evan took his time getting ready, looking at his old watch and hoping Harold would return—but ten minutes came to twenty, and Lonnie became more and more impatient with him. So he could hesitate no longer.

  “I can go up alone,” Evan said again. And wind blew down from across that tower in a duct of hot and scalding air.

  “No,” Lonnie said, moving his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. “If you don’t want poor Glen to earn a spot of money, you are a poor friend.”

  Glen looked from one to the other. Lonnie, I am sure, enjoyed himself with all of this, never thinking of anything but how the moment reflected his enormous power over money, poverty and love.

  “You stick near me,” Evan said at last.

  “Okay. Stick near you, sure,” Glen answered, already seeming to tremble, half in excitement and half in dread.

  Evan and Glen climbed up the tower. When they reached ninety feet, they stood out on a small, triangular metal catwalk, without a rail, and carefully picked off the large bird nests that had accumulated for four years but were now a deterrent to workers coming in the next few days to sandblast and paint. The two boys looked like clothespins against a dreary summer sky. The scalding air still swirled out of the harsh blue sky.

  It was just after noon when Harold came rushing to the job site, knowing he was late and knowing he might lose out on pay. Seeing him run up the hill that long-ago afternoon, so frightened of displeasing his harsh and ignorant boss, one sees the tyranny over youth of small-minded men.

  “Who went up there instead of me?” Harold asked Lonnie, bending over to catch his breath.

  “Glen,” Lonnie said.

  “He shouldn’t be up there,” Harold said suddenly, wildly, glaring first at Lonnie and then at the tower. “He’s not right in the head—the whole Bonny Joyce knows!” He said “the whole Bonny Joyce knows” as a sacred plea. Everyone knew—surely no one, then, would allow this; who then would allow this?

  “I know—but it was Evan who insisted. It’s always money with fuckin’ Evan. You know that!” Lonnie said. The hand in which he held his cigar trembled slightly—for he now realized what he had done. And his body shook a tiny bit. And he wouldn’t look Harold’s way. He struck a match again, relit his cigar and looked up. “It’s a bad spot for that youngster to be in,” Lonnie said, with sympathy. “But what are we to do with the likes of Evan Young? Don’t think he is not in everything only for himself.”

  Harold was now beside himself with panic and worry—no, it was worse than panic, worse by far than worry; it was premonition. And this premonition gave him a dull heaviness as the hot gusts of wind blew. He walked toward the tower, over the stubble of burned and desperate ground.

  Glen was frozen in fear at ninety feet. That is, he had not known he would have to climb so high on a ladder, and now he did not know how to get back down. He looked around like a lonely bird, his small neck craning here and there in gloom and desperation. And the reason he did this was that he could not for the life of him attempt to lift a leg over the top of that ladder. He felt he would lose his balance. Nor was there anything to hang on to. So he froze, and tried not to look down.

  “Hold on here. I’ll be just a second, then I’ll take you back down,” Evan Young told him.

  Young decided to climb up the thin ladder the rest of the way by himself, and he did so hand over hand, like you would do on a ship, picking up the innocuous raven nests from every cross-section of pipe and tossing them out of the way, while Glen looked at him, watching those nests falling down, out of a bluer sky than he had ever seen before.

  Onto the highest perch Evan Young climbed, straddling two beams, and even Glen Dew was far beneath him. He managed to reach the osprey hatch and reel it over the side, so it fell like a shadow against the sun. Then Young let out a whoop, and laughed for the sheer delight of being so high in the air. But beneath him on the tier things were not well.

  “Harold, come and get me!” Glen called, and Harold shouted that he was going to climb.

  Young yelled out, “Harold, there’s no room for the three of us up here. I will bring him down, and he can have my twenty dollars for being brave.”

  So Harold stood where he was, looking up one moment, looking away the next.

  “I want someone to get me down,” Glen yelled. His state—which was often the case—was one of perplexity, and his hands began to flail about like those of a boy of three or four, and he decided it was time to walk down by himself.

  “Don’t move,” Harold yelled up at him. “Don’t move your arms!”

  By this time Lonnie had moved back to stand beside his car, with the door open. He had only sent Glen up as a joke, something he could relate later to someone, to prove his power over children. And now it stunned him: his own useless folly.

  “I’m coming down to you now,” Young said. “And you can have my twenty for all yer help!”

  But before he reached the catwalk, Evan saw a ball of fire, orange in the bright sun.

  Glen Dew had grabbed a heavy wire above him. In a second, electricity shot through him and caused his hair to flame orange and smoulder. He was sent flying from the tower. The flash caused Harold to look up as the boy fell from the sky. “Like Icarus,” the paper said later.

  The heat caused Evan to fall the last fifteen feet to the catwalk and lie there, strangely hearing the ticking of crickets, while Harold Dew’s brother fell, both sneakers burning with blackened thick smoke, the eyes melted from his head.

  When Evan came down, he was poled back by a jarring straight right from Harold. It put him to his knees as he staggered, but he did not retaliate. Lonnie backed his car up into the gravel ditch and drove away. He threw his cigar onto the side of the road.

  And even into the dead of winter, when their houses were settled under great wisps of snow, people talked about poor little Glen Dew and his melted eyes, and how Evan forced him onto the tower when he didn’t want to go. All for twenty dollars’ pay.

  PART TWO

  EVAN’S GIRLFRIEND, MOLLY THORN, TOLD HIM TO FORGIVE himself and forget the threats and treatment he now endured at the hands of Harold. But Evan told her that Harold would always want to pay him back.

  “He’s still your friend,” she would say. “You cut for blood with him and Ian. Why don’t you come to church?”

  At first he did not respond, but when she asked the third time, he yelled, “Church! Leave me alone about fucking church! What happened didn’t have anything to do with sin, and why should I go confess?”

  “I am only saying it might make you feel better!”

>   “Priests jerking off little altar boys and then handing you the Host!”

  Molly worked at church picnics and sang in the choir, while Harold’s girl, Annette, wore her Catholicism as a virtue, without worrying one way or the other if she was being particularly virtuous. Catholicism to Annette was a way of the world—and if someone else had another way, so be it. Practising writing her name—“Mrs. Harold Dew”—was her great celebratory occasion in front of other young women.

  “When we have the money, we will go far away from here and never come back,” Annette would tell Harold when he became depressed over Glen and many other things. For she did not want to spend her life there—not in Bonny Joyce or Clare’s Longing. At moments, when she thought about this—that is, how her life would go—there was a vague, faraway and dreamy look on her countenance, a look that not everyone understood. It was especially noticeable when you walked toward her on some late-spring evenings when she seemed unaware that it was cold and that the rawness had penetrated her skin. And of course, it was clear that she had to leave behind her house and her servile father, with his obsequious daily journey to his job in the Department of Motor Vehicles, his training manuals for teenaged drivers, and the one big dinner he treated his peaked, selfish wife to once a year. If she did not leave all that, if she could not—if she relented and stayed—she was doomed. I knew this when I saw her once, dancing at the Byron Creek sock hop with five boys surrounding her, all vying to be her partner, while she remained steadfast, solitary and alone. She wanted the right boy—the right boy to be her partner—and Lonnie Sullivan had promised her he would help her find him.

  But after the debacle on the tower, Lonnie secretly decided to destroy them all—including Annette. And the gullible child in her did not understand this. She did not know that, as I was writing my master’s thesis on disenfranchised youth, Lonnie would begin to ask her to do things for him—and little by little, because of this, she would turn into the Annette that everyone came to know, or worse, to hear about, from one end of the river to the other. She would steal this or that, betray this friend or that, all the while hoping it would make her someone special. Soon that little child within her would disappear, and eventually she would struggle against the odds to get her back.