Intended for Harm

by C. S. Lakin

  “Sure.” Rachel’s face lit up. So easily pleased by any cooperation on his part. Like she’d somehow won him over by her persistent efforts at being nice to him. She looked past him, to the left and right. “Where’s Levi? I thought he was with you.”

  “Oh. He’s in the bathroom. I just took him over there. He said he’ll come back here when he’s done.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, I’ve got all his things in this bag. Let me just pay for Dinah’s and we’ll be ready to go. Why don’t you go find Levi and we’ll meet at the Orange Julius? Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Simon walked toward the bathroom, checked over his shoulder to see if Rachel was watching. She was handing money to the cashier, her back turned to him. He ducked behind some shelves and worked his way roundabout to where Levi was hiding.

  “Hey, you in there?” Simon asked.

  Levi poked his head out, clearly tired of squatting under the rack of clothes.

  “Well, I told her I hadn’t seen you, couldn’t find you.”

  “What did she say?”

  Simon shrugged. “Said she’s taking Dinah over to Orange Julius. That I should find you and take you there.”

  Levi pinched his lips together. Simon stood back up, stretched his back. “Maybe you should stay lost a while longer. At some point she’ll start worrying.”

  Simon watched the emotions flit across Levi’s face. Disappointment, disbelief. Maybe even a little irritation. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I need something to drink. Either come with me or stay here. I don’t care.”

  Simon headed toward the front doors of the store that opened to the long mall interior. He expected any minute for Levi to come running after him, and when he got to the exit, he turned. No sign of his brother. Whatever.

  Simon found Rachel at the Orange Julius stand. She narrowed her eyes. “I thought you went to get Levi. Where is he?”

  Simon shrugged. “He didn’t want to come, I guess.”

  “What do you mean he didn’t want to come?”

  Simon shrugged again. “Last I saw he was looking at the toy cars.”

  “Great.” Rachel turned to the girl at the counter, who was filling the tall paper cups with the juice from the blender. “Sorry, I have to go find a missing child. I’ll come back.”

  The girl nodded. Rachel said to Simon, “Take me to where you saw him last.”

  Halfway to the department store entrance, they saw Levi being led by a security guard in a uniform, heading right toward them. Rachel sped up when she saw him.

  “Levi! What were you doing wandering around the store? I told you to come find me.”

  The guard stopped in front of her and Levi dropped his head. “I found him hiding under one of the clothing racks. He finally told me where you went. But you can stop worrying now. The little guy is fine.”

  “Thank you,” Rachel said. After the guard walked back to the store, Rachel turned to Levi. “Just what were you doing, hiding like that?” She shot Simon a stern look.

  Simon grunted. “Why are you glaring at me? I didn’t do anything.”

  “I-I j-just . . .”

  Just then Joey began to cry. Rachel shook her head. Dinah yanked on her hand. “I want my Julius!”

  “Just what, Levi? Stop stuttering and tell me what you were up to!”

  Levi looked like Rachel had just slapped him hard across the face. Simon kept his head down and tried not to smile.

  Rachel bounced on her toes, trying to quiet Joey, whose squeaky hiccups turned into a wail. “Listen, Levi. I don’t think it’s at all funny, hiding like that. Were you trying to pull some prank? That’s something I’d expect from Simon—not you. Next time, I expect you to obey me. All right? When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it.”

  All Levi could do was nod. Simon could tell his throat was all choked up and more tears were about to fall. Man, his brother was the biggest crybaby in the world. Cried at everything. How did he expect to make it in the world like that? A pushover, that’s what he was. Simon snorted. He was such a scaredy-cat. He bet he could scare Levi into doing anything. He smirked. That might just come in handy sometime . . .

  Simon hung back as Rachel let Dinah, with her whining, lead her back to the Orange Julius booth, the big plastic bags nearly dragging along the ground as Rachel struggled to hang on to them. When the wails and cries of his siblings faded in the distance, Simon made sure Levi heard him. He took his brother’s chin and forcefully lifted it so Levi had to stare Simon right in the eyes.

  “You see. She never worried about you, not even for a second. She’s too busy with her new toy, and with making sure Dinah’s happy. See how much stuff she bought her? Dinah’s her little doll—someone to play dress-up with, always fixing her hair. Does she ever spend that much time on you? You’re stuck in the middle—the middle kid, that’s what you are. The forgotten one. Let me just tell you straight, right now, bro. No one is going to watch your back. No one but me. Reuben is too busy trying to be the good firstborn son, his nose stuffed in those climbing magazines. And Dad works all the time. Don’t think he’s gonna stand up for you. He doesn’t even know how the kids treat you at school. But I do.”

  He let that sink in. Levi probably didn’t know Simon saw what went on. But Simon paid attention. He lowered his voice and smiled at Levi. “Now, if you want to survive in this world, then you better listen to me. You do everything I say and I’ll make sure those kids stop picking on you. But you have to swear. And if you don’t do what I say, there’ll be a price to pay, you understand?”

  When Levi didn’t answer, Simon shook him. “I said, do you understand?”

  Levi nodded, his head bobbing up and down like one of those plastic dolls.

  “Then swear it. Let me hear you.”

  “I s-swear.” Levi stood so frozen Simon thought if he smacked him with his hand he’d break in a million tiny pieces. He surprised his younger brother by mussing up his hair in a playful way.

  “Okay, bro. Let’s go get a Julius. Then later, we’ll talk.” He started to walk away, then spun around. “And just remember. You can’t trust anyone. Especially women. They promise you the world, all smiles and kisses. And then . . . they just walk away. Rachel’s no different. Don’t forget it.”

  Simon’s heart thumped hard in his chest as his mom’s face snuck into his thoughts, as he squelched a sudden yearning to feel her loving, nurturing arms around him. He didn’t wait to hear Levi’s response, if there was one coming. His throat was dry. An extra-large Orange Julius was just what he wanted. And he always got what he wanted—once he figured out a way.

  1982

  I Can’t Go for That

  Easy, ready, willing, overtime,

  Where does it stop, where do you dare me to draw the line?

  You’ve got the body, now you want my soul,

  Don’t even think about it, say no go.

  I— I’ll do anything that you want me to do,

  And I’ll do almost anything, that you want me to,

  But I can’t go for that, (No can do)

  No, I can’t go for that, (No can do)

  Oh, I can’t go for that, (No can do)

  I can’t go for that, can’t go for that, can’t go for that.

  —Hall and Oates

  Reuben pushed open the door and stopped midway through the kitchen, taking in the scene in the living room. “What are you doing, Uncle Ethan? You know Dad said you can’t smoke in the house.”

  Uncle Ethan threw back his wild red-haired head and laughed. That laugh was starting to grate on Reuben’s ears. Every afternoon this week, Reuben had come in the door to find his uncle up to something. With a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other, Ethan gestured at Reuben.

  “Com’ere, kid, com’ere, I’m not gonna bite.”

  Annabell was perched on Ethan’s lap, legs sprawling over the side of the couch and an arm slung around her boyfriend’s neck. And Simon—only now did Reuben recognize what Simon was d
oing, his brother’s pathetic attempt to stuff the bottle in the cracks of the cushions where it couldn’t be seen.

  “Simon, you shouldn’t be drinking that—”

  Reuben stood unmoving, watching Annabell grab the bottle from Ethan’s hand and gulp noisily. He didn’t know why, but her see-through low-cut blouse made his face feel hot, and he had to tear his eyes away from the outlines of her body, which seemed to want to spill out her blouse and tight, very-short shorts. But Annabell’s gaze stayed fixed on the TV, which broadcasted a loud game show, with bells clanging and people screaming. Annabell yelled too, and pointed.

  “What an idiot! Any brain-dead jerk would know the answer to that.”

  Ethan nodded and shot Simon a knowing grin. “Got that right—right, Red Rider?”

  Simon laughed boisterously, ignoring Reuben, focusing on the TV, entrenched in the camaraderie on the couch.

  “Where’s Mom?” Reuben asked, but no one acted like they heard. The room smelled disgusting, from cigarette smoke and the stench of beer—and no doubt his Uncle Ethan’s sour body odor, like he never bathed. Dad had said Ethan was going to leave two days ago and yet he was still here. Reuben set his face hard and marched toward his room, but to his surprise, Ethan grabbed his arm as he passed and swung him around.

  “You’re what? Eleven?”

  Reuben fumed. “Ten. Let me go.”

  Annabell wrenched her attention from the TV. “Aw, Eth, don’t pick on the little kid.”

  Ethan smirked. “You’re not so little, are you? Already nearly as tall as your dad. So, don’t you think it’s time to learn how to be a real man? Not the kind of sissy your father is.”

  “I don’t think you should—”

  “Shut up, big stuff,” Ethan said, waving the bottle in the air in front of him. “Here, have a swig of this. Your brother sure knows how to party. You don’t want to be a party-pooper, do ya, Ruby?”

  Annabell pouted, then ran her hand through Ethan’s hair. Then, to Reuben's shock, she put her mouth on her uncle’s and kissed him, her tongue working all over his lips. Reuben cringed.

  “Oh, babe . . .” Ethan loosed his grip on Reuben’s arm and gave back to Annabell, his hand roaming down her body, then working its way up under her shirt. Simon just sat there and chuckled, no doubt more amused at Reuben’s flushed face than the antics on the couch.

  Reuben ran to his room and slammed the door. Raucous laughter chased after him, hunted him down. He threw himself on the bed and covered his ears. If his mom was out, she must have taken his younger siblings to the market. She hadn’t been able to keep enough food in the house with his uncle eating everything not nailed down. Reuben doubted Ethan even paid for any of it. All he seemed to care about was that big shiny motorcycle parked out on the driveway, where Mom usually parked her car. Almost a week, and he knew his dad was upset. With Ethan out there in just his shorts, and his girlfriend in a skimpy bathing suit, waxing and polishing and rubbing a cloth over the shiny metal, drinking beer late into the night until they passed out. Reuben’s mom had said the family needed to be gracious and hospitable. That they needed to make a good impression on Uncle Ethan, show him what a strong, happy family looked like. Yeah, right. His dad had just let Ethan blow into the house and park on the couch. It was hard to believe Ethan was his dad’s brother—they were as different as could be.

  He felt like smashing something. As flashes of his mother played through his mind, his anger boiled and churned. The smell of the cigarettes all week had brought memories back in legion, bad memories, memories he had tried so hard to erase but seemed to be fried onto his brain, seared into flesh, replaying and replaying. His mother with a cigarette in her hand, blowing smoke up into the air with a flick of her head. Holding a bottle of beer or a glass of some kind of liquor, the sickly sour stench on her breath as she’d muss his hair or lean over and kiss his cheek, missing most of the time, not even looking at him. He waved and batted at the images, but it did no good.

  The urge to climb overtook him. If only he could scale something high. Get above his life, so high that everyone on the ground would look like ants. That was the only thing that dulled the pain, that gave him distance. High up on a mountain, where the air was crisp, thin, pure. He could suck it into his lungs and stare at the world lying quiet and harmless below him; far away it just vanished in the mist. And here he was stuck in the San Fernando Valley—a flat wasteland void of hills other than a few small ones. He’d climbed what was out there with his climbing club—the rocks at the beaches: Point Magu, Point Dume. Then he had tackled Black Flower, China Flats, Eagle Rock, The Lookout, Devil’s Punchbowl, Boney Bluff, and many others. The guys in his club wanted to perfect their skills, try for harder underhangings, cooler moves, show off their gear. They didn’t feel the frustration and restlessness he felt for something higher, more massive and intimidating. He drank in photos of Everest, of the tallest mountains in the world. He rattled off the list in his head: K2, Kangchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu in China. Their glittering slopes and treacherous crevasses set off an irrepressible yearning. Yet, what could he do? He couldn’t jump on a plane and go. He was too young and inexperienced to join a team of that ability, and he certainly didn’t have the money for the kind of gear he’d need. His dad could barely afford buying him a decent pair of climbing shoes. And all the other climbing gear in his bag he’d paid for himself from the earnings he stashed from his summer paper route.

  He turned and faced his door, then walked over to it and sniffed. His uncle was smoking something other than a cigarette. Reuben wasn’t stupid; he knew what pot smelled like.

  Reuben stormed out, swinging a wide berth from the couch, strode to the bank of living room windows and opened them, unlatching and sliding each one up to full height. He thought about opening the front door too, but then worried if any neighbors might walk by and catch the stench. After he got the stubborn kitchen window raised, he turned and looked at the three of them on the couch. Reuben’s jaw dropped. Ethan was holding what looked like a cigarette up to Simon’s mouth. Simon, who was laughing and trying to suck in the smoke, coughing and laughing at the same time, looking so much like their mother, with his wild black hair falling in his face and that lopsided smile, and the smoke billowing around him until Reuben couldn’t take anymore.

  “Simon! What on earth are you doing? You’re just a kid!”

  Simon sucked harder on the joint and waved Reuben away. “Go jump in a lake. Or climb a mountain. Or throw yourself off one.”

  Uncle Ethan about busted his jeans with laughter. “Hey, that was a good one, Si.” Annabell chuckled—her eyes still glued to the TV—and heckled some game contestant, a beer in her hand.

  Reuben didn’t know where it came from, this volatile rage. But it propelled him to the couch, where he grabbed the smoke from Simon’s hand, held it high while Simon, woozy, tried to extricate himself from the ponderous couch pillows with little success, swinging the air at his brother as Ethan and Annabell doubled over in paroxysms of laughter.

  Reuben froze, a deer in the headlights, as the front door opened and the rest of his family spilled into the house. He spun around, the joint still held aloft, and confronted Rachel, arms full of bags, stunned, stopped in the threshold, with Levi and Dinah behind her, crashing into her legs, and Joey in his snuggly across her chest, the keys dangling from his mom’s hand and her looking as if she wasn’t sure she’d entered the right house.

  “Reuben, what on earth are you up to?” She stepped aside and Reuben’s siblings scattered through the house. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Simon slump in the couch, push the bottle back between the cushions, cock his head in all innocence, rivet his gaze on the TV.

  She set the bags on the floor and marched over to Reuben and yanked the smoke from his fingers; he’d forgotten he held it, and he shook his hand as if trying to erase proof of its existence, to fling away the contaminants it had splattered over his hand and his repute.

  “It-it’s not
mine!”

  Before he could say another word, his mother narrowed her eyes on him, shutting him up without a word. His jaw ached; he clenched his teeth that hard. She spun around to face Ethan. Simon quietly chuckled.

  “And just what’s so amusing about this?” She noticed the ashtray on the coffee table and snuffed out the joint in the graveyard of a dozen cigarette butts. Reuben took a few steps back, out of the path of her anger, and saw that his uncle was ignoring her, turning his attention back to the TV. Rachel strode over and shut it off. His uncle just sat there and glared at her, and Annabell pouted again.

  Rachel threw her arms in the air. “That does it. Ethan, I want you out—now. I’ve tried to be hospitable and welcoming to you and your girlfriend, but enough is enough. How dare you corrupt my children?”

  Simon’s laugh sliced through her words. “Your children? I’m not your child. And you’re not my mother. You never will be!”

  Ethan let out a sigh followed by a long belch. He slid Annabell off his lap and stood, stretched. “Guess our invite’s been used up, babe. Time to hit the road.”

  Reuben watched his mom. Her face was deep red and her nostrils flared. He’d never seen her so angry. He could tell that, more than anything going on in that room, what hurt her most were Simon’s words. He saw the way they had cut her, just as if he had slashed her gut with a knife.

  He hated Simon in that moment—more than ever. How his brother could be such a mean jerk, he just couldn’t fathom. After all that Rachel did for him, how patient she was with him. Even after he had tried to set the Sunday school room on fire and sent the whole church into a panic, with the fire trucks racing over, their sirens blasting, and how Rachel had taken charge and protected Simon, assuring the police she would discipline him, and the pastor not pressing charges, not making Dad pay for the damages. How she had spoken to Simon afterward with compassion and gentleness, when what he really needed was a thrashing and some serious grounding. And why hadn’t his dad just pulled out a belt and given Simon what he really deserved? He’d heard some woman at church shake her head and remark, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Simon needed more than a rod across his back; maybe a two-by-four with a row of protruding nails.