Hurt People

by Cote Smith

  He twisted around so he could see what was behind him, and put his arm behind my neck, like our dad used to do to our mother when he drove our family around.

  “Here we go,” he said, and put his foot to the pedal.

  The cart jerked backward. Fast, out of control, its little motor roaring.

  “Shit!” my brother yelled. He kicked at the brake, and just as sharply as we started, we stopped, slamming me back into my seat.

  A bead of sweat dripped off my nose and into my mouth, salting my tongue. For a moment I sat there, taking in what had just happened. I glanced over at my brother, who had both hands on the wheel, staring at it like it was an alien ship. The ship had crash-landed thousands of years ago, and we were the stupid humans foolish enough to think we could make it fly.

  “Maybe we should stop,” I said.

  “We haven’t done anything. Not yet.”

  I grabbed the rabbit’s foot, combed back its hair to find its skin. I reminded myself that Rick was gone. He wasn’t working today. And with him out of the picture, there was no one here to punish us.

  “Are you sure?” I said.

  “Yes,” my brother said. “Now’s our chance to get out of this dump.”

  I scooted back in my seat. I took a breath, held on to the railing, and told my brother that I was ready. He put the cart in drive and inched us away from the wall. He drove slowly until the garage exit was in sight, like our mother did in school zones, even in the summer. But once we got out in the open, out of close quarters, he put his foot down hard and started to drive just like Rick.

  * * *

  We drove the cart all the routes Rick always went: up the hill to eighteen, down to five, across the rickety bridge to seven. Like Rick, and unlike any other driver I knew, when we started down a huge hill, instead of braking or letting the cart coast, my brother sped up. I grabbed the cart’s side rail because I didn’t have Rick’s arm to hold on to.

  We circled a water hazard, murky with algae and pond scum. We stopped and found the biggest rock to throw in. I found a small, weird-shaped stone and put it in my pocket. A golf club pinged somewhere far off, and a white dot drifted into the blue sky. We watched the ball land in the tall ragweed surrounding the pond, and we laughed, because we knew the owner would never find it. Rick once said tall grass was where golf balls go to die.

  “It’s nice not having to worry about Rick,” I said. “His stupid leg pinch.”

  “We can go wherever we want,” my brother said. “That’s what’s nice.”

  We got back in the cart and drove around some more. We drove all the places we could think to drive. I thought about the course map we made of all the places we explored—the one I spilled Kool-Aid on—how it took weeks to cover only a quarter of the course. If we had had the cart the whole time, we would have finished in one weekend. The whole thing seemed silly.

  When we had gone everywhere else, my brother drove us to the abandoned scoreboard. The scoreboard stood to the side of where the eighteenth hole once was, back when eighteen was a par five. On one of our weekly rides, Rick explained that nobody could ever hit the ball far enough, so they moved the green and changed the hole to a four. Before that, the course was too tough, Rick said, especially for a city so short on talent.

  We parked the cart behind a bush in case anyone showed up, though no one ever came out here but us. I raced my brother to the ladder, but when I looked back, he wasn’t racing at all. He was walking. He let me climb the ladder attached to the scoreboard’s back and took his time following. If you knew where to look, you could see the scoreboard from the cafeteria’s corner window. From that distance, it seemed small, a toy, a real-life thing made miniature for toddlers. But up close was different. The scoreboard towered above us, an abandoned fortress, our own secret skyscraper.

  At the top there was little room to stand, just a ledge you would fall to your death from if you weren’t careful. I sidestepped across the scoreboard to the end of the other side, a spot usually reserved for my brother. I leaned over the edge, peered at the pool of dirt below.

  “This is my favorite place,” I said.

  My brother sat down and let his legs dangle. “That’s because you’ve never been anywhere.” He had that jerkiness in his voice again. I tried to ignore him. I looked up at the horizon and tried to find the building farthest away. All I saw were prisons.

  “Neither have you,” I said. “Where have you been that I haven’t?”

  “Nowhere,” he said. “I haven’t been anywhere either.” I watched him closely after he said this, but he didn’t say anything more. The wind picked up, and I hugged the scoreboard. I thought about saying something mean, to tease more information out of my brother, but when I opened my mouth, there was a cloudless thunder.

  “It’s five,” my brother said.

  “What happened to the music?”

  “We’re too far away.”

  He didn’t move. He just sat there, his back against the scoreboard, his eyes closed like he was sunbathing at the pool.

  “We better get back,” I said.

  “She won’t go anywhere without us,” my brother said.

  “She’ll be mad.”

  “Of course she will.”

  “She will.”

  “Look, we’re already late,” he said, opening his eyes. “We still have to return the cart, right? We can’t leave it here. So we’re already late.”

  “You’re going to make us later. You’re going to get us into trouble again.”

  He stood up. “Again?” he said. “Us? You were never in trouble in the first place. You should have been.” He walked over to me quickly, crossing the narrow ledge without holding on to anything, or looking down to check his footing. “You know, I’m sick of you, you little liar. You follow me around, a little lying baby, doing what I do, wanting the things I want, but you’re too afraid to go get them.”

  I bent my knees to brace myself. “No I’m not.”

  “You wanted to drive the cart, so I drove the cart. You wanted the gun, so I grabbed it.” He grabbed me by the shirt. He could throw me off and there would be no witnesses. No one to call my brother out in court. “You wanted to go to the pool, to learn the Gainer and all the other cool pool moves, so I went and made friends with Chris.”

  “That’s not what I wanted,” I said.

  “Liar,” he said, and leaned me back, dangling me over the edge. I could feel the nothingness beneath me, the empty air between me and the ground. “You better tell me what I said is true,” he said. “Or it’s a long way down.”

  I tried to grab his arm. He leaned me back farther, until I was sure I’d fall.

  “OK, OK,” I said. “You’re right. You’re right.”

  “Say it. Say you’re a baby.”

  “I’m a baby.”

  “A lying baby.”

  “I’m a lying baby.”

  “Say I’m smarter than you.”

  “You’re smarter.”

  “Smarter than you’ll ever be.”

  “You’re smarter than I’ll ever be.”

  He grinned at me and opened his mouth in fake shock, pretending he’d lost his grip. Don’t, I said. He pulled me up to him. “Ha. You really thought I was going to drop you, didn’t you, dummy?”

  He ruffled my hair, pushed my face. I punched him away. I sat down, swung my feet off the edge like I was at the pool, kicking them safely in the shallow end. I looked around until I found the cafeteria window, small, far away. I imagined someone watching what just happened from the window, my brother dangling me over the edge. It would look like something out of a movie, or one of my brother’s epic toy plots. Me, the good guy in serious trouble. My brother, the bad. The villain who only won in the worlds my brother created.

  My brother peered over the edge of the scoreboard, as if the pool waited below, waiting for his best move. It occurred to me I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in the pool, in the actual water.

  “What do you
guys talk about?” I asked my brother.

  “Who? What do you mean?”

  “You and Chris. Tell me what else you guys talk about, or I’ll tell Mom what just happened. I’ll tell her and Dad about you and Chris, sneaking out to the pool—everything.”

  There was a second of silence, and I felt my brother look at me. But I didn’t look at him. I already knew the faces he was making. Anger, mixed with worry and disbelief.

  “You’re blackmailing me?” he said. I didn’t know what that word meant, but felt I should say yes. My brother kept his back to me, and the sun baked his shadow into the scoreboard. “Unbelievable,” he said.

  He put his head down in thought, his hand on his chin, as if he were weighing the options.

  “I can’t tell you,” he finally said. “I’m not supposed to.”

  I pulled up the tongue of my broken-laced shoe, got up, and walked over to my brother’s side. I sat down and put my hand on his shoulder, as if to say, It’s OK. It’s me, your brother. If I were wearing a wire, this would be the part where I leaned in close and said, Don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul.

  “Fine,” he said. “But I can only tell you what isn’t a secret. Got it?”

  I nodded and scooted closer, so the only thing in between us was the wind. OK, my brother said, here is what you can know.

  * * *

  Chris was a lifeguard. Or he had been, at one time. This was the first thing my brother revealed. When he was a teenager, still in school, Chris spent summers working at the city pool. That’s how he knew so much, so many moves. That’s where he got those trunks. What happened? I asked. Why doesn’t he work there now? Well, my brother said, he was fired. For what, I said, licking kids? No, he said, for falling in love. My brother blushed, embarrassed he’d used such a stupid word. This was Chris’s story, he reminded me, not his. These are his words, not mine. Anyway, Chris met someone special. At the pool. Someone he couldn’t live without. But he’d never had these feelings before. He didn’t know what to do with them. He was too afraid to tell anyone, scared of what they might think or say, so he kept them to himself. What place is safer, more secret, he said, touching his chest, than right here? He didn’t act. He waited. From his lifeguard perch, he studied the one he wanted, making sure they were worth the risk. Making sure his feelings weren’t a fluke, some sick joke the world was playing on him. But the feelings did not go away. They grew stronger. He couldn’t concentrate. If the one he loved came for a swim, it became impossible for Chris to focus on anything else. His mind was right, but his heart felt like it was drowning.

  What did he do? I asked.

  He acted, my brother said. He took a chance.

  And?

  And it didn’t work out. Chris left a note in their locker, tucked it into their pants pocket. That way they would find it later, Chris imagined, in their room when no one was looking. They would read it and finally know how Chris felt, how he’d fought and waited. How if he could love anyone else, he would.

  The loved one never responded. Never met Chris at the park across the street from the pool. Never let Chris share a snow cone.

  She ignored him? I said.

  I guess. She stopped coming to the pool. Or she came once, but only to report Chris. To get him fired.

  Oh, I said. That’s sad.

  There’s more.

  Before he left, Chris stole her membership card, with her name and address. He went to her house, at night. He brought flowers and candy. The neighborhood was quiet. No lights were lit. He climbed her porch and knocked on her window. Nothing. He waited and waited. He grew tired of waiting. He lifted the window and crawled inside.

  My brother paused.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “That’s all he told me. Said he would tell me the rest next time I saw him. But I haven’t seen him since.” He stood up and brushed off his shorts. “There, now you know some stuff. Happy?”

  He started down the ladder, told me to hurry up. He didn’t want to get grounded again. I climbed down and sat in the cart, and my brother put his arm around me and drove. I thought about the story he’d just told. How sad it made me feel, how it felt like a secret my brother shouldn’t have shared. We rolled through the hills like this. Once in the garage, we parked the cart in the back, in the dark where it belonged. We left the key in the ignition, the rabbit’s foot where we found it.

  * * *

  When we got to the pro shop, Rick was there, not our mother. His arm was in a blue sling that looked homemade from a pillowcase. This didn’t stop him from pointing to his wrist, giving his big Rick grin.

  “Hey, hey!” Rick said. “Look who it is!” He raised his good arm, readying the imaginary crowd for his grand announcement. “Gather ’round, everybody! They’ve returned! It’s Duh and Little Duh, Duh’s dumber brother!” We mumbled hello. “So where the hell have you been?” Rick said.

  “Nowhere,” my brother said.

  “Ooh, that sounds nice. Have to go there sometime. Where is nowhere, by the way? A block away from nothing, down the street from wherever?”

  “Leave us alone,” my brother said. “We didn’t do anything.”

  We tried to hurry by Rick, but he stepped in front of my brother, not letting us pass.

  “That’s funny, because earlier I stepped outside to have a chew and you know what I saw? I saw two little shits driving my cart around. You shitheads know anything about that?”

  “No,” my brother said, and he looked right at Rick. His mouth didn’t drop, giving away his lie.

  “Oh, right, right, of course you don’t. Because if you did, you know there’d be a whupping coming your way. You’d get a big old piece of Rick’s wrath.”

  “Where’s our mom?” my brother said.

  “Hey, let’s not get off subject now. I’m still curious about the cart.”

  “Is she in the van?”

  Rick wrinkled his tan face, annoyed that my brother wasn’t taking him seriously. “Listen,” he said. “I saw you goons out there. Now ’fess up or we’re gonna have problems. Even one-armed Rick is still a man you don’t want to mess with.”

  My brother looked around. There were no customers nearby, no signs of our mother. “Fine,” he said. “We drove the cart around a little bit. You’re the dumb one who leaves your key in the ignition.”

  Rick nodded to himself, scratched the side of his stubbly face. He let out a big breath and I could smell the cheap cafeteria beer. Flecks of chew speckled his chin.

  There was a pop, a wet smack.

  I heard the slap before I saw anything, before I could realize what happened. I looked at my brother, now on the ground, rubbing his head. Rick stood over him, holding his good hand in the air. He turned to me. “You two think you can do whatever you want,” he said. “Just like your dad. Where do you want it?”

  I shook my head, even though it wasn’t a yes-or-no question.

  “Your punishment,” Rick said. “Where do you want it? The head or your rear.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said.

  “You didn’t stop anything either. Know what that’s called? Called an accomplice. Called guilty by association. You do time for that, too.”

  “Leave him alone,” my brother said, still on the ground. He kept one eye closed, as if that would shut out the pain. “You can’t punish us. You’re not—”

  “That’s right. I most certainly am not,” Rick said. “Know how you can tell? ’Cause I’m not a cheater. I would never do that to your mother. She might be a pain in the ass like you boys, but she’s still one of the good ones.” He adjusted the strap on his sling. “Besides,” he laughed, “who’d want to be your dad right now? I’ve seen the paper. The man couldn’t catch a cold.”

  The word cold made me think of my dad curled up on the couch, shirtless and alone.

  “Shut up,” I said.

  Rick laughed. “Or what, retard? You gonna call the fuzz? He can’t help you, OK?” He stuck o
ut his hurt arm, the one he always used to pinch us, and poked my chest. “Face it, moron, Father Fuzz is a failure.”

  Later that night, when I was in my bed, my brother snoring above me, I replayed the day in my head. It was then I realized that it must’ve been me who screamed that high-pitched noise, announcing my attack. At the time, I only saw Rick’s sling, swinging lazily in front of my face. Teasing me until I couldn’t take it anymore, until my mind must have gone white with rage. And then I must’ve screamed. All of this right before I grabbed Rick’s hurt arm and pulled down as hard as I could.

  Rick cried out in pain. His good arm flailed until he caught my head by my hair. I tried to twist away and find my brother, who was on the ground clutching his stomach. Rick must have hit him when I went for his arm. “Goddammit,” Rick said. “Why the hell would you do that?”

  “Let me go.”

  “No, no, no. I was gonna let you off easy. A smack on the ass or something. But now…” His grip on my hair tightened. My face felt like a mask Rick was ripping off. “Now you’re in for a real treat. But don’t worry, it’s in your best interest. You won’t do anything stupid any time soon.”

  He dragged me to the cafeteria and threw me in a chair. There was no one here either. The grill was no longer going.

  “Man, did you step in it,” Rick said. “Stepped in it big time.” He let go of my head and began to undo his belt buckle, which he had welded in prison. “I’m doing this for your mother, you know. She may hate it here, but there are worse places. Worse things in life.”

  He licked his thumb and wiped a dirt spot off his buckle, twisted around to put it in his back pocket, already occupied by a puck of chew. This was my chance to escape. But when I tried to get up, Rick’s good arm flew out and caught me by the thigh.

  “Sit,” he said, and his fingers sank into my leg like animal fangs, shooting a sharp shock down my entire side. “Stay.”

  He slid the belt off his waist and held it by its tail, like it was a deadly snake ready to strike. I rubbed my leg, sure I would never use it again.