Barrett Fuller's Secret

by Scott Carter

  “Easy,” Barrett says.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Be steady. Are you ready on the stick?”

  “Yeah.” Richard’s throat is so dry, he croaks the word more than speaks it.

  The car accelerates and Barrett smiles. “Second.”

  Richard pulls the gear, but it’s stiffer than he anticipates, and it sticks for a moment, which causes the car to rock.

  “Let’s go.”

  Richard is sure he is going to push it into fifth instead of second, but he jerks it toward the slot anyway and it slides into place. The car accelerates and Barrett taps the boy’s hip.

  “There you go.”

  The road’s white centre lines blur faster now. He’s been on a highway at fast speeds many times, but he’s used to cars that rattle and a hum from the tires. This car is different. The Lamborghini feels like it floats and the interior is soundproof so that the senses can adjust and appreciate the speed.

  “Third,” Barrett says. This time Richard slides the gear in a smooth motion.

  The wheel jerks, but he steadies it easily enough, and before his eyes acclimatize, Barrett yells, “Fourth.”

  Richard changes gears again, and this time the car’s burst pushes him back into Barrett’s chest. The steering wheel jumps and he moves his hand from the gear, but the torque stops him from getting a firm grip, and the car drifts onto the side of the road, where the tires crackle in the gravel.

  “Turn straight,” Barrett says.

  But Richard is lost in the image of the car flipping over and into the ditch, so Barrett turns the wheel himself. The front of the car heads back to the centre of the lane, but the back end skids on the gravel, and when Barrett pumps the brakes, the car spins sideways before stopping. A cloud of dust rises from the car and Barrett laughs until the look of terror on Richard’s face turns to an adrenaline-fueled smile.

  “I told you it’s hard to keep it steady.”

  The rush leaves Richard so high, all he can do is smile and nod.

  “You did great,” Barrett says. “It was my fault for picking up speed too fast.”

  Richard looks at Barrett and believes the praise. He is about to say thank you when the sound of police sirens makes him turn around. Richard imagines juvenile hall, a cell that smells like eggs and only seeing his mother every other weekend.

  “We’re going to jail.”

  “Relax.”

  “We’re going to jail.”

  “We’re going to be fine.”

  Barrett helps Richard move to the passenger seat and removes his license from his wallet and the registration from the glove box in time to see the officer standing beside the car. He rolls down the window and extends the paperwork. The officer is middle-aged and burly with a harelip.

  “You were driving one-twenty in a sixty. That’s a four-hundred dollar ticket and four points. I could impound the car. The kid in your lap could be reckless driving, at least, it’s endangerment and another five-hundred dollar ticket.”

  Barrett makes sure not to look at the harelip.

  The officer leans in the window to get a good look at Richard. “You look a lot like the kid on the cover of those books. What’s his name? Mil something.”

  “Mil Bennett,” Richard says.

  “Yeah. You’re older, but you look like him.”

  Barrett smiles. “Are you a fan of those books?”

  “Never read them, but my son can’t get enough of them. We keep trying to get him the latest one, but we’ve been to three stores and they’re all sold out. It’s all the kid talks about right now.”

  The anonymity makes Barrett feel like a god. “I’ve got a boxful in the trunk. I own a marketing company and we’re working on the campaign. You can have them if you want. I just give them away to other people anyway.”

  “You’re serious?”

  Barrett nods.

  “You know this won’t change the tickets?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You were five kilometres over the speed limit and the kid was sitting in the passenger seat without a seat belt. That’s two tickets.”

  Barrett grins in relief. “I understand.”

  Barrett pops the trunk and taps Richard’s hand until the kid smiles.

  Back on the road, with the cop gone, Richard finally speaks. “Do you really help sell the Russell Niles books?”

  “I really do.”

  “How come Mom never told me?”

  “I don’t know. She knows I run a marketing company, but I don’t talk a lot about it much.”

  “Can you introduce me to Russell Niles?”

  “I’ve never met him. We just help sell the books. But nobody meets him.”

  “Why?”

  “He just likes it that way, I guess. It’s not about him, it’s about the writing. I think he’s been in Ghana the past year doing charity work.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Africa.”

  Barrett stops the car in front of Richard’s building, which draws considerable attention. A couple of kids throwing a football look at the car like it might house a celebrity and an elderly couple smoking on a bench start to whisper. The attention sends a ripple of excitement through Richard. He steps out of the car and his mother exits the building foyer to greet them, effectively ruining his chance to look cool. His eyes roll as she wraps her arms around him.

  “There he is. Did you have fun?”

  The collective stare of everybody on the street enhances his embarrassment, but he feels too good to let anything get to him, so he smiles and nods.

  Carol notices that Barrett looks proud of himself. His lips form that same smug smile they did when he wanted praise as a kid. He lights a cigarette and blows out to the side.

  “We need to do this more often.”

  “How about next weekend?” Richard asks.

  The request shocks Barrett for a moment. Somehow he didn’t expect the kid to answer, but now that he has there’s only one response.

  “Why not?”

  Carol looks at Barrett and then Richard. This is a look Barrett knows all too well, a look that makes him emphasize his words with a nod to his nephew. Carol taps her son on the shoulder and extends a key.

  “Why don’t you take your bag up?”

  A jolt of anxiety rushes through Richard’s body. This is the last thing he expects after so much ease, but he understands that’s the point. His father taught him that endings can be devastating, and as he prepares to say goodbye to Barrett, a part of him fears he will never see his uncle again. He looks at Barrett for a moment like he wants to hug him before raising a hand.

  “Bye.”

  “See you, buddy.”

  The tone is honest enough that Richard believes him. It’s something to hang on to anyway, enough to put the irrational thoughts of abandonment aside for now.

  Carol watches Richard until he enters the building before pivoting towards Barrett. She examines him for a moment.

  “Are you in rehab?”

  He tries to dismiss the jab with a smile before finally shaking his head when she doesn’t back down.

  “A born-again group?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Whatever it is, thank you. He doesn’t smile like that very much anymore.”

  There’s the praise Barrett craves. One happy nephew, one happy sister. If he wasn’t being forced to do this, he might actually feel proud.

  Fifteen

  Richard sits in front of Dr. Burns and exhales a small burst of air somewhere between a grunt and clearing his throat. His mother shifts her weight on the couch next to him. Her anxiety only intensifies his, so he turns to a painting with a swirl of primary colours in the form of spittle to distract himself, but he sees the reflection of his dry lips in the frame’s shiny glass, and they remind him how much he hates the doctor and his medication.

  “Has he been taking the meds?” Burns looks at Carol from his perch on the stool with his fingers hoveri
ng over a laptop that sits on his knees.

  Richard wants to scream, “Look at my fucking cracked lips and tell me if you think I’m taking my meds.” But he knows better, so he palms the couch’s arm and squeezes until his knuckles stretch their skin.

  “Oh yeah,” Carol says. “He’s off to a good start.”

  Dr. Burns clicks away at the keyboard, and Richard thinks this sounds too much like business for a place that’s supposed to be about helping people.

  “Okay,” Burns says with enthusiasm. He sets the laptop on the adjacent table and stands with perfect posture. “Anger is a destructive force. Happiness brings us together, fear keeps us safe, and sadness makes us appreciative. But anger, anger destroys. The body is constantly in motion. The brain always suspends one emotion to embrace another. Now I don’t expect you to understand all the words, but you can understand the concept. No two emotions can exist in our brains at the same time. Which means, if we are full of anger than we are literally incapable of happiness. So, our job is to get rid of the anger.” Burns gestures to the journal. “Have you been writing in your journal?”

  Richard notices the black dots of stubble on Burn’s face and the thick hair sprouting up from his chest, but he doesn’t say a word.

  “Not yet,” Carol answers. “But I’m reminding him every day, so he’ll start soon.”

  “I’d prefer if you answer,” Burns says. His eyes lock on Richard with judgment.

  Richard shakes his head.

  “Well, you will. But perhaps today talking will work better than writing. Today, we are going to talk our feelings out, which means we will use third person. Do you know what that means?”

  Richard nods. Of course he knows first person. Every Russell Niles book is written in third person, and he’s read each of them more than once.

  “I’ll start us off,” Burns says, rising from his stool. “Dr. Burns’ back is stiff from playing tennis this morning.” He gestures to the boy. “Try it.”

  Richard offers him a blank look.

  “Help us out, Mom.” Burns gestures to Carol in a manner that makes her feel like she has to comply.

  “Okay. Carol is hoping that Richard will start writing in his journal.”

  “Excellent example.”

  Richard turns again to the painting, is reminded of his cotton-mouth, and stares at the floor.

  Burns stands, unfazed by the boy’s disinterest. “Today I want to work on a self-soothing technique that you can use in any situation when you feel anger taking over. To begin, I want you to close your eyes and move both of them in a circle at the same time.

  “Now at first, this will be uncomfortable, but your mind will slip into a trance quicker than you think if you stick with it.” He demonstrates the movement, and Richard notes that the man’s nose is larger than he first thought.

  Richard decides to play along to limit his mother’s backlash once they get home, and within seconds, he agrees with the doctor. Moving his eyes in a circle is uncomfortable and annoying, but the more he moves his eyes, the more the doctor’s voice turns into one inaudible sound until a reoccurring nightmare fills his thoughts.

  This nightmare has plagued him since his father left and he has never mentioned a word to anyone. It starts with him as a police officer, which is odd, because he has never thought of becoming a cop. It is hard to say how far into the future it is, but he is tall just like his father and it feels like he has been a police officer forever. He arrives at the scene of a car crash on a highway where a green mini-van is flipped upside down against the guardrail. The visible side of the van is crushed in the middle, and shattered glass litters the pavement. He steps out of his squad car and walks past skid marks and fuel stains toward the vehicle. About ten feet away, he sees a baby seat sitting on its side. The plastic and padded headrest are intact, but the straps have snapped. He hustles to the van to see a woman’s broken body on the other side of the vehicle. Her face is bloody and her neck is clearly broken, but all he can think about is that there is no sign of the baby. He opens the passenger door but the vehicle is empty. The inside is clean, and despite being upside down, it is easy to scan. There is no baby. He moves to the sliding door, which has broken off and lies fifteen feet away interior up. Glass chunks crumble beneath his boots, and he prays that the baby is not under the door. He lifts the door and struggles with the weight, but the need to find the baby pushes him to move the metal upright.

  Relief fills him seeing that the baby isn’t there, but the sight of an orange pacifier beside a screw the length of a finger makes him feel faint with worry. He picks up the pacifier and imagines a baby’s wail. The cry is panicked and incessant. He scrambles around the crash site, checks the vehicle again, and looks both ways down the road as far as he can see, but still no baby. Instinct tells him to look over the guardrail and down at the passing cars below, but there is no sign of tragedy. Cars drive as they always do and the road is clear. The baby must be somewhere. He repeats the sentence with each beat of his heart, and this is when he wakes up with an overwhelming sense of dread that makes him never want to close his eyes again.

  The sound of the doctor’s voice snaps him back to the moment.

  “Excellent. Excellent. That is the healing power of silence. When we get our minds to a sensitized state, we are best prepared to face the challenges that tempt us to give in to anger.” Burns turns to Carol, who looks too stoic to face anything. “Carol, what were you thinking about during the silence?”

  “Nothing specific.”

  “Really? Because you look deep in thought.”

  “I’d rather keep that to myself.”

  “Okay. But remember, we are here to share, and by initiating the sharing you might inspire Richard to see how healing it can be.”

  The guilt works. The only thing she wants more than keeping what she was thinking about to herself is for Richard to be happy. “I was thinking about my brother and how he helped me through one of the most difficult periods in my life.”

  The mention of his uncle grabs Richard’s attention.

  “You are lucky to have such a caring person in your life. How did he help you?”

  “It’s, ah, a long story.”

  “Give us every detail that runs through your mind. The more you can access, the better. That’s the point of the exercise.”

  She takes a deep breath, but it doesn’t feel like enough air, so she exaggerates an inhale and speaks like the words are happy to finally be released. “When I was sixteen, I was walking home from a volleyball practice after school. It was November, so it was already dark. The practice was boring, but I felt amazing because Todd Haskins invited me to his party third period. I liked him since freshman year, but that was the first time he said more to me than a passing greeting. I had headphones on, a Kinks song, and the music made it seem like I was in a movie. Being invited to that party made me feel unstoppable. I was two blocks from my house, adjacent to a parkette filled with toys, because it was where all the local parents took their kids, when a forearm reached around my neck and pulled me toward an alley that connected two side streets.”

  Richard looks at his mother with concern, so she slips a hand over his to reassure him.

  “I tried to scream, but a hand covered my mouth. I remember being surprised that the hand wasn’t gloved and disgusted that his skin tasted salty. I was sure I was going to die. That he would rape me and kill me just like in the movies and reports on the news that had terrified me since I was a kid. He dragged me toward the alley until a voice stopped him. I landed bum first on the ground, and a sharp pain shot up my spine. I wanted to see him but he was already gone. I was so scared that I didn’t even notice it was Barrett’s voice that scared the man off until he helped me to my feet. We didn’t say anything for the first minute, he just hugged me.

  “And I find myself, all these years later, still asking the same question that I wondered as soon as I saw Barrett that day. What if he didn’t see me? What if he left the house ten m
inutes later? Or decided to drive or take another route? But he didn’t. And I’m okay because of him. We filed a detailed report with the police, but they never found the guy. My parents, who loved me very much, arranged for me to meet with a therapist and my guidance counsellor got my teachers to cut me some slack, but that didn’t work. I felt scared, hopeless, and angry. But then Barrett signed me up for a self-defence class. And not only did he drive me to every one, but he also took every one with me. He took my elbows to the chest, held the pads for sidekicks and played the dummy for every choke hold. And then he invited me on a road trip. He was halfway through university and he had planned this with three friends for more than a year, and he took me along anyway. It didn’t matter that I was his younger sister or the only girl with four guys, he just brought me and treated me like I belonged. I did a lot of driving while they were drunk, slept in a lot of dirty motels, and pretended to look away while his friends went skinny dipping in every roadside lake we found. And when I came back, the fear and anger I had were gone. It was like that brief moment in my life, despite it being horrible, was just that, a brief moment in an otherwise great life. And it’s because of my brother that I feel that way.”

  Richard squeezes his mother’s hand and she slips an arm around his shoulders.

  Dr. Burns smiles. “You are a courageous woman and just hearing you speak tells me that Richard will be on board with us any minute now.” He stands, picks up a pink stress ball, and tosses it hand to hand. “Think of that last exercise we did as preventative. But in the case when anger has already taken over, we need another strategy. In those situations, we need to get the angries out.”

  Richard watches the doctor with disbelief as he walks to a cabinet and removes a red, weighted punching bag. How can the man listen to what she just said and be making this about Richard? The bag is as tall as Richard and heavy enough that it takes effort for the doctor to drag it in front of them.

  “Anger is your body on an adrenaline high, so when it reaches that point it’s important to have a release. Right now I want us each to hit the bag once and feel the tension leaving our bodies. Richard, you start us off.”