The Other Brother

by Brandon Massey

  "I'm worried about you, Gabe."

  "There's nothing wrong with me"

  "I want you to make an appointment with that neurologist Dr. Robinson referred you to. I'm worried that your concussion is the source of these symptoms"

  "But my head hasn't been hurting." He tapped his temple; against his doctor's orders, he had removed the head bandage that morning, tired of how it made him look like a patient. "No headaches or anything. I feel fine"

  "All I'm saying is, go see a neurologist, have a few tests run, an MRI-"

  "I'm not going to another doctor," he said.

  "Why do you have to be so damn stubborn?" She spread her hands on the table, pleading. "I only want to help you!"

  "You want to help me?" He smiled bitterly. "Start taking me at my word again."

  She didn't flinch this time. She leaned forward, her eyes scalding hot. "I am trying to help you. I care about you enough to tell you what I honestly think. And you know what? I'll be damned if I indulge you for the sake of protecting your feelings especially when your health is at issue."

  Gabriel cradled his head in his hands, silenced. Dana's words began to gnaw at him, eat away his confidence.

  Had he really seen a snake? Could it all have been a hallucination?

  He remembered the snake's terrible hiss, its murderous glare.

  There's no way I imagined that. That was real.

  Mandy lay near Gabriel, sleeping. Gabriel recalled that when he'd spotted the snake on the floor, the dog had remained asleep, which had struck him as odd.

  Maybe Mandy had not awakened because there never had been a snake in the condo to begin with.

  A finger of ice tapped the base of his spine.

  Was this how it felt to go crazy? Were you aware of gradually losing your grip on your sanity? Did you watch helplessly as the walls of logic crumbled and gave way to madness?

  "I thought it was real," he said, and to him, his voice sounded hollow.

  Dana came around the table and put her hand on his shoulder.

  "I know," she said. "Please, go see the doctor, baby. I'll go with you. We'll go tomorrow, together."

  Gabriel had begun to voice another weak oppositionclaiming that he had to go to work tomorrow and get caught up on business-when he glimpsed something in the mirror that hung over the fireplace in the living room. A large, dim shape.

  It propelled him to his feet.

  "Look!" He pointed at the mirror and rushed across the living room. "See this? This is the same thing I've seen before!"

  It was a tall, man-sized figure-almost like viewing himself, albeit in a blurry, dust-filmed mirror. He could not make out any specific details of the figure's appearance. But he saw that the apparition was motionless.

  This excited him. In previous incidents the shadow had faded as abruptly as it had appeared.

  Dana came to stand beside him. "I don't see anything, Gabriel. I see the two of us reflected"

  The mysterious figure stood between Gabriel and Dana in the glass, like a dark pillar.

  "But it's right there!" He put his index finger on the mirror. "Can't you see it?"

  "Baby." Dana gently took one of his hands. "Please sit down ""

  He turned away from the mirror and looked at Dana. Fear glistened wetly in her eyes. But it wasn't fear of what he saw in the glass. It was fear for him.

  Everything he'd seen was all in his mind. Hallucinations.

  He glanced at the mirror again. The silhouette had vanished.

  "It was there," he said. "I'm not crazy."

  Dana took him by the elbow and guided him to the sofa, as though he were a senile old man in a nursing home.

  "I'm not crazy," he said.

  Dana pulled him into her arms, held him tightly. He felt his body go limp. A shudder rattled through him.

  "I'm not crazy... .

  Gabriel's voice broke and he started to cry.

  When Isaiah did not dream of being a child and watching, helpless, as his mother suffered at the hands of abusive men, he dreamed an even more disturbing dream.

  He dreamed of being murdered.

  "Payback 's a bitch, ain't it, motherfucka?"

  The thug standing over him spat those final words, aimed a gun at Isaiah chest, and pulled the trigger.

  Darkness passed over Isaiah, swallowing him, plunging him into oblivion....

  Isaiah awoke with a start, clawing at the air as though it were the smothering darkness in the dream and could be torn away like wallpaper.

  I don't wanna die, not yet. It's not time.

  When Isaiah realized that he was alive and safe in his father's home, he dropped his arms to the mattress. He drew in deep, invigorating breaths. He used the bedsheet to blot the sweat on his face.

  He hated that damn dream. It reminded him of how his life used to be.

  He'd taken steps to rectify that aspect of his past, too. He'd murdered those thugs who had gunned down Mama and had tried, unsuccessfully, to kill him.

  Why, then, did he still dream of being shot?

  Troubled, he checked at the bedside clock. It was a few minutes past three o'clock.

  He'd been asleep for barely an hour. He'd stayed up late, working.

  He switched on the lamp.

  He reached underneath the bed where he'd stored his duffel bag and other luggage. Although the bedroom included a huge walk-in closet, Isaiah liked to keep his most important belongings within easy reach. Old habit.

  He unzipped the bag. It was full of battered paperbacks he'd purchased from a used bookshop in Chicago. Titles such as TheArt of War, by Sun Tzu; The Count ofMonte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas; The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli; The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

  He'd read all of them, most of them twice.

  His bag also contained other, more esoteric books. Books about near-death experiences; developing your psychic abilities; telepathy; mind control.

  He'd read all those, too.

  All his life, he'd been a voracious reader. In prison, especially, there wasn't much else to do. Mama hadn't been much of a reader-her Bible was the only book that interested her-so he wasn't sure how he had acquired the love of books. Maybe it had been embedded in his genes. Some people were genetically predisposed to be brilliant; other poor souls were destined to be idiots.

  He preferred to read nonfiction: texts about politics, war, business, martial arts, crime, history. Books about facts, not fiction, not make-believe. Fiction was for women and soft men; Gabriel probably enjoyed fiction.

  Reading had refined his raw intelligence, had equipped him to survive on the streets and in prison. The mind made the man.

  He dug under the books and retrieved his journal. He'd clipped Gabriel's expensive Mont Blanc pen, which he'd stolen from his office, to the front cover.

  When Isaiah had taken the pen, he hadn't planned on actually writing with it, but it had proven a splendid writing instrument.

  Of course, the pen served other purposes for him, too.

  He uncapped the pen, found a fresh page in the journal, and began to write:

  Friday, June 10. 3:0 7 A.M.

  I've awakened again from the nightmare of being murdered. I don't understand why I keep having this dream. What does it mean?

  I have a suspicion about what it might mean, and it worries me.

  Am I living on borrowed time?

  He paused and removed the old photograph from his wallet. He studied the picture. Mama and Pops.

  No matter what...

  He wrote:

  If my days in this world are limited, I only want enough time to finish what I came here to do. It's going so well that it would be a shame ifI didn'tfin- ish.

  Pen poised above the page, he smiled.

  Little brother's starting to lose his mind.

  Chapter 2 8

  he next morning Gabriel visited a neurologist, Dr. Gulati, in Decatur. Dr. Robinson's office had called Gulati and managed to secure Gabriel an appointment on short notice.

&n
bsp; Dana accompanied him. While they sat in the waiting area, Gabriel perused a recent issue of Fortune. Dana was reading another of those suspense thrillers she always carried around. The one she was currently reading was titled In the Shadows or some such thing.

  "Hmph," Dana said. She tapped the cover of the paperback novel. "One of the main characters in this story is going to a neurologist because he's been having hallucinations and other problems. Isn't it weird that I'd happen to be reading this right now? Serendipity."

  "Do they decide that the dude is crazy?" Gabriel asked.

  Dana skimmed the page. "Doesn't look like it."

  "Then I'll take that as a good sign."

  A nurse called Gabriel's name and beckoned him into the exam area.

  Gabriel underwent a cranial CT scan, a test to evaluate the brain for abnormalities and to visualize vascular masses. According to the scan results, there was nothing wrong with him. But Dr. Gulati, alarmed at Gabriel's confession of suffering intense hallucinations, scheduled an MRI for the following Monday.

  When they left the physician's office, they went to the Flying Biscuit Cafe, a restaurant in Candler Park, for a late breakfast. Candler Park was a historic neighborhood of big elms and maples, winding streets, and charming bungalows and Cape Cods festooned with kudzu. An eclectic hodgepodge of businesses-cafes, an antiques place, a bridal shop, and a used-record place that still sold vinyl albums-lined the stretch of McLendon Avenue where Gabriel parked his car.

  The Flying Biscuit Cafe was a cramped, New Age-style spot that attracted a diverse, loyal clientele. A sunflowerthemed mural that looked as though an artist tripping on acid had painted it decorated one wall. Mismatched tablecloths covered a maze of tables that stood on creaky legs on the unfinished floor. The cheerfully inconsistent decor would have spawned nightmares for the president of a chain restaurant, but the quirky ambience-and superb food-kept the safe packed.

  Their waiter was a tall, slender black man with a nose piercing who clearly had a lot of sugar in his tank, as Gabriel's mother would have said.

  Gabriel ordered the Smoked Salmon Scramble-three scrambled eggs with salmon and dill cream cheese; Dana had an omelette with cheese, mushrooms, basil, and tomato coulis. Each of them had the fluffy biscuits and apple-cranberry butter for which the restaurant was famous.

  "So it looks like going to the doctor was a waste of time," Gabriel said.

  "It wasn't a waste of time," Dana said, slathering butter on a biscuit. "We've just narrowed down the possibilities. Medicine works that way quite often. You rule out one diagnosis and search for another"

  "I still don't understand any of this. Why is it happening to me? Why the figure in the mirror? Why snakes?"

  "The snakes probably come from your fear of them," Dana said. "You were bitten by a water moccasin, you know."

  "I get that. But what about this shape in the mirror? Am I secretly afraid of blurry shadows?"

  "Are you?" She gave him a probing gaze.

  "I was joking, Dana"

  "Well, I don't know why you see that stuff. But we'll figure it out soon"

  Gabriel looked out the windows. His breakfast and coffee were growing cold, but, disturbed by his thoughts, he'd temporarily lost his appetite.

  "Earth to Gabe," Dana said and waved her hand in front of his eyes.

  He blinked. "I think we're going down the wrong road here. Gut feeling."

  "Elaborate please."

  "I think the real answer has nothing to do with my concussion. It's something ... else."

  "What?"

  "I don't know."

  "I've got to approach this from a scientific standpoint," Dana said. "I'd be doing you a disservice and dishonoring my profession if I resorted to gut feelings instead of verifiable medical evidence. I deal in facts, baby."

  "What about my opinion? We're talking about my personal situation here, not some case in a lab book"

  "I know that. Your opinion is important, but . . "

  "But what?"

  "You're having issues right now. You're not thinking logically all the time."

  Anger brought a wave of heat to his face. Did she realize she'd just insulted him?

  She grasped his hand. "Let's do this my way. I'll do re search; we'll get the MRI done on Monday, and more tests, if necessary, and that's how we'll get to the root of this. No more of this talk about gut feelings and all that. Okay? Will you trust me?"

  "I'll trust you when you start trusting me"

  "Right" Dana slid her hand away from his.

  He had hurt her feelings, but he didn't want to apologize. He'd meant what he'd said. How could he trust her if she didn't trust him? Trust was a two-way street.

  Dana pushed her plate aside, though half her meal remained. "I'm ready to go. I've got to go to work"

  "Yeah" He looked away from her. "Me, too"

  After a few minutes, Gabriel dropped off Dana at her condo, and he drove home. It was a few minutes past eleven. He planned to shower, dress, and arrive at the office by the end of the lunch hour.

  He tried to avoid thinking about Dana. When she'd climbed out of his car, she hadn't even kissed him.

  He began to wonder if he should have apologized for what he'd said, to keep the peace. But apologizing would have meant going along with her plans, and he sensed, intuitively, that she was wrong.

  And she wasn't willing to admit that she might be incorrect either. He loved her, but she could be stubborn sometimes. Just like him.

  Along with everything else that had happened that week, their impasse on the matter was serving only to unravel their relationship thread by thread. He didn't know how they could mend it-or if they could. Thinking about the possibility that their relationship was heading toward the end was so painful that he had to put it out of his mind.

  Although he couldn't articulate his feelings about what was happening to him as anything more descriptive than an intuitive sense, he knew he was right. His problems would not be solved by CT scans and MRIs and the like. There was something else going on here. He was as certain of that as he'd ever been certain of anything.

  He mulled over those thoughts as he parked the Corvette in his garage. He walked to the mailbox near the end of the driveway. With all the things going on lately, he hadn't checked his mail in a couple of days.

  It was a hazy, sweltering day, in the low nineties. Twenty seconds outdoors was sufficient to wring sweat from his pores. He wiped his forearm across his face as he reached for the mailbox door.

  The door dropped open with a soft creak.

  But he hadn't touched it.

  It's happened again.

  His palms began to tingle. He raised them to his face.

  "What the hell is this?" he whispered, desperately.

  He clenched and unclenched his hands. The prickly sensation didn't go away.

  He looked at the mailbox. Envelopes and fliers bristled from the slot. He extended his hand forward.

  The mail slid out of the box and into his fingers.

  Gabriel stepped back quickly, dropping the mail. The pieces fluttered around him like birds.

  He bent, peered into the mailbox. It was empty. There was no miniature gremlin inside shoveling paper around.

  His palms were still tingling.

  He moved one hand toward the mailbox door to close it.

  The door creaked shut on its own.

  No, not on its own.

  He examined his palms.

  He understood, finally, what was happening.

  He was doing this.

  He ran back inside the garage, forgetting the mail on the ground.

  A button that controlled the garage-door opener was mounted on the wall near the door that led inside the house. Gabriel raised his hand as though intending to touch the button, but stopped his fingers about three inches away.

  The button depressed with a soft click. The garage door began to clatter to the floor.

  I can't believe this.

  He dug his hand in
his pocket and took out the key to unlock the door. He started to insert the key in the hole and then moved back. He poised the key about three inches away from the lock. He released the key.

  The key floated forward, as though guided by invisible fingers, and slid into the keyhole.

  Gabriel rotated his hand clockwise in the manner of a puppeteer manipulating a marionette.

  The key turned, and the lock disengaged.

  He turned his hand again. The doorknob twisted.

  He made a pushing gesture with his other hand.

  The door bumped open.

  Gabriel laughed a giddy sound, like a child who has pedaled down the sidewalk on a bicycle for the first time without training wheels.

  He felt as though he had been dropped into a movie. Like Star Wars. He was like a Jedi Knight, using the Force to manipulate objects around him.

  Use the Force, Gabe.

  Laughing, he rushed inside the house to explore his newfound power.

  Chapter 29

  r saiah was at Reid Construction on Friday. Schmoozing L with his father.

  Because of the lies he'd told the night before about learning the printing trade in prison, Pops initially took him to the company's print shop, clearly intending to offer him a job. Isaiah feigned interest in the work, but then told his father, "I'd like to learn about what you and Gabriel do. Indulge ' me.

  "You're ambitious, aren't you?" Pops grinned. "I'm sure ambition runs in your blood like it does in mine. Come on, let's go to my office ""

  They holed up in his father's huge second-floor office, and Pops gave him a rundown on the construction business. Isaiah asked several perceptive questions and shared plenty of insights that surprised his father; after all, Isaiah had been following his father's growing corporation since he was a teenager, reading about it in periodicals he had found at the library. He knew as much about the company as any outsider possibly could.

  "You've got a sharp head on your shoulders," Pops said. They lounged on leather chairs in a comfortable sitting area, sipping coffee. Pops drank from a white mug on which World's #1 Dad was stenciled in green type. A gift from one of his bratty kids. World's #1 Dad? Isaiah wanted to snatch that cup out of his father's hands and bash it against his skull.