by Tina Amiri
“I already told you…only Lila knows where I am, and I’m supposed to be hiding from everybody else.”
This was the life Night had pictured when Lila told him he would meet his brother.“I guess you really aren’t full of shit after all,” Morgen granted, witnessing Night’s anticipation as they waited for the curtain to rise. “I assume that you never went to school either?”
“Lila mentioned school, but no… Why, did you?”
“Of course, but I didn’t exactly qualify for the attendance award. I was always a little busy writing songs.”
Those were his last words before the lights dimmed and the curtain lifted as though rising to the theme of his new life.
****
Night gained hints about his progress in conquering both the acoustic and electric guitar by reading his brother’s face. It tended to be during a music lesson that Morgen would open up about other things, like who lived inside his enormous house.
“There are four of us: Dad, Mom, Beth, and Sandy. Sandy’s our housekeeper, and he’s a guy, just so you’re not confused…and he’s an idiot. He’s always trying every sort of get-rich-quick scheme—yet he’s still our housekeeper—so you can figure out for yourself how well they’ve paid off. You don’t have to worry about Sandy barging in here, though. He doesn’t come into this area because Mom doesn’t believe he should have to clean any of the private rooms…so if you ever feel like doing some cleaning, feel free.”
Night found it interesting how Morgen’s family had a housekeeper that lived in the house. Even before Andrew stopped the cleaners from coming to their house, he’d never even seen them.
“Beth, as you know, is my sister… You keep getting that chord wrong!” Morgen fired, making Night jump before he continued, calmly. “I already told you that we’re both adopted and that Mom can’t have kids, but nobody is supposed to know that. She tries to pretend that this fucked up family is perfect, just like Dad does.”
“Make it sound more like this…” Morgen plucked out the same melody with a different modulation. “Dad’s a corporate lawyer, but he’s hoping to become District Councilman after the next election, and eventually, Senator. You may have heard of him by now: Frederick Dahlsi? Then again, you probably haven’t. Anyway, he’s really playing up the nice family thing right now, with the election coming up.” It took a moment for Morgen’s voice to run clean again. “I’m kind of Mom’s favorite because, as you know, we’re joined by our history…which, I’m sure, Dad resents. But he’s always been nice to me.”
The thought of seeing Brigitte made Night’s insides lurch. Although she’d left Andrew a long time ago, Night couldn’t ignore that they had once been together—married—and he still saw her as the woman who guarded many secrets in death. What would it be like, he wondered, to finally confront the dead?
“Creepy,” Morgen proclaimed. “You’re so fucking good at this. You’ve probably got a hundred percent of your brain cells dedicated to this one skill, never having devoted any to anything else.”
“Morgen, when am I going to get to meet any of these people?”
Morgen just continued to flip the pages of his handwritten music that sprawled all over the coffee table.
“And what’s going to happen to me when you get well? What if I learn all this stuff and you don’t need me anymore? Are you going to tell me to leave?” Night focused on his hands and worked on polishing an intricate sequence as he waited for a response. When one didn’t come, he asked again. “Is that what you’re going to do, Morgen, because I can’t go home, ever?”
Morgen slammed down his sheets, then reached over and ripped the power cord from the body of Night’s guitar. “I’m not going to get better, you moron!”
“Why wouldn’t you? I was really sick once and I got better—and you don’t look half as sick as I was.”
“Well, I’m sorry I’m not limping around on crutches or dragging around an IV pole to make it more convincing! You want to know the truth? Fine, let’s launch this epic pity party. I’m already having more days where I can’t stop puking, or even use my hands properly…and they said that when this gets worse, my lungs are going to fill up with all kinds of crap and I won’t even be able to talk or breathe, let alone sing. Not such great news when you’re a lead singer in a band. So, I hate to break it to you, brainwave, but I’m not that kind of sick!”
Night set his slain guitar on the floor. “But you’ll get better someday, won’t you? You’re not going to…?” His brother’s exaggerated nod prompted the next logical question. “Can’t anything help you? Aren’t there any pills?”
“Yeah, I think they’re called ‘wishful thinking’ and I’ve been taking them for weeks. And to answer your next question, I’m not going for any more treatments. The fact is, my chance of recovery is about five percent, and if you’d gone to school you would know that five percent is not good—so there is no point. I don’t plan to trade what useful time I have left for months of bullshit in hospitals that won’t change anything in the end.”
Night could feel the world grinding to a stop like it had only once before: right before he set fire to the Emerald Shore. “I still don’t understand what’s wrong with you.”
“It’s bone cancer, this time…Ewing’s Sarcoma. Same shit as before…much bigger bucket. I’m over it—believe me—but it’s the timing that really bites. That concert we missed because of me…it would have launched the band. We would’ve got at least one album recorded before I croaked, and that’s all I wanted. The agent who got us that gig told me it was ‘in the bag.' There were going to be some big-label reps at that concert and all we had to do was show up and play. Now I’m back to square one and I just don’t have enough time to go back there.”
It couldn’t have been any worse for either of them. Although Morgen already told him he could stay, the world now imposed a strict time limit in which he had to catch up on nineteen years of missed learning, or else suffer the consequences. Memories of the homeless man he’d met on the street in Oregon flashed through Night’s mind.
“Listen… I can’t just wait around for another big opportunity to fall on my lap, and I can’t even promise the others that I’ll always be able to make it to our gigs, but you…” Morgen continued, as feared, “you can do this. This isn’t impossible. My family thinks I’m better than ever, and I haven’t told the band, or even Steve, what’s really going on. And you keep on whining that you need a place to live… The truth is, you need something more than that. You need a life…and I’m in a position to give that to you.”
Night didn’t react. Andrew would have been pleased if he’d always been this mute.
“Look, all I want is for you to see me through one recording contract, one album that will put a handful of my songs on the charts, and then you can do whatever you want—and it’s not like you won’t be well compensated.”
“I don’t even know what you’re saying.”
“Night, I’m offering you my life, my family, my friends, my home, my car, my name and everything that would be due to me in the future—in other words, a shitload of cash. You can keep the whole package if you want or take the money and run. Start a new life, if that’s more important to you, although you’ll already have what most people can only dream of…you’ll be famous…a rock star.” Morgen’s predatory eyes closed. “What can possibly be wrong with this offer?”
A hush swept the room as both minds flailed in chaos.
“It’s not all going to happen overnight. I’ll teach you everything you need to know and I’ll even get you a voice coach—since talking is still kind of a new thing for you. This was meant to be, twin brother. Just think about how you existed for all this time but were hidden from the world. It’s destiny…and there is only one for the both of us.”
Night knew better than to voice his contention, but it refused to be hushed. “I just thought I was finally done with secrets and pretending.”
Morgen stood up and banged his guitar on the tab
le. “Will you stop being such a pussy? You got only two choices. You can get the fuck out of my house and go back to your freaky life with your freaky father, or whatever the fuck he is, or you can stay here and get with the program that actually makes sense—especially if you’re running from the law! Leave if you want, but if you do, then neither of us will stand a chance.”
Night flushed at the vision of his new puppet master—but at least this one wanted to teach him things and flaunt him in front of the largest audience imaginable. “Do you really think I can learn to be just like you?”
“Christ no, but your only mission is to get my songs out there. It’s not my problem if people want to think I had a personality transplant.”
Night became transfixed. He saw something compelling in Morgen’s ridiculous scheme when he focused beyond the depressing reality of his brother’s illness and that his life would once again revolve around a charade. Regardless of the name he used, it would still be his face and his voice that the public would come to know…even across the border, in Oregon.
****
A call came through on Lila’s floor, shortly after she began her evening shift. Her skin prickled when she heard Andrew’s voice, in spite of his new, gentler approach.
“To what depths of hell do you plan to send me, Lila? I just want to know where Night is…and that he’s safe.”
Lila’s voice emerged, choked-up and guttural. “I assure you, he’s very safe…finally. I knew you owned a restaurant, Andrew, but you never told me that you were also a butcher.”
“It can be dangerous to jump to conclusions, Lila. You got the Sheriff’s Office all riled up about those marks on Night’s body, for nothing. I had to explain it to them, that no matter how much we try, we can’t always teach our children well. Sometimes, they just choose the wrong path, get in with the wrong crowd…partake in the unthinkable.”
“What?”
“I never would have pictured that little girl, Daphne, all dressed in black leather.”
Just for one second, Lila considered his innuendo and then, brimming with revulsion, shook it off as a lie. “What is wrong with you?” She blocked any attempt for Andrew to respond. “Don’t ever call me again, you sick son-of-a-bitch—and don’t even think of coming here or to my house!”
“I won’t come to your house, Lila, but you will tell me what I need to know.”
Then he simply hung up.
****
Despite his condition, Morgen held to the task of teaching his obscenely naïve brother about the world.
It continued to astonish Night, how someone could function while eating almost nothing, but Morgen’s cocktail of drugs and tenacity kept him going, at least most days.
One morning, when Morgen failed to meet him in the guest room, Night crept into his room and used his brother’s bedside telephone to call for breakfast, mimicking what he’d once observed. Sandy informed him, with a cool graciousness, that he was in the middle of handling other requests and he would have to come down and get what he needed himself.
Night accepted the challenge and went into the kitchen, finding the man who, until now, he’d only known by name and position in the house. Sandy, a tall, young individual, with a narrow face and hair reminiscent of the previous decade, turned to Night and gave him an indulgent smirk. He granted Night a quick flashback to his life at the Emerald Shore, especially when Night saw that Sandy had already prepared and set aside his order, complete with garnishes. He grabbed the plate with the omelet for himself and the orange juice for Morgen, thanked Sandy, and fled the kitchen.
He stopped abruptly, on his way through the foyer, and stared down at his feet where a small animal tried to challenge him, unlike any of the skittish creatures of the emerald coastline. The protests belching from its foxlike snout increased by the second and he wondered why Sandy didn’t care to see about the problem. Night set the meal down on a console table and turned to the menace that shrieked with astonishment when he snatched it by the scruff of the neck, carried it to the front door, and promptly cast it out of the house. Finally, Night gathered the two breakfasts that looked like one and returned to his brother’s bedside.
“Go away,” Morgen responded listlessly to Night’s tap on the shoulder.
“Morgen…you’re sick. You have to eat or you’ll die.”
Morgen’s fist came up, lightning-fast, and sent the glass flying across the room. “Yes, I’m going to die, but I’m not going to die right now, okay? Now screw off and leave me alone if you can manage that for an hour!”
There were days like that. Night occupied himself by studying photographs or looking through books that Morgen thought would help him with his crash education.
When Morgen joined him, hours later, Night saw that his brother was starting to grasp the magnitude of his undertaking.
“I thought you said you could read! What, like a Dick and Jane reader, maybe?
But his progress annoyed Morgen just as much—when it threatened to expose his brother’s secrets.
“I don’t always understand what you’re trying to say in these songs,” Night admitted. “Except in this one…” He pointed to a title and leaned closer to Morgen, who refused to stop flipping through his sheet music. “Listen to what you wrote…”
Inside the blackness
Like a spark from flint
Another glimpse of the familiar
A tossing head with an auburn tint
Morgen tried to brush him off with a sneer, but Night didn’t give up.
Just one soul
Though lives there’s two
It’s a low-frequency thunder
In the rift between me and you
“You knew about me, didn’t you—I mean, not exactly—but in the same way that I saw you all the time? You say you never felt anything, but that’s what this song is about, isn’t it?”
“Will you knock it off? It’s just a generic theme. I’m just talking about how two people had a connection before ever meeting, like soul-mates.”
“I know—”
“And I’m hardly talking about you. Anyway, it’s just a song.”
“They’re never just a song, and you called it My Other Side.”
“As in ‘other half, partner, some chick’—not my idiot brother. Just keep reading and make sure you don’t get stuck on any words.” Unable to find a particular song, Morgen threw all of his papers aside and headed for his minibar where he grabbed his trusty box of supplies and performed his strange ritual for the second time today.
“What is that stuff?” Night asked, at last.
Morgen turned his eyes up, revealing a hint of amusement. “It helps kill the pain.”
“You know, Morgen…I really did see you in my dreams. I thought I was just seeing myself with white hair, but it was obviously you trying to tell me something. And not only that… I’ve also felt your pain.”
Morgen flashed a disturbed glance his way. Perhaps the solidity of his narrative kept Morgen from mocking him.
“Sometimes, I still do. I feel it mostly in my right hand,” Night added as he uncurled his fingers, “and then it goes away.”
Morgen’s face now displayed unadulterated fear. “Wouldn’t it be just my luck if you had it too? Just keep it together until after the first album’s recorded.”
****
It became a priority for Night to also get familiar with the grounds in back of the house. He’d only seen the swimming pool from the common room window, until today.
“Morgen?” a girlish voice tickled the air as Night sniffed around the pool house like a new housecat.
By the time he’d turned around, the teen girl had closed the distance between them. Even in her flats she stood taller than Daphne, with a curvier silhouette. The short cover she wore over her swimsuit invited his evaluation.
“Yes, it’s me, Beth,” she divulged as though she had read his thoughts. “Or is there something in my hair?” she added, scrunching her bushy, ash-blond ponytail with
both hands.
A persistent barking in the distance pulled his attention the opposite way. “Hi…no…I like your hair,” he managed, once he focused on Beth again. He liked everything about her.
“‘Hi…I like your hair’?” she echoed. “You’re not going to give me a hard time about anything? My dress is not too short? My hair is not too poufy?” she swayed with a giggle.
Night retorted with a defensive shrug. He had no desire to be just like his brother.
“Oh, you’re no fun lately.” Her shoulders fell. “Is there something wrong with you, Morgen? Are you sick again?” Her eyes grew big. “Did they find something else?”
“I’m not sick,” he snapped.
Beth scowled. “Then it’s drugs. Don’t lie to me, Morgen. You’ve been acting pretty weird, lately, and it wouldn’t be a new thing.”
If Beth thought the real Morgen seemed a bit off, how could he ever pass her inspection? “I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong me, and I’m not taking any stuff.”
Her pout remained. “I’ll be watching you, Morgen Dahlsi, so you better not try to hide anything from me. I always know.”
****
Night both dreamed about and dreaded meeting Brigitte Morgen Dahlsi. He didn’t know if he could face her without confronting her about the past, so he stalked her instead, watching her flit in and out of the foyer until his curiosity drove him to ask her what she was doing.
Even at close range, Brigitte looked young for her age, her face meticulously made-up, her dramatic dark waves strategically arranged around her face, and her body trim and well dressed. She clearly devoted herself to the cause.
“Oh, Morgen, we can’t find Lexi…”
Lexi? he wondered as Brigitte slipped into the living room.
“What if she got outside? Oh…” she wailed from the other side of a wall.
Night ran straight to Morgen, who remained as he’d left him, sitting at the edge of his bed, plucking away at his guitar strings.
“Who’s Lexi?”
“Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the dog…Mom’s Pomeranian. She’s got one.” Morgen looked down and continued to pluck.