A Very Simple Crime (16 page)

The girl wore braces on her legs. Cumbersome metal braces to straighten out recalcitrant legs from curving inward by God knows what childhood disease. We made fun of her. Or, rather, Monty made fun of her and I joined in, already a firm believer of my brother as hero. In my eyes, he could do no wrong. And if the teasing should go a little too far, should it border on cruelty of an adult nature, then so be it. My brother knew what he was doing. If jamming lighted matches into the crevices of her metal braces was what Monty said was the thing to do, then I did it. If deliberately tripping her so that we might make fun as she struggled to get back up was Monty’s idea of idle diversion, then that was what we did. Monty always knew the correct action to take. I had to believe that. I had to believe it then, because doubt was sacrilege. How could you doubt what you aspired to become? I had no choice but to believe it later. Later, when adolescence should have brought a sense of independence and questioning, Monty had assumed the roles of mother, father, and confessor. But for that summer, we were just boys, growing strong and lean and tan in the mountain sun.

Despite our never-ending teasing, the girl, Denise, never considered staying away from us. I didn’t blame her. I too would have borne any humiliation rather than be denied my brother’s presence. I suspect that for her as well as me, Monty was like a magnet. She just wanted to be around him, within his field of current, even if the price was her dignity. And Monty was handsome. Already his shoulders were wide and strong, his legs lean and muscled and dusted with sun-bleached hair. Puberty had blossomed him into a strikingly beautiful (there is no other word) young man. And this beauty would eventually deform his mind so that he saw women only as instruments to be used for his own pleasure. Since he could have any girl, and later, any woman he chose, why not have them all? Indeed, if his cruel taunts and constant degradation could not keep Denise from seeking out his male beauty, how must it have affected his emerging ego?

There was an incident. Our parents and Denise’s parents had gone down the mountain and into the small town for an afternoon of shopping. Monty, as the oldest, was given charge of Denise and me. We were to stay with Denise at her parents’ cabin. Our mother had given Monty and me a solemn look and told us to behave ourselves. Denise’s mother did likewise and cautioned Denise to stay away from the lake. No sooner had our parents’ car left than Monty started in on Denise.

“Hey, Denise, wanna go swimmin’? Oh, wait, that’s right, you can’t swim, you’re a fuckin’ cripple.”

She took it like always, outwardly annoyed, but inwardly, I knew, simply glad to have some degree of Monty’s attention.

“Sticks and stones, Monty Lee. Why can’t you just be nice for once?”

“I don’t wanna be nice. I like bein’ mean.” Then he added, “Especially bein’ mean to cripples like you.” He must have had some sense of his power over her.

“Oh, you’re mean all right. You should try to be more like Adam.”

“You’re crazy and a cripple,” I said, wanting to demonstrate quite clearly that I was on Monty’s side in this and all matters. Still, I disliked talking harshly to her. Not that I was above such things as talking harshly to girls; far from it, I reveled in it on the school playground. And it was not a sense of pity for her, of that I’m sure. In truth, Denise was actually an attractive girl. Her hair was jet black and constantly clean and shiny. I sometimes daydreamed of touching it or smelling it. In her hair was hidden a lovely paradox that I thought only I could see. Her hair was so black that sometimes, in the sun’s light, the faint curls managed to somehow capture the light and refract it back in secret rainbows of color. I sometimes wondered what it might be like to kiss her. These thoughts would set off a buzzing in my head and cloud my mind for hours, wonderful hours. I of course would never admit to these feelings, because Denise was clearly a person to be scorned, beneath even my idle daydreams. Monty had unequivocally demonstrated that, had rigidly set the parameters that I must follow. She was not worthy of admiration in even an innocent boyhood crush. Yet, for all of that, could a boy be blamed for noting with delight that her breasts were just developing? Could I be blamed for thinking of the small swells beneath her cotton shirts? Thinking of these things late into the night and coveting a secret erection beneath the blankets. Can a boy be blamed for his awakening sexuality?

“You better be nice to me.”

“Or what?”

“Or else you’ll never find out.”

“Find out what?”

“My secret.”

“You haven’t got a secret,” Monty said.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“What could a freak know that would be worth knowing?”

“Be nice and you’ll find out.”

“This is as nice as I get. Tell me the secret. I’m gettin’ bored.”

“It’s not a secret you tell. It’s a secret thing.”

“A secret thing?”

The pleasure in her eyes was unmistakable. She had actually gotten my brother to express interest. “Yeah. I took it from my dad.”

“Let’s see it.”

“Are you gonna be nice?”

“Just get it.”

How could she refuse? I could not have. She turned stiffly on her braces and lurched toward her bedroom. From her room, we could hear drawers opening and closing. We heard the sounds of metal fasteners unsprung. “Hurry up already,” Monty yelled to her. After a while, she was back. She came through the door wearing a new pair of clingy cotton shorts. The braces were off her legs. There were white cross marks engraved in the flesh of her thighs where the metal braces had pressed against her pale skin. She walked with an alarming grace.

“See, my legs are normal. I’m not a cripple. I just have to wear the braces so my legs won’t grow in crooked. I have nice legs. See?”

Monty was having none of it. “Is that your secret? Big fuckin’ deal. You’ll always be a cripple to me.”

“I thought you were gonna be nice. And besides, that’s not the secret. This is the secret.” And she pulled her hand out from behind her back, and held out a nearly full bottle of gin. “I stole it from my dad. A little at a time in an empty bottle.”

“Oh, yeah?” Monty’s expression had changed from one of idle contempt to one of outright intrigue. His face clearly stated that this was truly a secret thing. And at that moment, how could Denise feel anything other than triumphant, just as I felt defeat. Something passed between them in that brief moment, and it sickened me.

“Let’s get drunk,” she said.

Monty arched his eyebrows in doubt. It was a mannerism he would use repeatedly as an adult in the courtroom to communicate his disdain silently and effectively. “You’ll get sick. You can’t drink liquor.”

“Sure I can,” Denise said, and turned the bottle up. She took a large gulp. A shudder ran through her body as the gin settled in her stomach. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and held the bottle out to Monty. I have no idea if he had ever drunk before or even wanted to, but he had no choice now. It was drink or look weak in the eyes of the outcast. He took a drink, tentative at first, but it quickly grew into a gulp. His swallow would be larger than hers had been, of that there would be no question should such issues be brought into discussion later. He winced at the bite of the alcohol but didn’t cough or choke. That would have been unthinkable, humiliating. He handed the bottle back to her, and she offered it to me. Monty waved her hand away.

“No. Not Adam. He’s too young.”

I protested, but only halfheartedly, partly because Monty had spoken and I could never break his resolve, but mostly because I wanted nothing to do with this. At the same time, I also hated the fact that they were sharing a secret without me. Now I was the weaker. The uninitiated. How proud she must feel, having insinuated herself between us, having gotten through to Monty, being allowed to bask in his glow, exist within his magnetic field.

Denise took another swallow and passed the bottle back to Monty. They drank in a solemn silence like cultists administering a lethal poison. At other times they would both erupt in gales of laughter without a word having been exchanged, as though a joke had passed between them by telepathy. They drank until there was only a few inches of liquid left in the bottle. When Monty reached again for the gin, she held it away from him.

“No, it’s not free anymore,” she said, and giggled.

“Whadda ya mean, not free?” Monty’s speech was slurred, and it scared me. The liquor had changed him. I believed that then, that it was the alcohol at fault. Later, I would believe that the liquor had not so much changed him as intensified him. Given us a glimpse of the Monty to come.

“I mean you have to pay for it,” Denise said.

“Pay for it? How much?”

“Not money.”

“What?”

“A dare.”

“Fine.”

“You have to touch my leg. To prove it’s normal.”

“You’re fuckin’ crazy. I’m not touchin’ your fucked-up leg.”

“Okay. I guess you don’t want a drink then.”

Monty thought it over. As he thought, his upper body weaved like a bowling pin about to topple over. Then a smile came to his lips. “Okay. I’ll touch your leg.”

They both grew quiet. Even drunk, they both knew this was a monumental thing. I did too. It seemed as though they had forgotten about my being in the room with them. But I knew Monty had not forgotten me, and even if he had, he had not forgotten himself. This was a trick. I knew it. It had to be. My brother, drunk or not, would never, never ever, give in so easily to such blatant manipulation. He had something planned. He would touch her leg and then fall to the floor in mock agony. He would hold on to his arm and say she had infected it with her disability. He would simply snatch the gin bottle from her hand and laugh at her with contempt.

Monty reached out and tentatively placed his fingertips on her shin. Roughly he cupped his hand around her smooth calf and fumbled his hand under her knee and continued his caress jerkily up the inside her thigh.

“You’re right. It’s normal.”

I waited for the trick, the insult, but I was disappointed. There was no joke. Worse still, Monty’s voice was different. It was thick, husky, and I knew that it was not from the alcohol. And that alarmed me even more. Where was the punch line to this awful, awful joke?

“I told you. It feels good, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, it’s okay. Now gimme.” Monty took the bottle and drank from it. When he finished, he held the bottle back out to Denise, and when she reached for it, he jerked it back.

“Hey!”

“It’s not free anymore.”

“Okay. What do you want?”

“I dare you. I dare you to take off your shirt and let me see your tits.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“As a matter of fact, I would.”

Denise needed no time to think it over. This was what she wanted, what she had planned all along, I believed. “Okay, I don’t care. I have a good body.” She pulled off her top, and then her bra without his asking. Monty reached out and grabbed one of her budding breasts. He held it with a rough awkwardness, kneading it with callous curiosity.

“You see. I have a good body. You wanna see more?” Denise asked.

“Sure.”

She pulled off her shorts and her pink panties. I stared, but I didn’t see her. I didn’t want to see her.

Naked, she turned to Monty. “Now you.” And Monty did. He pulled off his shirt, pants, and socks. He stood before her, allowing her to look at his body. His underwear bulged out in front with his excitement. He pulled off the briefs. His penis was engorged and huge. It seemed an enraged exclamation, an appendage of anger. The thick swatch of pubic hair that engulfed it alarmed me. A dense, profuse tangle that stood out in coarse contrast to his other, sun-bleached hair. It looked obscene.

Her genitals were nearly hairless. Faint dark curls were only beginning to sprout in a discernible triangle shape. The lips of her vagina were smooth and discreet and somehow alien. My head began to hum and buzz, but not in the pleasant fashion of my romantic daydreams, but in an unpleasant, sickening throb. Denise lay on the floor and parted her legs as Monty approached, and I could see the pink flesh inside her. My head ached like a rotten tooth and wanted to crack open with the wasplike hum deafening me from the inside out. And yet, for all that, there was still a perverse excitement, and, I was ashamed to discover, a stiffening in my pants. I watched as my brother took her. The first girl to capture my romantic interest and to stir my burgeoning sexual desire. I watched as my brother took all of that away from me. He was rough, awkward, and there was blood. She bit back her pain and closed her eyes in grim determination. She was going to let this happen, no matter what the cost. She was going to let this golden boy have her. She was going to savor his wanting of her, his clumsy passion for her, yes, this passion directed at her. Tears streamed from her eyes and I could not tell if it was from happiness or pain, but I knew it was one of the two. She was wanted. And like the cruel taunts and teasing, any pain was bearable to be wanted. And to be wanted by such a boy as my brother.

Monty was quick. I watched as his back convulsed and he thrust spasmodically into her. He collapsed on top of her, resting his spent body on hers. And I saw her smile. He climbed off her, his penis still swollen and swinging lazily. Blood dripped from it. I could see more blood encrusted blackly in his pubic hair. He smiled at me and began to pull on his underwear, and all I could think was what would our mother say when she saw the bloodstains on his white briefs. He winked at me and said, “Wanna give her a try?” And the throbbing returned to my head and a flush heated my skin. I looked at Denise. She lay prone and naked in front of me. She stared back at me. Beyond her, through her bedroom door, I could see her braces scattered on the floor like the remnants of a metal cocoon. She smiled at me and reached between her legs. She parted her legs even further in a vile and drunken gesture of welcome. Blood was smeared between her white thighs like a violent inkblot.