The Little Brother (11 page)

I closed my eyes, sensing something in the fireworks, something of the danger in just being alive. Living and breathing and existing as a part of this crazy world, not understanding what anything meant. Trying to make sense, struggling. It felt as if I could shatter, and that then I'd be nothing. I'd felt this way a few times before, and it always terrified me, like my body couldn't contain me—or at least all the feelings inside me. It wasn't just the idea of being nothing that scared me, but what it might feel like to shatter.

For some reason, I remembered Tove's wet sock on our path as we'd left the night before. Had I gotten so drunk to try to forget about her?

Then I thought about her parents, my brother, his friends, my parents, Nancy, me. With my eyes closed and head back, the fireworks created patterns on my eyelids.

Dizzy, I brought my head forward between my knees, breathing in my Levi's. The chaos inside my head wouldn't settle.

I took deep, gulping breaths.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”—Mike's voice.

I lifted my head and smiled at him. He had leaned to the side of his chair so that he could reach me, and it looked like he might tip over.

I wanted to say, I'm lost and scared, but instead I said, “Yeah. Still a little hungover, I think.”

But I didn't have to explain.

“Hey, Even,” he said, tilting his chair back in place, “what do you say let's just take it easy tonight? Hang with the folks, then you can spend the night?”

I nodded, trying to appear nonchalant.

After the show ended, Mike folded and collapsed his chair, and then he picked up trash.

I stayed in my chair for a moment, watching people bring about order, a general bustling of purpose, and then I joined them.

13.

JULY 5

I
SPENT THE NIGHT
at Mike's house on the Fourth, and so the police left me alone for the most part, since I wasn't home anywhere near the time of the event. Mike's parents vouched for my whereabouts. And we had different friends: All of Gabe's were from Cucamonga, mine from Newport. But later an investigating officer did ask me if I'd noticed anything different about my brother the afternoon of the fifth, when I returned home.

“No, sir,” I said; true, for the most part.

Gabe, at the time, weighed about a hundred pounds, and was barely five feet tall at seventeen years old. The Ks, on the other hand, almost a full year older than Gabe, weighed close to seventy pounds more than him, nearing six feet each.

But Gabe wasn't the underdog: What he lacked in height and weight he made up for in craftiness, homing in on weaknesses and insecurities, teasing both Kent and Kevin about their working-class backgrounds, calling them the Fontucky Fags, since both their families had moved from Fontana.

I didn't want to think about the ugly side of Gabe, the horrible things he said to his friends, the ways that he imitated them and joked around, using his cleverness in a bullying manner.

Rather, I concentrated on the brother that I knew and loved so well: charming, friendly, funny, sensitive. Instead I blamed the Ks, bullish football thugs, and a bad influence on Gabe.

I no longer underestimate a person's—including my own—capacity for revisionism and rationalizations.

So I said, “No, sir,” and didn't tell the investigating officer that when I came home that afternoon, I sensed something bad had happened. How could I explain that the air inside the house felt different—heavier, perilous, as if still radiating with the crime that had recently been committed?

Gabe and Kevin were talking in the living room. Neither of them heard me come inside through the back door into the kitchen.

Gabe leaned forward in Dad's chair and Kevin sat on the couch. I could see them over the bar that opened from the kitchen to the living room.

Kevin's brow furrowed, as if they'd been speaking about something serious, and I could see Gabe's profile. He was barefoot, and wore his blue long board shorts and no shirt.

I moved a few steps closer to watch and listen, with the risk of being seen.

In a steady, deliberate voice, Gabe said, “Listen, shut up, it's not a big deal.”

Kevin bowed his head. He wore a torn T-shirt, plaid shorts, and black Vans with no socks. Next to Nancy's white zippered Bible
on the coffee table in front of him (she left the Bible there, I'm convinced, hoping to convert one of us while we watched TV) were the remains of nachos on a paper plate. Gabe's specialty, ready-grated cheese on tortilla chips, microwaved for a minute, topped with Old El Paso mild salsa from a jar.

Gabe settled back in Dad's chair.

Kevin, to my great surprise, stood and walked to him and—to this day, I'm still surprised, but I know what I saw—he knelt in front of the recliner and set his head in Gabe's lap.

Gabe stroked Kevin's dark hair.

It continued.

Holy shit, I thought. What the hell is happening? All I knew for sure was that Kevin and Gabe had done something that they shouldn't have, and that they might be doing other things, too, and that they'd kill me if they knew I was there.

I backtracked slowly, making my way to the door as quietly as possible, wanting a glass of water, but knowing that I needed to escape. The thought of what I'd seen roiled my stomach, and suddenly I had to use the bathroom. It was warm and still out, the sky a hazy white that made me somehow more nauseated.

I circled around the yard, came to the front door, made considerable noise opening it and walking down the hallway. Coughed a few times. When I reached the entry to the living room, I saw with relief that Kevin was back on the couch.

Not able to make it to my bathroom, I released my bowels into the toilet in the half bathroom near the living room. My skin wet with sweat, I flushed the toilet, washed my hands, and then stood
before the door, not wanting to exit. The fan made its whirring noise, but I could hear them talking, though I couldn't make out what they said. At one point I heard my name.

But I had nowhere to go. They both watched me come through the door, and Gabe smiled at my apparent discomfort, trying to put me at ease.

“What's the matter?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“You sick?” said Kevin. He said this without real concern or empathy or interest.

“Nah,” I said. “I'm fine.” I decided to change the subject. “Where's Dad?”

“He's not here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. He's with Nancy somewhere.”

I said nothing for a moment. “How was your Fourth?” I asked, thinking small talk might help.

They looked at each other and laughed. I waited until they quieted.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Want to see?” said Kevin.

Gabe wouldn't look me in the eyes.

“See what?”

“Our Fourth,” said Kevin.

“What do you mean?” I had no idea. I noticed Gabe's Samsung video camera beside him on the chair. “Gabe?” I said.

For a long, horrible moment, Gabe continued to avoid eye contact with me, setting his hand on the camera.

“What do you think I mean?” Kevin asked.

Then I knew. “You made a porno,” I said.

“That's right,
amigo
,” Kevin said. “Wanna watch?”

I leaned against the wall, feeling light-headed. “Who's in it?” I asked. “Gabe, are you in it?”

Gabe shrugged. “No one you know,” he said.

“Jesus, Gabe,” I said. “What did you do?”

“Don't worry,” he said.

I stared at him and didn't say anything.

I was ready to ignore what Kevin and my brother told me about making a porno, just as I disregarded the repugnant parts of my brother's personality.

I'd like to say that at this point, I knew that Tove might somehow be involved, and I also knew that I had a moral duty to investigate further, to make sure that she hadn't been hurt.

But I don't recall being torn morally.

Rather, I would like to have forgotten the whole deal.

People love to be indignant. “If it had been me,” they like to say, if they suspect that an acquaintance or family member might be a rapist, molester, drug dealer, thief, et cetera, “I would've turned him or her in right away.”

But they don't know what it's like. Or they're lying. It's far more comfortable and easy to remain stupid and silent. Like I would have.

14.

JULY 6

M
Y CELL RANG
at 4:13 that morning. I know because I looked at the neon numbers glowing from my alarm clock, my first angry thought being, Who's calling me this early?

Dad and I had watched TV late into the night, like when I'd first moved in with him, no Gabe or Nancy. An episode of
20/20
and then
The Jerk.
Gabe had gone somewhere, leaving with a quick good-bye.

During
The Jerk,
Dad drank two martinis, grunting now and then instead of laughing. At one point, when he got up to use the bathroom, he paused and put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. He wore a black sweater with a teal blue golf shirt underneath, the collar peeking out.

I snacked on popcorn and drank a bottle of Orangina that I'd found in the back of the refrigerator.

“G'night, Even,” Dad said as the credits rolled on the screen, setting his glasses case next to the remote. “Sweet dreams.” He smoothed my hair with his hand, and then he left for bed.

An easy sleep for me, and then my cell ringing. I fumbled for my phone, opened it, and stared up at the ceiling.

“Even,” said Sara. Crying, unmistakably. A terrified, gulping-for-breath crying.

We still talked a lot on the phone, about everything—school, work, fears, families, ambitions, philosophies, books, movies.

She'd even told me once that she couldn't stop drinking—wasn't sure if she wanted to—and that she also had a problem with cocaine. “You're the only one who knows about the coke,” she'd said. “Joe thinks I quit.”

Joe was her boyfriend, a local amiable pot dealer who knew both Gabe and Kevin since he dealt to them.

I'd adjusted to being just Sara's friend. I was jealous of Joe, sure, but it was better than not having a relationship with her at all.

I'd met Joe once at a party I went to with Mike. Joe was wearing a cowboy hat, long sandy hair peeking out, handsome, tall, and I'd had an urge to slam him against the wall, but then he left for the other room to drop off a bag of weed.

Sara had stayed in the hallway with me. Her eyes had met mine. She was wearing a cashmere sweater, a soft gray color. Her eyes were luminous, a dark greenish-gold, and she'd smiled and said, “Don't be mad, Even. I really like Joe. But you're my best friend.”

During the last phone conversation we'd had, before hanging up she'd said, “I'm really glad that I met you, Even,” and I'd said, “I'm really glad, too.”

“Even,” she said now, on the phone, “help me.”

My gut clenched. “What is it? What happened, Sara? Where are you?” I rolled over, sat up, and turned on the lamp. Car accident, I
thought, death, limbs torn off, drinking and driving, beaten by her jackass pot-dealing boyfriend.

Blinking, I was relieved to find in the light the regularity and familiarity of my bedroom. But that Sara was crying scared me considerably. She's a tough girl. I'd never seen or heard her cry before, and I haven't seen or heard her cry since.

She gave me Joe's address on Amethyst (he'd rented a house for a week on Balboa Island that summer), told me that I needed to come right now, right this second, no time to waste. She couldn't tell me why. It would take too long to explain.

“Hurry, Even,” she said, in a hushed and shaky voice. “Don't tell anyone. Don't let anyone see you. Just come.”

I did hurry, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, no shoes, pulling on a hooded zipper-front sweatshirt on my way out, and forgetting my driver's license. Careful not to make noise as I shut the front door; starting the BMW parked at the curb and flinching, wanting it to be quieter. I noticed only a few cars on the road, headlights lighting up the darkness.

I couldn't find a place to park—if you've been to Balboa Island in the summer, you know what I mean—but I finally got a spot three blocks from the house. Running down the street in my bare feet, my teeth rattling and my sweatshirt flapping behind me, I had a strong urge to turn back around.

But I thought about Sara crying and kept going.

She was waiting for me outside the house near the patio, behind a tree, and she came out when she saw me, her hands wrapped around her chest, trembling. She wore a thin pale blue dress—at first I thought it a nightgown—and no shoes.