by Joe Clifford
“I don’t. But, whatever.” I tried to wrap my brain around this. A business? “What exactly do they do at this shop?” I couldn’t picture my brother as an entrepreneur. Or see him associating with anyone that upstanding. I knew Chris and his junkie buddies were into that cyber crap, video games or whatever, but broke-ass derelicts who skate between couches and homelessness aren’t nabbing primo interest rates on small business loans.
“Trade, sell. Used crap. Busted stereos, tape decks, speakers. Old electronics. Most of their business is e-recycling.”
“E-recycling?”
“I don’t know much about that egghead stuff, Jay. Way I understand it, people drop off their old computers and Chris and Pete throw them away for them.”
“Why would you pay someone to throw away your computer for you? Just dump it in a goddamn trash can.”
Turley shrugged.
“Chris doesn’t have any money.” Collection agencies call my number all the time trying to get paid. “How did my brother get anyone to rent him a space?”
“Lease is in Betty Naginis’ name,” said Turley, slurping his coffee. “Pete’s mom.”
“Listen, I’ve been working all day. I’m tired as shit. I’d like to pop by Jenny’s and say good night to my kid. I don’t know any Pete. Or where he is. Ask my brother.”
“I tried. He just goes on and on about some conspiracy and how we’re all in on it. One minute he’s going off about Pete, the next, Gerry Lombardi and the wrestling team.”
“He’s had a thorn up his ass about Mr. Lombardi for twenty years.”
“Then he was shouting about you.”
“What about me?”
“I don’t know, man. I’m telling you, he wasn’t making any sense. Talking a mile a minute, eyes bugging out his skull, arms flailing like a drunk monkey. Y’know when someone presents a danger to himself or others, I have the obligation to lock him up.”
“My brother’s nuts. Three years ago he was convinced he had Ebola. Last spring he cut up Jenny’s People magazine to show how freemasons run Hollywood. He’s bat-shit crazy.”
“Trust me, I’m used to your brother’s antics. Normally, I’d let him sober up, send him on his way. But it’s different this time. A man is missing.”
“Forty-year-old junkies sometimes don’t come home to their mamas. Don’t act like this is something more than it is.”
“He was overheard threatening to kill the guy.”
“When?”
“Up at the Naginis house. Couple days ago. I guess Betty lets Chris crash there from time to time. Use the shower and stuff. She said him and her son got into a real knock-down, drag-out fight, and that when she finally managed to pull them apart, Chris leveled some serious threats.”
“What’d he say, exactly?”
“Y’know, Jay, the usual. ‘You do that and you’ll be sorry,’ ‘You’re a dead man,’ etcetera.”
“In other words, the hotheaded, irrational shit people say when they have an argument.”
“Sure,” Turley said. “But your brother isn’t just anybody. He’s got some history.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You better not be going where I think you are.”
“Cool your jets.”
“Then what was that crack about?”
“It wasn’t a crack.” He stared pleadingly. “Please. Sit back. Relax.”
I sat back. But I wasn’t relaxed.
“Jay, I known you a long time.”
“Don’t you forget it.”
“But I have a job, okay? And I have bosses. This isn’t some party by the reservoir. We’re all grown-ups here.” He showed his palms in mock surrender. “Let’s put the cards on the table, okay? Mano a mano.”
“What cards?”
“The brake line of your folks’ car was tampered with.”
I narrowed my eyes before waving an arm over the tiny room. “You may be able to strut around here, Turley, with your big dick-swinging cop routine, but I seen you with your pants off, with your underwear around your head and you playing a drunken fool, and you got a needle dick.”
“I’m a real cop, Jay. I passed my exams. They gave me the job. So you don’t have a choice. You’ve got to show me some respect.”
“Fuck, I do.” I gnashed my teeth. “My parents drove off a bridge and drowned. Twenty years ago. You were eight years old. You don’t remember jack.”
“We have files. And I’m not the only one who—”
“Drop this small-town innuendo bullshit. I’m tired of it. It’s old, unfounded news. If there had been any evidence, they would’ve arrested my brother and sent him away a long time ago. But they didn’t. Never even charged him. It’s only an issue now because assholes like you who weren’t even there keep bringing it up like a bunch of harpy housewives.”
“Now hold on, Jay—”
“And I’ll tell you something else, Turley. Murderers have motives. Murderers have something to gain. My brother and I lost everything the night our folks died. We lost our house, we lost our money. Chris practically turned into a junkie overnight, and has been living on the street ever since. So don’t come to me now pretending to be a real cop out to solve some big mystery. Go issue your traffic citations and eat your donuts, or whatever the fuck they pay you to do. My brother may be a lying scumbag, but he’s not a killer. I’m sick of people like you implying he had anything to do with them dying. It’s disrespectful to me. And to my brother. And to my parents’ memory. And I’ll tell you something else—you listening to me?”
“Yeah, I’m listening, Jay.”
“Next time you make a crack like that, you’d better be sure there’s room in that cell for me too.”
Turley nodded.
“Now, you plan on charging Chris with something?”
“He hasn’t—I mean—” He stopped and shook his head no.
“Then I’d like to take my brother home.”
“I thought you were coming by,” Jenny said. I couldn’t discern whether the mournful tone in her voice was disgust or disappointment.
I stood in front of the station, under the awning, smoking a cigarette. Intermittently, I’d clomp my boots or blow on my hands, anything to keep the blood flowing. Snow continued to fall—the forecast called for half a foot—temperatures plummeting into single digits. I was still seething. But I made sure to keep calm with Jenny. Anytime I got high strung, her hackles got up, and that never ended well.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wanted to come by. Give Aiden a big kiss for me.”
“He’s already asleep.” Jenny paused. I could hear her working words over in her mind, trying to construct the exact phrase that would cut me the most. One of those fucked-up parts of loving someone. You know the other’s greatest weakness. Instead of doing what you can to protect wounds, you wait for the most opportune times to exploit them.
“I don’t understand you,” she said. “You talk about wanting to spend more time with your son, and all you do is find new ways to let us down.”
“I do want to spend more time with him. And with you. I miss you both.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. I thought she might actually say something encouraging. Then I heard a door slam on her end and Brody grumbling. Jenny must’ve told him it was me on the phone, because the grumbling continued, but the inflection changed.
Turley poked his head out the door into the cold. “He’s all ready.”
“Who’s ready?” Jenny asked.
“Nothing.”
“Who was that? Where are you?”
“The police station.”
“Chris?”
“Yeah.” I knew I’d just hand delivered her the invitation she needed to tear me a new asshole. Half our fights were over Chris and what she saw as my coddling him. I was hardly the guy’s biggest fan these days, but you can’t let people take a shit on your brother, no matter how big a bastard he is. So I braced for what was coming next. Only, nothing did. Then I realized her silence was
actually worse. You don’t waste your time talking when you’ve given up trying. I did the same damn thing with my brother. When I stopped bitching and got off his back, it wasn’t because I was suddenly cool with his fucked-up lifestyle; I just didn’t give a shit anymore. And it sucked being on the receiving end of that ambivalence.
“I’ll stop by tomorrow morning, Jenny. Promise. It’s Saturday, I don’t have any work. Maybe we can—”
“Okay, Jay,” she said.
“I have some money for you too.”
But she’d already hung up.
CHAPTER THREE
We bounced along old country roads in my battered Chevy without talking. Strapped with a ratty, brown backpack in which he carted his world, Chris had bummed a smoke when he first climbed in, but hadn’t spoken a word since. He looked like shit. I’d expected him to look bad; somehow, he looked even worse than that. Half his head was sheared in a bleached-out, homemade haircut, with crusted bloody slits around the ears, like he’d used glass shards for scissors and a toaster for a mirror. In the dim, blue-gray light of the cab, he resembled a cadaver, waxy, colorless flesh drawn tightly over protruding bone. His eyes, two vacuous pits, sat deep in the sockets with giant black rings around them, and his badly neglected teeth stuck out. When he sucked on his cigarette, he pulled so hard, you’d think his eyeballs might disappear straight through the back of his head and the whole thing would instantly turn to ash.
In the five or six months since I’d seen him last, he appeared to have lost weight. I’d seen cancer patients with more meat on their bones. Over six feet, he couldn’t have weighed more than a buck forty. Despite the long time apart, I felt no joy in our reunion. I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual. We were brothers, blood on blood, and that counts for something. There had been a time, right after the accident, when we might’ve been close. But those days were long behind us now.
I steered up Axel Rod Road, past Tyne Machinery, where our father had worked. I could still recall the horror stories he’d tell. Hot solvents scarring the skin, limbs caught in gears, a Gothic novel nightmare. The factory used to employ half of Ashton, but went under years ago. Literally. The building had been abandoned so long that the crumbling structure was sinking back into the earth. Crooked trees and unruly vegetation fastened onto the frame. Roots and weeds erupted from hard soil, sprawling up through the cracks, coiling around anchors and joists, latching onto studs and roof beams. Each time I passed the cracked foundation and shattered glass, I’d think of the tremendous sacrifices our father had made to give us a good home. Which, in turn, would only make me feel like a bigger bastard for not being able to do that for my son.
I glanced over at my brother. Chris didn’t have a coat. He wore the same threadbare T-shirt he always did, dark blue with a pair of faded cherries, from the old Pac-Man arcade game. Every time I saw him he was wearing it. What kind of life do you lead where you only own one T-shirt? His dirty jeans, coated in a slick, greasy sheen, stank like rank cheese and gasoline. With the heater in my truck not working, Chris must’ve been freezing his balls off—I was bundled in layers and could barely keep from shivering. I’d asked him a couple times if he wanted my coat, but he shook me off. I’m sure he’d been outside in worse.
Nothing but static on the radio, which was normal for these parts. CD player was broken and only made a clacking sound when you stuck in a disc. I had a new stereo Tom had given me, still in the box, shrink-wrapped and everything, but I hadn’t bothered opening the package. Which sucked, because I kept my entire music collection in the truck. Anytime I was in the mood for some tunes, stuck fruitlessly twiddling the knob, I’d gaze down at all the music I couldn’t play, and it only served as a reminder that I couldn’t get my act together.
Usually, I didn’t mind the quiet, but tonight, sitting next to my brother, the silence only amplified the distance between us.
The roads hadn’t been plowed, and the town wouldn’t send out trucks until the storm calmed. Couldn’t go faster than fifteen miles an hour or I’d fishtail into a culvert.
“Where we going?” Chris finally asked.
“My place, I guess. Unless you have somewhere else you need to be.” It was a dick thing to say, since we both knew he didn’t. As much as he disgusted me at that moment, I wasn’t kicking my brother out to roam dark, snowy streets in a T-shirt. I didn’t know where he slept most nights. The bus station in Longmont? The Y on Kirby? One of the motels on the Turnpike? A crack den? No fucking idea. This was my flesh-and-blood brother sitting next to me, and the reality of his life was as graspable to me as ether.
Following Turley’s story down at the jail, I’d been anticipating nonstop conspiracy theories and antigovernment gibberish about all the ways the authorities were out to screw Chris. Which was a recurring theme in my brother’s life. Because it was always about him. It was pathetic how Chris tried to inject relevance into his existence this way. He didn’t understand that he was inconsequential, didn’t matter; that he was expendable. They could find my brother frozen beneath a tree in a park or with a needle in his arm in some skid row room, as they most certainly would someday, and nobody’s life would be impacted. Not even mine. In my more honest moments, I’d have to admit, if to no one but myself, that any sorrow I might feel for this loss would immediately be offset by the tremendous sense of relief.
Hank Miller had closed up the station already, so the tiny lot was pitch black. I parked my truck behind the squat brick garage, and made for the small apartment above it. This is where I’d lived for over a decade. What’s that? One-eighth of my life? Maybe more, depending on if I get cut down as early as my folks. Never really thought about it that way. Certainly hadn’t envisioned a future here when I rented the place just out of high school, but that’s what it became. My future. Like everything else in my life, a temporary plan that had turned permanent. My job with Tom. My situation with Jenny. My less than stellar start to fatherhood. Someday, it would all change. Someday, I would make it right. Only someday never comes, does it? I’d been in this same shithole for ten years. Three different women had lived there with me, including the mother of my kid, but, in the end, I always ended up alone.
I usually had a decent outlook on life, but anytime I hung around Chris, this is what happened. Another reason I avoided the guy. Nothing good ever came of it. I never walked away from seeing my brother, saying, “Gee, sure glad I did that.” His mere presence could put me in a funk that would last for days. Not to mention all the trouble he had caused in my relationship with Jenny.
I remembered the night she left, the night she packed up our son and moved out on me. I couldn’t shake the scene. Pissing rain pelting the roof. Aiden wailing in his car seat carrier. Tears streaming down her face as she pleaded with me to believe her.
Chris had stolen some pills from her purse, painkillers the doctor had prescribed following the birth. Just a few pills that she never touched but always knew were there. Until they weren’t. My brother had stopped by under the pretense of wanting to see his nephew and, somehow, he’d sniffed them out, snatched them from under our noses. Because if there was an unattended narcotic within a fifty-mile radius, Chris could zero in on that shit like a ’roided-up bloodhound.
Instead of calling out my brother like I should have, I abandoned Jenny in her accusation. Chris swore on our parents’ life that he hadn’t taken the pills, and, even though I knew he was lying, I backed him up anyway. That fight was about more than the pills. That night Jenny had needed me to take a side. And I did. I just picked the wrong one.
The light, a single, uncovered bulb, blazed in the narrow well leading upstairs. Creaking wood stretched and groaned, the hollow, winding winds rattling the whole decrepit building.
I unlocked the front door, which led into my tiny kitchen, Chris right on my heels, before he pushed past me like it was somehow his apartment too. I threw my keys on the table, next to the stack of red-letter bills I’d been ignoring.
“Got any beer?” Chris a
sked, dropping his backpack that reeked of bum shit on the same kitchen table where I ate.
I walked by him into the TV room. “Check the fridge.” I flicked on the television, searching for the Bruins game.
My nameless cat scratched on the porch. I didn’t even know how it became my cat. Belonged to the neighbors, I think, but it kept coming around. So I pet it, fed it. I’d wake in the middle of the night and somehow the fat thing would’ve scaled the drainpipe and I’d find her stuck on my second-floor landing, crying to be let in. This is what you get for being a nice guy. One day, I look out and the neighbors are gone, house boarded up with a “For Sale” sign, and now I’m stuck with the damn thing. That was over a year ago. Never got around to naming it. I’m not too philosophical a guy, don’t like to get too heavy, but it was hard not to draw a correlation. I mean, I couldn’t even name the fucking cat I’d been feeding and taking care of for over a year because I didn’t want to get too attached.
My brother stood in the doorway, rail-thin arms up in a T over the frame, hanging there like a crucified, junkie Jesus. “No beer in the fridge, little brother.”
“Then I’m fucking out, Chris.”
The Bruins were down three with four minutes left, the Devils on a power play. I switched it off and dropped in the chair and pulled my fingers through my hair.
“Got any money?” he asked. “I’ll run downstairs and grab us some.”
You hand my brother money, and that’s the last you’ll see of him. He’d trade the warmth of a bed indoors for the chance to get high, every time.
Chris dropped from the frame and slinked over to the couch, wiry body shiftless as an underfed snake in a windblown field. He snared my cigarettes from the table, flicking a match and inhaling deeply, sinking into the sofa, whose stuffed cushions threatened to devour him.
“You going to tell me what that shit was about tonight?” I asked.
