Casual Choices

by Tom Corbett

  “Okay, tough guy, you got the job of asshole in chief. I cannot quibble with your superior qualifications.”

  They walked in silence for a while. “Rach, I have a confession.”

  “Oh no, if you have murdered and dismembered several women, I really don’t want to know. I would have to turn you in, or knock you off myself, whichever was more convenient.”

  “Worse than that.” He could see that she was eyeing him closely, trying to decide if this was another joke of his. “Cate will arrive tomorrow. She left Amman several days ago and is now on the East Coast of the States, probably seeing her dad. We have been e-mailing back and forth. She wanted to celebrate this, as she put it, milestone in the life of her favorite reprobate uncle.”

  Rachel stopped entirely. “Why didn’t…Did she say anything about me?”

  “Of course. She is all bubbly about seeing you. She wants to surprise you. Perhaps I should not have spilled the beans, but I didn’t want you to go into cardiac arrest when she showed. Besides, she has some news that she wants to share personally.”

  “What news,” Rachel asked with a confused and excited expression on her face.

  “I don’t know, she has been totally secretive about that, really. Believe me, I asked, but she said I would have to wait as well. Mostly, though, she wants to see you. My retirement is not the draw, just an excuse. In any case, they apparently want foreign service types stationed abroad, particularly in sensitive stations, to take leaves every so often and she was past due. Of course, it makes sense for her to come here since I am her favorite uncle without doubt.”

  “You’re her only uncle, numbnuts.” Then after a slight pause, she said, “But still, I’m not all that happy that she seems closer to you than to me. I told you, I screwed motherhood up.”

  Josh grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around. “Listen, you little shit, I can still put you over my knee. You have never been a whiner so don’t start now. You did a great job with her. She is a wonderful girl, woman, person, whatever, and she loves you very, very much. She just found it a bit easier to talk with me, even if most of it was across continents. You know those mother-daughter things—toxic. Not toxic, sorry, that was way too strong. Whatever is on her mind, I am easier for her. Mr. Jokester, you know. And given what is in my closet, she could never compete with my sins.”

  “Good point. That makes sense,” Rachel said softly. “Everyone knows you’re a first-class reprobate and a big joke.”

  They found a bench and sat down. The view was lovely, and the sun had made its way clear of all the intruding clouds. The air had warmed considerably.

  Josh started up again. “My best guess is that she thought she failed you.”

  “That’s silly.”

  “Not to her, now listen. You must understand. She never said this outright, but I can listen pretty well.”

  “Since when,” Rachel injected and then immediately signaled for him to go on. “Sorry.”

  “The thing is, she looked up to you as a role model, thought that you wanted her to follow in your footsteps. But she wasn’t into math and science, and the thought of playing around inside people’s bodies made her slightly nauseous. I guess it was a little like the way I failed Dad. It doesn’t have to make sense, it is just the way you feel. I have never ever forgiven myself for failing him.”

  Rachel looked deeply at him for a long time. “And me? Did you worry about failing me?” Then she added hastily, “Don’t answer, that was rhetorical.”

  Josh simply looked at the harbor, his face immobile. “I am so sorry I was not there when you were…raped.”

  Rachel turned her gaze toward the water. “Yeah, well, that doesn’t begin to cover it. Damn, it was like a continuous wake in the house after you disappeared. It started with the football thing, when you quit, and then slowly got worse.”

  “You know, Rach, I thought about that for a long time. It wasn’t just that kid I hurt so bad. That was bad, but I could’ve gotten past that, he was not the first kid crippled playing that silly game. I might have been looking for some reason to escape the cage I was in…to change direction. Funny, looking back, it is so hard to recall what you were thinking, feeling. I see images, sense emotions, but they all seem like snippets on the cutting-room floor. What you don’t get is the whole film, the complete narrative. You cannot separate the reality of then from what you now impose on it. We’re all great at revisionist history—it is a great defense mechanism.”

  “Still, some things you can’t forget,” Rachel whispered. “I could never erase you and Dad screaming at each other. I cannot even recall what was said…just the emotion, the rage pouring through my door. I remember being in a ball under my covers, but I could not rub out the sounds. I would cry all night. Hell, I cried every night for a long time. It was like the household dissolved in slow motion. First, you quit sports. That was the first blow for Dad. Then you up and went to a school that was, at least according to him, a den of atheists and communists. That sunk him deeper into a pit of silence. It wasn’t Notre Dame. It wasn’t even Catholic. Even you probably could not see how much he lived through you. While you were too close to it, it was so obvious to me. Remember how boisterous he was, how any room he entered expanded with his mere presence. He would fill it up and press the walls out. Now they shrank. The silence would often be deafening. But the wake really started after you disappeared. One day we found out that you were gone. Not a word from you, you were just gone. Panic until at least we knew you were alive, we got that postcard. Even dad panicked at first, but soon it all turned to white-hot anger. Then the silence became something darker. It was not just dad. Ora slipped into the depths of her own personal darkness. Eventually, she stopped playing the piano. I wanted to scream some days, I could not stand the silence anymore. Christ, was I merely chopped liver? Didn’t I count? I was still there, but no one seemed to care anymore. And you never explained anything to me, not really. I mean, I knew you were into the antiwar stuff, but then so were many of the kids back then. What the hell did you do that you had to run away and not come back?”

  Josh put his head down and remained silent for several moments. Then he realized his sister was not going to break the silence. She would wait him out. “I stole money. I destroyed government records. I helped start a fire and steal stuff that…that…” And he stopped.

  “What do you mean steal money, like rob a bank?”

  “No, for god sakes, though that was discussed. I stole quite a bit from some Irish wise guys-the Boston mob.”

  “Shit,” she exhaled. “That’s worse than a bank, you could have gotten yourself killed.”

  “Tell me, I had diarrhea for weeks after.”

  “But how did you do it?” She stared at him intently. “Did you rob them with a gun? I can’t possibly see you with a gun, ever.”

  “No guns, but it was easier than you might think. Some of these wise guys were always around the bar. They knew me, they trusted me. I even did them small errands and favors from time to time. I knew their schedules and routines, how they ran their games and scams. They would accumulate cash and, when they had enough, would launder it through legit operations or offshore. Often, it would go for a big drug purchase. From time to time, then, they had quite a bit of cash stored, and I mean a lot for back then. What was amazing is that security was so lax. It never occurred to them anyone would dare take them down. After all, to screw with the Winter Hill gang was a death sentence. I had a key to the place where they stashed their loot. I think they forgot I had one from the time I did them small favors. This tough Mick was drunk out of his mind one day and blabbed about all the money that had accumulated. He complained that his bosses were making it tough on him, the temptation to grab some was too great. That gave me the idea. I tried taking only enough so that they might not miss it. We were still talking about thirty or forty grand, but that was pocket change for them though. Back in the sixties, that was a small fortune in my eyes.”

  “Did that
work?”

  “No,” he said. “Word immediately was on the street about the heist. Let me tell you, I was sick to my stomach during the heist itself. I recall sneaking up to the place, checking out each car on the street, each alleyway, every window. I have no idea what I was looking for, but I was sure my life was just about over. I can still feel the tension in my whole body as I turned the key in the door. I was certain some alarm would blare, and I would walk into a front end of a .45 canon. But nothing, nobody. I had to jimmy another door, which blew any chance of avoiding detection, but after that my big concern was how much to take. Later I realized I was an idiot, the jimmied door was a giveaway that they had been taken down. Maybe I should have grabbed it all. But I thought at the time that if I only took some, they would only break all my arms and legs. I mean, they liked me. I sat on the crapper for a week straight. A few weeks later, a couple of minor Italian hoods disappeared. I remember thinking, maybe I got them killed, that they blamed the Wops. I never knew for sure, never asked.”

  “And they never suspected you.”

  “I guess not. I was this harmless college kid and the sainted son of Big Jim. It probably never even occurred to them. Besides, most guys got caught because they could not keep quiet or resist spending the money. Some of these clowns were big-time dense, getting liquored up and running their mouths. They reminded me of my high school buddies who scored with a gal—an achievement back then—and then go about trashing her to everyone. I wanted to slap them upside the head. You morons, you finally got some and now you want to cut off the supply by shaming the gal. Are you taking cretin pills? I was stupid, but not that stupid. Still, I did worry. One day, a wise guy asked me if I still had a key to the place. When I lied, he insisted that he remembered giving me one and never getting it back. But I charmed him with a song and dance, the Celtic gift that Dad bequeathed me. That sent me back to the crapper in a hurry. I had visions of my body being dumped in the swamp with my hands missing and teeth removed. No one would know what happened to me.”

  “Did you ever find out if they ever suspected you for real?”

  Josh shrugged. “I’m still alive. In the end, I think it was beyond them that this kid had the balls to rob them. It had to be the Wops from the north end. I piled on to that hypothesis for sure. Still, I had nightmares for years, decades, about that damn swamp and me with a toothless skull and handless torso. No fingerprints or other ways of identifying me. DNA was science fiction back then. Wow, you would have been worrying about what ever happened to that worthless brother of yours for all eternity.”

  “Not really, I would have just presumed you had moved on to a really warm spot, heated by brimstone.” Rachel responded though her hint of humor seemed unconvincing. “Tell me. Did you ever do anything irrevocable, something that can’t be undone?”.

  “Like kill someone,” Josh said, standing up. They started along a path. The sun was out now, and it had warmed considerably. “Well, there were the break-ins and Carla started a fire at one. Helen did at another when I was with her. But it was less what I did than what I knew I would do. We were escalating. Each action invited something more powerful. No one seemed to be paying attention, so our antics never seemed enough, or not enough in our naïve eyes—the insane killing in the war went on so you felt compelled to up the ante. You know how it goes. Oh, we destroyed those records, and they are still sending kids to die in Southeast Asia. I yet think we had the situation analyzed correctly, but employed the strategic thinking appropriate to what we were—stupid kids. At that age, your passion runs away from your better judgment. It is just that the anger at the stupidity and passivity of those around you is overwhelming, so infuriating.”

  “If you’re making the case that you were an immature moron, I will stipulate to that fact,” Rachel threw out. Inside, she wondered what he was keeping back. “Sounds to me as if you guys had a rather serious case of excess hubris. I worried about you back then but had no idea.”

  “Perhaps we had more conviction than brains, but I yet argue we were not morons. Christ, Morris was about the brightest guy I would ever meet. Carla was smart as a whip. The thing is that we cared, and we thought hard about stuff. We all did, well, most. One thing became clear in those days. There is a huge penalty associated with caring about things, it is a curse. It is so damn easy to go through life absent of passion for people or for causes or even for life itself. I know. Look at me now.”

  She stopped walking and turned to him. “Josh, I—”

  “Rachel, you were not the only one to cry themselves to sleep back then. Not by a long shot. In the early days, after fleeing the States, I sat in a small room in Toronto, alone, scared, and without direction. You go from a life with all kind of supports around you to nothing. I was afraid to reach out. I did not know whether the feds would show up at the door or the Irish mob, or maybe even the Mafia because I somehow got some of their guys whacked. You sit in a room and start seeing ghosts everywhere. Good thing there were others like me, usually hanging around the university. They had an organization that helped us émigrés out with low-level jobs, housing, and counseling. The Canadians were against the war before us. Those Canucks are as nice as people say. The government was quite inviting as well. They were becoming, if unofficially, quite disgusted with our nation’s militarism. For me, after I stopped hiding under the bed, things slowly got better. I worked hard, earned some money, finally made it into the University. Then I just buried myself in work and study.”

  “And you forgot about me, us.”

  “Yeah, it must seem like that.” He had a pained expression on his face. “You don’t…it is hard…what I mean…”

  She jumped in. “Is that you don’t have a fucking clue.” He did not respond; they kept walking. “Josh, I hated you. I hated you with a white passion. I hated you beyond hate. Do you know why? Don’t answer, it was rhetorical.” But she immediately answered her own query. “Because I loved you so much. You were my big brother, the hero that could do no wrong, the boy I admired without qualification. I was even jealous. Dad loved you. Mom adored her precious prince since the guy she married was no prize. Lots of families dote on the girls, but not ours. I was an afterthought but didn’t care because I thought they were right to worship you. You were deserving of all that adoration and acclaim. And it was not just them, the whole neighborhood—hell, the whole damn Irish tribe had you on a pedestal. And then like sand in a sieve, it all slipped away and there was nothing…emptiness and an ignorance of what happened.”

  “Yeah,” was all he managed.

  She slowed and looked back out over the harbor. More small pleasure craft were now plying back and forth. Then she continued in a quieter voice. “I used to reflect in your glory, the little sister of the tribal hero. Yeah, I know, sounds silly now. But we lived in a small ethnic pond, and I was the younger sister of the best athlete and most popular guy on the block. Girls wanted to be around me because I was your sister. They would ask what you were like. I tried telling them you were a smelly, burping, farting messy thing, but they would have none of that so I lied. Oh, he is just so cool, so sexy. It was nauseating. Some wanted to know what you looked like naked, naked for crying out loud, as if I spent my days trying to catch a peek when you were in the shower. I was appalled when a couple asked for pictures, you know the kind.”

  “Well, I could have posed for you—”

  “You were a pig! Excuse me, you are a pig. But what I didn’t tell them was that you were good to me, always good to me, at least when you weren’t trying to dodge me when you went out. I can still remember sitting on the couch watching television. I would stretch out with my head on your thigh. We would watch those silly sitcoms like Gilligan’s Island and your favorite, Rocky and Bullwinkle. You would pat my head sometimes. I never felt safer, more secure, than during those moments. You were kind. I knew that. Whatever else you might be, you would be there for me. You really would be the knight in shining armor.”

  “And then I wasn’t.”


  “And then you weren’t. Maybe if I knew why at the time, I could’ve handled it. I don’t know. I wasn’t old enough to make sense of things or sort out feelings. I was a book-smart kid, but that does not give you a leg up on emotional maturity. I found myself wallowing in pity and trying to keep the family from falling apart. Try being a teenager and believing you had to be the adult. Damn, you grow up fast. Ora had been this pillar of quiet strength all our lives. Now she seemed a shell of disfigured desperation. She was hollow…unresponsive. I could not reach her, and that just killed me. Dad spent time in the bar and I tried helping him out, but I never fit in. You were the natural. The guys would rub my head and say how cute I was, sometimes hit on me. They never talked with me as they did with you, though. They never confided, told stories of the old country, shared dreams of rebellion, or fantasies of female conquests that were sure to come their way that night. I kept trying, but you know your old saying about not putting in what God left out. It cannot be done. It just can’t be done. I gave up one day. I’m not exactly sure when, perhaps the day a couple of them hit on me in more than a kidding way. Guess I was developing. I just went further into my books if that were possible. The library was my second home. It was my escape and my salvation. But I never forgot you, nor forgave I suppose. I would always think back to those times I would be sitting at the table doing my studies and in you would come rollicking in, full of life. You would have that easy, crooked smile on your face, and I would bound up into your arms. After you went missing, I would stare at the door for a long time, a long time indeed. It never opened.”

  “Rach, would you like to twist the knife in a little deeper now?”

  “Yes, I think I rather would. Does it hurt?”

  “Of course, it hurts,” Josh protested. “Contrary to the public consensus, I have feelings.”

  “Good! I mean good that it hurts, not that you think you have feelings since I need a hell of a lot more evidence on that score.”