Bloodroot (30 page)

Without moving his head, Whitestone shifted his eyes away from us and settled them on his bookshelf.

Danny finally stood. I let slip a huge sigh of relief and backed toward the door. Danny didn’t move.

“As soon as I’m enrolled,” Danny said, “I think we can do a lot together, me, you, and Kevin.” He glanced at me then back at the dean. “Don’t let Kevin fool you. He knows more than you think. Our grandfather was Dr. Henry O’Malley. You might be familiar with the name.”

Whitestone practically leaped over his desk to get to us.

“Kevin, why keep this information a secret? I have such immense respect for Dr. O’Malley; he’s practically a hero of mine.” He lowered his eyes, licked his lips. “If you’ll forgive my immodesty, I sometimes think of myself as your grandfather’s heir. That I’m continuing his work on behalf of abused children.” The dean paused, folding his hands across his chest, playing for reverence before he spoke again. “We have a prominent display planned for your grandfather at the museum. Perhaps, Kevin, you and your brother could speak at the next FOB meeting. The O’Malley name and reputation, now that would give some weight to our modest organization. I know the
Advance
will send a reporter
and
a photographer.” He cuffed me on the shoulder. “No school paper for Dr. Henry O’Malley.”

I could practically see the dollar signs in Whitestone’s eyes. The old ladies would remember my famous grandfather. His name would be worth its weight in gold at the fundraisers. Gold that would line Whitestone’s pockets. I pulled the office door open wide, feeling dirtier than I had at the dump. I desperately needed some air. “I’ll put something together,” I said.

“Dan?” Whitestone asked. “I hope you’ll consent to be part of this, too. Carry on the noble labors of your bloodline.”

Danny snatched Whitestone’s hand from his side and squeezed it in a firm grip, resting his other hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. “Dean Whitestone, I feel like I already am part of it. More than you know.” He turned the dean’s wrist, eyeing the scars on the back of his hand. “Painful?”

Whitestone pulled his hand away. “Childhood accident.”

“Happens to the best of us,” Danny said.

Whitestone raised his hands, backing away from us, his yellow-toothed smile oozing across his face. “Enjoy the rest of your day, gentlemen.”

Danny and I couldn’t get out of the building fast enough, barreling down the stairs and bursting out the building doors like we had the Redcoats’ breath on our backs.

 

 

 

“ GOD ALMIGHTY,” DANNY SAID,
shaking off a chill. “I feel like boiling myself. And that’s saying something considering the people I know.”

“Danny, I told the folks about our conversation that night you gave me the tour. They remember things differently. So I did some research of my own. Grandpa was the public face of the city’s medical community during the entire scandal. His name is in every article in every local newspaper, every national story.” I took a long drag on my cigarette. “And there’s more, Danny. The cops talked to Grandpa about Calvin going missing. A couple of times. That was in the papers, too.”

I stopped, waiting for Danny to say something. He stayed quiet.

“There was talk that Calvin didn’t disappear very far from home,” I said. “His home in Brooklyn. Park Slope, Brooklyn.” I dropped my cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it out. “The night you first took me to the restaurant, Bavasi said something to me about him and Santoro knowing Grandpa. The other night, when we were talking about you, Dad talked about Grandpa having powerful friends, not all of them doctors. What’s that sound like to you?”

“Ancient history,” Danny said, holding his smoke to his mouth and staring down at his shoes. “So Mom and Dad said I was lying to you? About where I came from.”

“No, not really,” I said, sitting on the bench. “They just think you misremember some things from when you were really young. That you’ve got a couple things mixed up in your head. They blame the drugs.” I stretched my arms across the back of the bench, trying to look casual, like Danny had at the restaurant. “Danny, you think Grandpa really killed someone?”

Danny stood a few feet away from me, his head tilted back, staring through the dead leaves of the trees and into the sky. “You think I’m a liar? You think my drug-addled brain made up all that shit I told you the other night? Maybe you do think I made it up. To trick you into helping me. Same old Danny, right? Only out for himself and fuck everyone else. That’s what the folks said, right? That what you’re thinking?”

Danny’s self-righteousness grated on me. Drug-addled or not, he had to know his history gave cause enough for questioning his true motives. He’d hurt the people closest to him the most, with me at the top of the list. He knew that. He remembered. He’d said so himself.

“That’s how it works in history, right?” Danny said. “Whoever’s left around gets to decide the truth. Like whether or not Grandpa killed a man who had it coming.” He kicked at the concrete again and again, a kid who’d watched the ice cream truck turn away around the corner. “God, I hope he fucking did it. I wish we could know for sure.”

“He did everything he could to put an end to that place,” I said. “I’m sure he went as far as he felt was necessary.” I stepped up to my brother. “And now we’ll go the rest of the way. We’ll bring that place down. We’ll do it. What’s it matter what I think? What I
believe
is I’m into this thing all the way. I promise. That’s what matters.”

“It matters to me,” Danny said, “that you believe me. Mom and Dad can go screw. But you? It matters a lot, Kev. Believe that.”

“I’ve known from the minute I saw you again that you weren’t the same old Danny,” I said. “And you never will be. Believe
that
.”

Danny stared at me long and hard. He was smart enough to know I hadn’t answered his questions, I hadn’t told him who or what I believed. All I could think was that I had learned to dance around the truth from the best liar I knew, my own brother.

But I hated seeing Danny like this, his shoulders slumped and his head turned away to hide the sad eyes in his quickly paling face. He looked like a kicked dog aching to be petted. And perfectly willing to be kicked again, if that was what it took to stick around. The sight reminded me too much of Danny the junkie crawling home, drooling on himself, dope sick, lovesick, and helpless.

“What time tonight?” Danny asked.

“The folks? Oh, man. Listen, it’s been a long afternoon. If you wanna put it off, that’s cool.”

“Deal’s a deal,” he said. “I promised you. No more same old Danny, remember?”

“Seven,” I said. “Dinner might be a bit too much. Let’s stick to dessert and drinks. Ease everyone into it.”

“Still cookies and whiskey?”

“Every time,” I said. I glanced at my watch. “I really do have one more class to teach.”

“See you at seven, then,” Danny said. He started walking away then stopped and turned. “Hey, I’m sorry for fucking with you over Kelsey. I should’ve let you make the call.” He shrugged. “It seemed like a normal brother thing to do, swing by the office and shoot the shit. I should’ve known better.” He raised a finger at me. “She seems first-rate. Don’t fuck it up.”

“I’ll try not to,” I said, walking over to him. I didn’t mention that it really wasn’t up to me. “Listen, tonight’ll go fine. I’ll make sure of it. And I don’t care if you say you came from the moon and Mom and Dad insist it was Mars. You’re my brother. That’s all that matters. I mean it.”

Danny held out his fist and I bumped it with my own.

“Stay away from Whitestone,” he said. “I’ll handle things from here. When you’ve been where I have, you can spot the evil ones like their fangs are four feet long. It’s a myth they only come out at night.”

I asked Danny what he meant but he just shook his head. “Trust me. See you tonight.”

 

 

 

WATCHING DANNY GO,
I worried maybe I
was
getting played: about Bloodroot, about Santoro, Whitestone, Al, some of it, all of it. Maybe even Danny giving up the drugs. Sure as hell wouldn’t be the first time I’d been the fool. Could be he didn’t even know he was doing it anymore. Maybe the lies and manipulation were only habit now, freeing Danny, really, of ill intent.

Maybe the hell he’d been through had marked my brother in ways neither he nor anyone else could ever undo. Maybe Danny had track marks on his soul. Or maybe Danny had always been a shape-shifter and an acrobat who served only his own shadowy needs. For all its power over Danny, maybe the heroin had been nothing more than a placeholder, an apprenticeship, a black fire in which he forged his heart until he found his true calling as one of Santoro’s dark angels.

According to my folks, Danny had been born screaming in need, had breached the world shrieking into the dirty Brooklyn air for what his frantic blood told him he’d die without. Utter selfishness wasn’t a choice for Danny. It was the mandate, the prime directive of his blood. Wherever he’d come from, one thing was true. My brother had entered this life alone and already lost. Danny never even
had
the faith or innocence the rest of us get to throw away.

As Danny’s silhouette moved away from me, growing smaller, I realized something else. Believing in Danny now wasn’t about him. It was about me. I was the one with the choices. And I chose to stand by my brother and get fucked for it every time rather than risk turning my back on him the one time he really, truly needed me. If I got hurt, the only one to blame was myself. Everyone else around me, including Danny, stayed innocent. I knew in making that choice, I was as selfish as Danny. My conscience stayed clean no matter what. But the other option was admitting to myself I couldn’t trust my brother. Ever. I didn’t want to live in a world where a man couldn’t trust his only brother. So I chose not to.

Like so many before me, I rewrote history the way I wanted it to be. There was no one to stop me.

AFTER I FINISHED TEACHING FOR THE DAY, I BOUGHT A CUP OF
coffee and a bottle of fancy water at Starbucks and cabbed it over to Willowbrook Park. Kelsey played soccer one night a week in an “old fart” coed league and she’d invited me to watch. Of course I agreed. This was a thing that couples did and a couple was what I wanted us to be. The future would take care of itself.

The ferocity and the pace of the competition surprised me. I’d expected something akin to beer-league softball—brief episodes of clumsy barreling about on the field, a soccer ball somewhere in the mix, followed by long periods of wheezing, foul-mouthed trash talk and sipping from water bottles full of golden, carbonated liquid. I had expected soccer played the same way boiling packs of eight-year-olds did it, only with beer and cursing. These people played, though, like they had something serious at stake—money, pride, memories of former glories. Something more than which team got stuck buying the pitchers that night.

They ran, they sweated, they knocked one another over often and hard. And they were good. Organized and able. These people had played the game all their lives. Maybe that fact set the stakes. The players needed to prove that despite age and responsibility, there was at least one thing left they did well. Watching the combat, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d put that much effort into anything.

Approaching the sideline, I took off my tie and shoved it in my pocket, where I discovered my cigarettes. I thought about lighting one then decided against it. Bad form around people running themselves into the ground. I wasted a few moments sorting through possible excuses for my tardiness to the sideline before I realized Kelsey probably hadn’t been standing around waiting on me. She had other things to do.

She wasn’t hard to find; I heard her before I saw her. She was clearly the field general for her team. Playing midfield, she worked her teammates, men and women both, from one end of the field to the other. Shouting directions at a full sprint, she led the defense like they were the last of their battalion, fighting for the lives of the women and children. Then, her territory successfully defended, the ball rolling at her feet, Kelsey would turn and unleash the offense, the forwards sprinting downfield like charging cavalry coming over the hill. She held the ball for just moments before she sent it soaring off to land on the shoe tops of a teammate. My girlfriend was the best player on the field. I loved it.

I stood there, my chest swelling with pride, suddenly eager for the players and spectators to know I had come at her invitation, for them to know that she and I were together, a couple. I felt like I’d suddenly found out she was famous.

During a break in play Kelsey finally stopped running. Mud splattered her legs and her shorts. One of her knees bled. Grass fell from her sweaty hair when she shook her head. When she set her hands on her hips and leaned backward, her eyes closed, the lean muscles of her thighs, calves, and arms rose like swells on the surface of the sea. Her stretch pulled her shimmering emerald jersey taut over her breasts and shoulders. The jersey rode up from her waistband, exposing a few sunlit inches of smooth golden belly. Looking at her, I felt dry and brittle. I was made of sticks and ashes; she was sleek and powerful.