Breaker (5 page)

I didn't set out to kill my uncle Tully, at least not at first, but I certainly don't regret it. Sitting at the kitchen table, another day has slipped past me, the sun already set, my body and face bruised and sore, echoes of Father Brassard in my head, his Cheshire cat grin, the crack of his nose, the spritz of blood on my hands. It will stay with me for a few days, and then I'll bury it deep with the rest. It's what I do.

Four grilled cheese sandwiches, and two cans of chicken noodle soup. Tomorrow it might be a couple of boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. The day after that it could be a box of twenty Chicken McNuggets, a large fry, and a Coke. My diet is that of a ten-year-old boy, although I eat as much as two men.

There are ways to crush a child's spirit, ways to render children mute and pliable. For my father, it was the constant criticism, goddamnit this, and goddamnit that, never good enough, nothing I did or desired important in his eyes. Come home with long hair, and I was a faggot. Disagree with his politics, and I was a commie. How many times I stood next to some car he was working on, a 1966 Mustang or a 1967 Camaro, contemplating the jack that held the car up, one little kick and the car would fall down, crushing the man and silencing him forever. The lines and metal on these cars were hypnotic, but I knew nothing about them. It didn't come naturally to me, like it did with him. His greasy hands were eager to fix things, his running mouth quick to destroy.

My mother was the opposite, always looking on the bright side of things, never seeing what was right in front of her face. It wasn't that she merely wanted to see the good in people—no, she just refused to see the bad in them, no matter what anyone said, no matter what evidence was presented to her. I must have misheard something, or I was exaggerating, or no, it didn't happen that way. Bruises and cuts, those were from playing sports, roughhousing with my friends. Tully's presence in our house, it never bothered her; she never saw the red flags, never heard the alarm bells ringing.

If it had been just me back then, maybe I would have tucked it down deep, put up with Tully and his trips out into the country. The guns, and fishing, and fires we built—I enjoyed all of that, I did. But when night fell, things got strange. Suddenly the trailer wasn't big enough for the two of us, his bed was wet from a leak—so he had to share mine. Taking a shower, he always found a reason to poke his head in, ask if I was okay, needed anything—soap, shampoo, a washcloth. Changing into swim trunks, my eyes were always turned away. We were just two men out in the woods, it was okay to be naked, sometimes my father joining us on the trip, running down to the pond and jumping in without a stitch of clothes on. We laughed, they drank beer, and when Tully's eyes began to linger, his pats on the back, on the ass, just a little too often, or too long—that's when I stopped going to the woods.

But my sister, she took after my mother: wide-eyed and innocent, her long brown hair and tan skin. Three years older than me, she wasn't quite ready for high school, but already had a sassy mouth, was on the verge of becoming a young woman. I noticed, the boys in the neighborhood noticed, and Tully noticed too. He was running out of time, for she'd be a woman soon. And that wasn't what he wanted, not somebody with a full personality, a sharp mind, and opinions of her own. No, he wanted a pawn, a puppet—no questions asked, secrets kept for a lifetime.

The day I walked past Stephanie's bedroom and saw Uncle Tully sitting on the edge of her bed, the football game running in the living room, my father yelling, “Run, nigger, run,” a long, fat worm crawled around in my gut, twisting and turning, making me sick. They were just talking, Stephanie taking a nap, just waking up, and he turned to me and smiled, as my legs turned to stone, to ice.

One final trip to the woods, that was all I wanted. For old times' sake, I said, and he nodded his head, a small grin working its way across his face.

It had been a slow progression, things happening in the shadows that I tried very hard not to look at, the next step inevitable. I had trouble sleeping at night, and Stephanie, she was eager for attention, but so unaware of what that meant, what it really implied. On the long drive up to the country, to the trailer, Tully talked about how much fun he'd had with my sister, how she was really growing up so fast, so pretty. On and on he went about her, reminiscing, making me sick to my stomach. I remember him dropping her off after they'd gone bowling, her face flushed, just a hint of beer on her breath.

Just a sip, to see what it tasted like, Raymond. Relax.

But no, I would not—not then, and not now.

How many trips to the bowling alley, the two of them, I can't remember—seemed like it was all the time. Soon enough Stephanie came home from bowling with Uncle Tully, her face pale, her eyes two lumps of black coal, heading straight to her bedroom. She wouldn't tell me anything. I hoped and prayed she was still intact, still as innocent as when she had left home that night. It was what I thought of as we headed to the woods.

With the bonfire blazing—Tully surrounded by a pile of empty beer cans at his feet, eyes darting to me and then away—the memories came flooding back. Waking up naked, and unsure why, not a bruise or pain on my body, but the panic and fear washing over me anyway. The gestures and sounds that came from his side of the bed as I pretended I was asleep, forcing myself to block it out. This night had been a long time coming, and I was ready.

As the sun started to set behind the woods, we fired rifles at the many cans he'd emptied. I held the rifle and stood tall, Tully standing behind me, his arms on my shoulders, and then running out to place new cans on the rocks that ran around the pond. When he came back, I handed him the rifle, his turn to shoot, my finger lingering on the trigger for just a moment, the tip of the gun angling up toward his face, his eyes going wide as I pulled, the rifle he held going off in his face.

We were miles from anyone, just the way he liked it, and as he fell back to the ground, the gun clattered to the dirt. He lay in the fading light, gurgling—the wound opening up his skull, part of his head blown off, his eyes blinking at me, unable to speak. I stood over him and watched the light fade out of his confused gaze.

“Better you than me, Uncle Tully,” I said, my heart racing.

As the life drained out of him, I slipped on a pair of old gloves and went into the trailer to bring out the rest of the beer cans. I poured them into the pond and crushed them up, just like he'd been doing, and scattered the empties around the fire—easily a case of beer, now. I did not cry. I did not get sick. In the darkness, I found his cellphone inside his coat pocket and called the police.

“There's been an accident,” I said. “Oh my God, come quick—my uncle.”

I sat at the edge of the fire in a ball, rocking back and forth. That's the way they found me, flashlights splitting the woods. They took one look at the beer cans, the gun, my uncle and me, and nodded their heads.

“Happens all the time,” one of the officers said, a dark blue shadow on a black expanding sky. “You okay?”

“I just…I just…I don't know what happened. It just went off. I thought he was aiming at the cans, he slipped, or set it down, I don't even know….It was getting dark, I heard him grunt, and it went off and then…”

They nodded.

I don't think the police really cared. There were lots of guys like Tully out in that neck of the woods. His blood alcohol content was off the charts. My parents came to get me, and I cried, my face streaked with dirt. I was ten. On the ride home, in the dark, Stephanie found my hand in the backseat of our car, and held it between her sweaty palms. She rested her head on my shoulder—a mix of Off and sweat, musky Drakkar and hand sanitizer filling the back of the car. It wasn't long after that night that my hair turned from light brown to blond to nearly white, and my slight frame started to fill out, slowly on my way to becoming the monster I am today.

In the kitchen, the soup is cold, but I sip it up anyway. The cheese in my stomach sits like a rock, the darkness seeping in the windows, not a light on anywhere.

I leave it that way, my hands clenched in front of me, resting on the table.

I regret nothing.

Twenty years later and my sister, Stephanie, is still going to bowling alleys with strange men, sipping cheap beer, and looking for trouble. Her knock at my door is always the same—shave and a haircut, two bits. She never buzzes in downstairs, just appears on my doorstep like a lost puppy. She is afraid of me, but she is kin. She has seen what I can do, what I have done. She's grateful, but she's also cautious. Like me, she is a liar.

I open the door and she is standing there shivering, a faded jean jacket hardly enough to keep her warm. On her head is a brown knit hat that looks like an acorn, the sides running down over her ears, this Peruvian cap a gift from me just last Christmas. Her lips are hot pink, her cat-eye makeup in black and purple a bit Egyptian in nature. A piercing at her eyebrow, and a small stone in her nose; no new work that I can see.

A bus to a bus for her to get here, no advance call, just here in the neighborhood—that is, unless she woke up close by and wandered over. She probably wants money, and I'll give it to her. I don't mind.

“Baby brother,” she says, all smiles, stepping through the door to hug me, her head just north of my belly button.

“Stephanie,” I say. She smells of cigarette smoke, which I hate, always have. I suppose of all the things she could put in her mouth this might be the least destructive. Might. She also smells of strawberries, baby powder, and gin. I smell like mothballs dipped in Old Spice.

I hold her out at arm's length and look at her. She smiles, blushing a little, always withering under my gaze, because I know she's not pure, never was, and I need to find out how far gone she really is.

“Sober?” I ask.

“Mostly,” she says.

“So the gin I smell on you, what's that?”

“I said mostly, you lug.”

“And the cigarettes?”

“Jesus, Ray, you going to let me in or not? You wanna strip search me, look up my ass? Would that work for you? Want to check my arms for tracks?”

Beer, liquor, pot, cocaine, heroin, and meth—her progression was in that order. Clean now, mostly.

Mostly.

I sigh.

“Sorry. Come on in; sit down. You look good, actually.”

She sits on the couch. It's another gray day in Chicago—the windows are open wide, but still, a strip of gauze rests over everything.

“No smoking,” I say.

She nods, rubbing her eyes, skinny, but not skeletal, her eyes sparkling, her hair long and thick.

I'm still standing over her, debating what she needs the most—mother hen, father figure, big brother, or just a sandwich.

“You hungry—soup, sandwich? You need to eat, you look too skinny.”

“Sure. That'd be nice. Grilled cheese and whatever,” she says.

“That I can do. Relax, I'll be back in a second.”

She lies back on the couch and closes her eyes. I place a pan on the stove, get the bread, butter, and cheese out, and pull a can of tomato soup off the shelf. Her favorite.

“You working?” I yell into the other room.

“Yeah, just got a job at Target—over on Addison, so not that far away. Was just stopping by to get my paycheck, which is pathetic.”

“But it's something,” I say, butter sizzling, bread and cheese melting together.

I left my wallet on the table on purpose, trying to see where her head is at, what she'll do. When she's stealing, it's usually worse—her situation, her need for something beyond me. Four hundred dollars even, all in twenties.

“So you're just here to say howdy, don't need anything?”

“Jesus, Ray, no….It's been a few weeks, just wanted to see if you were okay. You're not the only one that worries, you know. Not like you're working a corporate job in an office downtown. Or are you a stockbroker now, a commodities trader, and somehow I missed it?”

I nod my head, laughing, flipping the sandwich over, the soup gurgling in a pot.

“No, none of that.”

She's quiet for a moment, and I wonder what she's doing. Is she staring out the window, thinking about snow, and winter, as the buses and cars drift by? Does seeing me trigger memories of Uncle Tully, our parents, the past? Do I build her up or break her down? Does she leave here a bit more or a bit less? I never know. I imagine she's leafing through my wallet right now, swapping out fives for twenties, counting it all out, wondering how much she can take without my noticing.

I bang the pans and clear my throat.

“Soda? Milk?”

No answer. When she doesn't answer me, my mind always fears she's dead—a heart attack, or maybe a needle slipped in quickly, nodding off—that this is the reason she doesn't speak. Why I go to this dark place, I don't know. I worry that she comes to me in order to die, that my apartment is some elephant graveyard, a place where she collapses and withers away in peace. The last of her spirit and energy left for me to ingest, to make me stronger—an offering in her demise.

“Stephanie?”

“Um, yeah, soda I guess, Coke or Sprite, whatever.”

I pour her a Coke over ice and bring the glass in my left hand, the plate with the sandwich and the bowl of soup on it in my right hand, my boots always stomping, no need to announce my entrance.

She's sitting back on the couch, head in her hands.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Just tired.”

I set the food down on the coffee table, pushing the wallet out of the way. It's not quite where I left it.

She eats quietly, and I sit and watch her. I tell her about the neighbor girl, Natalie, and the boys in the alley, about my latest fight. She looks up and sees the bruises that have faded—hardly noticeable by now. She tells me about a girl at work, Ginger, who is tall, and built. She's always trying to set me up with these Amazon warriors. I smile and nod my head—because having drinks out with my addict of a sister is never strange. Watching her suck down gin after gin, the tonic and lime bubbling and floating, her eyes wandering more and more as the night progresses until she just disappears, and I find myself alone. I suppose I'd rather see that than find her with a needle in her arm. Again. It's times like that, or like this, or nothing at all. Sometimes I choose nothing at all. Which makes me a lousy brother.

When the food is gone, Stephanie gets up and slips her jacket back on.

“Going already?”

“I better take off, yeah. Getting dark out soon.”

“Okay.”

“Be safe?” she asks.

“I will, if you will.”

She wrinkles her nose and gives me a hug, so I wrap my arms around her, holding her close, wondering if I could just do this forever, and never let her go. She is not strong in this world, and I suppose I've played a part in that—distant when needed, silent when it really mattered, giving her just enough rope to hang herself. We trigger each other, it seems, some dysfunctional Rube Goldberg mousetrap, a laugh, then a slap, a razor gliding over a mirror, a glass filled, a glass emptied, a ball rolling down a length of pipe, a pipe filling up and overflowing with smoke. On our best days, we see each other for all that we are, and we find a way to make each other better.

Those days are few and far between.

“Love you, Steph,” I say.

“Love you more,” she whispers.

When she's gone, I go to the couch and sit down for a moment, just holding the wallet in my hands. I don't look inside yet, because I want to hold on to the illusion just a little bit longer. I want to believe that she is better than this. When I crack the wallet open, the bills are slightly crooked, the twenties now mixed with singles, fives, and tens. I count it out, and there's a little over two hundred dollars left, still the same number of bills, the same thickness, but half of it gone.

If she'd just asked, I'd have given it to her, all of it. Gladly. Why she does this, I do not know. And that's the problem between us. I never know what she's going to do, and I have no idea how to help her.

I can hardly help myself.