Hero–Type (17 page)

She leans in and for a second I'm afraid she's going to kiss me. And then she
does
kiss me, but it's just a light little brushing of her lips on my pockmarked cheek.

"Stay strong, Kevin. You're a good guy, and you're doing the right thing."

She scampers down the ladder and disappears.

I wish I could be sure she was right.

N
O ONE UNDERSTANDS
. But how
can
they understand? They don't live my life. They don't think my thoughts. My damn thoughts.

If I could somehow
purge
my brain, just flush it out ... That would fix everything. I need something like that stuff you use when the shower is clogged and the water won't go down, only for my brain. I need to flush out Leah and then I need to flush out Mom and Jesse because Leah is what I used to flush out Mom and Jesse in the first place, right?

I feel terrible about it all. I can't help it—being Catholic means you feel bad about pretty much everything all the time.

Here's how we deal with guilt in my family: We pretend the thing we feel guilty about doesn't exist anymore. So Dad has no pictures of Mom anywhere in the house. I have one in my wallet, but that's it. And there's one picture of Jesse on the coffee table, but Dad never looks at it.

I try not to look at it either. I don't call Jesse a lot. We email or IM sometimes when I'm at school or the library, but that's it.

It's just that ... I mean, I was his hero. I was his big brother, his defender. I took care of him when Mom and Dad were too busy fighting to do it.

And then I let him down.

I messed everything up. That's my life, really—one long string of messing things up. Even saving Leah. Even that was messed up. I didn't even do that right.

These days, I have to struggle to figure out exactly how bad a person I am. Because there's the secret I keep, the secret about that day with Leah and the Surgeon. And that's pretty bad. I mean, that one alone is sending me to hell.

But then there's what I did to Jesse.

Poor kid. He was only seven. He worshiped me. I was his hero.

I don't think he really got it. He knew that he'd packed up all of his stuff and that big burly guys had come and put it on a truck. Mom had showed him the map on the computer and how they were moving all the way to California. But I don't think it really clicked with him that
I
wasn't going. That
Dad
wasn't going.

And it didn't help that my parents were so damn clueless. They just made it worse. They weren't real smart about it. I guess they weren't thinking...

See, they had all of us go to the airport together. The moving truck had left a couple of days ago and now Mom and Jesse were flying together out to California. Dad and I drove them and walked them to the security gate and Dad gave Jesse this big hug and said, "Be good for your mother." And I wouldn't hug Mom—even though she held out her arms and waited patiently, I wouldn't do it, and I didn't want to hug Jesse either because then it was real, but he was my little brother. I had to do it.

So I hugged him and I said, "Bye, Jesse. I love you."

And that's what did it.

As I pulled away from him, I could see it in his eyes. He suddenly got it. He was going away. Three thousand miles away. And Dad and me weren't going with him. He might never see us again, for all he knew.

He started screaming. I mean, he was wailing and bawling like you wouldn't believe. It was mortifying. He wasn't a little kid, you know? He was seven, almost eight, but he didn't care. He screamed and cried at the top of his lungs. For me. For Dad. Even for Mom, which was weird because he was going with Mom.

Mom and Dad jumped into action. It was the first time I'd seen them do something together in a long time. They were trying to calm him down, trying to distract him or at least get him to quiet down a little bit. But nothing was working. He was just out of control, a little scream machine with the volume cranked all the way up.

There had been some kind of terrorist threat recently, so there was all kinds of extra security there. They were watching us. And people were slowing down to look. And the people in the security line had nothing better to do than stare, and my little brother was just determined to give them all a hell of a show. Nothing my parents did could stop him. I tried to get in there to help, thinking that maybe that dumb-ass story about Pandazilla and Aquahorse would work one more time, but Mom just pushed me back and Jesse kept putting out the decibels.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I don't know where it came from, but I just screamed at him: "Jesse! Just shut the hell up and get on the plane!"

They were the magic words. They didn't just shut up Jesse—they shut up the whole world. Everyone just stopped talking and looked at me. Mom and Dad stared. Security guys, random people—they all watched.

And my little brother hitched all his sobs back into his chest. He had snot running out of his nose and tears streaming down his face and he was now suddenly completely silent as he looked at me like I'd kicked him in the head.

I felt like the lowest form of life on the planet.

Mom wiped up his face. She took his hand and led him to the security line. He didn't fight it.

He kept his head turned the whole time, though, watching me. Watching me until I finally turned away and made Dad take me home.

A
T THE END OF THE DAY, BEFORE
I
ESCAPE TO MY CAR
and to the relative safety of home, I go to the media center. Mrs. Grant is cleaning up some books and papers at the circulation desk. All the lights are off. She gives me a look that's a modification of Fam's dog-to-the-vet look. It's worse because it's an adult doing it. When adults pity you, you know you're screwed.

"Can I help you, Kevin?"

Yeah, can you cut my head off and file it somewhere where future generations of idiots can learn from my example?

I don't say it, of course. Duh.

"No, I just..." I stop because I don't want to finish what I was going to say. It's so pathetic. I came here to ask her how she thought I did compared to Riordon. When I decided to do it, it seemed OK—she was impartial and nice and maybe I did better than I thought.

But now, standing here, with her giving me that dog-to-the-vet look ... I'm doing what Mom calls "fishing for compliments."

"Never mind," I tell her, and I turn to go.

"Wait." She comes around the desk. "Stay for a minute."

"I don't want to keep you."

"I'm not rushing off anywhere. What's on your mind?"

I can't ask her how I did in the debate. That's just sad. But I
can
ask her what she thinks about the issue itself, right? That's not pathetic. That's just getting information.

So I ask her. Who did she agree with—me or John?

She gives me this nervous little laugh. "It doesn't matter what I think."

"Come on. Please?"

She sighs. "Look. My generation messed up a lot of things. We did a lot right, but we messed up a lot, too. But here's the thing—we tried. We marched and we protested and we complained until things changed. We didn't always change the right things and we didn't always get our way, but we tried. And I'm glad to see you trying, Kevin.
That's
what matters."

Um, no—that's the same old adult bull they sling when they're trying to avoid bad news.
Hey, Dad, I went 0 for 4 at the plate and dropped an easy fly ball!

Well, you tried, son. That's what matters.

No, what matters is I
suck.

"Tell me the truth: Do you think I'm right or do you think John's right? Just tell me. I can take it."

"Well, look. I probably shouldn't say, but ... I think you're right."

I can't help it—a happy little "Yes!" slips out.

"Don't go celebrating," she warns me. "I was predisposed to agree with you in the first place. You didn't convince me of anything. I felt the same way from the start."

"But I'm right, right? I mean, I'm not losing my mind or anything—John's wrong."

"Well,
I
think so."

"Then why is everyone listening to him instead?"

She leans against the circulation desk. She looks really, really tired. "People—especially young people—can be swayed pretty easily by something attractive. A slick presentation. A sophisticated message. If you make a complicated issue seem simple, you can get a lot of people on your side, even if you're wrong and even if it's not true."

"That sucks."

"That's what I try to teach you in Media. Just because something looks professional or has high production values or is nice and shiny and neat doesn't mean that it's right."

"But the shiny stuff will always have an advantage?" Man, that's depressing.

She echoes my thoughts: "As depressing as it sounds ... yes. Sorry, Kevin."

And on that lovely note, I head home.

I flip around the radio stations, stopping to listen to a story on NPR. I learn how many soldiers have died or been wounded recently, about the threat level, about the things the president says we need to do to defeat "the evildoers." Which is such a weird and wimpy way of describing them, really. It makes them sound like goofy-ass mad scientists, rubbing their hands together and cackling...

Make a complicated issue seem simple...

Maybe that's the point.

Most of the cars I see on the way home have new ribbons on them, replaced almost immediately after the Council's theft. As if people couldn't bear the thought of
not
having them for even an instant. As if they feared
other
people would judge them. I do see one homemade bumper sticker that gives me a chuckle, though:
COURAGE IS BEING A LIBERAL IN LOWE COUNTY.

But that's the only thing that makes me feel like maybe the
whole
universe isn't against me.

Well, what did I expect—the world to change just because I gave a speech on the morning announcements?

My key chain dangles from the ignition. The key to Brook-dale clings and clangs and makes me feel even worse. Why do I keep it? It's like a reminder of all my lies, all my fears. God.

I keep thinking about Riordon's speech. It's better than thinking about Riordon macking on Leah and Leah just lapping it up. There are so many weaknesses in his argument it's ridiculous. But now I think that's my own fault. I went into this with the wrong attitude. I mean, I
know
that I'm right. Which means that the other side is wrong.

My mistake was thinking that if they're wrong, they must be stupid.

Man,
that
sends a chill right up and down my spine. I always thought that the wrong side was wrong because they were too dumb to get the truth. But Riordon proved that the wrong side can be
smart.
And that's worse than them being stupid. Because it means that they can convince the people who
are
stupid that they're right.

Jeez. What a tool. Burning a flag. Like I would do that.

At home, Dad's not making corn bread today, unfortunately. He's watching a ball game that he taped last night instead. I try not to disturb him. We've never talked about that stuff Reporter Guy published about Dad, and it's like I've been tiptoeing around it ever since.

And I'm sick of it.

I wait for a commercial and then make my move: "Hey, Dad?" Before he can say anything, I plunge on in: "I'm really sorry."

"What? Why? What did you do?"

My throat goes dry, just like when Leah came up to me in the cafeteria.

"About the ... You know, Dad. The paper. The
Loco."

He stares at me so hard that I imagine I can feel him pushing me away just by force of eyesight.

"What are you
talking
about? That wasn't your fault."

"But—but he wouldn't have written that if he wasn't writing about
me
..."

"No, no, no." Dad gets up, shaking his head. "No. Listen to me: He's writing about you because you got rid of those ribbons, which is what
I
told you to do. But if it wasn't that it would have been something else because that's what these people do—they build you up and then they tear you down."

"But—"

"No. That's all ancient history anyway." He gets a soda from the fridge and returns to his chair just as the game comes back on. "Don't worry about it. It's done and over with."

OK, that
totally
isn't what I expected. After a lifetime of being told never to talk about Dad and the army and all that, suddenly it's just, like, "Don't worry about it" and "It's my fault." Which it is, because he
did
make me get rid of those ribbons.

I flop on the bed and watch the game with him for a little while. Maybe he's not as messed up in the head as I always thought.