I couldn’t face school this morning for a gazillion reasons, but Dad insisted on driving me again. I waved to him as I entered the front doors. I waited thirty seconds. Then I walked back out and came home. I watched “The Price Is Right” and “The View” and a rerun of a really old show called “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”
After that, I walked out of the apartment and took the stairs to the third floor and knocked on Karen’s door.
She looked surprised to see me. She was wearing sweatpants again and clutching a mug of tea. Her skin still looked gray. I could hear “The Dr. Oz Show” on the TV in her living room.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I asked.
“It’s my day off. Not that it’s any of your business.”
She blocked the doorway with her body; she had no intention of inviting me in.
“How did he do it?”
“How did who do what?”
“Your dad.”
“Oh,” she said. “Carbon monoxide poisoning. Left his car running in our garage.”
“Did you find him?”
“No, my mother did.”
She gave me a hard stare. Then she stepped away from the door and walked into the living room. I took it as my cue to enter.
Karen’s living room is just like ours, except hers is decorated way nicer. Her walls are painted yellow, and it’s bright and cheery.
She parked herself in an overstuffed chair and turned off the TV. I sat on her couch.
“No,” she said, “I didn’t. It was a closed casket.”
“I never saw my brother’s body, either.”
“Don’t you think that was for the best?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I think the pictures in my head might be worse than the real thing.”
She nodded. “I had those nightmares, too.”
“Had?”
“Had.”
That one little word filled me with relief. Even though I knew her dad had died at least twenty years ago, which meant her nightmares might have stopped only last year, they had still stopped.
“Did you …” A lump lodged itself in my throat. Karen waited. “Did you think it was your fault?”
“God, yes.”
“Why?”
“Millions of reasons. I’d been close to my dad when I was younger, but when I got older I thought he was embarrassing. All of his stale jokes and cheap suits. I hated being seen with him. And the last time I saw him, before his death, we had a fight.… I said some nasty things.”
Neither of us said anything for a moment.
“It took me – it took my family – years to come to terms with the fact that none of us was to blame for what my dad did.”
I looked down at my hands.
“You feel guilty about your brother’s death, don’t you?”
I nodded. And suddenly I was crying. Total waterworks.
Karen immediately got up from her chair. She plunked herself beside me on the couch and put her arms around me and held me tight.
For a brief second, I felt horrified. But then I didn’t. I cried and cried and cried, and I’m sure I got snot all over her sweatshirt, but she didn’t care. She just held me, and it was like being held by my mom when I was little and had a boo-boo. And next thing I knew, I told her the whole story of The Other Thing that had happened just four weeks before Jesse took Dad’s rifle to school. I told the story into her sweatshirt, between great big gulping sobs, and I swear I was back there, smelling the pee smell in the slide, hearing the sound of duct tape, listening to Jesse’s screams.
When I was done, she said, “It is not your fault.” She said it fiercely, into my ear. “It’s not anyone’s fault. It took me years of group therapy to finally believe that, Henry, but it doesn’t have to take you years. What your brother did was a terrible thing, a genuine tragedy, but it was his decision, no one else’s.”
“I feel so bad for the Marlins, too. For Jodie.”
“Of course you do. But it is not your fault.”
She got up, grabbed a box of Kleenex from her mantelpiece, and shoved it into my hands.
“I used to go to this group. Once in a while, I still drop by if I’m having a bad day. It’s for people who’ve lost someone to suicide. I’d like you to come with me sometime.”
I shook my head. “I already have a therapist.”
“And I’m sure your therapist is great. But you can do this, too. This is a group of people who’ve been through it. Nothing you can say about how you’ve been feeling surprises them, ’cause they’ve all felt it, too, in some form or other.”
“But I don’t want to talk. I want to forget.”
She snorted. “You can never forget. Trust me, I drank a lot of booze and took a lot of drugs trying to forget. It’s impossible.”
I blew my nose.
“This will be with you forever. But you’ll learn to live with it.” She handed me another Kleenex.
“That’s the best you can do? You’ll learn to live with it?”
She nodded. “Yup. That’s the best I can do.”
10:00 p.m.
This is the story I told Karen.
In February last year, Jesse got his first real job at Abdul’s Pizza Palace in downtown Port Salish. “Palace” was an overstatement; the place was just a hole-in-the-wall. In fact, it had an actual hole in the wall, made by a drunk guy’s fist one night when his Hawaiian pizza took too long. There were no tables; it was strictly a take-out and delivery operation.
Jesse loved that job. Sometimes he’d bring home a pizza that someone hadn’t picked up. We’d all tell him how awesome it tasted, and he would actually crack a smile. Abdul was so happy with his work, he increased his shifts and even gave him a fifty-cent-per-hour raise, which made his other two employees jealous because Abdul never gave raises.
Anyway, one night – April 30th to be exact – who comes into the Pizza Palace but Scott Marlin and a few of his friends. And Jesse’s alone, or so they think. And they start teasing him, saying stuff like, “Pizza Face works in a pizza restaurant!” and “Has anyone ever tried to eat your face?” Then they started bugging him for free pizza.
Jesse refused to give them any freebies, which, when you think about it, was pretty brave ’cause it was four against one. Finally Scott marched behind the counter and tried to grab a bunch of slices from one of the warming trays, but Jesse blocked his path. Scott easily shoved him out of the way. That’s when Abdul came upstairs; he’d been in the walk-in freezer, getting more pizza dough. He started shouting that he was going to call the cops, and Scott and his friends took off.
I only found out that part of the story later, from Abdul.
About an hour after that, I showed up. I’d been at the nine o’clock showing of the last Harry Potter movie with a bunch of friends, including Jodie. My mom and dad were out at a dinner party, and they didn’t want me to walk home alone. I told them I’d be fine walking with my friends, but they insisted I meet Jesse at the Pizza Palace so we could walk home together. Looking back, I wonder if it was more for Jesse’s sake than for mine.
Jesse gave me free pizza. He paid for it out of his own pocket, carefully putting the right amount in the till. I remember I ate an enormous slice of the Heart-Stopper, which was topped with ten different kinds of meat and cheese.
Just after midnight, we said good night to Abdul and started walking home. I remember being glad it was late because no one would see me with my brother.
It was hard for me to write that.
I have to take a break.
10:30 p.m.
Okay. To get to our house from Abdul’s Pizza Palace took about twenty minutes. But if you cut through the park, it took only ten. Jesse knew my parents wouldn’t want us to go through the park after dark.
“C’mon,” I said. “It’s cold out; I’m freezing; we’re together; what can happen?”
So we cut through the park.
We’d been walking for only a few minutes when Jesse suddenly said, “Run.”
I hadn’t even heard anything. “What –” I started.
“Run!” he whispered again, and that’s when I heard feet pounding along the ground, getting closer. So I ran. Even though I didn’t have any wobblies then, I still wasn’t a good runner. I sprinted as far as the playground, which was right in the middle of the park. Then I had to stop to catch my breath.
I turned around. I saw Jesse, also running toward the playground, and, behind him, four figures giving chase.
They were getting closer. I was scared. So I ran up the steps that led to the top of the yellow plastic tube slide, and I launched myself into it. I pressed my arms and legs against the sides and slid slowly down to the bottom, where I stayed, hidden.
But there is a hole in the side of the yellow tube slide. It’s been there forever. I used to toss stones out of it when I was little. I pressed my eye against it.
They were pulling something over Jesse’s face. I couldn’t tell what it was. I found out later it was a pillowcase.
Then they knocked him to the ground. They took off his shoes. They took off his jeans.
I have to stop again.
11:00 p.m.
Jesse fought them as hard as he could. But it didn’t matter that he was a huge GWF fan and knew all the Great Dane’s moves; it didn’t matter that he’d been lifting weights in the basement for the past year. He’d been ambushed, and it was four against one.
I crouched in the yellow tube slide that smelled of plastic and pee, and I watched as they pulled him to his feet and marched him out of my line of vision.
I inched closer to the bottom of the slide and peered out. They’d pushed my brother against the tetherball pole.
They never said a word, any of them.
Then Scott pulled out a roll of duct tape.
He started tearing long strips off the roll. It made a horrible sound, like nails on a chalkboard. He wrapped the tape around and around Jesse, securing him to the pole.
And then.
I need a minute.
11:45 p.m.
And then they took turns sack-tapping him. Slapping and flicking his testicles, hard.
It went on for what felt like an eternity. Jesse was screaming, the pain was that bad.
I did nothing. I know, I know, what was I supposed to do? I was twelve. I was short. And there was one of me and four of them. But still. Maybe I could have found a stick and snuck up on Scott and his friends and kneecapped them. Or grabbed a big rock and smashed in their skulls.
This is the part that gets to me most, that makes me want to kill Scott even though I know he is already dead: They were laughing. Scott and his friends were laughing. They were trying not to, trying to stay quiet, but I guess they just couldn’t help themselves.
After a while, they got bored and walked away, leaving my brother duct-taped to the pole.
What would have happened if I hadn’t been there? When would he have been found?
Then again, if I hadn’t been there, he never would have taken the shortcut through the park.
I jumped out of the slide. I stumbled over to my brother. I pulled the pillowcase off his head. I used my teeth to rip the strips of duct tape open. I found his shoes and pants stuffed into a trash can. For a long time, he couldn’t even move, the pain was so bad. Finally I helped him into his pants, and we walked the rest of the way home together. Jesse was hunched over and hobbling like a little old man. I was blubbering like a baby.
But Jesse wasn’t. Jesse didn’t show a speck of emotion.
Mom and Dad were still out when we got back home. I helped Jesse peel off the rest of the duct tape. It left angry red welts on his skin.
“I should have helped you,” I blubbered. “I should have killed them.”
“We were outnumbered, Henry. If you’d let them know you were there, they would’ve hurt you, too.”
“Or they would’ve run away ’cause they didn’t want a witness,” I said.
“Maybe. I doubt it.”
“We need to call the cops.”
“No.”
“We can take them back and show them where it happened. They can sweep the area for fingerprints.” I’d watched a lot of episodes of “CSI.”
“No,” he said sharply. “We’re not calling the cops.”
“Then we’ll tell Mom and Dad –”
“NO!”
He must’ve seen the look on my face, because he tried to explain. “If we tell Mom and Dad, they’ll make a huge deal out of it. They’ll call Scott’s parents; they’ll call the principal; they’ll call the police –”
“Exactly!”
“And at the end of it all, I’ll still have to face Scott every time I go to school. And he will find a way to make my life even worse.”
He said all of this calmly, like he was a teacher patiently explaining a math problem.
“No,” I said. “It doesn’t feel right. I want to tell.”
“Henry. Don’t.” He looked me in the eye. “Please.”
So I didn’t.
Actually, I did tell one person, sort of.
I told Jodie.
It was a few days later, and we were hanging out at recess. She showed me a new ring she was wearing. “It’s a mood ring,” she told me. “Scott bought it for me in Gramsimo. He’s so sweet.”
“He’s an asshole,” I blurted. It just popped right out of my mouth.
Jodie’s face turned pink. “What did you just say?”
“He’s a bully, Jodie. He makes my brother’s life hell.”
“I don’t believe you.” But she hesitated before she said it.
“Ask him. Ask him about last Saturday night,” I said, and I could feel my furies coming on.
“What happened?”
“Ask him!” I shouted.
Then I walked away. I don’t know why I lashed out at her; I knew none of this was her fault.
Still, we didn’t speak to each other after that.
Four weeks later, both of our brothers were dead.
Here’s the worst part: After that night in the park, Jesse actually seemed better. Calmer. He didn’t hide out in his room every night. He stopped swearing at my parents. He ate dinner with us and smiled sometimes. Even though Mom and Dad never said anything, I could tell they were relieved. And I was, too.
After IT happened, I felt completely sideswiped. Till I realized Jesse had seemed better because he’d reached a decision. He’d come up with the ultimate solution to all of his problems.
That’s why he was calm.
Midnight
After Jesse and Scott were dead – i.e. far too late – I told my parents about that night. They said all the right things. It wasn’t my fault; I shouldn’t blame myself.
But you know what? I think my mom blames me the same way she blames my dad. I think she blames us equally. I think she knows she shouldn’t, but I think she can’t help herself.
I think that is part of the reason why she can’t be with us right now. She loves us, but she hates us, too.