I
I want to tell him about Oregon—about how hard it has been on our mother, so maybe he will treat her better—but I cannot get myself to do it. He stays out many nights a week, not bothering to tell her he will not need dinner. Sometimes he brings over girlfriends, even though our mother is religious and it bothers her that they are unmarried. He does nothing around the house and leaves messes in the kitchen—plates and leftovers he does not bother to put away—which I clean up so our mother will not come home and find them there and know he did not bother. He has always stored stolen stereos in the house, but now he has them piled in the living room in plain sight. The other day Aunt Jessica came over. Mom was worried what she would think, I could tell, and veered her into the kitchen, even though it meant having her sit on an uncomfortable barstool.
Aunt Jessica went to the bathroom, though, which took her through the living room, and a few minutes later she called Mom in. My aunt was standing there looking at the stereos stacked against the wall, beneath the television set and against the bookshelves.
What are those? she said.
Mom scratched her elbow, uncomfortably. Stereos.
I can see that, Aunt Jessica said. I meant what are they doing here.
They’re being stored.
Are these Tomas’s?
Mom looked aside. Yes.
Aunt Jessica nodded, her lips puckered.
He buys them for cheap and sells them, Mom added quickly.
From where.
Where?
Yes, where.
Mom thought a moment.
He knows a boy who works in a warehouse, a discount warehouse.
So they’re new.
Mom hesitated. Yes. New.
Aunt Jessica frowned. Then why aren’t they in boxes?
You could see our mother’s face drop, but she recovered herself and made up some answer about tax breaks. This was a lie. She had asked Tomas about the boxes and gotten only bullshit answers. My aunt did not look like she believed her, but she left Mom alone about it, for now, and they returned to the kitchen.
II
Father Ryan comes to a party at my Tita Dina’s house. He always gets invited by my aunt, who likes priests, because he lived in the Philippines for so long. Tita always puts out Filipino dishes brunch-style in the kitchen along with Chinese food from Madame Wu’s, and people serve themselves, then make their way to the dining room. They always make sure Father Ryan sits at the dining table next to Tita Dina, a special place. This time some of my mother’s cousins are in town from San Jose and sit there and my mother does too. I can see and hear all of them talking, from the family room, where I sit before a silent TV that plays the Bulls game.
My mother often gets cheerful at the parties on a glass of wine. Maybe she feels lonely most of the time and that is why she especially enjoys her cousins’ company. Yesterday they went to Disneyland with her cousin’s little daughter Veronica and came back with bags of T-shirts to bring home to my cousins and little trinkets and souvenirs. The girl had taken a liking to Mom, even persuading her to go on Space Mountain with her. She used her mother’s money to buy Mom a little Mickey Mouse sweatshirt which I know Mom will not wear, but I can tell she likes it because she showed it off to people as though it were a piece of jewelry. She has it at the table as she tells Father Ryan about the rides they went on and the fun they had.
He smiles and nods attentively in his Filipino way.
Have you ever been on Pirates of the Caribbean, Father Ryan?
Oh, no, he laughs, gently.
For some reason all the Filipinas at the table find his reaction funny and start laughing. Soon, though, my mother’s cousin Tai Pei starts talking about her son who works in Silicon Valley, how he bought a new Mercedes and plans on building a guest cottage behind his house for her to live in in her old age. Somehow the conversation gets on to all their children, the colleges they go to, and their jobs. I pretend not to listen. Mom quietly fingers her empty wineglass, her head slightly lowered. Father Ryan notices this. Earlier Tomas had come in wearing a sleeveless undershirt that showed off his tattoos and got food from the kitchen and ate in a corner without smiling at anyone. I could tell from his bloodshot eyes that he was stoned. Father Ryan noticed this too.
My brother sat there staring at his plate, occasionally picking at food, scraping his paper plate with his knife and licking it clean. My cousin Matt came in then, late, with his girlfriend, who is some Jewish girl who went to Westward and now goes to Berkeley. Matt is a little older, twenty-five, and teaches English. Though Matt is half Filipino like us, he dresses like the rich white kids he went to school with. I remember in the eighties he wore a pink Polo shirt, though now he is in a fashionable dark brown suede leather coat with seventies style lapels and huge drooping buttons, Doc Martens, and black pants. His school was only a mile away from ours. It is strange how differently we turned out. My mother says he goes to temple on Saturdays with her family and attends classes on Jewish mysticism, which bothers his mother, who buys him books by Thomas Merton on Catholic meditation. Tita also sends money to some Indian nuns on a reservation in New Mexico, to pray for his soul. They got their food from the buffet in the kitchen and on their way to the dining room passed Tomas. Matt paused a second, glancing down at my brother, and Tomas nodded up, coolly, and I could tell that Matt knew he was stoned. Matt was surprised, but didn’t want to alienate my brother, and so tried to hide his reaction. The girlfriend was trying not to appear too curious about my brother, or afraid, and used my cousin, whom she stood behind, as a shield between them. She cupped his arm.
How’s it going, Tomas? Matt said.
My brother looked at Matt like this was a farce. They both knew Matt did not like the way my brother behaved, so why pretend. Matt had always come over to our house to tutor him, though that stopped when he went off to college back east. The same falling-off happened with me. For some reason we did not pick up with the tutoring after he returned.
Yeah, cool, man, Tomas said, looking down at his plate again.
Matt and his girlfriend traded glances (as if to say, What’s he on?) but said nothing, then Matt went into the dining room and they ate with the Filipinos.
III
Now, through Tita Dina’s French doors, I notice Tomas sitting on the diving board, the sun on his tank top brilliantly white and almost blinding, as he stares down into the pool. The reflection off the water moves over his face and chest like thin little arms of lightning. I return to the ball game. When I look out again my brother has disappeared. Mom has been glancing outside anxiously all afternoon, and I figure I should go and check up on him. I find him around the side of the house with Veronica, Mom’s little niece. He is showing her the Colt he likes to carry around and has the barrel open and shows her how you can look through an empty chamber and see sky through the other end. He also has a few bullets on the concrete and lets her handle one. She looks up at me, her expression turning from excitement to worry, and though I let my shadow fall across his legs, he pretends he does not see me. She sets the bullet down on an empty plastic lawn chair, the kind you can stack, its surface lightly filmed over with soot from smoggy dew that has dried. Tomas asks her if she wants to hold the Colt, and she glances at me, then shakes her head. Then she senses his annoyance and takes it into her little hand.
Do you think you should be doing that? I say to him.
He does not even look up.
I go back to my Bulls game. Later, much later, I hear some sort of commotion and notice Veronica’s mother kneeling over her, asking angry questions, and the girl avoids her eyes and only reluctantly nods. The mother keeps staring through the French windows at Tomas, who sits in the sunlight, indifferent, slouched on the end of a reclining lawn chair.
By six, everyone has left but us. Empty chairs sit on the backyard grass and on the wooden gazebo and on the concrete by the pool. Despite the vines and flowers my aunt planted on the backyard’s rear wooden fence to make it look tranquil, I hear faint traffic coming from the other side. I am picking up plates and taking them into the kitchen where Tita washes dishes, tossing the paper ones the kids had to use into a trash bag. When Tita goes upstairs to answer a phone call, Mom walks up to my brother.
What the hell do you think you were doing out there, mister? she says. Her hands on her hips. She is angry, not merely trying to look angry the way she usually does with Tomas when she wants him to take her seriously.
My brother’s eyes are not as bloodshot as they have been, and he seems a little surprised and off guard as he looks up at her from his chair.
What you so mad about?
I think you know, Tomas.
I can’t read your mind.
Your Tita Nene was very disappointed in you.
Who the fuck is she?
Your Tita Nene? Don’t try telling me you don’t know your Tita Nene, Tomas.
She’s Veronica’s mom, I tell him.
He looks at me, annoyed. Shut up, Junior.
He seems in no mood for joking so I back off. He turns to Mom. Your relative gets all excited real easy doesn’t she? he says.
I’m not joking, Tomas.
I didn’t do anything.
She turns towards the pool and the light off the house’s white stucco wall illuminates her face, and she seems to hold her words, then turns back to him. Let me see the gun.
What?
Let me see the gun.
He shrugs as if he does not care, though it is obvious he does. He turns to me. I don’t know what she’s talking about. Do you, Junior?
I ignore him.
He seems to believe she will drop this and walk inside, but she does not move. She scratches her elbow the way she does when nervous, though now she is only angry.
How could you do this to me? Her eyes are wide and almost watery.
Tomas shifts uncertainly. Sorry, he says.
She looks away. Her jaw almost trembling.
He leans forward, as though about to put a hand on her shoulder—something he used to do when he was younger. He does not, though.
How humiliating, our mother says. She keeps her eyes away from his. I can’t believe you would do this to me.
He glances at me, panicked for help, but finding nothing, he turns back to her again.
Jesus, Mom, he says. I said I’m sorry.
IV
A week later we get the first phone call. At least it is the first phone call I know of. If the yoga mom has talked to our mother before, I have not heard about it. I tell the woman my mother is not home, which is true, and say I will tell her she called. I do not, and hope maybe the yoga mom will drop it, but in the evening Tomas answers the phone, and even listening from the other room, I can tell he is speaking to her, and he sounds impatient and annoyed and angry. He returns to the kitchen.
Jesus, he says.
What?
That bitch is pissed at Mom.
It seems that the yoga mom wants to take her Land Cruiser in to get repaired. She already took it to the dealer and got an estimate. My brother looks too worked up to sit down. He is so mad at her he has forgotten to be nasty to me.
It was just a little scratch, I say. Her truck was so big the Tercel could barely do any damage.
She said it was going to be eight hundred dollars.
That’s bullshit, I say.
He shakes his head.
I tell him how she humiliated our mother in front of school, before most of the kids and many of their carpooling parents.
What do you think we should do? he says. It is rare that he would ask me such a question.
If she calls again let’s tell her Mom’s not home.
He nods absently, deep in thought.
The next day she calls and Mom is home but I tell the woman she is not. The woman sounds like she does not believe me.
Did you give your mother my message? she says.
I wrote it down.
Well I want you to tell it to her this time, she says. She did not say please but I tell her I will and hope she will give up. But she calls again two hours later and I will not answer the phone so Tomas goes over and tells her he wrote down the message and stop calling us if you’re going to use a rude tone of voice and he hangs up on her. The phone rings again and he picks it up without listening to the receiver and drops it into the cradle again. The plastic clicks and rattles. After that we do not answer it and tell our mother not to answer it.
Why? she says.
It’s Maria, he says.
Did you two get into a fight again?
That’s right.
But the next evening she answers the phone and we listen to her whole conversation. Our mother is all quiet, nodding obediently again. It is as if she were in the same room with the yoga mom. Then she tells the woman she does not have insurance. Some time goes by. I can tell by the look on her face that she is getting chewed out.
You should make her get another estimate, Tomas says to Mom later. Eight hundred bucks is outrageous. It’s a complete rip-off.
I could have given our mother some advice or told the woman a few things but I sit in the corner very still with my arms crossed. When the yoga mom calls back, Tomas answers and tells her eight hundred dollars is too much and that he would be happy to take it someplace where he knows people and can get a deal. The woman tells him she wants to get it done by a reputable dealer, and anyway she does not want anyone else driving her car.
But they’re ripping you off, he says. Look. You might be used to getting ripped off and not care, but some people can’t afford not to shop around.
He listens to her say something more.
Fucking bitch, he says, and hangs up.
Mom looks upset.
Did you have to say that, Tomas?
What?
Did you have to call her by those words?
You’re saying you want me to be nice to her?
Mom does not answer him, clearly flustered.
Where you gonna get eight hundred dollars? he says. I’ll be the one who will have to pay.
No, Tomas.
And you don’t even want to let me bargain the price down.
I told you. I won’t let you pay.
It’s not the money, he says. It’s the principle. And anyway where are you going to get the money?
I’ll find a way.
You’ll find a way.
Listen, Tomas, I don’t want you being rude again.
The next time the phone rings Tomas tries to get it out of her hand, but she will not let him. He storms out of the room and goes outside. He works the dogs in the dark for another hour and we can hear him out there, the barks and clattering cage and the sound of them hitting my brother and slamming him against the wooden fence.
After that Tomas is mad at her and does not talk to her and is even worse about not picking things up around the house. He has been nicer to us in general ever since the incident with Veronica. I think this has affected Mom. She even hoped, probably stupidly, that she could get him to work again and to study his way back into Saint Dominic’s. But in a moment that all changed.
And at school, now, I will see the yoga mom’s son, Ben, in assembly. He sits at the other side of the auditorium, right up front by the speaker, and I cannot tell if he knows anything about what his mother is doing. A couple of times he catches me looking at him, but I do not get the sense he knows I am angry. Once in the crowded hallway between periods he even says hello and I decide he cannot know anything but I feel like hurting him anyway, and have to take long walks to calm down.
We thought maybe we had heard the last of his mother, but then she comes up to Mom’s car in front of the whole school again. Ben stands there, avoiding my eyes, pretending he does not know what is happening. Maybe he believes this is grown-up business and does not involve him and me. My mother tries to get the yoga mom to hold off on the payment and the woman tells her she has already made an appointment with the dealer and if she doesn’t get the money she will call the authorities and tell them our mother does not have insurance. I really want to say something to this woman, but for some reason I do not. Within a week, Mom begins looking for an extra night job, though she tells me not to let my brother find out.
V
Yesterday I found a letter from Uncle Betino with post stamps from Manila. It was on my mother’s makeup drawer and I could tell from its crinkles that she had read it many times.
Dear Ika,
I was heartened to discuss with you that you wish finally to send your son(s) to Manila, as I have been encouraging you to do for some time. Of course I was disturbed to hear that Gabe has lost his admission to Westward due to falling grades, but perhaps he needs the discipline of a Filipino Catholic school and another culture away from the unfortunate influences he now is experiencing in Los Angeles. Immediately I have called Father Reyoso who is well acquainted with the fathers at Ateneo to see about their application. Unfortunately, due to the lateness of this inquiry it will not be possible to send Gabe there now. It may be possible to send him in the spring if he can keep his grades from falling further and out of disciplinary problems, as you have been worrying he will encounter lately.
In fact, I do not think that Tomas could gain admittance to attend even in the spring. There are of course other schools we can look into, and I will make inquiries through Father Reyoso, but I think it will perhaps be best if I secure for him a tutor and keep him at Forbes Park under my personal supervision. If it will be possible to discipline him myself, I will. With Gabe I think it may still be possible to instill in him some of the Asian virtues of our family heritage, of discipline and education and respect for elders and history, as well as some of the European virtues of our Spanish and German heritage, of culture and learning imbued to our mother from the German nuns at Saint Scholastica. However, with Tomas, I fear you have waited too long and not listened to me, and that it is too late. He has become a gangster and is in my mind no longer a Filipino or a Laurel.
It is a shame. I recall when he last came to visit us he seemed a sweet well-behaved boy, if a little shy, though after an initial timidity he came to enjoy playing with the Filipino children and especially took a liking to the animals on the farm such as a particular carabao he named Emilio and became upset when he was told he could not bring it home. Your Tita Effre gave him a wooden water buffalo to console him but he smashed it against a wall. I was surprised, but it has since occurred to me that sometimes the quiet ones have the more mysterious anxieties inside that are difficult for the rest of us to understand. If he will sign a promise to obey me, I will have him in the house. Otherwise, I would like to separate him from his younger brother and focus on Gabe.
I will call you when I get further word from Father Reyoso on the status of his inquiries. In the meantime your youngest son will have a place in our prayers.
VI
He comes to me when I am out back playing with Greta, scratching her behind the ear and getting ready to take her for a walk.
Come on, he says.
I am kneeling by her, the warmth of her fur coming through my jeans, and he stands high above me. His face is silhouetted by the blue sky. Behind him a skywriter has left a trail of white clouds, the ghostlike etchings of blurred words I can no longer understand.
Where?
What do you mean where? Don’t you worry about that.
I do not move.
Is it to train a dog?
He looks annoyed. The muscles along his forearms tense.
No, it’s not to train a dog. Now get your ass in gear, Junior.
I shake my head, one bony elbow supporting my weight on my knee.
I’m not going.
I can feel him wanting to take a step forward. Greta senses this too and her body tenses beside me. Tomas holds back, not wanting to hit me in front of one of the dogs. They are loyal dogs and dependable, and though they are really his dogs, you could never know what would happen if two brothers started fighting. He knows that I know this and he looks away a moment, then turns back again.
I don’t care what you want to do. You still owe me for Buster.
Greta’s chest heaves and I can feel her rapid breathing.
The back door rattles in its aluminum frame and both of us turn and see our mother come out onto the porch and shade her eyes. She wears a pink little tailored jacket she designed and cut herself. She must see us, but for some reason turns around and goes back inside. Then I can see her movements through the window, only the shape of her walking behind the screen, and I wonder if she is dusting the pane or watching us.
Greta rubs the side of her head into the back of my hand, wanting me to scratch her.
Maybe you shouldn’t keep those stereos out where Mom can see them.
She doesn’t know.
I wouldn’t be so sure.
He ignores me and goes over to the cage and the dogs clamber excitedly against the wire and he opens the door—keeping them back with his shoe—and calls to Greta. She hesitates beside me but leaves my side and enters through the door. He snaps the cage door shut and the links clatter and settle and he comes over and hits me in the face. The dogs circle and bark and throw themselves against the chain link and it rattles and ripples and then they fall back to the concrete ground.
In the car I pretend not to feel any pain. I taste the salty blood in my mouth and my tongue traces the folds of flesh that have torn against my teeth. We drive silently, past where the Taquería on Bundy is now a Starbucks and down Santa Monica westward by the car dealers where it is all bright sidewalks and concrete with only a few anemic sapling trees and I can see weeds growing from enormous cracks in the sidewalks here, even from my window. Though it was sunny at our house, we hit the marine-layer overcast that creeps in west of Twentieth Street.
He glances over at me, but I ignore him.
Don’t look so hurt, Junior, you’ll get over it.
I’m not hurt.
Sure.
The wind whistles through my window at the crack between the glass and ceiling.
Maybe afterwards we’ll get some Häagen-Dazs, he says after a while.
I do not answer. We used to go for Häagen-Dazs on the corner of Vincente and Barrington, and it was so popular and crowded then that you had to get in line and hustle to make sure the ice cream boy or girl saw you. The tables would be full and all the people in the warm night drifting outside and licking their cones. Still Mom would stand there shivering and hugging herself against the wind that to us was not cold. Tomas and I would hover around the inside café tables like vultures, forcing people to leave. That Häagen-Dazs is not there anymore, only a Coffee Bean where all the young movie-industry types sip their blended mochas.
He flips the radio on, then tries to thump his hand against the dashboard to the beat, then turns it off and faces me again. He sets his elbow on the top of the rolled-down window glass.
Junior’s angry, he says.
I ignore him.
Look, if you’re going to be a deaf-mute then maybe you shouldn’t sit up in front. Front-seat passengers don’t get to be boring.
I’m not deaf.
That’s what it sounds like to me.
Just because someone is being mute doesn’t necessarily mean they’re deaf.
Whatever.
Well don’t go saying things like that if you’re going to be wrong and inaccurate.
We pass San Vincente on Seventh and head down the hill into Rustic Canyon. Here fog has crept into the valley floor and you can see the red taillights glowing before us. A rig coming up from the PCH nears, its bone white headlights glowing and misted before and above us, like twin suns obscured by fog, then it shudders past.
You know you embarrass Mom.
He pauses a moment. I doubt that, Junior, he says. You’re the one who’s ugly.
I keep quiet. I can feel what I said bothering him, though he does not want me to know this.
I don’t embarrass Mom, he finally says.
Okay, whatever you want to believe.
He looks at me.
So?
So what.
Am I gonna have to beat the fuck out of you or are you going to tell me what you mean.
It’s the way you dress, and behave at parties.
He laughs. That’s all you mean.
It’s enough.
He ignores me as we pull behind the line of cars at the PCH traffic light, and even across the wide highway I can faintly make out the misted ocean and empty beach. The sand appears hard and damp, still bearing the furrows from the tractors that rake litter and glass from it each morning. A newly seeded farm field covered by a windstorm’s drifting sand.
We head up into the Palisades. On the far canyon wall you can see the four-story villa with its pink sides, sunny above the creeping mist.
You know, you’re the one to talk, Junior.
What do you mean?
He waits a moment, gripping his steering wheel casually.
I don’t know. Just a thought.
No. What?
He takes a breath and you can hear the in-suck of air entering his throat.
I know you think you’re the nice son and everything.
I never said I think that.
He gives me a look. The way I remember it, you were always crying in restaurants. You’d throw tantrums before the first day of school and she had to bring you in herself. It was embarrassing. You were always getting beat up. Man, was she worried about you.
He faces forward, waiting for me to say something. I don’t.
She couldn’t take you nowhere. If we went to a party at a relative’s house, she could never stay long—no matter how much fun she was having—because someone would find you hiding in some closet, or you’d have walked off down the street and some uncle would have to go looking for you. I know for a fact she was embarrassed. But she was afraid some bully would’ve gotten to you so she’d make an uncle look for you. Sometimes a whole group of them would go, like a search party.
I look at my fingers. You wouldn’t know that, I say.
Yeah I know.
Bullshit.
He turns to me. You want me to spell it out, Junior? He stops, regarding me, then shakes his head and looks forward again. He seems to have decided to stop speaking, but then changes his mind.
I heard her saying it once.
Okay, I interrupt.
I heard her saying it once. Apologizing to Tito Bentong for the way you ran off and made everyone look after you all over the neighborhood. She was practically crying. A bunch of her cousins were there from the Philippines, and a classmate from Santo Tomas. She hadn’t seen them in years. Mom had made a dress just for the occasion, brought a pot of Lola’s paella. You’d found your way into a neighbor’s backyard and hid in the bushes. The neighbor—this old dude—had found you and called the police and it took a long time before they got you to us. By the time people could eat, everything was cold. We had to leave before it was even served. Then Mom had to take us through a McDonald’s drive-through because you said you were hungry. We ate in the car.
He pauses, his brows furrowed in thought. It reminds me of the way he used to look whenever he was doing math. The funny thing is, Gabe, you were mute most of the time, and everyone thought you were so well behaved, but at home you’d have these tantrums in front of her. She’d give you whatever you wanted. I guess you somehow felt that she would. You knew it. Suddenly, he stares at me. I never see you doing that anymore, though, Junior, he says, almost as though this is something to be sad about.
We drive down into Rustic Canyon. Dusty sunlight flickers through the ropy leaves of overhanging eucalyptus trees, and I catch glimpses of houses through the wooded roadside. The road narrows and winds. As we enter the fog again, he turns on his windshield wipers.
We are quiet. I feel his eyes on me, but he does not say anything. After a while he studies me again.
Are you going to cry?
No.
Man, I can’t take you anywhere.
We enter the private drive, which is a dirt road through a forest. Looking ahead, I glimpse a modern house, made of glass and white concrete, in a sunny clearing. There are no cars in the driveway, but he parks behind some trees short of the front lawn. He kills the motor. I wait for him to get out but he just sits there.
So are you coming in or do you want me to pick up some tissues and bring them back for you?
I ignore him and open my door and step onto the long, crispy grass, slamming the door behind me. It was stupid to make a loud sound but Tomas does not get mad. He just grins at me. Up near the house the grass becomes well cut—a lawn—and the driveway becomes paved. The house seems to be built half in the sunny clearing, half around the edge of the woods. I hear him shutting his car door softly and his footsteps crunching the coarse wild grass as he nears.
I am nervous now and start worrying about how Mom would feel if we got caught.
I’m not going, I suddenly tell him.
Why?
I’m just not.
An evil-looking smile comes across his lips. You don’t even know whose house this is, Junior.
A gentle breeze smelling faintly of the ocean runs across my neck, slips down my shirt back. Whose house is it then?
Why should I tell you? It’s not like you care.
Care about what?
He goes to the Explorer and opens the rear and reaches inside. He pulls out a tire iron and slaps it against his palm, then grips it.
Okay. You know that yoga mother who keeps nagging Mom about that stupid dent in her car?
You mean Ben Feinstein’s mom?
He nods towards the carport tucked between the house and garage, which I had not noticed before. In it is parked the black Land Cruiser. Its tinted windows are almost as black as the paint.
He comes over and stands right next to me. So close his shoulder touches my own. That’s the truck that bitch humiliated Mom in front of school about, right?
The sun throbs hot against my temples.
That pissed you off, didn’t it?
I nod.
I could tell, Junior. I could really tell.
He watches wind blow through the prickly red chaparral treetops, high above, like warm breath moving over thorns. His shoulder against my shoulder bone feels warm and strangely gentle.
Are you game? he says.
Yeah.
We crunch through the long grass and make it onto the lawn, soft and lumpy under our feet—the kind of pre-grown grass people pay gardeners to roll on. It smells of fertilizer, and I can see the edges of the squares they rolled out. The car sits covered by a trellis between the garage and house, sunlight coming through the grapevines above and lighting it in patches. Tomas comes up to the car and peers inside.
Alarm’s on, he says.
I ask for the tire iron and he holds it out and I take it in my hand and my blood moves in my fingers against it and it feels warm and heavy and hard.
He goes up to the rear bumper. There is a scrape on the paint and the rubber is scuffed. Tomas reaches out with his shoe and taps it softly. The dent is so small nobody would notice unless it was pointed out, but she still had to call our mother and demand from her money that would take her two weeks of work to earn.
I step towards the car.
Hey, what are you guys doing here? a small voice says.
We turn. Ben Feinstein stands in the doorway that leads to the house. The kitchen behind him is huge and I can make out a far kitchen table and a counter of butcher-block wood lit by an unseen skylight. Above it hang shiny copper pots and pans.
Tomas approaches him.
Hey, Ben, he says, smiling and extending his hand.
Ben looks at it and hesitates. Tomas was never nice to him at school, but Ben finally shakes Tomas’s hand, then smiles at him. He wears a red polo vest that people make fun of but which his mother likes.
We came to pay your mom for the damage our mom did to her car. Is she around?
Ben looks over his shoulder but tells us she is not. He seems happy to hear this explanation for why we are here.
That’s too bad, Tomas says, pretending to sound disappointed. Hey, would it be all right if we paid you?
Me? Ben’s hands are shoved in his pockets.
Tomas turns to me. Junior, you got my wallet?
It takes me a second to figure out what he wants.
No, I say.
Shit. I think I left it in the car.
He turns back to Ben. We’re parked at the end of the drive. Come on back and we’ll give it to you.
Ben hesitates but nods. We begin walking towards the woods. Above the treetops emerges a white mission-style church with an ornate bell tower.
Hey, that’s a nice vest you got there.
Thanks.
Polo?
Ben nods.
Where’d you get it?
Israel.
You had to go all the way over there to get a Polo vest?
No, my grandma got it for me. She buys me presents every time we go there.
Is it true all the men over there have to join the military and learn martial arts and shit?
Yeah.
I heard in the Mossad they learn jujitsu by doing flips on concrete. You know anything about that?
Ben hesitates but finally tells my brother he has not heard of that. Whenever he looks up at my brother, the sun captures his face and makes him squint, but his eyes remain riveted on Tomas. I’ve fallen back, and have to take a couple steps forward to try and read my brother’s expression and figure out what he is up to.
As we walk onto the longer grass Tomas senses some hesitation in me because he gives me a look—as if to say See this—and then turns to Ben, who follows close behind him.
Listen. Sorry about the way our mom’s so late with the money, he says.
That’s okay.
Yeah, but it must be really annoying.
Ben shrugs, walking with his head down.
Sometimes she can be a real space cadet, Tomas says.
Again, Ben does not say anything.
Like the way she hit your mother’s car. I mean they were only going a couple miles an hour. Tomas shakes his head. You know how clueless old oriental ladies like her can get.
Yeah, Ben says, chuckling, happy to be included in a conversation with him.
And the way she talks. Tomas shakes his head even more now. You ever talked to her, Ben?
I know what you mean, he says eagerly.
We walk in silence.
My brother looks at me now to make sure I’ve been listening. The hair on the back of my neck has pricked like needles, and the air is motionless. We get to the car.
Hey, Ben, I’m gonna look in the front seat, Tomas says. Can you take a look in back?
Ben turns towards the backseat window to peer inside, obviously doing it to please him. He has to lean close because the glass is tinted, and I can see his faint, squinting reflection as my brother gives me a look. But I am already coming up behind him and grab his hair and shove his face into the glass. There is a loud thuck as if no skin separates the glass and bone. Ben tries to struggle free and nearly pushes me off balance, so I thump his forehead into the glass again. It hits harder than I intended, and I hesitate, but he nearly gets free and pokes my eye in the process. It is all I can do to pin his lower back with my hip, shoving him against the door handle. Tomas tells me to hold him and I manage to get his arms wrapped around the small of his back. As my brother punches his stomach I can feel the blows through his back and his body slouching as his legs give way. I let him fall to the ground.
Pick him up, Tomas tells me.
I grab him by the shoulders and Ben doesn’t resist. He even pushes up to help me.
My brother asks me if I have my ice pick and tells me to set it against him. The silver end indents easily against his soft cheek, jitters in my fingers. Most of his head is turned away from us but I can feel in his shoulders that he is crying.
Tomas leans close to his ear. That was some mean shit you said about our mother.
I can feel Ben’s heartbeat through his warm damp clothing, where I grip his elbows. He tries to keep still, though he has a hard time calming his rapid breathing.
I’m sorry.
It wasn’t me you insulted.
I’m sorry to your mom.
My brother breathes in his ear. She’s poor as shit. And your mother wants eight hundred dollars.
I’m sorry.
For a fucking little scratch.
I’m sorry.
I piss on your mother. Puta.
Tomas taps Ben’s cheek beside the ice pick and Ben’s body jerks.
You got eight hundred dollars inside?
Ben’s eyes widen. No.
You got an awfully expensive wardrobe. You got adult spending habits.
My parents buy the stuff for me. I don’t get it myself.
His shirt is really damp now, slippery against my fingers. He glances at me, pleadingly, then turns away again. He is actually afraid of me. Maybe he worries that he gave the impression that he does not think of me as being tough like my brother. I look over at Tomas. He catches my eye and seems pleased with me. I turn to concentrate on Ben so it will not look like I am avoiding Tomas’s gaze. A couple of times in the past I have been with a small group of people when someone said a few smart-aleck things about me and Ben laughed even though I was older. But now he is respectful, his head bowed.
And though my stomach wrenches, I feel a rush not of anxiety but of confidence. In a scary way I realize I like it. Strangely, that only makes my stomach worse.
Tomas holds out the tire iron and I hesitate but take it. By the time I have finished swinging it across Ben’s legs and arms his shirt is torn and damp. My blood is hot and beating in my hand where I grip the tire iron, and I drop it.
My brother gently cups the back of Ben’s neck, almost stroking it.
If you tell anybody about this we will come by and beat up your mother.
The bottom of Ben’s hair presses into his collar as he nods.
You understand?
Okay.
No, you really understand?
Yes.
Tomas smoothes Ben’s hair. Listen to me. When people ask you who did this, and you are dying to talk, I want you to remember this conversation. I want you to remember the things you said about our mother and how much we hate you for it. And I want you to imagine all the things we could do to your mom.
VII
We drive up the curving misted roads, the sun a yellow blur, and come out onto Sunset.
Tomas studies me. We have caught late afternoon traffic and creep behind a bottleneck of cars that moves toward a Pacific Palisades stoplight. To the southwest, the sun is cradled low in some shaggy palm tops, high above a shimmering red roof. Dying light bleeds across the houses of the far canyon wall.
Don’t look so deflated, Junior.
I’m not deflated.
He looks forward again and seems to ponder this. He nods. He sets his hand on me and I tense because he has never done it this way before, but the gesture feels somehow familiar. Then it dawns on me that this is probably something that my father used to do to both of us.
Good, he says.
After a while he turns onto Allenford and we start to head south. I ask him where we are going.
How’s your appetite?
Actually I have none, but I do not want to admit this.
It’s strong, I say.