Me again. Other side. Day Fucking Four.
One of the most awesome things about tape recorders is the clicking, especially with used tapes. This huge, old recorder really catches the sprockets of the tape. Click, click, click. You know what they remind me of? You’re going to love this. The deathwatch beetle. They bore into wood, like in old houses, and their name comes from people who were waiting for their loved ones to die and couldn’t sleep, and they’d hear the bug doing its thing at night in the quiet. These tapes? They’re my deathwatch. Thanks for being on watch with me.
Do Little wants to know how I feel about death. You die, c’est fini. Es el extremo. Das Ende. Life sucks in lots of languages, ya know?
Reverend Moose says humans create what they need for the afterlife because life lived is too much to bear. What d’you think? You’ve been dead for how long? What’s your afterlife? From where you are, do you know what Doug’s is? I know he’s not dead.
Last time I saw Doug, he was my age. The judge opened the paper, guilty, and the courtroom turned totally flashbulb and people standing up, and Mom standing up but not saying anything, reaching for him, and Doug in his orange jumpsuit and that hair, not shaggy any more, officers leading him away. He didn’t look up, except at the door. He turned like he was trying to get the hair out of his eyes, and he looked right at me, not Mom, and he put his lips together like he was saying something, and he smiled, a little, mostly in his eyes, his eyes in my eyes.
I don’t know if I got what Doug was saying.
It’s been years since then, and they still won’t let me see him. Too dangerous or something. Was he saying, “You”?
I hate death, but I’m not going to tell Do Little. He’ll lock me up like Doug.
The poser van-fucking-Gogh says he’s not afraid of death. Why’d he miss his brain? The Whiner says everyone would be better off if she were dead. C’est vrai.
I don’t want anybody dead. Dead is lonely.
Alta and I should be closer because of dead. All I wanted to do was talk about it. But when I get around her, I get mosquitoes inside.
In her apartment before she narked on me, the mosquitoes were like old war movies, Pearl Harbor. When we watched old movies, Dad turned off the lights, and all four of us were on the couch in front of the black-and-white TV, and out of the dark, there was the buzzing sound, closer, closer, loud, all of us huddled down, and we cheered for the Americans and booed the Japanese.
You’re Japanese or half Japanese or something, right? Or adopted by Japanese? You would’ve hated my dad for lots of reasons.
Why wouldn’t Alta talk about it? Can you read her mind, Kyle? Can you let me know? I’m all twisted up about her, hating her, and other stuff.
It all makes sense when I think about that day way back. The town beach. I was maybe ten, little for ten, and Doug was maybe fourteen. Doug and I stayed after everyone else had gone home. We were out there by the cattails looking for bugs. He always loved the water ones, even more than me. Perfect time for crawdads and skimmers. A little dark, a little cool.
We had our backs to the beach, didn’t see him coming, and anyway, he might have come the whole way underwater. But all of a sudden, a big iron arm goes around my middle, and I’m up in the air, pressed flat to his wet chest, and he slides his other hand under my robin’s egg swimsuit, the one Mom bought me at Macy’s, with fish on it. I screamed and kicked, and Doug’s eyes were big, and I saw the lake and the night and heard crickets, and Doug was scared.
“Put her down, Dad,” Doug said. He was such a boy.
“Why should I?” Dad said, and he rubbed his nubby chin into my neck.
Doug’s hands went to fists, but Doug was a twig in front of us. Dad’s hand was crawly and hard under my suit. The sun setting and his arms squeezing me, I could barely see Doug.
“Cut it out,” Doug said.
“Make me,” Dad said. And he lifted me higher.
Doug didn’t move. His chest caught the light left on the lake. His chest was concave.
Dad was breathing slow and regular. He moved me a little up and down. He took deep breaths. My back got prickly rubbed against his chest.
“Tell you what,” Dad said. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“Leave her alone,” Doug said. His voice went up like it did when he was mad.
“You,” Dad said quiet, “for her.”
Dad’s arm let go a little. I pushed down, tried to wiggle out. His arm tightened back, and his other hand let go of my suit and came around my neck. He squeezed.
“Shhh, stop,” Dad said to me, like he was tucking me in. I stopped wiggling.
His hand was so big on my neck, his fingers all around. I couldn’t breathe.
“Okay,” Doug said. “Okay let her go.” Doug came toward us.
Dad said, “Good. That’s how it’ll be from now on. You for her, and no one says a word,” and he tossed me up in the air behind him. I flew, and splash! I dropped underwater. Water up my nose. Didn’t know which way was up. I swallowed. My feet were rubbery. Then, I found the sand, and the splash stopped rocking me so much, and I stood up.
It was darker, and I couldn’t see where Doug was.
Doug said, “Go,” from somewhere in the reeds.
Running was hard with rubber legs and sand and beach, and Mom was in the car in the parking lot with the lights on. Mom was supposed to pick us up. Dad was supposed to be at the gallery.
I was wet and breathing hard, and Mom said, “Where’s Doug?”
I pointed to the water.
“What’s wrong?”
“Doug,” I said, and that’s all I said. It was cold. Mom looked at the lake, got out of the car, and took a few steps toward the beach.
She said, “Doug,” like somebody might call a lost dog.
Right then Doug walked out of the dark, the horizon barely light behind him, a flat crack far away, and the crickets loud.
“Sorry, Mom,” Doug said. He got in the front seat.
I got in the backseat. I was shaky and wet, and we never talked about it. And we didn’t tell Mom. And after that I didn’t go in the peach trees.
After that, Doug was quiet and lifting weights. He got big, weird big. He hung out at the gym with other boys with weird big muscles.
Do Little would scribble all over his yellow pad with his pencil and still try to make eye contact with me if I told this story. He’d draw lines to connect the dots: bad dad to abused brother to suicidal me.
But it’s not that easy.
Never is.
So how would your chart go? Kid tormented to suicide? Too easy.
Maybe if I can go back to the courtroom, I can figure out what Doug’s mouth said. I know he cut Dad’s throat. He took the tree saw, the pointy teeth of it, and dragged it across Dad’s throat. He did it that night after Dad gave me the car, after I told Dad to fuck off. At least, everybody said Doug did it. If I’m back in that courtroom with the shiny benches, everyone standing, and Mom reaching for him, if I see Doug’s jumpsuit and his hair cut short, him turning to me, I think he says, “You.” I think he killed Dad for me.
Tell me you didn’t hang yourself for me. Tell me you didn’t kill yourself because of me. Give me a sign.