“Dude…”
“Two damn minutes, all right?”
He didn’t apologize, but Chance played tough about the things that really mattered. His mom was one. I was another. When dust settled in the field, I turned across the road, and drove us out.
“Did you get what you needed?” Chance asked.
“I’m not sure what I needed.”
“Look, man. If he didn’t do it, he’ll get out. Not for the guns, maybe, but you know…”
I had no response, and the rest of the drive was like that. In the city, I dropped Chance at the mall. His reasons were simple. “If I’m going to cut school, I may as well have some fun. Sure I can’t talk you into it?”
“Not today.”
“I can come with you if you want.”
“Nah, go on. I’ll see you later.”
I left him on the sidewalk, and drove to Sara’s condominium. There was no answer when I knocked on the door, but I saw an upstairs curtain twitch. “Sara, come on.” I knocked again. “Sara!”
When the door opened, she looked puffy and pale. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know. I wanted to check on you.”
“Well, now you have.”
She leaned on the door, but I caught it before it closed. “Sara, wait.”
“We should have never gone out with you.” She showed her face again, pinch-lipped this time. “You. Your brother. She’d be alive if we hadn’t.”
“You can’t believe that.”
“Do you know how she died?”
“How could I possibly know that?”
“Her parents know. The cops told them and they told me.”
“Sara, listen—”
“She was cut to pieces, chained up and tortured and cut to pieces. They say it took hours.”
“I don’t know what to say.” I truly did not.
“Your brother’s an animal. Don’t come here again.”
She slammed the door, and I tried to not see Tyra as she’d described her.
What if it’s me? I wondered.
What if I’m the one who’s wrong?
When I turned away from Sara’s door, I noticed the man in a car across the street. I didn’t think about him one way or another until I stepped into the road, and saw that he was not so much old as old-looking. That seemed familiar, somehow: the loose skin, and how he watched me walk. Even in my car, I thought he was watching. I told myself it didn’t matter. He was just a creepy old dude in a creepy black car.
It took four blocks to remember.
I’d seen him in the courtroom crowd, three rows back and staring at the DA. I took my foot off the gas, and replayed the scene: the judge on his bench, the DA, sweating bullets as he stammered at the judge, and looked fearfully into the crowd. The old man from the car had been right there.
Lanesworth …
The DA had been talking about Lanesworth.
The same man on Sara’s street could not be a coincidence.
I turned across traffic, and everything was fast: my heart, the drive. On Sara’s street, I drove faster.
Be there! I prayed.
But he was gone.
I pounded on Sara’s door, thinking she should know about the man on her street, or that maybe she already did. “Sara! Open up!” I beat on the door for two full minutes. I wanted answers. I wanted to talk.
Sara, apparently, did not.
I thought about it as I drove from the city: Sara’s anger, the man on her street.
* * *
At home, I found my mother in the kitchen, beautifully dressed and made up to perfection, humming as she swept about the room, stirring pots on the stove, bending to remove a tray of cookies from the oven.
“Mom?”
She saw me, and beamed. “Gibson, hello! Such a lovely day!”
There was no mention of Jason or court or the fact I should be in school. She kissed my cheek, and I smelled her perfume. “What is all this?”
“Can’t a mother cook for her family?” She turned on the same smile, the same glittering gaze. “Are you home for lunch? This is for dinner tonight, but I can whip something up in a jiffy.”
I had no easy response. The whole scene had a patina of make-believe: the sunlight and the apron, another burst of day-bright smile.
“They say the temperature will break by dusk. Perhaps we should dine on the patio. Your father always liked that.” She dipped a spoon in sauce and tasted it. “Paprika,” she said; and I realized then that she was strangely, deliriously happy. Worse yet, I realized why.
The bad son was in prison.
She thought the good one was safe.
* * *
Too troubled to stay in the house, I drove back to the city, ending up in a parking lot I knew better than most. The building was redbrick and small, its windows as spotless and crisp as the poster taped inside:
THE MARINE CORPS BUILDS MEN
A recruitment officer was watching through the window, and waved at me to come inside. He’d done the same thing a dozen times on different days, but today, I got out of the car and actually went inside. The officer was medium-sized and medium-aged, but his feet rode the linoleum at shoulder width. An empty sleeve was pinned on his chest beside a name tag that said MCCORMICK, J.
“I’ve seen you before,” he said. “Ten times, at least.” He gestured to the desk, and we sat, one on either side. His eyes were dark, the gaze measured. Medals hung beside the empty sleeve. “You’re wondering about the arm. Most do. Enemy bayonet. A severed artery.”
“Vietnam?” I asked.
“Khe Sanh in ’68.”
“Is that why…?” I trailed off, pointing at the Purple Heart on his chest.
“Is that the reason you’re here? You like the idea of medals?”
“I never think about them.”
“Every boy does.”
“I’m not a boy.”
“You sit in the car like a boy.”
It was flatly said. Heat rose in my neck and face, and I hated that. “Aren’t you supposed to recruit me?”
“This is the Marine Corps, not the army.”
I started to stand, the air between us like the edge of a storm.
“First, tell me why you came inside. Why today? What changed?”
It was a good question. I had no ready answer. “My brothers fought,” I finally said. “I graduate soon.”
“Were your brothers marines?”
“My father, too. He fought in Korea, my brothers in Vietnam. The oldest died at Cam Lộ in ’67.”
“What unit?”
“First Battalion, Third Marines.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, son. I’m sure he was a fine marine.”
“PFC Robert French. He was.”
The officer blinked at last. “You said French?”
“Robert, yes. Drafted out of high school. When he died, my other brother enlisted.”
The officer leaned forward, the same fixed look in his eyes. “Your other brother is Jason French? Gunnery Sergeant Jason French, from here in Mecklenburg County?” He slid a newspaper across the desk, and pressed his finger on the headline. “This Jason French?”