“Am I supposed to feel hurt?”
“Isn’t that what sensitive boys do for a living—get their feelings hurt?”
“Not this one.”
“You’re not gonna cry? I’m disappointed.”
“You should have lowered your expectations.”
And he started laughing. I mean, he was really laughing. “What d’ya know—my baby brother can hang with the big boys. He knows just what to say.” He had an awful grin. “You look a lot like the old man. That’s too fucking bad. But that’s not your fault.” He was studying me. But it felt like he was searching. “So, you wanted to meet your big brother? To find out what? To interview him? To write a paper for your English class, ‘My Visit with My Brother’? To make you feel like you’re better than me? To make you feel good about yourself—Look, everybody, I’m such a good guy, I went to see my brother who’s murdered someone? Look at me, I’m such a decent guy?”
And then it was like he decided to be nicer or to try to carry on a conversation. “So, you a junior? A senior?”
“A senior.”
“President of the senior class?”
“No, not even close.”
“Bet you’re a good student.”
“I do okay.”
“Bet Mom likes that. She liked her children to be good students. It made her look good. I mean, a teacher whose kids get bad grades—that’s just not cool.”
“She’s not like that.”
“The hell she isn’t. I bet you love her ass.”
“Don’t talk like that about my mom.”
“Well, she happens to be my mom too. And I can talk about her any fuckin’ way I want. Oh, I bet you’re her little prince. A mama’s boy.”
“Are you really an asshole—or are you just putting on a show just for me?”
“I don’t put on shows for pretty little boys. You know what happens to pretty boys in places like this? Pretty little boys become pretty little girls. But you’ll never get the chance to find out. Because you’re a good boy who brings good girls home to Mama. I bet she approves of all your little girlfriends.”
I looked at him. I could tell him, or I could not tell him. But I had another question for him. “Why’d you have to kill her?”
“It was a he.”
“Well, ‘he’ sure fooled you. Didn’t you believe she was a woman?”
I could see the rage written on his face. “Fuck you. He deserved to die.”
“She,” I said.
“Fuck you.”
“Either way,” I said. “She was a person. She was a human being.”
“Oh, so you’re a moralistic son of a bitch who came here to let me know he doesn’t approve of me. Go fuck yourself. Go and run into the arms of one of your pretty girlfriends and let them coddle you.”
Maybe because I already didn’t care what a man like him thought of me, I decided to tell him. “I don’t have girlfriends—I’m gay.”
He laughed. He laughed. And he laughed. “A little faggot. That’s what I got for a brother. So, you take it up the ass or what?”
I started to get up.
“What? You leaving already? We have a whole hour to have some fun. Can’t you take it?”
“I can take it. I just can’t think of a reason why I should.”
“Fuck you! I’m nothing. You’re nothing. Everybody in the whole fucking world is nothing. But little faggots are worse than nothing.”
“What happened to you?”
“What happened to me? Take a good look. I’m a mirror to what the world is really like.”
I stood and looked at him. “I don’t think so. Whatever gets you through the day. Maybe I’m a mirror to what the world is really like.”
“Dream on. The world doesn’t look like a faggot.”
I stared right at him. “I’m happy I came. I’m even happier I’m leaving.”
I was already walking away as he tossed curse words at me like they were grenades.
I signed my name out where I’d signed my name in. I didn’t really know what I felt. But one thing I didn’t feel—I didn’t feel like crying. And I didn’t feel hurt. I didn’t feel hate. A part of me was smiling. Sometimes a memory of the past keeps us in a prison, and we don’t even know it’s a prison. I had a memory of me and my brother and it represented a love that wasn’t real. And I had to visit a prison to discover my own prison.
My brother, he was gone. He was not a man I wanted to know. I did not know how all of this had happened. And I didn’t have to know.
Some children leave, some children stay.
Some children never find their way.
My brother’s life was his.
And my life was mine.
As I walked out of that prison, I felt like a free man.
I was free. Free of a memory. Free.
Twenty-Eight
WE WERE DRIVING TOWARD FORT Davis, Texas. We’d planned to camp there overnight. It was pretty damn cold, and my dad said we didn’t have to camp out. But I wanted to. “What’s a little cold night air?” My father smiled.
He had spent time there with his uncle as boy. He told me he’d loved his uncle more than he had ever loved his own father.
We hadn’t said a word to each other since we’d left Huntsville. Two hundred miles and not one word. My father let me be. He didn’t ask any questions. Finally, I said, “Thank you, Dad. Thank you for everything.”
“You okay?”
“I’m better than okay.”
I liked the look on his face. We returned to our comfortable silence. After a while, my father decided to introduce some music into our road trip and put on the radio. An old Beatles song came on. It reminded me of Dante—it was a song we listened to a lot: “The Long and Winding Road.” And I found myself singing. I’d forgotten how good it felt to sing. And then my father began to sing along too.
How strange and how beautiful, to be sitting in a car and singing with your father.
Twenty-Nine
WE WERE EATING DINNER AT some dive diner. “It’s been here forever. My uncle sent me a picture he’d taken at the entrance of this place. He said I should keep it so I wouldn’t forget. There was a sign that said NO MEXICANS, NO DOGS, NO BARE FEET.” My father laughed. “At least we were the first on the list. And what did they have against dogs?”
I don’t know how he could laugh about all these things. He could get super angry about the screwed-up world we lived in. But he could also be very patient with the world. He had a good dose of cynicism in him. But he wasn’t a bitter man.
* * *
We didn’t set up a camp or anything. We found a good spot and just laid out our sleeping bags on the ground. My dad made a fire and took out a pint of bourbon and lit a cigarette. “Not too cold for you?”
“I like it.”
“Here,” he said, “take a swig. We won’t tell your mother.” I took a swig and there was a little explosion. I must have made a face.
“You’re not a drinker, are you?”