“What is it?”
“What were you doing at my house that day?”
“What? What day?”
“I passed you in the drive. The weekend Rachel died.”
“Oh. She called me over. You know. She was half crazy. Drinking. The pills. I’m sorry, but you know how she was.”
“And what exactly did she call you over for?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t.”
“About how you wanted me to be Albert’s godfather. I dropped off the papers. You remember, the ones I refused to sign. Because I was afraid you were planning to do something crazy. Afraid you were up to something bad. And here we are.”
“You weren’t sleeping with my wife, were you, Monty? My crazy rich wife?”
“You’re talking out of your head. You know, of all people, you know how Rachel was. An affair? Come on, Adam. You’re under a lot of strain. Are you trying to say that I had something to do with Rachel’s death? Adam, you know who killed her. You cleaned the blood off your son, remember?”
“Yes, I remember. I’m just trying to get things straight in my mind.”
“Look, just try to get some rest. I was going to tell you later, but I think we’ll have to put you on the stand. It’s always a big risk, but with everything that’s happened, they’re going to have to hear it from you. They’re going to have to hear you say that you didn’t kill her.”
“Yes. They will have to hear me say that. I want something from you. I want you to call Anne Hunter. I want to talk to her. I want to tell her my story.”
“That’s a bad idea.”
“I want to do it.”
“It’s a very bad idea. These people in the press, they twist things around. They’re worse than lawyers. You’ll regret it.”
“Call her for me. It’s what I want.”
Finally, he agrees. His agreement tells me more than anything else that he believes all is lost. What is one more mistake in an endless series of mistakes? I nod to him as he leaves, and I think of those glasses, the circles of light, like twin summer suns. I think about that summer at the lake when we were boys and the girl we knew. I think about what happened that summer and wonder how it shaped me. I think about that summer and I wonder what my brother, my handsome, handsome brother is capable of.
FORTY
It was the last summer before our parents would die in an automobile accident, but already Monty was the focus of my life. As only a young boy can know, my love and admiration for my older brother was without bounds. He could do no wrong. His every action was, in my eyes at least, flawless. When he threw a baseball, his aim was superb and sure, the pitch almost balletic. And to be the lucky recipient in a game of catch was a privilege without peer. For him to allow me a small portion of his time that might have been more profitably spent with the older boys and their secret society was a magnanimous gesture. Whatever he touched, turned to gold. Indeed, he himself was golden. I followed him constantly, never more than a few steps behind. I had to see all that he did, witness all that he would become, all that he would allow me to become. And, in my most delightful memories, share with him the experiences of boyhood. He taught me how to smoke pilfered cigarettes, how to inhale the smoke that would cause my head to spin and my stomach to roll uneasily. He taught me how to bait a fishing hook with the eye of the minnow impaled through the hook’s sharp point. He taught me how to tie a length of thread onto the leg of a June bug and hold on giggling as it flew crazily around our heads. He taught me how to whistle, to swim, to spit, to live. And he taught me other things as well. He taught me degradation, cruelty, and spite.
That summer, the last summer our parents would ever see before their lives were snuffed out in a heap of twisted metal, I was ten, Monty fourteen. Our family was vacationing at Lake Armistead in the North Carolina mountains. There was a girl. Twelve, possibly thirteen years old. Her family rented another cabin on the lake in the summers, and, over the years, our families grew close, socialized. Her parents and ours would sit out on the covered porch and play card games long into the mountain nights. From the yard we could see their cigarettes spinning orange phantom trails in the summer dark, glow and wink out as if with some secret rhythm like fireflies mating. There were cold gin drinks and much slapping of mosquitoes and, as the hour grew late, drunken laughter. Our mother would sleep past noon after one of these nights and not fully recover until well into the next evening. The next card game, the next drink.
The girl wore braces on her legs. Cumbersome metal braces to straighten out recalcitrant legs from curving inward by God knows what childhood disease. We made fun of her. Or, rather, Monty made fun of her and I joined in, already a firm believer of my brother as hero. In my eyes, he could do no wrong. And if the teasing should go a little too far, should it border on cruelty of an adult nature, then so be it. My brother knew what he was doing. If jamming lighted matches into the crevices of her metal braces was what Monty said was the thing to do, then I did it. If deliberately tripping her so that we might make fun as she struggled to get back up was Monty’s idea of idle diversion, then that was what we did. Monty always knew the correct action to take. I had to believe that. I had to believe it then, because doubt was sacrilege. How could you doubt what you aspired to become? I had no choice but to believe it later. Later, when adolescence should have brought a sense of independence and questioning, Monty had assumed the roles of mother, father, and confessor. But for that summer, we were just boys, growing strong and lean and tan in the mountain sun.
Despite our never-ending teasing, the girl, Denise, never considered staying away from us. I didn’t blame her. I too would have borne any humiliation rather than be denied my brother’s presence. I suspect that for her as well as me, Monty was like a magnet. She just wanted to be around him, within his field of current, even if the price was her dignity. And Monty was handsome. Already his shoulders were wide and strong, his legs lean and muscled and dusted with sun-bleached hair. Puberty had blossomed him into a strikingly beautiful (there is no other word) young man. And this beauty would eventually deform his mind so that he saw women only as instruments to be used for his own pleasure. Since he could have any girl, and later, any woman he chose, why not have them all? Indeed, if his cruel taunts and constant degradation could not keep Denise from seeking out his male beauty, how must it have affected his emerging ego?
There was an incident. Our parents and Denise’s parents had gone down the mountain and into the small town for an afternoon of shopping. Monty, as the oldest, was given charge of Denise and me. We were to stay with Denise at her parents’ cabin. Our mother had given Monty and me a solemn look and told us to behave ourselves. Denise’s mother did likewise and cautioned Denise to stay away from the lake. No sooner had our parents’ car left than Monty started in on Denise.
“Hey, Denise, wanna go swimmin’? Oh, wait, that’s right, you can’t swim, you’re a fuckin’ cripple.”
She took it like always, outwardly annoyed, but inwardly, I knew, simply glad to have some degree of Monty’s attention.
“Sticks and stones, Monty Lee. Why can’t you just be nice for once?”
“I don’t wanna be nice. I like bein’ mean.” Then he added, “Especially bein’ mean to cripples like you.” He must have had some sense of his power over her.
“Oh, you’re mean all right. You should try to be more like Adam.”
“You’re crazy and a cripple,” I said, wanting to demonstrate quite clearly that I was on Monty’s side in this and all matters. Still, I disliked talking harshly to her. Not that I was above such things as talking harshly to girls; far from it, I reveled in it on the school playground. And it was not a sense of pity for her, of that I’m sure. In truth, Denise was actually an attractive girl. Her hair was jet black and constantly clean and shiny. I sometimes daydreamed of touching it or smelling it. In her hair was hidden a lovely paradox that I thought only I could see. Her hair was so black that sometimes, in the sun’s light, the faint curls managed to somehow capture the light and refract it back in secret rainbows of color. I sometimes wondered what it might be like to kiss her. These thoughts would set off a buzzing in my head and cloud my mind for hours, wonderful hours. I of course would never admit to these feelings, because Denise was clearly a person to be scorned, beneath even my idle daydreams. Monty had unequivocally demonstrated that, had rigidly set the parameters that I must follow. She was not worthy of admiration in even an innocent boyhood crush. Yet, for all of that, could a boy be blamed for noting with delight that her breasts were just developing? Could I be blamed for thinking of the small swells beneath her cotton shirts? Thinking of these things late into the night and coveting a secret erection beneath the blankets. Can a boy be blamed for his awakening sexuality?