He was nine. Or maybe ten. It was hard to remember everything, but some things remained fresh. Sam ran along the side of the road. Ahead was his older brother Derek, and the guys. The guys were a nameless bunch, all about Derek’s age, and they smoked cigarettes and rolled the packs up in their T-shirt sleeves and swore a lot. They were ambling ahead, walking fast, and Sam called out, “Hey, Derek! C’mon, wait up.”
It was summer. There was nothing to do at home. Mom made you dust or wash dishes, and Dad always had yard work to do. Derek and the guys were out, doing something secret, doing something special. Maybe take in a matinee at the Ioka and eat popcorn and throw things at the screen, or go to the sand pits and break beer bottles with rocks. Sam kept on running, his chest burning with the effort, wanting to be a little bit faster, wanting to be with Derek and the guys.
Derek shook his head and smiled at his friends. There were three of them. One was smoking and the other two had cigarettes tucked behind their ears.
One guy said, “That’s your little brother, ain’t it?”
“Yeah,” Derek said. “He’s queer, you know.”
Sam slid to a stop. “I am not.”
Derek laughed. “Man, you are so queer. Go on. Beat it, will you?”
Another guy picked up the chorus, yeah, beat it, go away queerbait. One grabbed a rock and threw it and other stones started to come at him, and the chorus, queerbait, queerbait, queerbait, and a rock struck Sam, right above the eye. Sam turned and ran back home, holding onto his eye and crying, blood trickling through his fingers. He wasn’t crying because of the cut, though it hurt a lot. He was crying because his older brother had been right there with the other guys, throwing rocks and chanting, a happy smile on his face.
The third phone call came after dinner that night, right after Brian had been put to sleep, dressed in his Star Trek pajamas and cuddling a stuffed bunny he insisted on calling Laura. He and Terry were on the living room couch, Terry with an ice-cold margarita in her hand.
When the phone rang Sam put down a newspaper and got up, touching Terry on her knee. “It’s okay,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “I’ll get it.” In the kitchen he took a quick glance at a wall mirror and saw the dull white scar just above his right eyebrow. The shrill tone rang out again and it disturbed him so, like fingernails being run down a blackboard. He took a deep breath.
“Yes?”
No hissing. No crackling. No whistling.
“Surprised?” the man on the other end said.
He sagged a bit, holding out a hand on the paneled wall. “Yes, I suppose I am. Where are you?”
“Around. Thing is, I know where you are.”
Sam rubbed at his face and looked away from the living room. Terry had been sitting there safe, drink in hand, engrossed in whatever was on the television.
“I thought, well... A parole and all...”
The man laughed, but it was not a laugh from humor. “Oh, so they say, so they say. You know the time runs on so you can’t even tell what month it is sometimes. You just know it drags. And for me, well, I was in Indiana. You ever hear of Indiana? Damn, I know I didn’t until those troopers rolled up. Life plus twenty. Hard to believe. Time gets going so after a while you just gotta get out. And you don’t worry none about parole papers or such. You just go. Anything in your way, you go through, over or around, it don’t matter none.”
Sam closed his eyes, not wanting to see the kitchen with all the fine accessories, his wife sitting calmly out in the decorated living room, or even his hand gripping the phone.
“How long you been out?”
“Hard to say. Some days it seems like a few hours, other times, it’s like I never went in. But the nights, man, the nights, that’s when the stone and the bars come back. Always at night.”
Sam whispered, “Damn it, what do you want?”
The man chuckled. “Anything and everything. I’ll be in touch.”
It seemed to take a long time to hang up the phone. From the kitchen he went back to the living room, standing behind the Scandinavian-design couch. Terry was at his elbow.
“Who was on the phone?” she asked. On the television, a large white dog was attacking a man. The dog’s teeth looked very sharp and the man’s screams were an odd, tinny sound. “Nobody special.”
Terry turned her head up at him, a frown suddenly there. “Well, it had to be somebody. Even if they weren’t special.”
She turned back and he was thankful for that because he had quickly clenched both hands into fists. He put them behind his back, for he was ashamed of them. He had an incredible urge to strike out and tear at something, and she was the closest something about. Sam felt something tugging within him and he had quick fear that he had been infected with some awful thing. He dug his fingernails into his palms.
“Like I said,” he murmured. “Nobody special.”
Some years before that a young Sam Whelan, the scar fresh and bright over his eye, lay in bed, listening to the rustling sound from outside. His parents were away visiting Grandpa and Grandma down Maine, and Derek was supposed to be home, taking care of him. But he wasn’t. And something awful had happened.
Sam pulled the blankets tighter about him, listening to the sound of a person climbing up onto the porch. The screen window screeched up and Derek tumbled in. He muttered a curse and stood up. There was a thick odor of beer in the room.
Sam called out: “You in trouble?”
From the darkness: “Why do you care?”
“Two cops came by. In their cruiser. Looking for you.”
Derek swore. “What did you say?”
“I told ’em you went and got ice cream for me.”
His brother laughed, switching on an overhead light by his bed. “That’s a good one.” He had a smirk on his face and there were fresh scratches on his cheek, as if he had run into a thorn bush. Or something else. He dug out a cigarette pack and lit one up, the sharp tobacco odor making Sam’s nose twitch.
“You listen here,” Derek said, pointing the burning cigarette at him. “Anybody else ask, even parents, I’ve been here all night.” He grinned and took a drag off the cigarette. “ ’Cept the time I got you ice cream.” Derek shifted on the bed, his greasy engineer boots making dirty furrows on the blankets. He reached down between the bed and the wall and came up with a men’s magazine, the type with naked women on the cover. He flipped through the pages, a sly grin coming to his face now and then. Sam watched him, hands on his covers, not moving.
His brother started whistling. Sam asked, “What’s that you whistling?”
Derek looked up from the magazine. “Hunh? Some tune Mackey taught me. Irish, he said, called Garry Owen. Only thing I could remember, one of the lines says, ‘Better times than these, Garry Owen. Better times than these.’ That’s a good friggin’ motto. Always be a better time.”
He flipped through some more pages. “Close your eyes and get to sleep ’fore I stick this cigarette on your forehead.”
Sam did as he was told, turning over to face the wall. He closed his eyes but he did not sleep. He was always afraid to sleep with Derek in the same room. And he always heard a whispering voice inside him, urging Sam to leap out of bed and attack Derek.
For most of the day Sam kept his office door shut, not even bothering to look at the folders within his IN basket. Instead he kept the bottom desk drawer open, and for some reason he propped up the old photo against the holstered revolver. He spent the morning with a pile of paper clips in the center of his desk. He leaned back in the chair and slowly went through the pile, bending and twisting the metal clips until they broke in his fingers. He would throw the pieces away and start over again.