My brother made the man nod, as if in agreement. He put the toy man’s hand to his toy chin to make him think. He gave the man a monologue. Maybe it would be better to stay. Maybe his new wife was right. The man turned and looked at the wife. He extended his plastic hand and put it to his wife’s plastic cheek. He wants to stay, I thought. Make him stay.
* * *
There was a loud pounding on our apartment door. My brother and I were sleeping in the living room. The hallway light flicked on and through sleepy eyes we watched as our mother shuffled to the door in a tank top and short shorts. She undid the chain and told whoever was knocking to hold their horses.
Rick burst in. He brushed past my mother and turned on the kitchen and living room lights, stunning my senses.
“Hey,” my mother said. “Hey, hey.”
Rick ignored her. He stomped into the living room and almost stepped on my brother and me with his work boots. His eyes were red, I assumed from the gasoline he reeked of.
“You two rubes need to go to your room,” he said. “Hear me?” My brother and I sat up, confused. I scooted my back to the box fan. “Hello?” Rick said, cupping his good hand over his mouth to make a megaphone. “Earth to morons. Come in, morons. Get your asses to your room. Your mother and I need to talk.”
“Rick,” my mother said, “we’ve done our talking for the day. Go home.”
“I know that,” he said. “But I didn’t say what I wanted to say.” He stepped around my brother and eased himself into the couch, careful not to bump his injured arm, wrapped in a new sling, a darker blue than the one before. “I feel like … I feel like I let my anger get the best of me. Earlier. But now I’m ready for a real sit-down.” He patted the empty spot next to him. “So sit down.”
My mother rubbed her arms like it was cold. “Boys, you better go to your room. Take your fort with you.”
My brother stood up, pillow in hand like a shield. “Why do we have to go? We were here first.”
“Just do it, OK?” my mother said, her voice remaining calm. “Because I said so.”
“So,” my brother said.
Rick laughed. “See, that’s what I’m talking about. They don’t listen.” He leaned back in the couch and scratched the skin beneath his sling. “Boys need rules. That’s what I was trying to tell you. If not, they run wild. Go down the wrong road.”
“Oh, shut up,” my brother said. “Nobody wants you here. You’re just a jerk who won’t leave.”
Rick pushed himself out of the couch, his eyebrows raised. “What did you say to me?”
“You heard me. Jerk.” My brother threw the pillow at Rick and Rick caught it.
“Stop it,” my mother said.
Rick dropped the pillow and raised his hand to my mother. “It’s OK.” He stepped around the coffee table, toward my brother. “So you want a repeat of the golf course? Is that it?”
“I want you to leave,” my brother said. “That’s what I want.”
Rick popped his good knuckles against his chest. “You need to go to your room. You need to take your baby bro and beat it, before it beats you.”
“Rick,” my mother said.
“See,” my brother said, not backing down. “See how he is?”
“Oh, and how am I?” Rick said. “How am I exactly?”
“You’re stupid. Too dumb for my mom.”
There was a pause. Rick glanced at my mother, and for a moment it looked like he expected her to defend him, to say something nice about him so he wouldn’t have to say something mean to my brother or hit him again. But my mother remained quiet.
“Oh, now I’m the dumb one?” Rick said. “This coming from the brothers with half a brain between them.”
“That’s half more than you got,” my brother said. He smiled a bit, feeling confident now, sensing he was winning. “You have all your rules, but you don’t get that nobody wants them.”
“No?”
“No. Nobody cares.”
“I care.”
“So?” my brother said. “Nobody cares if you care. Nobody cares about you, either. You don’t belong here.”
Again Rick looked at my mother, who opened her mouth but still didn’t say anything.
“Well, if I don’t belong here, idiot, then where exactly do I belong?”
My brother took a step back, putting some distance between himself and Rick. He curled his lip like one of his villains, and I knew whatever he said next was going to be something mean, something he had wanted to say for a long time, but had been waiting for the right moment. Waiting for Rick to fall into his trap, for Rick to be his weakest.
“Isn’t it obvious?” my brother said. “You belong in prison. With the rest of the scum.”
Rick didn’t look at my mother for help this time. He lunged at my brother, one arm raised like a crippled bear. But my brother was ready and easily jumped away.
“No!” my mother yelled, breaking her silence. She jumped in between them and stuck out her arms. “Cut it out! You,” she said to Rick. “Sit down on the couch.” She turned to my brother. “You, take your brother and go to your room. Now.”
“Did you see that?” my brother said. “See what I mean? Tell him to leave.”
My mother grabbed my brother by his arm and dragged him away from Rick, into the kitchen. She bent over him and put her finger in his face. “I’ve had enough of this. You need to say you’re sorry and go to your room.”
“No,” my brother said. “I’m not going to say sorry. You don’t even like him. You know you don’t.”
“It doesn’t matter,” my mother said. “You don’t talk to people like that. I don’t care who they are, or what they’ve done.”
She shoved my brother toward the living room, and his face lost any sense of pride he felt from beating Rick. He walked over to Rick and stood in front of him, arms at his side. But he did not apologize. Instead he turned and kicked the box fan over, the same way our dad kicked our TV the day he left us for good. My brother looked at our mother a last time and went to our room, leaving me and our blankets behind.
“I’m sorry,” my mother said to Rick. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He didn’t mean it.”
Rick slid off the couch’s arm and into his original spot. He wouldn’t look at my mother. He stared at our coffee table, thinking of things I could only guess. Prison, maybe. His cell. My mother went to him and sat in the spot he’d patted earlier. She took a throw pillow and slid it gently under his arm. Neither of them said anything, and the only noise in the apartment came from the box fan, lying on its back from my brother’s kick, whirring loudly like a vacuum lifted off the ground, begging for someone to put it down.
I stood the fan up. Part of its front plastic was broken off, and there was a hole big enough to fit my hand through.
“Go to your room,” my mother said. “I won’t say it again.”
* * *
Exhausted from his anger, my brother fell asleep right away. I lay in bed listening to his heavy, troubled breathing for what I thought was an hour before realizing I was thirsty, that I could use a glass of mixed milk. When I opened our bedroom door, I knew Rick wouldn’t be there. I could feel that he wasn’t. In bed with the lights off, I hadn’t heard my mother and Rick yell at each other, like I thought I would. My mother hadn’t told Rick that he couldn’t talk to us like that, that he shouldn’t threaten to hit us, and that his way of doing things was wrong. Rick hadn’t gotten mad and yelled back, like my dad might’ve done, shouting he was doing his best, and tough luck if she didn’t like his methods. No one was told to get out, that they were through for good this time. No doors were slammed. The only sound that ever came was a call from my dad, fifteen minutes after Rick left, asking how my mom was, and if everything was all right.