My mother finished her coffee. My dad shook me awake from my fake sleep. Both said they loved me. Both, Boys sleep in beds.
* * *
My brother was already asleep. I thought about waking him. Whispering, It’s OK. You can tell me. I know what you did for me. And I will never forget.
Where to start? In my mind I went over what I knew. I skipped past the beginning, meeting Chris. The middle, Chris growing closer to my brother. I skipped past what could have been the end. The story would have to start with Chris catching my brother in the woods. The bad guy capturing the good. If it were a movie, we would see Chris tie my brother’s hands, maybe with the rope he used to tie the desk chair to the pool fence. We would see a strip of duct tape stretched across my brother’s mouth. We would watch Chris march my brother miles into the woods, until they emerged in a part of the city I didn’t recognize. It would be the middle of the night, and they would walk to a silent street full of old empty houses. For Sale signs would creak in the wind. Chris would lead my brother to one of these vacant places, inside which were stacks of stolen items, cans of food and toiletries taken from the chalk kid’s apartment, nearby houses. Chris would crack open a back window and shove my brother inside. He would throw a leg over the sill, take one last look around to make sure no one was watching, that no one would interrupt what he was about to do. He wouldn’t smile. He wouldn’t look at the camera. He would pull his other leg into the darkness, shut the window, and the screen would go to black.
But my brother’s story couldn’t end there.
I rolled over and stared at the ceiling, the water pipes that ran beneath the floor above. The first weekend we stayed at the duplex, my brother and I had contests to see who could hold on to the pipes the longest. The loser had to get back up and hold the pipes some more, while the winner pretended he was an evil prison warden, sent by the state’s corrupt governor to torture the inmates for information. The warden would whip the prisoner’s ribs with a pillow, or drill him in the stomach with a sock ball, until he got the answers he wanted.
They would have to bring my brother in, I realized. In the movie, to fill in the rest of the story, they would drag my brother down to the station. We need to know what happened, they would say. What exactly this man did to you. We need to know why he drowned himself and not you. We need answers. For our sake and yours.
My brother wouldn’t talk. He would give them the same thousand-yard stare he’d walked around carrying for months now. The police would get mad. Out of anger, they would treat him as a hostile witness, not the victim he was. They would bring in the good cop so they could bring in the bad. But it wouldn’t matter. No one would get my brother to describe what he’d been through. No amount of pressure or force. They could beg. They could plead, and they would. We just want to understand. Why did you go with this man? Why do something we told you never to do? Still, my brother wouldn’t talk. Everyone would throw up their hands. A cop would kick over a chair. You know, this is for your own good, they would say. We’re doing this for you.
And when all hope was lost was when I came in. The long-lost brother everyone forgot about. The ex-partner who could read the victim inside and out. At first, no one would notice me. I would slide into the room unseen while the others continued with their questions. These last-ditch efforts. You’re a smart kid. Your dad’s a cop, for God’s sake. You should have known what this man was up to. Surely you felt it, the more time you spent with him. Surely you knew he was leading you down a bad path. So why stick by his side? Why not tell anyone? Why follow him down that road, unflinching?
My brother shook his head. Under the hot lamp, he said he didn’t know. And maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he didn’t understand why he stuck by Chris’s side no matter what. Why, for that small window of time, he would follow Chris to the ends of the earth, if Chris asked, despite the feeling deep in my brother’s heart that told him where you are going, where he is taking you, is someplace wrong.
Just tell us why, the cops said. Let’s start there.
I stood in the corner, looking at my reflection in the two-way glass. I smiled with the realization. The reasons I understood, even if he didn’t.
Why? the cops begged. Please, just tell us why.
In the real world I took my brother’s hand. I squeezed it. In the imaginary world, I turned dramatically away from the glass. I faced my brother and my brother smiled back at me.
I think I know, I said. Maybe I can help.
acknowledgments
It’s not enough, but thank you to Claudia Ballard, my agent, dream maker, and champion. To my editor, Emily Bell, the raddest woman I know. Whiskey’s on me, EB, ad aeternam. To Marie-Helene Bertino and everyone at One Story, who published my first story and gave me the encouragement to continue writing.
To the amazing English teachers whose classrooms I was lucky enough to wander into over the years: Ginny Scott, Tom Lorenz, and Deb Olin Unferth. In most of your classes I was the quiet kid, but I was always listening, and am thankful that I did.
To my brilliant MFA classmates at the University of Kansas: especially Robert J. Baumann, Iris Moulton, Dan Rolf, and Chloé Cooper Jones.
To my family: My mom and dad. If anyone asks if this book is about you, tell them only the parts in which the narrator looks at his parents with an ocean of love and pride. That’s how I think of you every day. My step-dad, Gary. Step-dad is a stupid word. Hero-dad is better, and more fitting. My sister, Candi. Thank you for being more proud of me than I will ever be. My brother Brent. In the world of brothers, you’re over 9000. My brother Brett: my role model, my favorite writer, and my best friend.
To all my pets, and in particular my dog Buckley. Thank you for reminding me that there’s a world outside of writing, waiting to be explored and sniffed.
And to my wife, Nicole. I sat behind you in Miss Scott’s high school English class. The only way I could get you to talk to me was to make bets on who would do better on our vocabulary quizzes. Here are words I could define but you could not: lugubrious, obdurate, acerbic. Thus, I won. In the years since, here are words you have helped me understand: life, love, and family. I guess I won again.
a note about the author
Cote Smith grew up in Leavenworth, Kansas, and on various army bases around the country. He earned his MFA from the University of Kansas, and his work has been featured in One Story, Crazyhorse, Third Coast, and FiveChapters, among other publications. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas. Hurt People is his first novel. You can sign up for email updates here.
