“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wanted to come by. Give Aiden a big kiss for me.”
“He’s already asleep.” Jenny paused. I could hear her working words over in her mind, trying to construct the exact phrase that would cut me the most. One of those fucked-up parts of loving someone. You know the other’s greatest weakness. Instead of doing what you can to protect wounds, you wait for the most opportune times to exploit them.
“I don’t understand you,” she said. “You talk about wanting to spend more time with your son, and all you do is find new ways to let us down.”
“I do want to spend more time with him. And with you. I miss you both.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. I thought she might actually say something encouraging. Then I heard a door slam on her end and Brody grumbling. Jenny must’ve told him it was me on the phone, because the grumbling continued, but the inflection changed.
Turley poked his head out the door into the cold. “He’s all ready.”
“Who’s ready?” Jenny asked.
“Nothing.”
“Who was that? Where are you?”
“The police station.”
“Chris?”
“Yeah.” I knew I’d just hand delivered her the invitation she needed to tear me a new asshole. Half our fights were over Chris and what she saw as my coddling him. I was hardly the guy’s biggest fan these days, but you can’t let people take a shit on your brother, no matter how big a bastard he is. So I braced for what was coming next. Only, nothing did. Then I realized her silence was actually worse. You don’t waste your time talking when you’ve given up trying. I did the same damn thing with my brother. When I stopped bitching and got off his back, it wasn’t because I was suddenly cool with his fucked-up lifestyle; I just didn’t give a shit anymore. And it sucked being on the receiving end of that ambivalence.
“I’ll stop by tomorrow morning, Jenny. Promise. It’s Saturday, I don’t have any work. Maybe we can-”
“Okay, Jay,” she said.
“I have some money for you too.”
But she’d already hung up.
CHAPTER THREE
We bounced along old country roads in my battered Chevy without talking. Strapped with a ratty, brown backpack in which he carted his world, Chris had bummed a smoke when he first climbed in, but hadn’t spoken a word since. He looked like shit. I’d expected him to look bad; somehow, he looked even worse than that. Half his head was sheared in a bleached-out, homemade haircut, with crusted bloody slits around the ears, like he’d used glass shards for scissors and a toaster for a mirror. In the dim, blue-gray light of the cab, he resembled a cadaver, waxy, colorless flesh drawn tightly over protruding bone. His eyes, two vacuous pits, sat deep in the sockets with giant black rings around them, and his badly neglected teeth stuck out. When he sucked on his cigarette, he pulled so hard, you’d think his eyeballs might disappear straight through the back of his head and the whole thing would instantly turn to ash.
In the five or six months since I’d seen him last, he appeared to have lost weight. I’d seen cancer patients with more meat on their bones. Over six feet, he couldn’t have weighed more than a buck forty. Despite the long time apart, I felt no joy in our reunion. I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual. We were brothers, blood on blood, and that counts for something. There had been a time, right after the accident, when we might’ve been close. But those days were long behind us now.
I steered up Axel Rod Road, past Tyne Machinery, where our father had worked. I could still recall the horror stories he’d tell. Hot solvents scarring the skin, limbs caught in gears, a Gothic novel nightmare. The factory used to employ half of Ashton, but went under years ago. Literally. The building had been abandoned so long that the crumbling structure was sinking back into the earth. Crooked trees and unruly vegetation fastened onto the frame. Roots and weeds erupted from hard soil, sprawling up through the cracks, coiling around anchors and joists, latching onto studs and roof beams. Each time I passed the cracked foundation and shattered glass, I’d think of the tremendous sacrifices our father had made to give us a good home. Which, in turn, would only make me feel like a bigger bastard for not being able to do that for my son.
I glanced over at my brother. Chris didn’t have a coat. He wore the same threadbare T-shirt he always did, dark blue with a pair of faded cherries, from the old Pac-Man arcade game. Every time I saw him he was wearing it. What kind of life do you lead where you only own one T-shirt? His dirty jeans, coated in a slick, greasy sheen, stank like rank cheese and gasoline. With the heater in my truck not working, Chris must’ve been freezing his balls off-I was bundled in layers and could barely keep from shivering. I’d asked him a couple times if he wanted my coat, but he shook me off. I’m sure he’d been outside in worse.
Nothing but static on the radio, which was normal for these parts. CD player was broken and only made a clacking sound when you stuck in a disc. I had a new stereo Tom had given me, still in the box, shrink-wrapped and everything, but I hadn’t bothered opening the package. Which sucked, because I kept my entire music collection in the truck. Anytime I was in the mood for some tunes, stuck fruitlessly twiddling the knob, I’d gaze down at all the music I couldn’t play, and it only served as a reminder that I couldn’t get my act together.
Usually, I didn’t mind the quiet, but tonight, sitting next to my brother, the silence only amplified the distance between us.
The roads hadn’t been plowed, and the town wouldn’t send out trucks until the storm calmed. Couldn’t go faster than fifteen miles an hour or I’d fishtail into a culvert.
“Where we going?” Chris finally asked.
“My place, I guess. Unless you have somewhere else you need to be.” It was a dick thing to say, since we both knew he didn’t. As much as he disgusted me at that moment, I wasn’t kicking my brother out to roam dark, snowy streets in a T-shirt. I didn’t know where he slept most nights. The bus station in Longmont? The Y on Kirby? One of the motels on the Turnpike? A crack den? No fucking idea. This was my flesh-and-blood brother sitting next to me, and the reality of his life was as graspable to me as ether.
Following Turley’s story down at the jail, I’d been anticipating nonstop conspiracy theories and antigovernment gibberish about all the ways the authorities were out to screw Chris. Which was a recurring theme in my brother’s life. Because it was always about him. It was pathetic how Chris tried to inject relevance into his existence this way. He didn’t understand that he was inconsequential, didn’t matter; that he was expendable. They could find my brother frozen beneath a tree in a park or with a needle in his arm in some skid row room, as they most certainly would someday, and nobody’s life would be impacted. Not even mine. In my more honest moments, I’d have to admit, if to no one but myself, that any sorrow I might feel for this loss would immediately be offset by the tremendous sense of relief.
Hank Miller had closed up the station already, so the tiny lot was pitch black. I parked my truck behind the squat brick garage, and made for the small apartment above it. This is where I’d lived for over a decade. What’s that? One-eighth of my life? Maybe more, depending on if I get cut down as early as my folks. Never really thought about it that way. Certainly hadn’t envisioned a future here when I rented the place just out of high school, but that’s what it became. My future. Like everything else in my life, a temporary plan that had turned permanent. My job with Tom. My situation with Jenny. My less than stellar start to fatherhood. Someday, it would all change. Someday, I would make it right. Only someday never comes, does it? I’d been in this same shithole for ten years. Three different women had lived there with me, including the mother of my kid, but, in the end, I always ended up alone.