“That’s right.”
“What happened to your parents?”
“It’s a little complicated,” I said.
“Car crash? Sudden illness?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Oh.” She lowered her voice. “Was it a murder-suicide? A double suicide?” She reached across the bench and patted my hand. “It’s okay, dear. We see that kind of thing all the time.”
“No.” I rubbed the back of my neck. I was so tired of people getting the story wrong. “That’s not it at all.”
“What then?”
“You really want to hear the whole thing?”
“I have to.” She tapped her pen against the legal pad. “For your brother’s file.”
I started from the beginning. I told her about our parents’ expeditions and the packed lecture halls and the glossy photographs in National Geographic. About the floating villages and the howler monkeys and the snake coiled in the grass. Lugo’s letter and how I was thinking of writing him again to say please answer me or don’t tell me anymore or give me the truth this time. And Calvin. I told her about Calvin and how I had been looking for him, peering into the eyes of strange men, imagining a part of my mother living inside them. I told her about the bookstore and Jordan and his dead wife’s first edition of Moby Dick and what it was like to feel his hands on my legs. I told her how I had even messed that up, how my life had messed it up, how it seemed like there was no room for anything except staying above the tide. I went on about everything that made sense and everything that didn’t. When I finished, I felt like I had been talking for hours.
“That’s quite a story,” she said, her fingers loosely holding the pen.
“Yes,” I told her. “Yes, it is.”
“Would you like to see your brother now?” She stood and tucked the legal pad underneath her arm.
I couldn’t tell if she was being kind or if she thought I was out of my mind too. I pressed my fingertips against my eyelids. It was becoming clear that none of this was going to be taken care of easily — more than an apologetic call to a neighbor or chat with the school guidance counselor. I followed her down a long hallway. The clicking of her shoes reminded me of crickets in July.
Denver was sitting in a dark and windowless room, resting his arms and head against the table. His cape and goggles were missing. The largeness of the space made him look small and pale. As I stood by the closed door and felt the weight of his stare, I remembered the instant in which I realized my brother was going to live with me. That I was going to leave school, my thick art history texts and numerically gifted roommate, and might not ever return to any of it. That I understood everything my mother had said on the beach. That I was having my moment.
Aunt Lucille was driving us back to the house after the funeral, my brother and me in the backseat. He kept tugging at the tight knot of his black tie, and my mind emptied as I gazed into his eyes, finding nothing but sadness and wants. The voice came as we passed a park, empty save for a gray pack of pigeons, but instead of leaving, I tracked down an old boyfriend and pulled him into the attic and then wept for days. My brother would hug my knees and tell me not to cry and I would feel ashamed for even thinking of leaving him. It still came on every now and then, when I watched Denver toss in his sleep or stare too long at his map of South America — nothing more than a shudder of strange, liquid energy, but sometimes I had to stand outside the apartment until it passed, the air sweeping into me like some kind of cleansing light, pushing out thoughts about voices and solitude and the possibility of living a different kind of life.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
“Hours,” he said. “They gave me a Coke a little while ago.”
I sat across from him. “Is what they’re telling me true?”
“What are they telling you?”
“That you hit two city workers in the legs with a flashlight.”
“I pushed one of them into the wet concrete they were using to seal the tunnel. I wonder if he got stuck there.” He sighed and I smelled the sweetness of soda on his breath. “Then the police brought me here and said they had to call my parents or guardian and I told them I only had you.”
“What did I say about using that flashlight, Denver?”
“It was an emergency,” he protested. “They were filling up my tunnel. I spent all morning drawing a map of the other side of the world. I was going to find important things there.” He rubbed his elbow and sniffed. “I heard this grinding noise and I went outside and these guys were making my tunnel disappear.”
“Fuck, Denver.” I cradled my forehead in my palm. At the funeral, the family members had taken turns sprinkling dirt onto the coffins. When it was my brother’s turn, he whipped a rubber dagger out of his suit jacket. He raised the slate-colored blade toward the clouds, then dropped it into my father’s grave. They’ll need it, he said before skulking over to an oak tree on the edge of the cemetery, where he remained for the rest of the service.
“Am I going to jail?”
“No.” From the shrillness of his voice, I could tell he was about to cry. “Or at least I don’t think so. We’ll probably be fined or something. We can ask Aunt Lucille for extra money.”
He nodded. We were quiet for a while. He kept wiping his nose on the underside of his wrist. I was waiting for someone to walk into the room and tell us what we needed to do in order to leave, but no one came. I wanted to see the sky again, the tree branches and the leaves that were beginning to curl from the heat. I wanted to lead us away from here.
“Question.” I pressed my hands against the table. “Do you know anyone named Calvin?”
“A kid in my second grade class went by Calvin.” His face tensed with concentration. “Is that who you mean?”
“It would be someone older, someone Mom and Dad knew.” His posture stiffened when I mentioned our parents, but I kept going. “Do you know who I’m talking about?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t.”
I stood and paced in slow circles. “I might have to find a new job.”
“Why?”
“It’s too hard to explain.”
“You always say that.” The high pitch returned to his voice. “You never want to explain anything to me.”
“I know,” I told him. “I’m sorry.”
He covered his face with his forearm. I continued walking in circles. The floor was sticky and gray. When the door opened, I stopped and looked at Denver. He was still shielding his eyes, oblivious to our new company, the social worker I had spoken with earlier and a police officer. The social worker glanced at my brother and told me to sit down. I stayed on my feet. She started talking about paperwork and evaluations and probation and I struggled to grab her words. They bounced around the room like echoes in a canyon. Or the lightning bugs Denver and I used to chase in the backyard, our parents’ silhouettes filling the tall windows of the house, our fingers reaching for the glow that came and went.
we are calling to offer you a fabulous life
Last night, Joyce was mugged. She was locking up Darnel’s shop in the East Village when a man drifted out of an alley and ripped her purse from her shoulder. She never got a clear view of his face, just a glimpse of his profile and then a long look at his squat figure charging down the sidewalk, her little black purse dangling from his wrist. She had felt the impulse to scream, but only a low hiccup passed through her lips. Her apartment keys were tucked inside her coat pocket and she’d slapped her hip just to make sure, feeling the metal shapes through the fabric. It wasn’t an expensive purse, but she’d carried it every day for the last two years and couldn’t help but feel that she’d suffered a loss.