Dogfight (16 page)

I let Leo have my sandwich and hurried down to the lot, but Win was already gone. I stood there a minute, among the somnolent cars, my heart flopping, feeling like I wanted something to happen. It wasn't that Win was selling pot; he could do whatever he wanted, for all I cared, as long as he didn't do it in my life. I had enough trouble getting along without him. I piled in the car and headed home, hauling ass through the neighborhood. The dog made a rush at me, his body low and hard, but I was too fast for him to catch. I lurched through the front door, stormed back to Win's room, and found him kneeling on the bathroom floor, nursing his swollen hands in a toilet full of ice. At the sight of him like that, his mouth tight, his eyes wide and innocent with pain, all the anger I had been feeling evaporated.

He said, “They hurt too much to turn on the faucet.”

He showed me his hands, cradled them on his belly like broken-winged birds. His knuckles were cracked and bloody, the bones shattered, his fingers dappled with bruise colors, as flaccid and puffy as wet bread. There was a crust of blood rimming his nostrils, a runny scab at his hairline, and a bluing lump on his right cheekbone. We were alone, Dad still at work, Mom out running errands or something. The house was quiet.

“Dad's gonna shit himself,” I said.

“Too late to worry about that,” he said, his voice thick, like his tongue was swollen. He did a wincing grin. The phone was ringing in another room.

“I don't even wanna know what happened,” I said. “I don't wanna have any secrets to keep. I'm gonna get in enough trouble for leaving school.”

“Afraid the old man'll get it out of you?” Win said. “He's a pro, that's for sure. I'm surprised he doesn't have a chair in the basement with a bare bulb dangling over it. For interrogations, get it?”

“We've got to get you out of here,” I said.

He shook his head. “Nothing we can do.”

“They can't see you like this, Win,” I said. “Not so soon. It'd kill 'em.”

I gripped his elbow and helped him off the floor. He wobbled a little on his feet, righted himself, then yanked his arm free. Win wouldn't let me take him to the emergency room so I just got him to the car and started driving. I was thinking about when my father brought him home from Marshall, both of them emerging from the car, slump-shouldered and bewildered like smashup survivors. How hushed and sad that ride must have been. Out of nowhere, Win said, “Camille hates Muhammad Ali.” His voice was strange, too timid and small for his body all of a sudden. “She thinks he converted to Islam to keep himself out of Vietnam. And, if you knew Camille, you'd know that was an unforgivable offense in her eyes.” He settled his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. He looked so unfamiliar to me that, just for a moment, I couldn't remember his name.

I drove him up to Marshall, stopping on the way to let Camille know we were coming, and the three of us stashed ourselves away at the barn. He had his head in Camille's lap, was holding his hands up to see them better. They looked diseased in the gray evening light. He had taken a couple of bong hits, wedging the tube between his wrists, while Camille worked the lighter, and was feeling easy. He
kept saying, “You should see the other guys.” Camille was stroking his head, her fingers snagging in his hair. She was still wearing her cadet uniform—pine nettle green slacks, a soup-brown tunic with her rank pinned into the collar, and blocky black shoes, polished to a reflective shine. I couldn't stop myself from pacing.

“What are we gonna do?”

“I don't know,” Camille said. “The hospital is still a good idea.”

“Bad idea,” Win said. “I'm fine, okay. You should—”

“I don't want to hear about it, Win,” I said. “I don't care what you did.”

“Jack's in charge,” he said.

He tilted his head back to look at Camille. She smiled at him and covered his eyes with her hand. It was still a few hours from dark, but the moon was up, a flat white disc nestled among the branches of the trees. I said, “We can't just leave him like this. We have to do something.”

“What do you have in mind?” Camille said.

“I don't know.”

“I know,” Win said. “You two have sex. I'll watch.”

Camille slapped his chest hard, and he grunted. I said, “It's okay, Win. The party's over. You can quit being an asshole now.”

“Seriously,” he said. “I told you I'd ask her. Hey, Camille, how would you feel about having sex with my little brother? It's okay with me, if it's okay with you.”

“Stop it, Win,” she said, getting to her feet, dumping Win's head from her lap.

“He's a virgin,” Win said.

I couldn't look at her. I was thinking that somehow she knew about the other night; she could see it in the blood hurrying to my temples, knew that she was in my thoughts, when my father caught me. I remembered Leo, what he'd told me, and I was angry again, my throat and shoulders tight.

Camille said, “Win, don't make trouble. You've done enough.”

“I promised Jack,” he said. “I told him I would help him.”

“I don't need your help.
You
need help,” I said.

“C'mon, Jack. Who's kidding who?”

He drew himself up, slowly, painfully.

“Win, stop,” Camille said. “He's your brother.”

“A genetic fluke,” Win said. “Look at him. He's pathetic.”

That's when I hit him. It wasn't much, a reflex. He took a step toward me, and I rapped him in the mouth, snapping his head back. For this one terrifying instant, the world went quiet, and it wasn't so much like silence rushing in, as all the sound sucking out, like an undertow. He just looked at me, smiling, blood running in the spaces between his teeth. His arms were at his sides, palms turned out, his chin raised just slightly, sallow light playing on his face and hands. This is where my memory goes funny on me. I know that something came loose in me. I remember the feeling, like shrugging away old skin. I know that I hit him again, harder, wanting to hurt him, and I kept hitting him, over and over. And I know that he didn't resist. He couldn't resist. His hands were useless. But in my memory, Win is talking as I hit him, saying “That's it,” and, softly, “Yes,” and, “There.” He keeps standing for a long time, staggering, dropping to his knees, but always regaining his feet. Camille tries to pull me away, but I shake her loose and beat my brother back down. I can feel the bone and cartilage in his nose coming apart beneath my fist, the pulpy lids of his eyes. In my uncertain memory, he keeps whispering, and I keep hitting him, my hands burning, until he runs out of things to say.

My father met us at the emergency room. When he came in, Camille and I were sitting in the waiting room, drinking coffee. I had called him at work, so Mom didn't know yet. I hadn't told him any details on the phone, just that Win was hurt. He stopped a few feet away, asked me where they were keeping him. I stood and pointed, and he stalked off down the hall. A black woman was sitting across from us, her hair done in cornrows, and I watched her cheating at solitaire. Whenever she got into trouble, she'd just peek
under the stacks on the table, find the card she needed, and slip it into the deck, real sneaky, like she was fooling herself.

When my father came back, he said, “Jesus. What happened? His face is all bandages.” He took the coffee from me, our knuckles brushing, and I could see his hands trembling. “Where's the doctor? I want to talk to the doctor.”

“The doctor is hiding,” the woman said, looking at us, the beads in her hair ticking. “He's dodging work, like everybody else.”

“Thank you,” my father said. Then to me, “What happened, Jack?”

I said, “I did it.”

I wasn't feeling sorry yet, though I knew that would come. I wasn't feeling anything. I wanted to get whatever it was that I had coming.

“Did what?”

“I did this to Win.”

The woman said, “Oh, Lord.” My father shot her a glance, then turned his eyes to me. I knew that look. His squeeze the truth out of you look, eyes narrow, gaze hard. He said, “Jack, now is not the time for fucking around. Your brother is on a roller cot, behind a shitty little paper curtain, and it's important that I know what happened.”

“I told you what happened.”

He turned to Camille, looked her up and down, registering the uniform, and said to her, “Is that right?”

She nodded, cautiously. We hadn't spoken since the car. My father looked into the coffee cup, wisps of steam rising from the surface. He shook his head, took a sip, and shook his head again, grimacing the coffee down. For the second time in a week, I thought he was going to cry. But he didn't. He said, “Why?”

After a while, I said, “I don't really know.”

He nodded, eyes still on the cup, like that was the most reasonable thing he'd heard in a long time. A group of paramedics came banging through the double doors, then, pushing a man on a gurney, voices loud and hurried, skidding down the corridor and out of sight. All of us, except my father, rubbernecked their passing. He
didn't acknowledge them, just sat there, still nodding, mesmerized. All of a sudden, like he was just then realizing what was in his hands, he said, “When did you start drinking coffee?”

Win is, as the saying goes, in the army now. He did his basic at Fort Dix, New Jersey, then shipped down to Fort Knox, Kentucky, home of the gold depository, for tank training. He says he wants to drive a tank. It's been eleven months, and we still haven't talked about what happened. Except for me to say, “I'm sorry.” And him to say, “Don't worry.” I explained to him that I took the blame for all his injuries. There was no need for our parents to know about anything that had happened before. So I still don't know how he came to be in the bathroom, numbing his hands in the John. A drug deal gone bad, I tell myself, whenever I start wondering, though probably that isn't true. I won't ask. He'll tell me if he wants to. It's not important.

When we brought my brother home from the hospital, Mom and Dad were so concerned with ministering to him, they forgot about what I'd done for a while. I hid in the basement, listening to their steps shuffling above me, back and forth from the kitchen and the medicine cabinet to Win's room, and the whole thing began to seem like something that I had seen on television. The details fuzzed over. Like Win talking while I hit him. It might be that it just happened that way in my memory. It might not be true at all.

By the time my parents remembered me, most of the sting had gone out of them. Dad made an effort at anger, puffing himself up and doing some shouting, like he knew how he was supposed to feel but couldn't quite get it right, and Mom nodded and said, “He's right,” and she cried a little for me. It was strangely pleasant, sitting there with them, answering their questions as best I could, each of us knowing our part in the discussion, even though mine was new. They were my parents, and I was their son and that was enough.

We write to each other, Win and I. He still hears from Camille, too; she's going to join up as soon as she graduates. I got a letter from
him the other day. He said he had gotten in a little trouble with his CO and had been busted down to janitorial detail. Not to worry, though, because part of his job was pushing a broom in the depository and he thought that was okay. He was usually alone, not counting sentries, and it was always dead quiet, except for the shushing of the broom on the concrete. The vault was “environmentally maintained,” he said, which in army terms means “cold as a witch's titty.” The ceiling was sky-high and the gold—“Oh, man, you should see it”—millions of gold bricks stacked in neat rows, as far as the eye can see. He wrote, “I'd like to be driving my tank by now, but how can I complain when all the guys are out humping, and I've got AC.” In my imagination, I see him gliding his push broom, his image reflected over and over on the gold bars, like the walls of some crazy sultan's palace. He has five o'clock shadow on his shaved head. He's whistling a song that has been nagging him pleasantly all day. He notices his reflection in the gold and stops, unable for a second to recognize himself, like, all of a sudden, he has amnesia, like he's seeing the world again for the very first time.

I came home from work one night and found my wife sitting in her wheelchair beside the bed. She was wearing a midnight-blue bustier with matching garters, the lace tops of her stockings just showing above the blanket on her lap. Marilyn, my wife. She'd spent some time on her hair. It was brushed smooth, lay on her shoulders coppery and fine, the ends curled. Her fingers worked the blanket, her legs ghostly beneath it, like covered furniture. She didn't say a word. While she watched, I scattered change on the dresser, took off my tennis shoes and wet socks. I worked as a deck hand on a sportfishing charter, and my T-shirt and shorts were smeared with the evidence of my labor, slick scales, like sequins, and fish-gut handprints. Naked, I carried the whole reeking mess down to the laundry room and dropped it in the machine. I'd redone the halls in black rubber tracks so she could get around easier. The house was quiet.

Nothing had changed when I returned.

I sat on the edge of the bed and said, “I stink.”

“Not too bad,” she said.

She touched my thigh. I said, “What do you want me to do?”

“Pick me up, Duncan,” she said. “Put me on the bed.”

I'm accustomed to it, now, carrying her to bed, cradling her slender, indifferent legs, like sleeping children. I can move enough for
both of us. But that night, I dropped her onto the mattress, clumsy as a drunk. Tugged at her knees and ankles like they were pillowcases full of stones. Relax, she said, slow down, be gentle. I couldn't stop apologizing. To compensate for her stillness, Marilyn ran her hands along the backs of my arms, dragged her fingernails up and down my spine. She moaned and carried on. I couldn't stop thinking that I was hurting her—she was so brittle and small—imagining that her hips would give out beneath us, and I'd have to rush her to the hospital, all the emergency personnel thinking how I was making love to a crippled woman.