Surrender (6 page)

Let him starve to death then, Mother would rage, throwing down the plastic bowl that held his mushy food. Mush on the floor, mush on the walls, mush plastered round the child’s locked mouth. He disgusts me, I feel ill. His father won’t stoop to feed him. And Vernon would howl. I can do it, I would say, Mother, here, let me.

Rub his face in it, she’d sometimes say. That will teach him. Even a mongrel can be house-trained. God help me, I wish he’d never been born; and she’d run his bath cold or too warm.

Vernon, I’d breathe, past the bars of his cot, you should die. You will be safer if you die. You might be happier. The doctor said he could live forever, there was no reason he wouldn’t grow old. I loved Vernon, but I would lie awake listening to him and I’d pray for a snake to slide in his bed, hope for an illness that would finish him fast, dream that some collector of damage would take my brother away. Such wishing brought tears of shame to my eyes, but inside I must have known that Vernon was a curse on my life, too. He was mine — my concern. Away from him, I worried. I would run home from school hysterical with fear that one of my imagined tragedies had overtaken him. I would patiently spoon into his mouth his mangled evening meal. I would bathe him, soap his prickle-field head, and dry him with a towel. I’d hide my face behind the towel and play peekaboo with him, and he would scoff and gurgle. It made me feel terrible, his pleasure in that baby’s game. I would count for him his fingers and toes:
Look, ten. Vernon, you’re ten
. He didn’t understand a word. I’d tuck him safely in his cot, then creep away to worry. I’d greet the morning worried, worry throughout the day. At seven years old I didn’t know it was possible to exist in a state other than disquiet. Don’t cry, Vernon; hush, hush, don’t cry. You’ll make your mama angry.

The last day was a Sunday, and Mother too ill to go to church. She was frequently the victim of migraines that could shatter her for days. The curtains would be drawn in her bedroom, the sheets of the big bed turned back, water brought for the cooling of her forehead, and the door inflexibly closed. I imagined her lying in dimness, motionless as an effigy, and the shape of her pain was the shape of a shut door, its color ivory.

My father, dressed for church, told me I must stay home with Vernon. Experience told me what he meant. I was to keep my brother quiet. Were his fussing to invade the sickroom, my mother’s head would cave in or explode. I went to my room and shed my Sunday-best gladly — I did not enjoy church. My father departed and I was left with the door-of-pain and Vernon, who was cooing peacefully.

Another thing I understood: that Father, unusually free, would not come directly home from church, that he would find time-consuming distractions between there and here. When the gate clicked shut behind him I wandered the hall aimlessly, savoring this rare chance to reign. It must not, I knew, be wasted.

I decided to give Vernon his lunch early — food sometimes made him sleepy. Once he was asleep, I would be more at liberty than I’d ever been. I could hang over the side fence and watch our neighbor Cuttle’s television. There was no television in our house, but Mr. Cuttle didn’t mind me peering through his window. Occasionally he was kind enough to crank the volume so I could hear. We shared a taste for cartoons.

I mashed a banana for Vernon and warmed it on the stove, adding milk and a little sugar. I carried the meal and a cloth to his bedroom, where he lay in a tangle in the cot. He grinned and snuffled to see me. I maneuvered his limbs until he was propped upright, then waved the bowl under his nose. “Look, Vernon! Banana!”

He seemed eager, smacking his lips. When I brought the spoon to his mouth, however, he jerked his head away. “Banana!” I reminded him. “You like banana.”

He gazed at me with watery eyes, flapping his hands in a fret. I knew what the problem was. Vernon couldn’t tell the time, he didn’t even know what a clock was, but he knew it wasn’t lunchtime. His life ran to a routine that never varied, and he liked it that way. Routine gave his addled existence some order, and by bringing his lunch early I was undermining the mainstay of his world. I’d known he wouldn’t like it, and I’d expected him to fight. But this was a morning unlike others for me, and I was steelishly determined to make it different for Vernon, too. In his dunderheaded refusal to adapt, he was standing between myself and happiness. I hardly ever got the chance to watch cartoons. “Just
eat
it,” I begged. “Banana, Vernon, look!”

I zoomed the spoon into my own mouth, ate a dollop of the creamy mess. Vernon squeezed his eyes shut, whimpered flutily. I put the spoon to his lips and he batted it blindly away. Banana splattered the rubber sheet. I felt time getting away. “Please, Vernon?”

Sometimes he could be asked nicely, and he would comply. Not this morning; he thrashed his head. I thought perhaps he wanted to be left alone. That was allowed, he could be alone. In his cot he’d come to no harm, and I could make regular rushes from the fence to his window to check that he was indeed all right. I wiped the banana off the sheet, hauled up the cot wall, and made for the door. I was almost through it when Vernon whined. I hesitated, looking back. He had his face jammed between the bars. He wanted me to stay. He would not eat or sleep or entertain himself; he’d decided I must stay. A quill of hatred spiked in me. “No. Anwell’s busy, Vernon.”

He stared at me with eyes like blue stones and gave a short, shrill shriek; the sparrows browsing on the lawn burst into the sky. I shut the door quickly and waved my hands to quieten him. “Anwell’s busy!” I could hear the theme song of the cartoons. “Vernon, be a good boy!”

He curled his lip and I knew he didn’t agree, I knew he was brewing a bloodcurdling howl that would wake my mother and ruin the day. I thought fast. Maybe I could take him outside and let him lie in the grass. I could carry him easily, although he was bigger than me. He wasn’t allowed in the front garden, but the rear yard was private — only the birds would see him there. It wasn’t the best solution — he’d eat the grass, get covered in dirt — but at least he would be quiet, and far from the door-of-pain. I was instantly decided: time was getting away. I lowered the wall of the cot and slid my hands under his arms. “Vernon come outside!” I enthused. “See the flowers? See the clouds?”

But he looked at me uncivilly, and twisted himself away. I grappled for him, he kicked at me, he threw himself back like a mule. His head hit a post of the cot and he yelled with outrage, his face instantly awash with tears. He wasn’t crying, he wasn’t hurt: he was Vernon at his worst. I clapped my hands, bounced on my toes, knotted in brittle frustration. Today Mr. Cuttle might open the window, might let me choose a chocolate from the selection he kept on a tray. “Birdies!” I sang madly. “Come see the birds, Vernon!”

I reached out again, and he lashed at me. His fingernails, kept square and short, were nonetheless sharp as kitten claws, and shaved strips of skin from my cheek. The pain of it rocked through me, chased by revulsion and hatred. My hand came up and slapped him hard across the face.

Vernon gasped — he sucked in all the air in the room. He straightened his shoulders with dignity, and filled the house with his scream. With one palm pressed to my wounded face, I could only block one ear. He arched his back and screamed again, purple and green with rage. I put my hand over his mouth and he jerked away, threshing his legs, sucking in air, screaming again.

I was only seven and they would say I wasn’t thinking, but that is not true. In those moments, though I was dazed, I considered many things. I felt a plasma wetness between the fingers at my face. I knew I wasn’t going to be watching any cartoons. I felt sad enough to cry over this rare day destroyed. I felt bad for hating Vernon, yet the sight of him — his tongue wobbling like a fish, his nappy working loose at the waist, bubbles erupting out of his nose — made me despise him all the more. I had lost my pity for him, I’d joined my parents on their icy plateau. And my mother would surely be woken by the commotion, and when my father came home I would be lectured and whipped.

I thought I heard mutterings from her room already.

I told them later I’d tried to comfort him, but that isn’t really true. “Shh, shh,” I moaned, but the great tide of noise that Vernon made drowned out these mousy sounds.

He simply roared.

His mouth was stretched as wide as it would go. His lips were jaundice-yellow. I imagined his skull shattering beneath the force of his scream. My hand groped for the cloth, and jammed it into his mouth.

Immediately the scream was muffled. His eyes flew open in surprise. From the room-of-pain along the hall, I heard sounds. My only thought now was to hide — to hide myself from my fate and to hide the monster I’d made of my brother. I needed to put him somewhere that would contain his noise and keep him safe, and hide him until this mayhem went away. He was breathing like a blown horse, his frail rib cage heaving. I wrapped my arms around his waist and dragged him from the cot. He was light and stunned, and he did not struggle. I hoisted him up and opened the door and made my way through the house, unsteady but desperate, determined. Vernon lay like a dog in my arms, his face patched rosy, his hands moving lostly in the air. The door to the laundry was open and the door of the unused refrigerator kept there was likewise off its latch. I bundled Vernon to my chest and used a knee to dislodge the refrigerator’s metal racks, which clanged one after another to the floor. In their place I shoveled Vernon, who fitted the space easily. He folded onto the refrigerator floor, his hands tucked in his lap. I shut the door before he could escape. It swung, a great slab, and the rubber seal stuck tight.

I slumped against it, panting.

When I gathered myself and stepped back to look, there was no sign of him. The fridge stood silent and white as a secret. And the house was mercifully quiet. Only my ears were ringing.

It would take him some time to calm down. I went to the bathroom and climbed on a chair and looked into the mirror. Across my left cheek blazed three scarlet streaks. I put a wet cloth to them and the coolness eased the pain. The mirror showed my hair bedraggled, my eyes shining with tears. My clothes were damply mottled, from cradling Vernon to me. My knees were trembling like jelly. I brushed my hair, washed my face, cupped my hands beneath the tap to drink. I could smell my brother and also banana. I vowed never to speak of this.

Feeling better, and now repentant, I headed back to the laundry. I would take him outside, or whatever he liked. The cartoons were probably over. Everything had gone so wrong this morning. I was glad Vernon couldn’t talk.

“Anwell.”

I whirled on my heels at the laundry door. My mother stood towering behind me. Her long pale hair was fanned at her elbows, she wore a nightgown that reached the floor. Its hem was baubled with dust-balls. Her gaze was distant, she was holding the wall. I thought her lips were bleeding, then saw they were merely red. “What is going on?” she asked. The words came out ponderously, one at a time.

“Nothing, Mama,” I breathed.

“What was that noise? Anwell — I heard a noise.”

My throat was arid, my lips cracked. “I don’t think it was anything, Mama.”

I stood barely as high as her angular hip, my face at the back of her hand. My terror had congealed like concrete inside me. I might have buckled, bent at the knees; instead I stood solid as a tree.

She glanced toward the flyscreened back door. “Where is your father?”

“. . . At church.”

“Where is your brother?”

“In his room.”

Her eyes pecked like crows along the hall. Her head craned slowly about. She stared down at me: “You liar,” she said. “His room is empty. I walked past it just now.”

I felt blood flooding through my body, I saw it spread on the floor. I remembered, then, how young I was, how easily trapped and deceived. A whirlwind of panic whipped up inside me. “Mama,” I muttered, and couldn’t think what to say. In every direction reared horror and lies. My mind raced like a rat in a wheel, my heart squeezed and convulsed and pained.

My mother reached out a quivering hand and laid it on my shoulder. The day was warm, her hand burned. She licked her lips and painstakingly said, “What have you done with him, Anwell?”

I could not help it — I was only a child. In an instant I composed a story and prepared myself to tell it. But first I did something very true of a child. My eyes left my mother’s face and dashed to the refrigerator. They touched its flank and sprang away, a glance over and done in a second. But when I looked back at my mother, she was not looking at me. She was looking at the refrigerator. “Anwell,” she sighed.

“Yes, Mama?”

“. . . Where is your brother?”

I could not say, I could not dredge the words. So I said, “In the garden, Mama.”

There was a brief silence. “Are you sure.”

I was terrified of her. Her mind was quick. Yet she’d believed me — I had outwitted her. Inside my chest, a child leaped. “Yes, Mama. He’s outside. I didn’t want him to wake you.”

I prayed Vernon would stay quiet just a few moments more.

Mother’s sights shifted suddenly, lurching back to me. She smiled thinly, and smoothed my hair. “Mama isn’t well,” she whispered. “She’s been asleep all morning.”

I nodded vigorously, and dared to say, “You should go back to bed, Mama.”

Her smile lingered. “Shall I?”

I swallowed and was speechless: I had reached the end. Mother rocked vaguely, her hand still on my head. Her blue eyes looked salty, marine. “You’re a good boy, Anwell,” she said. She turned away slowly, as if she were old, and shuffled along the hallway. Her fingers brushed the rosebud walls. She did not know it, but I scurried in her wake. I wanted to be certain that she would disappear. She walked slowly, she drifted, I almost bumped into her. But finally she reached her room and wafted through the door. It shut with a click. I pushed on it carefully, and was certain it was closed.

Then I ran down the hall, almost skipping. The torturous clouds were gone, I was giggly with glee. I burned with love and pity for Vernon. I had never felt that way.