One of the Boys Read online

“No fouls,” my brother said.

  My father kept silent.

  My brother grinned at us both.

  He didn’t care about what was fair. He was making his own rules to his own game. He was going after me to get back at our dad. Maybe he was angry with me, too. He took the ball, ran me over a second time, but rather than score a basket he dribbled back out to the three-point line, waited for me to get up. I got up. He knocked me to the ground again, and again I was up, my elbows and palms scraped raw. It didn’t matter why my father was not intervening. I didn’t want him to anymore. And it wasn’t about Rio Rancho either. I was done being ignored, pushed around. I’d only tried to do right by the two of them, and I was getting bullied for it. My brother came at me once more, shoulder lowered. This time I was ready. I sidestepped, stuck my leg out to trip him. This is what you get, I thought, both of you. You can hurt me, but I can hurt you, too.

  My brother hopped over my foolish leg, drove to the hole, laid the ball softly into the net. He was such a beautiful basketball player. It was a marvel to watch him move.

  * * *

  My father sat us down for another of his family meetings later that day. “Listen,” he said, “I’m not proud of how I’ve treated you boys since we’ve been here. I’ve been inconsistent. I’ve made mistakes. We came here together, each of our own volition, for our own reasons, to start a new life. It hasn’t been easy, true. As the father, that makes me the leader, so some of it is my fault.” He looked to my brother. “If it’s important to you to stay at your school, I understand. But are you sure that’s what you want?” My brother lied, said he didn’t care about basketball, he just didn’t want to move again. “I respect that. Lord knows, my father moved us around to a new school every year. There is virtue in sticking it out, in staying put, in building the stamina necessary to endure anything. We can take it. Can’t we take it? Can’t we?”

  We nodded.

  “Good. There’s something else that I want to say. Me and my little brother, Donny, your uncle Don, we were never close. We were eight years apart. He was my father’s favorite. I was my mom’s. Anyway, I never wanted that for you. That’s why I had you boys two years apart. It was my idea to have both of you, you know? Well, actually,” he said to my brother, “your mother must have been putting the birth control up the wrong hole with you.” He waited for us to smile at his joke. He turned to me. “But you, you were my idea. You wouldn’t exist without me. You boys, you’re so close in age, you’re supposed to be there for each other. You’re supposed to stand up for each other no matter what. You understand, don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t look at me. What are you looking at me for? Look at your brother. Look at your brother, damn it.” We turned to each other. “This is your brother for life. You are his last line of defense.”

  FIVE

  I waited for my brother outside the grocery store where he worked, across the street from our apartment. I’d already slipped in, moseyed past his register. He would then slip out, hand off razorblades, deodorant, toothbrushes he’d stolen for us. He figured passing this stuff to me was safer than carrying it out at the end of his shift. I didn’t mind—we were in cahoots. Besides, I hadn’t seen him much lately. He’d been working doubles five days a week since summer began. “Business has been slow,” our dad had told us when the school year ended. “You boys need to carry the weight these next few months.” Too young to work legally, I had answered a want ad for an old lady who needed help organizing a lifetime of miscellanea. On payday my brother and I signed over our checks.

  My brother came out, handed me a pack of gum.

  “Why aren’t you at work?” he said.

  “Doris’s car is in the shop.”

  “Dad couldn’t drive you?”

  “I told him yesterday that I needed a ride, but his door is still closed.”

  “Any smoke yet?”

  I nodded.

  “You get a day off then, huh?” he said. “Lucky you.”

  My brother stared into a bright puddle, the light reflecting in his eyes. The rain had stopped only moments before. He looked to the sky where the clouds were thinning before the sun. Then he checked out my swim trunks.

  “You going to the pool?”

  “What gave you that idea?”

  He smiled.

  “I got to get back to work,” he said. “Somebody’s got to.”

  He went in through the sliding doors.

  I was surprised to find anyone at the pool on a weekday, but our neighbors from downstairs, Sandy and Amelia, both in their late twenties, were talking to Mr. Aguilar who lived right next door to us. Barrel-chested, with a shaven face and closely cropped hair, he looked like a military man in his high-waisted swim trunks. We exchanged smiles, waves. I toed the water, dived in, smoothly grazed my chest along the pool floor before kicking my way back to the surface. I swam around, occasionally staring up at the mountains, grateful to have a day to myself.

  Mr. Aguilar called to me.

  I swam over, a side crawl.

  “These girls think you’re cute,” he said, nodding toward Sandy.

  “Thanks,” I said. I glanced at them both quickly. I thought about making out with Lindsay, this girl from school, in the movie theater a few months ago. My father always said that women can sense who’s getting the smooey. I rested my forearms on the edge of the pool, looked at the cement a few feet in front of me, searched for something to say. I saw their cooler. “What are you drinking?”

  “Bloody Mary. You want one, sweetie?” Sandy asked.

  “Can I try yours?”

  She leaned forward on her lounge chair, swung the cup to me. I took a slow sip. The spice caught in the back of my throat. “I think I’m OK,” I said, coughing.

  They all laughed.

  “You want a beer, buddy?” Mr. Aguilar asked. “Come on,” he said to Amelia. “Let’s get some more ice and our young buck here a beer.”

  Amelia looked at me. “You want a beer, babe?”

  I shrugged. “Why not?”

  I pushed back from the edge, sank into the water. The alcohol was warming my body from the inside. My veins felt as though they were expanding. I could see Sandy lowering herself gradually into the pool. Her legs looked amputated and swollen below the waterline, her large chest swaying above it. She slipped in all the way, submerged herself. We floated up to the surface together.

  “They’ll be gone for a little while,” Sandy said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “I think they went back for more than ice, you know? Might as well have some fun on our day off. She’s had a crush on him for a while. How about you? Summer vacation?”

  I said yes.

  “High school?”

  “I’ll be a freshman,” I lied. “Where do you guys work?”

  “Gals.”

  “What?”

  “Gals. We are women. I’m sure you noticed.”

  I stole a glance at her breasts resting on the water. I was sure she noticed. I looked up at her face again. The pool water had made her mascara run. The black streaks reminded me of my mother. She and my father, they are upstairs in their bedroom, fighting. The door is closed. My father’s furious. She’s lost another job. My brother and I blame her for having outraged him, for breaking the peace in the house. We decide to ambush her when she comes out of their bedroom. We tie sewing thread at ankle height around the banister outside their door, Scotch tape it to the wall. We place Hot Wheels on each stair step in case she escapes the trip wire. We wait in the hallway bathroom with cups of water we plan to douse her with once she tumbles down the stairs. Then we will berate her, tell her that she is a bad wife, a shitty mom, that she’s ruined our lives.

  The tape rips easily from the wall when she runs from the bedroom. She doesn’t notice as on her way down the stairs she steps on a Hot Wheel. She moves quickly, her head down, hands over face. At the bottom of the stairs my brother and I call to her softly, as rehearsed. When she looks up, her cheeks smeared with mascara,
there is the reflex of contrition in her eyes. Her mouth is already forming the words I’m sorry. We throw water in her face. “You bitch,” we say. “Fuck you. We hate you.” She runs faster down the next flight. We look to our dad standing at the top of the stairs. What have you done? he seems to be asking. He chases after her. Out in the driveway she struggles to unlock the car door. He apologizes, puts his arms around her. He loves her, he tells her, “They didn’t mean it, come back inside.” She sways in his arms. They slow dance before a broad blue sky. As they turn, I notice a gash on the back of my mother’s head. He must have ripped out a chunk of her hair.

  I dipped down into the water, spun around, came back up.

  “Where do you gals work?” I asked.

  * * *

  Sandy was sunning in her chair, eyes closed, back arched. Her legs were glazed in spray lotion. I’d been peeking at them from the pool.

  “You going to drift around all day or you want this beer?” Mr. Aguilar said.

  He waded over to me, elbows above water, hands holding two beers in koozies. I cracked mine open, took a sip. The beer tasted like dirty water. I took another quick sip. I could feel my veins expanding again.

  “I’ll tell you.” He shook his head in astonishment.

  I wanted him to say more, but he didn’t.

  He asked me if I’d kept Sandy company.

  “We talked for a little while.”

  “Why the hell is she sitting over there all alone?”

  “I ran out of things to say.”

  “How old are you? Never mind. Just stay close.” He swung around. I followed him to where Sandy and Amelia now sat, their feet dangling in the water. “Ladies,” he proclaimed, “your knights have returned.”

  “Hello, men,” Sandy said. “Welcome back.”

  Amelia eyed Mr. Aguilar, seductively or angrily, I wasn’t sure. He put his hands on her thighs, his fingers pressing into her skin. He buried his head between her legs, right in her crotch, shook side to side. The girls laughed. I felt like I shouldn’t be watching, and I looked to Sandy for escape. She winked.

  “Let’s play a game,” she said. “Let’s go around the circle and all tell a secret. How about our most recent sexual experience?”

  “Let’s not play this game,” Amelia insisted.

  “Come on,” Sandy said.

  “Why not?” Mr. Aguilar asked. “Unless you’re embarrassed that twenty minutes ago we were doing the horizontal bop?”

  Amelia hit him on the arm, smirked. He nodded to me.

  Was it my turn? Or was he just being friendly?

  “Girls your age sprouting tits yet?” Mr. Aguilar asked me. He grabbed one of Sandy’s boobs. “Not like these beauties I bet.”

  Amelia smacked him, less playfully this time and right across the face.

  “We’re just having fun,” Sandy said in his defense.

  Amelia didn’t seem that upset. The slap was more of an instinct. She put her hand up to his face to rub away the red. “I’m sorry, baby,” she said.

  Sandy looked at me, a corner of her mouth rising. It was my turn. I only had one story. I pictured myself again with Lindsay, my hand up her shirt. She’d tried to reach into my pants, but I got nervous, faked a stomachache. The next day at school she told everyone that I was a prude. She hadn’t spoken to me since.

  I took another swig of my beer.

  “It’s OK,” Sandy said. “I’ll go first.”

  I cut her off. “I got a blowjob at the movies last week.”

  I wished I’d said it slower.

  “Does that happen often?” Sandy asked.

  “At the movies?”

  “Blowjobs.”

  “All the time,” I said with ease, nailing it. “I get blowjobs all the time.”

  “How old are you again?” Mr. Aguilar asked. He slapped me on the back, called me an early bloomer.

  “And you?” I said to Sandy. “What’s your story?”

  She took her time before answering. I sipped my beer to break from her stare.

  “Last week,” she began, “I came to the pool by myself. It was nighttime, around ten or eleven. No one was here. I swam around for a little while. The cold water gave me chicken skin, made my nipples hard.” She closed her eyes, touched her breasts lightly. “At some point I felt the water jets against my thigh and got the idea to put myself up to one of them.” She moved her hand down her stomach, opened her eyes, smiled at Amelia. “Never in my life have I come like that.”

  “Good goddamn,” shouted Mr. Aguilar. “Now that’s fucking showmanship.”

  The rain started with a drizzle. Dark clouds had swept in from the south.

  “Let’s go,” Amelia said.

  “You come too,” Sandy said to me.

  On the way to our building, at Amelia’s coaxing, Mr. Aguilar dropped back to talk to me. She and Sandy walked a few paces in front of us.

  “Hey, bubba,” he said. “Where’s your head at?”

  “They’re talking about me.”

  “All good things, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t think Amelia likes me.”

  “She likes you fine.”

  I heard Amelia raise her voice. “He lives right above us with his fucking dad.”

  To whatever Sandy said next, Amelia threw her hands down, conversation over.

  * * *

  From the couch, Amelia’s door cracked, I could see her and Mr. Aguilar making out on the bed. He was on top. She clung to him like a tree dweller. Sandy had run off to the shower. She’d given me a fresh beer, told me to sit tight.

  The room had gradually darkened. Rain pelted down outside, battering the pavement. I sat there thinking about the memory I’d recalled earlier at the pool. I grimaced at the image of the red raw spot on the back of my mother’s head. I couldn’t comprehend how we’d ever thought up that plan. Where had it come from? The answer was obvious: our loyalty had always been to our dad. He was stronger. We feared him. He needed us. His approval always meant so much more than hers—it filled me up.

  I took a sip of my beer and felt even worse.

  I put the can down on the coffee table, got up to check the windows.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” Amelia said. “I was just coming out here to do that.”

  She scooted past me, closed the bottom pane. Then she climbed onto the arms of the recliner, reached up to lock the top. Mr. Aguilar peeked his head out of her bedroom, hushed me with a finger, crept over to her. He pulled down her bikini bottoms. He smacked her, bit her.

  “Stop, you dog.” She was laughing. “You’re going to make me fall.”

  She jumped down from the chair, pulled her bottoms back up. They kissed. She said she was going to hop in the shower. When she was gone, Mr. Aguilar tossed a condom onto the seat cushion next to me. I stared at it, marking its resemblance to the free suckers I used to get at the bank.

  “You need more than one?”

  “You really think she wants to have sex with me?”

  “You’ve never done it before?” I shook my head. “You got curly hairs, don’t you?” I nodded. He thought for a moment. “Once you start kissing, tell her she’s beautiful. She’ll take care of the rest.”

  “How do I get her to kiss me?” I asked.

  “You got about as much sense as two monkeys fucking a football.”

  He jumped up suddenly, disappeared into Sandy’s room.

  A moment later he led her to the living room by the hand.

  “Look at this beautiful woman,” he said.

  He ripped off her towel, spun her around slowly, showed her to me.

  I looked at her body. Her damp brown hair was combed back behind her shoulders and drops of water dripped between her legs onto the carpet. Her breasts were big, full, falling slightly to the side over her ribs. Her stomach drooped. Her belly button looked folded over on itself. Her pubic hair was trimmed into a sharp triangle. Her legs were short, stubby, proportional. She was unembarrassed, naked to the world, the first woman I ha
d ever seen.

  “Damn, she’s hot,” Mr. Aguilar said.

  Then he turned her to him and kissed her.

  * * *

  It didn’t take much of an excuse. I told them I needed to make sure the windows were closed in my apartment, and I didn’t come back. Upstairs, my father’s door was shut, smoke seeping out from under it. But he had drawn the living room blinds since I’d left this morning. The gray light that managed its way inside made everything look old. My brother was still at the grocery store. He’d be there till closing. I sat down to watch TV. My father came out a moment later, struggling to relight his cigar. His shirt was stained, his khakis frayed at the cuffs. He looked up at me, the whites of his eyes a pale orange, as if the blood in his body had dimmed, died a little. He puttered over to his desk, sat down, pretended he’d been working all day.

  “You off early?” he asked.

  “I didn’t have a ride, remember?”

  “Everybody works in this house,” he warned. “What’ve you been up to?”

  I told him what had happened at the pool in a way that would make him proud. How I’d flirted with Sandy, how I’d made her want me, that Mr. Aguilar and Amelia had already had sex, that I’d seen Sandy naked, and that Mr. Aguilar was one floor below us, right now, with both of them. He went to his room, put on clean pants, a collared shirt, closed-toed shoes. He combed his mustache, opened his cologne and sprayed some foofoo. He went to the kitchen, where he took a shot of the peppermint schnapps he stored in the freezer. All the while a grotesque grin had stretched his face. His feet moved in shuffles across the carpet to the front door, and he walked out.

  * * *

  My father woke me late that night. “Be my eyes,” he whispered. I climbed from bed, crept to the window, careful not to wake my brother. My job now was to keep watch for fifteen or twenty minutes, look for movement: car, person, anything. I sat there for a while. Lightning cut down in the distance behind the Sandias, hewing the mountains out of the darkness. I used to cherish these nights back in Kansas when my father would wake me from the dead of sleep, and after playing lookout I’d go downstairs to the den (the hallway mirror removed from the wall or covered with a sheet) and allay his paranoia. I’d never told my brother about any of this. It was a task, I believed, that our father had chosen specifically for me, something he knew only I could do. This was a duty, I was certain, he’d assigned to me because of my potential for loyalty, for secrecy.