Part 21 (1/2)
Dennis laughed. He couldn't help it. ”What do you do here? What do you do when you come home?”
”I read. I watch television. Sometimes. If there's something good on.”
”Tell me something. Am I the only one who ever comes here?”
”No,” Gordon said, blinking.
”Is that where you sit?” He pointed to the chair in the corner. ”It is, isn't it. That way you can see the street and the TV all at the same time.” He chuckled. ”Gordon's window on the world, huh?”
”Don't be mad at me, Dennis. I didn't do anything.”
”But I did, right?”
”I didn't say that.”
”You know all those letters you got? All the family news, the stupid jokes, the newspaper clippings? Well, did you ever wonder what was really going on here? Or did you think it was all the same?”
”I knew it was hard. How hurt you all were.” Gordon stared down at the floor, head bobbing faintly up and down in that maddeningly goofy way that made him look so stupid and inept. ”I know what it did to everyone.”
”I don't mean that! You're still so caught up in self-pity you think everything's about you, don't you? Poor Gordon, nothing ever goes right for him, does it? Well, guess what, poor Gordon, while you were licking your wounds, I I was the one alone here. Because of you was the one alone here. Because of you I I didn't have a father or mother anymore. From that point on it was all up to me. Me! They expected didn't have a father or mother anymore. From that point on it was all up to me. Me! They expected me me to make everything right.” to make everything right.”
”I'm sorry, Dennis.”
”You're sorry? Well, what the h.e.l.l good is that?” he exploded, fists so tightly clenched that the nails gouged his palms.
”What do you want? What do you want me to say?” came the slow, dead voice.
”Nothing.” Dennis had forgotten just how obtusely cold his brother could be.
”The truth is, I didn't really think of what it did to you so much as what it did to Mom and Dad. You always seemed so lucky, I guess, so on top of everything all the time.”
A chill pa.s.sed through Dennis and with it deflation, a sense of his own diminishment. He looked away. He didn't want to hear this. He didn't want to be having this conversation. What did he want, then? He didn't know, didn't even know why he'd come. Gordon droned on. Hearing Lisa's name, Dennis looked up.
”She sounded so sad. I didn't know what to say.”
”What the f.u.c.k're you talking about?”
Gordon's face flushed. His chin quivered miserably. ”You shouldn't . . . you shouldn't do that to her.”
”You don't know what the h.e.l.l you're talking about.” He stood up to leave and, seeing the two hideously wide white sneakers side by side at the bottom of the stairs, facing the door, waiting, wondered why, for what? For the same thing he had been waiting these twenty-five years? For nothing, he realized, for absolutely nothing, if it meant eating and sleeping, then waking again to discontent, this sense of illimitable loss. His brother was here, so what was this yearning for? It was supposed to be over now.
”You're married, Dennis. You should be faithful to your wife.”
Dennis spun around. ”Look, there's only one way this is going to work. You want to come back here and live like this, fine. But my my family is family is my my business, not yours. You got that, Gordo?” business, not yours. You got that, Gordo?”
They stared at each other until Gordon looked away. Dennis started to open the door.
”They're my family, too,” Gordon said under his breath.
It usually took only a few swings to get the right momentum, but some of the trash bags felt like dead weight. Two crates of rotting cantaloupes had come in, and the supplier said to throw them out. Another s.h.i.+pment was on its way. Gordon grabbed the bag with both hands, ready to heave it, when he heard a loud clang inside the swill-streaked Dumpster. He froze, listening. Too loud to be a squirrel or a rat. Something heavier, big, like a racc.o.o.n, maybe. Or a skunk. He stepped back.
”f.u.c.k!” came a thin voice from inside.
He put down the bag and peered in, unable to see much over the piled trash. He jumped back as a crushed box of doughnuts flew past his head. He walked to the end of the Dumpster where a loaf of flattened bread and a deeply dented can of pineapple chunks lay on the ground among glinting splinters and rusted shards, the man-made till from years of trash haulings.
”f.u.c.k!” There was a painful groan.
”Who's that? Who's in there?” For a moment there wasn't another sound other than flies buzzing and, from the lone spindly tree beyond, the high-pitched, scolding chatter of a squirrel whose larder was being pilfered.
”I said, who's in there?”
Still no reply. Up on the loading dock, the metal door creaked open, then banged shut. Neil was dragging out another stack of cartons to flatten and pile against the building. Seeing Gordon's guarded stance, he hurried over. Gordon gestured to indicate someone was in there. Neil nodded, then disappeared for a moment under the loading dock. He returned dragging a long, rusted section of drainpipe. He began to pummel the trash in the Dumpster with it, all the while cackling, ”Come on out, you beggar! You f.u.c.king beggar, you!”
A head popped up on the opposite end of the Dumpster, then came arms and a torso in a roll over the side, with Neil sprinting close behind. ”Mother o' G.o.d, look at this,” he said, pulling the girl from the straggle of paper-blown bushes. ”Look what was in there, the very bottom of the food chain.”
The long cut on her left arm was bleeding down her fingers onto her pants.
”Jada!” Gordon said. Her wild hair was snagged with bits of trash and what at first appeared to be torn flesh, until, seeing seeds, he realized it was the slimy skin of a rotten tomato.
”Tell him to let go-a me!” she snarled through clenched teeth.
”Tell her to shut up!” Breathless as a cat with prey, Neil grinned, eyes gleaming with the pure, high-octane thrill of her pain. ”Nice, huh?” He pointed at her. ”Nice country we live in.”
Every time she tried to pull away, he yanked her back, laughing.
”What hole did you crawl out of?” he said.
”f.u.c.k you!” she shot back.
”Or maybe you live in there with the rest of the maggots.”
”She's my neighbor. I know her. She lives across the street from me,” Gordon said.
”I wouldn't admit that to too many people if I was you, Gloom.”
”Tell the a.s.shole to let me go!” Jada shouted.
”I don't think she was doing anything wrong, Neil. See.” He showed him the box of broken doughnuts. ”She was probably just looking for food.”
”Food? Jesus Christ, what planet are you from? She was out here tras.h.i.+ng cars, and then she needed a place to hide.”
”But there aren't any cars out here now,” Gordon said.
”Yeah, because she trashes them all!” Neil cried. ”Come on!” He jerked her arm, pulling her up the steps onto the loading dock. ”I'm calling the cops. We'll let them figure out what to do with trash like this.” He opened the door.
”Okay! Okay, you do that and I'll tell them you were tryna get me to do something on you and that's how I got cut-tryna get away from you, you creep, you pervert, you f.u.c.king molester, you. Help! Help!” she screamed. ”A man's tryna molest me! Help! Somebody help me, please!”
Leo charged through the doorway, bloodied cleaver in hand.
Neil released her arm, and all at once in a long, feral streak, the girl sprang from the platform, disappearing into the verge of weedy trees behind the Dumpster. Leo stared in horror at Neil.