Mason grew sick as his vision shook, spun, and tilted. He’d been dreading this moment ever since he’d snuck back into Berkeley — his big brother Harry, long lost and best forgotten; Harry pounding on the blood-smeared door as he shouted Mason’s name. His fevered face and rusty-gray beard ran and dripped with rain. As the brothers faced each other through the glass, Mason’s reflection stared back out, a homely big-eared ghost under his brother’s brilliant sharp bones. A memory of their mother’s face briefly joined them and Mason once again heard her last words, from years ago, and a promise he’d made.
“Hey! Ma-son!” Harry banged again on the door, his cracked grinning face still handsome as a god, though one left out in the weather for too long. No matter what happened, Harry’s corpse would be a beautiful ruin, handsomer dead than Mason alive.
Mason crept toward the door, drawing out his wallet, fumbling out a tenner. He opened the door just enough to insert his face: Hi, Harry, gee, what d’ya know! Uh, I’m busy, nice to see you; sorry, Harry, the library doesn’t open till noon; here, ten bucks, take it, Harry; get outta the rain, buy a sandwich at the E-Z Stop Deli.
But, like a big camel, once Harry got his nose in, he took the whole tent. He slapped the door open and passed through Mason as though he were mist. “My brain’s so big,” Mason remembered him saying, “I don’t see the world. It’s just some shit to play with.”
Nope, no telling Harry what to do when or when to do what.
Mason turned to follow him, but Harry suddenly spun about and pulled him into a rib-bending embrace.
“Bro! Awwww, my little broaaaa! Where ya been, Big Ears!?” Mason’s feet left the floor as Harry spun him around like a dance partner. Close up, his face looked flayed and pitted by the weather, his pupils widening, turning his eyes into black pits. A wet bouquet of the street steamed from the fake-fur collar of his thick coat. His breath was a cloud of stale tobacco and dead animal.
Harry set Mason down hard enough to bend his knees. Mason, now facing the door again, tried to glance behind him. Where’d Sharpie—
Harry punched his arm, that familiar hard-knuckle jab: “Wake up, Mase, y’twerp! You ain’t seen me in more years than I got fingers left.” His mutilated right hand stole back into its stinky coat slot, where he preferred to keep it. “So, how’s it goin’, buddy?”
“Um, all right. Harry—”
His brother blew right past him: “Never mind. You don’t give a shit. I don’t give a shit.”
Mason stood staring for a few seconds out at a small crowd that was filling the sunken plaza in the dismal downpour. Someone held up a smartphone. A young girl was now banging at the door — young and fresh (but not for long), shabby in a strangely boutique manner, homeless du jour. But Mason’s mind was a frozen swamp of panic, so there’d be no more early entries. He turned to find his brother had passed through the security gate and was now pretending to marvel at the blond-wood bookshelves on wheels.
“Wow! Workin’ the library! Mighta known you’d be workin’ for The Man! Good hustle there, bro! Are these all the pwecious tomeths?”
“Just the new ones. Got ’em on the back wall, there too. And the DV — look, Harry—”
“Whoa, lovely beautiful building, man.” He gazed around with his wide black eyes. “Love those green art deco walls outside.” He shoved one of the shelves so it moved. “But here you got these dumbass shelves on wheels.” He rolled his eyes. “Cheap, cheap, cheap,” he sang. “You’re so brilliant, you work in a library that uses Ikea shelves.” Then he sneered. “Of course, you can read. You’re dyslexia freeee, y’stuck-up little shit.”
“You’re not supposed to be in here, Harry,” Mason dropped his voice and tried to enunciate like Harry, each word a hammer tap. “We don’t o-pen un-til noon—”
“You’re not supposed to be in here, Harry,” the big man mimicked, a skill that once rolled waves of laughter across a room. He jabbed a finger right at his little brother: “You just let some other asshole in, Mase.” His voice scraped like a file, his eyes two black marbles. “I saw you.” He splayed his good left hand over his chest, nodding. “And I... me... I’m your lonnnng-lost bro-ther.” Harry’s lips curled and split apart to show his brown teeth, a bad omen. “How long you been back in town? You been avoidin’ me since you got this job. I seen you, man. I seen you peekin’ up over the BART steps, like a little prairie dog! Too chickenshit to go outside!”
Mason’s eyes skittered about. He was still all alone in the building. The manager hadn’t returned. Maybe an assistant had arrived, or another aide, better that, they’d be more likely to help him cover his mistake — no, mistakes. He’d made two of them — no, that was one mistake, twice in a row. He needed assistance, but by no means wanted it. Better, much better, if he could shovel this mess out the door all by himself, so no one would ever go What the fuck? and... what... what about—
The new library director! Ohhh, fuck me! New boss, first day on the job, maniacs crawling the floor before the doors even—
“Whoa! What’s this!?” Harry fixed his bullet stare on the floor at his feet, right by the “Lucky Day” shelves, which housed especially popular books.
“Blood!” He fully bared his big brown crumbling teeth, the gums shrunk to the roots. He marched deeper into the library, toward the circulation desk, following the blood spatters.
“Wellll, what the fuck we got here? Trail of blood! Ooo! That could be the title of your next shitty screenplay, Mase! I’d say someone’s hurt! What d’ya say we go help him!?” He stopped and turned to Mason, his face aghast, slapped his good hand over his mouth. “Oops! I forgot! Ssshhh in the library!” Then he pointed the finger, whispering, “And you’d better hush too, lil’ bro.” He turned back to the hunt. “Fuck libraries, man,” he whispered loudly. “Can’t read, can’t talk like I like to. Can’t be myself.” He swayed as he followed the trail of little red splashes, dissolved from rainwater, toward the first-floor reading room.
“Harry...” Mason maintained his library voice, compressed and quiet, sitting on the dreary apprehension that he and his brother were rebooting the same goddamn movie.
Harry spun around again, pointing, suddenly growing larger and larger, until Mason began to feel neck strain.
“Mase, mind your own fuckin’ business for once, will ya? Three, four years and I’m still findin’ you under my feet!” His finger was shaking. It was a familiar pattern. The angrier he got, the more his brain, sloshing with chemical imbalances and bad wiring, would misfire. “All the times I kicked you and... y’just didn’t learn...”
As Harry ranted away, Sharpie slipped out of the reading room behind him and up the old main staircase, still clutching his side. Harry must have seen Mason’s eyes shift, because he turned back toward the reading room in time to see the tail of Sharpie’s shadow paint the steps. He turned on Mason again, his fist raised. Mason flinched and ducked. Harry laughed. He laughed harder as Mason feebly patted at his pants pocket, where he kept his cell phone.
“Playin’ with yourself in public again!” Harry teased. “Never could keep your hands off your pecker!” Then his face darkened further. “Or is that a gun you got there? Better not be. ’Cause I got... this!”
Harry yanked a little pistol out of his pocket. It was a .22, dull black, brown taped handle. It was much too small for his huge hands and with two fingers of his gun hand missing — ring finger and pinky, blown off while juggling a lit cherry bomb — Harry’s grip on it was clumsy at best. But even a bad shot can wound or kill.