I turned and looked at him and saw my father’s face, lighter-skinned, younger, thinner, but my father’s face, unmistakable. “He’s you,” I whispered. “Every time I look at you, I see him. Every time you look at him, you see yourself.
“Dogshit!”
I shrugged.
It was a long time before he spoke again. At last he said, “Did he ever hit you?”
“Not for about five years.”
“Why’d he hit you— back then?”
I thought about that, and decided to tell him. He was old enough. “He caught me and Rubin Quintanilla in the bushes together.”
Keith shouted with abrupt laughter. “You and Rubin?
Really? You were doing it with him? You’re kidding.”
“We were twelve. What the hell.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t get pregnant.”
“I know. Twelve can be a dumb age.”
He looked away. “Bet he didn’t beat you as bad as he beat me!”
“He sent you boys over to play with the Talcotts.” I gave him a glass of cold orange juice and poured one for myself.
“I don’t remember,” he said.
“You were nine,” I said. “Nobody was going to tell you what was going on. As I remember, I told you I fell down the back steps.”
He frowned, perhaps remembering. My face had been memorable. Dad hadn’t beaten me as badly as he beat Keith, but I looked worse. He should remember that.
“He ever beat up Mama?”
I shook my head. “No. I’ve never seen any sign of it.
I don’t think he would. He loves her, you know. He really does.”
“Bastard!”
“He’s our father, and he’s the best man I know.”
“Did you think that when he beat you?”
“No. But later when I figured out how stupid I’d been,
I was just glad he was so strict. And back when it happened, I was just glad he didn’t quite kill me.”
He laughed again— twice in just a few minutes, and both times at things I’d said. Maybe he was ready to open up a little now.
“Tell me about the outside,” I said. “How do you live out there?
He drained the last of his second glass of juice. “I told you. I live real good out there.”
“But how did you live when you first went out— when you went to stay.”
He looked at me and smiled. He smiled like that years ago when he used red ink to trick me into bleeding in empathy with a wound he didn’t have. I remember that particular nasty smile.
“You want to go out yourself, don’t you?” he demanded.
“Someday.”
“What, instead of marrying Curtis and having a bunch of babies?”
“Yeah. Instead of that.”
“I wondered why you were being so nice to me.”
The food smelled just about ready, so I got up and took the bread from the oven and bowls from the cupboard. I was tempted to tell him to dish up his own stew, but I knew he would spoon all the meat out of the stew and leave nothing but potatoes and vegetables for the rest of us. So I served him and myself, covered the pot, left it on the lowest possible fire, and put a towel over the bread.
I let him eat in peace for a while, though I thought the boys would be coming in any time now, starving.
Then I was afraid to wait any longer. “Talk to me, Keith,” I said. “I really want to know. How did you survive when you first went out there.”
His smile this time was less evil. Maybe the food had mellowed him. “Slept in a cardboard box for three days and stole food,” he said “I don’t know why I kept going back to that box. Could have slept in any old corner. Some kids carry a piece of cardboard to sleep on— so they won’t be right down on the ground, you know.
“Then I got a sleepsack from an old man. It was new, like he never used it. Then I— ”
“You stole it?”
He gave me a look of scorn. “What you think I was going to do? I didn’t have no money. Just had that gun— Mama’s 38.”
Yes. He had brought it back to her three visits ago, along with two boxes of ammunition. Of course he never said how he got the ammunition— or how he got his replacement gun— a Heckler & Koch nine millimeter just like Dad’s. He just showed up with things and claimed that if you had the money, you could buy anything outside. He had never admitted how he got the money.
“Okay,” I said. “So you stole a sleepsack. And you kept stealing food? It’s a wonder you didn’t get caught.”
“The old guy had some money. I used it to buy food.
Then I started walking toward L.A.”
That old dream of his. For reasons that make sense to him alone, he’s always wanted to go to L.A. Any sane person would be thankful for the twenty miles that separate us from that oozing sore.
“He talked to you. He was friendly to you. And you shot him.”
“What was I supposed to do? Wait for God to come and give me some money? What was I supposed to do?”
“Come home.”
“Shit.”
“Doesn’t it even bother you that you took someone’s life— you killed a man?”
He seemed to think about that for a while. Then he shook his head. “It don’t bother me,” he said. “I was scared at first, but then…after I did it, I didn’t feel nothing. Nobody saw me do it. I just took his stuff and left him there. Besides, maybe he wasn’t dead.
People don’t always die just because you shoot them.”
“You didn’t check?”
“I just wanted his stuff. He was crazy anyway.
Alaska!”
I didn’t say any more to him, didn’t ask any more questions. He talked a little about meeting some guys and joining up with them, then discovering that even though they were all older than he was, none of them could read or write. He was a help to them.
He made their lives pleasanter. Maybe that’s why they didn’t just wait until he was asleep and kill him and take his loot for themselves.
After a while, he noticed that I wasn’t saying anything, and he laughed. “You better marry Curtis and make babies,” he said. “Out there, outside, you wouldn’t last a day. That hyperempathy shit of yours would bring you down even if nobody touched you.”
“You think that,” I said.
“Hey, I saw a guy get both of his eyes gouged out.
After that, they set him on fire and watched him run around and scream and burn. You think you could stand to see that?”
“Your new friends did that?” I asked.
MONDAY, JULY 20, 2026
Keith came to see me today just before dark. He found me walking home from the Talcott house where Curtis had been wishing me a very happy birthday. We’ve been very careful, Curtis and I, but from somewhere or other, he’s gotten a supply of condoms. They’re old fashioned, but they work. And there’s an unused darkroom in a corner of the Talcott garage.
Keith scared me out of a very sweet mood. He came from behind two houses without making a sound. He had almost reached me before I realized someone was there and turned to face him.
He raised his hands, smiling. “Brought you a birthday present,” he said. He put something into my left hand. Money.
“Keith, no, give it to Cory.”
“You give it to her. You want her to have it, you give it to her. I gave it to you.”
I walked him to the gate, concerned that one of the watchers might spot him and shoot him. He was that much taller than he had been when he stopped living with us. Dad was home so he wouldn’t come in. I thanked him for the money and told him I would give it to Cory. I wanted him to know that because I didn’t want him to bring me anything else, ever.
He seemed not to mind. He kissed the side of my face said, “Happy birthday,” and went out. He still had Cory’s key, and although Dad knew he had it, he hadn’t had the lock changed again.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2026
Today, my parents had to go downtown to identify the body of my brother Keith.