My Brother's Keeper

  “So?”

  “He’s different. That’s all.”

  “So?”

  Arthur looks at me like I’m dangerous or something. Like all of a sudden I might go postal, which makes me feel sort of like I might go postal—which is not something I want to do, especially to the person who gives me his Little Debbies every day and who’s been my best friend since fourth grade.

  But which doesn’t mean he’s the kind of person you can talk to about things like your brother turning into someone who comes in at 1:16 all the time. Or about your mom turning into someone who doesn’t notice, because she’s always on a date with the Food King. Or about how you’ve turned into someone who’s always lying and covering up about your brother coming in at 1:16. And about how you wonder if what you’re doing is making things better, or just making them worse.

  At which point I give him back the Little Debbie and tell him I’m not really hungry after all.

  That night after dinner, I kick Jake’s chair when I get up to put my plate in the dishwasher.

  “What’s your problem?” he says.

  Normally, when one person says “What’s your problem?” the other one says “You’re my problem.” After that, either person has the right to punch, head-lock, or pinch the other one, which pretty much always leads to a full-fledged wrestling match. Which pretty much always makes both people feel better.

  “You’re my problem,” I say.

  I wait for him to punch, headlock, or pinch me. But he just stares at me.

  “So deal with it,” he says.

  Which I do. I get up from the table, go upstairs, open his dresser, and pull out the plastic bag. Then I walk into the bathroom, turn the bag upside down, and dump everything in the toilet. I flush twice just to be safe. I’m back at the table in time for dessert.

  Later, after our mom leaves on another date with the Food King, Jake comes in our room and starts rummaging through his bottom drawer.

  “It’s not there.” I say this like it’s something that just happened, not something I had anything to do with.

  He gets down on his hands and knees like a dog and throws everything out of the drawer. Then he smiles at me like he figures I’m playing a joke on him. “Okay, Toby,” he says. “Where is it?”

  I smack my lips and rub my belly.

  “Seriously,” he says. “Where is it?”

  I put my hand on the doorknob.

  “I threw it away,” I say.

  “Are you serious?”

  I don’t say yes or no. Which means yes.

  I start to walk out. Then I turn around and look at him.

  “What’re you gonna do?” I say. “Tell Mom?”

  After which I go downstairs and turn on the TV. A couple of minutes later, I hear the front door close. I look out the window and see Jake running across the parking lot.

  So I do the only other thing a person can do at a time like this. I go upstairs and pull my card collection down from the shelf and open it up to the page where the Stargell is. Usually it sort of falls open to that page because I look at it so much.

  Except that it isn’t there.

  Bill Matlock is there and Tim Foli and Phil Garner and the other guys from the ‘79 World Series team, but right in the middle, where Willie Stargell’s hopeful young rookie face is supposed to be, is blank.

  I flip back and forth thinking maybe I accidentally moved it, but I know, the way you just know some things, that it’s gone.

  A fast-moving sweat spreads all over me, like when you go from cold to hot in a split second right before you throw up. But I don’t throw up.

  I just sit there and stare at the not-there-ness of the Stargell.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been staring at the empty page, when Eli comes in and taps me on the shoulder.

  “Toby,” he says. “Mr. Furry’s missing again.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “What if he went over to the highway?”

  “So?”

  “So, it’s a death trap.”

  All at once I feel as mean and rotten and hateful as a person can feel. “So,” I say, “maybe he’ll get killed.”

  Eli’s mouth drops open. He takes a step back from me. Then he runs out of the room.

  I still don’t move. I feel like I’m standing far away from my actual self—watching myself be mean and rotten and hateful and not even caring that I don’t care. Finally, after a long time, I get up and go downstairs. I don’t know what I’m expecting exactly. I just go downstairs. I look around for Eli but there’s no sign of him. I go in the kitchen, wander around, then go back to the den and flop down on the couch.

  I wait for Eli to come in and fight over the remote. But he doesn’t.

  “Eli?” I call out.

  There’s no answer.

  I get up and look around to see if he’s hiding behind a chair or under the kitchen table like he does sometimes. But he’s not there.

  I call out his name again and then notice his yellow blankie on the floor next to the front door. My mind registers this as weird, but I keep calling out for him. Until I look out the window and see that Tonto is missing.

  That’s when my mouth goes dry, and my heart starts pounding, and I understand that he’s gone.

  I fling open the door and yell out his name. I don’t even stop and wait for him to answer because I know he’s not going to. Because I know where he is. He’s over at the highway looking for his cat.

  I take off running harder than I’ve ever run in my whole life, willing my feet and legs to fly. But it feels like I’m hardly moving. Somehow I’m winded before I even get to the end of the parking lot. I decide not to think about this, to just concentrate on putting one foot down, then the next, then the next, praying that if I just keep doing the same thing over and over that I’ll arrive at wherever Eli is and everything will be okay.

  Finally, after what feels like forever, I’m running alongside the highway. I’m on a skinny strip of grass that has a ditch full of weeds on one side and cars and trucks going by so close on the other side that I think that any minute, I’m going to be sucked into the undertow of a big truck and pulled out onto the road. I don’t even dare to look up. I just keep my eyes down, watching the bits of trash and soda cans pass by underfoot.

  Then I see something that looks familiar: a bag of Liver Lovin’cat treats spilled all over the grass. I stop and look up, then down the grassy strip. I force myself to call out Eli’s name.

  But there’s no answer. I don’t understand. I don’t see how there can be absolutely no sign of him—no bike, no cowboy hat—nothing except a stupid bag of cat treats. I yell his name over and over and over until I’m crying, really truly crying like a baby.

  When I get home, there’s a police car in front of our apartment and all the lights are on. I stand there, frozen, in the parking lot. It’s quiet, way too quiet. Then the police radio crackles to life. An angry voice barks out some numbers and codes and things that sound important and urgent, but which don’t say anything about whether a person’s little brother is okay or not. Then the radio goes dead.

  I take a step toward our apartment, then stop. I take another step, planning to just keep going until I get to the front door. But I can’t. Instead, I walk toward the police car. I circle it slowly, noticing that the trunk is partway open, and then edge my way toward the back. Which is when I see Tonto lying in the trunk.

  I break into a run, slipping on the grass as I try to get traction. I have no any idea where I’m going. I just know I have to get out of there. But just as I regain my balance and start to cross the yard, another police car pulls up. I duck around the corner and hide behind the Dumpster.

  A big, angry-looking police officer gets out of the car, checks the address, then walks to our door and disappears inside. I wait and wait, but nothing happens. My teeth are chattering even though it’s not cold. I clench my jaw to stop the chattering. Then I start to shiver. I wrap my arms around my chest and try to mak
e the shivering stop.

  And then I hear a sound from under the Dumpster. First, there’s a rustling noise. And then, clear as can be, comes a meow. When I kneel down and look underneath, I’m face-to-face with Mr. Furry. Her eyes are wide and shiny and she looks terrified, even more terrified than I am.

  I pick her up. Gently. And she doesn’t resist. Without even thinking, I walk back across the yard, carrying her like a baby until we get to the front door. Then I stand there a minute trying to figure out how to open the door without disturbing Mr. Furry. I swallow, push the doorbell with my elbow, and wonder what I’ll see when the door opens.

  What I see is Eli sitting on the couch, his blankie wrapped around his shoulders, an ice pack on his head.

  The angry-looking police officer holds the door open. A lady police officer is sitting in a chair holding a notebook, and my mom is on the couch blowing her nose into a paper towel.

  When Eli sees me, he jumps off the couch, grabs Mr. Furry out of my arms, and puts her in a headlock. He kisses her and nuzzles his nose in her fur, and scolds her and says he thought she was dead, and then kisses her some more. And I stand there with nothing in my arms, trying to believe what I’m seeing, and thinking that if Eli were a cat or a dog or some other kind of pet, I’d kiss him and nuzzle him and scold him and tell him I thought he was dead, and then kiss him some more.

  Instead, I reach out toward the bump on his head.

  “Does it hurt?” The words come out shaky.

  He looks up at me.

  “Nah,” he says, wrapping his blankie around Mr. Furry. “It’s okay.”

  All of a sudden I’m really, really tired. All I want to do is sit down on the couch and not move for about 185 years. Except that there are two police officers with actual guns and holsters in our house.

  “Like I was saying,” the big, angry-looking one says to my mom. “He’s a lucky boy. One inch in the other direction…”

  My mom holds up her hand to make him stop.

  Eli looks up at me again. “I fell off my bike. Right next to the highway.” He says this sort of proudly.

  I look at my mom.

  She buries her face in the paper towel.

  “Lucky for Eli,” the officer says to me, “he fell into the weeds.” He gestures toward the lady officer. “Officer Rodriguez, here, came by a minute later and found him standing on the side of the highway, crying.”

  Eli yawns. “I’m going to put Mr. Furry to bed,” he says. “She’s probably tired after her ordeal.” Then he slings the cat over his shoulder and leaves.

  For a minute, I think I might laugh. For just a second, it seems so ridiculous and also so ridiculously normal that Eli’s tucking Mr. Furry in for the night, wrapped in his blankie, using words like “ordeal.” I think I might laugh the way Eli does, that I might fall on the floor and laugh until I can’t breathe.

  Until I see the angry-looking officer giving me a suspicious look. I bite the inside of my mouth.

  “What we’re concerned about now…” he says, once Eli is gone, “is your other brother.”

  My stomach drops.

  “Did something happen to Jake?” I say.

  No one says anything.

  “Is he okay?”

  My mom puts her hands up to her face like she’s praying. The lady officer shifts in her seat and her holster makes a creaking sound. The angry-looking officer clears his throat but he doesn’t say anything.

  “What?” My voice practically cracks in half. “What’s going on?”

  I look over at my mom. Her eyes are red and puffy, and she looks pale and tired and small. She just shakes her head.

  The angry-looking officer explains. “While Officer Rodriguez was out with your little brother in the back of her cruiser, I had your big brother in the back of mine.”

  All I can do is nod.

  “He was playing a game where he drove his friends car back and forth from one lane to the other. Out on Creekside Road.”

  I swallow.

  “Ran off the road, sideswiped a parked car, took out a couple of mailboxes.”

  I hold my breath and wait for him to say that Jake’s in the hospital, that he’s in a coma, that he’s dead.

  “No serious injuries,” he says matter-of-factly. “Just property damage.”

  I slump back against the wall and exhale.

  The police officer studies me, like he’s waiting for me to say something. Officer Rodriguez has her pen poised over her notebook.

  I look at them, then over at my mom. Then I tug on the brim of my baseball cap and pull it down as far as it will go.

  The angry-looking officer sighs. Then he says my mom’s name.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, ma’am,” he says, not actually sounding very sorry. “It appears they were under the influence.”

  “They were drinking?” my mom says.

  “Well, yes, we found beer in the car, and a pint of bourbon,” he says. “We’ll have to wait till the tests come back. But it also appears that they’d been using other substances,”

  I peek out from under my hat and see my mom put her hand up to her mouth. “Drugs?”

  He nods.

  “Jake?”

  Yes, ma am.

  She looks at me.

  I look down at my shoes.

  When I look up a minute later, she’s crying, and Officer Rodriguez is patting her on the shoulder.

  Then the angry-looking officer says she needs to come down to the police station, and that the juvenile-court judge is on his way in. “In situations like these, the judge usually has them detox at Mount Tom for a couple of days before he convenes the case,” he says.

  My mom flinches at the word detox.

  But she gets up and puts on her coat. She stuffs her wadded-up paper towel in her pocket and starts to leave. Then she stops, goes into the kitchen, and comes back with a pack of cigarettes. The next thing I know, all the adults are gone, and I’m standing there by myself in the den, wondering if what just happened really happened.

  It’s almost two o’clock and I’m lying in bed listening to Eli and Mr. Furry breathe, when the front door opens. I strain to hear if there are two sets of footsteps or one.

  One person comes up the steps, slowly. The door to my mom’s room opens, then shuts. And I lie there, picturing myself going over and knocking on the door and patting her on the shoulder like Officer Rodriguez did, until finally, around three A.M., the crying stops.

  Even though it’s a school day, it’s practically eleven o’clock by the time I wake up the next day. Eli’s bed is empty. I get up and check Jake’s bed, even though I know it’s empty. I knock on my mom’s door. When she doesn’t answer I open it a crack.

  Her room is dark like a cave and smells like cigarettes.

  “Mom?”

  There’s some rustling from the bed. “What time is it?” she says.

  I tell her it’s almost eleven.

  She doesn’t say anything back, so I close the door and go downstairs.

  Eli’s on the couch eating Pringles, watching Cartoon Network, and holding Mr. Furry in a death grip.

  I sit down next to him and don’t say anything. I’m not actually watching TV, though. I’m sitting there looking straight ahead, trying to get up the nerve to fully look at Eli to see if he really is okay.

  Something funny happens on the show. Eli practically has a conniption laughing. Mr. Furry uses the opportunity to escape. I use the opportunity to look over at Eli. He’s got a purplish bump on his forehead. When I see it, my chest hurts—actually, physically hurts.

  I jump up and go in the kitchen. Then I just stand there looking around for something to make the feeling in my chest go away. Finally, after it doesn’t, I reach in the refrigerator and grab a couple of sodas.

  Eli looks sort of surprised when I come back and hand him a soda.

  “Are you sure this is okay?”

  Technically, it’s not okay, since we’re not allowed to have soda in the mornin
g. “Yeah,” I say. “It’s definitely okay.”

  Eli just looks at the soda can. Then he looks at me. “You don’t have to give me a soda just because of last night,” he says.

  I don’t quite know what to say. So I pull the pop-top on his soda and hand it to him. Which is not the same as saying I’m sorry and that I’m glad he’s okay, but which is at least something.

  We sit there watching cartoons for a long time, not saying anything.

  Finally, Eli taps me on the shoulder.

  “What’s going on, anyhow?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Where’s Jake?”

  I try to sound casual. “I don’t know.”

  “How come mom’s still asleep and we get to stay home on a school day watching cartoons?”

  I try to think of a little-kid explanation, something that’s true but that isn’t the whole truth, either. Something that doesn’t let on that Jake is in a place called Mount Tom, detoxing. Something that doesn’t let on that things with Mom might be bad again. Something that won’t worry a kid who almost lost his cat and could’ve gotten killed on the highway last night.

  “It’s a day off.”

  Eli just looks at me.

  “You know how some kids get to take off on random days for Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or something that not everybody else gets to take off for?”

  He nods.

  “It’s sort of like that.”

  It’s the middle of the afternoon and we’re still watching Cartoon Network and our mom is still in her room with the door closed when the phone rings. Eli gets it.

  “I’ll go check,” he says to the person on the phone. Then he goes up to our mom’s room.

  A little while later, he comes back and picks up the receiver. “She says she can’t come to the phone,” he says.

  He says “Okay, okay” to whoever’s on the phone, then hangs up and comes back into the den.

  “Who was that?”

  “Stanley.”

  “His Heinie?”

  “He says we can call him Stanley.”

  I look over and notice that Eli is wearing his Pokey Reese T-shirt.

  He notices me noticing the T-shirt.

  “He’s not that bad, Toby,” Eli says.