David grabs my pajamas and pulls me to him, wraps his arms around me. “That was a close call,” he says. “Too close.”
He is wearing Mom’s swimming goggles and a towel wrapped around his neck as a cape. For some reason we can’t explain, this particular adventure is a pantsless one. His underwear are Batman and mine are Spider-Man. I am wearing my yellow rain boots. They are powerful boots, but they can protect me from the hot lava for only so long.
“The hovercraft is running out of fuel!” David exclaims.
“What are we going to do?” My heart is pounding hard in my chest. David is always the one with the answers.
He adjusts his goggles. “I think we can use the ship’s borax capacitator to create the chemical reaction necessary to transform this planet’s native plant life to fuel.”
“Okay!”
“Here.” He tosses me a pillow. “Use this hover board to keep you off the lava. Collect those specimens over there.” He points to a pile of action figures in the corner.
I get to work. I pile the alien plants in my cape. “What’s this?” I hold up a small creature, blue and fuzzy, with two arms and two legs, two round ears and tiny black eyes, a shiny black nose and a thin upturned mouth.
David gasps. “A baby,” he says reverentially. “An abandoned baby.”
“What should we do with it?”
“We have to take care of it, obviously.” He jumps onto my hover board and gently removes the baby from my arms. We stand precariously on the tiny surface, a sea of lava boiling beneath us. David is so close I can smell the milk on his breath.
“We’ll raise him as our own,” David whispers as he rocks the baby in his arms. “He won’t know he was ever alone.” He kisses it on the forehead.
“I thought the creatures on this planet were our enemies,” I say.
“Not the babies,” he says, so seriously it almost scares me. “It’s not their fault who their parents are.”
It’s one of those random Monday holidays when there’s no school and the government is closed, so everyone is home when David’s IQ test results come in. Now Dad, who never touches us, can’t stop patting David on the back and putting his arm around him, calling him “my kid genius” with a goofy smile on his face. Mom keeps looking at him and getting all teary eyed. I can’t tell how David feels about it. I can’t tell if he’s the same person he was yesterday.
We go upstairs to play Legos in David’s room, which is where we usually play because that’s where all the magic is. I’m working on a boat, but David’s not building anything. He’s rooting through the tub that must contain at least a million Legos, spilling them all over the floor. It’s like he’s trying to make a mess.
“Stop staring at me, Marcus.”
“I’m not staring at you.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are!”
I add another piece to my boat. David removes a red piece from a blue piece and throws them across the room for no reason.
“I’m so bored,” he says. Lately, nothing we do seems good enough for him. He’s eleven, and I know this means he’s almost a man.
“So you’re, like, as smart as Einstein?” I say.
“Nobody’s as smart as Einstein.”
“But you’re almost as smart as him?”
He shrugs. He’s the only person in the family who doesn’t seem to be excited about his new IQ.
“So you can do some stuff like him? Like come up with some really smart ideas or invent something really useful?”
“I guess that’s what I’m supposed to do.”
“What does it feel like to be so smart?” I ask him.
He shrugs again. David usually answers one question for every five that I ask him, so I figure he’s not going to answer that one. I go back to building my boat. It is not an impressive boat, not something a genius would build.
“It feels like life could be really interesting,” David says out of the blue, so long after I spoke that I have to think for a moment to remember what I even asked him. “Like there are all these possibilities, like maybe I’m really lucky or something.”
He throws another Lego across the room. It hits the wall and thuds dully on the carpet. He kicks the tub; the millions of pieces inside shudder. “It’s like I could do anything I want,” he says. “But now everyone’s decided it’s their job to make sure I don’t.”
“Marcus, wake up!”
The world is shaking me by the shoulder. The world goes from black to bright. From sleep to terror.
It is David’s voice. David’s hand shaking me awake. He is the world.
“What’s happening?” I mumble. I can’t focus my eyes.
“Dude, you have to get up!” Whose voice is that? Not David’s. Not Dad’s. Jason? Is that David’s friend, Jason? It must be. He’s spending the night.
My eyes focus. Jason’s face is too close to mine. I’ve never liked him. I like him even less now with him yelling in my face.
“David,” I cry. “What’s going on?”
“Get up,” he says. “We have to go. Something happened to Mom.”
The world shudders and comes fully into focus. Sharp. Bright. Images flash in my mind of Mom before I went to bed tonight, when she crashed into the kitchen, home early from some kind of event with Dad. She was wearing one of her weird dresses that has no arms and shows too much of her boobs. Her hair and makeup were all messed up and her feet were bare. Dad had to hold her because she could barely stand up.
“Go to bed,” Dad told us before we had a chance to speak.
“What’s wrong with Mom?” I said.
She would not look at me. She would not look at any of us. “I was doing my job, Bill,” she mumbled to the floor. “I was charming, wasn’t I? So fucking charming.” Her face was painted with wet black streaks.
“Is she okay?” David asked.
“Is she drunk?” Jason asked.
“Just go to bed,” Dad said. “Your mom is fine.” He said “fine” as if it were a death sentence.
But she is not fine. She is in trouble. Something happened to Mom.
I jump up. I scramble to my dresser, pull out pants, underwear, shirt, socks. I pull off my pajamas.
“We have to go, dude,” Jason says. “We have to go now.”
“Hold on a second!” My heart is beating out of my chest. I’m going as fast as I can. I will never be fast enough.
“No time,” David says. “Let’s go.” He pulls my hand, and without thinking, I go with him.
We are rushing through the dark, silent house. Down the stairs. Through the living room. I am scared, but David’s hand is still around mine, so I know we are going the right way.
“Where’s Dad?” I say.
David opens the front door. I step outside. The cool night air chills my skin. I am wearing only my Spider-Man underwear.
I look at David and Jason standing inside the doorway, the darkness of the sleeping house surrounding them. Something is wrong. They are inside and I am outside. They are dressed and I am nearly naked.
Smiles have crept onto their faces.
I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
“You idiot.” Jason sneers. I try to find David’s eyes for an explanation, but the door swings closed in front of me. I hear the door lock. I hear them laughing on the other side.
I cry forever. I cry all the tears I own. I am the most alone I have ever been. Everyone I love is behind that door, and I cannot reach them. And they do not care.
I wake to a blanket around my shoulders, David pulling me to my feet. “Come on,” he says. “Get inside.”
“Where’s Jason?” I say.
“Sleeping.”
“I hate him.”
David says nothing, walks me inside, and closes the door behind us. I watch his back as I follow him up the stairs. It could be anyone’s back, a stranger walking up the stairs, no sign of feeling, no remorse. No love.
&
nbsp; I follow him to my room. He does not turn on the light as I make my way to the bed, as I lie down. I know I am too old to be tucked in, but right now it’s what I want more than anything in the world. My arms and chest are lead as I pull the blankets around me and wait for David to speak. I look toward where I think he is. He is darkness against darkness.
“God, Marcus,” he says. “Why do you have to believe everything I tell you?”
Nothing fills in the hole he leaves behind.
We are too little to be riding the BART train alone, but Mom can’t pick us up for some reason we don’t know, and Dad is in court and unreachable, so we are on our own. We are in our Carlisle Academy uniforms, the private K–8 all-boys school that grooms its students for Templeton Prep, where, according to Dad, we are both destined to go. David is a worldly seventh grader. He played spin the bottle at a party the weekend before where he kissed a girl in a closet and put his hand up her shirt. He has smoked a cigarette. He is an expert on all the things I want to know.
David holds my hand, and even though it makes me feel like a baby, I don’t want him to let go. I wonder what he sees as he stares at the map. I wonder how he deciphers the list of fares, how he knows how much money to put in the machine to buy our tickets. He navigates us all the way through the downtown Oakland station, puts his arm out in front of me when the train approaches, to protect me from getting blown onto the tracks. It all seems like magic, and he is a wizard. I know without him, I’d be lost. I’d be a goner. He can do anything and everything, and all I can do is hold his hand.
As we emerge from the MacArthur BART station, we are assaulted by the sound of police sirens, the freeway rumbling above us, distant shouting. A man sells incense on the corner, the smoke heavy and suffocating. I don’t want David to know I’m scared. This is a part of town we’ve never walked in, a part of town we never have any reason to visit. Dad says this part of town is for a different type of black people than us.
I have never been around so many black people in my life. We’re the only ones in our neighborhood full of big, fancy houses. The only other people with brown skin are the guys mowing lawns and the women cleaning houses and taking care of babies. It is shocking to not feel so rare. I feel like I should know these people, that we must be related somehow. I feel left out.
I’m excited when a group of black boys approaches. They’re closer to David’s age than mine, but I know how to play with older kids. They’re laughing, and I want to know what’s so funny. I want to laugh, too. But David is so serious. He tenses beside me; his hand grows tighter around mine. I pull his hand. “David,” I say. He doesn’t answer. He’s looking straight ahead at the boys. “David.”
“Look at those white boys,” one of them yells, and they all laugh. I look behind us to see who he’s talking to, but there’s nobody there except the guy selling incense. David’s arm tightens around me. His voice speaks low, “Walk faster, Marcus.”
“Hey, I’m talking to you,” the boy says. He’s looking at us. “Come here. I want to ask you something.”
“Keep walking,” David says to me as we approach.
“Are you talking to us?” I say to the boy, all smiles. David always says I am too trusting.
“Are you talking to us?” the boy mimics in a high-pitched voice. The other boys laugh. I don’t know what was so funny. I want to know what is funny. “Boy, you must be lost.”
“Are we lost?” I ask David.
“Shut up, Marcus.”
The boys make a wall in front of us with their bodies. They are not dressed like we are. Their skin is darker. Their shirts are white.
“Yeah, these motherfuckers are definitely lost,” another boy says. “Look at those gay uniforms.”
“You gotta pay the toll,” says another.
Suddenly, I know I am supposed to be scared.
“You heard him, cracker,” says the main one. He steps closer. His nose is inches from David’s. “Pay the toll,” he says. I wonder what his breath smells like. I wonder if it smells different from ours.
I don’t know what I expect David to do, but I’m shocked when he steps forward and bumps the kid with his chest. The guy is at least four inches taller than David, but somehow David seems bigger.
“Oh, you want to fight, cracker?”
“I don’t have to fight,” David says with an eerie confidence. “You do, but I don’t.”
“What’s this faggot talking about?” The kid laughs to his friends.
“Do you want to know why I don’t have to fight? My father is the chief judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Who’s your dad? Is he in prison? Do you even know who your father is?” David steps forward again, and the guy actually steps back, speechless. “If you fight me, your ass is going straight to jail. I’ll say you attacked me. Who are the cops going to believe? Me and my brother, on our way home to Piedmont from private school, or some project niggers like you?”
Nobody speaks, nobody breathes. I close my eyes and hide behind David, my arms tight around him. We are on a busy street. Cars zoom by and people pass us on the sidewalk, but no one sees us. We are invisible.
When I open my eyes, the boys are gone. I don’t look around to see where they are. I do not know if they spoke, if David spoke. I was somewhere else in those short moments, somewhere I couldn’t hear anything but traffic and my own heart beating hard. I grab on tight to David’s hand and focus on the sidewalk in front of me.
“Why’d you call them that?” I say after we’ve gone a few blocks. “We’re not supposed to say that word.” He keeps walking. “Slow down, you’re going too fast.”
He turns around suddenly and grabs my shoulders, hard. “Listen to me, Marcus,” he says, so serious it scares me. I start to cry. “You have to hit people where it hurts most. We’re not tough, so we have to be smart. Do you hear me?”
“But why’d you have to call them that word?” I whimper. “Dad said we’re never supposed to say that word.”
“It’s a bad word,” David says, and I feel a little better with this confirmation. “The worst. You should never say it.”
“Then why’d you say it?”
He sighs, and I know the world is so much heavier for him than it is for me. “You know how war works?” he says. “It’s about showing superiority. They were winning, right? They’re tougher than us. We can never beat them at their game. The only way we were going to win was if we change the game. That’s called strategy. It’s called psychological warfare. We have to make them small.”
“Why?”
“So we win.”
“But why?” I cry.
“Jesus, Marcus. So they won’t kick our asses, that’s why.” He puts his arm around me and pulls me close. “You’re going to have to learn how to take care of yourself someday. I’m not always going to be here to protect you.”
“I can take care of myself,” I say, wiping my wet nose on his sweater.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you, little brother,” David says. “I promise.”
I believe him. I always believe him.
We walk the rest of the way home, not talking. When we finally make the turn that marks the official line between Oakland and the charter city of Piedmont where we live, things immediately feel different. Better. Safer. But even though the coast is clear, I keep my hand squeezed tight around David’s. The flame of a tiny new terror ignites: I don’t know how I’ll ever be ready to let go.
here.
WHEN I GET HOME, I WANT NOTHING MORE THAN TO GRAB some food from the fridge and go to my room and listen to music, but Dad corners me in the kitchen. He’s home at a time normal people get home from work, which is not normal for him. He’s been doing this lately, being around. He actually ate lunch at the kitchen table on Saturday. He even knocked on my bedroom door a few nights ago to ask if I wanted to watch TV with him in the living room. I can’t remember the last time he was even on my side of the house. I can’t remember the last time
someone even turned on the TV in the living room.
“How are you?” he says, with an unrecognizable smile. He’s in khakis and his old Yale sweatshirt, and the clothes look strange on him. For the last several years, he’s been someone who only looks right in a suit or his judge’s robes. The last time I saw him in this ensemble was probably when I was a little kid, when he was still attempting to play the dad role. Before David started falling apart. Before Mom.
“Fine,” I say, not meeting his eyes.
He puts his hand on my shoulder, and it makes me jump.
“I mean it, Marcus,” he says. His face is softer than it should be. He’s looking me in the eyes, like maybe he actually does want to know how I am. “You’ve been moping around the last few days. Is something wrong? Is something going on with that girl you’ve been seeing?”
“How’d you know I was seeing anyone?” He’s never met Evie. He’s never come close to meeting Evie.
“I notice things, Marcus.”
I can’t help but laugh. Bullshit.
“Have you thought about the internship at my office?”
“I’ve kind of had other things on my mind.” That’s the understatement of the year.
“I hope you’ll at least consider it. It starts in two weeks. There are several applicants who are waiting anxiously for our response.”
“So give it to one of them.” I shake his hand off my shoulder.
“Marcus, it’s a great opportunity. Not everybody gets a chance to work at the Supreme Court. It’s quite a privilege. I hope you don’t take that for granted.”
Yes, Dad, I know. It’s a privilege to have you as a father. Your expectations of me are a great fucking privilege.
“The internship will be impressive on your college applications. You are thinking about college, aren’t you?”
“Of course I’m thinking about college,” I say, gritting my teeth. “But I’m still a junior. I don’t have to think about it too much yet.”
“Some people would have already done some school visits and interviews by now. You’ve at least looked at some of those brochures, haven’t you?”