Neal Shusterman - Bruiser

Enola Gay is the name of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and, three days later, on Nagasaki. It flew so high that when it released a bomb, it took one minute and forty-three seconds for the bomb to reach the ground. Actually, I made that part up; but you know what? I don’t care. I’m sure it’s close.

I wonder what the crewmen were thinking during that time between the act and the result. Were they regretful? Were they frightened? Exhilarated? Numb? Or were they just thinking about getting home to their families?

The thing is, once a bomb begins to fall the deed is done. All you can do is watch helplessly, waiting for the blinding flash.

I never saw it coming, but Tennyson did. I think he watched for the whole minute forty-three. It must have torn him apart inside to know that Mom and Dad were about to go thermonuclear, and also know that he could do nothing to stop it. All he could do was brace himself. He tried to warn me, but I was too oblivious to duck and cover.

Maybe I was the lucky one, because by the time I saw it, the bomb was about to strike the hardpan earth, so I never knew what hit me. And Brew? Well, he was the innocent bystander caught in precisely the wrong place at precisely the wrong time.

“How about it, Lisa?” Dad taunted from his place at the table. “Care to share the gist of your Monday night class? Or is it not suitable for children?”

Mom slammed down one of the pots in the sink. “Stop it, Daniel,” she said. “Now is not the time.”

“Of course it’s not,” Dad said. “But why should that ever make a difference?”

And then Dad turned to the three of us—me, Brew, and Tennyson—like we were a tribunal of Supreme Court justices. “Let me tell you about life,” he said. “Life is all about revenge. Getting back at the other guy at all costs; isn’t that right, Lisa? Why don’t you tell everyone about your ‘class’?”

“I’m not talking about this!” But she finally turned to face him, proving that yes, she was talking about this.

“Say it, Lisa. I need to hear you say it. I need to hear it from you.”

“Dad!” shouted Tennyson. “Stop it! Leave her alone!”

But Dad put up his hand with such authority, Tennyson backed down. He’s the only person Tennyson will back down from.

Dad looked at Mom for a moment more, both with matching gazes of accusation and rage… and then it was over. Dad crumbled. He buried his head in his hands and burst into tears that went on and on with no sign of stopping.

I turned to my mother, desperately hoping she could say something to fix this. “Mom?” I said. “What’s going on? What’s Dad talking about?”

Her shoulders went slack; and before her own emotions could choke out her voice, she said, “There is no Monday night class, Brontë.”

That’s when Brewster bolted. He stood up so quickly that he nearly knocked over the dinner table and made a beeline for the door—and since it was easier to go after him than it was to stand there and face my crumbling, dissolving parents, I followed him.

“Brew! Wait!”

He didn’t turn back to me until he was safely across the threshold of our front door. “I shouldn’t even be here,” he said. “My uncle’s at work, my brother’s home alone—”

“I’ll come with you….” I reached for him, but he pushed my arms away.

“I can’t do this!” He was furious. He was terrified. “You don’t understand! I can’t care about them. I can’t care about you!”

“What?”

He backed away, but he held me in his horrible, deep, draining eyes. “That’s right. I don’t care about you. It’s over. I don’t care about you at all.” Then he turned and took off like a thief, disappearing down the street and into the windy night.

There would be no looking back on this and laughing. That’s what people always say, isn’t it? “Someday you’ll look back on this and laugh.” Easy for them to say. I hope they choke on their own advice.

Standing at the open door was like standing at the edge of the earth. I felt myself leaning forward into the April wind, wishing I could just jump—or better yet, just slip out of my body and drift away, leaving all the pain of the evening far behind.

The thing was, if I had found a way to escape— even for just a little while—I knew the pain would be there waiting for me when I got back.

But for now I was shell-shocked. It wasn’t quite escape, but it would have to do.

“Fine,” I said to the stupid, soulless wind, and went inside.

No one was in the kitchen when I returned, and I happily entertained the fantasy that Mom and Dad had been instantly vaporized by their own middle- aged angst and had taken Tennyson along with them. An evil thought, I know; but I was feeling evil down to the core right then—and perfectly entitled to the feeling.

I could hear the TV in the family room. Probably Tennyson. And I heard movement upstairs—Mom or Dad, but not both, because by now they would have retreated to their separate corners of the ring, probably finding the two farthest points in the house to lick their wounds.

And there in front of me were the ruins of the evening on our best china. The waste products of a dinner gone wrong.

I found myself cleaning up, because it was easier to do something simple like clearing the table than to analyze which level of hell I now resided in.

I wasn’t being as attentive as I should have been, however, because as I reached to grab the serving platter, my thumb sliced across the sharp edge of the carving knife. I reflexively drew back my hand, but it was too late; there was a half-inch gash on my palm, near the base of my left thumb, and it was already oozing blood.

“Crap!”

I grabbed it with my other hand and tried to stem the flow of blood, but it didn’t help. Blood dribbled in little vermillion drops all over the forsaken roast, blending in with the drippings.

And that’s when I started to cry.

Of all the stupid things. Never mind that my boyfriend just abandoned me and my family just auto-destructed—there I was, crying about that stupid, freaking roast.

“Brontë?” Tennyson stood in the doorway watching me bleed onto dinner. “What happened?”

I grabbed a cloth napkin from an untouched table setting, pressed it to my bleeding hand, and to my own embarrassment found myself whimpering like a child. “It’s all ruined, Tennyson,” I said. “Everything.”

“C’mon,” he said; and he grabbed my elbow, pulling me toward the bathroom.

He searched for Band-Aids in the medicine chest while I washed the wound, watching the pink water flow down the drain.

“Apply pressure,” he said.

“I know how to stop bleeding!” I snapped. “I took lifesaving, for God’s sake!”

“Okay, okay, I’m just trying to help.”

I cleaned it with peroxide, and he held out a Band-Aid. “At least let me help you put this on,” Tennyson said. “You can’t do it with one hand.”

So I held out my hand and let him stretch the bandage across the wound, smoothing out the adhesive strip.

“There,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll need stitches.”

I took a deep breath. “Thank you, Tennyson.”

“No problem.”

As much as we fought, I can’t deny that at times like this, there’s a closeness between us that I’ve always been grateful for.

We didn’t leave the bathroom. Instead, he closed the door and sat on the toilet lid while I stretched out in the dry bathtub. It wasn’t the most comfortable place for a sibling summit meeting, but there’s something comforting about the tight privacy of a family bathroom. Does that sound weird? I don’t care.