Neal Shusterman - Bruiser

The question is right there, although I don’t ask it directly: If he’s got a decent job, then why do you live like this?

The Bruiser glances back toward the family room. The shifting glow from the TV plays on the arched doorway like lightning, making it look like a portal to another dimension. The gateway to Hoyt-Hell: Abandon all hope ye who enter. He turns back to me and speaks softly. “My uncle’s got an ex-wife and three kids in Atlanta. The government garnishes his wages.”

“Garnish,” I say. “I thought that was, like, parsley on a dinner plate.”

The Bruiser grins. “So there’s something I know that you don’t?” He relishes the moment before explaining. “Garnishing means the government takes child support right out of his salary even before he gets the check because they know he won’t pay it otherwise.” The Bruiser thinks about it and shakes his head. “Funny—he runs out on his wife and three kids and then he ends up stuck with Cody and me.”

I’m about to ask him how that came to be, but I realize it must not be a pretty story. If they’re stuck with a loser uncle, it means that their parents are gone in one way or another. Dead, incarcerated, or AWOL. No joy in any of the possibilities, so I don’t ask.

“You’re uncle sounds like quite a guy,” I say, the sarcasm practically pooling around my ankles, adding another stain to the carpet.

“There are worse things,” he says.

Right about now Cody comes out of his room, shirtless.

“My shirt smelled like Tri-tip,” he says, “but I got no clean shirts. It’s your fault I got no clean shirts!” he tells his brother.

The Bruiser sighs and says to me, “I do the laundry here, too.”

I wonder if there are any chores he doesn’t do.

When I glance at Cody again, I note that the kid’s back is nothing like his brother’s. No bruises, no scars, no sign that their short-tempered uncle beats him at all. I begin to wonder if maybe I’m wrong in assuming the man is an abuser. Maybe he just blusters, but he’s all wind and no weather. Still, it doesn’t answer the question about the Bruiser’s back. The Bruiser goes to a little laundry room just off the kitchen and mines through a huge pile of clothes on top of the dryer. He pulls out a small T- shirt and tosses it to Cody.

“Is it clean?”

“No, I wiped my butt on it.”

Cody scowls at him, smells the shirt just in case, and walks away satisfied. He disappears into his room, struggling, Houdini-like, to get his head and arms into the shirt at the same time.

The Bruiser comes back out to join me in the kitchen.

“So, you haven’t gotten to the part where you ask me to stay away from your sister. You tried threatening me and that didn’t work, so now I figure you’re going to try it more respectfully.”

I look away from him. I know it might make me seem guilty, but, really, I’m feeling angry at myself for having bullied him in the first place. “Brontë makes her own decisions,” I tell him, then add, “but I won’t be happy if she comes anywhere near Uncle Hoyt.”

“Neither will I,” he says, “and just in case you’re worried, I’m not like my uncle.”

“I can see that.” Then I hold out my hand to him. “So… no hard feelings?”

He looks at my hand for a few moments, and I think that maybe there are hard feelings after all; but then he shakes it with a decisive, confident grasp.

We nod to each other—an understanding has been reached, like a dëtente between two nations that would otherwise be at war.

Then Uncle Hoyt slinks out from his lair, and Brewster withdraws his hand like he’s been caught with it in the cookie jar. The man looks at us suspiciously, as if we’re plotting against him. “What’s he still doing here? Didn’t I tell you to get rid of Tri-tip?”

The Bruiser opens his mouth to say something, but I speak first. “What is he supposed to do, snap his fingers and make it go away?”

The man grins, and it’s something slimy and nasty. All of a sudden I feel unclean again. “Can’t expect you to lift the whole animal at once,” he says. “The chain saw’s out in the shed.”

When I get home that night, I don’t say anything to Brontë about where I was and what I did that afternoon. Even when she comments at dinner that I smell funny, I just tell her I’ll take a shower—even though I’ve already taken two.

I won’t get into the details of Tri-tip’s disposal. It was not a pretty sight. I can only thank God there are Dumpsters just on the other side of the Bruiser’s fence. Now I understand the close-knit nature of the Mafia, because there’s something bonding about disposing of a body.

The next day I see the Bruiser during passing, between second and third periods. We nod to each other an unspoken greeting, almost like it’s something secret. He raises a hand to hoist his backpack farther up on his shoulder, and that’s when I notice the knuckles on his right hand. Four out of five knuckles are all raw and starting to scab. I figure he must have scraped them up pretty badly during our bull-carving extravaganza yesterday afternoon.

Reflexively I look at my own knuckles and notice right away that my scabs are gone. I tend to heal quickly, so I try to dismiss it. After all, how often do I actually look at my knuckles? I get scraped and bruised so much, I don’t notice it anymore.

Except that I did notice my scabbed knuckles yesterday. The Bruiser and I both did.

I try to tell myself it’s nothing, that it’s one of life’s simple tricks, just like a stage magician’s clever misdirection to keep the audience baffled. Yet deep down I know there’s something more going on here. Something truly inexplicable I’m afraid to consider.

My brother’s an idiot.

Sure, Tennyson’s smart, but he’s an idiot in all the other ways that matter. Such as when he forced his way into our miniature golf game and intimidated Brewster just because we went out on a date. It wasn’t even an evening date; it was a middle-of-the- afternoon date, which as anyone can tell you, is barely a date at all. The problem with Tennyson is that he has to be in control of everything. It’s like he’s worried the whole world will fall apart if he’s not holding it together. He thinks no one can survive without the protection of his iron fist, least of all me.

Well, in spite of what Tennyson might think, I am not entirely void of common sense, thank you very much. I deal with boys far better than he deals with girls. Don’t believe me? Then take a nice, long look at his current “relationship” with Katrina, who has the right name, because she’s got natural disaster written all over her.

I, on the other hand, know that with any boy it’s important to truly get to know him before the dates get serious. Not that I have all that much experience, but I’m blessed with friends who do. Their lives are like caution signs in the road, warning me against all the ill-advised things they have done.

1) From Carly I learned never to go out on a date with the younger brother of the most popular guy in school…because he thinks he has something to prove, and he’ll try to prove it on you.

2) From Wendy I learned that playing ditsy and stupid will only get you boys who are stupider than you’re pretending to be.

3) From Jennifer I learned to avoid any boy with an ex-girlfriend who hates him with every fiber of her being…because chances are there’s a reason she hates him so much, and you may find out the hard way.

4) From Melanie I learned that, while it’s true that guys have one thing on their mind, most are greatly relieved and easier to deal with if you make it emphatically clear right up front that they’re not going to get that one thing in the foreseeable future. Or at least not from you. Once that becomes clear, either they go after some girl who never learned the warning signs, or they stick around.