Cote Smith - Hurt People

“Oh, shut up,” my brother said. “Nobody wants you here. You’re just a jerk who won’t leave.”

Rick pushed himself out of the couch, his eyebrows raised. “What did you say to me?”

“You heard me. Jerk.” My brother threw the pillow at Rick and Rick caught it.

“Stop it,” my mother said.

Rick dropped the pillow and raised his hand to my mother. “It’s OK.” He stepped around the coffee table, toward my brother. “So you want a repeat of the golf course? Is that it?”

“I want you to leave,” my brother said. “That’s what I want.”

Rick popped his good knuckles against his chest. “You need to go to your room. You need to take your baby bro and beat it, before it beats you.”

“Rick,” my mother said.

“See,” my brother said, not backing down. “See how he is?”

“Oh, and how am I?” Rick said. “How am I exactly?”

“You’re stupid. Too dumb for my mom.”

There was a pause. Rick glanced at my mother, and for a moment it looked like he expected her to defend him, to say something nice about him so he wouldn’t have to say something mean to my brother or hit him again. But my mother remained quiet.

“Oh, now I’m the dumb one?” Rick said. “This coming from the brothers with half a brain between them.”

“That’s half more than you got,” my brother said. He smiled a bit, feeling confident now, sensing he was winning. “You have all your rules, but you don’t get that nobody wants them.”

“No?”

“No. Nobody cares.”

“I care.”

“So?” my brother said. “Nobody cares if you care. Nobody cares about you, either. You don’t belong here.”

Again Rick looked at my mother, who opened her mouth but still didn’t say anything.

“Well, if I don’t belong here, idiot, then where exactly do I belong?”

My brother took a step back, putting some distance between himself and Rick. He curled his lip like one of his villains, and I knew whatever he said next was going to be something mean, something he had wanted to say for a long time, but had been waiting for the right moment. Waiting for Rick to fall into his trap, for Rick to be his weakest.

“Isn’t it obvious?” my brother said. “You belong in prison. With the rest of the scum.”

Rick didn’t look at my mother for help this time. He lunged at my brother, one arm raised like a crippled bear. But my brother was ready and easily jumped away.

“No!” my mother yelled, breaking her silence. She jumped in between them and stuck out her arms. “Cut it out! You,” she said to Rick. “Sit down on the couch.” She turned to my brother. “You, take your brother and go to your room. Now.”

“Did you see that?” my brother said. “See what I mean? Tell him to leave.”

My mother grabbed my brother by his arm and dragged him away from Rick, into the kitchen. She bent over him and put her finger in his face. “I’ve had enough of this. You need to say you’re sorry and go to your room.”

“No,” my brother said. “I’m not going to say sorry. You don’t even like him. You know you don’t.”

“It doesn’t matter,” my mother said. “You don’t talk to people like that. I don’t care who they are, or what they’ve done.”

She shoved my brother toward the living room, and his face lost any sense of pride he felt from beating Rick. He walked over to Rick and stood in front of him, arms at his side. But he did not apologize. Instead he turned and kicked the box fan over, the same way our dad kicked our TV the day he left us for good. My brother looked at our mother a last time and went to our room, leaving me and our blankets behind.

“I’m sorry,” my mother said to Rick. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He didn’t mean it.”

Rick slid off the couch’s arm and into his original spot. He wouldn’t look at my mother. He stared at our coffee table, thinking of things I could only guess. Prison, maybe. His cell. My mother went to him and sat in the spot he’d patted earlier. She took a throw pillow and slid it gently under his arm. Neither of them said anything, and the only noise in the apartment came from the box fan, lying on its back from my brother’s kick, whirring loudly like a vacuum lifted off the ground, begging for someone to put it down.

I stood the fan up. Part of its front plastic was broken off, and there was a hole big enough to fit my hand through.

“Go to your room,” my mother said. “I won’t say it again.”

* * *

Exhausted from his anger, my brother fell asleep right away. I lay in bed listening to his heavy, troubled breathing for what I thought was an hour before realizing I was thirsty, that I could use a glass of mixed milk. When I opened our bedroom door, I knew Rick wouldn’t be there. I could feel that he wasn’t. In bed with the lights off, I hadn’t heard my mother and Rick yell at each other, like I thought I would. My mother hadn’t told Rick that he couldn’t talk to us like that, that he shouldn’t threaten to hit us, and that his way of doing things was wrong. Rick hadn’t gotten mad and yelled back, like my dad might’ve done, shouting he was doing his best, and tough luck if she didn’t like his methods. No one was told to get out, that they were through for good this time. No doors were slammed. The only sound that ever came was a call from my dad, fifteen minutes after Rick left, asking how my mom was, and if everything was all right.

My mother was in the kitchen, sitting at the table, drinking a cold cup of coffee. I opened the fridge and poured a glass of milk and tried not to look at her. When I finished my milk, I put my glass in the sink and turned to leave.

“Rinse your glass out,” my mother said. She wasn’t facing me, but knew I had forgotten. “You and your brother, you always forget. Or maybe you just don’t listen.” I rinsed the glass out and stood by the sink, watching the water swirl down the drain, unsure what to do, what to say. “Come here,” my mother said. “Come sit by me.” She pulled a chair out with her foot. “Things haven’t been good lately. Have they?”

I shrugged. Her breath tasted of coffee and wine.

“No, they haven’t,” she said. “I know that. I wish there was something I could do, you know, but I don’t know what.” She kicked me under the table, by accident. “Do you? Do you have any ideas?”

I could feel my mother’s eyes on me, but I continued to not look at her. I focused on everything else in the kitchen instead. The empty cookie jar. The splintered square table. My mother’s coffee cup. I closed my eyes and imagined each item disappearing, being sold by my mother when something bad happened and we needed the money. I imagined having to say goodbye to everything in the apartment, one by one.

“The pool,” I said. “You could take us to the pool.”

My mother laughed. “Is that it? Is that all you guys want?” I nodded. “All right, cute boy. If you think that’ll do it, then the pool it is.”

She sipped her coffee some more, and I got up to go back to bed. She kissed me on the cheek and said she loved me.

“You promise?” I said.

“I promise.”

I WOKE BEFORE my brother. I didn’t like doing this, being out in the world before him, but there was a sound. It was the dumb buzzing of my mother’s alarm, beeping me out of my sleep. I closed my eyes and sent her a mental message to turn the thing off. The message didn’t get there. I put my head under my pillow and fake suffocated myself. That didn’t stop the sound either.

I stomped down the hall and knocked on my mother’s door. Soft, then loud, then angry. I hated this. She slept like my brother, not lightly like me. I banged three more times and threw the door open, letting it whack the wall. I went straight for the alarm and mashed buttons until I found the snooze.