Cote Smith - Hurt People

On the other side of the tree was a darker shade. In that shade my brother was pressed against the wall, shirtless. Chris had the seat of his own shorts down and was leaning into him, pinning him to the silo like my brother was under arrest. One of Chris’s hands handcuffed my brother’s wrists behind his head, and the other wrestled desperately with the double knot protecting my brother’s trunks.

“You sure tie these tight,” Chris said. “Afraid of losing them in the pool or something?”

My brother didn’t answer. Chris’s legs stretched out in a V and between them I saw my brother’s legs, two pale sticks. They didn’t struggle.

“Good thing I got long nails, huh?” Chris said. “There! Got that fat one.”

I took a step forward, and my brother’s leg gave a little kick. His knee buckled and his hips started to twist.

“Hold on,” Chris said, and drove his hip into my brother’s back until his body stopped ticking. “Almost finished.”

There was the loud rip of the trunks’ Velcro, and I stepped forward. With his free hand, Chris pushed down one side of my brother’s shorts, then the other. My brother told him no, and I took another step forward. I opened my mouth and my brother said the word for me.

“Stop,” he said. At first more of a whisper. “Stop. No. Please.” He threw words out. Short words, words that traveled fast, became louder and louder. Don’t. No. Stop. With each word, I took a step, like it was some sick game where I could move only when my brother was calling out for help. No, step . Chris, step . Please, step . Soon the words were coming so fast I was running. I was running to Chris, my hands in the air, and I was yelling for the whole world to make Chris leave my brother alone.

Chris yanked up his shorts and turned around. “You? What? Not you.”

My brother pulled up his trunks and tried to run, but Chris caught him by the neck. “Whoa!” he said, wrestling my brother’s desperate, flailing arms. “Come on now.” He finally got hold of one arm and used it to fling my brother against the silo wall. He pressed his hand into my brother’s chest and with a fierce look commanded him to stay. “Jesus,” Chris said, catching his breath. “What the hell? Just hold on a second, OK? Let’s think this one through.” My brother clawed at Chris’s arms, his chest and wrist. Chris grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him into the silo wall, flexing his arms and shoulders with a strength I hadn’t seen before. “What is wrong with you?” Chris said. “Cut it out!” He shook him one last time, then held him still. “Calm yourself. Are you calm?” I took another step but Chris warned me to stay back, that he’d deal with me in a second. Still, I could see my brother’s face, reddened with hate, his mouth white with anger. It was what I must’ve looked like all those times my brother pinned me down with his knees, spit on me, or made me make promises I swore in my heart I would never keep.

“Promise me you’ll calm down,” Chris said. “You won’t do that again.”

My brother’s eyes flashed at me. His jaw stuck out, in rage, in disbelief.

“Don’t look at him,” Chris said, and grabbed my brother’s cheeks. “Look at me. Do you promise?”

My brother looked at Chris, his friend, our teacher. He nodded. He said he promised. He said, “Let me go.”

Chris sized him up with one last look. He let him go. My brother’s body relaxed, but he did not move from the wall. When Chris was satisfied that my brother wasn’t a flight risk, he turned to me. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

I ignored him. I tried to ignore everything about Chris, his loose trunks, his sick, milky limbs. I did my best to convince myself he was not here.

“Hey,” Chris said. “I’m talking to you. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Dad got a tip,” I said. “He’s close to catching him.”

Chris blinked his eyes quickly, batting away his confusion. He turned to my brother for answers. “What the hell is he talking about?”

I stepped away from Chris, so he was out of the scene and it was just me and my brother. I just needed a chance.

“Everything’s fine,” I said. “Everything will be OK.”

Chris tried to touch my brother, and my brother slid away. My brother put his head down, hiding his face. I could tell by the shaking of his shoulders that he had started to cry. I reached out to my brother, to comfort him, but he shrank into a crouch, into the fetal position. He hid his head in his arms, in the cave between his knees.

“We don’t have time for this,” Chris said. He pushed me out of the way and bent down to my brother, brushed my brother’s hair with the back of his hand. “It’s OK. We can figure this out.”

More winds rolled in, swirling the silo in a thudding rush. I looked at the circle of sky above me, at the puffy clouds moving in, dropping to the treetops. Chris caressed my brother’s cheek, but shifted his stare to me.

“You realize you’re coming too,” Chris said. “I mean, you know I can’t let you go back.”

A drop of rain. I heard his words and immediately tried to unhear them. My brother lifted his face. He wiped his nose with his arm and through a sob told Chris no. “He shouldn’t have to. Don’t make him.”

Chris walked over to the tree and broke off a piece of its bark.

“He doesn’t know anything,” my brother said. “I never told him.”

Chris flipped the broken bark in his hands, tossed it against the wall, and watched it shatter. “He knows,” Chris said. “Not a lot, but enough.”

My brother backed into me, raised his arms, to keep Chris out. Chris said please. He looked at his hands, sticky with sap, and reminded us that although he wasn’t much to look at, he was faster. He was stronger. He took a step toward us.

“Chris…,” my brother said, but there were no words to finish his thought.

“Stop calling me that,” Chris said. “That’s not my name.”

My brother’s arms drifted backward, closed around me. I peeked around his shoulder, at this man I didn’t know.

“It really is you,” I said. “You’re the Stranger.”

Chris cocked his head. “Stranger? C’mon, little man, you know me. So does your brother. I’m no stranger.” He stuck out his hand, which still showed dots of what he’d done to the tree. “Now we’re going to put this behind us. And you’re gonna come with me, trust and all.”

He drew nearer and I buried my face in my brother’s back. No, I mouthed into my brother’s skin. We can’t.

“Isn’t that what you want?” Chris said. “What we’ve all wanted all along?”

I felt his hand land on my brother’s shoulder, his fingers crawl like spider legs into my hair. I felt his nails scratch at my scalp, digging their way in.

“No!” my brother shouted, and with a quick shove knocked Chris to the ground. He grabbed my wrist and we started to run. But Chris was faster, as he promised, and beat us to the silo’s gap. He blocked it with his body.

“I’m sorry. At this point, I really am. But we’re too far. We’re farther than I’ve ever been and I can’t go back now. It might not be what you want, but the world has led you here. This must be what the world wants.”

Then, as if the world had heard Chris, it answered. From the gray sky there came a low groan. A murmur at first, a rumble in my chest. But the sound grew greater and filled everything around us. Chris looked into the sky and frowned. It was our city’s siren.

The rain picked up. Heavy drops splatted the big tree’s leaves, made constellations on the ground. We saw this all, but heard none of it. The siren wailed around us, screaming an unthinkable volume. Chris covered his ears. He stepped away from the gap and I had every urge to run. We would have to move fast, bolt while Chris wasn’t looking, but if we were lucky, maybe we could make it.