Chris Offutt - The Good Brother

He went to bed but couldn’t sleep. Everything was much bigger than he was and he’d barely begun. He was impressed by his undertaking until he considered the reason. He lay grimly immobile for a long time while his mind continued to work, He wasn’t sure how to shut it off. That posed a fresh problem and he chuckled at the absurdity of applying his mind to the problem of turning off his mind. It was like asking a lawyer to sue himself, or a killer to kill himself.

Through the small bedroom window he saw the moon and he remembered a song his mother sang to him about the moon seeing him through the old oak tree. He wished he were there. He wished he could live on the moon in his father’s old log cabin. It had holes in the walls the diameter of a rifle barrel, bored in strategic locations during the Civil War. Once inside, he could live until his water and ammo ran out. He’d heard that a man could live on bananas and milk. He’d need a cow and a banana tree, And a ton of ammunition.

July went by in a blur of heat. Virgil moved through the month with ease, maintaining a smooth distance from his family and the men at work. Taylor was nervous around him the first few days, but Virgil bore him no ill will.

On a scorching Saturday, he drove to Lexington and parked near the mailbox rental business. He waited until the lobby was empty and walked in swiftly. The door opened behind him and he knew with absolute certainty that a policeman had entered to arrest him. A woman checked her mail and left. He opened the drawer and withdrew the official envelope that lay inside. His hands were trembling as he sat in the car with the birth certificate of Joseph Edward Tiller.

Virgil stared at the paper until the words blended together. He folded the document four times and slipped it in his sock. He pulled onto New Circle Road and got off at a mall that included a hotel and a large bookstore. Virgil had never been in a mall. It seemed like a world turned inside out. The outer walls had store names and a locked door, while the windows faced the interior. Large trees grew indoors. The air was bad and there was no sunlight. A large platform held a map and Virgil considered it strange that a map was necessary for the indoors. He couldn’t imagine a worse place to spend time.

At a department store, he bought a duffel bag and a wallet. He went into a restaurant with tables that held napkins in metal rings. The room was empty of people. A woman in a short dress walked toward him.

“Just one?” she said.

Virgil nodded and she led him to the only dirty table in the room. He hadn’t been to a restaurant of this caliber and he wondered if all the other tables were reserved. After a few minutes, the woman returned. She told him the specials and asked if he had any questions.

“Is there a big crowd coming?” he said.

“No. Lunch rush is over.”

“Working with a short crew today, are you?”

The woman shook her head in a brisk fashion that made her earrings sway. Her face bore an expression of distaste.

“Then how come you put me at a dirty table?”

Her vision flicked rapidly over his clothes.

“Would you like another?” she said.

“Yes.”

She turned away and Virgil knew that he was to follow her. She stopped at a fresh table, its turquoise linen spotless, a flower placed in a slender glass. The woman was waiting for Virgil to sit, and he understood that she disapproved of how he dressed. He walked away, wishing he could leave tracks of mud.

He left the mall and searched for his car in the immense lot. Regardless of the birth certificate and the wallets and all his plans, a stranger had recognized him for what he was. He’d like to see how that woman would fare in the woods. He sat in the car, becoming more and more angry until he realized with devastating intensity that he was also mad at himself. The woman’s disdain for him had made him crave her. He was angry with his own desire.

At the far end of the parking lot was a phone booth from which he stole the Lexington phone book. He was becoming everything he had been raised against — a thief, a liar, ashamed of his background.

He drove to the Social Security Administration. After a long wait he sat beside a cluttered desk across from a woman who appeared sad.

“Need me a Social Security card, I reckon,” he said.

“A replacement?”

“No. Just a card. You know, for work.”

“A new card?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’ve never applied for a card before?”

“No, ma’am. Nobody in my family ever did.”

“I see. And you’re from?”

“Pick County.”

“I see.”

Her expression was the same as the woman’s in the restaurant. He decided to use it to his advantage, like finding enemy ammunition that fit your weapon.

“Have you held a job before?” she said.

“No, ma’am. I mean, I ain’t lazy. I’ve worked plenty, but on our own land. Then Daddy died and we everyone had to hunt work. I got on at one of them horse farms you’uns got here. Stable hand. They said they couldn’t pay me less’n I had me a Social Security card.”

“All right,” she said. “You fill this out and we can get started.”

She passed him a pen and a clipboard with a form. He held them without moving, the way he’d seen illiterate men at the post office act.

“You must fill that out,” she said.

“They never said nothing about that at the farm.”

“It’s necessary for government records.”

Virgil arranged a smile that he hoped appeared fake. He was almost beginning to enjoy this. The woman spoke softly.

“Do you need me to write this for you?”

Virgil passed her the clipboard. He stared at his lap, trying to seem embarrassed. He was elated. Now there’d be no record of his handwriting on file.

“You do have a birth certificate,” she said.

Virgil crossed his leg. He retrieved the document from his sock and unfolded it and offered it to her. She didn’t take it, but waited until he placed the paper on her desk. Virgil hoped that she’d remember this behavior instead of his face. He supplied her with the address for the mailbox in Lexington and left.

In the morning he crawled under his trailer and disconnected a heat duct that led to a large vent in the kitchen floor. The air was cool and slightly damp near the earth. He squirmed to daylight, cut scrap plywood to fit the measurements, and crawled below the trailer again. He nailed the new piece of plywood to the joists below the vent, making a shelf. He hunched on his knees, working over his head. Each strike of the hammer shook the trailer and dropped dust into his eyes. He finished and replaced the tin siding that served as a hatch. Inside the trailer, he placed the wallet and birth certificate in the duffel bag, lifted the vent cover, and set the bag on the shelf. The cover fit snugly back in place. From the proper angle, a flash of the gray canvas was visible through the grate, but he had few guests and no one would be looking close.

August began with, unusual rains that made the air sodden and thick. Day-old trash smelled as if it had moldered in the heat for a week. Virgil’s new distance protected him from the bickering that resulted from laboring in the humidity. At night he opened his trailer to the outside world and hung wet towels over the windows and doorways. Insects treated his house as part of their domain. One morning he woke to find a raccoon on his kitchen table.

In the Lexington mailbox, he found a Social Security card for Joe Tiller. He watched in astonishment as he participated in the events he’d set in motion, bringing about a situation from which he could not easily escape. He advertised his truck for sale, and by the end of the week he’d accepted a reasonable offer. He bought a cheap car he despised, but he was a few thousand dollars ahead. He kept the money in the duffel bag. He began to grow a beard.