Ask Him Why Read Free Page B

law.

    After dinner, once the evening had worn on, Joseph was bedded down in the basement. The rollaway bed was rolled away, and sheets and blankets put down. It wasn’t exactly a dungeon in the basement. More like a rec room. Probably nicer than some people’s apartments. But it had a dungeonlike feel to it. You know. Being banished to “below.” Like a judgment call between heaven and hell.
    Not that upstairs was heaven by any means.
    The excuse was that Joseph’s bedroom had been turned into a reading room/den/library for our dad. Well, Ruth’s and my dad, Brad. Brad wasn’t Joseph’s dad, which might have been part of the problem. There was so much complexity to the problems, though. It’s really hard to look back and say.
    The funny part of Brad in a reading room is that Brad didn’t read. Legal briefs, maybe. But I expect he farmed even those off to subordinates. What Brad did was smoke. Not cigarettes, but cigars and pipes. And Janet couldn’t stand the smell of it. Never could. So the reading room was really a smoking room with an overly noble misnomer of a label. But whatever you called it, no way Brad was giving it up.
    Especially not for a soldier who had no business being home.
    It wasn’t until years later that I realized we had a guest room that Joseph could have used. Not that I forgot we had it. I just never realized it would have solved everything. As far as I know, there was never any talk of letting Joseph use it. So maybe there was more to the Dungeon of Hell theory than I first thought.
    Before bed, I wandered down to the basement. Well, maybe “wandered” is not the right word. Crept? I instinctively knew I didn’t want to get caught. I was only going down to talk to my big brother, who’d been away fighting a war. Why it should have been a crime . . . Well. I didn’t know any of the details then. I just knew I’d get yelled at, even swatted. Joseph was at the very least in purgatory. The last thing my parents wanted was a messenger of love to his quarters.
    He’d moved the Ping-Pong table closer to the wall and folded out the big leather sleeper sofa. He was lying on its queen-size mattress. Propped up with pillows. Hands laced behind his head. Staring off into nothing.
    Then he heard the light shush of the legs of my jeans rubbing against each other as I came down the stairs. He looked up at me and smiled. It was a genuine smile. It spread out in my gut like a hot drink on a snowy day. It glowed inside my chest and low belly. It was the polar opposite of being called “Audrey” and then pinched too hard.
    “Mr. Universe,” he said.
    I hope there’s no need to explain why he called me that. God knows it wasn’t because I was huge and muscle-bound.
    I walked over too carefully. As if the rec room were mined. I sat on the edge of the bed and tried to return the smile. I don’t think it worked out.
    “I’m so glad you’re back,” I said.
    Joseph snorted a laugh. “That makes one of you,” he said.
    “Why are you back so soon, though?”
    “I’m waiting to see what they—”
    He never got the chance to finish his answer. I heard big heavy footsteps on the basement stairs. In a rush of panic, I dove under the bed.
    I curled there, a little shaky, for what felt like too long a time. Nothing moved. Nobody spoke.
    Then I heard Joseph, right over my left ear. He said, “Say what you came to say, Brad.”
    I winced, expecting the same bluster we’d heard from my dad at dinner. Instead, he spoke in a voice that was barely over a whisper. “I just want you to know that you haven’t only shamed yourself, you’ve cast a shadow on this entire family. You’ve shamed us all. I just thought you should think about that.”
    Then I heard him clomp back up the stairs.
    I waited under there far too long. Not daring to stick my head out again.
    “He’s gone,” Joseph said.
    I wiggled out and pulled up into a sit.
    “Thanks for coming down here,” he said.
    “I better go to bed