I Am No One You Know Read Free

listened. Often I eavesdropped on my brothers. I was never caught, they took so little notice of me. Tonight I couldn’t hear clearly what my brothers were saying in the garage. I heard only lowered, isolated words, but one of them was “nigger.” I heard the outside faucet being turned on. My brothers were doing something with the hose? Washing the car? I peered through the crack and saw them squatting close together on the floor washing a baseball bat. This was Leo’s bat he carried in his car “for protection.” Leo and Mario had rolled up their sleeves to wash their hands and forearms, cursing as water sprang up out of the hose onto their clothing.
    I wanted to laugh, they looked so funny. They were only about ten feet away and unaware of me.
    Why didn’t I speak to them then? I would wonder. Any other night, I would have. Why not that night?
    Not for a long time would I learn that my brothers were deliberating what to do with the bat during these minutes. The murder weapon, it would one day be called. They weren’t thinking very clearly, but they knew they had to get rid of the bat, fast. They thought about throwing it into the river, of course—but what if it floated? Even weighed down, a wooden bat might somehow work loose and float.And the river would be the first place Perrysburg cops would look. Finally they decided to bury it somewhere on the riverbank, in the underbrush. A few hundred feet away from the house. There was a lot of litter on the riverbank; this seemed like a practical idea. I saw my brothers wrap the bat in a piece of burlap and I saw them leave the garage, but I couldn’t see them for more than a few seconds from my bedroom window. I was mystified. I had no idea what they were doing. I guessed they were drunk. Maybe it was some kind of joke.
     
    A BOUT FORTY MINUTES later I heard them enter the house. The kitchen. I heard the refrigerator door being opened and shut, the sound of beer cans being opened. Eagerly I left my room to join them. I was a scrawny weed of a girl who adored her big brothers, basking in the most meager glow of their careless attention. And they loved me, I believed. I’d always believed. Calling me, like Daddy, “Curly”—“Curly Red.” When they were in the mood.
    “Hey guys! What’ve you been doing, fighting?”
    They stared at me as if for a shivery moment they didn’t know who the hell I was. What to do about me. They were both drinking beer thirstily. They were breathing through their mouths as if they’d been running uphill. I felt their excitement. Their jackets were unzipped, wet in front. Mario’s big-jawed face looked raw; a small cut gleamed beneath his right eye. Leo was rubbing the knuckles of his right hand as if they pained him. But he’d taken time to dampen his longish, lank, sand-colored hair and sweep it back in two wings from his forehead. His skin, like Mario’s, was slightly blemished, but he had a brutal handsome face. He had Daddy’s young face.
    Leo said, with his easy smile, “Some sons of bitches over at the Falls. But we’re okay, see? Don’t tell Mom.”
    Mario said, “Yeah, Curly. Don’t tell Mom.”
    No need to warn me against telling Daddy. None of us would ever have ratted to our father. Even if we hated one another’s guts, we wouldn’t. That was a betrayal so profound and cruel as to be indefinable, for Daddy’s punishment would be swift and pitiless; and for a certain space of time Daddy would withhold his love from the one he’d punished.
    I asked who it was they’d been fighting. How badly I wanted to belike them: a brother to them. Though I knew it was hopeless; they’d shrug as they always did when I asked pushy questions. Leo said quietly, “You got to promise you won’t say anything, Curly. Okay?”
    I shrugged and laughed. “Gimme a sip of your beer.”
    Leo handed me his can, then Mario. It wasn’t beer but Daddy’s favorite ale. I hated the taste, even the smell, but was determined to keep