A Simple Life: Chapter 174

“Jack!”

I turn around to see my eldest brother jogging down the sidewalk toward me! In his steel-toes, work pants, and a t shirt it appeared that he was on his way to a job site. In a panic I spin back around and fumble with the keys as I hear the booming clomp, clomp, clomp getting closer and closer. When his big hand slaps down against the edge of the door I knew that there was no escape.

“Hold on, little bro.” He says. “I come in peace.”

Keeping half turned away from him to protect myself as best I could I stammer. “I d-d-don’t w-wanna t-t-talk to you.”

“Yeah, but you’re gonna.” He says.

I shrink away from his hand as it comes down on my shoulder. My brain knew that he wasn’t going to hit me here in public but my frightened spirit didn’t know better. Despite my obvious discomfort at being touched he leaves it there anyway. Giving me no option he turns me to face him and holds me there with my back against the car.

Despite how scared I am I try not to show it. It helped that after all of my close contact with Amos Jack didn’t seem to stand quite so tall anymore. I couldn’t bear to meet his gaze so instead I stare at his thick beard and say. “You c-couldn’t call f-first?”

“Would you have answered?” He says. “You’re running away and hiding, like you always do.”

“Wh-What d-do you want?”

“I think you know the answer to that.”

“L-Leave me alone, Jack. J-Just leave me alone!”

“Now how am I supposed to leave you alone, Avie? You call the cops on me? Make up all sorts of lies? Seriously? You don’t think I’m gonna come and take care of things man to man? I’d think you’d know your own brother better than that. It was a bitch move, Avie. Thought you were better than that.” Gripping my shoulder tighter he lowers his head to force eye contact with me. Despite his neutral expression his eyes were as hard as steel. The moment that our eyes meet my courage drains and I bow my head low doing everything I can to not look at him. I felt so ashamed, so deeply ashamed, to be this scared. I felt like Winona would be disappointed in me for folding so easily. But just one look in his eyes and all those buried memories of him and Dad came flooding back to turn me into that little boy again. “Since Dad left I’ve had to be the man of this family. I’ve had to keep us together and keep us in line. I don’t have the luxury of runnin away every time things get tough.”

“Wh-What do you w-w-want?” I whisper.

“Take it easy, Avie.” He says, his voice warming. “I’m here to make things right.” Putting his arm around my shoulders he compels me into motion. “Where’d ya get the ride?”

“N-None of your b-business.” Walking pressed to his side I keep my eyes focused on the pavement.

“Aw, Christ. Don’t be like this, Avie.” He gives me a shake. “I’m tryin to be nice here. I know whose SUV that is.” My head snaps up to look at him to see him peering down at me from the corner of his eye. “It’s a small island. Things must be going well. I’m happy for ya. We’re all happy for ya.”

I plant my feet giving him the choice of either stopping too or dragging me with him. Thankfully he chooses the former. Turning to face me he waits to hear what I had to say.

Giving myself a moment to gather my courage and stoke my anger I find the mettle to look him in the eyes. “You hurt Lauren!”

He stares at me, his face an eerie void of emotion. “You’re awful concerned about Lauren.”

“You c-c-can’t keep hurting people!”

There is a long pause during which I sense his body tensing….before he sighs and relaxes again. “You think you know a lot more than you do. You don’t know shit about Lauren and I.”

“I know y-you! I…know what you c-can do.”

He glances left and right before saying. “You weren’t there, Avie. You didn’t hear the way she pushed me. The way she fucked with my head. You should be as mad at her as I was. She caused all this. You’ll understand when you’re with this Winona long enough. I love my wife, but she’s no innocent damsel in distress. Even she admits what she done was wrong.”

I shake my head. “No. Y-Your wrong, Jack. You are.”

“Of course.” He says. “It’s ALL Jack's fault. As usual. I’m sooo bad and you’re sooo perfect.”

“I’m n-n-not perfect!”

“That’s for fuckin sure.” He shoves me back a step. “So quit acting like it.” Before I can reply he puts up his hands as if to surrender. “Woah. I’m not here to argue with you. You and I are gonna smooth things over. We’re gonna get over this little spat. For Mom’s sake. Okay?” He grins. How could he smile at time like this!? Nodding off to his left he says. “Check it out.”

“Huh?” I follow his eyes to his truck where I see a big box strapped down in the back of it. “What…?”

“Come on.” His arm is around me again as he ushers me to the side of the truck. “What do ya think?”

“I…d-don’t understand.”

“Ha ha!” He slaps my shoulder too hard. “It’s a grill, baby bro. Every man ought to own his own grill.”

“Wha…?”

“This ain’t no cheap piece o’ junk either.” He says excitedly. “Enamel cast iron, a fuck ton of BTU’s, three burners, you could make one hell of a steak on this baby. For you and all your friends. Hell, you wanna get the fam together? We could break it in and reconnect over burgers and beers. Talk to Grandpa and shit. It’d be fun.”

I stare at him, brows furrowed and mouth agape. He was crazy! He really thought we were going to fix things over an afternoon barbecue? And his whole energy was completely out of whack with the situation. I hated him! I hated his guts! Finally building up the bravery to go to the police had been a monumental moment in my life. Yet here he was acting like this was all just a minor tiff. As always Jack was getting the better of me and had me all discombobulated.

“Not bad, huh?” He says, completely misreading my stunned reaction. “Told ya I’d make it up to you. I’m not a bad guy, Avie.”

“But…you are. You’re a b-b-bad person. Jack…I hate you. I hate you and I n-n-never wanna see you again.”

He rolls his eyes. “It was just a slap! Jesus. You got a woman now.” He thumps my chest with the back of his hand. “What would you do if you thought she was messin around on ya? Same thing I did, guaranteed. You’ll see.” He says with a nod. “You’re making way too big of a deal out of this. Come on, let’s get this up to your place.”

“I d-don’t want it…”

“Sure ya do.”

“No! I don’t!”

“Well you’re gettin it.” He says matter-of-factly. “Bray’ll love it too.”

“N-No, he won’t.” I felt like I was sinking into quicksand and the harder I fought the faster I sunk. “It w-won’t even f-f-fit on the balcony.”

“Sure it will.”

“It won’t!” I exclaim. “And b-besides, we’re n-not even allowed to have them.”

“You’re not?”

“No!” I close my eyes and struggle to contain the swirling emotions that threatened to make me do something stupid again. “Jack.” I say as calmly as I could manage. “I d-d-don’t w-w-want…”

“You can take it out to the garage.”

“What?” I open my eyes.

“They got lots of space out there. And I don’t think I saw a grill out there. You’re lady’ll love ya for it.”

“How…d-do you know she doesn’t have grill?”

“The place is right off the highway. I took a little peek around. Curious to see what they were doing up there. Everyone’s talkin about it.” He says cheerily, though his cold eyes told a different story. “They’ve really fixed that old place up, huh? Win’s Garage. It’s nice. Lots of runnin room, you should take Pepper up there someday. She gets so stir crazy in our little yard.”

Deeper and deeper I sank. “J-J-Jack…”

“I can’t believe anyone would actually live out there though.” He says. “Way out there, all by herself. That’s right, right? Her folks live in town? Those cheap little bungalows in New Town? I helped build those ya know.”

His words hang in the air between us for what must be a minute. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do.

“Well, if you can’t have it here I’ll run it up to Win’s one of these nights.”

“No!”

“It’s no problem.”

“You’re n-n-not welcome there. Winona d-doesn’t want you there.”

“Winona doesn’t even know me.” He shrugs off my objection. “If we actually met she’d realize that I’m a pretty cool guy.”

“No. No! You’re n-not allowed.”

“Pff. Are you gonna stop me, little bro? You gonna cry to Grandpa? You gonna call the cops again? Bro, I shoot pool with half those guys.” His grin turns my stomach. “As I said, it’s a small island. Take the damn gift, Avie. You at least gotta let me say sorry.”

“Please…j-just leave me alone.”

Laying his hand back on my shoulder he says in false warmth. “Listen. Take the grill and I’ll give you your space for awhile, okay? Let you cool off. I’ll tell the cops we’re cool and you and I can tell Mom that everything is okay. Then we can iron things out later, okay? We’re still brothers, Avie. We still love our Mom. Yeah? Do it for her?”

In that moment I knew only two things. One, I wanted this conversation to stop and, Jack being Jack, it wasn’t going to end until he got his way. Two, allowing my brother to visit the garage was the last thing in the world that I was going to let happen. And so one and two lead to three, which was me bowing my head and nodding.

“Ah, there’s my little bro!” He pulls me into a hug. Standing stiff as a board I take his hug while fighting back tears.

As we break I smooth my clothes, in reality I was trying to wipe the stain of his touch from my body, and say in a low, quavering voice. “Um…I c-can’t take it here. Um…l-l-lets put it in the c-car.”

“Absolutely! Ha ha!” He swings around the back of his truck and lowers the tailgate. “She’s gonna love this thing, Avie. This’ll buy ya some serious brownie points. You'll see.”

The next thing I knew I was helping Jack load the heavy box into the back of Amos’ SUV. He of course sees the basket of laundry and he of course notices that it was nearly all women’s clothes. Pulling a nightie, my nightie, from the basket he holds it up between finger and thumb as if it was toxic. It ripped my guts out to see baby girl’s pretty nightie in his horrible hand.

“Aw, bro.” He says. “She’s got you doin her laundry?”

I snatch it from his pinched fingers and hug it to my body. “Just g-g-go!”

He rolls his eyes again then gives me a clap to my back. Talking as though everything was rosy he says. “Alright. Geez. Ya try to be nice to a guy.” With another squeeze of my shoulder he says. “When your done sulking give me a call, huh? Or drop by, when I’m home.” He really leaned into those last three words. “Lauren and Pepper would love to see ya.”

Without looking his way I nod my acknowledgment that I’d heard him then turn my back on him. He stands there a time but thankfully says nothing. It was only as I heard his boots clomp, clomp, clomp away from me that I can breathe once more.

Chapter 175