involved?” I ask. “So we can add another two hours out here?”
She seems to consider this before closing her phone. My stomach flutters, and it’s as if there is, somewhere deep inside me, a great frenzy of bats set into motion. My heart beats wildly. Down the street, my brother appears nonplussed. He’s abandoned the car, abandoned Winston, who is in the backseat nervously barking and scraping at the window. The leaf blower is anchored around Georgie and he blasts it full throttle, creating a whirring noise that I am certain will wake the people in the neighboring houses. I pull the Bronco off into the gravel, shut off the engine, get out, and call to my brother. Winston whimpers, barks. “Christ,” Elle says.
“He’s fine,” I say of the dog.
“Nothing is fine,” Elle says. And it’s true: Winston has thrown up his pepperoni. He whimpers more when Elle opens the door, and then makes a mad dash toward the tree to relieve himself. Elle’s brow furrows. “I’ll clean up this mess if you take care ofthe other one,” she tells me. “Just go get your brother. Just go and leave me the hell alone.”
With that, she is all dexterity and action. She climbs into the front seat, which is grimy and littered with candy wrappers. From the glove compartment she retrieves a box of tissues.
I walk toward Georgie. Wet leaves fall from the trees and dart around him in a restless way. The streetlight burns brightly, and in the rainy wind his jacket balloons behind him like a cape. Behind him there are houses, mostly darkened now. I call out, but if he hears me, Georgie refuses to turn around. Even in illness, my brother is all single-mindedness. He has left a discarded Coke can behind him, a slip of paper; he only cares about rocks. He moves the blower left to right, right to left. The rocks skip to the curb. What is left is the gleaming asphalt, slick with rain, broken on the edges.
I call again, louder, and this time he turns but doesn’t release his grip or disengage the motor. He is dressed in a ratty wool blazer, a wrinkled shirt and jeans, old sneakers. The rain plasters his dark hair against his face. The muscles of his jaw clench. His lower lip protrudes, registers his disappointment at seeing me here, here again, ready to bring him back home.
I raise my hand, as if to stop him from yelling, which he often does. I circle wide, then come in closer. At first, it is always the same—just Georgie and me on the road, the two of us staring at each other as if we are strangers. It’s true that Georgie looks like someone else, someone too fat to be my brother, too bloated from medication, puffy around the eyes. His face is dour. And, worse, what strikes me about my brother is how alone he seems. Could I tell Elle or Dr. Mulvaney that now—looking at Georgie—he intimidates me, he terrifies and saddens me, in his aloneness? “Georgie,” I yell. “You’ve got to stop doingthis thing with the rocks and Memphis. You’re going to get yourself killed one of these days.”
He turns the blower low, and I survey his broad face. A small cut, already clotting, juts from his eyebrow. The wind lashes against him. He says bitterly, “You’re just waiting, fucker.”
I ignore this and turn back to where, down the road, Elle and Winston stand next to the car, waiting for me, for us. Elle holds a hand up to her forehead to protect her face from the rain. She gestures to me, then pets Winston, and something in my heart constricts. I breathe deeply, turn back toward Georgie. For a moment, the cold feels good, intensely honest, though it’s true that under my jacket I’m sweating. I hold my breath and count to five. It is a stupid thing, counting to five, a childish thing, a thing Georgie and I used to do when, as children, we passed through tunnels lined with long rows of lights that glistened like lost treasure. When I finally expire my breath, I ask, “What happened to the car?”
“Man, what the fuck do
She seems to consider this before closing her phone. My stomach flutters, and it’s as if there is, somewhere deep inside me, a great frenzy of bats set into motion. My heart beats wildly. Down the street, my brother appears nonplussed. He’s abandoned the car, abandoned Winston, who is in the backseat nervously barking and scraping at the window. The leaf blower is anchored around Georgie and he blasts it full throttle, creating a whirring noise that I am certain will wake the people in the neighboring houses. I pull the Bronco off into the gravel, shut off the engine, get out, and call to my brother. Winston whimpers, barks. “Christ,” Elle says.
“He’s fine,” I say of the dog.
“Nothing is fine,” Elle says. And it’s true: Winston has thrown up his pepperoni. He whimpers more when Elle opens the door, and then makes a mad dash toward the tree to relieve himself. Elle’s brow furrows. “I’ll clean up this mess if you take care ofthe other one,” she tells me. “Just go get your brother. Just go and leave me the hell alone.”
With that, she is all dexterity and action. She climbs into the front seat, which is grimy and littered with candy wrappers. From the glove compartment she retrieves a box of tissues.
I walk toward Georgie. Wet leaves fall from the trees and dart around him in a restless way. The streetlight burns brightly, and in the rainy wind his jacket balloons behind him like a cape. Behind him there are houses, mostly darkened now. I call out, but if he hears me, Georgie refuses to turn around. Even in illness, my brother is all single-mindedness. He has left a discarded Coke can behind him, a slip of paper; he only cares about rocks. He moves the blower left to right, right to left. The rocks skip to the curb. What is left is the gleaming asphalt, slick with rain, broken on the edges.
I call again, louder, and this time he turns but doesn’t release his grip or disengage the motor. He is dressed in a ratty wool blazer, a wrinkled shirt and jeans, old sneakers. The rain plasters his dark hair against his face. The muscles of his jaw clench. His lower lip protrudes, registers his disappointment at seeing me here, here again, ready to bring him back home.
I raise my hand, as if to stop him from yelling, which he often does. I circle wide, then come in closer. At first, it is always the same—just Georgie and me on the road, the two of us staring at each other as if we are strangers. It’s true that Georgie looks like someone else, someone too fat to be my brother, too bloated from medication, puffy around the eyes. His face is dour. And, worse, what strikes me about my brother is how alone he seems. Could I tell Elle or Dr. Mulvaney that now—looking at Georgie—he intimidates me, he terrifies and saddens me, in his aloneness? “Georgie,” I yell. “You’ve got to stop doingthis thing with the rocks and Memphis. You’re going to get yourself killed one of these days.”
He turns the blower low, and I survey his broad face. A small cut, already clotting, juts from his eyebrow. The wind lashes against him. He says bitterly, “You’re just waiting, fucker.”
I ignore this and turn back to where, down the road, Elle and Winston stand next to the car, waiting for me, for us. Elle holds a hand up to her forehead to protect her face from the rain. She gestures to me, then pets Winston, and something in my heart constricts. I breathe deeply, turn back toward Georgie. For a moment, the cold feels good, intensely honest, though it’s true that under my jacket I’m sweating. I hold my breath and count to five. It is a stupid thing, counting to five, a childish thing, a thing Georgie and I used to do when, as children, we passed through tunnels lined with long rows of lights that glistened like lost treasure. When I finally expire my breath, I ask, “What happened to the car?”
“Man, what the fuck do
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