His shirt is really damp now, slippery against my fingers. He glances at me, pleadingly, then turns away again. He is actually afraid of me. Maybe he worries that he gave the impression that he does not think of me as being tough like my brother. I look over at Tomas. He catches my eye and seems pleased with me. I turn to concentrate on Ben so it will not look like I am avoiding Tomas’s gaze. A couple of times in the past I have been with a small group of people when someone said a few smart-aleck things about me and Ben laughed even though I was older. But now he is respectful, his head bowed.

And though my stomach wrenches, I feel a rush not of anxiety but of confidence. In a scary way I realize I like it. Strangely, that only makes my stomach worse.

Tomas holds out the tire iron and I hesitate but take it. By the time I have finished swinging it across Ben’s legs and arms his shirt is torn and damp. My blood is hot and beating in my hand where I grip the tire iron, and I drop it.

My brother gently cups the back of Ben’s neck, almost stroking it.

If you tell anybody about this we will come by and beat up your mother.

The bottom of Ben’s hair presses into his collar as he nods.

You understand?

Okay.

No, you really understand?

Yes.

Tomas smoothes Ben’s hair. Listen to me. When people ask you who did this, and you are dying to talk, I want you to remember this conversation. I want you to remember the things you said about our mother and how much we hate you for it. And I want you to imagine all the things we could do to your mom.

VII

We drive up the curving misted roads, the sun a yellow blur, and come out onto Sunset.

Tomas studies me. We have caught late afternoon traffic and creep behind a bottleneck of cars that moves toward a Pacific Palisades stoplight. To the southwest, the sun is cradled low in some shaggy palm tops, high above a shimmering red roof. Dying light bleeds across the houses of the far canyon wall.

Don’t look so deflated, Junior.

I’m not deflated.

He looks forward again and seems to ponder this. He nods. He sets his hand on me and I tense because he has never done it this way before, but the gesture feels somehow familiar. Then it dawns on me that this is probably something that my father used to do to both of us.

Good, he says.

After a while he turns onto Allenford and we start to head south. I ask him where we are going.

How’s your appetite?

Actually I have none, but I do not want to admit this.

It’s strong, I say.

Acknowledgements