That great round, flat head with the broad features, atop an ever-dwindling body. My father said I looked like him, which felt like a curse more than an insult. In the barn, on the good days, Shot would show me exotic wrestling moves that mostly wouldn’t work unless your opponent was complicit.

“You got to pretend you’re a bigger bastard than them,” he’d say. “Bullethead, you got to pretend you’re” a this or a that. A neither or a nor. Different. No problem there.

Problem was my brother wouldn’t pretend; he was just different. Or go along with the wrestling lessons. He had no interest, the kind of teenager elated by a library card. But that’s why I bore the brunt of wrestling lessons. Late in a day, before Mother, or, in later years, Father, called us in for dinner.

There was a great lowing and mooing in the barn near dusk. An audience, of sorts. As he dumped me on my ass, made me enraged as he intended, so anger would be a friend to me.

“What’s the point if you don’t feel it,” he’d say, and half beat his chest. “What’s the point if it just gets away?”

But I never felt safer with him than in those moments. He genuinely wanted to teach me, and he became a different person for an hour or two. Something of his past that meant a standard close to honor or regret or triumph meant he never hurt me then. Even if I did something wrong.

I could tell from my father’s reactions that Shot had never tried to teach him to wrestle, understood on some level that my own father resented me for what I could not control. Maybe why he sided with the rest when my brother died.

We never knew Shot’s wife, our grandmother. She’d died before we were born. No one ever talked about her.

But, then, it’s not like we ever talked about much. Only me and my brother. Until we couldn’t.

[55]

I went for a walk around the circuit that was the derelict, empty office. My mistake.

Another ghost lingered there, caught up with me.

Allie. She looked hollowed out to me. A sag to her shoulders I didn’t like.

“Have you gone to see Larry?” she asked, clutching too many file folders as if for security.

Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine. Her hand on the folders trembled. Almost imperceptibly. But I noticed.

“No. I haven’t gone to see Larry.” I was tired of the question. It felt frivolous, almost laughable. I must have sounded cold.

“Well, I did.”

“Is he better, I hope?”

“Not really. I don’t think he’s going to be ‘better’ anytime soon.”

“Well, I’ll send him some flowers.” That must have sounded cold, too.

I turned to go.

She reached out and grabbed my arm. Like a child. I could barely feel her grip. But I stopped, faced her.

“What’s wrong?” But I knew. By then, I knew.