Both my brothers were drinking beer from cans, thirstily. Breathing through their mouths as if they’d been running. I felt their excitement, I saw the fatigue in their faces and yet something raw, aroused. Unzipped, their jackets were wet in front. They’d been vigorously washing, scrubbing. Their shoes were wet, dark-stained. The cuffs of their trousers. Lionel’s big-jawed face looked puffy; a small cut gleamed beneath his right eye. Jerr was rubbing the knuckles of his right hand as if in pain, but a pleasurable pain. He’d taken time to splash water on his flushed face, dampen his long, lank, sand-colored hair and sweep it back from his forehead. Like Lionel’s skin Jerr’s skin was blemished but he had a brutal handsome face. He had Daddy’s young face.

With a tight smile Jerr said, “Over at the Falls. We ran into some sons of bitches. But we’re okay, see? Don’t tell Mom.”

Lionel said, “Yeah, Vi’let. Don’t tell Mom, or—him.”

Him. We knew what him meant.

No need to warn me against telling Daddy. None of us would ever have ratted on one another to our father. Even if we were furious at one another, or disgusted, we wouldn’t. That would be a betrayal so profound and so cruel as to be unforgivable 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 know their secrets. To be like a brother to them, and not just a sister.

Though I knew it was futile. They would shrug as they always did when I asked pushy questions. Jerr said, lowering his voice, “You got to promise you won’t say anything, Vi’let. Okay?”

I shrugged and laughed. I was feeling wild! Asking, could I have a taste of their beer?

They looked surprised. Had I surprised them?

Lionel handed me his can, which was still cold. It turned out not to be beer but Daddy’s favorite, Dark Horse Black Ale. The taste was repulsive to me, even the smell, but I was determined to persevere in trying to like it, to see why my brothers and my father liked the dark ale so much, until one day (I was sure) I would like it just fine. I swallowed a mouthful. I was choking, liquid stung in my nose, the guys laughed at me, but not meanly. I managed to say, “I promise.”

The Promise

BY MONDAY NEWS OF THE “SAVAGE BEATING” OF HADRIAN Johnson spread through South Niagara. Even in middle school no one was talking about much else. I heard, and I knew.

An African American boy, basketball player and honors student at the high school. Beaten and left unconscious at a roadside. In critical condition in intensive care at South Niagara General Hospital . . .