alcohol in my bloodstream, that was the last thing I felt like doing. But I looked at my Green Goblin statue, smiled, yawned, and said, “Sure.”
“One quick game. I know it’s late. Let’s go out back. Warmers are on.”
We went through the sliding glass door and I copped a seat over by the pool. Rufus went inside and came back with a box of dominoes in one hand, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the other. He poured me a shot of JD. I didn’t want it, but I didn’t turn it down. Maybe because at the bottom of every bottle of JD lived the truth. I wasn’t born in a house with real morals so I hadn’t been brought up to be a man with many self-disciplined habits. Plus I knew Rufus. Refusing a drink would hurt his feelings. We sat back and played bones like we did when we were kids.
Elbows on the glass patio table, sitting underneath warmers, I steepled my hands, looked across the board and asked, “How’s your money looking?”
He leaned back, pulled his lips in. “I know I owe you my part from Momma’s funeral ...”
“In a bad situation. Could use some financial help right now.”
“All of my money goes toward my medication. Unbelievable how much medicine costs. The shit should be free. We can go to Mars, but healthcare? And between battling Epstein-Barr over the years, and now this damn sciatic nerve flaring up, I’m taking more meds than any one person should. Seems like I take horse pills all day long.”
He vented about the system. I sighed and shut my eyes for a couple of seconds.
He tugged at one his locks, said, “Maybe I could ax Pasquale—”
I made a rugged hand motion. “It’s ask, not ax. Ask. Ask.”
“Ax. Ax.”
“Half a degree in nursing, plus all these books you read, and you still can’t say ask?”
“Well color me imperfect. Don’t get irritated ‘cause I can’t say it like that.”
I shook my head. “Say ass kicked. Like you wanna get your ass kicked.”
“Huh?”
“Just say ass kicked.”
“Ass kicked.”
“Now say ass k—. Leave off the icked.”
“Ass—k. Assk. Assk.”
“Better. You’re getting there.”
He laughed and kept repeating. “Assk. Assk.”
A sensor beeped four times. Rufus jumped.
I stood up, Lisa’s threat flickered through my mind. “Somebody breaking in?”
“Four beeps. That means the front gate’s opening. Pasquale’s home.”
Rufus shifted, looked uncomfortable, both pissed off and ashamed. Without a word, I grabbed my coat, put my keys in my hand. He followed me toward the front door.
He said, “Your pant leg is torn. Blood-soaked collar. Your suit is jacked. Totaled.”
“Was waiting for you to say something.”
“You know me.”
“Like I know myself.”
“You know what they used to say. I’m you with all the fucked-up genes. Your doppelganger. You inherited all the good stuff from Momma and Daddy. You have the broad shoulders, the square jaw, the prominent cheekbones. I got what was left over.”
“Shut up, Rufus.”
“Asthma. Allergies. If I had been like you, Momma and Daddy would’ve accepted—”
“Don’t start with that motherfucking bullshit.”
“It’s true.” He laughed like he had accepted his truth, like there was no pain inside him. “I’m the before picture and you’re the after. I’m Bruce Banner and you are the Incredible Hulk.”
The closer we got to the front door, the more Rufus’s shoulders softened, his strut easing back toward being the stroll of a Vegas showgirl. Each step he took broke my heart.
His soft hands and manicured nails never would’ve lasted on the other side of The Wall. I’d hate to think of the things they would’ve done to a fragile and easygoing man like him, how they would’ve passed him around, sold him for the price of a cigarette.
He was my brother, we shared DNA, I loved him, but I wasn’t and never would be cool with the kind of man he was. I didn’t understand and wasn’t wired for that kind of understanding. I never talked about him to the people I knew. We hardly talked. When we did we avoided any big issues. We lived no more than five minutes away from each other, but we lived in different worlds. At least we did in my mind. He knew how I felt about his lifestyle. He knew because when he came out of the closet, I tried to kick his ass back inside.
Reverend Daddy had done the same thing, in his own way.
“Shoot him, Rufus.”
That was Reverend Daddy. Hearing that voice inside my head made me stop moving.
“Be a man and shoot the bastard.”
Then it all