Cold Fury

The problem was that the information changed as it moved kid-to-kid, like that game at camp where a story travels around a bonfire and at the end it’s completely different from the beginning. Some crucial fact about the kiss had been altered in that whispering merry-go-round, because the next thing I knew, Mandi Fishbaum and her little gang of look-alikes-each a variation on the theme of perfect hair plus expensive clothes equals bad attitude-were marching toward me. Mandi was well known for having rich parents, a body that was a decade ahead of every other girl in seventh grade, and being the perennial girlfriend/ex-girlfriend of Walter J. Thurber. Although they’d broken up a month earlier, Mandi acted as if she owned not only Walter but the air he breathed and the ground he walked on, and woe to any girl who trespassed.

She stopped in front of me with her look-alikes fanned out behind her.

Mandi crossed her arms and spit a single word in my direction.

“Slut.”

The terrible word echoed around the basement until it hit me with stinging precision, igniting something low and chilly in my gut-I was furious but completely in control as a small blue flame flickered and leapt. It had been three years since I’d experienced the cool, sizzling internal phenomenon while doing sidewalk battle with Caterpillar Girl, and I’d nearly forgotten about it. But when it reappeared, I registered it as natural as breathing or fighting, while the idea of doing something violent to Mandi filled my brain and crept behind my eyes.

As the blue fire roared in my belly, I realized how different it was than at age eight and ten. This time, it was as if I could command her to do absolutely anything through the power of my gaze.

She must have seen it on my face, because her own face filled with fear-in fact, I felt like I could feel what she was feeling, which to her was terrible but to me was, well, pleasant. But then, just as quickly as that cold fury rose, it faded, and the only things my eyes projected were tears. When Mandi saw them, she smiled and turned away with her look-alikes in tow, mission accomplished. As a thousand needles pierced my heart and voices whispered around me, I felt a tap on my elbow. I wiped my eyes and looked down at a small boy-much shorter than me, and even skinnier. He had curly hair, metal braces as huge as a bear trap, and warm brown eyes behind a pair of glasses.

“Ignore her. You can’t argue with knuckleheads,” he said, looking at me closely and smiling. “And Mandi and her friends are world-class knuckleheads.”

That was the first time I met Max Kissberg.

I wouldn’t see or talk to him again until high school.

In fact, I didn’t talk to Max then, just nodded, trying not to cry any harder. I hadn’t done anything, certainly hadn’t made a move on Walter, and what made it worse was that I was the center of terrible, unwanted attention. I’d been encoded from birth never to make precisely the type of scene that I was starring in now, and the weight of the stares and glares crumpled my heart. By then the room was blurred by tears, so I rushed from the basement and ran all the way to the bakery. The reason I wanted to talk to Uncle Buddy instead of my mom or dad was because they had something else on their minds rather than me. It was an odd chapter in our lives, not unlike when Lou was born, except that instead of a baby, they were preoccupied by a secret.

I came to think of this period as the beginning of the “whispered conversations.”

My parents stopped talking abruptly whenever I entered the room and would mutter in the kitchen or in their bedroom late at night.

It would not end until my family disappeared.

One of the first times I eavesdropped on them, the subject seemed to be money.

Only days before Gina’s birthday party, I’d listened at their door as my dad spoke in low tones about having “enough to live on,” which had never been an issue at our house. My mother wondered how we would make ends meet “when we go through with it.”

“If we go through with it,” my dad said.

“Anthony. We have to eventually. We can’t go on like this forever.”

“You’re right, Teresa. The time is coming. Besides, it’s the right thing to do.”

I wouldn’t understand what they were talking about for a long time. But once I did, it would be plain how hard their decision had been, and what it had cost our family.

At the time, though, with Walter’s fresh spearmint flavor on my lips and Mandi’s bitter epithet ringing in my ears, I couldn’t stand the thought of not having a family member’s complete attention. I pushed through the bakery door, the bell jingling madly, and rushed past my grandma, who was cleaning the display case. Lou sat on the marble counter eating a melassa biscotto-a rich molasses cookie. Next to him was his perpetual sidekick and best friend, Harry, glaring at me with hatred.

Harry was an Italian greyhound.

To me, he looked like a sleek, oversized rat.

Harry disliked me intensely and I felt the same way about him, but we both loved Lou with all of our hearts, so we tolerated each other, barely.

As I think back now, it’s plain that our mutual revulsion was based on simple jealousy. Lou is one of the coolest kids I know (and cutest, with my mom’s jet-black hair and a lighter version of the Rispoli blue eyes) with an intellect that surpasses his age. Not only is he incredibly smart, but he can rip through and absorb massive amounts of material-books, maps, journals, essays, DVDs, you name it-and synthesize it so he can put the knowledge to actual, practical use. What I mean is that when he researches a subject and then thoroughly analyzes the result, Lou can be good at-well, anything. Something nudges his attention, then captures it, and then he masters it. For a while it was photography (he built his own camera) and then abstract expressionism (he painted his bedroom magenta, black, green, and orange a la Mark Rothko) and then physics (he constructed a mini-volcano to test Galileo’s law of falling bodies) and on and on. With his analytical and deductive abilities, we all knew he was destined for something great. My parents’ attitude was to let him try as many things as he wanted until he found it for himself.

That’s how Harry came into the house.

Lou developed an irrepressible interest in studying animal behavior.

He was obsessed with the idea of training the untrainable.

His research showed that the most effective way was an obscure method called “salutary discipline.” It was created on the premise that animals had shared the earth with people for so long that they had a much deeper comprehension of human language than they were given credit for. Lou believed that if he spoke to them politely and with empathy, as equals, they would respond in kind. When he was ready for a real challenge, we went to the rescue shelter and requested the meanest dog with the lousiest attitude and nastiest disposition. Harry was brought out, scarred and snarling, straining on a leash. Maybe Lou was right, animals really do understand human language, because Harry has hated my guts since I looked at him and said, “You’re not bringing that horrible thing home, are you, Lou?”

My little brother ignored me, smiling at Harry and offering a hand. “And how are you today, my fine fellow?”

Harry responded by biting him.

Lou didn’t wince, just smiled again, but sadly, and said, “Life can be tough and weird, huh, pal? But then things change. Things always change.”

There was something so true in the statement that Harry’s growl lowered to a rumble, then a whimper, then his ears folded back and he looked like he was going to weep. Lou patted his pate. Love was in the air.

At least, love between the two of them.

For me it was a daily snarlfest, Harry at me and me right back at him.

I once asked Lou why he didn’t just train the dog to like me.

My brother shrugged. “He is who he is. I can teach behavior but I can’t change how he’s made. It’s the same reason you box well, but I never will.”

“What are you talking about?”

“According to my studies, all the best boxers have something burning at their essential core. They use it to dominate their opponent in the ring. You have that thing and I don’t.”

“Wait. . are you saying I have, like, hidden anger or something?”

“I didn’t say it was hidden and I didn’t say anger. I said core, and it could be anything strong enough to fuel a boxer in the ring. Yeah, maybe anger, but also maybe fear, or insecurity, or a need for revenge. Whatever it is, it burns like a nuclear reactor deep down in a fighter’s gut.”