Calamity

(after You Killed Your Sister!) that Tyler had taken it, fallen for the bait. Had he realized it was a trick? Did he think Brendan was hiding something?

“This is so fucked,” Tyler said. The words ached with the pain he had displayed during the first viewing. Not only was Delaney dead, Mom in a drug-coma, Dad depressed, but Tyler was overwhelmed with grief, too. Brendan had wanted to protect his family, and look what happened.

“I’m sorry.”

Tyler glanced at him from under his arm. “For what?”

Brendan shrugged. He couldn’t confess. That was insane. He’d end up in jail or at least in some psychiatric center. Dr. Carroll would probably keep him loaded with all kinds of drugs, maybe even operate on his brain. A lobotomy, it was called. He’d never be able to tell anyone and certainly no one in his family. They’d never forgive him, regardless of Brendan’s good intentions.

The cops had tried to get the truth but Brendan said he never left the bowling alley and that satisfied them. Why would he leave? Why would he want to drop a bowling ball off an overpass? Brendan cried for Delaney and the cops told him to relax. That was it. Detective Bo Blast would not have been so easily fooled.

“It’s not your fault,” Tyler said. “You know that, right?”

“I guess.” It was the gods’.

Tyler paused, thinking. “I just can’t believe she’s gone. And I spent the morning making fun of her at breakfast. They say you should never say anything you don’t mean because people could die at any second and you’d be left with the guilt of what you last said. It’s nobody’s fault but we still feel guilty. Least I do.”

Though sincere, Brendan sensed that this was the setup for something. His brother was the one, after all, who taught him all he knew about tricking people. Duplicity was the vocabulary word for it.

“Who would do this? Drop a fucking bowling ball onto the highway. You’d have to be crazy, right?”

“Right.”

“And isn’t that really just fucked. The bowling ball, I mean?”

Tyler waited but Brendan had no response. Was this the duplicitous moment? Better to remain silent, just in case.

“Fuck, Brendan. You were bowling and I left you there and at the same time some wacko got it in his head to drop a bowling ball off a bridge not two miles away. That’s what I mean. Makes you wonder.”

“Yeah.” That sounded noncommittal enough.

Tyler was shaking his head. “The ball was probably from that alley. I bet it is. The police figure that out and I won’t be surprised. The sicko might even have been there at the same time, could have walked right past us. That can’t just be a coincidence. Right?”

Would the police really track the ball back to the alley? Could they get fingerprints off of it? Brendan had been smart enough not to use his own ball but he had forgotten to wear gloves or use the sling. They would have confronted him. They wouldn’t wait on information like that. Would they?

“I don’t know.”

Tyler let go of the railing and knelt in front of him. “You’re only twelve, but you’re smart, so stay with me on this, okay? You know what I’m saying, I see it in your eyes. Don’t be afraid. Shit is going down, that’s all. This is not your fault. It’s mine.”

Was this a trick to pry out a confession? “What do you mean?”

“I did something I shouldn’t have and this … bitch is trying to punish me or something. I didn’t really do anything that bad, either. She’s just crazy. Not really her, anyway, but her mother. Crazy psycho.”

Brendan had not been prepared for a reverse confession and he almost blurted out how he had overheard the cell phone conversation Friday night. He wanted his brother to know that no matter what happened or didn’t (fucked up real bad with that weird bitch), he would stand beside Tyler and do whatever he could to help. Tyler would laugh, of course—the notion of a twelve year old doing anything really helpful was hilarious—but Brendan could explain about the gods and … but that would lead back to Delaney and the bowling ball.

“I can’t tell Dad,” Tyler said. “He might have a heart attack or something, surprised he hasn’t already. He’s so stressed you can see it in his face, way he keeps grinding his teeth. Probably doesn’t realize it. I tell him and that’ll be it. We’ll be back here for yet another fucking funeral show. I just can’t believe she’s gone. And it’s my fault.”

Tears gathered in his eyes. What had his brother done? It was probably something to do with drugs or alcohol or maybe vandalism. He cut some (weird bitch) lady’s tires and now she was out for revenge. Tyler thought this woman was somehow responsible for Delaney’s death. If Brendan didn’t set him straight, didn’t confess, Tyler was bound to do more stupid things. Right?

What if this was all part of the gods’ will?

“It’s just something that happened,” Brendan said and enjoyed how adult that sounded.

“Yeah.” Tyler wiped his eyes. A green two-door car bumped over the sidewalk into the parking lot. “Shit.” The car parked at a strange angle behind two other cars and Tyler’s friend Paul stepped out of the driver’s side. He was wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt. He hadn’t come for the wake. “I’ll be right back. Stay here.”

Tyler went down the porch steps, jumped over hedges lining the walkway, and joined Paul. After a few moments, Tyler threw up his hands and then linked them on his head like he was being arrested. While Paul spoke, Tyler paced back and forth. While walking, Tyler faced Brendan for just a moment but it was long enough to read the expletive slipping from his mouth.

Brendan went down the stairs, past people who were talking about what a tragedy this was, how horrible it was that such things happened, and headed for the parking lot. He was about to cut through the bushes when a heavy hand dropped on his shoulder. The guy owning that hand was short but wide and wearing a black suit with wrinkles like veins running all over it. He could have been wearing shoulder pads, really large shoulder pads.

The man smiled large, almost comically so. “You’re Brendan.”

“Yeah?”

The guy must have put a gallon of gel in his hair and yet several strands of hair squirmed off his head like worms. His teeth were impossibly white; he must use those white-strips they advertise on television. Maybe he was wearing some now. “I’m very sorry for your loss. Your sister was very pretty.”

“Okay.” The guy hadn’t removed his hand and Brendan tried to throw mental clues to the people walking past them that this guy might be a creeper. No one even glanced at them. Too busy talking about what a tragedy this was.

“You must be upset,” the man said.

Brendan glanced over his shoulder. Tyler was getting into Paul’s car. A moment later, they sped out of the parking lot, barely missing a head-on crash with a lady in a blue Town Car. So much for discovering what Tyler had done. Fucked up real bad could mean any number of things. “I should go back inside,” Brendan said as calmly and evenly as he could. He couldn’t let on that this guy and his super-wide smile with bright white teeth was making Brendan’s pulse race.

“It is a horrible thing, but out of this can come something wonderful. Don’t let this tragedy destroy how you see the world, how you see God.” He squeezed Brendan’s shoulder. In his other hand, the man held a Bible. At least a Bible preacher was better than a kidnapper.

“I don’t see God anyway,” Brendan said. “I don’t see any of the gods.”

The man’s smile wavered for just a moment. “Gods?”

“Yeah, like Zeus and those guys.”

“You believe that?”

“Why not?” Brendan felt smug talking this way to an adult. The man was a Bible thumper (Dad’s phrase), anyway, so it didn’t matter how Brendan treated him. The Williams family was not buying any Bibles or the God that came with the order.

The man knelt on one knee. He was shorter than Brendan now, but his shoulders and chest loomed large like the front of a big pick-up truck, the kind with a steel grille. “Do you know The Commandments?”

“Don’t kill, steal, or curse at your parents.”

Brendan had intended this as a laugh but the man showed no appreciation for his flippantness. “You’re