A Simple Plan

wasn't articulate enough to use his tongue, so he used his feet and hands instead, but the result was just as pitiful. He never really learned how to fight, never managed even an imitation of the true pugilist's desire to cause pain: no matter how overwhelmed with rage, he always appeared to be holding himself back, as if afraid to hurt his antagonists, and it made his fury seem farcical, make-believe, like something out of a silent movie. He'd flail clumsily at them, open fisted, as though he were swimming, tears streaming down his face, and they'd laugh at him, calling him names.

In our hearts, we were both products of our father's temperament, a man so pacifistic he refused to raise livestock -- no cattle, no poultry, no swine -- because he couldn't bear to see them slaughtered. Yet somehow, together, we'd managed to kill a man.

When we reached Ashenville, Jacob pulled to a stop in front of his apartment. He put the car in park but didn't turn off the ignition. Most of the town was closed for New Year's. There were only a few people on the street, hurrying somewhere private, heads tucked low against the cold. A wind had come up, and it blew things across the road. The sky was perfectly clear now; sunlight danced off of the hardware store's plate-glass window and made the pavement sparkle. It had turned into a beautiful winter day.

Jacob didn't get out. He stared blankly past the windshield, as if he wasn't sure where he was. He touched the bridge of his nose with his fingertips.

'I think I broke it,' he said.

'You didn't break it,' I reassured him. 'It's just bleeding.'

He still looked scared, shaken up, and it was beginning to worry me. I didn't want to leave him like this. I reached across the seat and turned off the engine.

'You know what I thought of?' I asked. 'Right when you hit him?'

He didn't answer me. He was still probing at his nose.

'I thought of you getting into a fistfight with Rodney Sample.' I tapped my head with my hand. 'I had this instant flash of it inside my brain, an image of you swinging at him and falling down.'

Jacob didn't say anything.

'How old were you then? You remember?'

He turned and gave me a distracted look. He had his gloves on again. The right one was stained dark with blood; there was a dime-size spot of dried egg yolk on its forefinger.

'Rodney Sample?'

'In gym class. You swung at him, and you both fell down.'

He nodded but didn't say anything. He gazed down at his gloves, noticed the egg yolk. He lifted his hand and licked at it, then wiped it on his pant leg.

'We're in it now,' he said, 'aren't we?'

'Yes.' I nodded. 'We are.'

'Jesus.' He sighed, and then it seemed, for a moment, as if he were about to cry again. He wrapped his arms around his stomach and, rocking a bit, started to scratch at his elbows.

'Come on, Jacob. Pull yourself together. What's done is done.'

He shook his head. 'I killed him, Hank. They're gonna do an autopsy, and then they'll know.'

'No,' I said, but he ignored me.

'It's easy for you to be calm. It's not you that they'll send to jail.' He was taking deep breaths now, panting.

'You didn't kill him,' I said, surprising myself. He was scaring me with his panic; I was trying to calm him down.

He glanced at me, confused.

I realized immediately that I didn't want to tell him what I'd already begun to. I tried to backtrack. 'We both killed him,' I said. I looked out the window at the street, hoping he'd let it go. But he didn't.

'What do you mean?' he asked.

I attempted a smile. 'Nothing.'

'You said I didn't kill him.'

I stared at him, trying to work it through in my mind. Since we were children I'd known that I couldn't depend on him -- he'd be late, he'd forget, he'd let me down out of laziness or ignorance -- so of course I should've known better. But he was my brother; I wanted to trust him. And, though I could sense that there was a danger in it, I saw that there might be a benefit, too. I'd saved him; it seemed like he ought to know about it. It would put him in my debt.

'He was still alive when you left,' I said. 'I didn't realize it till I went to pick him up, and by then you were already gone.'

'I didn't kill him?' Jacob asked.

I shook my head. 'I smothered him with his scarf.'

It took a while for my brother to absorb this. He stared down at his lap, his head tucked into his chest, so that the skin beneath his chin piled up into a rippling series of folds.

'Why?' he asked.

The question caught me by surprise. I looked at him closely, trying to analyze what had prompted me to do it. 'I did it for you, Jacob. To protect you.'

He shut his eyes. 'You shouldn't have done it. You should've let him live.'

'Christ, Jacob. Didn't you hear me? I said I did it for you. I did it to save you.'

'Save me?' he asked. 'If you'd let him live, it would've just been me beating him up. We could've turned in the money, and it wouldn't have been that bad. Now it's murder.'

'All I did was finish what you started. We did it together. If you hadn't done your part in the first place, I never would've had to do mine in the second.'

That silenced him. He took his glasses off, cleaned them on his jacket, and then put them back on.

'We're going to get caught,' he said.

'No, Jacob, we aren't. We've done it, and we're going to get away with it. The only way we'll get caught is if you break down and attract attention.'

'I'm not going to break down.'

'Then we aren't going to get caught.'

He shrugged, as if to say, 'We'll see,' and we watched a little boy ride by on a bicycle. He pedaled right down the center of the street, struggling against the wind. He had a black ski mask on, and it made him look threatening, like a terrorist.

'Are we going to tell Lou?' Jacob asked.

'No.'

'Why not?'

I felt something shift and settle heavily into place when he asked this. The word accomplice floated up from somewhere in my mind, and for perhaps the first time in my life I understood what it meant. It was a powerful word; it connected people, bound them to one another. Jacob and I had committed a crime together, and our fates were now inextricably intertwined. That Jacob appeared to be more frightened at present than I was by what we'd done meant nothing. Our power was equal; we were in each other's hands. If he was too shaken to understand that at present, he wouldn't be for long.

I turned toward him. 'Why would you want to tell Lou?'

'It just seems like he ought to know.'

'This is a bad thing, Jacob. This is something we could spend the rest of our lives in jail for.'

He shut his eyes again.

'Promise me you won't tell him,' I said.

He hesitated, staring down at his gloves. Then he shrugged. 'All right.'

'Promise me.'

He sighed, looked past me out the window. His pickup was parked across the street. 'I promise I won't tell Lou,' he said.

We fell silent after that. Jacob seemed like he was about to get out of the car, but then he didn't.

'Where'd you hide the money?' he asked.

I gave him a sharp glance. 'In the garage,' I lied.