something polite in Japanese.
After a moment he just sat back on his ass. He looked up at me, gulped like a guppy out of water.
“You want some more?” I said.
He shook his head. His breath had come back a little. “I didn’t want any in the first place. It hurts.”
“Good.”
“Really, Cason. You hit too hard.”
I got a chair from the table and put it down in front of Jimmy with the back of the chair toward him. I straddled it like a horse and put my arms on the chair back and looked at him.
“What the hell you doing?” Jimmy said.
“Watching you suffer.”
“I might have a tooth loose.”
“Good.”
“You always could whip my ass.”
“It was the one thing I could do better than you,” I said. “You always had the grades. You were popular in school. And, of course, you could get the girls. Me, I could fight. I could always fight.”
“Yeah. You could always fight, asshole. And you could outplay me in football, and you got nominated for the Pulitzer, so I think you could do a lot of things I couldn’t do.”
I hadn’t really thought about that. I kept thinking of myself as his lesser. Shit, maybe he was right. I could do some things. Had in fact done some things. And I really could knock him down.
“If you had anything at all with Gabby, you fixed it this morning,” Jimmy said, wincing as he spoke.
“You’re the one had something going.”
Jimmy started to get up.
I pointed a finger at him. “Stay right there.”
Jimmy decided to sit back down. He said, “I went over there to talk to her about you, dumb shit. I went over to try and tell her to give you a second chance, and that maybe, just maybe, she was missing out.”
“Don’t give me that.”
“It’s the truth.”
I sat for a moment studying him. He was a good liar. Always had been. I was looking for any sign of a tell. “Don’t lie to me, Jimmy.”
He held up one hand. “I swear, brother. I’m not lying. I went over there to tell her how you changed, and then you showed up and pounded on the door and pulled me outside and whipped my ass. That sort of threw a blanket over my heartfelt proclamations about your personality shifts.”
“What’s wrong with my personality?”
“She was under the impression that you were violent by nature.”
“I was never violent with her.”
“She just doesn’t like the idea of it. For someone who doesn’t want me to kill someone, you sure don’t mind knocking my dick in the dirt.”
“Was she listening?”
“What?”
“Was she listening?” I said. “Was she listening to what you said about me?”
“I ought to tell you she was, and that she was going to be okay with things until you did what you did. That would make me feel better. But no. She wasn’t listening. She wasn’t having any. I tried because of what you’ve been doing for me. And you’re my brother.”
“You telling me straight, Jimmy?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“I believe you would. Yes.”
“I’m not, though. Not this time.”
“Straight?”
“Straight as William Tell’s arrow.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Shit. Help me up.”
I got up and put out a hand, and watched to make sure he wasn’t going to clip me one when he thought I wasn’t looking. He figured that was what I was doing. He said, “I’m not crazy. You can take a punch. I can’t. But I do want to note that you hit me when I wasn’t looking.”
“Best way.”
“If I had been guilty of anything.”
“I’m still not sure I believe you.”
“I would say ask Gabby, but considering she wants to put out a restraining order and wishes you dead, probably you ought not to. And by the way: After you left, I think I talked her out of that restraining order business, and she told me to tell you that she really doesn’t wish you dead, that she didn’t wish you had been killed in Iraq. She was just angry. But she told me to tell you that she really does hate you, and she is going to stand by that statement. Come on, Cason. You know I’m telling the truth.”
I studied his face for a while. It’s hard to tell with a really good liar. “All right,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“How sorry?”
“Pretty sorry.”
“That’s it?”
“Okay. Pretty damn sorry.”
“Once more up the notch, baby brother.”
“I’m real goddamn sorry.”
“With a cherry on top?”
“A cherry on top.”
That satisfied him. He wandered over to the fridge, got out a bottled coffee, went to the couch and sat down. He twisted off the lid and I went and sat in one of the big chairs across from him. I shifted my ass a little so that the loose spring in it didn’t poke me too hard. I looked at Jimmy. His lip was swollen from where I had just hit him, there was a big bruise on the left side of his face, and he was rubbing his stomach.
“No need to try and make me feel bad,” I said. “I feel bad as I’m gonna feel. You weren’t messing with Gabby, you still had that coming just because you’re you and all the bullshit you’ve caused.”
He quit rubbing his stomach.
I said, “What you gonna tell Trixie, about the bruise?”
“I was thinking of telling her we got drunk and you hit me. But then she might not let us go out and play again. I’m going to tell her it was a motorcycle spill.”
“All right. I can back that up. That’s a lie I’m willing to tell, because it makes me look like less of a jerk. Damn, bro, you aren’t working me, are you?”
“I was not banging your old girlfriend. I shouldn’t have gone over there, not that early. But I was feeling kind of bonded. Like you and I had a moment akin to the old days, back when we camped and hung out. I haven’t felt like that in a while. I decided to be stupid and wake her up and try to talk to her. Truth is, though, it wouldn’t have gone well anytime. Morning. Noon. Night. It’s over, Cason.”
I let that settle, then said, “Listen. I went to the church where the kids got the DVDs. I found some more. All that were left, I think.”
“You broke into the church?”
“Did it the way Tabitha and Ernie did it.”
“Are they the same stuff?” Jimmy asked.
“Haven’t looked at them yet, but my guess is yes.”
“Well, I don’t want to see them. I’ve seen all of that shit I want to see. I’m on any of them, destroy it. Destroy all of them.”
“Will do,” I said.
Jimmy pressed the cold bottled coffee to the side of his face before he finally sipped at it. He said, “Man, that was a hard punch.”
“Just as hard as I could throw it.”
