8. Salem
SALEM
A s soon as I settle into the back of my ride from JFK airport to home, I try my brother again.
“Before you say anything—” he starts.
“I thought we had an agreement. I don’t press you if you remain reachable by phone.”
“Sheesh,” he grumbles, and I can picture his scowl. “It was off for one day. I was waiting for the cash to come in from that private security job.”
One day. Not weeks of him falling off the face of the earth or his refusal to stay in one place when he got home from Iraq.
Our only communications with him while he was deployed was when he called me or Mom and Dad.
Every cell phone I bought him was disconnected within months.
We let him be, ignoring the unease clouding us.
Until the clouds burst, and a call came in last year.
The terms of his hospital discharge included him providing a permanent address and an agreement to see a psychiatrist. Between Brooklyn and Pasadena, he chose to live with me.
I would get him his own place, but there’s no way he’d stay there, and I want to be close to make sure he takes his meds and makes it to his appointments.
“Use the credit card I gave you.”
“I can pay my own way.”
I can barely hear him over a scratching noise.
“I never said you couldn’t,” I reply. “Where are you, and who’s sandpapering your phone?”
“I didn’t survive combat overseas to come home and have my baby bro bust my balls.”
“Yeah, yeah. Where are you?”
“I’m in Utah, out in the desert.”
I pull the phone away from my ear as the scratching noise gets louder. “Yo, can you find somewhere quieter? And what happened to Minnesota?”
“Hold on.” There’s shuffling, then the sound of a zipper. “I spent a few days with my buddy in the hospital and then left.”
“Your friend’s sick?”
“Depends on who you ask.” He sighs. “He tried to take his life.”
That’s three of his friends. Only this one made it.
That feeling of a latched roof lowering over my lungs hits.
My parents and I spent over a decade praying for his safe return home, and now my fears are of a different kind of horror.
“You, erm…” I pause to steady my voice. “You okay?”
“Yeah…I should go.”
He’s not okay.
“Wait. What’s in Utah? Send me the address of where you’re staying.”
“This kid from the Marines was from here. Always talked about purple sunsets, red arches, and rocks. I’m camping, so no address.”
“How you have enough dough to get to Utah but not keep your phone on?”
“Who said I didn’t have enough to pay the bill?”
“You did. You said you were waiting for cash to come in.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t have enough.”
My head hurts. “I set up auto-pay on my card for your phone.”
“Hell, Salem.”
“Cancel it, and I’ll just set it up again. You have enough meds?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“You can’t disappear again, Denzel.” It kills us every time. I know he doesn’t mean to, but it does. I remind myself for the tenth time today that the latest cocktail of his meds works.
I hear the tone for an incoming call and lower the phone to peek at the screen.
“Send a pic of the red rocks, and call Mom and Dad,” I say.
“Roger that.”
“No disappearing, Denzel,” I insist before clicking over to the other call. “Hello.”
A throat clears. “H-hello? This is, uh, Arnaz.”
Yes . “Hey, you.”
“Your cake put?—”
An ambulance speeds by, drowning out his voice. I turn up the volume on my phone to the highest level, but I still can’t hear him.
“Sorry, Blue, one sec.” As the sirens recede, loosely coiled air skitters in and out of my ear. “You were saying?”
“Your cake put my entire team and coaching staff in a trance.”
“And you?”
Besides the sound of his breathing—nothing.
I push away from the seat cushion. “That bad?”
Maybe the rose water was too much?
Can I at least get points for presentation?
He blows out a breath. “Put it like this. If it were between winning a championship and eating your cake again, I might consider dying ring-less.”
I shake my fist in the air. “Does that mean we have a date?” I ease back into the seat.
“I don’t like you, and I don’t date.”
“Hold up.” My head jerks back. “I think you might have the wrong number.”
“Nope. I don’t.”
“Why don’t you like me?”
He scoffs. “I lost my starting position for the rest of the season because of you. I was suspended for five games and ordered to see a therapist. And what’d you get?”
“A two-game suspension.”
“Right. And that was fair how? You fuck with me every game.”
“You can’t still be mad about that. It was five years ago.”
“Pfft.”
“That can’t amount to a lot of dislike. Like, 10 percent max.”
“You think I like you 90 percent?”
“More like ninety-eight.”
“Fuck off.”
“And I don’t fuck with you,” I correct. “I attempt to talk to you, and you go ape.”
“Whatever.”
“Nah. What, you don’t find me attractive?”
The squelch of tires dragging through the slush fills the silence.
“Five years is a long time not to like someone,” I continue. “We should celebrate.”
“Why’s your voice so deep?”
I grin. “Blue, why don’t you date?”
“I just don’t.”
“Cool. Have a meal with me.”
“No.”
“You like seafood? I make a plate-licking paella.”
“Who’s Blue?”
“I’ll tell you over dinner.”
A slow exhale is chased by a flat, “I can’t.”
“You got my letter?”
My fingers tap against my thigh as I wait for his response.
“I’m not who you want.” He lets out an exasperated sigh. “I can’t be.”
“You’re telling me what I want?”
“I’m telling you I don’t have what you’re looking for.”
The thick conviction in his voice tells me he believes what he’s saying, so it doesn’t matter if I believe him.
“Okay.”
“O-okay?”
“Mm,” I reply. “If that’s what you want. Okay.”
“Can I at least pay you for it?”
“For what?”
“The cake.”
Unbelievable . “It was a gift.”
“You sure?”
“Good night, Blue.”
After a few seconds of silence, my hand lowers, and I end the call.
Well.
Damn.