Page 57 of Born Into Trouble (Occupy Yourself)
Twenty-Eight
Leaning against the cabinets in Slate and Ruby’s kitchen, Benny lifted a mug of coffee to his lips, watching as his brother made sandwiches for them. Coffee and tea his drinks of choice these days, and he’d drunk gallons of each since rehab.
Piling three kinds of lunchmeat on the bread already slathered with mustard, Slate was picking through different kinds of cheeses. Without looking up, he muttered, “Ain’t got no Swiss. Shit.” He sorted the packages again and then stood there, palms to the countertop, looking down. “Shit.” Another pause, then a growled, “Fuck me.”
Slate’s response to the lack of cheese was puzzling. Benny didn’t remember him ever being particularly picky about his food. Jokingly he asked, “You that partial to Swiss?”
“No, but you are.” Fingers walking through the packages again, pushing cheese and meats from side-to-side with a rustle.
“No, I’m not.” Benny couldn’t quiet the laughter that pulled Slate’s eyes to him.
“Yeah, you are. You won’t eat ham without Swiss.” Lips in a firm line, Slate was not laughing with him, and Benny felt a stab of unease.
“I’ll eat whatever you got.” He set the coffee down and leaned over, picking up a package. “Provolone’s good.” Picked up another. “Cheddar.” Dropping them both, he frowned. “I’m not hard to please, bro.”
“You never eat ham without Swiss.” Shaking his head, Slate picked up one of the packages and began peeling off cheese, placing the round, white slices on top of the piles of meat. “Never did, anyway. I remember Daddy driving from the ranch into town to buy Swiss so you’d eat a fuckin’ sandwich.”
“When I was what? Four?” Now he was laughing in earnest, unable to beat back his amusement. “I’m not a kid, bro. I outgrew that kind of shit a long time ago.” He had to be careful picking up his coffee mug; he still shook with laughter. “I liked poking my fingers through the holes.” The air in the room grew thick, and he glanced up to see Slate staring at him. “What?”
“What she said.” Slate paused, and Benny froze because there wasn’t any question in his mind to which “she” Slate was referring. “What she did to you.” Brow furrowed, the hurt on his brother’s face was hard to witness, and it set up a resonating ache in his chest. “So fuckin’ sorry, Benny. I never knew that shit. Never knew.” Chin to his chest, Slate stared down at the half-finished sandwiches. “My baby brother, and I never fuckin’ knew anything because I left. Never shoulda left.” There was a wide ribbon of bright pain in his voice, hard and edged with blades of self-recrimination. “Never shoulda left you like that.”
“You didn’t know. I never wanted anyone to know.” Benny kept his eyes on Slate, waiting for him to look up, having to continue on without any clues how his words were being received when his brother stubbornly continued staring at the counter. “If I wasn’t weak—”
Slate’s roar startled him into silence. “You were fuckin’fourteen.” His jaw hardened, and Benny thought he could hear the grinding of teeth. “She’s a fuckin’ predator. No different from an old man with a bag of candy and you’d never hold a little girl in ridicule because she was little. No. I’m tellin’ you, the bitch knew what she was doing. She groomed you, man. Groomed you and then used you for her own sick-as-fuck games. Fuckin’ predator.”
“I wasn’t unwilling.” Probably the worst part of everything because he hadn’t been. “Every time she upped the game—“
“It left your eyes rolling backwards in your skull. Fuck me, of course, you weren’t fuckin’ unwilling. Why would you be? Fourteen? Gettin’ off on having her hand in your pants.Fuck me.” Head moving back-and-forth, Slate closed his eyes. “You still friends with Danny?”
The abrupt topic change left Benny reeling, and he snapped out, “Yeah, still friends of a sort. Been friends since we were kids.”
“He spray painted my truck. Eight-years-old or so and fuckin’ spray painted the wordwhoreon my truck. Mom was such a waste back then.” That sounded like another topic change, and Benny still hadn’t caught up to why they were talking about Danny.
“I never knew he did that. We were friends. Why would he do that to you?”
“Why would he fuck up your life? He’s an asshole. I traded him; and until right now, I was never proud of how I maneuvered him, but I did. Traded him an asswhuppin’ against bein’ your friend. Told him if he didn’t make life easier for you, I’d make his miserable.” Slate barked a laugh. “Another fine example of how me fucking with your life fucked it up.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Even then I knew I’d be bailing on you sooner or later. I think it was a chance to see you got a friend to stand at your back. But I picked a loser. Fuck, Benny. My life is full of bad fuckin’ decisions.” Palms flat on the counter, Benny watched the muscles working underneath the surface of his brother’s skin, the tattoos shifting and moving in response. Slate was working through some emotion tied up in him leaving Wyoming, but Benny couldn’t figure out which way he was headed.
Reaching out, he rested one hand on the tattoo covering Slate’s upper arm. Starting at the peak of the shoulder, the tattoo of a vengeful angel stretched halfway down his arm ending with the words ‘My Brother’s Keeper’. “You saved my life.”This is where it starts, he thought.Reparation. Because he didn’t do anything wrong, and I can’t let him live with that thought. “Saved me. Was it the wrong decision?”
“No. But—”
He didn’t let Slate get anything else out, talking over him and praying he could force his brother to hear him. “My whole life, you’ve worked to make it better. Was it a bad idea to try to do that?” He didn’t give him a chance to respond, forging ahead. “No. It wasn’t. It’s never a bad decision to try to do right. You can’t know what the outcome is going to be. Mason told me it’s the intent that matters most, more than anything else. If you work and try to do what you think is right, then it matters most.” Fingers tapping, he indicated the tribal band positioned below the angel. “This one, it’s for me, too, even if you didn’t know it at the time.” Worked into the dark ink were the words ‘The Past Is Practice.’ “The only time we master life is if we’re six feet underground, moving on to the next transformation. The whole time we’re here, if we’re doing it right, we’re practicing so we can do better. Like playing music, you never stop learning.” He leaned in, resting his chin on Slate’s shoulder, whispering, “You saved my life. Nothing else matters.”
The sudden tension under his hands gave him only a moment’s warning before Slate exploded, shoving Benny away as his arm swept the sandwiches in an arc, sending them smashing against the wall. He roared again, and Benny made out the words, “You were fuckin’FOURTEEN,” before Slate grabbed him, holding on tightly. “Fuckin’ fourteen, Benny. I was fuckin’ my way through the western states, and you were being fucked over by a fuckin’ bitch. Goddamned fuckin’ bitch. I left, and you were only fuckin’ fourteen.”
“You saved me.” Benny wrapped around his brother and repeated his words. “Nothing else matters.”
“I fuckin’ left.”
Benny squeezed Slate in his arms, wordlessly trying to tell him it didn’t matter. “You’re here now.”
“Mom was a waste.”
“Yeah, she was. She had to save herself. I was lucky. I had you.” He swayed, and Slate caught him, holding him upright. “You saved me. I pissed away a thousand chances. Stole and lied to get what I wanted. Brought trouble to your feet and”—he squeezed tightly again—“you saved me. Fixed it all so I didn’t have to worry about it and never asked me for anything other than to learn how to be a better man. I didn’t have to look far to find the best example, Slate. Still don’t because it’s right in front of me. You are who I want to be when I grow up.” This made them both laugh, and Benny heard a feminine chuckle too, looking up to see Ruby standing in the doorway, eyes on the two men standing in a man-hug in the middle of the room. “I love you, bro.”
