The sky was cavernous, endless. Arnie did not observe a single cloud on the horizon and he felt his chest expand until his lungs were full of the perpetual blue heavens. He let the bundle of clothes fall from his arms onto the concrete in front him but forced himself to resist the urge to raise his hands upwards. So he stood there, feet spread apart, fingers splayed out, face toward the sky, until the clash of the metal gate closing behind him brought him back down. Arnie knew the directions to the bus stop but he still reached into his bag of belongings to pull out the map. He was not planning on getting lost on his way home. Arnie checked his watch, only to see the battery had died at some point. Hoisting his bag up, Arnie walked away from the prison where he had spent the past five years of his life.
The ride to San Francisco was long, but Arnie spent the time with his face leaned against the glass, marveling at how the landscape had evolved. Five years had long enough to reflect on his past, now he was able to look forward to the future. At their last visit, a year ago, his parents had promised to pick him up from the bus station. They were old, more fragile than Arnie had ever seen them, and could no longer make the drive to the Taft prison every few months. Besides tem, Arnie had no visitors. His girlfriend stopped returning his calls as soon as he was arrested and Arnie knew his brother would not be dropping by. Arnie’s brother had a volitile sense of pride, and it resisted the fact that Arnie would do the years allotted for his brother. Arnie sacrificed time and his brother sacrificed his self-respect. Cars pulled alongside the bus and a little girl waved at Arnie when they made eye contact. He forced his mouth wide and smiled back.
His prison experience hadn’t been particularly awful, but Arnie had been forced to learn quickly. He’d been exposed to criminal activity earlier in his life than he probably should have, but he always stayed as far away as he could. Soft is how his brother would describe it, but with a bit of pride, after Arnie won a spelling bee or got straight As again.
Dusk had settled over the bay by the time Arnie stepped out of the bus. There was no one waiting for him. Arnie had not taken his phone with him to prison and the county had gotten rid of all phone booths in his absence. It would be good, decided Arnie, to stretch his legs a bit after the long trip. He figured he could make it to his home within an hour if he walked briskly and it would be nice to reacquaint himself with his city. He dodged the tourists shuffling back to their hotels and the trash bags dumped on the sidewalk. The smells of the city were at times familiar and sometimes he could not recognize them. Arnie would remember one building but not the one next door. Halfway between a future town and his memories, he stumbled upon his neighborhood before his mind caught up with where his feet had taken him.
The three stairs up to the front door of the apartment building had been converted to a ramp to accommodate his father, who used a walker now. They had told Arnie about it but he almost trudged right past. The light was on in the living room, the window which faced the street. Arnie rang the doorbell quickly, three times in a row, just like he always did when he forgot his key. Before long, there was the buzz which let him push open the front door. Inside, the stairwell was filled with shadows and grime and Arnie knew he would have to clean it soon, since his mother no longer could. Instinctually, his feet took him to the right, to his home for the first eighteen years of life. The door was cracked open, lamplight leaking into the musty hallway. Inside, Arnie could hear the murmurs of his parents and he tried not to be offended that they would not even come to the door for him.
He pushed the door open and no one was waiting for him. Closing the door, he walked to the dark kitchen, away from the voices, to drop off his bag. The cutting board stood untouched and the vegetables just lay beside it. Arnie threw water in his face and breathed out heavily through his nose. After drying off with a paper towel, he started toward the living room, out of the kitchen and down the hall. The voice that filtered through the living room door was unfamiliar, and Arnie knew that there were more people in there than just his parents. He wondered if his aunt had driven down from Oregon, or if some of his friends who wrote him sporadic letters were actually loyal.
Instead, standing across from the couch where his parents sat was a cop, middle aged but fit, holding his hat in his hands in front of him. Arnie saw tears running down his mother’s face and his father’s white knuckles clenched around his mother’s hand. As soon as he walked in, all three heads swiveled to Arnie, and fresh tears grew from his mother’s eyes. Arnie stood still, looking between the tired policeman and his distraught parents. He heard his father explain that he was their other son and the cop nodded. Arnie heard his mother wail after the words “other son” left his father’s lips and he understood. A tingle started in his nose and rose to his eyes. The living room blurred, and his stomach contorted and swallowed itself up. Arnie’s breathing had stopped until his body was desperate for oxygen, and he drew in air rapidly, heaving, until the cop guided him to an armchair in the corner.
“How?” was the only thing he asked when he regained the ability to speak.
“It looks like an accident but we’re investigat – “began the cop before Arnie’s mother cut him off.
“It was Will and his boys. Darren,” she started when her voice broke on her oldest son’s name. “Darren,” she restarted, “crossed him again.” She collapsed against Arnie’s father.
“I’m sorry we didn’t come pick you up.” Arnie’s father spoke softly, emotionlessly. “We thought you would be able to make your way back. We had to stay here and talk to this officer.”
Arnie nodded. His lips were dry, and he thought they might crack if he moved them. Every part of his body felt overheated, his eyes saw nothing of what was happening in front of him. His father called his name, which was the only way Arnie realized he had stood up. All three were staring at him again. They were waiting for him to say something, to react in any way. “I’m going to take a walk.” His father nodded, his mother looked away, and the cop offered up his condolences.
He did not see the shadows, or the dirt, or the ramp his father had made, but he saw where he was going. Will’s place was close, closer than his mother would have liked. Darren starting hanging around the building when he was in high school. Arnie remembered he was just starting middle school, so Darren must have been around fifteen. Just a few blocks from their apartment, Will’s building signified the beginning of the bad part of the neighborhood. Darren had forced Arnie to stop by on their way home from school a few times, mocking his brother’s reluctance. Darren never took much seriously, especially not Arnie.
Arnie, in his adolescent innocence, had once staged an intervention for Darren. There were graphs about crime rates and statistics on the effects of drugs. Darren, who was trying to grow a beard at the time, just laughed. He hugged Arnie but told him to stop worrying, he wasn’t going to get in trouble.
“Prostitutes, pimps, and druggies,” is how Arnie’s mother referred to anything past Alamo Square, and Arnie always listened to his mother’s warnings. Now, he strode past the square. The grass was dead and the only thing that had watered the trees in the past years was urine from drunken visitors. If a cop needed a petty bust to raise his stats, this is where he would come.
Night had risen. The sky was devoid of color but the litter on the street was illuminated by flickering streetlamps. The lights in Will’s building were on, as they always were, at all times of the day. Arnie knew the door was open, but he knocked on the peeling wood until his knuckles were scratched. A boy, probably around fifteen, thought Arnie, ripped it open.
“Go home to your parents,” said Arnie as he pushed past the kid and made his way to the living room. Will was in the same place as always, in the center of the room, sprawled out upon a greasy and threadbare sofa, the haze of smoke around him obscuring him from even his closest groupies. They lounged around him, handing him the blunt when he reached out his hand and basking in his fragmented attention. Will must have been pushing forty now, stomach spilling over his sweatpants, dustings of salt in his beard, but his disciples remained forever under twenty-five. “Will.” Arnie announced himself boldly, even though every eye was already upon him after his rowdy entrance. The rage in him had completely transformed the shy boy Darren had been ashamed to call brother.
“Yes, officer?” The children sitting around Will tittered at his gag and Arnie began to panic. He had forgotten how full the house was, how many people would die for Will and the drugs he fed them.
“I come with a business proposition.” The room chuckled even more. Arnie did not know what words were stumbling out of his rough lips, had no sort of plan. “I just got out of Taft and I heard about you. I still got some people on the inside, if you wanna partner with me.” Will sat upright and shushed the room with one brisk motion of his hand.
“Taft? What were you in for?”
“We can talk in private,” said Arnie, already moving toward the door he knew led to the kitchen. The shifting and shuffling behind him reassured Arnie that Will was already following him. Arnie pushed open the door, relieved that the smell of weed was less potent. Will shut the door behind him and sat down at the kitchen table, wordlessly pointing at the other stool. Arnie shook his head and was amazed by how steady his limbs were.
“You look familiar. I know you?” Will cocked his head and scratched at his patchy beard.
“You knew my brother.”
“Ah, keepin’ it in the family. I respect that. Who’s your brother?” Arnie hesitated. The pause was heavy, leaden with all the excuses Arnie couldn’t think of. Will narrowed his gaze and his eyes traveled up and down Arnie’s body. “Darren.”
“Yes.” Arnie saw no point in lying. He was here to kill Will and either way he would end up dead or back in jail. Will had begun to laugh. Laughing came as easily to him as fury, creating a dynamism that enchanted.
“And you’re gonna what? Kill me with your bare hands? Or you hiding a Glock in your khakis?”
“Bare hands will work well enough, I figured.” Arnie spoke clearly, unrushed and unruffled by Will’s guffaws.
“I remember you. You’re less scrawny, just a bit.” Arnie looked down at his pale blue polo shirt, the clothes he’d worn when he went into prison. “You’re the reason why Darren tried to quit that one time. You got arrested, didn’t you?”
“I went to jail for him. He had a record, I didn’t.” Darren had gotten into minor trouble before and he would have been tried as an adult.
“Shit!” Will seemed genuinely surprised, and Arnie figured it was likely he’d forgotten all about the busted drug run Darren made with Arnie in tow all those years ago. Arnie’s parents had begged him to let his brother take the fall for his own mistake but he really thought he could save his brother. It was Arnie’s second attempt at an intervention. Arnie saw the softness in Darren when no one else looked for it and he didn’t want prison to take the last goodness in his brother. “When’d you get out?” Will asked.
“This morning.”
“Shit! That’s fucked up. Your brother dies right before you get out of prison. Shit.” Will was having a hard time keeping a touch of irony out of his voice. Arnie did not respond, instead scanning the kitchen for where the knives might be. “I get why you’re mad at me.” Arnie did not even look at Will. “I mean, you got to jail for your brother, save his ass, and he comes crawling right on back to me. Threw away those years you saved him.”
“It wouldn’t have been wasted if you hadn’t murdered him!” Arnie moved up to Will and grabbed the loose collar of his t-shirt. The kitchen clock ticked on behind them.
“He gambled either way. Someone was gonna kill him or he was gonna join you in jail. Those are the only two ways to retire from my line of business.” Will’s voice was melodic, an attempt to placate Arnie. “Anyway, he didn’t give a damn about you. You took the fall for him, and he acted like he never had a brother. I completely forgot you existed.” Arnie’s hand dropped from its hold on the older man and he took a step back.
“I made him proud,” Arnie insisted.
“Darren used you. I hate to say this,” said Will with a grin, “but Darren didn’t have any good in him. He was just plain rotten, you know what I mean?”
Arnie didn’t say anything.
“Don’t go to jail twice for a bitch who would have thrown you in front of a bus without a second thought. Don’t waste more of your life trying to save the unsalvageable.”
Arnie took another step back
“That’s it. You’re making the right choice. Go ahead and head on home. We’ll forget this ever happened. Unless you still wanna give me those contacts of yours at Taft?”
Arnie looked directly into Will’s tiny, red eyes. His own eyes threatened to shed tears so he quickly spit onto Will’s shoes. Will raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything, showing more understanding than any gangster should have. Arnie turned sharply and marched through the door, past the shadows in the living room and onto the street. Will’s laughter followed him all the way home.
