T-shirt and tosses it to Cody.
âIs it clean?â
âNo, I wiped my butt on it.â
Cody scowls at him, smells the shirt just in case, andwalks away satisfied. He disappears into his room, struggling, Houdini-like, to get his head and arms into the shirt at the same time.
The Bruiser comes back out to join me in the kitchen.
âSo, you havenât gotten to the part where you ask me to stay away from your sister. You tried threatening me and that didnât work, so now I figure youâre going to try it more respectfully.â
I look away from him. I know it might make me seem guilty, but, really, Iâm feeling angry at myself for having bullied him in the first place.
âBrontë makes her own decisions,â I tell him, then add, âbut I wonât be happy if she comes anywhere near Uncle Hoyt.â
âNeither will I,â he says, âand just in case youâre worried, Iâm not like my uncle.â
âI can see that.â Then I hold out my hand to him. âSoâ¦no hard feelings?â
He looks at my hand for a few moments, and I think that maybe there are hard feelings after all; but then he shakes it with a decisive, confident grasp.
We nod to each otherâan understanding has been reached, like a détente between two nations that would otherwise be at war.
Then Uncle Hoyt slinks out from his lair, and Brewster withdraws his hand like heâs been caught with it in the cookiejar. The man looks at us suspiciously, as if weâre plotting against him. âWhatâs he still doing here? Didnât I tell you to get rid of Tri-tip?â
The Bruiser opens his mouth to say something, but I speak first. âWhat is he supposed to do, snap his fingers and make it go away?â
The man grins, and itâs something slimy and nasty. All of a sudden I feel unclean again. âCanât expect you to lift the whole animal at once,â he says. âThe chain sawâs out in the shed.â
12) MISDIRECTION
When I get home that night, I donât say anything to Brontë about where I was and what I did that afternoon. Even when she comments at dinner that I smell funny, I just tell her Iâll take a showerâeven though Iâve already taken two.
I wonât get into the details of Tri-tipâs disposal. It was not a pretty sight. I can only thank God there are Dumpsters just on the other side of the Bruiserâs fence. Now I understand the close-knit nature of the Mafia, because thereâs something bonding about disposing of a body.
The next day I see the Bruiser during passing, between second and third periods. We nod to each other an unspoken greeting, almost like itâs something secret. He raises a hand to hoist his backpack farther up on his shoulder, and thatâs when I notice the knuckles on his right hand. Four out of five knuckles are all raw and starting to scab. I figure he must havescraped them up pretty badly during our bull-carving extravaganza yesterday afternoon.
Reflexively I look at my own knuckles and notice right away that my scabs are gone. I tend to heal quickly, so I try to dismiss it. After all, how often do I actually look at my knuckles? I get scraped and bruised so much, I donât notice it anymore.
Except that I did notice my scabbed knuckles yesterday. The Bruiser and I both did.
I try to tell myself itâs nothing, that itâs one of lifeâs simple tricks, just like a stage magicianâs clever misdirection to keep the audience baffled. Yet deep down I know thereâs something more going on here. Something truly inexplicable Iâm afraid to consider.
13) EMPHATICALLY
My brotherâs an idiot.
Sure, Tennysonâs smart, but heâs an idiot in all the other ways that matter. Such as when he forced his way into our miniature golf game and intimidated Brewster just because we went out on a date. It wasnât even an evening date; it was a
Back in the Saddle (v5.0)