41

Touhy Trailer Park

Brady’s little street proved nearly as bad as the obliterated neighborhood he had just come through. Where his trailer had once stood lay only the concrete two-step riser that had led to the front door. Even that was gone from most of the little homesteads.

Brady had always loathed this park and the ugly metal box he called home. But now he felt as devastated as the acreage he stood in. It hadn’t been much; in fact it had been a depressing, desolate place he had always longed to escape. But it was also where he’d grown up and the only real home he had ever known.

Would Touhy Trailer Park rebuild? He couldn’t imagine it. If he owned a park like this, he’d just leave it in his rearview mirror and make a new start in Florida or Texas or California. What did owners do in situations like this?

Worrying about everything and everybody other than the matter at hand worked at keeping Brady from awful realities only so long. He forced himself to keep moving, and as he scanned the debris for anything resembling his trailer, he came across the figure of a thin, trenchcoat-clad woman, shivering in the rain with her back to him.

Her arms were folded across her chest, and she wore a transparent plastic rain hat. She was staring at the wreckage of a trailer about forty feet away and was apparently unable to talk herself into moving closer.

Brady moved next to her and startled her by putting his arm around her shoulder. It struck him that he had not touched his mother in years.

“Brady,” she said, her voice thin and raspy. “You heard from Petey?”

“No. You?”

She shook her head. “No school today. He’s with friends somewhere.”

“I wish. I think he was here, Ma.”

She turned to look at him, and Brady pulled away, hunching his shoulders against the cold.

The trailer was broken in half, lying on its side, familiar contents appearing to have gushed out. Kitchen appliances lay about, closets broken open, clothes and junk spilled here and there. Furniture was soaking up the rain.

“I got to check, Ma. Got to look for him.”

“He’s not in there, Brady. No possible way.”

“I need to make sure. You coming?”

She shook her head.

The closest emergency crew was two blocks away. Brady didn’t like the silence that pervaded the pile of former homes that had made up his neighborhood. Some of the residents were elderly. Others were young mothers who stayed home with little kids all day. Had no one survived?

When Brady got to the ripped and shredded aluminum that had been the skin of his trailer, he saw his sawed-off shotgun and some shells strewn about. The toilet lay on its side. The kitchen table was on its top, three remaining legs pointing skyward.

And there, protruding from under the refrigerator, were the torso and legs of Peter.

Brady climbed through the junk and pushed with all his weight, rolling the giant box off his brother. Peter’s head had been crushed, and a metal rod of some sort had run him through, just above the abdomen. Unable to keep from shaking, Brady forced himself to press his fingers to the boy’s neck, feeling his carotid artery for a pulse.

Brady slid to sit next to the body and hung his head. Racking sobs attacked him, and he rolled over to embrace his bloody brother. Suddenly realizing his mother could see him, he looked up quickly to see her slowly approach.

“Stay there, Ma!” he wailed. “You don’t want to see this!”

“Is it Petey?”

“Yeah!”

“Is he dead?”

“Yeah!”

She stopped about halfway and stood staring, hands deep in her pockets. She had never been much of a mother, Brady knew, but nobody deserved this.

He realized the kitchen table was askew and grabbed a leg to see what was underneath. And there it was, that thing that was so important that Brady had made Peter promise to be there to take delivery of it. The top of the cookie tin was gone, but the rest was otherwise intact, packed tightly with small bricks of marijuana, and the bottom—if the pusher could be trusted—lined with packets of methamphetamine.

Tears streaming, Brady put the tin in his lap and separated the cellophane packs of grass. Sure enough, crystal meth.

If anything should have made Brady Darby fling this garbage into the debris, it should have been the body of his own brother not three feet away. But, Brady realized, the dope and the check in his pocket constituted the entirety of his worldly goods. That and his brother’s automobile.

What in the world kind of a brother was he? Forgive me, Petey. I’m hopeless.

Brady couldn’t just leave his mother standing there in the freezing rain. He emptied the tin and stuffed everything into his pockets, then covered his brother’s head with a shirt. He pulled Peter’s wallet from his pocket, emptied it of cash—about twenty dollars—and took the driver’s license.

“Just a minute, Ma!” he called out, then jogged to an ambulance down the way. He told an EMT about his brother, left the man his own name and Peter’s license, and asked him to call his work number to tell him where they would take the body.

Then Brady went back and retrieved his shotgun, tucking it down his pants and grabbing as many shells as he could fit into his jacket pockets.

When he got to his mother, she said, “We had insurance, you know.”

Insurance? That was what she was thinking about with her son lying dead? Well, he was no better, covering his own tail and worrying about his dope deals.

“Yeah?”

“Um-hm. I think the trailer was worth like four thousand dollars. That’ll give me a down payment on a new one.”

Brady wanted to smack her, scream at her. Truth be told, he wanted to shoot her. But maybe this was how parents reacted when they were in shock.

“Where’d you park?” he said. “I’m stuck in a ditch and will need a tow, so . . .”

She started walking. “You think Petey’s school insurance covers this?” she said.

“Covers what?”

“An act of God. Sometimes it doesn’t, you know. And I don’t even know if it’s life insurance. Maybe it’s just personal injury, something like that. High schools don’t insure kids against death, do they? I mean at home?”

Brady glared at her. “What if they do, Ma? Would that be good news? Would that make your day?”

“Well, sure, ’course, in a way. I mean, I don’t know how much it’d be, but maybe with that and the four grand, I wouldn’t need a loan on a new place.”

She was as bad as he was, maybe worse. “So, you remember where your car is?” he said.

“Over there.”

“Okay. I’ll see ya.”

“Thought you needed a ride. I don’t even know where I’m going. Do you?”

“I’m sure one of your boyfriends will take you in,” he said. “And I’ll figure something out. I’ll call you when I find out where they’re taking Petey.”

“And then what am I supposed to do?”

“Have a funeral, Ma! What do you think? Were you just gonna leave him there, hoping somebody would dispose of the body?”

“Well, I can’t afford that.”

Brady turned on her and found himself screaming, cursing, calling her the vilest things he could think of—and he could think of plenty. She looked surprised, as if she couldn’t imagine what might have triggered this.

“Well,” she said, “if that’s how you feel, don’t come crawling to me, looking for a place to live. And by the way, you owe me last month’s rent.”

“Sue me,” he said.

When he got back to where he’d left Peter’s car, he prevailed on a tow truck driver to pull him out. He told the man he could pay cash and that he didn’t want some other car sliding in there and crushing his. The guy seemed perturbed but apparently agreed it was better to just get it done right then or it might not happen for days.

“I’m going to be living in this car,” Brady told him. “Just lost my trailer.”

But as the car came sliding up the embankment, a police officer approached. “I’m going to need to see some ID and proof that this vehicle is yours.”

Brady pulled out his wallet and gushed the story of all that had just happened.

“I’m sorry to hear that, son, but until we can confirm your story, I’m going to have to search you, and—”

“Search me why? What did I do? I just lost my home and my brother and—”

“That may all be true, Mr. Darby, but you were seen looting a disaster site, including the body of a victim.”

“That was my brother! And that was my place! Whatever I took from there is mine! You can ask my ma! She was just here. And I was giving the EMT my brother’s ID, that’s all.”

“That should be easy to confirm,” the officer said. “But meanwhile, hands on the car, feet back and spread ’em.”

“You don’t need to search me, man.”

“You gonna make this hard?”

“No, but see, you’re gonna find stuff I’m not supposed to have on me. I just got out of the joint and am on probation.”

“What have you got on you?”

“A weapon and drugs, but they’re not mine. They were my brother’s. He was in deep trouble, doing crimes, and I was trying to help him, you know?”

The cop got on his radio. “I’m going to need backup,” he said.

“We’re a little thin on personnel,” came the reply.

“Roger that, but this is a felony arrest.”

In the back of the squad car, hands cuffed behind him, bloody from embracing his brother, Brady lowered his head, praying he could die. If his hands were free, he would have found a way to kill himself. His life as he knew it was over anyway, and he had blamed the drugs and the shotgun on his own dead brother.