Shut Out

Last night seemed more like a dream than anything else. Hesitant for what awaited me, I delayed opening my eyes for the precious few moments of denial I needed to piece together last night’s blur. My brother had returned out of the blue and frantically woken me up in the dead of the night. I vaguely remember splatters of blood. Everything was so jumbled! Not just last night but most of yesterday. Probably the meds. Still, that uneasy feeling was crystal clear. Oh god, what had he done?

Months without so much as a word and now this.

That was Tom, always in and out of trouble. It wasn’t his fault though. The incident had done a number on us. We were only 8 years old when this couple snatched us at the park while our dad went across the street for a pack of cigarettes. It was only a few seconds.

We paid for those seconds with our lives, metaphorically speaking at least. Two days later they had found us clinging to each other in a broom closet at an apartment complex not far away. They literally had to tear me from his grasp. Once again, I don’t remember a thing except for the man’s bloodshot eyes but it was the reason why, at 26 years old, I was on more drugs than Kurt Cobain ever was. Not the fun ones either.

We had all changed after that. My mom went crazy and killed herself a few months later and the only thing preventing my dad going the same way was the guilt of having already left us once that fateful afternoon. It didn’t take long for him to lose his job as an accountant. Credit where it’s due though, he hunkered down and worked grueling hours as a driver to put us through private school.

Well, mostly me.

Tom’s mind seemed forever trapped in that closet. He spent the last seventeen years fighting any semblance of authority; getting expelled from every private school that would take him until public school was his only option. He refused therapy and he constantly fought with Dad. What he really fought were the demons. His only redemption was his fierce loyalty towards me. After all, I was trapped right there with him. He spoke up for me anytime I couldn’t. Which, admittedly, was a lot. Last year had been the last straw and after a particularly bad fight with dad, he stormed off into the night.

Life got progressively worse for me when he left. I constantly found myself in therapy or in the hospital, my days all muddled together like grime in a puddle. I was allowed a part-time job at the diner nearby, a meager source of income. I hated being so poor, so helpless. I could only dream of a better life. One which Tom could finally return. He did secretly visit on occasion, yet never quite as dramatically as last night.

Snapping out of my reverie, I finally opened my eyes. Given the circumstances, the sight that unfolded could have been a lot worse. Clothes and books strewn across the room, but no sign of blood.

Thank god.

Wait.

A flash of light hit the corner of my eye. The glimmer of a key beside my pillow. It looked vaguely familiar. Next to it a petite, black, leather-bound notebook. A gift from a few years ago which I had never used. It looked too pretty to soil with my musings. I definitely hadn’t left that there. I frantically propped it open hoping for some explanation. A few lines were scrawled on the very first page:

Apt 201, 35 Pine Street

Don’t trust dad

Take it and start a new life

My head was now abuzz with questions but the first thing that leapt to my mind was the address. It was that apartment. Where it had all happened. We usually avoided it at all costs despite it being less than a twenty-minute walk away. I had memorized all the detours to avoid that place. It felt like it almost vanished, as if that part of town didn’t exist to our family. Yesterday was a different story though. After almost a decade, my father decided to drive by it. Another one of the few lucid memories of yesterday that I did have. It had looked rundown and abandoned. I guess kidnappings don’t exactly help real estate value. Not to say that anyone with more than two hundred dollars had ever stepped foot in the area anyway. Not unless you were looking for a place by the hour.

I quickly grabbed a change of clothes from the mountain beside my bed. I should probably clean the mess up before Dad came to check on me. I strode over to my pill organizer to ease the murmurs meddling my mind, but it wasn’t in its usual position on the bedside table. I decided against it. Besides, today of all days, I needed my wits about me. My mind wandered back to the second line.

Don’t trust dad.

I could take that with a grain of salt. More like an ocean of it. Tom’s hate for our dad was unparalleled; it made more sense to ignore it. He was the perpetual voice of reason in my life, doubling down on me when Tom had left. Still though, this past year he had become needlessly excessive.

I quietly snuck downstairs to disarm the alarm, only to find it had already been turned off. He had never told me the code but I had lived here long enough to know it well. Yes, I lived with my dad. No, he didn’t tell me the code. Protective was an understatement. He would usually be up by now, cooking breakfast, but for once he seemed to be out.

Strange, but I wasn’t complaining.

I briskly strode out the door and down our street. Before long, I saw the familiar sight of cherry siren lighting and yellow tape around a cluster of shops nearby. Petty crimes were so common in our area that we joked that crime scene tape and sirens were our own version of a town hall meeting. Somehow though, even this was better than where I was headed. Usually I would join the throng of passersby loitering around, but my mind darted to last night and I made a beeline for the next street; my sense of panic racing along with me. A thousand questions pervaded my mind.

Did this have to do with my brother? Were people watching me?

For once though, my desperation for answers and the faintest possibility of a better life overtook my fear. I was also aware of the fact that my chest felt rather constricted, a sign that I usually attributed to a few days without my medications. Given the situation I was in, it was hardly a shock.

The building finally came into focus for the second time in about as many days and the third time in almost seventeen years. Commanding its surroundings in the worst possible way, it was an assault to the eyes. Cheap orange bricks, worn and blackened with age and smog while a few junkies lay sprawled along the various corridors. It was a wonder that the building hadn’t been torn down yet.

I took a deep breath. The only reason I could even bear to enter was the fact that that it must have taken my brother every fiber in his being to set foot in here.

Passing the remnants of a courtyard, I spotted an ancient elevator and headed for it. What was I thinking? Of course, it wouldn’t work. I was momentarily struck with a glimmer of hope that I might see Tom. That would honestly be better than anything he might have left me. Everything looked eerily familiar, yet not in the sense I expected.

I checked the apartment number on the book.

211.

I made my way up the dilapidated stairs past a woman holding a syringe, who hissed at me for more money. Almost like she knew who I was. I rolled my eyes and walked on. Anything for the next hit, I suppose.

The flood of memories I anticipated never came but oddly enough, I knew every step from here onwards. Strange, I thought, because I had been carried out of here all those years ago. I opened the door to the apartment. As expected, it was a decrepit ruin. Piles of random junk littered the floor interspersed with used needles. What had he left for me? Where had he put it? If he had left something, how would I find it hidden amongst the heaps of refuse?

The answer immediately hit me. There was only one possible place.

I strode around to a side room and sure enough, there was the closet. A twisted sense of déjà vu overcame me. I hurled the door open to reveal a big backpack similar to the one I had at home. Given the vague memories of blood, what kind of trouble was he in? I unzipped it. There was a handgun on top.

Dad’s.

The sense of foreboding was worse than ever now. Complete and utter helplessness. A dose of respite followed when I spotted stacks of hundred-dollar bills underneath the gun.

Money can do that though. Make you forget yourself. My worries disappeared for a few seconds. What I could do with this! For both Dad and me. Now was the time to step up, to plan.

Speaking of Dad, he usually kept his gun under lock and key and the house had been oddly silent when I left.

The key on my bed.

The blood.

The facts pierced through my chest like bullets from the gun beside me.

The clearer the picture became, the less sense it made. My breaths became labored and the room started spinning. What had Tom done? I found myself rocking back and forth uncontrollably in the closet for what seemed like hours, the silence somehow inexplicably loud.

Suddenly I heard the door burst open. A familiar voice was shouting my name.

Dad! He was alright!

I tried to respond, but nothing escaped my lips. His footsteps rushed closer and his face peered in. Lines of dried blood drew attention to a nasty gash on his forehead, but the most worrying thing was the look on his face. Pity. Or was it fear ?

“Dad!” I found myself screaming. “What happened! What did Tom do?!”

He pulled me into a hug.

“We don’t have much time son, but just know I’m right here with you whatever happens.”

“DAD!” I was sobbing now. “What are you saying? We have to run. I know he messed up but he left us this money.”

“Listen to me, son. We keep having this talk but this time you’ve got to listen. Remember that big fight Tom and I had last year? He came right back here and killed himself, remember?” Bitterness tinged his voice and I could tell he we tearing up. “It was my fault.”

“But I saw him.” My voice cracked, suddenly unsure. Nothing seemed real.

“Do you ever see him these days? Or just remember talking to him?”

“Are you saying I talk to myself?”

“Look we don’t have much time.” Tears rolled down his cheek. “Yesterday, I made a big mistake and drove you past here. Last night you threw out your meds and flew into a rage and smacked me over the head. And you just kind of lost it…I just came to.”

“What do you mean? That was Tom! How do you explain the money?”

Dread coursed through me as I realized I knew the answer.

“I passed the shops on my way here, son. You know, Western Union on Third.”

Oh God.

“A woman is dead, son.”

No.

The look on his face finally registered. Regret.

“It’s not your fault. All of this. It’s mine. It always has been”