Down to the Bone Read online

  “Better, Crissy. It was good of you to come,” Jarrett’s father warmly returned. “I think Jet’s awake if you want to go in.”

  “Don’t you want to—” she demurred.

  “No, no. We’ll stay out here with Bobby and let you two talk.” Liddy could just about hear Mr. Evans’s smile. “He’s gotten sick of us.”

  Crissy’s high heels clicked as she stepped into the hospital room. Liddy took the opportunity to peek out. The three males were stepping her way. She ducked back before they caught sight of her. They went past and settled on some chairs next to the nurse’s station.

  “Thanks for bringing Crissy by, Bobby,” Mr. Evans said.

  “No problem.”

  Ah, so B.C. Babe had been Dad’s idea. And now that bitch was alone with Jet. Kissing Jet. Maybe touching him under the sheets. Liddy felt her face grow hot. That skinny cheerleader better not lay a hand on her man, dammit, or she’d show them both how well she knew how to play football! She’d sack the bitch in a defensive tackle!

  “That other girl he’s been seeing....” Mr. Evans’s voice got through to her, and Liddy went very still.

  “Geek girl?” Bobby said.

  Geek girl. Liddy felt her heart sink. That couldn’t be what Jarrett called her, could it?

  “Jet’s not serious about that one, is he?”

  “Naw,” Bobby said dismissively. “A geek girlfriend is for helping you pass your classes, not for taking out to clubs or anything. Believe me, when it comes to having a girl on his arm, Jet’s gonna want someone like Crissy.”

  A knot rose in Liddy’s throat. She hadn’t thought Jarrett was like that, hanging with her only to get help with his studies. If he had been doing that, however—it wasn’t like she could blame him. Bobby was right. Jarrett couldn’t take her to clubs, or show her off to his friends. An oddity like her with a primitive skull tattoo and nerdy glasses would only embarrass them both. Everyone would stare and wonder what the fuck a fine physical specimen like Jet was doing with such a dork. And it would only get worse if she opened her mouth, like when she’d met Jet’s dad and off-handedly offended him.

  Come to think of it, Jarrett had said as much to her himself. That she was stuck in her rarified world, not suitable for any that he might inhabit.

  One brief hour of great sex aside, there was nothing she could offer him but better grades.

  “Well, I’m relieved to hear it,” Mr. Evans intoned. “I was afraid Jet was going to end up walking in my footsteps. I married a woman like that girl. All brains. She never let me forget it. Jet probably doesn’t remember, but she had these high expectations for him. When he wanted to go out and play instead of learning pre-school math she told him he was stupid. I know I shouldn’t have put up with it, but I did. Lucky for us, she split not long after Frankie was born. Said we were holding her back. Mailed me the divorce papers and surrendered custody. Best thing she ever did for all of us.”

  Liddy had her arms wrapped about herself now. She didn’t want to think she was anything like the woman Mr. Evans was describing, but she remembered all too vividly her first impression of Jarrett. Homo habilis she’d called him. Smart enough to make tools and not much else. A dead end hominid. She flushed with shame.

  “Jet needs a girl who makes him feel good about himself, not someone who makes him think he’s lacking brains or talent,” Mr. Evans added. “Crissy’s the sort to understand that. Speaking of which, have we given them enough time? Think we should go in?”

  “Sure. Why not?” Bobby agreed.

  Liddy slunk back as the trio passed by the alcove, Frankie trailing with hands deep in his pockets. She waited till she heard their voices from Jarrett’s room, then slipped out and hurried down the corridor.

  It had taken a club to the head, but it was finally clear to her. She’d been trying to merge two different species. She had only to speak as genus geek to make Jarrett feel wrong. And his own, bold genus jock, with its violent imperatives, made her fearful and sick. They were too far apart on their respective evolutionary ladders for any possible union. Jarrett had realized this. Now, so did she.

  DECEMBER

  Jarrett’s absence at the last few games and the reason for it were briefly mentioned on the televised events, along with his publicity picture.

  “They would’ve won if you’d been there,” Jarrett’s dad had insisted when the team lost those games. He’d talked about it up through Thanksgiving dinner, which, as was the tradition in their small family, was eaten on trays before the television while watching football. As was also the tradition, Jarrett had broken the wishbone with Frankie. His brother had gotten the larger half.

  “All right, Frankie. You get your wish!” Jarrett had said.

  “Naw.” His brother had blushed. “You do. My wish was for you to get yours.”

  Which had surprised and touched Jarrett. He certainly needed a wish or two to come true. Winter had arrived and the icy weather was a pain-in-the-ass for a man on crutches. The insurance had paid for assistance in the form of a student helper who drove Jarrett to school and hauled around his computer bag. There’d been no trips to the library, or the Student Union however. Jarrett just went to class and then back to his dad’s house. He had physical therapy three times a week and his dad made sure he did the repetitive exercises he’d been given morning, noon and night. Over and over, fighting against the pain till he was ready to scream.

  He couldn’t deny, however, that his leg was healing fast. By the end of November, he was only required to wear a light plastic brace, and though the knee ached like a son-of-a-bitch, he was able to manage the pain with aspirin.

  “Gonna be good as new!” his dad kept insisting, which Jarrett would have appreciated if someone else had said it.

  Dealing with his father these last weeks had, in fact, been almost as hard as managing the crutches. For one thing, his dad seemed to think he ought to be with Crissy and had invited her over a few times without asking. Luckily, she was no more interested in getting back together than Jarrett was, though she had offered him sexual release. He’d refused. It’d been snobbish, he knew, but after Liddy, Crissy seemed a poor substitute.

  “Have you picked out classes for next semester?” Crissy asked him one afternoon, sitting on the couch and checking on her make-up in a hand mirror.

  “Not all. I suppose,” he mused, “it’s time I got myself a major—”

  “Psychology,” she advised, flipping back her bronze hair. “Don’t you know? All jocks go for psychology.”

  “They do?” Actually, he did remember hearing something about that. “Why?”

  “Because, you can glide right through it, silly. At least at this school.” Her smile went conspiratorial. “Multiple choice tests in every class.”

  Fuck that! He almost said, then reflected. Crissy and others, even his coach, had recommended easy classes to him before, and he’d been grateful and taken them. So why be offended now? Yet he was, profoundly offended. Didn’t they think him smart enough to pass harder classes?

  “You know,” Crissy had gone on, “you should get out more. Just because you’re on crutches doesn’t mean you can’t party. There is a holiday bash at Club Savage tonight. Why don’t you come?”

  Is that why genus homo had left their chimp cousins behind? Jarrett had wondered. To party? Then again, perhaps it was as good a goal as any. Enjoying being young and pretty, he’d realized in that moment, was Crissy’s aim, and becoming a professional player, earning big money was his.

  Or was it? He’d blinked. Actually that aim had always been his father’s. He’d just carried it yard after yard toward the end zone.

  He hadn’t gone to the club with Crissy that night, instead he stayed home with his dad and Frankie, noticing how his brother barely spoke. Also, how his father never addressed Frankie unless commanding him to do chores.

  “Trash needs to go out. Get!” his father would snap, or “You want some coffee, Jet? Frankie, get him some coffee. And toast. Now.” />
  And most often after dinner: “Help your brother study. That’s what you’re good for, isn’t it?”

  Frankie, without protest, would put down his own books to sit with Jarrett and quiz him on biology and popular literature.

  That was how it had been for the last few weeks. Tonight, to Jarrett’s relief, his father had finally taken a night off to play poker with his buddies.

  Alone in the house with Frankie, Jarrett paused on his way to his room to peer through the blinds. It was sleeting outside and the yard looked bare and icy. Most of the house was dark, but there was a light on in his brother’s room. The curtains were drawn, but not completely and a ray of illumination caused the half-frozen droplets to glitter as they passed in and out of shadow.

  Through the crack, Jarrett saw his brother, shirtless and bone thin, pacing restlessly. Jarrett didn’t mean to spy, but he felt suddenly uneasy. He watched Frankie appear at that opening in the curtains, and then vanish and then appear again. For about five minutes he watched like that, seeing nothing to worry him. Then he noticed the syringe in his brother’s hand.

  “Fuck!” He’d gotten good with the crutches, but it was still slow going swinging his way around the corner and down the hall. He reached Frankie’s room, grabbed the knob. The door was locked.

  “Frankie!” He pounded. “Open up!”

  “Jet?” The lock was turned and the door thrown open. His brother’s worried face appeared. “Are you all right? What—”

  Jarrett plowed in, forcing Frankie back until he hit a wall. Braced on one foot, the crutches deep under his pits, Jarrett grabbed his brother by his scrawny throat. Frankie’s eyes bulged with alarm.

  “Where is it?”

  “Wh-what?”

  “Do not shit me!” Jarrett shook his brother like a broken toy. “Your curtains were open. I saw the syringe. Where is it?”

  Frankie went pale as death. His eyes flickered and Jarrett saw it, half hidden on a shelf behind some books. It wasn’t easy, but he could just reach it with his free hand while still holding onto Frankie.

  “What the fuck is this?” he asked darkly, and held it up. “What are you shooting?”

  “Nothing.” Frankie’s voice cracked and his pronounced Adam’s apple bobbed. He was looking up at his looming brother like a chicken about to have its neck wrung. “I mean, I haven’t done anything yet. I was getting up the courage—”

  “To do what? Get high? Overdose?”

  “No! No! It’s...” Another swallow and tears appeared in the kid’s eyes. “Steroids.”

  “Steroids?” Jarrett was appalled. Every guy he knew who played pro sports faced the temptation to take steroids. He, himself, had been offered them, and had had to force himself to refuse. He had never imagined, however, that he’d have to talk to Frankie about them. It was almost too crazy to believe. “Do you know what this can do to you?”

  Frankie licked his lips. “It can make me more like you.”

  “Oh, shit, Frankie!” Jarrett finally let him go. ‘That’s fucked up and it’s not true. This stuff will ruin your life.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Frankie murmured.

  “What? Doesn’t matter? What’s the supposed to mean?”

  “It means I have to try something! Anything!” Frankie fairly shouted. “You don’t know what it’s like—” His brother came to a stop, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I don’t care if Dad doesn’t like me. Well, I do, but he’s never going to like me because I remind him too much of mom. But I...I can hardly stand to think of what an embarrassment I am to you, Jet.” He bowed his head. “What a disappointment.”

  “Disappointment?” Jarrett pulled Frankie to him and gripped him tight. The kid’s bare skin felt cold, his thin body, fragile. Jarrett had a flash of his brother as a little kid, following him around, trying to lift his weights, eat what he ate, do the things he did. He was torn between beating the shit out of the fifteen-year-old and hugging him till morning. In his other hand he still clutched the syringe so hard it almost cracked. ”You little idiot! I love you!”

  His brother trembled and sobbed against his shoulder. “Dad doesn’t want me for a son. I didn’t think you wanted me for a brother.”

  “What made you think that? Why would you ever think that?”

  Frankie pulled back, sniffing and wiping at his eyes. “You’ve never been friends with guys like me, Jet. I remember you and your high school buddies making fun of us geeks, the brainy dorks who couldn’t do a single push-up. You don’t...you don’t like us.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Frankie, that—that was just stupid, high school posturing, you know that! And I never—I didn’t mean you!”

  Frankie smiled faintly and Jet flushed. It was a lame excuse.

  “What brought this on anyway?” Jarrett asked.

  His brother shrugged his thin shoulders. “You dumping Liddy and going back to Crissy.”

  Jarrett shook his head, in part because he hadn’t done either, but also because he couldn’t make sense of that. “You lost me.”

  “When you started dating Liddy…it’s hard to explain, but I felt such relief! She was totally different from the girls you’d always gone for, smart and cool, and she wanted you to be you, not just a jock. She made me think you’d changed your mind about us geeky types. But then Bobby said you were only dating Liddy to keep up your grades and—”

  “What? Ah, crap! Bobby and his big, fucking mouth. That’s not true, Frankie.”

  “Then why’d you dump her? I mean, she never comes over and you don’t call her and I don’t think she calls you.”

  “Because I screwed up,” he growled, but in his mind he doubted. Was Frankie right? Had he run from Liddy because he couldn’t take that next step, because he didn’t want to introduce her to his friends? Because he was embarrassed by her glasses and intelligence? If he was, then he didn’t deserve her. He might as well hand her over to some paleontology major who could appreciate her brains. Yet, even as he considered that he felt a sudden, almost primal rage. He’d crush any fucking egghead who tried to take Liddy from him!

  He blinked and took in a breath. Shit. This was no time for him to start acting like a Neanderthal. He refocused on his brother.

  “We were talking about you, and this.” He held up the syringe.

  His brother ducked his head. He looked more frail and vulnerable than ever, his scrawny chest exposed, his arms like toothpicks hanging down his sides. “It’s like Dad says, I’m a nerd. That’s my place, my niche. And I hate it and I want out. I want to be like you.”

  “Well, I want you to be like you,” Jarrett retorted. “I know it’s cliché, but we can’t all be the quarterback. The game’s lost if all anyone on the team can do is throw the ball. It’s why humanity is so successful. Our species has a variety of talents.”

  “I know that,” Frankie grudged. “But that doesn’t change how Dad feels about me and my talents. Or—or how you feel.”

  “You think I’m ashamed of you? Well, I’m not. Not your brains or your lack of athletic ability. I like who you are, little brother, I really do, and I’m proud of you. Don’t you dare tell yourself otherwise. You understand?”

  Frankie just nodded this time.

  “Come on.” Jarrett moved them into the bathroom. He dumped the contents of the syringe down the toilet, then handed it to Frankie. “You break off the needle and throw the whole thing away. We don’t say anything to Dad. But if you ever even think to do something like this again, I will kick your ass from here to next Sunday. Got that?”

  “Yeah.” Frankie chewed on his lips, eyes lowered. “Jet...I think...I think Liddy overheard us.”

  “What?”

  “Bobby said that stuff to dad while we were at the hospital. I think I saw Liddy by the restrooms. Which means she heard Bobby.”

  “Heard him say what exactly?”

  “That you were never serious about her. That she was just your geek girlfriend.”

  Jarrett winced. “Well, that explains why
she hasn’t tried to call or e-mail me. Okay. Take care of that needle.” He took a moment to give his brother a one-armed hug. “I love you to death, little brother.”

  “I love you, too, Jet,” Frankie said back. “And I’m—” He caught his breath. “I’m sorry if I let you down.”

  When their father got back late that night, Jarrett was seated at the dining room table, waiting for him.

  “Hey, you should be in bed,” his father fondly scolded.

  ”We need to talk about Frankie.”

  “Ah, hell, Jet. What now? Haven’t I been coddling him enough for you?”

  Jarrett clasped his hands together to keep them from shaking with anger. He forced himself to speak calmly. “This is for your sake, not his. You keep ragging on him and he’s going to turn on you. He’ll use those brains of his to hurt you.”

  “Just like his mother,” his dad remarked bitterly.

  “Just like my mother. You’re not allowed to forget that anymore, Dad. I’m Mom’s son, too, and if you’re going to hate Frankie for being half her boy than you’re going to have to hate me, also.”

  His father looked stricken and Jarrett released a breath. He’d gotten through to the old man at last.

  “On the other side,” he added, “Frankie’s your son as well. You know, there’s a good chance his smarts come from you, not Mom.”

  “Yeah, sure,” his father cynically retorted.

  “Why not? You think you’re stupid? I don’t think you’re stupid. I do think you’re afraid of appearing stupid, and I’m sick and tired of letting that fear influence my life and Frankie’s.” Jarrett pushed up, an awkward move given his leg brace, but he managed. “Whatever you choose to believe, know that I do mean it this time. You be as appreciative and proud of Frankie for his gifts as you are of mine, or he’ll be coming to live with me, and you’ll only see us on holidays and your birthday.”

  He didn’t look back at his father as he made his way to his room, but he heard the intake of breath. He couldn’t feel smug; he didn’t like having to twist his father’s arm, but Frankie was suffocating and Jarrett could no longer turn a blind eye. It was long past time his brother was given a chance to grow into his potential.