Page 39 of Due South

Once we’re settled, it seems to occur to Lucy to actually look around. She folds her hands on the table top—which, thank goodness, is actually clean—and studies her surroundings. While she’s looking around, I take the opportunity to look at her. The outfit she changed into after our shower is one of my favorites: a clingy black pencil skirt; black heels; and a flower printed high-necked blouse, one of those ones with the tie at the neck. Which should be prissy and proper, but it makes me want to pull it open with my teeth and not stop there, opening the buttons with my mouth until the silk parts and I can see what kind of delicious retro lingerie she’s got on today.

My fantasy of getting her undressed is interrupted by her voice. “So you used to come here with your brother?”

I shrug, feeling awkward because I don’t want her thinking I’m the kind of guy who frequents strip clubs. I don’t, but… “We came here a few times. Before he joined up.”

When he was just irresponsible, good-time Darren. The small-town quarterback hero who never thought he’d have to make more of himself.

“He used to tease me, say he wanted a designated driver, but I don’t think that was it. It was one of the few times he’d want me to come along with his friends, you know, his geeky older brother, and it was one of the few times I felt okay about joining them. I couldn’t play sports with them and going to a pool hall demanded too much…talking. And I was never good at video games. But a strip club? Yeah, I could come here, watch some girls dance, and have a beer.”

She looks at me, her gaze open and curious. “You don’t talk about him much.”

I wish there was something on the table to fiddle with—silverware, a napkin, a coaster—but there’s nothing, so I look at my hands. “No. We’re not close. Never have been. But more so now than before. He—”

I sneak a glance at Lucy, and there she is, sitting next to me all pretty and perfect, her hair a little messed up because we’ve been at work for eighteen hours, but she looks as though she’d wait all night for me to find the words. She’s right that I don’t talk about Darren often, because I don’t like to. Don’t like to be reminded of any of it, even though he’s my brother and I love him. So I tell her.

“When we were in school, he was the hometown hero. Captain of the football team, homecoming king, all that. Most of the time when you’ve got siblings in a school, it’s always the younger one who gets the ‘Oh, you’re so-and-so’s brother.’ Not with us. A lot of people didn’t even realize we were related, and neither of us did anything to correct that. He was Darren Evans, golden boy, and I was Chuck Evans, nerd extraordinaire.”

The smile I give Lucy is half-hearted at best, and I’m relieved that a scantily clad waitress comes over with our Coronas, lime wedges sticking out the top. I immediately squeeze the juice into the bottle before stuffing the carcass down the neck so the beer will catch even more of the citrus flavor on its way to my mouth. I’m not a huge beer fan, but having anything else in a strip joint seems wrong. I start picking at the label and go on with my tale.

“After high school, I went to college and grad school, and Darren…well, he was good enough to dominate the local conference, but he wasn’t quite good enough to get a scholarship to any college. So he messed around for a while, doing odd jobs or working at minimum-wage places. Tried a bunch of things, but outside of sports, he never had much of a work ethic. Got fired from a bunch of places. And when I came home, with a good job and my own place and my own car, he lost it. Enlisted. Even though he didn’t say it, I think it was partly so he wouldn’t have to be around to watch me be more successful than him.”

The label peels off in my hands, and I tear it into strips, remembering how petulant Darren had been, how he’d given me shit over family dinners and the bullying part of him came out harder than it had in a long time. I was a grown man, but it had felt as though we were back in high school. I hated that he still had the ability to make me feel that way, as if he could still stuff me in a locker, and I hated myself some forlettinghim. Why couldn’t I brush it off? Why did it have to matter so freaking much?

“So he went off to the Air Force, which wasn’t a great fit for him, but it was better than what he’d been doing. He managed to serve out the haul he’d signed up for, but he didn’t want to be in the service any longer than he had to, so he left. And had a hard time finding something to do when he got back. He was messed up—like PTSD messed up—by some of the stuff he’d seen while he was on tour in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he started drinking. More than usual. Like enough to get shitfaced and mean on a pretty regular basis.”

Lucy rolls her lips between her teeth, and I’m guessing she’s picturing some hulking brute smashing around and screaming, which isn’t so far from the truth. I tried to stay out of the line of fire as much as I could.

“Anyway, one night he got absolutely blitzed and decided it was a good idea to drive home. It wasn’t.”

It’d been awful to get the phone call from my parents saying Darren had been in a wreck, but even more awful when my mom had yelled at me because I’d asked if he’d hurt anyone else. “He’s family, Chuck. Your concern shouldn’t be with anyone else.” But it had been. If Darren had hurt anyone, killed anyone, I don’t know that I could’ve lived with that, which is messed up. It’s not as though I’d have done anything wrong, but I would’ve still felt responsible. Luckily, he’d only wrapped his own beater around a tree and no one else was injured.

“He got in a wreck and spent a long time in the hospital, and when he got out… He’d never been great at holding down a job, but it got even worse after that. I tried to get him to get help. That’s what the VA is for. But Darren didn’t want to, my dad kept insisting there was nothing wrong with him, and my mom thought he just needed a break, so—”

I clamp my mouth shut around the words:That’s when my life ended. That’s when I gave up my life for his. Because of this abiding sense of responsibility that only goes in one direction.I do feel terrible that Darren has some very real mental health issues, and it pisses me off that the government doesn’t do more for veterans, but I can’t help but be irritated by his lack of motivation to do anything about it and to make it worse by drinking his life away.

“So?”

Lucy’s gentle prodding and her big brown eyes make me feel safe, valued. She’s not bored, she wants to know, and she’s not judging me for my conflicting feelings about Darren. I heard that phone call with her mom; she must feel conflicted about her family too.

I frame it less baldly than I feel, in a way that hopefully won’t make me sound pathetic and resentful and desperate. Even though I am all of those things. But I don’t want Lucy… I’d die if she saw me that way too. Let her keep believing me to be a responsible, stand-up guy, one who’s good enough to be trusted with her body if not her heart. “So I’ve been helping my family out. Financially. For a long time. And I tried to get them to take advantage of some of the services and programs out there, but they…”

The frustration wells through me. I’ve given up so much for a situation that could be easily made better, but they’re too resistant to change. My brother lets his pride get in the way, and my mom can’t let go of the obligation she feels. My dad pretends like there’s nothing wrong and Darren will grow out of it.

I shred the remains of the label and throw them on the table in front of me. The words get ground out through my teeth and tears start to sting the backs of my eyes. “But they won’t. So I help. Try to make them as comfortable as possible. And sometimes, I’d like some gratitude, you know? Or some affection? Instead of being the second-best son still. I’m not the fuck-up, I’m the success. I’m the one who makes it possible for them to live the way they do, and they never—”

I choke on it—my anger and my sadness, the longing for approval and attention that’s never going to come, and the bitterness that’s growing along with it because it’s never going to change. They’ll never change their behaviors. They’ll never say thank you. They’ll never let me go. I’ll just be giving up my life for people who don’t value me and treat me like an afterthought because I’ve managed to lead a productive and relatively drama-free life. People who don’t particularly respect my job that’s important to me, even though it’s that self-same job that provides for all of us.

It’s fucked up that I could be jealous and resentful of my brother now because of course he deserves help, and maybe if he’d gotten more of it, he wouldn’t be in the situation he’s in. But I can’t deny I have those small, petty impulses, and that makes me feel shittier.

Lucy lays a gentle hand on my forearm, strokes through the cotton of my shirt. “Hey. It’s okay. I know what it’s like to have your family not think much of you. Even when you’ve made something of yourself. I mean, I’m no second-in-command like you, but I’m proud of what I do.”

I’ve never thought of myself that way, although I guess that’s what I am. But what really gets my goat is that anyone’s made Lucy feel bad. No one outside BCG knows what it’s like to work for India. Well, except Cris. Maybe that’s why he’s so nice whenever he stops by the office or shows up on work trips.

“You should be. You’re great at your job. And putting up with India should earn you a medal.”

Lucy’s tinkly laugh breaks through some of the anger inside, but I’m still feeling beat down and shitty.

“You’re great atyourjob. You’re so smart, and you know how to talk to people without making them cry, and even if your family doesn’t value that and how hard you work…I do. I know it’s not the same, but I hope that makes you feel better.”

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