Page 79 of Two Marlboros

I immediately feared that my father had put strange ideas into his head. Jimmy was still too young to process complicated concepts, but nevertheless I had an inkling that I had become an enemy to him as well.

“My classmates’ big brothers all go to the school for grown-ups, but not like you.”

I guessed that he meant that the other big brothers were not as “big”, a.k.a. old, as me. Understandable.

“It’s not my fault.”

Jimmy did not reply. Then again, the issue of a second child as a replacement was not something I would have broached with a five-year-old, so that was fine. I tried again to reach out to grab a toy, but he beat it back at me. I did not even pretend that he had hurt me, because he was not in the wrong.

“Go away. I don’t want you!”

I added Jimmy to the long list of people who no longer wanted me. I congratulated myself on finding another one. I watched the toy train and the toy soldiers, Jimmy and the huge wall that separated us. I couldn’t make even a five-year-oldhappy, that was the truth. There was not a single individual on Earth to whom I could be of any use: I had failed my father, I was doing it to my mother, although she was trying to hide it, and now I had done it to my brother.

I was sitting on that floor wondering why, what I had to do with those people who shared only part of the DNA with me. That house had once been mine too, but my passage had been erased, and it was only claimed by my mother because she hoped to see my brother and me get along. Perhaps it would have given them all great pleasure if I had left for California and never returned. Soon they would have forgotten me, and no one would have missed me. Maybe another child would have arrived, to keep Jimmy company. And, on the record, theirs would be a family of four: I was no longer a part of it now.

Before my eyes, a rifleman appeared. Underneath, a small hand held out to me. Jimmy was on his knees in front of me, offering me one of the toy soldiers he had passed over several times with the toy train.

In his eyes there was an apology, and I wondered why I should complicate everything by not accepting it. Even if unwillingly, I should have made peace with him now that I had the chance. He stood up and took a couple of little steps toward me, then left a kiss on my cheek. He must have taken after our mother that tenacity not to break off relations; or perhaps, more simply, he was a child and was already over it. How much easier would it have been to be able to solve everything with a little soldier and a kiss?

I smiled at Jimmy and took the toy, then stretched out on the carpet as he had done, experiencing one of the most uncomfortable positions ever.

He put everything in place and pointed to where to put the toy soldier.

“You can only play with me if you get crushed by the train.”

Half a laugh escaped me and I agreed. He started moving the locomotive again, still imitating the sound of steam. The moment he passed over me, I simulated a mocking cry of pain that amused him greatly, so I repeated it again and again, enriching my character’s repertoire of phrases.

After the poor rifleman had died at least thirty times, I proposed that we spare him and make him a simple passenger on the train. Jimmy agreed and was thrilled at the idea of leading the toy soldier to the wrong station or making him miss the train after a grueling ride.

He seemed pleased and so was I. Slowly, I stopped playing with him out of duty and started doing it for pleasure. I thought back to the little kiss he had given me and the affection he hid, his pure feelings and how he had accepted me, even though I was not a big brother like those of all his little friends. There was no prejudice, just facts. He had rejected me because I had been mean to him, just because of that.

At one point, he stood up and looked at me seriously.

“Now let’s change the game! Wait for me here!”

He got up from the carpet and, with his ramshackle jog, went up the stairs, toward the small bedroom.

From behind, I heard my mother’s footsteps in my direction. She crouched down, and from the look in her eyes I could already tell what she wanted to tell me.

“What’s going on?”

She sighed. “He’s coming back in ten minutes. It was a setback, really.”

We looked at each other without needing to speak. She wanted to know what I was going to do. I thought about it for a moment, but my heart started pounding, distracting me. I tried to convince myself that it was better to leave, but in the background, I could hear slaps and a haze of insults, I looked atmy mother and hoped I felt safe, I listened to Jimmy announcing his arrival and felt helpless.

She brought a hand to the back of my head and began to stroke it.

“Go ahead, I’ll make something up with Jimmy.”

And just as she said his name, we saw him coming down with a child-sized reproduction of a paper desert.

“I don’t want to give him yet another disappointment. I’m an adult, right?”

My mother did not have time to retort, that my brother had already come to us. She laid the desert on the carpet, along with other toy soldiers. Maybe that was what I would need at that moment: reinforcements.

I knew how it was going to turn out.

Every dry noise sounded like a footstep to me. Every metallic sound reminded me of keys in the lock. Every voice carried by the wind sounded like his to me. Meanwhile Jimmy was scolding me because I was always getting killed by his soldiers, so I had earned the nickname stupid brother. He would tell me to do this and that, but I never got to the bottom of his speeches, because auditory hallucinations were always lurking. Just when I stopped giving heed to my imagination and tried to focus on the military mission, the footsteps became real, the keys actually turned in the lock, and the voice greeting the family was indeed his.

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