Calling Home by Michael Cadnum Page A

there, Peter.”
    â€œGreat—”
    â€œAnd you are creeping around doing something, I don’t know what. Something illegal, I’m pretty sure. Hey, maybe I’m wrong. I know I’m ignorant. But I’m not dumb. Look at me. Are these the eyes of a dumb bunny?”
    Indeed, they were not. Jack was not the smirking, dope-smoking character I remembered.
    â€œYou and Mead are up to something. I haven’t figured out what it is. Some kind of drug dealing, or I don’t know what. Angela has given me all kind of hints. This would be your business. I don’t care what happens to you. Actually, I never disliked you, so I’d rather see you grow up and not wind up floating to Honolulu in a barrel.”
    He sucked the finger himself, and studied it. Then he leaned forward. “But I want you keeping your rotten, decayed, putrid, drugged claws off of my sister. I love my sister. And I don’t want her fooling around with the things you find under rocks.”
    â€œWait a minute—”
    He put up a hand that was as broad and flat as a garage door, and I shut up. “I’m being friendly about this. Isn’t this friendly? Coffee, doughnuts. We are like civilized people. I don’t want to see you within a half a mile of Angela, or I will break every little bone in your body, including your pecker bone, and I swear it.”
    â€œI like you, Jack. You’re direct, and have understandable—predictable, but understandable—loyalties.” I pushed my doughnut away from me. Not far, but away. “But Angela, whom I like and admire as a friend, and whose company I have always enjoyed, is only a—well, this is going to be hard for you. I love Angela too, in a way. But let me be blunt. Angela is in some ways only a cut above a tramp. I say this confidentially, because you’re her brother. I would fight to the death if anyone said this about her. But since you and I are nearly family—”
    Jack’s face turned colors. From the lighter pastels, to the really vivid and turgid pigments.
    â€œIt’s a good thing I’m with Angela, and not some of the real cockroaches she would hang out with if it wasn’t for me. I respect Angela, which you apparently do not, feeling the only way you can protect her is to threaten to murder me. That’s what we’re talking about. Threats. Murder. You think you’re going to be an officer on a ship? You’ll be lucky to drive a garbage truck.”
    I felt a little bad about slighting Angela’s character, but not at all bad about the wonderful panorama of Jack’s face. Angela was only a little trampish. She’s beautiful, and she wants to be rich. It’s the American way. And I didn’t blame Jack for looking after her. He was being the best sort of brother he knew how to be. I spoke without thinking, out of self-defense. I couldn’t sit there and let him threaten me.
    Jack worked his fists as though they hurt.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I said. “She’s not a tramp. I just got irritated. I really didn’t mean it. It’s just—you can’t push people around like that. It’s just not something you can do. Even if you’re right.”
    â€œI’m glad we had this talk,” said Jack, hoarsely. “Really glad. Because you know what? I’m going to watch you, Peter. I am going to follow you like a hound, and know everything you do until I can call the police and see you in cuffs, getting stuck into the backseat of a black-and-white. Because you deserve it. Because you,” he said carefully, as though the line had taken a great deal of thought, “are scum.”

13
    The next morning, I took four Excedrin and what was left of a bottle of port. My mother had left a Danish pastry the size of a very large cow pie on the kitchen table. I scooped a finger into the jam that glued it together, but when I gagged at the taste, I washed my