Numi when I sit down and place the number on the corner of the table.
“No, but the pizza will be ready in twenty minutes.”
“Way to go, dynamo. How you feeling?”
“Better.”
Sometimes it’s better for me to not talk about breathing to take my mind off it. To fixate on it can sometimes bring back another episode, and Numi knows this, and so he changes the subject. And the subject he chooses is nearly as bad.
“Tell me about your brother, boss.”
Numi knows he has me for twenty minutes.
“Here?”
“No better place, ace.” He opens his big hands and looks around. “We alone and we waiting for pizza.”
I smile at his slang. “It’s been a long time,” I say, “since I’ve talked about it.”
Numi nods and waits. He stretches out his long legs and sits back. As I speak, he clasps his hands over his flat stomach and closes his eyes the way a dog might. Just enough to relax but not enough to miss anything around him.
And so I tell him, “We were at Elysian Park near Dodger Stadium, waiting for the game to start. I was seventeen and making some money working nights at a warehouse. It was my brother’s birthday and I wanted to do something special for him. My mother was against it from the beginning. Maybe she had gotten a psychic hit or something, who knows. But I talked her into it, reminding her that I was an adult and could watch my nine-year-old brother, Matt. She relented, but not happily.”
I take in a lot of air, ignore my faltering lungs, and continue the story, “I had gotten off work early and picked up my little brother. My brother wore his Dodgers ball cap and a mitt. Matt’s excitement was overflowing.”
Numi nods, his eyes still closed. I pause for a few moments and get my breath.
“But we got to the game way too early. Even too early to catch batting practice. So we decided to take a walk through Elysian Park. It was a beautiful July day, not too hot for once. The plan was to play a little catch and wait for the gates to open.”
I pause in my retelling as the young girl brings us our beers. I rarely drink beer these days. I’m really not supposed to have any alcohol at all. Idon’t care. And Numi doesn’t seem to care either, for once. I think he thinks that I might need this beer. So I drink some, spilling only just a little. Since when were beer mugs so damn heavy?
As I think back on that fateful day, I realize I can’t begin to explain to Numi my kid brother’s innocence or capacity to find joy in everything, his complete trust in the world, his forgiving and accepting nature. He was a godsend to my mother, especially after my father’s car accident that left her a single parent.
Words and strength fail me, so I keep to the point.
“We found a good spot to throw the ball. There were a lot of people picnicking, so we had to find a space to ourselves. We threw the ball a few times and—”
I can remember their faces like it was yesterday, especially their smiles. For a few years, I blamed them for my brother’s death. Hell, sometimes I still did.
No one else’s fault,
I thought again.
No one but your own.
Of course, that wasn’t quite right either. My brother’s death was very much the fault of someone else.
Numi waits with half-closed eyes, breathing easily, legs stretched before him. The half beer gives me an instant buzz. So pathetic.
“There were two girls, two cute girls. One of them had sprained her ankle. The other was helping her over to the restrooms. I asked them what happened. The one girl, the blonde, had stepped on a tree root, rolled her ankle. I helped her into the bathroom. I then offered to get her some ice from some picnickers nearby.”
I took another draw from my beer. I could not meet Numi’s half gaze now. Instead, I studied a flashing neon advertisement in the window nearby.
“I went and got the ice.”
“And where was Matt?”
“He was looking for our ball.”
“Where?”
“In the woods behind the park.”
“How did
“No, but the pizza will be ready in twenty minutes.”
“Way to go, dynamo. How you feeling?”
“Better.”
Sometimes it’s better for me to not talk about breathing to take my mind off it. To fixate on it can sometimes bring back another episode, and Numi knows this, and so he changes the subject. And the subject he chooses is nearly as bad.
“Tell me about your brother, boss.”
Numi knows he has me for twenty minutes.
“Here?”
“No better place, ace.” He opens his big hands and looks around. “We alone and we waiting for pizza.”
I smile at his slang. “It’s been a long time,” I say, “since I’ve talked about it.”
Numi nods and waits. He stretches out his long legs and sits back. As I speak, he clasps his hands over his flat stomach and closes his eyes the way a dog might. Just enough to relax but not enough to miss anything around him.
And so I tell him, “We were at Elysian Park near Dodger Stadium, waiting for the game to start. I was seventeen and making some money working nights at a warehouse. It was my brother’s birthday and I wanted to do something special for him. My mother was against it from the beginning. Maybe she had gotten a psychic hit or something, who knows. But I talked her into it, reminding her that I was an adult and could watch my nine-year-old brother, Matt. She relented, but not happily.”
I take in a lot of air, ignore my faltering lungs, and continue the story, “I had gotten off work early and picked up my little brother. My brother wore his Dodgers ball cap and a mitt. Matt’s excitement was overflowing.”
Numi nods, his eyes still closed. I pause for a few moments and get my breath.
“But we got to the game way too early. Even too early to catch batting practice. So we decided to take a walk through Elysian Park. It was a beautiful July day, not too hot for once. The plan was to play a little catch and wait for the gates to open.”
I pause in my retelling as the young girl brings us our beers. I rarely drink beer these days. I’m really not supposed to have any alcohol at all. Idon’t care. And Numi doesn’t seem to care either, for once. I think he thinks that I might need this beer. So I drink some, spilling only just a little. Since when were beer mugs so damn heavy?
As I think back on that fateful day, I realize I can’t begin to explain to Numi my kid brother’s innocence or capacity to find joy in everything, his complete trust in the world, his forgiving and accepting nature. He was a godsend to my mother, especially after my father’s car accident that left her a single parent.
Words and strength fail me, so I keep to the point.
“We found a good spot to throw the ball. There were a lot of people picnicking, so we had to find a space to ourselves. We threw the ball a few times and—”
I can remember their faces like it was yesterday, especially their smiles. For a few years, I blamed them for my brother’s death. Hell, sometimes I still did.
No one else’s fault,
I thought again.
No one but your own.
Of course, that wasn’t quite right either. My brother’s death was very much the fault of someone else.
Numi waits with half-closed eyes, breathing easily, legs stretched before him. The half beer gives me an instant buzz. So pathetic.
“There were two girls, two cute girls. One of them had sprained her ankle. The other was helping her over to the restrooms. I asked them what happened. The one girl, the blonde, had stepped on a tree root, rolled her ankle. I helped her into the bathroom. I then offered to get her some ice from some picnickers nearby.”
I took another draw from my beer. I could not meet Numi’s half gaze now. Instead, I studied a flashing neon advertisement in the window nearby.
“I went and got the ice.”
“And where was Matt?”
“He was looking for our ball.”
“Where?”
“In the woods behind the park.”
“How did
Similar Books
