Lt. Drake's eyes widened. I could tell he was an animal lover.
He cleared his throat. "Where was Ruthie?"
"She was at the grocery store with her grandmother. I buried Goldie and made sure there was no sign of her when Ruthie came back." I had to pause and hold in the tears. “I never got to grieve for Goldie. If I cried, Ruthie would've wondered why and I didn't want her to know. I told her that Goldie ran away."
Lt. Drake shook his head as if trying to shake the image of my dead dog out of his mind. "So, let me get this straight so far." He leaned forward. "You and Ruthie are brother and sister; you can't stay away from each other so Ruthie decides to move away."
I nodded.
"How long was she gone?" he asked.
"Two years."
"How did you handle it?"
"Not well. It was a dark time in my life. I didn't like what I turned into. I did a lot of drugs. I don't even remember some of the awful things I did to people. But I'll fill you in on what I do remember.”
Two weeks after Ruthie left, Julius and I were playing basketball in silence. It wasn't a real game; we were just shooting around in the school gym. He could tell I didn't want to talk, but after a while his curiosity got the best of him.
"Alright, are you going to tell me what's going on with you?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" I responded casually as I took another shot. I didn't know whether I was ready to talk about the situation yet, or not.
"I mean, what's up with all those bruises on your chest? Did you get in another fight or
somethin
'?" I had forgotten that he'd seen me without my shirt the night I'd rescued Ruthie from Bruce two weeks ago.
"Yeah, something
like
that." I missed the shot, but it bounced right back to me so I took another shot. This time Julius got the rebound.
"Well, who was it? I can help you take him out."
I didn't answer as Julius took his shot. He sighed, annoyed with my reluctance to elaborate.
"You used to be this hip genius that everyone liked and now you're just…I don't know…you're different. What happened?"
I still didn't say anything. I felt myself losing it. I didn't know how many more of his questions I could take.
"And what's up with you and Ruthie? I thought you guys were together. Why was she at that party with Bruce? Did you break up or
somethin
'?"
"Yeah, something like that," I said as I tried to get the ball after he took another shot, but Julius beat me to it.
"Well, where is she? I haven't seen her in like, two weeks. If she's on the market let me know so I can tell Timothy. He's so into that girl it's ridiculous. Just promise you won't beat him up," he said only halfway joking. That did it. I walked over to the bench and started packing up my stuff.
"Whoa, hey, what'd I say?"
I just ignored him. I didn't feel like explaining myself and I didn't feel like hearing about what guys were "into" my Ruthie.
"What is up with you, man?" He wasn't joking anymore. He really wanted to know what was going on. "
You been
actin
' strange for months now. If you
ain't
pickin
' fights with random guys, you're holed up in your room and I don't see you for days. Just tell me. It can't be that bad. Did you get her pregnant or something? I can help you out with –"
"She's my sister," I said quietly. I don't know what made me say it. But once it was out, it was kind of a relief. Julius looked at me sideways,
then
he started to smile.
"I'm serious, man." he said, tossing the ball to me playfully.
"I'm serious, too. Why would I lie about that?"
"Whoa, that's messed up," he said when he saw that I wasn't kidding.
"My father is her father. Now you know. Are you happy now?" I threw the ball back at him, forcefully. He caught it, but it threw him off balance a little.
"Did you guys…you know…?"
"Yeah.
A lot."
"Whoa, that's messed up."
"Will you stop saying that?"
"Well, what am I supposed to say?"
"I don't know," I said. Julius sat next to me on the bench and we both just stared into space for a while.
"Does she know?"
"Yeah."
"Whoa, that's…I mean. Sorry." Julius dribbled the ball slowly. I could tell he was uncomfortable and trying to find the right thing to say. "So, since you can't have her, you've been
beatin
' up every guy that gets close to her," he said.
I didn't answer.
"You still love her, don't you?" he asked after a while.
"That's irrelevant."
"No, it
ain't
."
"What do you mean?"
"No one else knows and no one else has
gotta
know. I won't tell. Just move away together."
"That's disgusting."
"Hey, I'm just
sayin
' if you
wanna
be together, go ahead and do it. Who's
gonna
think you're related?"
"That's not an option," I said as I grabbed my stuff and started walking out of the gym.
"Fine, just keep
flyin
' off the handle every time you see her with someone. That's a great solution, Stephen. You know everyone thinks you've lost your mind!"
"Well, I don't have to worry about beating up other guys anymore because she's gone."
Julius ran to catch up with me at the door. "What do you mean, she's gone?"
"She went back to New York."
"Oh..." He started dribbling the ball again. It was his way of thinking. "Look, man," he said after a few seconds, "I know you might think
it's
gross now, but just think about going after her and being with her. No one else would know. As long as she didn't get
pregnant...no
problem."
I tried to think about it. I really did. So many times I wanted to just hop in my truck and drive to New York to find her. But I couldn't. How were we supposed to have a happy life together with that secret between us? It wasn't possible. It was time for me to move on and find someone else.
***
"Stephen? Stephen, are you listening to me?" Mary Elizabeth was trying to get my attention. She had been talking nonstop for twenty minutes about her weekend shopping trip in New York with her parents. I was lying on her bed as she showed me purchase after purchase. It just reminded me of Ruthie. I wondered what she was doing, how she was surviving in that big city, all alone. I wanted to be there for her. I felt a pain in my chest. It hurt to swallow. I closed my eyes and tried to block out Mary Elizabeth's words.
Two months earlier I had called her, out of the blue, and asked her for a date. We'd been together ever since. In order to tolerate her, I'd mastered the art of tuning out her constant chatter. She quickly picked up on the lack of attention I was giving her fashion show.
"Why do I always feel like when you're with me, you're really somewhere else?"
"What are you talking about? I'm right here." I did the
boyfriendly
thing. I grabbed her hand and pulled her next to me on the bed. I tried to caress her cheek, but she turned away from me.
"I was so excited when you asked me out. It was like a dream. I thought that we could actually have a future together." She wasn't looking at me, but I could tell she was starting to cry.
"We can." I lied.
"Don't be ridiculous, Stephen. You're in my room, lying on my bed. I've been parading around you half-naked for half an hour and it's like I'm not even here."
"What are you talking about?" Just then I noticed that she had been changing in and out of outfits the entire time. She was now wearing just her bra, panties, and a frilly pink skirt. I guess it didn’t have the effect she wanted.
"I wanted you to be my first," she sobbed. She wanted to have sex with me? I hadn't even thought about it with her.
I was completely taken aback. I went to hug her and tried to kiss her neck, but she stood up.
"Oh, forget it, Stephen. Stop pretending that you could ever love me as much as I love you. It's not fair to either one of us."
"Mary Elizabeth, I do…"
"Don't lie to me, please. Just leave and let me preserve a little of my dignity." She turned her back to me and looked out the window, furiously wiping tears from her face.
I got off the bed and stood behind her. I lifted her hair and tenderly kissed the back of her neck. I lied to her. I told her exactly what she wanted to hear. Then I unsnapped her bra and laid her down. My mouth covered her breasts. I massaged her nipples with my tongue while my fingers slipped into her panties. I can't say what we did next was making love. It was just sex. I could never love her, which is why I never called her again after that day.
Taking an innocent girl's virginity to fill my own selfish needs should have made me feel guilty. It didn't, though. I just felt empty, alone, numb. No guilt whatsoever, which is why I continued to do it. I went from one girl to the next, somehow making each of them believe that they were the most special thing in my life. Like I said before, I had a talent for making people see only what I wanted them to see.
After I went through all the white girls in town, I moved on to the black girls. In particular,
Rosalee
Hines, one of Ruthie's friends, held a certain attraction.
Rosalee
and I would go to the fanciest restaurants and I would cause a scene as often as I could. If they so much as failed to fill up our water glasses in a timely fashion, I would accuse the entire restaurant of being racist. I don't know whether I really liked
Rosalee
or whether I just wanted to embarrass my father.
It was 1974 and while interracial dating wasn't exactly accepted in Livingston, it happened often enough, as evidenced by the few children in town who were too black to be white and too white to be black. I should have recognized that Ruthie fell into that category. I think a part of me had been in denial all my life. As long as no one spoke about mixed-race affairs or brought too much attention to the practice, people could pretend it didn't exist.
I thought cavorting in public with Negro women would anger my father. But as it turns out, he really didn't care what I did. He only cared about one thing.
"Have you heard from Ruth?" he asked one night, before one of my dates with
Rosalee
.
I couldn't believe he had the audacity to ask me about her. How could he even mention her name in front of me? I had just gotten to the point where I didn't have to remind myself not to think about her. I could finally kiss a woman and not compare her to my sister. My wounds were starting to heal. Now he had to go and open the wound again with just the mention of her name. That's when it hit me. My father was hurting, too. In his own sick way, he loved his daughter. He loved her more than he ever loved me.
I shook my head. My father stared down into his glass of scotch,
then
shuffled to his bedroom. I left the house to go pick up
Rosalee
.