Did You Ever Have A Family by Bill Clegg Read Free Book Online Page A

bulky. He must have lifted weights every day, because it looked like he’d put on at least twenty pounds of muscle. He was ripped. He’d be up on that white chair looking out over the kids splashing around in the algae-covered lake, black as a berry and built like an Olympian. It’s a weird thing to say, but he was like a movie star or a famous athlete. Too big, too handsome, too something for the likes of us. No one around here looked like he did, and I don’t just mean because he was black. I caught Sandy looking at him more than a few times, and I thought what the heck, who can blame her?
    He worked as a lifeguard for most of that summer. By August, a few of the mothers who took their kids to the lake complained about the town hiring someone fresh out of jail and he had to give up the job. After that he started helping out with Steve Pitcher’s estate management company. Raking leaves, cleaning gutters, clearing brush. He did that for a couple summers, and in the evenings and in the winter I got him a few cater-waiter jobs for big events at Harkness. The company I worked for had a contract with the boarding school for their fancier alumni events and we always needed help. I’d watch Luke move through the room fetching coffee and pouring wine for these white-haired, old bankers and lawyers in blue blazers and think there was something verywrong. At that point he would have been a sophomore at Stanford, winning races, planning a future filled with nights like this, but with him being waited on and not the other way around. It’s not that I think one life is better than the other—hell, I’ll be serving white-haired New Yorkers in blue blazers the rest of my life—but it’s just that this wasn’t the life he was supposed to live. Anyone who knew Luke in high school could tell he was not long for our town. Of all the lazy potheads and drunks we grew up with, who one way or another have managed to live off disability checks, insurance settlements, or both, who would ever have guessed that it would be Luke Morey who would be buried here at thirty years old? No one, that’s who. Not even Dirk Morey or his old man, Earl, who used to be married to Luke’s mom. Those crazy, redheaded Moreys never liked Luke—and fair enough, they had their reasons—but the truth is that Luke never did anything to them besides being born and having the same name. It didn’t matter. He was always in their crosshairs, and in a town as small as Wells you’re bound to cross paths with everyone, even the people you want to avoid. And despite the fact that Dirk was a little guy and a few years younger than us, he was always just over our shoulders cracking jokes, giving Luke a rough time. Luke could take care of himself, but there were a few times some of us had to step in. Dirk’s the only person I’ve ever punched, and the night I did, he had it coming. It’d be one thing if we were still kids, but this was onlya few years ago. We were leaving the elementary-school cafeteria, where the volunteer fire department has its monthly spaghetti dinners. Everyone goes. They always have. June and Luke had already walked out, and Dirk was behind me and Sandy. Looks like he found a broad just like his mother, he said, poking his finger into my back and looking up ahead at Luke and June. I ignored Dirk as most of us do when he’s had a few too many beers. Usually he’ll shut the fuck up and move on, but not that night. Some of ’em just like dark meat, I guess. Funny thing, eh, Rick? He poked my back again and I could feel my fists clench. Luke and June were only a few yards ahead of us, but I don’t think they could hear. And then, making sure everyone in the cafeteria could hear: Difference is this rich cunt pays for it . With that, I spun around and decked him. Half the town at one time or another has wanted to deck Dirk Morey, and some of them have. He’s been hauled out of the Tap almost as many times as his father. The Moreys are loud