The Things a Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt Read Free Book Online

and that if the circumstances of my life were different, I might have shown up at the antiwar rally last fall.
    I want to say that.
    But I also want to say something about this protest Eddie organized. Something about people who sit around all day getting high, and then have the nerve to complain about the people who put their own lives at risk every time they swing their feet out of bed and drop them on the floor.
    I want to say both of these things, and I’d settle for either, but I say, “Thanks, Eddie.” And I continue down the path to first period.
    See, I never got any sort of a chance to make up my own mind about this war.
    I’ve just become a character, we all have, in a story we don’t get to write ourselves.

    Pearl stops by for a study session. I’ve got a Spanish final coming up. She’s got comparative religion. Pearl gets bored as soon as we crack our books, so she starts digging through my closet. She changes into an old pair of my jeans that fit her snugly.
    “Ooooh. Skinny jeans!” she says as she checks herself out in the mirror.
    We flee to the roof.
    Pearl is now officially dating the guy who sells popcorn at the movie theater. He’s her fifth boyfriend.
    Girlfriends I’ve had: zero.
    I haven’t even had the Maddie Green kind of non-girlfriend like Zim. I’ve had my share of drunken, fumbly, grabby party moments. But who hasn’t?
    “I think you’ll like Popcorn Guy,” Pearl says.
    “I doubt it.”
    “Yeah, you’re probably right. He’s not really your type.”
    I pick up a broken piece of the roof’s slate tile and hurl it into the yard.
    Pearl lies back and closes her eyes to the sun.
    “Levi, what’s going on?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You know what I mean. With Boaz. And with everyone. It doesn’t seem like much has changed around here since he’s come back.”
    “That’s because he’s not really back. He just hangs out in his room and comes downstairs occasionally to eat. He’s the surly teenager he never was when he was a real teenager.”
    “What do you think he’s up to in there?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “I hate to sound like an after-school special, but do you think maybe it’s drugs?”
    That question has crossed my mind. You hear about soldiers coming back so screwed up they turn into drug addicts. That idea is totally at odds with what I know about Boaz, but at this point, I can’t rule anything out.
    “Maybe he has an online girlfriend,” Pearl says. She stubs out her cigarette on the sole of her hot-pink Puma. “Or maybe he’s stuck in a bidding war on eBay.”
    There’s a knock at the door.
    “Come in,” I shout.
    I’m expecting Zim, or maybe Mom with a pile of laundry. When the door opens there stands Boaz, looking like he’s gone and gotten himself lost.
    “Hey!” I scramble back in through my window.
    “Hi, Boaz!” It comes out like a squawk. Pearl can’t do peppy.
    “Hey, Pearl.”
    She starts shoving her books into her backpack.
    “Well, boys, I gotta run. Mama Goldblatt no likey when Pearl’s late for dinner.”
    She darts around Bo and turns to shoot me the
call me or I’ll kill you
look.
    “It’s broken,” Bo says.
    “What’s broken?”
    “My computer.”
    I think of pointing out that my days as a card-carryingmember of the computer club are over. But still. Here’s my brother. Standing in my room. And he’s talking.
    I don’t want to ruin the moment.
    Plus there’s no denying I know a thing or two about computers. I’m just not sure what I can do about Boaz’s. It’s ancient. The same big, bulky desktop he used in high school. It’s a small miracle it’s held up this long.
    “Do you want me to come take a look?”
    “You don’t mind?”
    “Not at all.”
    I follow him down the hall to his room.
    This is it. My invitation into the den of darkness.
    It’s a colossal mess.
    I mean epic.
    A bare mattress off its frame lies on the floor with nothing but a tangled cloud sheet. Clothes, shoes, towels all over