Truth's Consequence
A
Braji Short Tail Tale
P.S. Wright
Published by Splot! Publishing at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 P.S. Wright
Braji by P.S. Wright Available at Smashwords.com
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Kraut rubbed the one year chip he wore on a string around his neck. He rubbed it for comfort, to remind him how far he had come, for the strength to keep going. Today he rubbed it out of habit. It provided no comfort now. He tried to sit, found it too constraining. He paced around the little room, glancing up occasionally at the two way mirror. Behind the mirror eyes would be watching him, Patrick Henry Fitts, cops, maybe their lawyer, maybe other people. They were there because he might try something, he was a rat kid. His heart hurt. He had told them he could not face the grandmother, it would be too much. So her grandson, just out of Big Muddy on an armed robbery charge, had agreed to come for her. He would meet the boy who could tell them what had happened to her youngest grandson, his baby brother. The people behind the mirror were there for his protection, not Kraut's. Kraut paced and glanced up at the mirror and nervously scanned for an escape. Beyond the only door were those people, waiting, expecting this. He rubbed the chip, but it provided no reassurance. Kraut wanted to believe he would be in control when the time came. But he knew he would feel intimidated like he always did. He wondered if the faces behind the mirror would come running if he screamed for help.
The time to run was past. Bryan Jerome Browne filled the doorway and ducked his head instinctively to enter. Kraut checked him automatically with the eyes of survivor. He was tall, broad shouldered, athletic, not a body builder. He was dressed in new jeans, hoodie over polo shirt, white label sneakers, close cut hairdo, the only thing flashy a silver earring in his left ear. He took one hand out of his pocket and revealed a chunky watch, neither flashy nor cheap. Kraut's heart hurt and he rubbed the coin. He should approach, should show his respect, show he wasn't afraid... but his feet remained rooted. He did not offer to shake hands. He wondered if Bryan Browne recognized this was not a sign of disrespect, that rat kids just do not shake hands. Does he know anything about rat kids? "Hey." What am I doing grinning like an idiot? This guy doesn't want somebody grinning in his face. He dropped the grin and glanced back at the mirror and its hidden faces.
Bryan Browne nodded at the table and its two chairs. "Hey. Start?"
Kraut took the seat opposite Charles "Chaka" Browne's second oldest brother, pacing himself so he neither sat first or last, but right at the same time, watching for any sign of disapproval in the calm brown eyes. He rubbed his palms on his pants. "So um, you know, Chaka, I mean Charles, you called him Charles or Charlie? He said you called him Charlie Brown. We called him Chaka." Slow down and breathe idiot. Bryan Browne had the most perfect skin, same round cheeks and curling lashes as his baby brother. He was lighter though, more milk chocolate. He knew he was staring. He probably shouldn't do that. He has the same dimple in just one cheek. He's got the same big forehead. We called him big head. He wanted to see the smile, the teeth, the smile that made grown men change their tone of voice, made him the pet of all the girls. Bryan was waiting. Kraut nodded as if he had answered. "He was, we were, Special Detail. We were on the same detail."
"My Grandmamma just want to know how he died. We know he's dead. We just wanna know how it happened."
There was not enough oxygen in the room. He sucked air into his lungs but he couldn't breathe, really breathe. And his heart hurt. They said it would help with his recovery. That's what had got him. They used the same words the Braji did when they talked about God. And God had given up on Kraut. Or Kraut had given up on God. And they said all he had to do was tell the truth and make amends. Make amends. That was what he had to do. He had to sit across this table and tell this man about the murder of his little brother and everything would be all right. He squeezed the coin until it cut into his hand.
Six weeks ago he had sat in this same room and faced the parents of another boy. Miz Taylor had not remarried. Her maiden name was something Irish; he could never remember names. They sat there like cold statues and not a word between them and he told them. "It was the day of the march, that's what we called it, the march, you know?"
Miz Irish was pale and covered in freckles and skinny and broken. She twitched whenever he looked at her. She stiffened when her ex-husband tried to take her hand, or pat her shoulder. She was shut down and far away and unreachable. Mister Taylor looked ready to cry. He kept reaching toward his wife, then pulling back. Neither of them asked any questions.
"So all of us were Special Detail. We was all together in one group, all but Frenchi and the Freak, you know? We was all together and we was walking through the jungle like, toward the backside, I don't know why. Like some people said there was these inspectors that came down and stuff, but some other people said they was going to kill the ones that stayed back and stuff, or... " Mister Taylor's eyes begged him to get on with it. "Well I don't know but anyway we was walking and K.T. started crying. Oh, I guess you didn't call him K.T. huh? Um, Keavin, you know? Well who else would I be talking about huh? Duh. Ok, so you know, K.T., he never cried or complained or anything, nothing like that. He never complained. He was always like, a real hard worker and stuff like that."
Kraut thought he saw something in the father's eyes, flickering just there behind the thin film of tears that never went away. Maybe he was happy to hear K.T. was a good boy. "Yeah, he was kinda my favorite. Like, he was always the first one to pick up a shovel and stuff. When we had to work, I always picked him first and he never complained or whined or nothing like the others. He was a real good boy, you know? Well, of course you do. Duh. Of course, he's like, I mean he was your son. Yeah." Again the impatience. He squeezed the coin around his neck. His mouth was dry. God he wanted a drink. "He started really crying and I knew there was something really wrong so I took him out of line and we sat down and took his shoe off and it was all..." Kraut remembered the guard shouting at him, shoving him. He closed his eyes and tried to control his heartbeat. The doctors said not to go getting himself too wound up. He told it with his eyes shut, remembering and not wanting to remember. "I got him to take his shoe off. This other guard came running and ordered us to get moving again but I blew him off. I knew I shouldn't, shouldn't have been disrespectful and all. I shouldn't have done that. So any way, when I peeled the sock off, his foot was all swollen, like huge, like twice its size you know? It was all like turned purple and black, and his ankle too. I think something, I don't know, a spider, or a snake, or maybe a scorpion or something, something bit him, I think. It was pretty bad. It was bad. I seen bad and that was pretty bad so that was why he was crying and stuff. But this guard, he was yanking at my arm, trying to pull me away for something. I know I should have handled it different. I know I should have been like, you know, more respectful and that. It's my fault. I started to yelling at him. Like, couldn't he see Keavin needed a doctor? and stuff like that. I was cussing him out and stuff and him and his buddy tackled me. We was rolling around and... " Kraut looked up into the expectant eyes of K.T.'s father. No matter how he told this, it was going to end with K.T. dead. His chest squeezed his heart and lungs. There was a buzzing in his head. "I was fighting pretty good till he got my arms pinned behind my back. I should have just stopped fighting. I know I should have... They got me on my feet and that should have been the end of it but I don't know... K.T. was trying to help. He was just a little kid and he didn't mean nothing and we shouldn't have been fighting in the first place but I don't know what he was doing. I seen this cog put a hand over K.T.'s mouth and I didn't actually see it so much as just see everybody just jumbled together so I can't say but... I don't think this guy, he was kind of new, I don't think he even realized what we has doing. He stabbed Keavin--twice." His voice caught as he saw it again in his memory. He felt the knife go in. He brought his fist to his chest, remembering, two blows. "...in the chest." He couldn't stop the tears. He had no right to cry. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. It was my fault. It was my fault." Kraut dragged the air into his lungs, fought to get it past his seizing throat and fill his empty chest. "He was a good boy. He was just trying to help. We shouldn't have been fighting. I pulled the knife out. But he was bleeding, it was just spurting out...so much blood. I tried to stop it, you know? I put my hands over it, but it just seeped out between my fingers." Kraut looked at the back of his hand. He could see it clearly, the bright red blood that ran like water across his knuckles as he examined them. They were sitting there waiting. He wasn't sure they were still breathing. "I couldn't stop it. It was coming out of his mouth too." He had to reassure them. Is this what they had come to hear? "We buried him. We put a cloth over his face, you know, so the dirt..." He should not have said dirt. He should not have mentioned that. "So anyway, so it wouldn't get in his eyes?" Why is he asking? Why does he want them to say something so badly? "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry." Snot was running into his mouth. He wiped it with the back of his arm.
Mister Taylor shook his head. His eyes looked clear for the first time since he had introduced himself. "Thank you." He helped his ex-wife up from the chair.
Kraut watched them go. He really needed a drink.
Six weeks ago he had sat across this table from Keavin Tyler Taylor's parents. Now he stared across at Bryan Browne and wondered how he was going to get through this a second time. They said this would help his recovery. He had waited and waited. They said he'd feel better if he told the truth, got it off his conscience. But it was not off his conscience. It sat on his chest and made it hard to breathe. His heart hurt and the coin was not providing its comfort today.
"K. So, you know we was all in Special Detail together, right?"
Bryan made a little flip of a hand gesture. Patience was hard won in the joint. But his patience was being tried.
"So, by then, it was just us, um, six of us. Frenchi and the Freak, they pretty much just stayed with the adults, in that barracks, you know? So it was just us, me and the little ones, four of us, in the bunker. That's where we stayed. We had to stick together like Mr. Phil told us from the go. We stuck together pretty good. The little ones, they was always in trouble, you know, little stuff, but they was good kids really. Everybody loved Chaka specially because he was so cute and little and all?"
Bryan shifted his position and sighed. He threw one elbow over the back of his chair, the other arm stretched out on the table. The corner of his mouth jerked downward.
Kraut swallowed bile. The raised words on the coin were rough under his fingers as he rubbed it. A cold beer would help a lot right now. It was always easier to talk after a drink or three. But they said he would feel better after he did this. "Jinxe was another one of my kids. I called him Quicksilver but that was just what we called him cause he was so fast nobody could get a hand on him. But his name was Jinxe. Well, it is Jinxe still; he's not dead. He was real sick. He almost died. I mean real sick. Ok, he ended up in a coma and stuff. I mean, I didn't know he was going to end up in a coma but I knew he was real sick. We gave him like every drug you could imagine." Kraut stopped. He glanced up at the mirror and wondered if they were writing that down. "Anyway, he was real sick. We didn't know what was wrong with him. He's got hemophilia. We didn't know it though, just knew he was real sick.
Bryan Browne sighed again and sat back in his chair letting both hands rest on the table in front of him. Kraut glanced at his hands. He had bluish tattoos at his wrists and on the backs of his hands. They were hard to see against his dark skin. Kraut wanted to see them clearer but he was afraid of appearing to stare. He scratched a nonexistent itch and thought about running out the door. "We um, we were kind of the pawnshop for the whole camp. Can you imagine? I mean, like we was buying and selling everything and anything. Everybody came to us, the older boys, gang bangers, girls, barracks big shots, even the guards, everybody. We was the Grand Central Station of deals. But here's the thing, you got people that want stuff, they don't care how you got to get it. If you don't, they get mad, you know? So we had this thing we figured out. We was running this scam thing going on. The guards, they was slow on the uptake so we got away with it for a long time. And really, a lot of them knew what we was doing. They knew from the go. We was doing it from day one. It wasn't some great big secret or something. We was stealing drugs and stuff from the hospital and stuff. But really, they was buying it too. So it wasn't like they didn't know what we was doing and really cared or anything. They didn't care for the whole three years, not really. Sometimes they'd get a little mad cause we took too much or took something they had marked for themselves or something. But then, I'd just give it back or they'd rough the place up or something but really, no big deal." He glanced up at the mirror. Patrick Henry Fitts was behind that window. He would lay odds Fitts would be asking him questions about the drugs later today.
Bryan cleaned under one nail. He understood such things. Kraut was getting one of those headaches he got lately where the sound of his own heart banged in time with the ache in his skull. In the old days he would soothe the ache with a bit of something brown with a worm at the bottom. He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. "So it was getting kind of crazy at the end there, you know, the last days before what happened. So we kind of laid off doing that for a while, especially since Jinxe was so sick. So this guard comes in one day hollering and making a big freaking show and he's like, 'I know it was you.' I was yelling back at him and stuff but it wasn't working. He kept saying how he was going to make sure we all got executed or something stupid like that. Like anybody ever got executed for some dumb shit like that. So I was really kind of thinking he was just a dumb cog and our gich would straighten it out and stuff."
"Gitch?" Bryan Browne's voice was smooth and manly.
"Uh, yeah, guard in charge, gich. Anyway, our gich usually handled stuff like that so we usually didn't get punished the way other kids did. If we was going to get beat, it would be off scene, like he'd handle it himself behind the barracks or something, you know? Because we were Special Detail. So I wasn't all that worried about it. So he starts demanding I tell him who it was that did some job, I don't know cause we hadn't actually done one in a while. But I figured he had us on something we had done a while ago and our gich would have to do some talking. He was getting madder and madder. Then he says, 'Well, I know it was your kids cause it's always the same ones.' And he starts grabbing kids like he was going to do something. So I was like, 'Oh crap, he's going to hurt Jinxe.' You know, he was sick and all. I didn't want him to hurt Jinxe. So I just go, 'Here, take these two, it was them.' It wasn't really. I mean, I don't know who it was because we hadn't even done a job in like days or maybe longer than that. But I couldn't let him take Jinxe." Kraut's headache was worse. His words were tumbling out faster than he could think. His heart was pounding and his breathing was trying to keep up. The world had sped up and Kraut was not in control any more. He had not spoken about Chaka since the day it happened. He hadn't spoken his name or allowed himself to think about it. Now it was pouring out of him and it would not stop. He squeezed the coin so it dug into his fingers.
"I didn't know. I didn't know they was going to do that. I picked him because he wasn't sick, that's all. I didn't know."
Bryan's eyes narrowed. Kraut wondered if the faces behind the window were noticing the way the muscles in Bryan's arms were bunching under his jacket. He wondered if they could see the change in his expression.
He fought to keep the world from spinning around. "They took him, took them both. I went right away to find the gich. I aint stupid. I wasn't waiting for them to decide what to do. I went to go get the gich, like he always said. He said, 'Anything happens with my boys, you come get me and I'll take care of it.' So I did. But I couldn't find him. They said he wasn't around, that he left. That's crazy right? How can you leave? He couldn't just leave. That's crazy. I tried to find Frenchi or somebody to help. But everybody was gone or something. It was just like, nobody wanted to hear it. I mean, I..." He remembered the guards shoving him down the stairs, punching him, telling him it was over now, there would be no more protection for Special Detail. He had not understood then. He was not sure he understood now. But something had changed. And Chaka and Johnny were in the adult barracks and no good came of kids in the adult barracks. But they wouldn't let him in. "I swear to God, I tried. I swear to God. I didn't mean anything bad to happen to him."
Bryan's jaw was clenched, the little muscles of his face jumping. But he maintained the same casual pose. The faces in the mirror would never have time to react if he jumped across the table and smashed those powerful fists into Kraut's head.
"I don't know. It was crazy. They wouldn't let me go with them. They held me back. Everybody was watching. So they made a big production and stuff. I couldn't believe everybody just stood there and let them do it. Nobody said anything. Nobody tried to stop them. I was fighting with the guards and stuff. But I aint nobody. I can't fight no guards. And none of the other rat kids seemed to care. They just stood there and the guards, they pulled these big old trucks around." He gasped for air. The trucks. His trucks. "I fixed those trucks. I worked on them. I was proud of those trucks. Those were my babies man. I worked on them all the time. They couldn't have kept them trucks running without me!"
Bryan did not understand about the trucks. He did not care about the trucks.
"The guards pulled them trucks around and everybody just stood there and watched them do it. I was screaming at them. I was like, 'Do something Duke, do something.' But nobody did nothing. They just stood there and let them tie them kids to those trucks." Kraut gasped but there was not enough air in the room to fill his paralyzed lungs. His heart was hurting. God how it hurt. "They killed my kids and everybody just stood there and let them do it. Nobody helped." Tears and snot ran down his face. Bryan stared at him levelly. There was the slightest shake of his head, almost imperceptible.
"I'm sorry. I was responsible for them and I let them take my boys. I'm so sorry."
Bryan's brown eyes, so like his brother's, fixed on Kraut. "What do you want me to say? Do you want me to say it's ok? Do want me to say it's ok you gave him to those bastards knowing they was going to kill him?" Kraut tried to answer. The words got stuck in his throat. "Do you want me to say that other boy deserved to live so it's ok you gave them my brother instead?" His voice rose as the anger rose in those brown eyes. "Why are you still here? Why are you here and my brother is dead huh? Why are you still here?" His fist came down on the table.
Kraut's heart slammed against his ribcage. It hurt. He clutched the coin in his fist and waited for the first blow to fall. The faces behind the mirror would not come to his aid. They had never been there for him.
Bryan sat back down, wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, rubbed his jaw. "Did he die right away? It was instant?"
Kraut struggled to produce enough saliva to speak. He swallowed and swallowed again. "I tried to go to him. They wouldn't let me."
"That's not what I asked. Did he suffer?" Bryan was speaking in his smooth voice again. He was in control again.
Kraut blinked. "They made me wait all day. He was laying there in the sun, all day. I had to get somebody to help me. Nobody wanted to help. They didn't want to get in trouble. By the time we got to him... I tried to help. I was gonna move him, but it hurt too much."
"So you left him there? You just left him?"
Kraut shook his head and sniffed back the flow of tears that just wouldn't stop. "No. We buried him."
Bryan glared at Kraut. He waited, waited for any other detail that might make it make sense, might make it better. He waited for some excuse.
Kraut sagged. They had said it would make him feel better. He had told the truth. He felt exhausted, spent, and dirty. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Bryan Browne stormed out, leaving the door gaping open.
Kraut looked up at the light intruding into the room through the open door. There was no welcome relief through that door. He laid his head on the table, letting the cool of the metal soothe his headache. His stomach was churning. His heart hurt. He had not had a drink in one year, three months, and six days. He had died on an trauma center gurney one year, three months, and six days ago when his heart had stopped, a rupture of his aorta, years of drug abuse, alcoholism, and hard living. He had died for three minutes, but he had been dead for five years by then. He waited for someone to come and tell him to go but they weren't coming. He was all alone, on his own, as he had always been. He had not had a drink in one year, three months, and six days... and he wanted one now.
He stood and wobbled, his legs shook beneath him. Somehow he made it out the door and down the hall past the babble of conversation and confusion of bureaucratic workers shuffling papers and lives with equal indifference. Out to the street, he pushed the door that said pull, leaving by the entrance, another meaningless act of pointless defiance. Sun streamed down between the buildings. But the birds did not sing and the clouds did not part. No rainbows appeared. There was no soaring music. To his left a Hispanic lady was screaming at her boyfriend. A little boy across the street made a rude gesture at him and earned a smack from his mother or grandmother before they boarded the bus. There was a liquor store across the street. He ripped the coin from around his neck and passed it from hand to hand. "Where were you when I needed you?" He tossed it into the gutter and stepped off the curb.
A police car screamed up. Kraut jumped back to avoid being run over. The cop failed to notice his existence. There were other bars and liquor stores right on this very street. He turned his feet in the direction of the corner. The deli and bar were separated by a single half wall. He was violating his parole by just walking in there but it had been one year, three months, and six days. He entered through the deli, hoping no one would ask for his identification. He almost did not seem him. He almost walked right past. Mister Taylor's eyes were red and foggy. He was cradling his coffee with both hands. He didn't recognize Kraut. Kraut could just walk on by, say nothing. He could not do it. He was not sure what made him say, "Hey, room for one more?"
Mister Taylor looked surprised. Before he could answer Kraut slid into the seat opposite him at the booth. Mister Taylor choked back a sob. "I can't do it anymore."
"What do you mean?" He knew. Of course he knew. He had walked right up to that moment. He had put the gun in his mouth. In the end, he had taken a more cowardly approach, killing himself with the booze and drugs.
"I can't go on without him--or her. I can't. At least when we didn't know, I had to stay around just to find out. But now what? I know. It doesn't make it better. Now what?"
"I know." Kraut had thought the truth would set him free. He had thought it would lift the burden off his heart so he could breathe again.
"I miss him so much."
"Me too."
"It's my fault. That's why she left me. It's my fault." Kraut shook his head. The man went on. "It was my decision. She was against it. He needed direction. We weren't able to discipline him. My wife was a pushover. I was gone at work all the time. They promised so much. I was just being lazy. Work was more important than my own kid. They never said something like this could happen."
"It's not your fault. You couldn't have known. Nobody did."
"I was his father. I should have asked the questions. I should have insisted. I should have worked on my family more and my stupid job less. All he wanted was my attention." Mister Taylor turned sad eyes on Kraut. "You said he was a good boy, never whined."
"Never."
"He whined all the time."
"Never." Kraut repeated, firmly. "He was a good boy and he never complained, worked hard."
"You gave him more attention than I ever did. You loved him better."
Kraut's heart hurt. The clouds had not cleared. Rainbows had not appeared. It had been one rough year, three hard months, and six lousy days, and the one thing he did not need now, right now, was a drink.
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