Pat Cadigan - My Brother's Keeper

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The Master of Rampling Gate

My Brother's Keeper

Pat Cadigan

All this happened a long time ago. Exactly when doesn't matter, not

in a time when you can smoke your coke and Mommy and Daddy

lock their grass in the liquor cabinet so Junior can't toke up at their

expense. I used to think of it as a relevant episode, from a time

when lots of things were relevant. It wasn't long before everyone

got burned out on relevance. Hey, don't feel too guilty, bad, smug,

perplexed. There'll be something else, you know there will. It's

coming in, right along with your ship.

In those days, I was still in the midst of my triumphant rise out of

the ghetto (not all white chicks are found under a suburb). I was still

energized and revelling at the sight of upturned faces beaming at

me, saying, "Good luck, China, you're gonna be something some

day!" as I floated heavenward attached to a college scholarship. My

family's pride wore out some time after my second visit home.

Higher education was one thing, high-mindedness was another. I

was puffed up with delusions of better and my parents kept sticking

pins in me, trying to make the swelling go down so they could see

me better. I stopped going home for a while. I stopped writing, too.

But my mother's letters came as frequently as ever: Your sister Rose

is pregnant again, pray God she doesn't lose this one, it could kill

her; your sister Aurelia is skipping school, running around, I wish

you'd come home and talk to her; and your brother Joe… your

brother Joe… your brother Joe.

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The Master of Rampling Gate

My brother Joe. As though she had to identify him. I had one

brother and that was Joe. My brother Joe, the original lost boy.

Second oldest in the family, two years older than me, first to put a

spike in his arm. Sometimes we could be close, Joe and me,

squeezed between the brackets of Rose and Aurelia. He was a

boner, the lone male among the daughters. Chip off the old block.

Nature's middle finger to my father.

My brother Joe, the disposable man. He had no innate talents, not

many learned skills other than finding a vein. He wasn't good-

looking and junkies aren't known for their scintillating personalities

or their sexual prowess or their kind and generous hearts. The

family wasn't crazy about him; Rose wouldn't let him near her kids,

Aurelia avoided him. Sometimes I wasn't sure how deep my love

for him went. Junkies need love but they need a fix more. Between

fixes, he could find the odd moment to wave me goodbye from the

old life.

Hey, Joe, I'd say. What the hell, huh?

If you have to ask, babe, you don't really want to know. Already

looking for another vein. Grinning with the end of a belt between

his teeth.

My brother Joe was why I finally broke down and went home

between semesters instead of going to suburban Connecticut with

my room-mate. Marlene had painted me a bright picture of scenic

walks through pristine snow, leisurely shopping trips to boutiques

that sold Mucha prints and glass beads, and then, hot chocolate by

the hearth, each of us wrapped in an Afghan crocheted by a

grandmother with prematurely red hair and an awful lot of money.

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The Master of Rampling Gate

Marlene admitted her family was far less relevant than mine, but

what were vacations for? I agreed and was packing my bag when

Joe's postcard arrived.

Dear China, They threw me out for the last time. That was all, on

the back of a map of Cape Cod. Words were something else not at

his command. But he'd gone to the trouble of buying a stamp and

sending it to the right address.

The parents had taken to throwing him out the last year I'd lived at

home. There hadn't been anything I could do about it then and I

didn't know what Joe thought I could do about it now but I called it

off with Marlene anyway. She said she'd leave it open in case I

could get away before classes started again. Just phone so Mummy

could break out the extra linens. Marlene was a good sort. She

survived relevance admirably. In the end, it was hedonism that got

her.

I took a bus home, parked my bag in a locker in the bus station and

went for a look around. I never went straight to my parents'

apartment when I came back. I had to decompress before I went

home to be their daughter, the stuck-up college snot-nose.

It was already dark and the temperature well south of freezing. Old

snow lined the empty streets. You had to know where to look for

the action in winter. Junkies wore coats for only as long as it took to

sell them. What the hell, junkies were always cold anyway. I toured;

no luck. It was late enough that anyone wanting to score already had

and was nodding off somewhere. Streep's Lunch was one place to

go after getting loaded, so I went there.

Streep's wasn't even half full, segregated in the usual way —

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The Master of Rampling Gate

straights by the windows, hopheads near the juke-box and toilets,

cops and strangers at the U-shaped counter in the middle. Jake

Streep didn't like the junkies but he didn't bother them unless they

nodded out in the booths. The junkies tried to keep the juke-box

going so they'd stay awake but apparently no one had any quarters

right now. The black and purple machine (Muzik Master) stood

silent, its lights flashing on and off inanely.

Joe wasn't there but some of his friends were crammed into a booth,

all on the nod. They didn't notice me come in any more than they

noticed Jake Streep was just about ready to throw them out. Only

one of them seemed to be dressed warmly enough; I couldn't place

him. I just vaguely recognized the guy he was half leaning on. I slid

into the booth next to the two people sitting across from them, a

lanky guy named Farmer and Stacey, who functioned more like his

shadow than his girlfriend. I gave Farmer a sharp poke in the ribs

and kicked one of the guys across from me. Farmer came to life

with a grunt, jerking away from me and rousing Stacey.

"I'm awake, chrissakes." Farmer's head bobbed while he tried to get

me in focus. A smile of realization spread across his dead face. "Oh.

China. Hey, wow." He nudged Stacey. "It's China."

"Where?" Stacey leaned forward heavily. She blinked at me several

times, started to nod out again and revived. "Oh. Wow. You're back.

What happened?" She smeared her dark hair out of her face with

one hand.

"Someone kicked me," said the guy I vaguely knew. I recognized

him now. George Something-Or-Other. I'd gone to high school with

him.

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The Master of Rampling Gate

"Classes are out," I told Stacey.

Perplexed, she started to fade away.

"Vacation," I clarified.

"Oh. Okay." She hung on Farmer's shoulder as though they were in

deep water and she couldn't swim. "You didn't quit?"

"I didn't quit."

She giggled. "That's great. Vacation. We never get vacation. We

have to be us all the time."

"Shut up." Farmer made a half-hearted attempt to push her away.

"Hey. You kick me?" asked George Whoever, scratching his face.

"Sorry. It was an accident. Anyone seen Joe lately?"

Farmer scrubbed his cheek with his palm. "Ain't he in here?" He

tried to look around. "I thought…" His bloodshot gaze came back to

me blank. In the act of turning his head, he'd forgotten what we

were talking about.

"Joe isn't here. I checked."

"You sure?" Farmer's head dropped. "Light's so bad in here, you

can't see nothing, hardly."

I pulled him up against the back of the seat. "I'm sure, Farmer. Do

you remember seeing him at all lately?"

His mouth opened a little. A thought was struggling through the

warm ooze of his mind. "Oh. Yeah, yeah. Joe's been gone a couple

days." He rolled his head around to Stacey. "Today Thursday?"

Stacey made a face. "Hey, do I look like a fuckin' calendar to you?"

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Pat Cadigan - My Brother's Keeper

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