How to Make a Brother
The sun shone bright and blinding and was reflected by the calm morning sea below. It had not adhered to the slowness of the early day and made it fatiguing to wait at the station hungover and with no shade. Before the station stretched a long beach and the heat rose off the beach in waves, and it was difficult to know if there was water or only more sand and sky.
The two sat inside the station awhile in silence. There was a humming chatter and bustle and urgency. The other passengers’ aversion made them stale and sweaty, and their bags made them sweaty, though they sat on the ground next to the two. Only the sound of the passing regular metro eased them.
“This heat is unbearable,” the younger one said.
He watched as passengers shoved by each other to board the crowded metro. A few were in the way of the automatic doors and were pushed out cursing. Five minutes later another one would come, empty.
“Ain’t that bad,” the older said. “Just got to accept it. Besides, it’s still early in the summer.”
“This is an awful place,” the younger said.
“Have a beer. It’ll fix your ache at least.”
“I’m done doing that.”
“Your choice. I’m having one,” the older said. He left the station and crossed the road to the opposite side and into an alimentación. It was dark and cool with the blinds drawn. A slow fan swiveled on the counter and the owner was hidden behind the morning paper.
“Hola, Marik,” the older said.
“Ah, mi amigo. How are you?” Marik said.
“I’m wonderful.”
“A beautiful day, no?” said Marik as he placed two tall cans of beer on the counter.
“After these, it’s sure to be,” said the older.
Marik smiled and refused the older’s money. “It is too early to bother with that.”
“I will see you soon, my friend.”
The older left and came back to the station with the two beers. The younger took one.
“Better?” asked the older.
The younger said nothing, just sipped the beer and looked at the clock hanging above the ticket office at the other end. A line had formed at the booth below.
It took the lone clerk some time to work through the line. The station kept warming and when halfway through the line, he went to prop open the doors to the platform and let the air in.
“We’ve been here for ages,” the younger said. “Seems like the clock hasn’t moved at all.”
“It’s broken,” the older said. “See?” He showed him his watch. “It’s been thirty minutes.”
“Don’t be an ass, I knew that,” said the younger.
“Sure.”
The older rolled a cigarette and smoked until the younger asked for one. He gave it to him and rolled another.
“It’ll be a fine swim this afternoon,” the older said. “Don’t you think so?”
“Not for me,” said the younger.
“Every day’s a time not worth missing a swim.”
“‘Cept today or the next or the ones after that.”
“And yesterday?” said the older.
“Shut up,” said the younger.
“Water’ll take the heat away quick.”
“You aren’t dumb,” said the younger, “but you’re close to lettin’ on you are.”
The older laughed. He put out his cigarette and pulled a bottle of wine from his bag and winked at the younger.
“Too bad you already did,” he said.
“Did what?” said the younger.
“Let on.”
“I told you to shut up.”
The clerk had cleared the line and was standing on the threshold of the platform. The sun had hightended. Passengers for the inter-city train now lined against the outside of the station windows in the small strip of shade. The metro kept coming and going, sometimes crowded and angry, sometimes empty and cool.
“Take a drink,” the older said, lifting the bottle to the younger. “It’s dangerous to drink wine with a sun like this.”
The younger turned his head away. “I said I’m done.”
“You know it’s the way we go. Makes you a good sport.” The older took a swig from the bottle. “Don’t you remember Paris?”
“I’m finished with Paris and I’m finished here,” said the younger.
“But not finished with your beer, surely?”
“That too.”
“Be a good sport. Come on.”
“Game’s over.”
“You would think of it all as a game,” the older said. “And even if it were, why would you want to do some damned thing like this?”
“You didn’t leave me no choice.”
“Choice is right here,” the older said, lifting the bottle again.
“Not at this point.”
“You are a fool.”
“How would you know?”
“‘Cuz there ain’t no sense in it. Thing happens all the time.”
“Ain’t happen to you,” the younger said. Sweat dripped down his brow and his eyes began to water and strain to keep open.
“I got it bad too, kid,” the older said. “Don’t think it’s only you got aches.”
“Then why you look the way you do?”
“‘Cuz I won.”
The younger hobbled up from the floor where the bags and his brother lay and went to the clerk. The older watched as the clerk and the younger gestured and sometimes spoke. Outside, strangers had been meeting and sweating, laughing. He thought of his other brother, his friend as well as his brother, and missed him very much. Maybe it just weren’t meant to work, he thought.
“What do I say?” the younger asked.
“What?” said the older.
“What do I say? I don’t know Spanish.”
The older did not know Spanish but told the younger the right thing to ask the clerk. A moment later the younger came back with his ticket.
“Ain’t know nobody dealt with it this way,” the older said.
“What do you care,” the younger said.
“Because it’s stupid, your doing. I know plenty got over it the right way. The clean way.” He thought of the other, the one not here. He’d been to hell. And sure as hell or heaven he didn’t gripe. “Like family.”
“Family?”
“Yes.”
“Not like you’re family.”
“Now you shut your mouth!”
“Not like you’re my brother anymore.”
“You are a damned fool. Don’t you even know how to make a brother?”
The sun was directly above now and the two gathered their bags and walked to the turnstyle. The older brother slid the ticket through the scanner and when the doors opened, he shoved the younger through. He motioned to come to the side near the door to the platform. Outside the other passengers were waiting. The platform was excited and the younger and older met on either side of the gate still inside the station.
“Easiest thing you ever done,” the older said. “Train comes in a couple of minutes. Catch it straight to the airport and you’re home safe.”
The younger brother looked down and said nothing.
“You got your plane ticket right?” asked the older.
“But I don’t want to be home safe,” the younger said.
The older checked the clock. Two minutes. The others had gathered their things and stepped out of the shade to the edge of the platform.
“I don’t want to be home,” the younger said. “It’s not home back there.”
“I’m right here.”
“But I can’t.”
“Your choice.”
“It’s not. I just can’t.”
“It is your choice.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Jump back over.”
“I can’t.”
“Jump back over and toss that fucking ticket and let’s keeping talking and moving on to the next town together. This is nothing but your choice. Ain’t even that hot yet,” the older brother said.
“It’s too much for me,” the younger said.
“It’s not. Come on.”
“I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t.”
“Then don’t.”
“But I’m breaking your heart.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Goodbye,” the older said.
“Don’t say it like that,” said the younger.
“Come back over then and don’t think anymore about it. This ain’t got nothing to do with no one but you, seeing how many brothers I got; damned fool.”
“I can’t be that.”
The younger brother turned and went through the doors to the platform. The train pulled into the station quick and hot and not noticing the two. He turned before getting onto the train and the older saw the tears and the hurt and meanness and how so he wished and wanted, and then he was gone in the train, and then the older had the hurt and meanness and want. And he had something else, ugliness, a new ugliness. It was a bad ugly, mean and cruel and capable, and the train left.
Benjamin Ebert is a traveling writer currently based out of New Orleans