Alan gave up
but it was on his mind for a long time
I made a treasure of the deposit slip
kept it in a box
when Alan opened a bank account for me
I knew the slip of paper contained a code for a name
Alan left for two days in 1966
I could not find him
the car the sail boat the hidden house in the groves
At Playalinda Beach with some friends
I tried to forget him even though my heart felt like lead
my sweat like blood in the summer sun
my transparent skin the surface boiling
My friends saw Alan look for me from the top of the dunes
The straight stiff sea oats like his blonde hair
the mangrove matched his green pants
His face steamed red on top of the white shirt
I stayed in the deep water
hid behind the rolling waves and drifted north
He stood in the wind
diminished to an indistinguishable point in the landscape
I went home and the living room was quiet
I closed the door to my room
tried to remember every detail of that day
I knocked the papers from his desk
Impatient anxious eyes darted around my room
I waited for the anger to erupt through his skin
rip apart his clothes and melt the walls
I heard the sharp edge of his heels on the hardwood floors
the shuffle of my mother’s feet
There were no words
I had cut out his tongue
(plans)
I called to Julia from behind the orange trees
She would come out whispering my name
Brian Brian
I talked and she would listen
then I would refuse to talk until she spoke
We sat hip to hip
I left notes under a stone next to a stop sign at Palmetto and Dummitt
Later I left the note at the corner of Sycamore and Hopkins
I saw her change
She told me how her breasts hurt
how she bled
how her stomach cramped
She complained that it wasn’t fair that I got off so easy being a boy
She called me arrogant and rude once
I called her mean and prissy
Her mother told her
You got no business spending time with that boy
and later she told me I would pay a harsh price if I was caught with Julia
Alan said to stay away from places you don’t belong
Every time I asked Julia waited for me
When we were older we met at night
Cold winter nights
When grove workers roamed through the trees
recorded the temperature
set out heaters
Once we sat on top of a stack of old tires
our heads touched
Tears dropped from Julia’s eyes onto my arm
I was afraid to move
That night I looked in the mirror at home and touched my forehead
trying to remember the feel of her hair
the warmth of her breath
I was afraid of what she thought
I was devoted to the feeling of truth between us
we knew silence
we learned how to remain a secret
I loved her copper colored skin
next to my white
Julia told me that my father had plans
that he would not let little things get in the way
I was startled she knew this secret
then it became an anchor
that sank inside me
(a midnight visit)
I looked in the mirror
to see through the red eyes and the tears
No more notes in my locker
no more phone calls
I used the bank letterhead and envelope to write a note to Julia
Frank delivered it
Did Julia said anything to him
I asked to meet her at the packinghouse
I waited until midnight then left
At home the house was quiet
Claire waited for me in my room
Tell me where you’ve been
I waited
When she was angry there was always another question
Don’t you think you and I are at the stage where we can talk
It felt dangerous to talk
I could not see her eyes in the dark
You never talk to me about your father
I lied
I never ask because I don’t want to know He is just not relevant to me
Her body tensed
Harriet was the midwife that delivered you at home
Why did she tell me
Her hands started to reach out
I leaned forward into her arms
She felt soft very still
I sank into the black night of orange trees
(silence)
Mary Lee gave birth to Alan in 1923
She said he was always willing to work
and worked for his father every day he could
from the time he was fourteen
I sat on a long couch in the living room
her home looked out on the Indian River
I listened
She told me how Alan went to Rollins College
graduated in English
should have gone to law school
but came home to work with William
He wanted to enlist in the Marines
He bristled for a fight
to prove that he was just as strong
just as worthy a man
as men shipped off to Europe or the Pacific
He was jealous of the attention soldiers received
and resented William’s claim to the draft board
that he was essential to the war effort at home
because of the family’s citrus production
essential to the bank for selling war bonds
Alan never told Mary Lee what he thought about war
She told me a woman may bear a child she does not want
rear it without loving it
yet defend it with her life
She thought he kept to himself out of shyness
but she found he was secretive and vindictive
He cut her out of his life
She asked
Why does a grandmother speaking to a child tell secrets
perhaps because innocent ears will not condemn such selfish vulnerability
Until we speak the unspoken
we have not told the heart of the story
How can we live if we cannot believe who we are and who we have been
I sat on the couch and listened to each word turn inside me
She said Our silence rises to heaven too
(citrus and lumber)
Mary Lee said William could always depend on the fire Alan had for competition
He raced his car on Merritt Island along an empty stretch of SR 3
William was resigned to the fact
Alan might die young
Alan pushed himself in ways that William could not
Alan joined the Marines in 1945 too late for WWII
released after training because the war ended
William said there was no glory in the Marines during peace
Alan came home the wild and reckless
directed at William
then into the bank and the packinghouse
William left phone numbers advertisements newspapers on his desk
Alan planned
William rejected the plan
Mary Lee said there would be a reckoning
when Alan discovered the manipulation
She told me she said so
so I could hol
d her peace if she died before the reckoning
Alan was too smart not to figure it out
William said he was ready
that every hand eventually resents the one that fed it
just as he resented his father
sold all 30,000 acres of land not planted in citrus
sold long narrow parcels on the inter-coastal waterway
for roads and railroads and he gave up acres of timber
because he preferred citrus to lumber
William couldn’t trust someone who didn’t know himself
(24 hour)
William took money from the land sale
created the bank and a packinghouse
that Alan turned into a 24 hour operation
packing citrus from all the growers along the Indian River
Then Alan took over the bank and sold 40 percent of William’s stock
for 20 times the original capital investment
I saw William smile
when Alan told him they would only do three things
real estate citrus and banking for the next 50 years
William said he felt something like wholeness
Every Friday night Alan would sit down to dinner
with the managers of their business holdings
They ate smoked mullet coleslaw cornbread hushpuppies
while they looked at a map of Central Florida
Alan said he knew whatever they did it would not be enough
William said he didn’t want to die until they owned 20,000 acres of citrus
Mary Lee said fear of death came from not getting to be who you want to be
A week later
he sold half his remaining shares to Alan
decided to hunt and fish on Merritt Island for the rest of his life
He fell out of his boat on the river
got tangled in the lines and drowned at the age of 57
Grandma Mary Lee lived quietly through everything
We never heard her speak about William again
Frank and I were counting crates at the packinghouse
a bizarre day
Alan came wanted me to go with him to a bar
I said no I resented being told what to do all the time
He taunted me called me a sissy
Frank walked between us
Alan punched him in the chest
(the empty seat)
Mary Lee walked into William’s office at the bank
The back of his chair faced her
people walked by to look in
She just sat there
The books in his bookcase had the same brown binding
sat on a shelf behind glass doors
Mary Lee got up calm as ever
walked around William’s chair
stopped like she was admiring a sculpture
dropped down to her knees
put her head on the empty seat
After a few moments she walked out of his office
Alan locked the door and took her home
(dead eyes)
At the funeral
we looked at Mary Lee’s tears
tried to figure out why she was so sad on Christmas Eve
for a man in a casket that never had interest in her
and now he looked at her
I imagined
with the same dead eyes
(dare)
Alan would disappear behind his office door
work inside all day
I got crazy wanting out of there
He took me out of town to bars to get drunk
gave me the keys to the car
If he came back drunk he said
to hide the keys until he slept it off
made me swear to never tell anyone what I saw
or he would kill me
The first time I wet my pants in the back seat of the car
He had two lawyers who thought they knew what he owned
but they did not know each other
He dared me to say something to Claire after he beat me
made me give him the keys one night
from that night forward he would do anything in front of me
dared me to speak
He said I was too weak to judge him fairly
I hid in the back seat on the floor
wondered if his pain made him feel worthless
(Christmas morning)
I could see the bank on the opposite corner
The drugstore window display had True Crime and Modern Detective
with pictures of Nazis
women with bruised legs torn blouses
on metal tables with straps and chains
Inside Christmas decorations
cards and wrapping paper behind the cash register
everything on top of a glass counter bordered with fake snow
The light was on in Alan’s office
His car was on the side street
and I watched him leave by the font door
He turned north
drove slowly
He parked in front of the marina office
took out a small flat boat
His black pants black shoes and white shirt
starched white above the gray wood
and peeling paint on the boat
The motor spit and vibrated as it pushed Alan through the water
at the mouth of the marina
the last bit of calm water
that faced the Indian River
His tilted head and eyes bore down on his destination
(not being)
I told Julia my dreams to impress her with the strangeness of my mind
She just said I was arrogant
like other white folks
The next day my eyes filled with tears
when I thought of her
She said I was trying to put myself on a level above her
I resented her words
because they made me loathe myself
I told myself I could take it
I could take it from my father or anyone else
but not Julia
I picked her up in my car late at night
We sat in the dunes on Merritt Island next to the Banana River
We smoked a cigarette and had a can of beer
a weekend ritual
She said I never asked about my father
because I didn’t want to know
I said no one knows their father
We looked at the glow of Titusville in the distance
and watched the road
to see if anyone approached through the orange trees
I felt air rush by my ears
I swayed as if the dunes were elephants walking
each step rocked me back and forth
the gray sandy hide blended into the dark shapes of the trees
Julia sat with her back against mine
I could feel her exhale the smoke
put out the cigarette and cover it with sand
She said she wanted to go and we did
even though I wanted to stay with her until morning
After I left I felt like running back to her
That night I dreamed of running back
I reached forward with my arms
to touch her shoulder
As she turned toward me I woke
(fish oil)
Frank and I went to Henry’s house and acted like jerks
convinced him to give us a few bottles
or we would tell on him
I hoped to see Julia but no
The bottles did not have a label
The glass had a layer of sand and it smelled like Henry
I opened it and a sweet orange fragrance filled the car
After two swallows I felt nausea
then light-headed
silliness
exactly like drinking too much cough syrup
My moveme
nts were slow
I tried to watch myself but stumbled
and I began to wonder when the feeling would go away
then paranoia that I would be forever in a cloud of fuzzyness
I went to the marina and stood on the dock
the water sloshed around the pier and nausea came
until I sat down and stared at the sky
We had fish that we caught using a net on the river
We made a fire in the orange grove put a stick
through the mouth of the gutted mullet
and roasted it like a marshmallow until the skin was crispy black
I peeled the skin off took a knife
pushed the flesh through the bones onto a paper plate
One of the fish had sat on the bottom of the boat near the gas tank
it smelled like oil
Flies covered the fish heads and guts on the ground while we ate
We could not figure out if Henry’s brew was moonshine or wine
but it kicked hard and left you with a headache
worse if you drank it on an empty stomach
Frank put the oil tasting fish back on the flames and it caught on fire
We laughed so hard our stomachs cramped and I threw up
(bone rattling sharp)
Frank has blindingly beautiful eyes that suddenly open wide
when he sees my eyes
He greets me this way
I represent the world that is too big for him
too hard too full of conflict and rage
But really the world is too small for him
He carries wisdom in his body
wisdom he cannot speak
All of our lives we took turns
to stand between Alan and the other
He is innocent I am not
he turns away I charge in
He sits quiet and still like a rock that will not be moved
I climb up and strike at everything within my reach
He channels his energy into excellence in sports and academics
I spend my energy on hopeless struggles against Alan
We expect nothing from the other and get everything
We expect nothing from Alan
We share the same skin brown with scars and scratches
His hair is blonde mine is dirty brown
He combs his hair mine is short
There are times I want to crawl into him and shout
so he will listen when I say get out of here leave
Alan’s cruelty slides off of him only glancing blows
I feel the blows deep in my core
bone rattling sharp
We sat down together and cried before he left home for school
He was afraid there would be no one to protect me from Alan
I worried he would lose the chance to leave
I feared one lapse of judgment for him would create a life with only foolish choices
Get out while Alan’s defenses were low
to something beyond charred tires
burning to heat the orange groves
the stacked pallets that haul fertilizer
beyond the ledgers in the bank
In Frank there is no justice in love
nothing in proportion to cruelty or suffering
nothing that can restore what is lost
nor able to glimpse the incomprehensible reality of the past
or long for a different future
I wished the blank stare in those eyes
somehow held the new being
the hope I held in a sharp fragile place
(white sand traps)
I was foolish enough to tag along behind Alan on the golf course
drove the golf cart
kept score
put away the clubs
Lake water smelled like insecticide
Under the surface golf balls sat out of focus
out of reach
The men stopped talking when I arrived
until one afternoon
on the eighteenth hole someone missed a putt and yelled Fuck
Everyone looked at Alan and he smiled
From that moment forward I was invisible
and the topics were not so strange
just filled with shit fuck damn ass words
that Frank and I yelled when we were alone
Then I saw the golf pro at Whispering Hills Country Club
kiss a woman next to the entrance of the locker rooms
She turned away
He told me that no one needed to know what I saw
I did not want white sand traps
lakes without fish and mowed grass with dead insects
(the last detail)
I stole Alan’s sailboat when I was fifteen
just walked out on the dock
lifted the ropes
hopped on
left the mast and sail bundled
started the motor
pulled into the center of Nelson’s marina
water like glass with paisley designs
green from motor oil and diesel fuel
The sailboat slid over the water
toward a light chop of waves in the inter-coastal waterway
I chose a path between the tide markers
and passed the buoy that marked the channel
I felt alert
I stole the sailboat because the facts of my life
were prepared by him
and because of this he thought he knew me
All the props and all the processes
described instituted and controlled by him
Because of this he confused his inner life with my inner life
Alan fed this life to me long ago
He believed it remained in me
and grew into a castle that resembled his
so close that anything that made sense to him on the outside
would make sense to my inside
so I stole his boat
After I sailed down river for an hour
I planned to wreck the boat and burn it
I wanted to take something away from him
This man who took all of his facts and fed them to me
filled in my life with his feelings
his opinions
his assumptions
There was no room for me in the space I occupied
I could do anything
When the last detail was imagined
I began
(bottom mud)
I steered sharp to the left
throttled the engine
I hoped that the speed of the boat
the current the angle
would lodge it firmly in place
impossible to move
I fell hard against the