Stepbrother Fallen (2 page)
Read Stepbrother Fallen Online
Authors: Aya Fukunishi
with me. In the eight years since Karl married mom I've only ever
been given the PG13 version of his past, but over the years -
thanks to Google, and the fact that he doesn't really know enough
about the Internet to cover his tracks - I've built up a pretty
clear picture of the life dad led before he became the 40-something
couch potato I know and love; before he became a guy who spends so
much time watching ESPN that you could print a 3D replica of him
using just the ass imprint he's left in his favorite armchair.
Karl Moriarty was, once upon a time... well, kinda cool. He
spent most of his twenties as the lead singer of a Seattle grunge
band called The Nut Monkeys, often playing on the same bill as
bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden. By the time Nirvana broke
through to the big leagues with
Nevermind
Karl shared an apartment with Dave Grohl,
and though Grohl tried to pull Karl along for the ride The Nut
Monkeys never quite managed to break into the mainstream (I tracked
down one of their live recordings, and I can understand why. They
were just
awful).
one-sided rivalry with Kurt Cobain, who he believed had stolen the
spotlight that should have shone on his own crappy band, and
watching Nirvana knock Michael Jackson off the top of the billboard
chart while his own band was still playing to a dozen drunks for
beer money was just too much to bear. Dad accepted defeat, hung up
his guitar, bought a suit and, like so many frustrated musicians
before him, got a job as an A&R man for Geffen Records,
traveling the country to scout talent.
punk band called The Fucking Loud Noises. From the few pictures I
found online it was obvious she'd been pretty damned beautiful - or
would have been, if she'd taken out the massive nose ring, grown
out her pink mohawk and stopped giving the finger to any camera
pointed in her direction.
married. Dad never explained what really happened next, and the
Internet hadn't been of much help. The Fucking Loud Noises never
went further than small shows in venues with sticky, beer-soaked
floors and no fire exits, which meant that Mia barely existed
according to the Internet of the 1990s.
All I know for sure is that the marriage went south almost
as soon as it had begun, and Mia filed for divorce and left as soon
as the papers were signed. Dad once described it as a
beautiful,
wonderful mistake
, and assured me that he didn't regret a thing, but I've
always suspected that's the kind of flowery crap parents only say
after they've had about a couple of decades to recover from the
stabbing, breathless pain of young love and loss. It's a line
straight out of the
Big Book of Bullshit for Kids,
basically.
for Mia. She vanished from the face of the earth – something that
was probably pretty easy before Facebook – and until the phone rang
it seemed as if she'd just gone up in a puff of smoke on a cold day
in the fall of 1996.
stopped dating crazy, screwed up musicians and fell in love with
mom, a woman who wore sensible shoes and always paid the bills on
time. In the years since then any trace of his rock and roll past
have been erased. The angry young man wielding his guitar became a
mild-mannered, graying at the temples executive, his stage replaced
with an office, his microphone with a laptop, and the lines of
suspicious white powder with an addiction to cable sports channels
and nice, comfortable chairs.
changed in an instant.
more than a stack of records and a grudge. He had no idea she was
pregnant, of course, and whatever had caused her to leave him had
made her angry enough not to tell him even after she'd given birth
to his son. From what little the public defender had been able to
piece together, it seemed Mia had gotten together with another guy
shortly after her son, Rafe, was born. She'd lived with Rafe and
this dude for many years somewhere in New York before moving to
Colorado where, three years ago, Mia Stone had taken her own
life.
details from there, but it appeared Mia's partner hadn't been in
the picture since New York, and after Mia's death Rafe refused to
so much as give the name of the man who'd raised him. Without any
public records – Rafe's birth certificate was nowhere to be found,
and the boy himself wasn't telling – and without any extended
family to fall back on Rafe had been shuffled from foster home to
foster home around the state.
convictions on his juvenile record, mostly small stuff that just
earned him a slap on the wrist: trespassing, vandalism, petty theft
and the like. A couple of times he'd been thrown out of foster
homes after getting into fist fights with the other kids, but no
criminal charges had ever been filed.
birthday, he'd been caught driving a car that belonged to his
current foster parents. The car had been reported stolen hours
earlier, and by the time Rafe was found behind the wheel he was
halfway across the state, the front passenger seat littered with
empty beer cans. He'd told the cops he'd been trying to drive to
some gig in Denver.
complicated, and where dad got dragged in to the ungodly mess.
Rafe's foster parents refused to take him back, and the judge who
was due to hear the case decided that – despite the fact that Rafe
was only 17 when he committed the crime – he'd be tried as an
adult. Rafe's string of arrests for petty crimes had convinced the
judge that this was an escalating problem, and without a stable
family environment to help bring him back in line the judge figured
the shock of jail might finally scare him straight.
that caused Rafe to finally reach out for help. After three years
of silence he finally produced a tattered, dog eared copy of his
original birth certificate, listing Karl Moriarty as his biological
father.
certainly never seen the birth certificate, much less signed it,
but as soon as the public defender sent a copy of Rafe's mugshot he
knew it was the truth. Rafe was his son.
denying it. I've seen lots of pictures of dad as a younger man,
back before he cut off his long hair, went gray and gained eight
inches around his waist, and Rafe is pretty much a carbon copy of
the brooding young musician: tall and muscular, with thick eyebrows
arched over a set of piercing blue eyes, and a messy mop of golden
brown hair that looks like it hasn't seen a comb in a decade.
wasn't a photo of a young version of Karl was by the three day
stubble – dad has never been able to grow a beard – and a small,
tear-shaped scar beneath Rafe's left eye. Other than that the
resemblance is uncanny.
was willing to drop the grand theft auto charge, a felony that
would land Rafe in county jail for at least a year, and pretty much
destroy any prospect of a normal life, and instead charge him with
joyriding and release him on probation, but only if dad was willing
to take him in and give him some sort of stable home life.
proposed that Rafe come and live with us. The idea of inviting a
known criminal into her home terrified her, obviously. It was clear
from the get go that she pretty much assumed Rafe would steal her
Jeep the first chance he got, and for days she flat out refused to
entertain the proposal.
dad's insistence that he owes it to the kid to give him a fighting
chance. She still makes no secret of the fact that she thinks it's
a terrible idea, but she's managed to accept the slim possibility
that Rafe might not be evil incarnate. He might not pull out a can
of spray paint and tag the front door the moment he arrives. He
might just be a mixed up kid who's been through too much for
someone his age to handle.
and failing to hide her worry from us, growing more erratic and
jittery by the day. Now, just a couple of hours before Rafe is due
to arrive, she's finally reached boiling point. She's clearing the
house of anything valuable that might prove too great a temptation
for a light-fingered criminal.
something entirely different on my mind. Something that has
occupied my thoughts for every moment since I first saw Rafe's
mugshot on dad's cellphone, and something that, if I'm being
honest, freaks me the fuck out whenever I think about it.
It was his eyes that did it. From the moment I saw Rafe's
photo I haven't been able to get them out of my mind. I've tried as
hard as I can, but those piercing blue eyes have been seared into
my retinas, as if I've stared too long at the sun. They're burned
into my memory, and every time I close my eyes I can see them
looking back at me... looking into me. Even on the tiny screen of
dad's cellphone, in a photo taken with a shitty camera in the back
room of a police station, those eyes cut through to the depths of
my soul. They make me melt... make me feel like there's a tight,
hot ball of energy building in my belly. More worrying than
anything else, they... shit, it feels weird even thinking this...
they make me as wet as
fuck.
front door, and I'll see them in real life.
Damn,
this is gonna be awkward.
voice tinny and hollow through the phone's speaker.
pillowcase while I try to think of an answer Penny won't be able to
ridicule, but come up with zip. "I don't know, clothes? A pink
sweater. What does it matter?"
try and tell me you don't want to look your best when he meets you.
I wasn't born yesterday, you know. I've seen the way you look when
you talk about him. You're hot for Rafe. Don't deny it."
"I am
not
hot for him, Pen! He's my stepbrother! How could you even
say that? It's gross!" Even as I speak I know I'm overdoing the
shocked denial a little too much. She knows me too well to fall for
that shit.
wrong. It's sick and wrong. Totally." She pauses for a moment. "But
you still want to suck his dick, right?"
could have heard that. Just... just cool it, OK?"
collapses into a fit of giggles. I really wish I'd never mentioned
that thing about Rafe's eyes. I should have known Penny would make
the most of it. She's been my best friend since the first day of
middle school, despite the fact that we seem to have absolutely
nothing in common, and one of the countless ways she differs from
me is in her attitude to sex. The girl's obsessed. She lost her
virginity at 15 to some Italian douche on vacation, and since then
sex has been the only thing on her mind. I often wonder what she
even gets out of our friendship, because I always shut her down
when the subject drifts to penis talk.
sittin' in a tree, F. U. --"
I almost drop the phone in my rush to hang up, then wait a
few beats for what I know is coming. Penny's so predictable I could
count it down.
5... 4... 3... 2...
I sigh and set the phone on the beside table. My cheeks are
burning, but I know Penny's right. I
have
been worrying about what to wear. I've already
changed five times in the last hour, and though I'd settled on my
cutest pink sweater I'm now worrying that it looks a little too
preppy. A little too conservative
.