Two Weeks Before:
Merle was in a bad mood.
He was sprawled on the couch just as he'd fallen there—arms and legs all over the place. His feet were dangling over the worn arm of the sofa. He'd stained the torn fabric with his muddy boots, and was tapping at the air nervously with the soles while he stared at the ceiling. There was a plastic bag of something on his chest. As Daryl stood looking out from his bedroom doorway, he couldn't tell what exactly he had in it.
It was hard to get used to Merle again, since he'd been out on parole. Their daddy died last year, so it was just the two of them. Merle laughed the one time he said it, but it was like there was a ghost in the house. In the creaking walls. The old man's presence echoed off the bare floorboards at night. His old skin mags turned up rumpled under the chair cushions. An empty pack of his Winstons still perched on top of the broken television, covered with dust. His boots were tumbled on their sides by the doorway. As if he'd come back in any minute, but never did.
So when Merle got caught with one of those plastic bags in his coat, and his luck with the fine Georgia legal system ran out, it was just Daryl in the house. It had seemed empty. Empty, but quiet—even peaceful.
In the end, it was a good time. He'd done a fair number of odd jobs around town, and spent long days roaming the woods. He tracked a very fine buck— followed the thing for a whole weekend before bagging it and heading home. The rack, still on the bleached skull, hung from a nail on the porch. He was proud of that buck.
And he was able to get some more steady work, and he'd made some cash, which he kept in a box under his bed. Merle didn't know about that money. It was safe. Sometimes he thought of what he might do with it. Get the fuck out of town and never look back. Get a bike of his own. Fix it up how he wanted. Head out somewhere.
He could go see the ocean.
If he did take that box out from under his bed—if he walked out the door and took off into town, he wouldn't have to stop there. He could just keep on going. And wouldn't have to tell Merle where he ended up.
But for now, he wasn't going anywhere. From the door, he stood still, watching his brother's face. Merle was far, far away. Bottles strewn everywhere, the plastic bag rumpled on his chest. He stared at the ceiling like he could read something there.
If Daryl was quiet, he might be able to get around him and out of the house before Merle came to himself—sparing them both a considerable headache. He stepped out from the door. Immediately, Merle stirred, then bellowed out at the ceiling.
"Little brother!"
Daryl didn't look at him. He just kept walking.
"DARYL!"
He walked by fast, ignored him. Pushed the screen door open. The warm spring air hit him all at once, and the smell of the grass.
He set out fast, didn't want to deal with Merle's shit for once. He crossed the narrow dirt road, with the tall grass crowding down the middle. The ruts of the tires were embedded in the dust. He pushed through the stand of mountain laurels at the far side—off near the Tucker place—their only neighbors on a dead-end dirt road.
The Tuckers were fighting. Again. He could hear the shouts over the sound of the television, turned up high to cover it. As if the Dixons would judge.
He hesitated a moment, but, in the end, he kept going. It was their own damn business and none of his. Something broke against a wall inside the doublewide as he pushed through the dense foliage.
The branches closed behind him like a curtain.
Just like that, he was in the woods. It surrounded him in an instant, and the sounds of the trucks from the main road hushed. The tv blaring out from the Tucker's grew quiet. It was in the background. It wasn't important anymore. All of that out on the street was gone.
Before he knew it, he was up in the giant old maple on the crest of the slope. The wide leaves encircled him where he perched, up high in the branches. They filtered the afternoon light—late and long and warm on his skin. He was tense. He clung to the branches with both arms, crouched there forty feet above the ground.
He was always good at climbing trees. And this was one of his favorites—the one he liked to climb when he was twelve. He'd carved a girl's name in it once. Just to see it written there in the living bark. But he scraped it away after. No point in being a pussy.
He looked over his shoulder, checking one more time to make sure Merle hadn't followed him. It was stupid. Merle was too high to stand up. But if he saw, he'd laugh pretty damn hard to see his little brother hiding up here like a girl. And Daryl knew how it'd go. He'd try to knock Merle's teeth in, and they would just keep rolling until they were both a bloody mess on the forest floor.
But Daryl knew he'd have to come down eventually, like when he was a kid. But for now, he listened to a brown thrasher whistling in the bushes below. He'd go hunting tomorrow. Spend the whole day outside from the first light. If he was lucky, he wouldn't see another person until he had to go home again. He only really felt alright when he was alone.
A slamming door broke him out of his daydreaming. His head darted in that direction. A scream pierced the quiet. The brown thrasher stopped midsong.
Tears. Hard laughter. A scuffle.
"Yeah bitch, you better run!"
Billy Tucker's voice. Merle's buddy—one of a group of guys whose nighttime activities you'd best not ask about.
Billy married little Janie Reed—now Janie Tucker. She was a good ten years younger than Daryl—and even younger than the rest of the crowd. She'd been the girl with the pigtails who followed her big brothers home from grade school, who ended up running with the bad boys out by the train tracks when she was a couple years older. He wasn't sure, but Daryl thought she might have carried on with Merle a little one summer, years back before she'd quit high school. She and Billy moved into the old doublewide last year, right around when Daryl's old man died. He first heard it from Merle that she was pregnant. Now it was obvious to anyone who looked at her.
The branches shook as someone else pushed through them. It was little Janie, in tears, with a laurel leaf caught in her tangled hair.
She struggled through, looking behind her to make sure he wasn't following. But Billy was still at home. Probably gone back inside. And then the television cut out into silence, proving it.
She collapsed on the soft grass, right at the forest edge. He could see her clearly from his perch. She was gasping for air with heavy sobs, clutching her arms around herself in a desperate hug. Her belly was large under her yellow sundress.
"Oh Jesus," she said, then fell silent. He felt strange watching her, but couldn't turn away. He clung tight to the tree branches and watched her cry.
"Oh Jesus…"
She was praying. His stomach churned, the moment was broken, and he looked away fast. He didn't want to see this. But he could still hear.
"Jesus, tell me. There's got to be some way out of here."
The thrasher started to sing again.
It was a good half hour before she calmed herself. And she sat in the soft grass, picking at leaves. The sun went down, casting blue light over her pale arms. And he knew she was waiting as long as possible to go home.
It was spring, but it got cold fast at night. It wouldn't be long. He waited for her to leave, so he could light down from his roost and head back home. He waited a long time.
Finally, she stood up, paced around on the moss. He noticed her feet were bare. Breathing deeply, she tightened her jaw and walked back through the laurels. Calmly, with straight shoulders. As if she'd be alright when she came out the other side.
After a good amount of time, he followed suit. His legs were stiff as he dropped to the ground. He'd been crouching up there for over two hours.
The evening was cool and quiet. The stars were coming out. He looked up at Orion, disappearing fast from the sky. Summer was coming.
Down the road, at the dead end, there was a light on in the old house. Merle was up.
As he opened the door, a bottle smashed against the wall to his left. Merle was up, and he was throwing things.
Merle had made it to the floor from the couch since the sun set. He was surrounded by empties. Their daddy's old transistor radio was playing in the background, ignored. It was a news bulletin.
"Reports of mass rioting are coming in from the major metropolitan areas surrounding Boston and New York."
They both ignored it. Had nothing to do with them.
"Don't come when you're called no more, bro. What you doin' with yourself all day? Didn't know better, I'd say you were up in that tree like when you were yay high,"
Merle gestured one-handed, turned, tried to sit up, and slumped back against the floor.
As yet the cause of the unrest is unclear, but similar, uncomfirmed reports are emerging out of western Europe and northern Africa this evening."
"Yeah bro. I'd say you were up there like you used to, cryin' out your tender feelings to the angels."
"Don't matter where I was," Daryl said, giving him a sidelong glance as he stepped over the broken glass and beer stained floorboards. Even by Dixon standards, the room was a mess. But he'd worry about that later. For now, he would barricade himself in his room and wait for Merle to dry out before putting things to rights.
He had to step over his brother to get to the door. And he reached out and clutched at his ankle.
"If you are a resident of the affected areas of the northeast, stay calm. At this time the areas of disruption remain localized."
"Where you goin'? Don't wanna spend any time with old Merle no more? It's a cold damn fucking reception after where I been the last six months."
"I'll sit with ya, Merle—in the mornin' when you're sensible."
"Nah, sit with me now, bro," he said, smiling a bright smile—like a child's—and looking up with glassy eyes.
"If you are in an affected area, do not travel unless absolutely necessary. Under no circumstances should you move on foot. National guard units are containing the violence and advise you to stay inside your homes."
Merle shrugged.
"We got things to catch up on."
It was then Daryl noticed the blood on Merle's hand, where he was holding him tight by the ankle. It was running from the palm out onto Daryl's jeans.
He crouched down, took Merle's hand by the wrist. It was full of broken glass.
"Fuck Merle, what you do to yourself this time?"
"Them bottles break easy, little brother. Like… like fucking butterfly wings."
Daryl sighed. When he was really far gone, he was prone to waxing poetical.
"You sit there a minute, I'll be back."
He got a few towels, ran some clean water. Found some peroxide in the back of the bathroom cabinet. His daddy's old swiss army knife had a pair of tweezers in the handle. He rummaged through drawers in the kitchen for it while listening to Merle sing under his breath.
"We will interrupt further programming as information becomes available."
On his way by, Daryl shut the radio off.
And so he knelt down next to his brother, and took his hand. He picked out the glass, bit by bit, and washed and wrapped the cuts. And his brother smiled at him and got quiet while he did it. And it struck Daryl all at once that Merle might have done this just so he would sit with him a while.
He pushed the thought away fast, like it was something dirty that wanted to bite him.
He sighed.
"Come on, Merle, let me put you in your bed for the night."
He pulled his brother up and let him lean heavily on his shoulder. He half-dragged him into his bedroom, pushing dirty clothes out the way with the door as it swung open.
Once Merle was on the bed, Daryl took off his boots, untying the laces. He was far away again, staring with reddened eyes into the wall—seeing something there no one else could see.
"Merle," Daryl called out, pulling off one boot. No response.
"Merle!"
Nothing. He couldn't hear. Daryl worked on the other set of laces. Stopped. Sighed. Started again. Then stopped again. He looked up at his brother, sprawled on the bed.
"I should leave you, you know," Daryl said.
"I saved money. I could do it this time. I wouldn't have to come back."
He waited. No response. He wrenched off the shoe, threw it against the wall.
"I'm not gonna be here, you hear me? I can do what I want now. God knows I'm old enough! You can't keep me here forever and I won't fucking let you!"
He darted to the head of the bed, leaned over Merle and grabbed him hard by the face. Pulled it close so they were eye to eye.
"You hear me Merle? I ain't gonna stay here! I don't belong to you! I can go any damn time I want!"
Merle's eyes focused, met his. He smiled. Reached up with his good hand. It looked like he was trying to touch Daryl's cheek. He missed. His hand glanced across his nose and landed on the mattress.
"Little brother," he murmured, his voice drifting away quietly as he fell into a deep sleep.