Sack

The fearsome scourge of Avondale Avenue and Brewery Road is forty-five years old now. Now he has a wife and two children and the distinction, among the four boys in the family, of only one marriage. He learned to smoke when he was six, curse when he was five, and fight when he was four. He got better and better at all three as he grew, wild and lean, from a boy to a man. Once he got seven whippings, on the same day, for the same thing. A wasp had stung him— right in the outhouse—and he let loose with a near-unbroken string ofprofanity that would have made the most seaweary of sailors want to call him "son." But his mother didn't allow her boys to curse, no matter what the provocation. His brother, Johnny, who had heard him easily and distinctly, knew that. The whole block, which might have also heard him, knew that, too. But it was Johnny who told on him. After the whipping he got from his 57 mother, he walked straight up to Johnny and told him what kind ofpeople tattled on other people, especially brothers. Most of the words were the very same ones that got him in trouble in the first place. Johnny told on him again. His mother whipped him again. He offered his brother his opinion on tattletales again. And again. And again. Seven times that day his mother whipped him for cursing. The same scene played over and over, as the words do on a record that's stuck. The eighth time, his mother was too tired and despairing to whip him any more. The eighth time, she dropped her switch and cried. That, he could not bear. The eighth time he passed his brother Johnny that day, he did so in silence. But a few days later, when he thought Johnny had had sufficient time to lower his guard and not be suspicious, he took him for a walk in the mountains. And he left him there. On purpose. The old red-bone hound, not knowing what was at stake, brought him back. And now, this man who is my brother James doesn't curse at all. Nor does he fight. He no longer smokes, drinks, gambles, ties cousins to trees and pulls their teeth—good teeth—with pliers. He doesn't ride anybody's pigs, cows, or mules to the brink of death, and beyond. Now he is no longer wild, or lean. Now he goes to church every Wednesday night, and twice on Sunday, and he finds God there. This pleases our mother, for in the old days she had to drag the seven of us to church by the force of her will, and a good battle plan. Going to and coming from church, we all had to hold hands and spread out. This wasn't because we didn't know the way and might get lost, as she said. Her real reason was because, if we all held hands, no one could break ranks and desert without being noticed. She was right, too: when you marched in the army of the Lord and Lavada, you stepped lively and didn't go AWOL. Not without being informed on, anyway. "Sack, did I ever tell you the story about Irky Lambert?" Now that my brother's outlaw days are done, and now that family reunions are more frequent, he loves to tell stories, mostly to me. I have heard almost all ofthem, many times, but I am obliged to listen: This is my brother James, who used to sing "Wildwood Rower" to me and for me. This is my brother, who long years ago, hit a baseball hard and high and long when I was on first. I was going to score the tying run, and he the winning one. But as I rounded the bases, he yelled for me to go back, go back. But I didn't go back, partly because I thought he just didn't know I could make it home, and I knew I could. What I didn't know was about fly balls, and tagging up...