The Other Brothers - Chapter 5

Chapter 5a

Tommy – House call

One of the Frenchmen rolled me over.  I grasped my stomach in pain.

“Que faites-vous?” The one who seemed to be in charge yelled in French.  He yelled at the other Frenchmen for a while and they said a few things back, but then he pointed at one of the men and said, “Vous!”  Then he pointed at me, “Attrapez-le à la voiture.  Je vais l’emmener à la maison de Joseph.”

“Mais Joseph…” the pointed-at man started.

“Je n’aime pas!  Allez-y!”  He continued shouting at all the other Frenchmen as Pointed-at Man lifted me up.

I breathed hard through my teeth, trying to function in spite of the pain.  “Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“Messieurs Chasseur takes you to a doctor.”

He set me down in the backseat of an old black car.  I laid down in the backseat, holding my wound, just trying to get the blood to slow down.  I could feel the warm stickiness as my blood soaked into my shirt.

Not much later, Chasseur, the In-charge Frenchman, got into the driver’s seat and started up the engine.  One more got in the front, and a third got in the back with me, pushing me back up to a sitting position.

We pulled away from the warehouse and drove down a quiet neighborhood street.  Then we turned onto a bridge leading to an island in the river with big, rich houses.  We parked at a gray house with small Greek columns on the porch.

They pulled me out of the car and led me up to the door.  I felt dizzy and weak, my breath was coming in short gasps.  It seemed like there were a million stairs, but there were probably only five.  They knocked and the door was opened by an average-sized man.  It was hardly open a second when the man tried to close it, but Chasseur held it open and began talking to the man at the door.  A wave of dizziness swept over me and I fell forward a little.  I guess then the man saw me because he said, “Oh mon Dieu!  Qui est-il?”  Chasseur answered him in French.  Then the man at the door said in pretty good English, “An American?  He doesn’t speak French?  That’s it.  We will now speak in English so everyone can understand.”

One of the Frenchmen moaned and said, “Je déteste anglais.”

“That does not matter,” the man said.  Then he changed the subject, “I will only take care of him if you promise that he will stay at my house.”

“But we need to keep him at a facilité secure,” Chasseur said.  “All we need from you is to fix him so we may take him again.”

“No, here is the final deal.  I think he needs to stay at my house because he has lost so much blood.  You don’t want him here because you don’t trust me.  I give you permission to guard my house, as long as you agree that if he leaves my house within the remainder of this week, I can call the police and report you for kidnapping and trespassing.  Is this clear?  Do we have a deal?”

“This will work if you swear to keep it,” Chasseur said.

“I swear on my brother’s gun.” The man at the door said.

Chasseur and the man at the door shook hands stiffly and he let us in.  He grabbed me and helped me to another room and said, “Go over there and lie down.”

I struggled over to where he gestured to and collapsed onto the tableish bed-thing.  He asked me to lift my arms, so I did.  He took my shirt off and cleaned the wound a little.  He took a gauze thing and ordered me to hold it on the wound.  He chased the other men out of the room and shut the door, then spoke to me softly in English, “Are you allergic to anything?”

“No”

He gave me a shot then waited for it to kick in.  Then he took the gauze off and started messing around in my wound.  It still hurt like crazy.

“Can’t you knock me out or something?” I asked.

“No, I want to talk to you, so be quiet and listen.”

I closed my eyes to focus my strength on listening.  He continued, “I used to work for The Horrible, because I’m his brother.  But I never enjoyed it and now I have quit.  Since he and I are brothers, I don’t go to the police if he leaves me alone.

“That’s why we had to make an agreement before I let them in.  Hold still.” I held my breath as he continued working for a while, then he stopped and asked, “Would you like to keep this once it is clean?”  I opened my eyes to see what he meant.  He held in his tweezer-things the bloody bullet.  I didn’t know what to say, and probably couldn’t have said anything even if I’d known.  He put it down and said, “You will want this later, even if you don’t think you want it now.”  He closed the wound and bound it up.  I sat up on the tableish bed-thing, while he went into the other room.  I struggled onto my feet and followed him.  He was standing at a large wardrobe in the near left corner.  There was a double glass door across the room on the right, and across from me was a bed that was neatly made.

“Whoa, wish my room was this clean!” I commented, walking over to where he was.

“I am rarely here to mess it up, it is a miracle I was here for you,” he said pulling down a white button up shirt and blue sweater from the top shelf.  “Put these on.”

I took them, but before I put on the shirt he said, “Wait, give me the white shirt back.  You will want something that will not show the blood, if it bleeds through the bandage.”

I gave the white shirt back and he gave me a black shirt instead.  I put on the shirts while he got something else.  He handed me some euros.  “Get to England.  This should buy you…”

“England?  Why would I want to go to England?” I asked, holding the strange currency.

“The English will protect you and…”

“Whoa-ho, wait a second.  This isn’t Quebec, is it?”

“Oh mon Dieu,” he muttered under his breath.  His gray-blue eyes showed his pity.  “You are so lost, young one.  You are in France.”

“Oh,” I exclaimed, somewhat surprised.  “Ok, that’s pretty cool.”

“As I was saying, that money will buy you a ferry ticket across the Channel.  Take it.”

“Um, will this buy my brother a ticket, too?” I asked.

“You have a brother?” he asked, a little shocked.

“Yeah, but I think he actually got away.”

“Oh non, mon frère est fou.”  He gave me some more euros and left the room.  He came back a short time later with an old small backpack.  “I hope this will be enough food for both you and your brother.”

I took the backpack.  He grabbed my wrist and brought my hand up.  He slipped the bullet into my hand and said, “Pour la bonne chance.  There is a small rowboat downstream.  Take that down the Sane and do not exert yourself.”  With that, he gently pushed me toward the glass door and let me out.  I walked quickly out, looking back to see him flip out a cell phone and begin to talk on it.  I walked toward the river, for once feeling truly encouraged.

Chapter 5b

Dicky – The Sane

I woke up to a cool wind sweeping over my wet pajamas.  I sat up to look around and rubbed my aching head.  The Bad Guys’ fish-packing warehouse was nowhere in sight.  Instead, fields and farmhouses lined the river.  An elderly couple strolled along the riverside.  I felt a great tranquility.  The fields drifted past one by one, and the sun slowly broke through the clouds.  I stood and leaned against the ship’s rail and let the breeze dry out my clothes.

Then I started thinking about Tommy.  “He’s probably dead,” I thought.  “Mom and Dad will be upset, of course, but I won’t be any worse off.  Even if he is alive he won’t be any different.  He’ll just have something new to show off.  I’ll have to hear him tell all the girls at school how he was so heroically shot and he’ll take off his shirt so they’ll giggle and admire his scar.  Bleah.  I almost wish I had been shot dead instead.  Then I wouldn’t have to put up with any more stupid people.”

Then I noticed an empty rowboat coming up alongside the barge.  It was in a stronger current and moved a little faster.  It was very strange.  I started talking to myself, “What the heck?  Another idiotic person didn’t tie up his boat and here it is screaming to the world, ‘Look at me, everybody.  There’s yet another stupid person in the world!’  No one ever learns anything…”

“Why do they even bother to educate some people?”

“Exactly!  Wait a minute…”  It was then I realized that I was not the only participant in the conversation.  I then recognized the voice that had spoken, “Tommy?”

“Hey Dicky, I’m down here!”

I looked back down at the boat and there he was, sitting up in it and grinning at me like a Cheshire cat.  He was not wearing the same shirt as before.  He steered the boat close to the ship, “Come on, we’ve got to get to England!”

I climbed down the side of the ship and stepped down into the little boat.  “Man, I thought you were dead!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah, I kinda thought that, too, for a while.”  He reached into the prow of the rowboat and pulled out a small backpack.  “You hungry?” he asked.

“Oh yes, very much so.”  At this point I didn’t care where he had gotten the food.  He opened the pack and gave me a small plastic bag with a sandwich inside.  He got another just like it for himself.  I was so famished that I devoured my sandwich in a matter of seconds.

He then offered me the rest of his.  I started to object but he said, “You are obviously much hungrier than me.” I decided not to deter this rare opportunity of generosity with a grammar lesson, so I forced a thankful smile and took the half of a sandwich.  “Don’t choke on it, Dicky,” Tommy said.  I took a deep breath and deliberately paused between mouthfuls to chew.

Tommy suddenly sat up and said, “Hey Dicky!  Can I show you something?”

“Sure, I guess,” I replied still carefully chewing the last bite of Tommy’s sandwich.  Tommy reached into his pocket and pulled something out and held it in front of my face.

It took a couple seconds for me to identify it.  “Is that a bullet?”  I asked.

“Yeah, isn’t it cool?”  Then he told me everything he had experienced while I was floating down the river.

“That’s interesting, Tommy.”

He smiled a smile that was so unlike him.  He looked so much more real, in a way, and genuinely happy.  He leaned back into the prow of the boat and slung his legs across the rower’s seat.  Eventually we both fell asleep.

When I reawakened, the rowboat was moored to a small dock.  The river was much wider and there were a lot of people on shore.  Tommy stood on the dock talking to two tall, skinny guys who were standing in a motor boat moored close by.

“Regardez,” the brown-haired one said pointing at me, “the little is awake!”

“Halloo, little,” the black-haired one greeted me, “did you sleep good?”

“Um, I guess,” I replied.

“Well, mes amis, we got to go, so let’s us push off, okey?” the brown-haired one said smiling.  The two guys helped me out of the boat and onto the dock.  We shook hands and Tommy said goodbye, and then the two men went back to their boat to check that it was secure.

“Who were they?” I asked.

“They stopped us from floating out to sea.  Apparently, it is not a good idea to try and cross the English Channel in a rowboat with no oars.”

We walked off the dock and toward the street.  Tommy led us to the ferry station, but the ticket booth was closed for lunch.  As we sat waiting for the ticket booth to reopen, I started pondering our predicament.  “This is so weird,” I said aloud.

“What’s weird?  Well, other than the obvious.”

“Given the circumstances, I would have thought that I would be the one who was slow enough to get shot and who always seems to know what to do.”  Tommy shuffled his feet underneath the bench.  “I mean, back home I was always the one who had to do everything.”

“Um, about that…”

“You never take responsibility for anything; and Mom and Dad are always ‘too busy.’”

“Dicky!” Tommy snapped me out of my rant.  “About that, I want to start over.  I want to try to be myself instead of the brother I think you want me to be.”

“You thought that I wanted you to be a jerk all the time?”

“I’m sorry, Dicky.  I didn’t…”

“Sorry isn’t going to change anything!  I know you: you are mean and you don’t care about me.  Don’t even try to deny it!  A crazy trip to France and a billion dollars can’t change people.  Nothing can!”

“D…”

“Shut up!  I don’t want to hear it.”

We sat there in silence until the ferry company employee came back to his counter.  I took the money from Tommy and bought us two one-way tickets to England.  When the ferry arrived, we took our seats in silence.  I saw people trying not to stare at us.  I looked at us and tried to see what they saw.

They saw two tired-looking boys.  The short one was wearing very dirty blue and white pajamas.  His brown hair was matted and his bare feet and hands were scratched and red.  He was angry with the other one.  The blond one’s face was tearstained and very pale.  He was actually dressed and wearing shoes, but was still quite disheveled.  They saw two worn-out, pitiful boys.

I probably would have been staring at us too, if I had been one of them.

           The ferry finally pulled up to the dock and all the people got off and mingled with the bustling crowd.  Not knowing which way to go, I just started walking.  Tommy walked a little behind me on my right.  Suddenly, he grabbed my shirt.  Before I realized what was happening, he was on his hands and knees.

I turned my head and saw a stranger kneeling next to him.  “Let me help you up, lad,” he said.  “What’s seems to be the matter?  Queasy from the ferry?”

I went over to the stranger.  “Thank you, sir,” I said.

The kind man was a police officer.  He smiled, but looked a little confused.  “Quite odd,” he said, “I thought tourists wore shoes.”

I didn’t take any notice of the joke about my bare feet, I was watching Tommy.  He withdrew his left hand from his stomach: it was bloody.  He was bleeding through his bandages.  I froze, trying not to panic.

Tommy said weakly, “We’re not tourists; we were kidnapped…”

The policeman chuckled, “Kidnapped, eh?  By whom, may I ask?”

“…and I’ve been shot,” Tommy added.

“Shot?” the police officer asked, suddenly serious.  “Where?  May I see?”

Tommy unbuttoned the black shirt he was wearing and showed the officer his bandage.  I had to sit down, or else I would faint.  I lowered myself to the pavement.  “Quite a nasty one,” he commented as Tommy buttoned his shirt back up.  “I say we go down to the station, and get you some medical attention.  Then we’ll figure out what to do with you after that.”  He picked Tommy up so that Tommy was standing.  I stood and walked beside the policeman as he supported Tommy.  I told him briefly of our predicament.

The police officer started talking away, “Interesting tale.  I’m Sergeant McAlister, by the way.  So you say you were kidnapped by the Horrible?  He’s rather a notorious character.  He’s usually a smuggler, though he’s not been caught yet…  Mind the step here.  There we are…  It’s our policy to let the French take care of their own, but if he were ever to meddle in England, we’d put his sorry bum where it belongs!  No one knows where his base of operations is located, but we figure he’s most likely to be somewhere on the Mediterranean.” He continued talking as we continued down the street.  My mind wandered and I stopped listening to him.  We had left the busy crowds by the ferry and had turned down a small street.

Then, out of nowhere, a group of men in dark clothes with clubs came at us.  I got a blow to the stomach and fell to the ground gasping for breath.  Tommy dropped beside me as Sergeant McAlister struggled with one of the men.  A man picked me up and dragged me toward a car parked in an alley.  I started to cry out, but they covered my mouth with a chloroformed cloth.  I got slowly drowsier.  I watched them drag Tommy toward the car.  Then most of them all came at Sergeant McAlister with their clubs and started to really whack him.  My last thought before I dropped out of consciousness was, “I wonder where they’ll take us next.”

Go on to Chaper 6!