Matt was fairly handsome, according to the girls in my class—despite his outbreaks of pimples. Matt didn’t seem to mind having acne. He probably thought each pimple was a national treasure. He played tennis on the team. Doubles was his specialty since he cooperated with the other boys. I always thought the coach must have been hard up for players, because whenever I watched the games all Matt did was shift from foot to foot, leaning over, gripping his racket. I didn’t ever see him take a shot. It was always the boy in the back. Nonetheless he was popular, which made May awfully glad. She was thankful he hadn’t gone straight to college from kindergarten, because then she couldn’t have rooted for him at the tennis match. He was the youngest in our class but you couldn’t tell, because of the fancy sports jacket decorated in the school’s blue and white. The jacket had a patch on it that meant he was a hot shot. Most of all, however, everyone raved about his math. Our Matt was a wizard. They drove him to Chicago for contests, and it seemed like he was always taking exams so he could go to college at a great distance from Honey Creek. They sent him to a math summer camp at the University of Chicago. You should have seen May mourning him for two months. She gave up putting her hair in rollers and wearing fresh aprons, plus cooking food a human could stand to eat. The principal at our school, Dr. Heck, was apparently in love with Matt, judging by the number of times he called our home. All of the faculty had plans for my brother.
Matt came home each day with a calculator attached to his belt, in case he needed to figure out something quickly, I guess, like in an emergency. He went into his room, came out for supper, and then went back to his desk. That’s my brother Matt: we were supposed to be friends; we were supposed to surprise each other with kindness and generosity. When he looked at my face I turned away, because I could see him scrutinizing me for signs of life. I felt shy around him, because I knew his brains were tremendous. Shy isn’t the precise word; I felt smaller and meaner than a bee sting.
May desperately wanted to be his favorite person. She reminded me of our gray cat who never died; she always kept living, and each year she had scores of kittens. There she was every time you looked, with a juicy mouse in her chops, calling to her brood. The kittens were usually playing with their tails or going crazy watching an ant. They couldn’t have cared less about their mother and her carefully planned meals. May tried to pet Matt sometimes—she’d get up from the supper table and I could see her wanting to touch his hair, and if she did it, gingerly, he shook his head like she’d spilled hot grease on top of him. He mumbled at her with his mouth full of tuna casserole if she asked him, “How was your day?”
Matt, with the pimples and the jacket, didn’t talk to us, and I was quiet because I didn’t have usable words on my tongue. I saved them all for Miss Finch. May had to do the talking, solo, if she wanted company. She sat at the head of the table in her extra-large fuzzy green sweater that looked like a bloated zucchini consuming her. She told us about everyone in town and what all their children were doing. Matt and I ate without uttering a sound while May went on about Mrs. Brierly’s daughter, Pamela, and her marriage to the banker. The newlyweds went down to a hotel in Rockford with a big old bubbling bathtub in their room. I couldn’t imagine Pamela and that pock-faced banker sitting in a boiling hot tub, coming out with their flanks all red.
When we were in high school May worked at the dry cleaners. We had our land rented out, although May and I continued to raise chickens. I fed them and shoveled out the henhouse, and May took the eggs on a route. She sold dozens and dozens to Negroes. She didn’t like it if people were a different color. She drove about sixty miles twice a week,
Matt came home each day with a calculator attached to his belt, in case he needed to figure out something quickly, I guess, like in an emergency. He went into his room, came out for supper, and then went back to his desk. That’s my brother Matt: we were supposed to be friends; we were supposed to surprise each other with kindness and generosity. When he looked at my face I turned away, because I could see him scrutinizing me for signs of life. I felt shy around him, because I knew his brains were tremendous. Shy isn’t the precise word; I felt smaller and meaner than a bee sting.
May desperately wanted to be his favorite person. She reminded me of our gray cat who never died; she always kept living, and each year she had scores of kittens. There she was every time you looked, with a juicy mouse in her chops, calling to her brood. The kittens were usually playing with their tails or going crazy watching an ant. They couldn’t have cared less about their mother and her carefully planned meals. May tried to pet Matt sometimes—she’d get up from the supper table and I could see her wanting to touch his hair, and if she did it, gingerly, he shook his head like she’d spilled hot grease on top of him. He mumbled at her with his mouth full of tuna casserole if she asked him, “How was your day?”
Matt, with the pimples and the jacket, didn’t talk to us, and I was quiet because I didn’t have usable words on my tongue. I saved them all for Miss Finch. May had to do the talking, solo, if she wanted company. She sat at the head of the table in her extra-large fuzzy green sweater that looked like a bloated zucchini consuming her. She told us about everyone in town and what all their children were doing. Matt and I ate without uttering a sound while May went on about Mrs. Brierly’s daughter, Pamela, and her marriage to the banker. The newlyweds went down to a hotel in Rockford with a big old bubbling bathtub in their room. I couldn’t imagine Pamela and that pock-faced banker sitting in a boiling hot tub, coming out with their flanks all red.
When we were in high school May worked at the dry cleaners. We had our land rented out, although May and I continued to raise chickens. I fed them and shoveled out the henhouse, and May took the eggs on a route. She sold dozens and dozens to Negroes. She didn’t like it if people were a different color. She drove about sixty miles twice a week,
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