“Notanymore?”
“Not for alongtime.”
He paused a moment, clearly searching for the right thingtosay.
“Rocky and I grew up in the junkyard with all the other kids. Despite what you might think, we loved it. We ran around all the time and had no discipline or rules. You can only imagine the crap we got ourselves into, and once we started school, we were both fairly unmanageable. I, at least, had a conscience, and when I did something wrong, I tried to make amends; but Rocky, he just didn’t care. He openly defied authority. Anyway, usually because of him, we both became quite familiar with the principal’s office. The school tried everything with us, but since Misty, who is Shelby’s mom and was our guardian, had no interest in disciplining us or enforcing follow through at home, our bad behavior continued to escalate. Finally, the school convinced Misty to allow the two of us to get big brothers. You know, through that Big Brother/Big Sisterprogram?”
I nodded, trying to picture my sweet, good-natured Finn as abrattykid.
“Anyway, my ‘big brother’ was this young guy named Barry. He’d grown up without a father too, and had joined the program hoping to make a difference. I was nine at the time, and we hit it off immediately. Rocky was given a man in his thirties who was really nice, but older and more disciplined. The hope was that a stable older man might calm him down. Well, Rocky ate the poor guy alive, and then ended up going through one big brother after another until there were no more left tooffer.
“But Barry and I connected. One thing he noticed was that it took a good hour or two for me to calm down before we could just sit and talk, so he started taking me to a gymnastics place to get all the excess energy out. I took to it right away and was really good at it. The gym even gave Barry a discount, and he continued to pay for my membership all through mychildhood.”
“Are you still in contact with him now, as anadult?”
Finn shifted a bit and I could tell something about the story was bothering him. I squeezed his hand to encourage him, but instead of answering my question, he continued with thenarrative.
“Misty always had a steady stream of boyfriends. All were bad, but some were worse than others. Anyway, this one dude was delivering his weekly beatdown on Misty when Shelby got involved. She never could keep her mouth shut. He just started wailing on my mother – so of course I tried to intervene and had the crap beaten out of me too. And then Rocky stumbled upon the scene, went berserk, and sent the abuser to the hospital. The police got involved. I’d been beaten up bad enough for social services to remove all the kids in the compound, but within days they’d all returned, except me. Barry and his wife, Marissa, took me in. I begged them to take Rocky too, but they had two small children and they just couldn’t take the chance with him, especially after what he’d done to that guy. So, while I was adjusting to a normal life in suburbia with loving, attentive parental figures, Rocky continued to wallow in the filth that wasPerryland.”
“And the two of you drifted apart,” I said, finishing thestory.
Finn nodded. “I guess I’ve always felt guilty forabandoninghim.”
“You were handed a chance at a future and were smart enough totakeit.”
“I tried to stay in contact with him, but Rocky was pissed and took every opportunity to knock me down. He made fun of everything I did, as if living a normal life was so ridiculous to him. I finally got tired of getting shit on by him and stopped visiting. We saw each other occasionally after that, but it was always strainedbetweenus.”
I lifted his fingers in mine and kissed the back of his hand. Finn’s heart was bigger than anyone’s I’d ever met, and I got the sense that the divide between brothers was something that had eaten away at him for years. “Have you seen Rocky inprison?”
“No.”
“Do youwantto?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I do and I don’t. He’s asked me to a few times. I just haven’t gone. I guess Ishould.”
“It doesn’t always have to be about someone else, Finn. Putting yourself first isn’t always a bad thing,youknow.”
“I know. I just hate the idea of seeing him locked up in there. I really do need tovisit.”
“Are you and Barry stillclose?”
“Yeah. Barry taught me what it was to be a man. I owe him and Marissaeverything.”
“I’d love tomeetthem.”
“Youwill.”
Finn said that with such certainty, as if he saw a future with me. And after his story, I felt even more connected to him… until he said the words that changedeverything.
“I can’t wait to be a father. I’ll be everything Ineverhad.”
The statement was simple and heartfelt, and I felt myself die a little inside. The one thing he wanted – to be a dad – was the one thing I could nevergivehim.
“I almost was one, you know, a little over a year ago,” he said,startlingme.
“No.” I sat up straighter. “Ididn’tknow.”
“I had this girlfriend named Alexis. She seemed fine when I met her, but then she started getting really possessive and manipulative. After about two months, I’d seen enough and tried to cut her loose, but she threatened to kill herself and made me feel so guilty that I stayed. Months went by, and I started noticing that none of my friends were texting or contacting me. Turns out she’d blocked all the contacts on my phone without telling me. Once I figured out what she’d been up to, I broke it off. But then a week later she called to tell me she was pregnant. She knew how much I wanted to be a dad, and used itagainstme.”
