gift from God, the Einstein to disprove Einstein. Richard would move the
world. Shawn would not. He’d lost too much of his mind when he’d fallen
off that pallet. One of my father’s sons would be driving the forklift for the
rest of his life, but it wouldn’t be Richard.
Richard looked even more miserable than Shawn. His shoulders hunched
and his neck sank into them, as if he were compressing under the weight of
Dad’s praise. After Dad went to bed, Richard told me that he’d taken a
practice test for the ACT. He’d scored so low, he wouldn’t tell me the
number.
“Apparently I’m Einstein,” Richard said, his head in his hands. “What do I
do? Dad is saying I’m going to blow this thing out of the water, and I’m not
even sure I can pass.”
Every night was the same. Through dinner, Dad would list all the false
theories of science that his genius son would disprove; then after dinner, I
would tell Richard about college, about classes, books, professors, things I
knew would appeal to his innate need to learn. I was worried: Dad’s
expectations were so high, and Richard’s fear of disappointing him so
intense, it seemed possible that Richard might not take the ACT at all.
The shop in Franklin was ready to roof, so two days after Christmas I forced
my toe, still crooked and black, into a steel-toed boot, then spent the morning
on a roof driving threading screws into galvanized tin. It was late afternoon
when Shawn dropped his screw gun and shimmied down the loader’s
extended boom. “Time for a break, Siddle Liss,” he shouted up from the
ground. “Let’s go into town.”
I hopped onto the pallet and Shawn dropped the boom to the ground. “You
drive,” he said, then he leaned his seat back and closed his eyes. I headed for
Stokes.
I remember strange details about the moment we pulled into the parking lot
—the smell of oil floating up from our leather gloves, the sandpaper feel of
dust on my fingertips. And Shawn, grinning at me from the passenger seat.
Through the city of cars I spy one, a red jeep. Charles. I pass through the
main lot and turn into the open asphalt on the north side of the store, where
employees park. I pull down the visor to evaluate myself, noting the tangle
the windy roof has made of my hair, and the grease from the tin that has
lodged in my pores, making them fat and brown. My clothes are heavy with
dirt.