Tim swung his left arm and hit Donnie lightly across the chest.

“Hey, what’s all that about?”

Donnie looked up to see what his friend was talking about. At the end of the block, in front of Donnie’s house, was a chaotic scene. Blue and red lights seemed to be everywhere, reflecting off dozens of windows, signs and cars. Yellow tape was being stretched across the front yard, wrapped around the big oak on the corner of their lot and down along the side yard to the back fence. People, most in some kind of uniform, were going in and out of his house.

“I don’t know….” Donnie’s voice trailed off as fear took hold of him.

Instantly, he was running. His heart beat wildly in his chest and he could hear the throbbing in his ears, as his feet pounded the pavement towards home. The closer he got to his house, the wilder the scene seemed to become. People, the neighbors mostly, were standing at the edge of the yellow tape. Some were crying, others in small groups were talking and pointing at the house. It seemed as if every head turned towards him as he ran up.

Donnie stopped at the edge of the crime tape, as still another police car with lights flashing, rolled up to the scene. The passenger door swung open before the car could get stopped. Donnie’s mom flew out of the car and rushed towards the house, tears streaming down her face. When she got to the front door, a man in plain clothes barred her from entering.

“Billy! Billy!” She tried to see over the man blocking her way. “Let me by!”

Donnie watched as the man held his mother in a bear hug and said something into her ear. She shook her head back and forth, as if trying to clear the words out of her head.

“No. Nooooo!”

She slumped against the man and he had to hold her up to keep her from collapsing on the walkway.

“Mom!”

His mom straightened up at the sound of Donnie’s voice and turned, looking for where she’d heard it. When she spotted him, she broke loose from the man, ran to Donnie, and wrapped her arms around him.

“Donnie! Are you okay?”

“Yeah. What’s going on? Why are all these policemen here?”

His mother’s face was drawn and almost gray. Pain welled up in her eyes and Donnie realized he had seen that look before. The last time their world had crashed around them, the last time tragedy had visited their home. It was just two years ago, when his dad passed away. The connection scared him even more and he started to cry. His mother brushed at his tears.

“Something has happened to Billy. There’s been an accident.”

Billy was Donnie’s seventeen year old big brother, and Donnie worshiped him. Billy, a senior in high school, would keep an eye on Donnie after school until his mom got home from work. They would throw a football around or play a video game and Billy never complained that it took time away from things he could be doing with his friends.

“What happened? Is he okay?”

“No. I’m afraid he’s not okay.”

She paused, seemingly gathering strength for what she was about to say.

“Billy is dead.”

She stared at him and Donnie could tell she was waiting. Waiting to see how he reacted, what he would say, expecting him to scream. But Donnie didn’t have a reaction because life suddenly stood still. The words ‘Billy is dead’ bounced around the walls of his soul, looking but not finding some place to grab onto, some place that could understand and let the truth settle inside him.

Instead, he refused to let the words be part of him, to take root, and when Tim walked up with the book-bag Donnie had dropped, he turned to him and acted like it was just another day.

“Oh thanks, Tim. I probably won’t be at school for a few days.”

“Okay...” His friend glanced at Donnie’s mother and back at his friend. “See ya’ later.”

****

Donnie sat on the grass with his mother as the house slowly cleared of personnel. He had seen the body bag containing his brother wheeled out on a stretcher and watched as it was loaded into a coroner’s van before being driven away. Most of the police cars were gone, one by one shutting off their lights and driving off into the early nightfall. The yellow tape, now sagging towards the ground, still flapped in the breeze but it no longer held onlookers at bay. People had returned to their homes to look for themselves on TV in the evening newscasts.

It turned out, the man in plain clothes that blocked his mother’s path, was a detective. He brought each one of the kids, who had been in the room with Billy, outside and asked them the same questions.

Donnie sat and listened intently as Billy’s friends recounted what had happened in his brother’s final moments. He recognized two of them. Billy’s best friend, Ed Garland and Billy’s girlfriend, Suzanne Cooper. The other two Donnie had never seen before. They told the detective their names were Dexter Hughes and Chelsea Burt. Both girls were crying and the boys wore a stunned, almost vacant look. Donnie wasn’t crying, he was listening.

Each one of his brother’s friends described a game called ‘Russian Roulette’ and how his brother had spun the chamber of the gun, put it to his head and pulled the trigger. Donnie couldn’t understand what kind of ‘game’ could involve shooting yourself. It wasn’t a game Billy would ever have played with him. They said no one else had taken a turn, only his brother had played.

Donnie was listening to the fourth account when his mom realized he was hearing these details and took him into the backyard. They sat at the picnic table and someone brought them each a cold soda. Donnie looked at his mother, her eyes red from crying, and it dawned on him that they were alone. It was just the two of them.

“What are we gonna do, Momma?’

“I don’t know, Donnie. I don’t know.”

 

Chapter  1

 

“Donnie, it’s time!”

Donnie Jarvis shut down his computer and pushed back his chair.

“Coming!”

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs to take a quick look in the mirror. Brown eyes stared back at him. He ran his hand through black hair that never seemed to lie down in the same place twice. His t-shirt was clean, as were his jeans.

When he reached the top of the stairs, his mother was waiting for him in her wheelchair. Diabetes had taken its toll on her health, her legs in particular, and walking even short distances was difficult.

“Let me look at you.”

He posed for her as she swept him up and down with her eyes.

“Well, you’re clean anyway. What are you doin’ downstairs all day?”

“Just playing on the computer. Nothing special. You ready to go?”

“Yes.”

It was Sunday and for the past ten years, rain or shine, Sunday meant a visit with Billy at the cemetery. If the weather was good, like it was today, they would spread a blanket out and sit for hours. His mother would chatter on telling Billy the latest news and who was doing what to whom in her soaps. She was always happiest when they were with Billy. Of course, she never heard Billy speak back to her, it was just her way of staying connected to her oldest boy. Donnie on the other hand, did have a connection with his brother. They did speak and they had a plan.

“Okay, I’ll pull the van around.”

Donnie went out the back door to the garage. The white metal building had two parking bays but they only had need of one. Inside was parked the blue Chevy Astro. It was old and ugly but his mother could manage getting in and out of it better than most cars. Donnie had sold his Chevy Impala when his momma couldn’t drive anymore. He just took to driving the van.