anti:freeze

three of my brothers

S. is missing a finger, but I can't tell you which one. I never noticed until five years ago, when he uncrossed his arms to stretch. I asked him what happened, and he seemed surprised, lifting his hand close to his face and squinting. "It happened so long ago I forget that it's gone," he said, rubbing the scarred knuckle. "It happened before you were born. It got caught in a machine." That was the first and only time we talked one-on-one. Possibly, the only time we spent more than five minutes in the same room. He didn't grow up with me.

There is nothing I can say about the oldest without a libel suit.

And Jimmy is dead. He committed suicide within hours of meeting me for the first time. I was eight, hanging out in the bowling alley while my mom played with her league. That's when I saw Dad buying soda from a vending machine. He carried the plastic cup to a corner table, where a teenage boy sat waiting, his chin resting on his hands. I was jealous. Dad would never buy me sweets, especially soda (which he referred to as cocaine-water in a can, from the early formulas of Coca-Cola). Who was this boy?

I walked up to introduce myself, but my father spoke first. "This is Jimmy," he said.

Jimmy reached out his hand, and I shook it. I didn't know he was my brother, not until I saw his mugshot in the newspaper obituaries.

Looking back, I search my memory for a sign. He must have had it all planned out - the gun loaded, hidden beneath his mattress or pillow, maybe folded inside a sweater, pushed to the back of a drawer. When I think about him pulling the trigger, a cold metal barrel against his tongue, I think: I held the same hand that killed him, just not long enough.