01/21/2002

Honest to a Fault

Over dinner on his brother Jack's 40th birthday, Conrad proposed a toast. "Here's to my snot-nosed baby brother, all grown up. I love you, Jacky-boy."

Feeling no pain after a few celebratory drinks, Jack clinked glasses with Conrad and retorted, "That would be half-brother, Conrad. Mom told you about that, didn't she?"

Conrad paled. "What the hell are you talking about? Told me what?"

Jack related the following story:

One afternoon, when Jack was a teenager he sat thumbing idly through a family photo album, letting the images take him back to childhood in their old Brooklyn neighborhood. There was his grandmother, sitting at the kitchen table, where he always found her after school. His hotshot older brother Conrad was there, bigger, taller and smarter than Jack—and forever rubbing it in. Mom, never home, was either working one of two jobs or hanging out at the corner tavern, schmoozing with friends and dancing the hours away. Until she met Steve. She had settled down after that.

On the next page was the photo that made his stomach lurch every time he saw it—a fuzzy black and white image of a man in t-shirt and khakis standing between two little boys, his arms draped over their shoulders. Mom and Grandmom insisted that the man was Jack's father, but he didn't believe it for a minute. He stared intently at the photo, willing it to come to life. One of the boys was his older brother Conrad and the other was Jack, maybe three years old at most. He was a skinny kid with jet-black hair and olive-colored skin, who bore no resemblance whatsoever to the blond, muscular "Viking" standing next to him. Jack felt nothing for this man, nothing but supreme indifference mixed with disgust. What claim did he have on fatherhood anyway? He'd left long ago; he and his brother hadn't seen him for years and didn't even know where he was. Steve was their father now.

Steve and his mother had met at the tavern five years ago and loved to go dancing together. Right from the start Steve fussed over Jack and Conrad, treating them as if they were his own sons. He even asked the boys if he could adopt them. Jack had pounced on the offer and had proudly taken Steve's name.

Still, that photograph bothered him. He got up to put the album away and caught sight of his reflection in the hall mirror. A short, wiry teenager with piercing black eyes stared back at him, a boy who wore his hair short and combed back away from his face. "I look more like my stepfather than the guy in that picture," he muttered. "And Steve and I aren't even related. There has to be proof somewhere that that guy is not my father."

Jack headed upstairs to his mother's room under the eaves. He started his search in the closet, pulling boxes off the shelves and rifling through the papers and trinkets he found in a few of them, unearthing nothing of significance. Maybe he could find some old diaries or something stashed in the attic. He climbed on a chair to reach the storage opening in the ceiling and slid back the board that covered it. He pulled himself up into the dark space overhead, which was dimly lit from natural light coming through a louvered vent in the wall. Every nook and cranny of the attic was full of forgotten treasures, just junk to Jack. His eyes passed over most of it, coming to rest on several shoe-sized boxes stacked under an old sewing machine.

These boxes were full of papers and trinkets, too—each one covered with dust that billowed up, choking him in the close, dry air. In one box, however, Jack noticed several papers rolled into a sheaf held together with a blue, satin ribbon. He untied the ribbon, unrolled the papers and began reading. Excitement, and guilt from prying, rushed through him when he realized they were letters to his mother written by someone who signed them, "Love, Ramon." Ramon. His father? Jack was sure of it.

His heart pounding, he carefully tied the letters back together, tucked them under his shirt, put everything back in place and returned to the living room. He slumped down on the couch and waited.

He knew his brother wouldn't be coming home until the wee hours, after finishing his shift at the gas station. Steve worked the night shift at a machine shop, so wouldn't return until dawn. The dinner hour came and went, but Jack scarcely noticed. At about 10:30 he heard his mother letting herself in the back door, easing in softly to avoid waking anyone. She startled slightly when she caught sight of Jack.

"You still up, Jack?"

"Yeah, Ma. Who is Ramon, anyway?"

"Ramon?" She eyed him warily. "I don't know any Ramon."

Jack reached under his shirt and produced the bundle of letters. "He's my father, isn't he?"

His mother sat down heavily across from him. "Yes, he is."

"Where is he?" Jack asked.

"In Texas," she replied.

"I want to meet him. If you won't arrange it, I will," Jack said quietly.

"You can't do that, Jack. He has a family there. You can't just call him or show up in his life now."

They talked for a long time before they came up with a plan. But Jack first had to promise his mother he would keep his discovery a secret— especially from Conrad and Steve—or she wouldn't help him. Jack reluctantly agreed.

He and his mother drove to Texas the following summer, under the ruse of a visit to an old friend, and Jack met his father where he worked. All Jack wanted was a chance to tell him off for abandoning him, plus a small amount of "hush" money. The money was a last-minute thing (his own little secret). Spending it on a used car gave Jack great satisfaction. He told his friends that he had won it off a "chump" in a poker game.

Jack had kept his promise, never breathing a word to anyone, until the night of his 40th birthday.

"So that's what happened, Conrad. That's the whole story."

It never occurred to him that Conrad would take the news so hard. He saw anguish in his brother's eyes and tears streaming down his face. Usually quick-witted and funny, Jack didn't know what to say. He felt terrible about blurting out the truth, even though it was something he had imagined doing because it had nagged at him for years. He wished he could bottle it up again, thankful that he had never said anything to Steve, the only person whom he had ever thought of as his real dad. Biology means nothing really; it's how someone treats you that counts.

He put his arms around Conrad, tearful now himself. "Sorry, Conrad," he said. "We've been brothers since I was born, and we're brothers 'til I die. Nothing else matters."

***

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