They fight a lot, those brothers. I thought they lived far enough apart this summer. -- overheard in the carnival residential area.
"Franco, we need to talk." Fabian went into the large tent where his brother was living. Franco was sitting in a recliner chair, eating from a bag of potato chips and watching television. Franco didn't invite him to sit and Fabian was in no mood to sit anyway.
"About what?" Franco kept staring at the television screen, munching chip after chip.
"About you telling Lisa about Marlene. Why, Franco?"
"Because I'm sick of you being the golden boy." Franco shrugged, still glued to the television and eating chips.
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about Mr. Handsome Ladies Man with the college degree who gets everything he wants. What's not easy for you, Fabian?" Finally, some eye contact. Franco looked at him, his piggy eyes cold and hard. Fabian held the eye contact by starting to move around the tent, forcing Franco to watch him instead of the television and ensuring he had his brother's attention.
"Are you nuts? Or have you been so blindly jealous that you don't pay attention? None of it has been easy. I missed months of school and only have a sketchy memory of my childhood because I ran a fever through most of fourth grade. I remember that disease, though. You never forget being in that much pain. I was hardly ever hungry because of it and I lost a lot of weight -- what our mother called "baby fat". After I recovered, I chose not to gain the weight back. That is work, Franco, and I'm sorry you don't understand how much."
"Have you ever thought about what I go through?" Franco demanded.
"Frequently, as a matter of fact. You have done all of this to yourself." He gestured to the chair, the television, and the potato chip bag. "You made yourself obese and kept yourself that way."
"You never offered to help me! You, the big college-man jock."
"It wouldn't have mattered if I had." Frustration raised Fabian's voice. Franco was not going to lay the blame for his weight on him.
"How do you know that?" Franco wanted to know.
"Because you can't force someone to change. If I'd offered to help you with your weight, you would have been offended, and you know it! If you had truly wanted my help, you would have asked for it. And I would have given it to you. You're my brother!"
That was a hit; Franco knew it was true. He knew full well that Fabian loved him; he had certainly taken advantage of that loyalty enough.
"And it doesn't explain why you'd hurt Lisa." Franco looked at him, outraged.
"I would never hurt Lisa! That's your pattern! I was trying to warn her that you intended to just use her and throw her away like you did all the others."
"Without checking with me or anyone else to see if it's true?"
"You've got Marlene! You don't need Lisa!"
"No, I don't have or need Marlene. And I do need Lisa. You are the one who doesn't."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Think long and hard here, Franco. Why are you so attracted to Lisa? If you're truly serious that you want to take weight off, do you really think that a woman who makes pies for a living would be good for you? Isn't that a little like a junkie hooking up with a dealer? Do you think it would be fair to ask her to stop baking when it's the thing she loves most and has been doing it for most of her life?"
Another hit, along with a shock. Fabian really cared about Lisa. That had never happened before and never occurred to Franco. That Fabian might have fallen in love for real for the first time.
"You can't have both, Franco," Fabian told him. "You stole pies from her. And eggs. Didn't you?"
"Sure. Blame the fat guy." Franco visibly squirmed.
"She hurt your feelings when you made a pass at her, so you got revenge. What you don't understand, Franco, is that you hurt her first. You sat her down and told her things that should have come from me in my own time in my own way."
"You wouldn't have told her."
"You don't know that, and it was not your decision to make! It was none of your business. I paid her for the pies. You can either pay me back now or I go to Mom and Dad with this."
"Oh, right, Fabian. Run and tell Mommy."
"You're lucky I don't tell the police. What you did was illegal. You went into her kitchen when she wasn't there and took things that didn't belong to you. It cost her quite a bit of money -- making up for those pies."
"What do you mean?"
"Those pies had been sold, Franco. They didn't belong to Lisa, either. She had promised them to the diner and had to bake four more to keep her promise. You're lucky she didn't call the police!"
"At least I never killed anyone." A final, desperate shot, but effective. Fabian froze. Bubbles; a cloud of red blood and brown hair beneath the surface of the lake .... He shook himself and glared at his brother. The bloated, distorted image of himself. They'd been identical once.
"You have no proof that I did, either," he said. "You probably just heard pieces of a conversation and put it together in a way that might benefit you. It's how you usually operate. Gossip and innuendo are your usual weapons of choice."
A hit. Franco winced. Then he looked up, eyeing Fabian coldly.
"But you don't know, do you?"
"I will eventually," Fabian said with a conviction that he really didn't feel. "And whatever happened, I will do whatever I can to make it right. I suggest you do the same. Pay me for the pies or pay Mom and Dad. Whichever. But soon." He turned and left the tent.