“They’re not…Herc. Come on. They’re not all full of money. Are they?”
“I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head, and I believe him.
“If they are….” I can’t even finish that sentence. If every tennis ball in that trunk contains six, seven, or eight hundred dollars. We are carrying out a load of cash that maybe, possibly, is income that was never taxed. If the feds are to be believed.
“Did you know about this?” I ask, pushing gently at my brother’s shoulder with my upper arm.
“I figured it out about five minutes ago,” he said. “That’s why I’m panicking.”
And now I’m panicking. “We drove away from an FBI raid with well over $250,000 in cash.”
Herc nods.
Titus cackles. “Holy fucking shit.”
I think I’m going to throw up. “We have to go back,” I say.
Herc hesitates. “Maybe we should. If we turn it in now—”
Titus explodes, “Absolutely fucking not! That’s your money.”
“It’s evidence, Titus,” I remind him. “Not that I think Daddy did anything wrong, but if he did … that money doesn’t belong to us.”
Titus scoffs. “Who says? They took your house, your cars, your dad. Fuck them. You guys are not turning that money over to the feds. What are they going to do with it? Probably drone bomb some random villagers in a foreign country? Fuck that. Keep it!”
I don’t think he understands how departmental line-item budgets work, but the sentiment is convincing. And not just because it’s Titus. He’s making some kind of sense in a profoundly criminal way.
Daddy—and maybe Momma—meant this for us. They were saving cash for us for a rainy day.
“I don’t know, Titus. I’m scared to keep going,” Herc says.
Titus angles the truck around a hairpin turn. My stomach rolls over as I peek down the tree-lined cliff, and I instinctively reach over and grab onto Titus’s bicep. The muscles tighten under my touch.
“Ah. Listen, brother,” Titus says. “Your parents were hoarding cash for you guys. You should keep it as a prize for figuring that out!”
I look over at Titus, and for a split second, our eyes meet, but then he snaps them back to the winding road ahead of us. I watch that angled jaw tick, his eyes narrow on the road. His nostrils flare, and his lips form a thin line. He’s holding something back.
In that minuscule moment, I swear I saw something else there. I haven’t seen that look since Momma died. He’s thinking something he cannot say to me, though I wish he would.
It’s probably just my unrequited feelings about him that make me project. It’s probably nothing.
Titus is just a man. He’s not that much of a mystery.
And if I were to tell him how I feel? And things didn’t work out? Well, that would create a whole world of awkwardness between him and Herc.
Just a man. And now I’m going to college, where I’ll meet dozens of other men, and maybe I’ll get over Titus.
Yes. College will make it much easier to get over these feelings.
FOUR
Titus
College is notwhat I expected.
I had no delusions the work would be easy. My social life is… different from what I’m used to.
Take this Beta Beta Psi party tonight, for instance.