Chapter 1

Oh Brother.

My brother and I had never gotten along. Hatred would be too strong a word but indifference fit. Charlie was eighteen months older, and, as such, I was too young for his games. Charlie was born before the war, I was born during the dark days of misery and defeat. Oh ... we worked it out in the end; first Italy, then Germany and finally, Japan.

Charlie was ... responsible.

I was ... frivolous.

I truly believe that his eighteen months of better food, a house with plenty of coal and no rationing somehow helped him in those eighteen months to grow straight, strong, mentally fit and fat while I sucked hind tit.

Charlie had eggs, bacon, and toasted bread spread with real butter.

I had powered eggs, four ounces of mystery meat a week, day old home baked bread with bugs and margarine.

But, we grew ... it's how life works. Charlie grew to be six foot three. I ... the only male ... in the family under the magic six foot mark ... stopped at five feet ten. Just another bone of contention.

Life: a sexually transmitted fatal disease.

Charlie and I grew apart. He worked through high school, got a state job when he graduated and moved away. His job was uninteresting ... rod-man for a state highway survey crew. Seventy five hundred a year and fifteen dollars per diem. Fifteen bucks every day he lived away from his Ann Arbor base.

"It doesn't stress me. I walk until the chain stops me, stick the spike in the ground, obey the fella with the degree, and do it over and over ... all day long. Nobody cares as long as I do my job. I write in my head."

Charlie was big on Science Fiction ... what he read and what he wrote.

By the time he was thirty, Charley had over Seventy five thousand in the bank. Charlie ... the miser. At thirty-one, he was published ... a pseudonym ... of course.

I was a lazy fucker ... terrible person ... and listless.

I married ... probably to beat the baby on the way. Twenty four years old ... the wife was a high school senior.

Charlie married ... at 44 ... to a widow ... with children.

When the state decided that accumulated sick, vacation, and holidays had to be used or lost, Charlie went to college ... for four years ... paid for by his accumulation. Not that he needed the money for school ... as a state employee ... tuition and books were free ... he already owned a large duplex less than a mile from the school. The other half of the building made his mortgage.

I had never been to his ... wife's ... home.

So ... imagine my surprise when I got a call. "Hello."

"Mr. Austin?"

"Yes,"

"Mr. David James Austin?"

Shit ... a bill collector. "Yes," I said.

"Formerly married to Cora Jo Austin?"

"That is correct," I said.

"Would it be possible for you to visit our Law offices? Smith, Hagerty, Olsen and Lynn."

"Where?"

"Belleville, Michigan."