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It was the sweetest, most exquisite kind of pain, like losing a tooth, which left a raw spot that tasted of blood, a tender, aching hole my tongue could not stop returning to. What a relief it was to be put in my place, the slap from my mother or father reiterating the outline of my being, underscoring the exact dimensions of my freedom. You will go this far, the stinging flesh told me, the red ghost of a hand on my skin. You will go this far and no farther. There wasn’t much leeway, really; there were, blessedly, many ways to go wrong.

I walked slowly around the room, listening to the floor creak under my weight, feeling the pile of the brown and white shag carpet creep up between my toes, each thread as high as a blade of freshly cut grass. His room was wallpapered in brown plaid, except for one section, which was covered with corkboard; it was a place for him to hang pictures and birthday cards and first-place ribbons. There was always plenty of space, since he never used it much anyway. It was mostly my father who hung things there, prouder of his son than my brother was of himself.

I found him, he found me, both of us pulled toward the simple distraction of company, the thrill of aching rage. There was a game that he and I were especially fond of. We could do it anywhere, under any circumstances. Our play never started out this way, but this is where we almost always wound up. He would be chasing me around the yard, or wrestling me in his room, or swinging me in circles by my ankles in the basement, when suddenly — He pushed me hard into the prickly bushes and little beads of blood rose up to the surface of the skin all along my arms; he let a punch fly in the middle of our wrestling match and knocked the wind right out of me; he dropped me, head first, onto the concrete floor of the basement.