The Subtle Art of Brutality

“Look at me now. Who will want me?” she says.

She is done now. Her gritty eyes search the table for a hidden meaning in the fake wood grain of the surface. Before the group can console her or whatever she abruptly stands up and goes to the drink table. The half-full coffee pot is ancient and long-stained brown. Split patterns of sugar and non-dairy creamer decorates the table.

I look back to Delilah and she is staring at me. I think might she might smell something foul with me showing up, maybe she’ll confront me. But she doesn’t. Instead it just looks like she is waiting. So is everyone else.

“What?” I ask.

“I think Jennifer will need a minute,” the brunette who has seen better days says. “Why don’t you go ahead.”

“Oh I—”

“First time?” a rotund, cruel-looking woman asks. She has the air of a lifer in these kinds of things; she’s probably been to enough court-mandated AA and NA groups to have the procedures and habits down.

“I was nervous my first time,” a cherubic woman says. She looks like she should be crocheting and bragging about her son’s high school football achievements, not talking about being in a mutual sexual relationship with relatives. “Just start and it will share itself. You’ll feel so much better.”

Heads nod in agreement. The rotund lifer smiles. She’s missing a tooth. If she keeps goading me I’ll take care of the rest here shortly.

I shrug and light a Rum Coast. What the hell. Derne said ninety minutes, right?

63

“My name is Joe Tiller and I am an Incest Survivor.”

“You don’t have to share last names,” the seen-better-days brunette group leader says to me.

“I guess I was around puberty when I began having sex with both my twin older brothers,” I say. Over at the table I see Jennifer take a flask out of her jacket and spike her coffee. A lot.

“And we just never stopped. I knew people would look down on us but it felt special. It felt loving. Maybe it felt natural because we were brothers...I don’t know. It’s not like they would hang out with me when they were around their friends, so the sex was really all I had if I wanted attention from my older brothers. And what little brother didn’t?

“Eventually after Ben graduated high school he married a girl. Had kids. Bill and I never cared; neither did Ben. We kept it up, but Ben—a couple of years ago—he killed himself Hemmingway-style.”

I’m sure this crowd is used to this stuff. I hope.

“Dropped his wife off at work, took his kids to school, went back home and got out the double-barreled shotgun. Loaded it with lead slugs, put the barrels in his mouth and put a toe on both triggers. Might have named one Joe and the other Bill. Who knows. I’d be flattered if he did, but...”

Stares. Crickets chirping. Mouths open just enough. Off in the distance a dog barks.

“He got both barrels both off. I would have thought as he toed them down the first one would have been all. But no. The slugs went right through the damn roof two floors up. Bill and I told him he paid too much for that house.” I’m having fun now. I might start doing this on my off time.

“And another thing if you all will indulge me: Ben inherited that shotgun from Dad. The bitch of it was, Dad had promised it to me. I guess that’s neither here nor there, but still.”

Delilah stirs and I keep my peripheral vision on her. It would be my luck that I’m bullshitting my way through an incest confession and she slips away.

“Anyway, Bill and I, uhhh...we kept going but it was strange without Ben’s help. Bill and I could pull it off, but we were a trio. I have no idea why Ben would kill himself; he had a good job and his kids were too young to be fuck-ups. Maybe it was because he thought his wife was banging the neighbor. She probably was, but then again he was banging us.”

I stop and look at my hands. Delilah in my peripheral. Everyone else is staring at me. They want more. Call it the train wreck syndrome. I like the stopping point I’ve found.

“You’re right,” I say to the cherubic woman. “I do feel better.”

The group stirs for just a moment, looks to the woman next to me. She shakes her head no. She’ll share next time, I guess. Probably doesn’t want to follow up the Joe Tiller story. C’mon Derne. Fifteen more minutes or so if he’s on the money.

Heads turn. Someone clears her throat. Someone else runs her fingers through her hair to add some bounce.

Delilah takes a deep breath. Begins to speak.

64

“I don’t remember the first time I had sex with Dad,” she begins.