Subject Seven

Chapter Eleven
Gene Rothstein

“Your parents are going to have a fit.” Uncle Robbie’s words were slurred, but not enough for Gene to worry about anything. Robert Stein was a family friend. He’d been the best man when Gene’s parents got married and he was Gene’s godfather, which was one more reason Gene prayed nothing ever happened to his family. The last thing he needed was to be raised by a man who bordered on being an alcoholic.

Not that he could say that. His dad would go through the roof if he ever thought about saying something like that in public.

“You hear what I said?” Rob was talking again. He looked away from the road ahead of them and his eyes sort of swam from side to side in his head. Oh yeah, this was going to be a fun trip. Gene double-checked to make sure he’d fastened his seat belt.

Gene had called Robbie when he couldn’t get hold of his mom or his dad, except for their answering services. Mom was probably due in court and Dad, well, Dad had his medical practice to take care of and that had to come first. It was the emergency room, after all. He was in charge of the whole department, so he couldn’t exactly skip off to find his son some forty miles from home on a school day.

That left “Uncle” Rob, the closest thing his family had to a drunk embarrassment, at least as far as Gene was concerned. He had to curb his dislike of the man. They’d been close once, before Gene realized that the man liked whiskey too much. That was back when Rob cracked jokes and told the greatest stories. Something had happened a while ago, though, that changed the way the man felt about Gene. Not about the rest of the kids, but he could feel it, the way that man avoided looking at him when he’d had too much to drink.

“Yes, sir. I hear you.” What else could he say? Of course his parents were going to have fits. He was having fits. He still didn’t know how he’d gotten to Brooklyn or where his clothes were or anything. He’d had to beg the lady at the muffler shop to let him use the phone and she’d acted like he was taking food from the mouths of her babies the whole time.

He bit everything back, of course, because that was what he did. If he was worried or scared or angry, he took after the examples his mother had presented and held it all in check. Bottle it up, let it out when you are on your own and no one has to deal with your problems but you. That was the way he had been raised and it worked just fine in his book.

At least Rob hadn’t started his favorite rant, the one about how “You know what the problem here is? You don’t know how good you’ve got it. That’s what the problem is.” Rob’s voice grew louder, like Gene had set out to ruin his otherwise perfect day and now he was going to yell and scream until he could no longer keep his audience captive.

Perfect, he thought. Just what I need. Another sermon from Revrund Robbie. There was a rhythm to Rob’s words, like a dance. Once you learned it, you could slide through his sermons and come out of them with only half your mind melted.

He tried to work it out again. In bed, sleeping, and the next thing he knew in an alley watching a big freaking rat chow down on breakfast. Somewhere between the two memories he’d either been abducted by aliens-not even remotely likely-or he’d been kidnapped-almost as crazy-or he’d been sleepwalking. Hell, maybe he’d accidentally knocked back a few of Uncle Rob’s gin and tonics when he wasn’t looking.

“And that’s the part you don’t get, Gene.” He was brought back to the present by the use of his name. Normally when Robbie called on a person by name, he was rounding up for the final pitch and ready to win the game. “You might think this is all just fun and games and that you don’t owe your parents anything, but where would you be if they hadn’t adopted you? You’d probably be living in some dive near where you called me from, that’s where.”

His stomach froze solid. His ears rang with a high, clear note, and all the spit in Gene’s mouth vanished.

What? What did he say about adopted?

“Wait, what? Adopted?” His normally calm surface broke and his voice cracked harshly as he looked toward Robbie.

Robbie weaved the car wildly across a lane of traffic and just managed not to kill them both as he stared at Gene, his eyes going wide. In that second Gene understood the truth. The man had opened his mouth too far and spit out a secret that Martin Rothstein had trusted him with, a secret that Gene was not supposed to hear. Gene stared at him, trying to find more words, wanting to vanish because what Robbie had said had to be a lie. It HAD to be! His parents had always told him the truth, had always pushed hard at how important the truth was, how it was more valuable than gold or any other commodity.

“Oh, hey, Gene, don’t listen to your uncle Robbie… I’m just. .. I’m just messing with your head.” Weak. His voice was faint and lacked any conviction. He was lying, trying to backtrack from what he’d just revealed, and both of them knew it was too damned late.

“What do you mean I’m adopted?” His voice was louder than he meant it to be, but the ringing hadn’t left his ears and all the sounds beyond that continuous note sounded like they were muffled by cotton.

“Gene… ”

Gene held up his hand to gesture for silence. Normally the idea of trying to get Robbie to shut up was crazy, but the man listened. “I can’t talk to you, Uncle Rob. I can’t talk to you right now, okay?” He fought back the tears that burned at his eyes.

Damned if he’d let the drunk loser see him cry.