Free Charming Grace by Deborah Smith Page B

driver’s license that said I was twenty, and could dump a cement bucket or swing a hammer as good as the next guy with big shoulders. I loved it. A fat-cat developer took a liking to me when he saw me reading a book on the houses of Frank Lloyd Wright. I showed him some of my sketches and he said I had talent.
    “Stay on with my crew, Boone, and my draftsman will teach you to draw.” I said yes faster than an alligator snaps up a sitting duck. On top of that, the head carpenter’s college-girl daughter started making moves on me. I was just puffed up enough to make a move back. At sixteen I lost my virginity to her in her frilly pink suburban Las Vegas bedroom. I had saved myself for a sorority girl. While she slept naked in bed I stood naked by her pink desk, looking enviously at her textbooks, notepads, and calculator.
    I earned my high school GED at night school and hooked up with a college counseling crew at a local church. Armand was pleased. “This is my bro, the genius who’s getting ready for college,” Armand took to saying, and he meant it. He had plans for my tuition. I had plans for his life outside crime. I would design and build houses. Lots of them. And make a fortune. And set him up as my partner. And we’d marry good-hearted girls and buy a ranch in bayou country and fill it with kids, horses, cattle, and a pony, one that reminded me of Frenchie. And Mama would be proud. Our papa, wherever he was, could go to hell.
    Only one problem. Armand dreamed bigger than I did, and had a gambler’s soul.
    I came back to our rent-by-the-week motel kitchenette one afternoon to find Armand stuffing our belongings in duffle bags along with wads of cash. He grinned. “Had some good luck at the tables, bro. Now let’s blow this town before that luck turns bad.”
    I groaned. He’d aced the wrong suckers in a high-stakes poker game. You don’t con guys with cocaine headaches and names that sound like deli cheeses in an Italian restaurant. I was so mad I refused to talk to him on the plane ride east. He kept chit chatting but I ignored him. Finally he sank back in his seat in a bad mood. “I do things my way. You do things your way.”
    “We had a chance to live clean in Vegas. I liked my job. I had a girlfriend. One who doesn’t charge by the hour.”
    “You think I don’t want you to have it good? I’m doing this for you .”
    “ Bullshit . You love bein’ a player.”
    “Yeah, I’m a player, bro. That’s my talent. That’s how I’ve taken care of your sorry ass and mine since we were kids.”
    A low blow. He turned his face away, sipped a beer, flirted with a flight attendant, and looked pitiful. I caved. “How much money’d you con out of those guidos?”
    He smiled. “A hundred-thousand plus change.”
    I stared at him with my mouth open. He smiled broader. Armand liked to make big announcements. He dreamed big, illegal dreams. My hooked-trout expression made him throw back his head and laugh. “Call it your college fund, bro.”
    Yeah, he was my brother and I loved him.
    We’d go to hell together.

    “Do you understand what ‘self sabotage’ means?” that self-esteem counselor said to me when I was in lock-up, as a kid.
    Being a wise-ass at the time, I answered, “Yeah, but my bro says it’ll clear up my acne.”
    The counselor ignored my bad attitude and told me I was letting Armand drag me into trouble. That I was finding excuses to stick with Armand even if I knew he was bad for me. That he would go down hard some day and take me with him. To which I said, “Our daddy left us. Our mama died. No one else gave a damn about us. We take care of each other. He’s not gonna take me down. I’m gonna take him up .”
    Big talk and bullshit. As I got older I pissed away my chance to go to college because of Armand. Deep down, I was scared to try hard enough. Scared that I couldn’t do it, couldn’t be a regular citizen, couldn’t be somebody. And scared that going off to study