Gattaca

by X.C. Atkins

I knew my older brother had a different dad than I did, but I didn’t know it by the difference of our skin color. I knew it because whenever my dad would piss him off by telling him to do something or when they’d get into an argument, my older brother would later say angrily under his breath, “He’s not my real dad.”

I really hated when they would fight because I loved my older brother more than anything. Sometimes I was even the reason for why they would fight. Sometimes I would snitch. I hated to be a snitch, I knew you were never supposed to be one, but sometimes, as a little punk kid, it’s the only weapon you have left to use. I’d hate to see him be punished and maybe he wouldn’t talk to me for a little while but eventually I’d worm my way back into his good graces.

I think the first time I ever realized that we were in fact quite different was when he was in high school. He might’ve already even been a senior. He was nine years older than me, and he was popular. I was just a pipsqueak in elementary school. One day, he brought a girl home. Me and my two younger brothers were in the living room playing video games. Our parents weren’t home. We put the game on pause to admire our brother. The girl was pretty.

“Who are these little cutie pies?” the girl giggled at us. We were quiet, shy, bushy-haired brown little boys who had no idea in the world how to talk to girls or even just act normal. To be honest, I don’t think I could barely look a girl in the eyes yet.

“Those are my little brothers,” he told her.

She giggled again, pushing his arm playfully. Even her eyes seemed to smile at him. “No really,” she said.

“I’m for real. Those are my little brothers,” he repeated.

Then she tilted her head, the reality of it dawning on her. Whatever her reality might have been. She just said, “Oh.” Then they went upstairs.

Me and my younger brothers started playing video games again. Eventually, my youngest brother asked, “How come that girl didn’t believe Dev?”

“What do you mean?” my other brother said, his eyes on the screen.

“About us being his brothers. How come she didn’t believe him?”

“Because we’re black and he’s white,” I said. I tossed my controller to my youngest brother and got off the couch. I left my little brothers to go walk around the neighborhood and be by myself. I didn’t know why, all I knew was I’d learned by then when I felt this way it was better to just go off on my own.

There’d be these times when my dad would be mad and we’d never have any idea why. He didn’t do it all the time, but sometimes he might take it out on us, brief hot moments that left us speechless. I hated him in those moments. So even by my young age, I knew I never wanted to be that way. Sometimes I’d walk so damn far off by myself, I’d find myself completely lost. But somehow, I always found my way back home.

*

I was in high school and the day had finished. Hour ride back home in the yellow bus, I kept my head against the window, headphones on, blasting M.O.P. I found I was angry a lot. I had this indescribable energy, and the only way I knew how to release it was through some physical outlet. Maybe there was another way, but there wasn’t anyone for me to communicate this with, so I was stuck with it. I didn’t know why I was this way. I didn’t understand it. But then, nobody asked me to. So I just went through the motions. Pass the bullshit tests, save my antics for when I couldn’t get suspended. I didn’t learn how to talk to girls until I started drinking. And even then, we weren’t really talking.

The bus dropped me off only a block from my house. Walking up, I saw Devonte’s car in front. Devonte didn’t live with us anymore, didn’t even live in the same state. I hopped up the steps excitedly.

Everyone was in the kitchen, standing and sitting around Dev as he ate a sandwich and had a glass of water. Everyone was quiet, listening to him talk.

“It hasn’t been easy. Getting a foot in the door. Weird interactions I wasn’t ready for. But I’m getting there. Just gotta stay on track,” Devonte was saying.

“Weird why?” my youngest brother asked.

“Interviewing for work, starting a job, and there’s this… this awkwardness. Like some wall. It’s hard to explain. Maybe just cause I’m the new guy.”

He finally saw me and nodded his head and smiled. I smiled back even though I didn’t mean to. I didn’t not want to, it just happened without me thinking about it, and I felt like maybe it made my face look dumb.

“Give your older brother a hug,” my mom told me.

He stood up and we hugged. He took a look at me.

“Baggy jeans, boy,” Devonte said to me. I just shrugged and smiled stupidly again. I left them in the kitchen and went upstairs, up to my room, where I closed the door. I stayed up there, listening to music, until mom called everyone for dinner. We usually sat in the TV room, watching some show, no one talking, probably preferable. But Dev was home, so we sat at the dinner table. A more traditional and performative family this evening. Everyone was asking him stuff about life in the south, as they ought to have, but I just ate my food. When I finished, I asked to be excused. I went back up to my room.

Even back then, I was already staying up late. My parents hated that I did, but I finally had my own room so there wasn’t anyone to stop me. The stairs creaked like hell when anyone went up or down them but I knew most of the ones that gave you trouble and did my best to avoid them. I wanted a glass of tea. I could see the blue light from the TV room. I went to the kitchen, poured myself a glass, and found my older brother sitting on the couch by himself.

He looked at me, not smiling, almost like he’d been expecting me. I stood in the doorway.

“You ever seen this movie before?” he asked me.

“What is it?”

“Gattaca.”

I sat down with him. I recognized the actor. Ethan Hawke. He was standing on a beach with another man.

“What’s happening?” I asked my brother.

“They’re brothers, and they want to see how far they can swim into the water. They want to see which one of them gives up first. One of the brothers, he’s engineered. He’s supposed to be better.”

“A better swimmer?”

“Just better. In everything. He was engineered to be better.”

“Is he?”

“No,” Devonte said. “Some things go beyond science.”

I didn’t understand everything about the movie but I knew I liked it. When it was finished, Devonte and I hugged again, longer than before. Then he laid down on the couch and turned off the TV. The couch was his bed that night.

I woke up late the next day. No one bothered me. It was the weekend. When I came downstairs, my mom was sitting at the table in the kitchen, reading the paper. I could see into the TV room. No one was in there. The blankets were gone.

“Where’s Dev?” I asked.

“He already left,” she told me, not looking up from the paper.

*

We were walking down this street and it was late, this girl and I. I was in college. We were drunk and we were laughing softly, laughing into each other’s neck and hair and collar bone, stumbling towards my place. It was one of those rare nights where things go better than you could have expected. Better than I could have expected anyway. Maybe she’d known all along. But it definitely seemed like we were both pretty excited, excited like kids really. Giddy. She had both her arms encircled around my waist and my arm was over her shoulder, and she had her head in my chest. Her dark hair covered her eyes but I could see her grinning.

“What is it?” I asked her.

“Nothing,” she said, giggling.

“Tell me.”

“I’ve never hooked up with a black guy before,” she said. “I just never thought I was the type.”

She said it with such blind honesty, an almost innocence to it, like a child saying a curse word for the first time. The pseudo shade of innocence was the only thing that allowed me to continue to walk. To not abruptly halt in my tracks, to flare with emotion. It was a wild moment where I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t the first time I’d ever experienced a moment like this, the shock, but also, it was even familiar in a way. It was familiar because, by then, I enjoyed doing it to white people. Freezing them with such a loaded statement they would be completely unsure of how to proceed, until they would see my gradual smile reveal itself, allowing them to sink back into comfort, maybe wag their finger at me. You got me, maybe they’d say. But the difference was, I did it on purpose. This girl, this sweet girl. This sweet stupid fucking girl. She was genuinely looking forward to this novel experience. She was very pretty.

“Come on, I’m right up here,” I said, pulling the keys out of my jeans.

Fuck it, I thought. I’m getting laid tonight.

*

My mother never told us why she gave us the names she did. Or maybe we never asked. We had to have asked. At some point. I don’t remember asking. But I know she was always evasive with her answers anyway. So I can’t remember. We all had such different names. My mother was secretly very romantic, despite her tough exterior. She had a ton of stories but a lot of times the only ones she’d share were ones to scare us with, to keep us in line, I’m sure passed down to her from her own jerk father. She told us stories to make sure we didn’t get anyone pregnant, stories to stay away from liquor, stories not to fight with cops. All things she’d done rampantly in her youth. Now that I was older, I guess I could respect reserving the more adventurous stories. She wanted us to be better. God bless her. We were hard kids to raise but she did it and we mostly all turned out all right. Mostly.

Devonte lived in Raleigh. College was over and I was in between jobs, is what I told my parents. I borrowed their car and drove down to my older brother and never told my dad my license had been suspended. The drive was a straight shot, smooth. I’d made it a million times with the Baker brothers, sitting shotgun tossing silver Natty’s into the wind.

I pulled into my brother’s apartment parking lot. I could see him right away, leaning against the railing of his balcony, a cigarette hanging off his lip. He was shirtless and he had his hair buzzed, just like me. Except he was white. I parked and got out the car with my bag. He gave me a curt salute, flicked the cigarette, and went inside. He met me at the bottom of the stairs. He smiled, just a sliver of his teeth showing. Forever the prince of wolves.

We hugged and didn’t say a word to each other until we got upstairs, into his apartment. He opened the door to a room.

“This is for you,” he said. I looked inside. I tossed my bag on the bed and nodded to him.

“Wanna check out the pool?” he asked.

“OK.”

“You got trunks?”

“Nah,” I told him.

“I got some you can borrow.”

It was a good-sized pool, and clean. No one was out there except a mom and her kid. The kid had those little orange floats tied to his arms. I dived in. When I came up, Devonte was sitting on a chair, starting another cigarette.

“Bunch of tattoos, boy,” he said to me. “Mom know?”

“She knows about some of ‘em.”

“What she say?”

“She don’t like ‘em.”

Devonte laughed quietly, ashing his cigarette. “Well anyway, how you feeling?”

“This feels nice. But I’m tired,” I said.

“When you come out, take a quick nap maybe. My girl’s coming over tonight. Want you to meet her. I’m cooking dinner. Stuff Mom makes.”

“OK,” I said. I swam a couple laps, lazily, mostly floating. It felt peaceful. The sun had that good southern heat to it, the distant sizzle. Submerged, the humidity couldn’t touch me. The light was cutting up off the water so that I had to squint. The little boy on the other side of the pool was loving life. His mother looked on him with a lot of care. It was pleasant to witness.

We went upstairs and I took a shower and then I went to bed for that nap. I fell asleep almost immediately. Devonte woke me up. He wasn’t an asshole about it. He opened the door and he called my name softly until I opened my eyes.

“Come on,” he said. “Dinner’s ready.”

I came out the bedroom rubbing my eyes. There was a young lady leaning against the wall next to the kitchen, her arms crossed. She was smiling at me. It was a nice smile. Like if I saw it in a grocery store from a stranger, I would smile back, would feel good about smiling back. I’d hope she found everything she came in that grocery store looking for. But I realized this was the woman my brother had invited over for dinner. To meet his younger brother. So I didn’t smile. I nodded to her.

“Hi,” I said, monotone.

She put out a hand. “So nice to meet you. Calvin’s told me so much about you.”

Her hand hung there, in the air. I looked at Devonte, not understanding. He was looking at me, not saying anything, but his expression was serious and he was looking me right in the eyes. I wanted to repeat the name she’d said. But I saw something in his eyes. I finally shook her hand.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure Calvin has.”

Devonte made the plates for all three of us. We sat around a low glass table, in front of the TV. There was small conversation but no one was really saying very much. The food was very good. He’d made it just like mom. I was impressed but remained silent. I felt like I was right back home. Mom and Dad. Amazing, how you held it together all those years. Devonte’s girlfriend seemed nice enough. She wasn’t apathetic. She wasn’t defensive. She asked decent questions, but she also wasn’t a dummy. She could tell what I was doing.

We finished eating dinner and then sat around watching some stand up. Devonte’s girlfriend had a nice laugh and it seemed genuine. I stood up.

“I’m gonna float around the pool a little more,” I said. “Nice to meet you,” I told his girlfriend.

We shook hands again, politely, formally.

I went into my room and got my borrowed trunks and a towel and went back down to the pool. There were lights on but I would’ve been fine in the dark anyway. I sank into the water, all the way in, until I was gone. I began to finally feel more calm. I’d come up from the water, but with my face only, just to breathe. Then I’d submerge again. I stayed down there, holding my breath, as long as I could, until my chest seemed ready to burst.

I was down there, watching the bubbles rise to the surface, when overhead, I could see the wavering figure of who I assumed was my older brother. I came up, pulling myself to the edge of the pool. Devonte was standing there.

“You mad at me?” he asked me.

“For what?”

“You know what,” he said, hands on his hips. “Didn’t know how to tell you. Kind of forgot, to be honest.”

“Forgot you were a completely different person than my brother? That you just made up someone to be?” I asked him.

He sighed, looking away. “I’m not a different person, boy. It’s just a name. It’s complicated.”

“Yeah, whatever,” I said, pulling myself out of the pool. I grabbed my towel and started to walk away. He grabbed my brown arm. I glared at him, everything in my eyes saying I was this close to throwing a right. Devonte stood his ground.

“You’re gonna listen to me,” he said firmly.

We sat down on some chairs next to the glowing pool. My jaw was clenched the whole time. I stared at my feet. My head was too heavy to look any higher.

“It’s fucked up,” he started. “I finished school. Top of my class. Should’ve got me a job right away. Took me forever. I couldn’t figure it out.” He lit two cigarettes. He handed one of them to me. I took it and took a drag immediately.

“I didn’t notice it until one of the interviews. Felt so dumb after. Guy said to me, “Oh, wow. By your name, you weren’t what we were expecting.” That’s when I got it. You see what I’m saying?”

“They thought you were black,” I said.

“Right,” Devonte said. “So I conducted an experiment. I made up a name. The whitest name I could think of. Calvin. From the comics.”

My head was lifting higher. I could hear cars far off. My skin was prickling in the night air. I tapped my cigarette.

“Put Calvin on my applications. Started to get called back a lot more. More jobs. What’s funny, I guess, I just started by the name. Even when I was out. All the time. No one knew any better. No one knows me here. I made this whole life. All I had to do was say it. Hey, I’m Calvin. Everything seemed… easier.”

I took the last drag off my cigarette. I made it last. I flicked it into the pool. I could tell he didn’t like that by how his body jerked up, but he didn’t say anything.

“Well, I’m glad to hear life got easier for you, brother,” I said, standing up.

“Now, wait a second,” he said. “I know.”

“No,” I said. “You don’t. That’s the point. I can’t just change my name. I can’t take this off,” I said, pulling at the skin on my brown arm.

“This isn’t me against you,” he told me.

“You’re supposed to be my brother,” I said back. I could feel tears running down my cheek. I knew it had been a long time since I’d felt them. They were hotter than I remembered. They lasted longer, running down my no longer child face.

“Hey. What the hell. I always will be.” He was holding on to my arm again.

We went back upstairs. His girl was no longer there. He pulled out a handle of tequila from the cabinet above his refrigerator, along with two shot glasses. We then began to get aggressive. Which was familiar. We punched each other. Grinned. Reminisced about memories many others would find traumatic, and maybe they were, but we just laughed about them now. He hugged me and I hugged him back and I didn’t want to let go but finally I did.

I woke up before he did. As in, the door to his bedroom was still closed when I went to use the bathroom.

I used the toilet, brushed my teeth, rubbed cold water on my face. Then I packed my stuff up, made my bed like my mom taught me to, and left my older brother Devonte’s place.

About the Author

X.C. Atkins is the author of Grace Street Alley and other stories, published by Makeout Creek Books in 2018. Additionally, he has short stories in Prairie Schooner, Paper Darts, The Poydras Review, Akashic Books Richmond Noir, and other journals and anthologies. He graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University. He is a bartender in New Orleans.