LEFT OF SINISTER

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Candy got a very ugly look on his face now with the quote from his brother. "Don't you call me crazy–only I am entitled to make that distinction. I won't have judgments rendered about me without my approval. I will say that it is so however, and I don't use the term lightly I assure you my dear Earl, yet even when I realized I was afflicted with it I also realized I could put my form of sanity, which is how I generally perceive it, to good use you know, though in conversation I might refer to it as insanity or madness for the benefit of the other party. But honestly my present frame of mind is to put it to good use for the betterment of society eliminating those that would prove to be useless to it. How different am I from some corporation that carries on with disreputable behavior every minute of every hour on the hour and at the same time in many cases provides a service or a product that may well be an essential part of life in these United States? Do you suppose they go out and blow people away or simply in some ways, as I am aware of them of being capable of doing, as a former intelligence operative, able to flush them from our midst without us even knowing it. Some do kill people I would venture to say, but most go about it in even more despicable ways than any of us could ever imagine. Purchasing all the political power in Washington to me is a far more harrowing prospect for the country than some man whose gotten addicted, so to speak, of releasing others from the plight of their already grotesque existence." Candy was preaching now it seemed off on a tangent.

"Yes in spite of it all Earl, my good natured brother I also realized I am a genius, an artist of considerable talent and as well a literary genius. I have reams of journals, essays, poems, and other such musings that might would fill a good portion of the Library of Congress. And so I couldn't ever consider depriving the public of my ability to move about and develop my exalted level of understanding and produce my work. Shit Earl all geniuses are beset by some form of madness. The same goes for me and so I should never be sent off to lounge in some quarter of a prison and have to stew in my madness denying all the world the wisdom of my insight, mad though it may be." A near screech of laughter escaped him then.

"And when was it you came by this mode of reasoning Candy?" Earl asked very much desiring, to put it bluntly, making heads or tails of this tirade. Candy shifted in the chair as Earl saw it trying to make himself a more imposing figure. His body seemed to swell no doubt since his narcissism seemed to be in overdrive and producing the illusion of greater size perhaps. His posture became even more erect as he pressed his back to the chair his shoulders rising now near looking as broad as those of Kevin Mchale as he played along side Bird and Parish.

"A long time ago Earl, and when I'm done you might ascribe some sort of victim hood to me. You're a good liberal person like me Earl so I say hear me out. What do you got to lose?" he asked a curious look in his eye. Earl stood up now and for a moment put Candy on edge. He in turn stood up and stiffened his left arm with the Ruger in his hand his finger curled around the trigger aiming it at his brother on the other side of the coffee table.

"Don't do nothing stupid Earl, you don't want to depart this world as yet do you?" he asked his teeth drawn in a clinch. "Relax Socrates I'm merely standing to encourage you to get on with it!" Earl said now the storm outside the house raging with even greater force now debris striking the windows.

One of them shattered as the sound of a rock piercing one of the panes of glass erupted close by and passed between the blinds. They heard the rock land on the wooden floor before the deep green carpet.

"Mother fucker–I hope those goddamn haints ain't out there heaving rocks at the place like some of those outraged Negro citizen in Ferguson, Missouri." Candy laughed. "Next thing you know they'll be heaving Molotov cocktails like some goddamn Bolshevik in Petrograd." And them came some laughter some interested sort might see as reminiscent of some crude red guard of that time.

His grin was near demonic now in Earl's estimation. And as he stared at him Earl concluded he seemed intent in viewing him in the manner of a psychiatrist probing him in an effort to understand his reaction.

"You know Earl when I was in the army I knew some Ukranian guy who was a refugee from that part of the world whose family escaped to East Germany and then on to the west. I mean he loved America Earl, thought it was "hot damn delicious" he'd say quoting his grandfather. His name was Petro Pavluk Earl and he was a really likable guy, but you know what Earl he was a goddamn Fascist. He never expressed any outrage for what the Nazis did to the Ukraine except that they killed a lot of the peasants. He made excuses for the anti-Semitic pogroms that the Nazis and Stalinist both did because a lot of the commies were Jews like that was some kind of revelation from on high. He didn't give a fuck about any of that Earl."

Earl looked in that direction as he returned to his seat. "It's the wind Candy, it's got to be blowing somewhere in the seventy mile an hour range." he remarked. "Oh shit I know that Earl–I was just adding a little levity to lighten the mood. You look despondent in some way." he replied.

"Candy I'm waiting. I don't need the biography of some peasant from some Slavic hovel whose still crude enough to wallow in ancient hatreds to figure this out. Remember we're talking about you not some fellow you knew in the corridors of the National Security Agency." he said referencing Fort Meade where Candy was briefly stationed after returning from southeast Asia and finishing up his tenure with the Army Security Agency near exasperated by this constant bantering.

"Very well remember when I was in first grade Earl in that bitch Ethel Collins room?" he asked. "Yes of course it was 1956 I think since your birthday is in late January." Earl said. "Yes, yes it was, I started in September of 55 and turned seven four months later in January." he nodded. And then taking a deep breath he began to tell his brother his life story, the part Earl was unaware of, from the moment of his having suffered that blow to his forehead in that year of 1956. It was on a day when the Spring time took on the heat of an early summer and prompted Mrs. Collins to seek assistance in raising the high windows whose wood was always swelling in the humidity of the tropical south and getting stuck. Seeking out the janitor might be long in the doing and so asking for volunteers among her valiant small students to attempt to raise them was far more efficient.

It was near to the end of the school year you know sometime in late April or early May. It was hot as hell as it can get sometimes back then even in the Spring remember?" Candy was saying.

"Yeah sure." Earl answered. "Well I was one of those kids on that day and I got my head fucked up. It was as simple as that. A bang on my noggin and from then on I'm destined to be a crazy person and a murderer. Imagine that–that was all it took"