A False Dawn

SEVENTY-FIVE

Josh Brennen looked like he’d seen a ghost. “Where’s Richard?”

Santana laughed. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

“What’d you do to him?”

“Father, what makes you think I’d hurt a hair on the favorite son’s head?”

“What’d you want?”

“Nothing from you. I wanted something a long time ago, but you refused to give it. I wanted a name. I wanted a home. I wanted you to take care of my mother. She was one of the many young Latino girls you raped and spit on. You seemed to like her a lot. Made her your favorite. Raped her over and over until she got pregnant. She was seventeen. I know that she came to you for help. Not for her, but for her baby, your son. Me, Papa, me! And where were you when I was raped at age ten, Papa?”

“How much do you want?”

Santana backhanded Brennen across the mouth. Blood spilled down the old man’s face and into his two-day growth of white whiskers.

“You think I came here for money? You stupid old man! I learned how to make money. How to survive. I had no choice. You learn or you die. The streets of Guadalajara are where I got my education in people. Rich tourists. Corrupt police. My mother became a street whore. After you destroyed her spirit, she didn’t care about her body. She’d have sex with anyone for a dollar. Didn’t care if I was in the house or not. She made me hate her! You made me hate her! She died from AIDS, but mostly she died from abuse. Abuse started by you, Papa. When she died, she still had scars on her legs from when your contractors beat her with a fishing rod. I was thirteen when she died in the streets. I rode with the coyote into California. Lived in the barrios of south Los Angeles. Fought gangs. Stole. Learned. Survived. When I got to Florida, I came to find the man my mother had talked about when the drugs were making her crazy. I only wanted to see you…to talk with you. And I saw your true colors through the blood spilled and running into my eyes. Your blood, Papa!”

“Shut up!” Brennen screamed.

“No! You listen to me, old man.” Santana laughed. “I figured out how to get a scholarship and began medical school. Imagine, a doctor in the family! You could brag to your rich friends,‘my son the doctor.’ You must remember when I came to you. It was fifteen years ago. You had one of your men teach me a ‘lesson’ as you called it. He beat me so hard I still have problems in my head. You let him beat me, your own son, almost to death. And you stood there and watched. The last thing I remembered, before he kicked my teeth, was looking up at you, Father. Lying there in the mud and horse shit in one of your pastures, looking up at you and hoping you’d stop the man from hitting me. From hurting me, your flesh and blood! But all you did was stare, those eyes burning though me. Guess what, Papa? We have the same eyes. I see yours are covered in cataracts, but I remember when they had color. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, Father. But what if you have no soul? What do you see through those windows? You see hell. Evil can exist in many forms. When it’s inherited in the spirit, it can be disguised. And that’s the art to true evil. You’ve succeeded at it for years, Papa. Making people believe you’re just a good ol’ rancher. In reality, you’re a man who can slit the throat of a human as easily as lamb.”

“Shut up! Brennen said, throwing the scotch in Santana’s face.

“Oh, I know it’s hard to listen to Father, but it’s time you admitted it. I’m just like you, a man without a soul. That’s what you gave me. Like father…like son.”

“Like fucking hell! Get out!”

“You don’t give the orders old man! Pick up that phone by your side and call your other son up to the big house. We can have a little family reunion.”

“No!”

There was a slight noise in the foyer. Santana looked up to see Grace Brennen in her motorized wheelchair. He grinned, walked over to her and pushed the wheelchair in front of Brennen’s chair. Santana placed both hands on her neck. In a voice above a whisper, he said, “Call him or I’ll snap her neck. It’s a painful way to die. And you can sit there and watch it. Call him now.”