FEATURE: “High Strung” by Katherine Pickett

The attic bedroom was a pleasant enough place to sleep in fall and spring. Less so in summer and winter. The large quarters, spanning the front of the three-story colonial, were cluttered with the detritus of another life. Ornate wooden trunks and crumbling cardboard boxes. Stacks of magazines turning brown. Two matching four-poster beds with a five-drawer dresser between them. On one long wall were photographs in scrolled frames, an old stereo with moldy speakers, two straightback chairs, and other remnants of Charles and Russo’s parents’ lives in the house before them. Nighttime brought the sounds of rodents scratching wood floors and cockroaches munching on cardboard. Save for the beds and one treasured frame on the wall, all of the surfaces were covered with thick dust, as neither brother liked to clean and there wasn’t a woman around to do it for them. 

Charles and Russo had lived in the house all of their twenty-nine years, and for all of that time, Russo had deferred to Charles in nearly everything. Charles was the older of the two brothers, if only by four minutes. But it seemed those four minutes had made all the difference. Charles was stronger, faster, more cunning. It had always been that way, and Russo did not question it. Not often, anyway.

“The guests are coming this afternoon,” said Charles as he wound the rope around his hand.

“I know. You told me yesterday. And the day before that.”

“You are forgetful, Russo. It’s not my fault I have to remind you of everything.”

Russo said nothing but stood very still. He did not particularly like his brother. He did not enjoy being told what to do or being reminded of how forgetful he was. Charles took every opportunity to make Russo feel small.

“I wish Mother and Daddy were here,” Russo said, looking around the attic as if searching for something. His eyes locked on the shining portrait of his parents that hung by the door. 

“What a stupid thing to say.” Charles glared at Russo with contempt. “Hold still.”

“I am holding still. Why is that a stupid thing to say?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”

“I haven’t forgotten, Charles. Really, why do you treat me like an imbecile. I only said I wish they were here.” Russo extended his hands as Charles swiftly coiled the rope around them. “Too tight.”

“Stop complaining.” 

Russo stomped one foot but complied with Charles’s request. He never fully understood Charles’s plans, but he usually went along with them. They were brothers, and Charles said they had to stick together. “Who are the guests, Charles?”

Charles didn’t reply. He worked deftly with the rope, pulling it taut and wrapping it several times around each wrist. Sometimes he wondered how Russo could be so naïve. The boys were newborns when their mother passed on, twelve when their father followed her and Charles had to take over. Without him, Russo would have starved. He didn’t know where to find food, how to earn money, how to make people trust him.

No, most people were wary of Russo, with his crooked smile and too much eye contact, skin so pale it appeared almost translucent. When protective services showed up at the door on their thirteenth birthday, Charles had a plan.

“Let me do the talking.” He locked Russo in this very room, showed the social worker around the house, and explained away all her worries. Yes, he went to school every day, no, he didn’t go begging for food or sorting through trash. He handed the woman a picture in a frame, said it was his aunt, his caregiver now, and the social worker bought it. Russo couldn’t begin to grasp the horrors of foster care, but Charles knew. He refused to live that way. He had protected Russo. He told Russo that meant they had a special bond and he owed Charles his life. 

“You’re gaining weight,” Charles said now.

“How can you even say that? My clothes are baggy.” Russo moved to pull out the waist of his khaki slacks, but Charles still had his wrists.

“Hold still!” He pulled tight on the rope, and the flesh of Russo’s wrists bulged. 

“Do I really have to do this?” Russo asked. 

“Yes, you do. You know how uncomfortable you make people.” Charles bent down and began to work the rope around his twin’s ankles. 

“I’ve gotten better, Charles. You said so yourself. I don’t stare at people anymore. I’ve learned a lot from you.”

“This is it, Russo. I’m sorry, but it’s the only way.” With one final tug, Charles tightened the rope and sent Russo crashing onto his back. He couldn’t see Charles anymore, as the four-poster blocked his view. But he could hear him working on something. The rope, strung up over the eaves in the open attic ceiling, tugged on his wrists and ankles. And then, he felt himself leave the ground. 

Charles grunted with the exertion. One, two, three, heave. One, two, three, heave. Little by little, Russo was hoisted five feet into the air, suspended by the rope. Charles secured the rope on a peg by the lone east-facing window. Drab September light shone through the thick fogged glass, catching on the dust in the air. The temperature in the room was beginning to rise with the sun.

“Charles, please, you can’t keep me here like this.” Already the rope was starting to dig into his wrists, his weight balanced precariously along the rope that ran down his spine. “Why don’t you just lock me in the room?”

“No, no. I thought of that. They will hear you. They’ll hear you walking around.” 

“Then tie me to the bed, Charles. They won’t hear me if I’m in bed.” 

Panic tinged Russo’s voice. Charles could be cruel, but this was beyond even Charles’s usual petty torture. Wet sheets on his bed, a stone in his boot. After the woman came by, Russo was banned from leaving the house. He befriended a mouse that lived in the walls and made toys for it, gave it food. Until one morning when Russo found the mouse dangling by its tail from a window cord in the living room. Charles denied having anything to do with it. Said Russo strung it up in his sleep. 

“Don’t start with me, Russo. You'd roll around and make the bed creak. You know you would.”

“But how will I use the bathroom?” Tears dripped from the corners of his eyes and gathered in his ears. Just the thought of needing the toilet made his bladder press against his insides. “How long are the guests staying?”

Charles had moved to the door. “I’ll see you Wednesday.”

“Don’t do this, Charles. Please. Please, don’t do this.” And then: “You’ll regret it.”

Charles glared at Russo. Their mother and father peered out at him from their portrait on the wall. Their beautiful mother. She’d died in childbirth, Russo barely making it out alive. And what had killed their father? Heartbreak over his wife’s demise? His inability to manage Russo’s eccentricities? He had tried to mold Russo into a normal boy, but he was intractable. Setting fire to the grass, laughing at his own cleverness. Their father lost his job and would have lost this home if it hadn’t been paid for. When the boys turned twelve, bang! No more Daddy.

And that’s why Charles had convinced the social worker that there was only one brother. No one would miss Russo. He alone had survived. He alone.

Charles remembered the days and months after the gunshot. The house, already beginning to crumble, fell into such disrepair, they shut off rooms as they became unusable. The dishes piled up and began to mold. The grass out back grew tall, and the lead paint on the porch chipped until it resembled a mosaic. In the evenings the two boys often huddled together on the oriental rug before the fireplace, recalling the stories and fables their father had spun. The rug, their father said, had been a wedding gift for their mother, and Charles never felt closer to her than when he was curled up on it with Russo. Then one winter day, Charles came home excited to tell Russo about his latest ploy. After reading an illustrated copy of A Christmas Carol he’d found in their old nursery, he’d fixed himself a crutch like Tiny Tim’s and repeated “God bless us everyone” to each passerby. He’d made a killing. But his excitement soon turned to fury. Their mother’s oriental rug was pocked with burn marks. Russo, who spent his days home alone, had brought his hobby indoors.

“Charles.” Russo’s voice was strained. “Charles, who are the guests?”

Charles looked back at his twin with disgust. He had pissed himself already and the smell of urine reached Charles now. The stench, combined with the intensifying heat, made him cough.

“There are no guests, are there, Charles. Please tell me.” 

Charles shook his head vaguely and Russo didn’t know if he was saying no or simply refusing to answer. Russo watched as Charles retrieved a limp, dusty rag from the floor and strode over to his brother. 

“What’s that—?”

Russo’s words were cut off as Charles stuffed the rag into his mouth. Russo shook his face to rid himself of the gag, but it was no use. The more he shook, the more the rope cut into his wrists and ankles. Tears streamed from his eyes and he quieted his body to ease the pain.

Charles took one more step toward the door, his face etched with disappointment. “Happy birthday, brother,” he said, intending to walk out, but when he turned the doorknob, it was locked. 

Charles was shocked by the betrayal. “Russo, what did you do?”

Russo, still gagged, did not respond. The acrid smell of smoke reached the attic then and Charles shook the door harder. 

“Russo! What did you do?”

Charles’s face turned red with anger. He thrashed the door. When that didn’t work he began to search for the key. Dust billowed up as he overturned boxes and sorted through the detritus. At last, in one of his mother’s old trunks, he found a stray bobby pin. He smiled slyly at Russo as he straightened the pin and went back to the door. He twisted the knob, then peered through the keyhole. He inserted the bobby pin and wiggled. The lock didn’t turn. His smug grin dropped away when he realized the problem. The door wasn’t just locked, it was jammed.

Soon he could feel an intense heat on the other side of the door and thick smoke began to fill the room. He got low to the ground searching for fresh air. He clambered across the room to the dormer window, knowing it hadn’t been opened in thirty years. The aperture was small, maybe too small for a grown man, but it was his only hope. He located the hand crank, the metal warm in his hands, and pushed and pulled with great force. The mechanism refused to move. He banged the glass with his fists—as fruitless as a baby crying out for his mother. Eyes and lungs burning, he picked up one of the straightback chairs and slammed it into the fogged glass. The antique chair splintered into pieces. 

After the momentary frenzy Charles understood his situation completely. He crouched by the window, a lion with no prey. He could no longer see through the charred, smoky air, but he could hear his brother’s stifled screams. They would surely burn alive. 

No. Not screams. Charles’s stomach churned as he recognized the sound. 

Russo was laughing.

Katherine Pickett is the owner of POP Editorial Services LLC and the author of two books, Perfect Bound: How to Navigate the Book Publishing Process Like a Pro and the novel Debra Lee Won't Break. Her personal essay "Dented" was published by Lowestoft Chronicle and selected for the 2011 Lowestoft Chronicle print anthology. Other creative works have appeared in Lowestoft Chronicle, Voice of Eve, Defunct Magazine, and Grand Dame Literary. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with her handsome and strong husband, Chris, and their two awe-inspiring daughters.