Read Online The Wrong Man by Matthew Louis - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Matthew Louis
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Net. Very occasionally Owen and I had made eye contact and once he even acknowledged me with an upward jerk of his eyebrows and a quiet, “What’s up.”
I had seen his mother from time to time too. A rough-hewn, middle aged white lady, thick at the waistline with deflated cleavage and raunchy clothes. She had a craggy face and frazzled yellow hair with dark roots. Owen’s biological father was a mystery and his stepfather long gone to prison, but he had a half brother, Ramón, and, as I was to learn, a six-year-old half sister.
Ramón’s story was the inverse of Owen’s. A half-Mexican who didn’t take part in the local gangs, knew only a few scraps of Spanish, and spent as little time as possible in the poor and dangerous neighborhoods. Ramón had crossed over to smoke pot and party with the white skateboarders, punks and heavy metal kids and when he spoke his English, rather than being accented like a second language, was pure California stoner.
I had seen Ramón at dozens of parties since high school and had watched as he coerced girls into leaving with him or discussed in a shouting, garrulous voice what girls he’d like to try at and how tormented he was by whose tits and ass. He made me think of a repulsively spoiled four-year-old, used to getting what he wanted through the tactic of making noise and asking for it over and over until he was appeased. And the astounding thing was that it worked so often.
I can call half a dozen occasions to mind when Ramón successfully attached himself to a girl that I lacked the nerve to even say hello to. I have the somehow disturbing memory of Ramón dragging a former cheerleader named Ashley Thorne through a cluster of cars parked outside a keg party. It was dark—after midnight—and a group of us stared as the girl laughed and allowed the little man to pull a door open on a tan Scout and to shove her in. I had been fascinated by Ashley Thorne through my teenage years and had had a crush on her, like most of the young men at Blackmer High, but that night I had shouted and laughed as she was destroyed for me, as the car began rocking and that princess was made use of like a glaze-eyed teenage junkie. And we all laughed harder later, when Ramón told us he didn’t even know whose car it had been.
I guess Ramón appealed to girls the way children do. His face was round, small on his head like a baby’s, and he had rather large and bright green eyes that I can’t recall ever seeing other than bloodshot. His hair was black and seemed to grow like an animal’s pelt, close and short and straight back from his hairline.
It had probably been more than a year since I had last thought of Ramón, and I may not have ever thought of him again if I hadn’t seen him park a junky little Ford in front of his mother’s house as I staked the place out. I watched him stand up and slam the door. His arrogance was obvious even as he stood out of that eight hundred-dollar car in front of that seedy and decomposing Victorian. He was wearing shades and carrying a plastic grocery bag and I noticed then something I had never noticed before—how brown his skin is.
And all at once I was wildly and irrepressibly certain that he had been the Hispanic party—the brown-skinned piece of filth—who had helped Owen rape Jill. This was infinitely possible, I told myself, since Ramón existed on the fringes of the gang world and he logically had a stake in his brother’s battles. And he was such a crass, relentless little womanizer that he lived his whole life a mere nudge from simply pinning down and raping the girls he had set his sights on.
Or maybe I didn’t suspect him for even an instant. Maybe Ramón had just presented his despicable self like a clay pigeon at the very moment that I was looking for something to take a potshot at. Maybe if I was being perfectly frank with myself I would have admitted that I was looking for a raw nerve to torture. I was fraying at the edges from lack
I had seen his mother from time to time too. A rough-hewn, middle aged white lady, thick at the waistline with deflated cleavage and raunchy clothes. She had a craggy face and frazzled yellow hair with dark roots. Owen’s biological father was a mystery and his stepfather long gone to prison, but he had a half brother, Ramón, and, as I was to learn, a six-year-old half sister.
Ramón’s story was the inverse of Owen’s. A half-Mexican who didn’t take part in the local gangs, knew only a few scraps of Spanish, and spent as little time as possible in the poor and dangerous neighborhoods. Ramón had crossed over to smoke pot and party with the white skateboarders, punks and heavy metal kids and when he spoke his English, rather than being accented like a second language, was pure California stoner.
I had seen Ramón at dozens of parties since high school and had watched as he coerced girls into leaving with him or discussed in a shouting, garrulous voice what girls he’d like to try at and how tormented he was by whose tits and ass. He made me think of a repulsively spoiled four-year-old, used to getting what he wanted through the tactic of making noise and asking for it over and over until he was appeased. And the astounding thing was that it worked so often.
I can call half a dozen occasions to mind when Ramón successfully attached himself to a girl that I lacked the nerve to even say hello to. I have the somehow disturbing memory of Ramón dragging a former cheerleader named Ashley Thorne through a cluster of cars parked outside a keg party. It was dark—after midnight—and a group of us stared as the girl laughed and allowed the little man to pull a door open on a tan Scout and to shove her in. I had been fascinated by Ashley Thorne through my teenage years and had had a crush on her, like most of the young men at Blackmer High, but that night I had shouted and laughed as she was destroyed for me, as the car began rocking and that princess was made use of like a glaze-eyed teenage junkie. And we all laughed harder later, when Ramón told us he didn’t even know whose car it had been.
I guess Ramón appealed to girls the way children do. His face was round, small on his head like a baby’s, and he had rather large and bright green eyes that I can’t recall ever seeing other than bloodshot. His hair was black and seemed to grow like an animal’s pelt, close and short and straight back from his hairline.
It had probably been more than a year since I had last thought of Ramón, and I may not have ever thought of him again if I hadn’t seen him park a junky little Ford in front of his mother’s house as I staked the place out. I watched him stand up and slam the door. His arrogance was obvious even as he stood out of that eight hundred-dollar car in front of that seedy and decomposing Victorian. He was wearing shades and carrying a plastic grocery bag and I noticed then something I had never noticed before—how brown his skin is.
And all at once I was wildly and irrepressibly certain that he had been the Hispanic party—the brown-skinned piece of filth—who had helped Owen rape Jill. This was infinitely possible, I told myself, since Ramón existed on the fringes of the gang world and he logically had a stake in his brother’s battles. And he was such a crass, relentless little womanizer that he lived his whole life a mere nudge from simply pinning down and raping the girls he had set his sights on.
Or maybe I didn’t suspect him for even an instant. Maybe Ramón had just presented his despicable self like a clay pigeon at the very moment that I was looking for something to take a potshot at. Maybe if I was being perfectly frank with myself I would have admitted that I was looking for a raw nerve to torture. I was fraying at the edges from lack
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