Sucker

SUCKER by Carson McCullers (4202 words)

It was always like I had a room to myself. Sucker slept in my bed with me ut that didn't interfere with anything. The room was mine and I used it as I wanted to. Once I remember sawing a trap door in the floor. Last year when I was a sophomore in high school I tacked on my wall some pictures of girls from magazines and one of them was just in herunderwear. My mother never bothered me because she had the younger kids to look after. And Sucker thought anything I did was always swell.
Whenever I would bring any of my friends back to my room all I had to do was just glance once at Sucker and he would get up from whatever he was busy with and maybe half smile at me, and leave without saying a word. He never brought kids back there. He'stwelve, four years younger than I am, and he always knew without me even telling him that I didn't want kids that age meddling with my things.
Half the time I used to forget that Sucker isn't my brother. He's my first
cousin but practically ever since I remember he's been in our family. You see his folks were killed in a wreck when he was a baby. To me and my kid sisters he was like our brother.Sucker used to always remember and believe every word I said. That's how he got his nickname. Once a couple of years ago I told him that if he'd jump off our garage with an umbrella it would act as a parachute and he wouldn't fall hard. He did it and busted his knee. That's just one instance. And the funny thing was that no matter how many times he got fooled he would still believe me. Not that hewas dumb in other ways—it was just the way he acted with me. He would look at everything I did and quietly take it in.
There is one thing I have learned, but it makes me feel guilty and is hard to figure out. If a person admires you a lot you despise him and don't care- —and it is the person who doesn`t notice you that you are apt to admire. This is not easy to realize. Maybelle Watts, thissenior at school, acted like she was the Queen of Sheba and even humiliated me. Yet at the same time I would have done anything in the world to get her attentions. All I could think about day and night was Maybelle until I was nearly crazy. When Sucker was a little kid and on up until the time I was twelve I guess I treated him as bad as Maybelle did me.

Now that Sucker has changed so much it isa little hard to remember him as he used to be. I never imagined anything would suddenly happen that would make us both very different. I never knew that in order to get what has happened straight in my mind I would want to think back on him as lie used to be and compare and try to get things settled. If I could have seen ahead maybe I would have acted different.
I never noticed him much orthought about him and when you consider how long we have had the same room Together it is funny the few things I remember. He used to talk to himself a lot when he'd think he was alone—all about him fighting gangsters and being on ranches and that sort of kids' stuff. He'd get in the bathroom and stay as longas an hour and sometimes his voice would go up high and excited and you could hear him allover the house. Usually, though, he was very quiet. He didn't have many boys in the neighborhood to buddy with and his face had the look ofa kid who is watching a game and waiting to be asked to play. He didn't mind wearing the sweaters and coats that I outgrew, even if the sleeves did flop down too big and make his wrists look as thin and white as a little girl's. That is how I rememberhim—getting a little bigger every year but still being the same. That was Sucker up until a few months ago when all this trouble began.

Maybelle was somehow mixed up in what happened so I guess I ought to start with her. Until 1 knew her I hadn't given much time to girls. Last fall she sat next to me in General Science class and that was when I first began to notice her.Her hair is the brightest...