DOUGLAS D. ARMSTRONG
 
THE VAGRANT

between my parents. It superseded the obvious differences between the brothers, for sure. At least they were obvious to me. Frankly, I never saw the similarities everyone remarked about between these so-called Irish twins unitl the two men had advanced into old age. Sure, there was a genetic imprint apparent around their eyes and mouths when they were in their prime. But it didn't really hit me until a morning many years later when my uncle made one of his rare overnight visits as a houseguest and I realized I could not be sure which brother was sitting quietly in the shadows of my parents kitchen at dawn, hunched over a cup of coffee.
    As a kid, all I noticed was the differences. My father's lanky body had gone soft behind a desk, where he was sent to be safe from what the doctors called the murmur. Uncle Matt was the flamboyant, physical one, even if he was living with Grandma until, as my father put it, he was back on his feet. I liked it when he picked me up in those strong, hard arms and whirled me around.  There was an

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electricity about him. It was no surprise when he took charge of capturing the turtle.
    The vagrant made another scary visit around that time, materializing on the other side of a bedsheet in our back yard as Mother took the wash down from the line. She was startled, she said, but had the composure to listen for a moment before sticking the wicker laundry basket into the stranger's dirty hands and fleeing into the house.
   “Mark,” she said angrily, after dragooning my father from his office at midday for a bedroom tête-à-tête. I was a silent eavesdropper. “He says he saw you murder some woman, and he wants to know if we have the cash together yet.”
    My father's reply was in the soothe-a-hysterical-woman tone he sometimes used on with Mother. “It's just the rantings of some lunatic, Helen.”
    Mother was unconvinced. “Maybe so, but I've seen him. He's dangerous.”
    My own father,  accused  of  murder  by  a dangerous
 

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Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

 

March 1995