I walked through the park for several hours thinking about my brother. I
stopped at the subway station and stood there, staring at the entrance. Each year, for the past five years, I have walked in the park on Paul's birthday, and I always end up in this place. It was here that he told me the shocking news on that awful day: he was leaving , running away. Why must you go? Why can't I tell Dad that you're going? What's the matter? All these questions I asked him, and he said, I'm running before the cops get me. I've got lots of money, Aaron, and I love you kid. And he flew down the subway steps. As I watched him disappearing, my conscience screamed at me, You knew this was going to happen. Why didn't you stop him?

From the time I recognized people and their relationship to me, I idolized my older brother. He was eight years older than I, and knew everything I asked him to explain to me. He was always defending me. When I was about 6 or 7 years old I remember wandering into the study. There were always a lot of papers on Dad's desk, and this time there was also a big, round , beautifully colored thing (which I now know was a world globe). I walked over to the desk and touched the globe. When it moved as I touched it, I began whirling it around and around, and it toppled over and fell, scattering papers all over the desk and the floor. Just then I heard a loud cry, and there was Dad rushing over to pull me away from the desk. I was so scared; my father's face was red and angry, and he held my arm in a tight grip. He shouted, "Look what you've done, you ,you-" And suddenly Paul was there, with one hand on my shoulder and the other holding Dad's wrist. "Take it easy, Dad," Paul said, "he's just a kid."

I remember that Dad took his hand off my shoulder and told me not to go into his study unless he gave me permission. And he said something angrily to Paul, like he resented his interference in mattes of family discipline. And Paul took my hand and walked me into his room. As soon as he shut the door, he picked me up and burst out laughing. My brother was a math whiz, and Mom and Dad were very proud of him. Dad taught math at a local college and was always urging Paul to try out math problems that advanced far beyond his class assignments. When my brother was 14 he was admitted to college and, as I learned later from him, soon worked up a scheme that made him a lot of money. He tutored kids in math. They were mostly in his class but some were in more advanced classes. I don't know how much he charged them, but he made a lot of money and had to hide it in his room. He showed me where he hid it and made me promise that I would not tell anyone in the family about his hiding places.

Tutoring was an honest way of making money, but&Mac183; It was his senior year at college, just a few weeks away from graduation. He came home one Saturday afternoon in the late afternoon and told me to come to his room. He sat on his bed and laughed until tears were st reaming from his eyes. "Aaron, this was a cliff-hanger. But I made two hundred dollars, and got away scot-free. "It seems that a student in the state college in town, where Dad taught, offered Paul money to take the final exam in a course for him. My brother said that he asked many questions of the student: How many students were in the class? 150. Would students be sitting in assigned seats, with those they had sat alongside all semester? The test would be in the auditorium; this was not where the class was held in regular class time. Was the student well-known to classmates? Not really.

"Didn't you ask him about the subject matter," I asked Paul. "Well, it was a beginning course they called "science survey", Paul said," and it included chemistry, biology, and physics. I know enough to pass any introductory course in those subjects. And it was all multiple choice, so I did not have to worry about handwriting being checked. .

"It was as easy as anything could be. I finished the two-hour test in half an
hour. But I had one scare. There were faculty monitors, and what-do you know- Dad came in to relieve one of the monitors. Luckily I wore a hat, and crouched low in my seat. He might have looked at the test-takers and only seen student heads. Anyhow, I did it and I will get to see the student and get the balance of the $200 from him."

I was still pretty young, only about 10, but something inside me said that
what Paul had done was wrong, no matter how much money he made. "Didn't it bother you," I asked my brother, timidly, "that it was not right to take his test? And if you had been found out, maybe you couldn't graduate from your school?"

Paul smiled and reached out to hug me. "You can be my conscience, kid. Mine seems to be asleep a lot, so I can have a lot of fun while it's sleeping." After getting his baccalaureate, my brother enrolled in a graduate school and Dad had visions of his son as a future world- renown mathematician. But Paul had other plans; he chose banking and finance as his specialty. The day he was awarded his MBA degree, a bank in our hometown hired him. That evening, at dinner, Paul described his job interview with the bank personnel manager. "First he congratulated me on my excellent record in the MBA program. Then he said they were going to put me in the commercial loan division, but I told him that was not where I wanted to go. He was surprised and said it was the best starting point; high officials of the bank had invariably been chosen from those who had that experience. I told him I appreciated his confidence in my potential, but I wanted to work in the trust division. Why, he asked? I said that I was especially interested in learning how to identify the best investments of available capital, both stock market and other. He questioned my choice, but assigned me as an assistant research analyst with the trust people."

Dad said he could not understand why he did not take advantage of the banker's offer, and Paul said he preferred to take Willy Sutton's advice.
In the five years that followed there was a steady flow in Paul's upward
movement in job responsibilities. His skill as a market analyst led in a
little over a year to an assistant manager promotion in relation to a number of trust funds, and in another year, to a full managing assignment with several of the wealthier funds under the bank's control.

Shortly after he began working, Paul moved out of the house into an apartment in the downtown area not far from the bank. Although he told Mom and Dad his new address he never specifically invited them over. I was the exception, for he picked me up in his car several times and took me to his home. On, one occasion when he drove me to his home there was a woman in the apartment when we arrived. .Her name was Grace, she was very pretty, and seemed a little older than my brother. She did not stay very long and when she left, Paul asked me not to mention to Dad or anyone else that I had met or knew her. As time passed and Paul became increasingly secretive about all aspects of what he was doing, Dad urged me to find out what was happening. I lived with a gnawing sense of catastrophe in the offing. And then came that early morning Saturday, and I was still asleep when he came to my bedroom and told me to met him at the entrance to the park in an hour.

He left as quietly as he had come. When I arrived at the park, he was already there. We walked and talked and he said to me, "Aaron, I have to go away before the cops get me-" I walked through the park and adjoining streets and it must have been two hours after he was gone that I thought I had given Paul enough time for a getaway. The police and the FBI were in the house when I returned. They were interrogating Mom and Dad. Mom was crying and Dad was trembling. As soon as I came in, the police literally pounced on me. They had learned from someone, probably at the bank, that Paul and I were close. I was taken to police headquarters, and asked if I wanted a lawyer, but I told them I had nothing to hide and did not need a lawyer. I said that I had walked to the subway station with him. The one untruth I spoke was a denial that I knew Grace. Later that evening Dad came to the jail with a lawyer and I was released but warned that I should not leave the city. I told them I was a college freshman and had every intention of continuing as a student at the same school until I graduated with my degree. When we returned to the house Dad began questioning me. "How could he do this to us? He's ruined me and Mom and you. Why did he do it? I won't be able to face anyone ever."

I felt sorry for him and Mom but I could not answer his questions. What was on my mind was not the theft. There were another question I pondered over then and in succeeding years: Why was he so hostile to Dad?


* * * *


And so, five years later, lost in thought and staring at the subway station, a
group of people passed me, and one jostled me a little heavily. I thought I
heard a voice whisper "Hey kid". I did not want to look at the stranger
because I was afraid that the FBI was watching my every move-; they had been doing that through the years whenever I left the house. I stood in the same position for five minutes and then walked home, leaving in the opposite direction from that taken by the stranger. As soon as I entered the house and shut the door, I searched feverishly through my coat pockets and found what I had hoped the jostling would bring me, a scribbled note saying, "Kid, bring meet me at 3pm in the café of the I--- hotel on 14 street. Sit at any table and order."

I took the subway downtown, passed the hotel a little early and walked around the block and then entered the hotel and went into their café. A waiter led me to a table and I ordered a dessert and coffee. There was a small bar in one corner and two men were sitting there talking in a low voice. It was long past the lunch hour and there were only a few people sitting at other tables. A well-dressed aged man walked toward the bar, and passed my table. I did not look at him, but I felt his hand touch my shirt as he walked by. I got up and went to the rest room. I walked into a cubicle and found a scribbled note with the number 319. Someone was sitting at my table when I returned--it was Dad.

"I have been following you all day," he said. "I figured that Paul might try
to get to you on his birthday. Where is he?" I hesitated only a moment; I decided that Dad was entitled to see and talk with the son who had caused him deep, long-lasting anguish. I paid my bill and motioned for him to follow me. The elevator took us to the third floor and I knocked on the door of 319. A strange voice asked us to wait a moment, and the door was opened by the elderly man I had seen in the café. After he had shut the door, he embraced me for several moments and I responded warmly. He offered his hand to Dad; the gesture was ignored and we seated ourselves. "I saw you come into the café, Dad," the stranger said in Paul's familiar voice, "and I was expecting you too. How have both of you been? "

"I have no time for tomfoolery," Dad said. "Why have you humiliated your
family and done this despicable thing?" "I'm not sure that you would want me to talk about this with Aaron present," Paul said, "but I don't know when or whether we will see each other again, so I'll explain myself now. When I was a senior in high school a new math teacher at the school, by the name of Jack Casey, left a note in my box asking if I could talk to him in his office. When we talked that afternoon he told me that he had been a student in one of your math classes some years before."

Paul looked at Dad; so did I. Red-faced and leaning forward in his chair, our father shouted , "It was a lie, how could you.." Then Dad composed himself and said , "You want to blame it all on me, don't you! Go ahead, talk, you ungrateful thief." "Casey said he had written a paper for your class on prime numbers and you plagiarized his ideas and used them in your doctoral dissertation .." "That was a bald-faced lie, " Dad said angrily, getting up from his chair, "and I proved it to the faculty committee. Casey didn't even write the paper, he paid someone to write it for him."

"Whatever you say, Dad, but you did not begin working on the dissertation until some months after Casey gave the paper to you. Anyhow, he told me something else too."

"He was a cheat and you're a thief and a liar. You stole millions of dollars.." Paul spoke slowly. "Dad, he said that a woman student accused you of attempted rape."

Dad looked at me. "Lies, all lies. Aaron, please don&Mac226;t believe him." He walked out of the room, tears streaming down his face.. Paul got up from his chair. "Gotta go," he said, "Dad's going to call the police on the first phone he sees." He reached for a bag that was already packed.

"I don't think he'll call," I said, also rising from my chair. "You were cruel, Paul. Whether the charges were wrong or right, I don't think he deserved this from you. If your aim was to break his spirit, I think you succeeded."

"He did something awful," Paul said, staring at me. "He must be punished, can't you see?" I shook my head and walked out of the room.

* * * *

Paul got away that time; if he been caught I am sure that we would have been told. Dad was a sad, dispirited person after the hotel room scene. He worked, came home, ate dinner, sat in the living room just staring into space, and went to bed. I had begun teaching social studies in city high schools and had a girlfriend, but I remained in the house, hoping that staying there might give Dad some comfort. Maybe it did, because a few times he held my hand when I talked to him. When he had finished enough years at work to receive his pension from the school, he stopped working - and sat at home. He died soon after that, and then I stayed with Mom until she died.

About five years after our meeting at the hotel FBI men came to the house to tell us that Paul and his friend Grace were captured in a South American country and their extradition was being arranged. I asked them how Grace was involved. It turned out that she was the auditor assigned to check the trust fund managers. Paul's trial was held in our city but I did not attend any session. I read in the paper that he was sentenced to ten years in federal prison, fined $200,00, and forfeited whatever money he had left. It turned out to be a considerable sum. A reporter asked him why he had spent so little, and was told, "I didn't take the money to live it up. It was a matter of principle."