I Know This Much Is True

Are you uncomfortable about remembering the past?

My brother doesn't belong here.

-He should be over at-- -He's seriously mentally ill.

You never think about what I need!

Christopher, he used to beat us.

Elbows off the table.

He never hit Dominick the way he hit me.

And one time he took the handle of a--

Ugh, I can't! I can't!

Stop it!

I learned something today.

There are two young men lost in the woods.

Not one... two.

The cemetery that abuts the edge of Three Rivers

is a modest place.

At the southern end,

out past where my grandfather is buried,

a beaten path leads to a river.

Follow the sound of water,

and you'll come to a spot that takes your breath away.

Everyone here calls that spot simply, the Falls.

The Falls is and has been a calendar picture

and a trouble spot in Three Rivers.

Suicides have happened here.

Accidents, murders.

The year Thomas and I were third graders,

the dead body of a classmate,

Penny Ann Drinkwater, was found out at the Falls.

Penny Ann Drinkwater and her brother, Ralph,

were the only other twins at River Street School.

Back then, Thomas and I thought of the Drinkwaters

as colored.

But they were mixed. Part black, part white,

part Wequonnoc Indian.

Can you please stop that?

What do you guys have at your house for Thanksgiving?

Thomas liked her but I didn't.

I didn't want to sit next to her either.

She smelled like pee, she ate paste.

She sucked on the buttons of her ratty sweater.

And on top of all that, Penny Ann was a liar.

She lied about her grades,

about how much money her parents made.

She lied about everything.

My mom is buying me a Shetland pony in the spring.

He's going to be brown with a white stripe on his nose.

You're nothing but a big, fat liar.

There came a point

in the fall of my third grade year

that I just couldn't stand it anymore.

Come on, Penny, hurry up!

So I decided to make up a lie of my own.

I made up a story about how I had seen

Penny Ann stealing Oreos from some kid in the hallway.

-Where is she? -She's in the hallway.

Stay here.

Penny Ann.

Mrs. Hanko wrote a note

-to the principal, Ms. Haas... -Come here.

and sent us both to see her.

Ms. Haas believed me, not Penny Ann,

whose repeated denials turned into a combination

of crying and coughing that sounded

oddly like a dog's bark.

I felt satisfied that a lesson had been taught.

Okay, go sit down.

But then, the look my brother gave me

made me remember that the theft had been pure

invention on my part.

He's always doing that.

Reminding me of what I do wrong.

Penny Ann was suspended for three days.

But she disappeared, and never returned to school.

Dominick. Come on.

Is your character a bad guy?

A good person. Somebody who steals from people?

As the weeks went by, her desk became harder

and harder to sit next to.

In the wake of her unsolved murder,

she began visiting me in my nightmares.

The school bought a small willow tree

and hosted a tree-planting ceremony in her honor.

All the third graders were asked to write essays

on how we would remember our dear friend.

She was a good friend and fun to...

I usually knew what the teachers were after

and wrote so sentimentally,

I was chosen to read my tribute aloud.

She could make anybody laugh, even her teachers.

She was kind, and I wish she was still here.

Thank you.

After the speech, I couldn't look at anyone.

Especially my brother and Ralph.

So I hid in the safety of Ms. Haas.

We were a team.

Her and I had conspired

to make Penny Ann's life miserable

just weeks before.

Domenico, have a seat.

I got some good news. The probate judge

decided to drop the criminal charges against your brother.

You know, the weapons thing.

-That's great. -That's fantastic.

Now we got some bad news. Your brother has been released

to the custody of the Psychiatric Security Review Board,

and they've been known to be pretty aggressive

with their sentencing,

and headline grabbers like your brother,

they tend to be at a disadvantage when it comes to that.

The other thing that scares me more than that,

they've already scheduled his hearing.

-For when? -Wednesday, the 31st.

-That... this Wednesday. -Yes, it is.

-Happy Halloween. -So that,

that could be good though, right?

-I mean, he might be outta here. -Well, I don't know about that.

Usually I'm screaming about how inefficient everything is,

and now, it's their efficiency that's really making me wonder

what the hell's going on.

If this is some kind of fuckin' bag job

where they're just-- they're just ramming this through

to lock him up and throw away the key,

I'm gonna raise holy hell.

I need you to advocate for your brother

but not blow your top, okay?

That's what I wanted to work with you with.

How we're both gonna be in the hearing

to present the best case, advocate for your brother

to get him out of here.

I don't want you to tell everybody that I said that,

but between you and me, I think he needs to be outta here.

What happened? I mean, last week,

you-you thought this place was the best place in the world for him,

and now, now you think he should be out of here.

-Yeah. -Why?

Because I saw him. I saw him, Dominick.

He's... he's having a real hard time here.

Okay.

Everyone can see it. He's so passive.

He gets picked on all the time.

And there are some real criminals here.

You know, your brother is not one of 'em. He's a gentle soul.

Yeah, you wanna know what sucks

about this whole security clearance bullshit?

-What? -The way I'm not allowed to see my own brother.

Your clearance will be here any day.

And then you'll get to see him.

This can be a very challenging environment

for paranoid schizophrenics.

It really can, people are actually watching you all the time.

I think an environment with less of a security focus

would be so much better for him.

Which is what exactly I was trying to tell you all

from the very beginning.

-I know you did. -And you didn't wanna listen to me!

-Dominick, Dominick. -You didn't listen to me.

I'm listening now, and you know what?

You're the smartest boy in the class.

Right, you get a gold star on the way out.

-Okay? -Ha, ha.

I am on your team now. Isn't that somethin'?

It's somethin'.

We have to make up a plan for you.

Something that we can follow, like a road map.

'Cause your hot Sicilian blood, it's not doin' us any good.

You gotta be calm, cool, and collected inside the hearing.

We go in with laser focus, boom, boom, boom.

We get him out of here, okay?

And you know how we're gonna do that?

We're gonna write a script. You're gonna write a script.

-A script. -A script of what

we're gonna say at the hearing.

How you feel about your brother.

How you know this is the wrong place for him

without disparaging this place.

Can I, can I trust you?

You can, Dominick.

You can.

Write it down.

What do I say?

Start with your feelings about your brother.

How you know him to be.

How that one incident doesn't define him.

You know. Write what's in your heart.

Hey, Ralph. How you doin', man?

Long time no see.

Hey, um...

you see my brother in here?

Yeah.

I see him.

Are they treatin' him okay, man?

I haven't been able to see him since that-that first night.

You know, and-and they won't let me see him

until I get this stupid security clearance, so I was...

Well.

That won't be a problem for you, will it?

Your record must be white boy white.

Man, I just wanted to know if he's okay.

You see them doing anything or mistreating him?

I mean, we've got this social worker.