Thief (8 page)

“I missed you,” I said.

“Thought you were still mad at me.”

“I was. But not anymore.” I didn’t say that it seemed like a long time ago that I was mad at him for disappearing, for not
calling. It didn’t seem to matter anymore.

“Come here,” Cree said, and I slid beneath his arm. It was good to have him touching me, to be driving on the quiet black
road.

At the camp all the cabins were padlocked but Cree used his knife to slip open the hook of a shutter on one of the windows.
He climbed in easily, but I had to boost myself up on my hands first and then swing my leg up onto the sill. I waited there
for a second for some of the burning to stop.

“Let’s find a bunk with a mattress,” Cree said when I got inside.

I could hear him moving in the cabin but couldn’t see him.

“Here. Here’s one.”

I followed his voice and then lay down with him on the narrow bunk. I tried to act like nothing was wrong, like things were
the way they always were. I slipped my arms around him and let one hand rest at his hip, one on his back.

We kissed for a long time and it soothed me. The air in the cabin was damp and musty, but when the breeze came in through
the opened shutter, I could smell the woods. The smell wasn’t just pine— it was the smell of all the trees and the leaves
mixed together. A green smell. I wished I could just be there with nothing on my mind, just smelling the green and holding
Cree.

I couldn’t, though. When he pulled away from me and reached for my jeans, I stopped him.

“I can’t,” I said.

“What, do you have your period?”

I could feel his hand resting on the soft part of my belly, waiting. For a second I thought I might tell him. I got afraid
of the words again, though, and could only nod. I knew he couldn’t see me in the darkness.

“It doesn’t matter if there’s blood,” he said. “You know that.”

He waited a second and then started to open my jeans again. That time I pushed his hand away. Even in the darkness I knew
he was watching me.

I still didn’t say anything. But I moved away from him so that I was lying beside him rather than underneath, and then I moved
again so I was the one on top. I moved down over his body and he pressed up against me, but I didn’t let him reach for me.
Instead I unbuttoned his shirt and kissed his belly. Slipped down his jeans.

After Cree came in my mouth, we lay together. He kept touching my face, kept wrapping his hands in my hair. I listened to
the wind outside in the trees and then stood up to get a tissue from my pocket.

“You all right?”

“I’m okay,” I said.

“You sure?”

“It just makes my nose run.”

If Cree thought anything was strange about my refusal to fuck, he never said. He was used to my moodiness, and maybe he thought
it was that, or maybe he thought it was connected to my period, or maybe he was just content to come in my mouth.

“Did you get your dress yet?”

“I’m going to pick it up Friday,” I said. Our prom was a week away, and I was having someone make my dress because I didn’t
want one of the frilly affairs the stores were selling. I wanted a black halter instead. “I have to wait to get my paycheck
on Thursday,” I said.

“You need money?”

“I’ll have enough. Besides, you’re paying for everything else.”

“Well, let me know if you need it.”

He held my hand as we drove back to town. “Are you glad we came?” he asked.

I knew what he meant, but for a second I thought,
Well, you’re the only one who came.
It wasn’t his fault— I was to blame, and an orgasm was the last thing on my mind— but I still thought it. But instead I said,
“You know I am.”

I moved over to sit close to him, and that’s when I decided I would never tell him what had happened or what I’d done. I knew
I could take care of everything myself. It was easier to protect him by giving him blow jobs. That way he wouldn’t have to
know, I wouldn’t have to tell, and everything could stay the same.

As it turned out, we broke up a few weeks after prom anyway. In spite of my oral skills and secrecy, nothing stayed the same.

THE CASINO
was called the Northern Lights but the name was a misnomer: the only aurora came from the parking lot floodlights that turned
the night sky gray. I arrived just as the band was climbing down from the stage in the big outdoor tent and going on a break,
so even though I didn’t care to gamble, I joined the crush of people coming and going through the casino door. It felt odd
to be in the woods and in a crowd at the same time, and the combination took me by surprise.

The jackpot slots near the door were crowded with nickel players and the bar was crowded, too. Despite that initial crush,
though, farther back inside the casino, there was only a smattering of people, tourists mostly. I’d come out to hear music,
be among people and have a drink, so I circled back to the front and found a Double Diamond slot kitty-corner from the bar.
I hadn’t even bothered to get quarters when I came in— I was waiting for the band to start again and didn’t want to be stuck
with a cup full of coins— but I had some in my wallet, leftover from doing laundry, and I began to play them. In a few minutes
I flagged down a waiter.

“Vodka tonic. Absolut if you have it.”

“We have it.”

“Busy night?”

“Crazy. But it’s always crazy when there’s a band.”

“I like your shirt,” I said then. “Very Minnesotan. Very north woods.”

He laughed then because it was a tropical, Hawaiian-looking thing he was wearing.

“At least I don’t have to wear that,” he said, motioning to the blackjack dealers, who were all sporting purple tuxedo shirts
and bow ties.

“Yeah, you got the better end of the deal,” I said, looking at the triangle of skin that showed in his open collar. It was
smooth.

“I’ll be right back with your drink.”

In a couple minutes, I spent all the quarters I’d walked in with, but I’d also gotten thirty credits, which allowed me to
go on playing.

“Here you go, miss.”

When I took the drink from the waiter’s hand, I said, “Want to hear a joke?”

“A joke? Sure.”

“I’m what you would call a social drinker. When someone says, ‘I think I’ll have a drink,’ I say, ‘Then so shall I.’ ”

He laughed then— genuinely, it seemed, or maybe it was also just part of his job.

I put two dollars on his serving tray. “I’m going outside and hear the music,” I said. “Thanks.”

“People are having a good time out there,” he said, and again I watched his throat, the smooth skin of his neck. I was older
than he was. I wondered if it mattered.

It had been warm inside the casino, but it was even warmer outside— a moist Minnesota night. In spite of the heat, as soon
as the band started playing again, people moved out onto the dance floor. I stood on the left side of the stage, listening
and watching, but in a little while I was dancing, too. In my own spot, by myself,
but swaying to the songs even if I wasn’t on the dance floor. I didn’t mind. I was in a throng, there were people’s faces
to watch and music to hear, and that was all I really wanted.

When I saw a few people in leather vests work their way onto the floor from the opposite side of the tent, I didn’t think
much of it— for all I knew, bikers liked Cajun music, too. But everyone on the floor seemed to clear a path for these particular
dancers, and there was some kind of buzz about their presence that made me look again at them. When the bikers got close enough,
I was able to read the patches on their vests, and then I understood the berth everyone was giving.

I hadn’t even known there were such people as Minnesota Free-men, but there they were on the dance floor, men and women, drinks
in hand. It hadn’t been so long since the sieges at Ruby Ridge and Waco— I could see all of it registering on people’s faces
as they read the jackets. Those who didn’t know were told by those who did, but no one said anything to the Freemen, who were
laughing and drinking beers and dancing like everyone else. In a little while the crowd absorbed the Freemen, or at least
closed around them, and we were all there together, sweating and dancing— white tourists and Anishinabe Indians, north woods
longhairs, loggers, county workers, and now the militia. All yelling and laughing and drinking, along with the band up from
Louisiana.

But there was a wariness among us. The Freemen had brought it out, and I could see it in people’s faces. For a while I got
the feeling anything might happen: a knife pulled, a punch thrown, something worse. But nothing did happen, and the longer
it went on not happening, the more people relaxed and accepted that it would not happen. People looked at the Freemen, but
the Freemen chose not to notice or were so used to it they didn’t care. They kept to themselves, their men dancing with their
women, only talking to
each other. The longer I watched them, the more I felt like I understood what they were doing there. The tent with its music
and its loudness and light on that moist night was irresistible, and even the militia needed to take a break once in a while.

“Why aren’t you out dancing? Why are you standing here?”

I didn’t even have to turn to know who it was.

“I might ask you the same thing,” I said to the waiter who’d brought me my vodka tonic. I saw he’d taken off his Hawaiian
night-mare of a shirt and was now in a T-shirt and jeans. “I thought you were working,” I said.

“I’m off ,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “And I already pulled a double shift, so they can’t ask me to work again.” When
he saw me watching him smoke, he offered me his pack.

“No, thanks,” I told him. “I’ll take a dance instead.”

He shook his head no, but when I took his hand and led him out onto the dance floor, he came willingly enough.

“What’s your name?”

“Suzanne. What’s yours?”

“Dallas.”

“Like the old TV show or like the city?” I said, but he couldn’t hear me. It didn’t matter. It was easier not to talk, easier
to jostle among the other dancers. And when the band played the next song, it was easier to stay on the dance floor, shuffling
and swaying, than to make our way back to the edges of the standing crowd.

“That joke you told me,” the waiter said between songs, leaning in close to talk directly into my ear. “That was a good one.
I liked it.”

“Did you?” I said. “I don’t tell too many jokes.”

“You told that one good.”

The band picked a slow song to play next, and the waiter wrapped both arms around me like boys did in high school, and we
were close to each other, turning in a small circle.

“So why?” the waiter said then into my hair.

“Why what?”

“Why did you tell me a joke? If you don’t tell jokes?”

“You looked like you needed a joke just then.”

He held me a little tighter after I said that. I kept my arms up on his shoulders in the same place, but I felt him all the
same.

“Suzanne,” he said at the end of the song. “Suzanne the social drinker. I need a beer. What about you?”

“Sure,” I said. “I think there’s a line, though.” But he was already walking away.

I stayed on the dance floor, watching the band’s lead singer in his white jeans, watching a couple of the Freemen as they
danced with their long-haired women. Before I knew it, Dallas was back beside me, handing me a red plastic cup.

When I looked at him, I raised my eyebrows a little.

“I have connections,” he told me, and laughed.

We were drinking those beers and dancing, lightly holding each other’s free hand, when the band went into its final song of
the set. It took us a moment to pick up on the lyrics, but when we did, the waiter downed his beer and set the cup on the
ground to clap and holler. The lead singer in the band kept dropping all the dirty words— I guess that’s how they got away
with singing a song like that— but we got the message all the same:

Uncle Bud, Uncle Bud,

Uncle Bud’s got this, Uncle Bud’s got that.

Uncle Bud’s got a —— like a baseball bat.

Uncle Bud, Uncle Bud.

Uncle Bud’s got a wife, she’s big and fat,

She’s got a —— like a Stetson hat.

Uncle Bud, Uncle Bud.

The verses went on and on, and the crowd loved it. I could see from the waiter’s face that he did, too. He was stomping his
feet and clapping, and so was I.

Uncle Bud’s a man, a man in full,

His —— hang down like a Louisiana mule.

After the song was done— after we all hollered and clapped the band into playing one more before they left the stage— the
waiter asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. I let him take my hand and we walked away from the dance tent, out toward the
parking lot.

“So, do you like working here?” I said as we were walking.

“It’s a job,” he said.

When I heard his voice, I realized it was a stupid question to ask, so I tried again.

“What do you do when you aren’t working?”

“I hunt. I work on cars with my uncle.”

Then we were standing beside his car and I let him pull me to him.

His kiss was warm and thorough, and I liked the bitter taste of smoke in his mouth. But even though I felt his urgency, I
didn’t feel any of my own. When I pulled away, I saw his wolfish face and almost relented— I thought maybe if I went on, I
would feel something. I wanted to feel something. But I didn’t, and I suddenly didn’t feel like trying.

I said, “I can’t.”

He looked at me for a second and then he came at me again. And I let him. Part of me wanted to fuck— I felt it inside me,
brought on by the dancing and the vodka and beer and not least of all the lewd song, but I didn’t want to go home with a stranger
and try to
please him. I wanted to go back to the cabin and lie in bed in a cotton nightgown.

“I’m sorry,” I said when I pulled away the second time. “My heart’s not in it.”

He brushed the back of one hand over my breasts. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m not so much interested in your heart.”