Thieves I've Known (17 page)

He remembers a white church on a hill. Power lines that stretched for miles. The long lake like an ocean. Tugs and barges off the shoreline. On this train they pass a cemetery, and Eli holds his breath for the distance: a trick he'd learned from his grandfather. It was for luck, and to keep spirits away. Eli takes off his wet shoes and the wet socks after. He sticks his feet over the side of the flatbed. In the distance he sees what might be a town. The tall shape of grain elevators. Trailers after that, not unlike the park with the boy on the tire, but Eli sees no movement at this hour. Just the clotheslines and a dog asleep under a tree. Sets of chairs and benches here and there. A grill made of bricks, and a flagpole with no flag. He listens to the knock of the pipes and the whistle of air from beneath the tarp. Above him, the dark power lines cross over the track.

After the next stretch of tree line he can make out the shape of a girl. She walks down from the road, into an abandoned field. There is something in the field, and it picks up the brightness of the moonlight. It looks like it might be a strange type of horse. The girl approaches it slowly. Eli thinks her rather elegant, composed, the way she moves down the hill. He can't see her face, but he imagines it. He likes this about trains. About motion and distance: what you can see and what you can't. The details you fill in, if you take the time. He imagines the eyebrows, the angle of the nose, the lines in the brow, if there are any. Motion is the thing, he believes. The space between leaving and arriving. The girl disappears from view, and he sees nothing but trees on the horizon. He tries to burn her picture into his mind.

The train turns west.

At about the same time, there is a woman—ancient by any standard Eli would choose—sleeping next to a baseball pitcher in a cab. The pitcher keeps a finger on the base of the steering wheel, crooks his elbow out the
window. The man is troubled, though not by his passenger or the road before him. He hears nothing but the wind at his ears. He drives fast, though he is not in a hurry. The speed of the cab is something to lean against. They dip into farmland. Much passes by him this night, though he takes in little. He keeps his eyes on what the headlights will show. It all seems the same to Johnson.

He wonders sometimes why he feels defeated, at any time of the day, and before any task. It's like he's injured or broken before the competition begins. Was it always that way? He remembers an odd mix of images. The girl who was always climbing things. It was two girls, honestly. His sister Marley and the other girl with her. The one he loved with everything he had. He remembers that he once possessed something to lose. As he stared up at them, the sky seemed like the ocean to him, deep and dark and true. That summer there was an article in the newspaper about a manatee, a strange creature that had migrated north and would often nap in the warm outflow of a power plant. He'd scissored the article from the paper, thumbtacked it deep into the bedroom wall. The manatee was caught up in fishing nets at the end of the summer, drowned a few inches from air. That loss was amazingly present to him, like his spirit ripped through his chest bone. He wishes he could feel that way, any way, again. But he's too frightened of those feelings anymore. He doesn't know where to begin.

He listens to the wind through the car window. Another day, that same summer, he and the girl, out in the surf, out past the surf, way out there, holding hands. One was tall and they were both young. People were calling them back in, but they refused to return.

Johnson presses his foot against the brake, slows the cab at a bend in the road. Up around the next curve he can make out a girl near the shoulder of the road, her figure appearing like a kindly and benevolent ghost. When the headlights reach her, she simply squints at the brightness. She holds a rope, and—very odd—a white camel trots slowly behind her, its head hung low, picking at something on the back of girl's shirt. Johnson moves over the line in the road, gives them some room, passes them by,
wonders if the woman next to him is still breathing. He slows the cab, watches her for movement.

After the cab has passed, Laika lets her eyes adjust. She lets the camel set the pace. There is no hurry, at this hour, to return. She kicks a pebble up the road and thinks of the bonfire. Just over the next hill, she hopes. The acrobat's hair, the motion of the braids she'll make, and the boy who'd set his head at the tracks. She's afraid of the giant. Laika. But likes his son. She remembers two names now. She whispers them to the camel. Old woman, old man. The camel takes no notice. One or both would reach down with fingers. Up, they'd say to her. Up and up. She gives a tug on the rope. She can allow a slow pace for only so long. The white camel tugs back, and loses. Don't spit on me, says the girl, and it does not. It trots, reluctantly, and not ungracefully, after.

It was the day after my fourteenth birthday, and I'd been looking out the window of the bus for most of Tennessee and into the Appalachians, watching the fog rise from the shoulder of the road and the patchwork of barns and homes near the state highway. A pale, spotted horse here, a brown dog lying on its side there, a group of young girls, about my age, dancing to music from a tape player set on the hood of a car. When we pulled into the station I spotted my Uncle Jake—dressed in a blue T-shirt and jeans—leaning against one of the support poles. I recognized the wide green eyes from a picture my dad kept on our mantle at home. In the picture, my dad is propped on the trunk of a yellowing Ford Pinto, a serious, solemn look on his face, even as a boy—the dark curly hair, like mine, falling down his temples—and Jake is leaning back on the fender of the car, a slight, wild grin curving from his lips, a cigarette dangling from his fingers at age fifteen. The bus driver swung open the door and called out, “Morganton. Five-minute stop,” but even as I stepped across the legs of the man sitting next to me, I noticed I was the only one exiting the bus.

I stepped down onto the platform and felt the heat of the July sun. Jake ambled over and reached for the small duffel bag in my hand, but I said, “I got it.”

“Is that all you got?”

“That's all I got,” I said.

“Well all right then,” said Jake.

His transportation was a blue flatbed pickup truck, rusted on the fenders, with a dent in the passenger-side door. In the cab of the truck I was introduced to Mulligan, a sandy-colored, overweight mutt with
four white paws, like boots. Mulligan scooted to the middle of seat and sniffed at my duffel bag.

“He's got a tick in his ear,” I said to Jake as I closed the door. “It's been there for a few days.”

“Is that right?” Jake said, turning the key, but no sound came from the motor. He reached under the seat and pulled out a long-stem hammer, popped the hood, and got back out of the truck.

While he was banging on the starter in the engine I took out the tweezers from my pocketknife and picked up the book of matches lying on the dashboard. I lit one, letting it burn for a moment. Mulligan sniffed at the sulfur in the air. When I blew the match out I stuck it quickly to the tick, yellow and fat, its legs shuddering as I grabbed hold of Mulligan's orange collar and said, “Take it easy.” I clamped the tweezers shut near the head of the tick, squeezing and prying it loose as quick as I could and then tossing it out the window with the match. Mulligan glanced sideways at me, wrinkling the white stripe of fur that ran down his snout.

When the motor turned over, Jake backed out onto a two-lane road and ran his fingers along the dashboard, eventually giving up and punching the cigarette lighter on the console. “How was the trip?” he asked.

“Long. Boring,” I said.

“Did you read your books?”

“I did.”

“I hear you're a big reader.”

“You heard right.”

“What'd you read?”

“A book about mountain climbing and a book about sharks.”

“Are you a mountain climber?”

“No.”

“I caught a shark on the Outer Banks last summer,” he said. “Hooked him with a spring rod. Three and a half feet. A mako.” The cigarette lighter popped out and Jake lit up without taking his eyes off the road.

“Makos aren't found on the Outer Banks. They're only found in warm climates.”

“This was summertime,” he said.

“Summer isn't warm enough. It was probably a nurse shark. They're harmless and are an endangered species.”

“A nurse shark you say?”

“That's right.”

“How do you know?”

“When we get to the house I'll take a look.”

“What makes you think I've got it at the house?” he said.

Mulligan leaned against me as we took a turn. I looked over at Jake. “You seem like the kind of guy who would have the one shark he ever caught stuffed and put up over his mantel.”

“I don't have a mantel,” said Jake.

“Do you have a stuffed shark on the wall?”

“Yes I do.”

“It's a nurse shark.”

“You want to bet?”

“No,” I said.

“You afraid of losing?”

“No, I don't bet, that's all.”

“A betting man is a man who knows what he's talking about,” he said. “You sound like you know what you're talking about. Why don't you take the bet?”

I looked over at him. “My dad said you once lost a house in a poker game.”

Jake puffed on his cigarette and flicked the ashes out the window. “He did, did he?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Well,” he said. “You shouldn't believe everything you hear.”

“My dad wasn't a liar.”

“I didn't say he was.”

“Yes you did. You just said it.”

“When did I say it?”

“You implied it.”

“Oh,” said Jake. “I implied it.”

The truck was in need of new shocks and bounced at every slight pothole and bump. We drifted down an off-ramp and onto a state highway, still two lanes.

“Your dad was a good man,” said Jake. “But he and I were not that close.”

I didn't say anything.

“How long you staying?”

“Until I hear from my mom.”

“How long's that going to be?” he said.

“Not long.”

Jake rubbed his hand along the wheel. “Well, I've got some rules that I want you to know about.”

“You do?”

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

On the highway we passed the Bonds Motel, a long brown building with an empty swimming pool. Stands with signs for homemade honey and fresh vegetables appeared every quarter mile or so, and a brick building advertising violin repair. Mulligan sat down on his haunches, licked his paw, and rubbed at the ear where the tick had been.

I asked Jake if he was going to tell me what these rules were. I told him my psychic powers weren't too good.

“Your dad was a smart-ass too,” said Jake.

“Better than being a dumb-ass,” I said.

Jake laughed, his white-stubbled jaw reaching forward, blowing smoke out his mouth. “I taught him that one,” he said. “Better than being a dumb-ass.”

“You must be real proud,” I said.

“Rule one,” said Jake. “I watch a lot of
TV
. If you don't like what I'm watching, then too bad. In my house, I'm in charge of the remote.”

“I don't watch
TV
,” I said.

“Well I guess that won't be a problem.”

“Guess not.”

“Well all right then,” he said.

“Okay then,” I said.

“Rule two,” he said. “I need my sleep. I've got to be at the ballpark at 8 a.m., so no making loud noises in the middle of the night.”

“I don't make loud noises in the middle of the night.”

“Well I guess it won't be a problem.”

“I guess not.”

“Rule three,” he said. “If you break something, you pay for it.”

I asked him if he was running an antique shop.

“No, I'm just saying. Don't go breaking my things.”

“I won't.”

“Rule four,” he said, rubbing his hands back and forth along the steering wheel. He flicked the ashes from his cigarette out the window again. Outside on the road we passed a veterinarian clinic and a stretch of farmland, silos and gray barns cluttered together. Jake leaned back in the seat and glanced over at me. “Well,” he said. “I can't think of anything. I guess there is no number four.”

“I've got some rules too,” I said.

“You do?”

“I do.”

“Well let's hear them.”

“First,” I said. “You want to smoke, then that's your prerogative, but there's the issue of secondary smoke. I don't want you bringing your cigarettes into my room, and I want the door to my room kept closed.”

“Who says you're getting a room?” he said.

“I just got off a three-day bus ride. I better have a room.”

Jake turned the wheel at exit 20 and gunned the engine up the on-ramp. Outside, the clouds had covered the sun.

“Did you know,” I said. “A smoker can quit after seven years, and in seven more years he can have lungs that are as healthy as a person who's never smoked.”

“Is that a fact?”

“I read it,” I said. “It doesn't make it a fact. There are some exceptions, but for most people, that's the case.”

“I see.”

“How long have you smoked for?”

“Thirty-three years.”

I rolled down the window to get at some air. “You're screwed,” I said. “That makes you at least forty-eight years old.”

“How do you figure?”

“Am I right?”

“I'll be fifty this December.”

“If you make it to December,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” he said and flicked ashes out the window.

“Second,” I said. “I don't have much stuff, but what I have I don't want you looking through. I've got a letter from my dad to you. I'll give you that when we get home.”