Thieves I've Known (19 page)

During the games I could sit in the dugout with the team if I wanted to, but I didn't want to. The players were the kind of men who held spitting contests while the sides were changing, and they told dumb stories about high school—usually involving narrow escapes from the police and strange encounters with women from New York in the backseats of their cars. Mulligan sat in the stands with me, raising his ears at the sound of a ball struck hard or a child screaming in the family section near right field. Mostly, I just read during the games.

I found a lot of books about vegetable gardening in the town library. The soil in the foothills of North Carolina is good for a number of food crops, particularly potatoes and soybeans, and by the end of July
I'd pulled the weeds and overgrown grass out from the small garden at Jake's house. On our day or two off I began to plant a few rows of onions, carrots, and some other winter vegetables.

One day Jake walked out and stood over me as I knelt in the dirt. “What'd you do to my shovel?”

“What do you mean?”

He picked it up and fingered the blade. “You cut holes in it.”

“I made a serrated edge so I could cut back the weeds. I didn't see a hoe anywhere.”

“What'd you cut the holes with?”

“The file in your toolbox.”

“Did you blunt it?”

I looked up at him. “Yes I blunted it, that's what it's there for.”

“I was going to use that.”

“I bet.”

“What kind of seeds are those?” he said.

“Leek.”

“What's that?”

“It's like an onion.”

He stuck the shovel into the dirt. “Nothing's going to come up here. Winter's going to start in a few months.”

“They'll be up about then.”

“Nothing's grown here for a while,” he said.

“That's because you haven't planted anything.”

“You sure they're going to be up before winter?”

“No.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

I stuck the trowel into the ground and scooped up the soil I'd put down the week before. I'd had to dig up the rocks and tree roots and just then was placing seeds in the ground.

“Because if nothing comes up this year, then something will come up next year. You've got to make the ground think like a garden.”

“Where'd you learn that?”

“In a book,” I said. “They're these thick things with words in them. I'll show you one sometime.”

He just stood there, so after a while I put him to work digging five-inch-deep pockets along the left side of the garden. He stuck the shovel into the ground with his boot and chucked the dirt onto the grass.

“Could you keep that in a pile, please?” I said. “We'll need it to fill in the holes.”

He didn't say anything, but he started scooping it into something resembling a pile.

“And could you try to keep them in a straight line?” I said.

“What's it matter if it's in a straight line?”

“It matters to me.”

“So?”

“So,” I said. “This is my garden. I'm in charge of it. You're in charge of the baseball field and I'm your assistant there. If you want to help out here, then you're my assistant.”

“What are you paying?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Nothing?” he said. “What's the matter, you saving your money for something?”

I dropped seeds into the holes that he made and covered them up with dirt. I eyed the garden hose hanging on a nail on the side of the house. At the bottom of the hose were long holes, worn away over time.

“Grady?”

“Yeah?”

“You saving your money for something?”

“Maybe.”

“Like what?”

“Nothing.”

He shoveled another hole and flipped the dirt onto the growing pile. Looking up, he paused for a moment and said, “It's going to be a good night for watching the stars. Those clouds are moving out.”

I packed the dirt flat on top of the seeds and then wondered why I'd done that. They needed loose soil so the plant could reach through. I stuck the trowel into the ground and turned it back and forth.

“If you say so,” I said.

That Sunday night Jake took an old white sheet out from the closet and pinned it up over the fireplace in the den. From the basement he brought up a large, gray film projector and sat on the couch while he threaded a line of film into the feeder. Mulligan stretched out on his belly on the thick rug and kept an eye on the ice cream that I'd filled in two bowls. When Jake was finished, he flipped off the lights and turned the projector toward the wall. Backward letters and dark lines, like hair, shot across the screen, and then numbers counted down from seven to two.

Two shapes in the water, out of focus, splashed and kicked at each other until the camera moved closer, and I spotted the dark-haired head of my father as he waved to shore. The film was grainy and yellowed, and everything was in fast motion, like time itself moved faster back then. When they came out of the water, Jake was by far the taller of the two, broad-shouldered and wiry. He lay facedown on a picnic table and pretended to swim through the air, laughing like an idiot. My father stood a little ways behind him, wiping the water out of his ear with a towel, his body skinny enough that I could count his ribs and collarbones.

“That place was called Holden's Creek,” said Jake, licking at the ice cream on his spoon. “It was about a half-mile away from the neighborhood we grew up in. Your dad was there all the time. He was a damn good swimmer.”

“Who's behind the camera?”

“I don't know. Mom died when your father was about ten, and he looks older than that here.”

“Was it your father?”

“No,” said Jake. “It wouldn't have been him.”

A dog trotted into the picture, a long-haired collie mix, and Jake picked it up by the front paws and began to dance. Behind them, the long leaves of a willow tree leaned forward with the breeze. My father sat on the picnic table, already pulling his shirt over his head and cleaning the dirt from between his toes. He glanced at Jake and the dog for a moment and then rolled his eyes.

“I bet your dad's about thirteen there. He moved away, you know, probably the next year. He lived in Seattle with our grandmother, our mom's mom, and then he went straight into the Coast Guard from there.”

“What'd you do?”

“I just hung around home. They used to have a racetrack up near where we lived, and I always had the idea that I'd buy a stock car and get onto the circuit, but that never panned out.”

“And then you got married?”

“No. I didn't get married for a while. I moved around a bit, taking a job here and there. I worked a lot of construction jobs. They were always easy to find in those days, probably still are. I met my wife in New Mexico of all places.”

I looked at him. “My mom's from there.”

“Is she?” he said. “I didn't know that. I never met your mom. But lots of good people come from around there.”

“I'd like to see it one day,” I said.

Jake set his bowl down on the floor for Mulligan. “You probably will. You've got your whole life ahead of you.”

I shrugged. “If you say so.”

“I do.”

The film split to Jake and my dad in the backyard of a house, a wire fence standing crooked behind them. They both wore small, tight boxing gloves. Jake hopped from toe to toe, bare-chested, tapping my dad on the forehead and then leaping away. Dad kept his head low, sweat spots staining the arms of his T-shirt, stalking Jake slowly, not wasting punches until he was close enough. Jake talked to the camera, but there
was no sound, and he stopped every once in a while to wind up his arm as if he was going to throw a wide hook, but Dad kept his gloves up and Jake backed off again.

By the middle of August the Knights had crept to within seven games of first place, but then they foundered on a weekend road trip and were eliminated from playoff contention. On our days off I worked at the weeds in the garden, sometimes at night under a full moon, and Jake brought home two buckets from the ballpark so we could water the vegetables in the evenings. The phone never rang in the house. I picked the receiver up from the cradle every few days or so, just to make sure the dial tone was still there.

During the late innings of games Jake sat in the stands with me and Mulligan, and if there was some kind of action down on the field, he'd point or nod his head at a base runner or an infielder.

“See that shortstop? He's checking the distance between him and second base because of the runner at first. And the third baseman, he's got to cover the gap. If that batter's any good, he can knock a line drive over the bag at third and score the runner.”

In between innings I pointed out things in my books, like the picture of the mako shark. “Indigenous to southern climates only,” I said.

Jake squinted and looked at the book. “You don't say.”

“It does.”

On the day before the final home stand, Jake had me cut the outfield extra low near the foul lines, hoping to turn some of the team's doubles into triples, and long after the sunset, he brought a shovel and a pail of dirt out to the pitcher's mound. He put his foot to the blade and dug out a concave shape into the front of the mound, where the pitcher's foot might land.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He scooped the dirt into the wheelbarrow. “Scouting report on Burlington says they got this new kid. One hell of a fastball. Keeps it low and outside. The Knights can't hit low balls, never could.”

“So?”

“So, when this kid goes into his windup, his foot's going to hit the dirt about a quarter second later than he thought it would, and that ball's going to float up over the plate like a giant piñata.”

I stood with my hands in my pockets. “How many games do you think you've won for the Knights this year?”

He considered that. “About four or five. Not nearly enough.”

I knelt and packed the dirt down with my hand, smoothing it over so it would be hard for the umpire to spot. Jake picked up a baseball and threw it into the outfield, and Mulligan jumped up from one of the on-deck circles and chased after it.

“What do you do in the off season, Jake?”

He shrugged. “I work a little in town at a hardware store that an old friend of mine owns, and I still come out to the field every once in a while. Make sure that nobody's messed with it. I'll be pretty busy all the way up to October, going to lay down some new sod in the outfield this autumn, before it gets too cold.”

“Sounds like a lot of work.”

“Probably will be,” he said.

I looked up at him. “I'll probably be gone in a few days,” I said. “I'm sorry I won't be around to help you.”

He looked at me. “Is that a fact? You hear something from your mom?”

“No. But she'll be ready to take me by the end of the month.”

“How do you figure?”

I looked out at the highway past the stadium. A tractor trailer made its way up the hill, and smaller cars passed it on the outside. “It's just what we'd talked about,” I said.

“When did you talk to her?”

“Before I came out here.”

“Oh,” he said. He put the shovel over his shoulder. “I don't remember you mentioning that.”

“Maybe I didn't.”

“Is she going to send for you?”

“Doesn't matter,” I said. “I've almost got enough money to get a train ride there.”

“I see.” He placed the rest of the tools into the wheelbarrow. “How much you short?”

“About thirty dollars.”

He picked up the wheelbarrow and began to walk toward the shed. “I bet you I can spot you that if you're still short.”

I followed behind him. “I'll pay you back.”

“No. We'll just call it an end-of-the-season bonus.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

We put the tools away in the shed and snapped the lock shut. The truck was parked outside in the space closest to the gate. Jake said he'd drive that night, so I opened the passenger door for Mulligan and then climbed in. Up in the sky, the moon was absent, and I could spot Vega just to the north of center, bright as I'd seen it. We pulled out onto the highway.

“Arizona's a good place,” said Jake. “I'll miss having you around, though. You've been a lot of help to me.”

“I'll write you a letter when I get there.”

“Do that.”

I played with a strip of fabric hanging off the seat cover. “Are you going to write me back?”

“I suppose so.”

“I'd like to hear how the garden turns out,” I said. I rolled up the window. “Are you going to keep working at it?”

“If you want me to.”

“I do.”

“All right then,” he said.

The road was empty on the ride back. We didn't pass a single car on the state highway or the narrow road leading to the house. When we pulled onto the driveway, the trees covered up the stars and the headlights
glowed, shining on the leaves and the tree branches fallen to the ground.

“Thanks for showing me the stars,” I said. “I learned a lot while I was here.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“I'll probably show my mom some of them.”

“I'm sure she'd like that,” Jake said. He began to roll up his window. “Tell you what. You remember which one Scorpio was?”

“Yep.”

“And what's its main star?”

“Antares.”

“Okay,” he said. “Scorpio's going to rise in the sky as autumn comes, and on into winter. You try to check out Antares every once in a while. Around midnight or so, and I'll try and look at it the same time here.”

I considered that. I looked over at him. He wasn't factoring in the two-hour time difference. I thought about saying something smart. “That sounds good,” I said.