Thieves I've Known (7 page)

And that set them to laughing more. I let them ride that out. I wasn't going to say another word. I looked over at the mice, and for some reason
I started thinking about that picture in Merrill's room. I listened to the music, and I was buzzing pretty good. I thought I might just close my eyes if I could get warm enough.

“I had a mule when I was a kid,” said Merrill. “An old blind mule. His name was Albert.”

“No it wasn't,” said Albert.

“Think what you like,” she said. “But I used to take care of him. He'd follow me around in the fields. We were picking apples. And he'd eat the hell out of those apples. I'd have to keep them from him, or else he'd get sick if he ate too many. I had him for years. When I first got him they were like ‘he won't last a year,' but he just went on and on.”

“What was his real name?” I said.

“Oh, I don't know. What was your duck's name?”

I didn't say anything.

“Good,” she said. “That's yours to keep.”

She took up the brush then, and she took up Albert's hair and began pulling it back. She worked out the tangles. He curled his arm under his cheek.

She brushed his hair straight. She hummed to the radio while she was working, and I watched her. She took a lot of care with it, I thought. I was about ready to close my eyes.

When she was done with the brush, she reached over to a drawer and took out a pair of scissors. She ran her thumb down the blade.

“You sure about this?” she said.

“Yes,” said Albert, a whisper.

I sat up from the chair. “No.”

Albert opened one eye and looked at me. “I've been thinking about it. This isn't spur of the moment.”

“It'll take you years to grow back,” I said.

“It's time to let go of things,” he said.

He closed the eye and set his head against the pillow. Merrill watched me for a while, and then she slipped some hair between her fingers and cut off a few strands. She set them across his face.

“Last chance,” she said.

“I told you,” Albert said.

She looked at me and waited. She snipped the scissors a few times in the air, waited for something from either of us. I was drunk. I looked over at Albert, and he didn't move. I decided I wouldn't say anything else. He seemed to me at peace there, as much as I'd seen him. Merrill moved to the music again, and she began to cut his hair. “It's a long, long way to the moon,” she sang, though there weren't any voices on the radio.

Merrill brought the candle over and pulled a chair up next to me. She had Albert's hair in her fist, and we sat there for a while and watched him sleep. His face was slack and silent, and it seemed to me that he was without dreams. It put me in mind of my grandfather again, and I could see us—me, Granddad, and Albert—years before, down in the sunflowers in Indiana. There were grasshoppers popping over us. Just a few at first, then more, then a hundred it seemed. Like they'd arrived just behind us. We were picking them off our shirts, or we'd flick them at each other, and they'd leave some spit behind. There wasn't any shade, and the sun was warm and it dried our clothes. We'd been caught out in the rain, in the back of a stranger's pickup that morning. We were on our way to St. Louis, to see about a basketball scholarship for Albert, though that hadn't worked out. We could just reach up and grab as many grasshoppers as we liked. They'd sit on the tips of your fingers if you let them, their legs poking at you. I caught the most, and Granddad looked at my hands and said, “These flowers'll be gone in a week now.”

Merrill had brought out some spools of thread, and she set those on the table between us. She had a needle between her teeth, and she was digging around in a sewing kit for something.

“Would you hold this for me?” she said, a mumble.

I took Albert's hair. I held it tight so it wouldn't slip out of my hand. It was soft and heavy and I brought it down near the candlelight. There were all different colors in there. Black mostly, but auburn and even some gray. Brown hair, like mine, but I'd never seen it before in Albert's. It seemed like it might be a few people's hair, all mixed together.

Merrill found what she was looking for, and I handed the hair back. She made a knot of it at the end, held it together that way. I still had some strands stuck to my fist, and I took those and set them on my knee. She threaded the needle in the candlelight.

“What happened to your duck?” she said.

I shrugged. “Christmas dinner.”

She looked over at me. “You're lying.”

“Maybe.”

“You got another girl now?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Well, you either do or you don't.”

“I don't I guess.”

Merrill got that needle threaded. “You got your eye on one?”

“Maybe.”

“I know parrots that have more words than you,” she said.

“I guess.”

She smiled a little, set a fancy clip on Albert's hair. She started sewing the knot to the clip. “What's her name?”

“Amy.”

“That's a pretty name,” she said.

“I made it up.”

I tried to take deep breaths. I was trying to get warmer. I looked around the room. There wasn't much to it. Just the furniture, a
TV
. The mice. I looked up at the map on the wall.

“You been to those places you marked?” I said.

“When I was younger.”

“What were they like?”

She considered that, though she didn't take her eyes from what she was doing. “They weren't too good I guess.”

“Did you get those mice there?”

“No.”

“Did you make those little outfits for them?”

“I know better than to answer that,” she said. She pulled the thread tight. “You're getting ahead with your questions. Time for me to ask one.”

“All right.”

“Go get us some beers first.”

“Was that a statement or a question?”

“That was a statement,” she said. “And yours was a question. So now you're down two.”

I got up and got the beers. When I settled back I nodded at the hair.

“What are you making?”

“Not your turn,” Merrill said. “What's your mom like?”

“She's tall.”

“Tall huh? She look like you?”

“A little.”

“What does she do?”

I shrugged. “Albert's told you about her.”

“No,” she said. “He hasn't.”

I thought about Ma. I tried to picture her in my mind. “She takes care of herself. She's getting better at that. She tries to stay in this world as much as she can.”

“And you're close to her?”

“No,” I said. “She's not someone to get close to. That's not in her. But I spend a lot of time with her. Weekends she's at her sister's. My turn?”

Merrill finished a stitch in the clip, took up the scissors. “Okay.”

“You got other boyfriends besides Albert?”

She nodded. “I do.”

“What are their names?”

“A name is a powerful thing,” she said.

“One of them then.”

She thought about that. She looked up at the map. “Hank.”

“Did you make that up?”

“Yes,” she said. “My turn. Why are you shivering all the time?”

“Cause I'm drinking cold beer.”

“Is that it?”

“I guess.”

“You ever kissed a girl?”

I pulled down the blanket a bit. I didn't like that question much, but I didn't want to show it. I thought about it awhile, though there wasn't much to think on.

“No,” I said.

“Why not?”

“I suppose the opportunity hasn't come along.”

“I doubt that,” she said. “Do you want to kiss me?”

I thought about that, and there was plenty to think on. “I guess not.”

“Why not?”

I blinked. “Because you're my brother's girlfriend.”

“He said it'd be all right.”

I looked over at my brother. “Did he?”

“Yes,” she said. “And it would quit you of your shivers.”

“Is that right?” I said. “You got magic lips?”

“That's right. Magic lips,” she said. She pulled another stitch tight but didn't cut it yet. She looked over at me. “I'm going to ask you again, and that's going to be the last time. You're not going to get this kind of courtesy from other women. You understand?”

“Maybe I should take some notes.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Would you like to kiss me?”

I thought about that. “All right.”

“Well,” she said. “I don't think so. You had your chance.”

I settled back in the chair. I pulled the blanket up. I wanted to pull it over my head.

She set the hair aside and got up and leaned over me. “I don't want you to touch me this time, all right?”

“Okay,” I said.

She kissed me then. She turned her head to the side and ran her fingers at the back of my scalp. “Close your eyes, dummy,” she said.

So I closed my eyes, and she kissed me some more. She pinched one of my ears with a fingernail and pushed my head back against the chair. I could feel her weight against my knees. I listened to the music and felt her sway with and, it seemed to me, within it. She pulled my lip with her
teeth, and her kiss was warm and it made me warm. I leaned forward in the chair. We were done before I wanted us to be. She sat back and took up Albert's hair again.

“Don't say anything,” she said.

“Okay.”

“Some day you'll figure what to say after, but it's got to be the right thing. If you don't know, then keep quiet. Got it?”

I closed my eyes. “This is complicated.”

“No it's not,” she said. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Did you see that picture in my room?”

I opened my eyes again. “I think you put it out there for me to see.”

She nodded. “Well bully for you. I did. I was scared of you coming here tonight.”

“Why?”

“That's my brother in the picture. He and I were close once. That's a picture I had that'd fit the frame.”

“He's older than that now,” I said.

“He died when he was eighteen,” she said. “He was working a ferry in the Pamlico. He tried to jump from the dock in a storm. He hit his head and went straight down. I miss him a lot. He and I were as close as you and Albert.”

I didn't say anything to that.

“You remind me of him,” she said.

“I do?”

“Well, I suppose if you had three eyes you'd still remind me of him.”

“What do you mean?”

She didn't say anything.

I thought about something. I thought it through twice before I said it.

“Did you teach him how to kiss?”

“My brother?” she said.

“Yes.”

She laughed a little at that. She didn't take her eyes from the stitching. “No,” she said. “But I guess you won't believe me.”

“I believe you,” I said.

“You want to know his name?”

“Yes,” I said.

She studied me for a moment. I couldn't read her face in the candlelight. She set the hair aside. Then she leaned over to my ear and whispered his name.

We went out back, the three of us. A big stretch of clouds had moved in, and the stars were all gone. There was lightning in the distance, and the clouds would flash up every minute or so, dull and sudden. A warm breeze from the north pushed across the lake. We took Albert down to the water's edge. He was wide-awake now, though he was yawning. He couldn't seem to stop. His eyes were all wet, and it was like I couldn't recognize him with all that hair gone. He looked like something young had come over him. There were frogs making all kinds of sounds—low then high—along the shore. “Peepers,” Merrill said to us, nodding out into the dark. We got Albert down there, then we pushed his chair a ways into the water. Not too far. It sent a couple ducks flying out from the reeds, honking and complaining. We watched them skim across the water and then disappear into a mist in the center of the lake.

We got Albert a beer and a donut. “This water's cold,” he said. But it wasn't all that cold. Me and Merrill stripped down to our underwear, and we waded out into the water, the scum and rocks against our feet.

“There's brambles in here,” she said. “Watch where you go.”

I went under and I couldn't see anything, but as I settled I could hear the blood in my head, bouncing through the water it seemed. I was warm down there. I came up and wiped my eyes. I let my sight adjust. I looked back toward Albert. I was about twenty yards out into the water, and he pointed over and past me with his beer.

“What's that out there?” he said.

I turned where he was looking, and I saw the school bus. I waited for the next flash of lightning.

“That's been there for years,” said Merrill.

“How'd it get there?”

“Somebody was very drunk, I suppose.”

When the lightning came I could see that all the windows were smashed out. Cattails were growing all around it, and it rested low against the bank. Somebody had popped the tires a long time ago.

“How come no one's pulled it out?” I said.

“It's junk,” said Merrill. “I know what you're thinking. There's no kids in there.”

“How do you know?”

“You're spooking again,” said Albert.

And I was. I didn't like that bus in there. There were all sorts of things floating around my legs. I'd swallowed some water.

“I want to get out there with you,” said Albert.

I looked at him. “Out in the water?”

“Hell yeah, out in the water. I never get to do anything fun.”

He dropped his bottle in the water and took off his shirt again. We swam up to him. I got him under an arm and Merrill got him under the other arm, and we eased him out of the chair and turned him. He settled back with us, and he tensed a bit as he went into the water. His face was pointing up at the clouds. The darkness of the water was bobbing at his neck. “That's good,” he said. I had my arm across his chest, my ribs at his back. Merrill took him from the other side.