You Only Get Letters from Jail (13 page)

Richie's Uncle Dave had a house up in Northern California, somewhere near the town of Trinidad, on the isosceles side of the great white breeding ground triangle, and the last guy who'd owed Richie a hell of a lot of money got taken for a boat ride and dropped in the water, about a mile from shore, in nothing but his clothes and a life jacket. That thought kept me awake at night—being dropped in the ocean with a life jacket on, so my head was high enough out of the water to see the first dorsal fin coming—or not see it, which would be about ten times worse, to just be waiting and waiting and not know what was underneath me, bobbing around, stone-cold alive and waiting for the shark to hit like a freight train. I was a weak swimmer who was six months from graduating with a 1430 on the SATs. I had fifteen hours until kickoff and my mom was in Reno. I took her Plymouth Suburban and her Wusthof, parked down the block from the Tri-County cash machine, and waited.

I had practiced in my bedroom. I needed a good voice and a quick arm with the knife, so I stirred together equal parts Johnny Cash and Norman Bates and turned “Give me your money” into Folsom Prison Blues behind a shower curtain. I didn't want to hurt anybody, but there was a fine line between threat and circumstances, and put under pressure, even a lump of coal can turn to diamond, hard
and clear. I just needed one good minute at somebody's back and come tomorrow I could tell Richie that I wasn't gonna fuckin' fish
or
cut bait.

I was thinking about that, fishing and the Discovery Channel and what it looks like when one of those big-ass sharks comes out of the water and takes forty pounds of chum off the end of a stick some idiot is holding out over the side of the boat, and I almost missed her, the girl at the cash machine with her purse under her arm and her card in her hand. She was a tall girl, and from where I sat I could see that she was alone—even the passenger seat of her car looked empty—and the street was quiet and soft with fog. I cracked the window and took a deep breath and it felt cold and good in my lungs and I was snapped clean and awake. The storefronts were dark and the sidewalk was lit with the staggered row of street lamps that were having a hard time muscling their light through the thick air. The sound of cars was distorted—they could've been streets away or miles away, I couldn't tell. I wiped my hands across my jeans and pushed at the Wusthof and thought about taking this first pitch—letting this one go and waiting for the next—but this was a sucker pitch, a lob, a girl all alone, and this might be my only chance to swing for the fences.

I eased the door open and slid off the bench seat, dragging the knife with me. The girl didn't turn around. I hugged the car until I hit the sidewalk, and then I stood in a shadow and caught my breath. I was sucking air like I'd just run from my house and it was hard to get my lungs full again. My heart was tapping out a code and I had to
lock my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering. It had been easier in my bedroom in front of the mirror. I knew that this was how it would feel when I hit the water up north—shaky, cold, and in over my head. I got myself walking and I stayed quiet and didn't stop.

She was looking at the receipt in her hand, and she had her finger on the button by the screen and then I was behind her and I cleared my throat so I could touch bass, and she turned on me before I could get the words out. I had the knife handle white-knuckled and locked in my right hand and I wouldn't be able to drop it and run even if I wanted to. The blade was solid against my thigh and I got to “Give me . . .” before she shifted her weight forward and said my name.

“Nolan?”

I turned the blade on its edge and if I'd pushed it a little harder I could've made it bite through my jeans. There was no more air in my lungs—what little I'd managed to hold since standing in the shadow had evaporated like the fog under the streetlights. I tried to finish my sentence but all that came out was a long squeak, like a balloon at the end of a neck-pinched release.

“I know it's you. Nolan from Andrew Jackson Junior High.”

I nodded and tried to breathe through my eyes because they were the only things open.

“It's me, Ivy. Ivy Greenway. You have to remember me.” She smiled at me and I did remember her. She was my girlfriend in eighth grade. Ivy—my friends used to groan and
grab their nuts, tell me how badly they wanted to climb her, ask me if she was poison. She was the first girl to put her tongue in my mouth and to take mine even before I was sure that I was ready to give it.

“I remember you,” I said. I cleared my throat and swallowed something thick that I would've rather spit.

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “You're not smiling,” she said. “Was I that bad?”

A car rolled to the curb behind us and two guys in heavy jackets got out. They both pulled wallets from their back pockets and stood near us, lined up and waiting their turn. Ivy pushed her receipt into her purse and I saw the white edge of twenties go with it. “Go ahead,” she said to me.

“What?”

“I'm done. You can have the machine.”

I shifted my weight and moved my feet a little bit, as though I was caught between stepping forward and turning to leave. The two guys looked at me. Over their shoulders I could see my mom's Plymouth down the street waiting for me. I could hit it at a dead run and I might be able to get past the guys if I swung wide, but it would be impossible to run without raising my arms, and as soon as the knife came up for its first slice of air, I had a feeling that I would be kissing asphalt and getting to know these guys a lot better. There was sweat on the back of my neck, under the hood of my sweatshirt, and I was cold.

“I left my wallet in the car,” I said. I nodded toward the street and both of the guys turned to look at the Plymouth. Then they turned back and looked at me. “Go ahead,” I said.

They each gave me a hard stare and I felt their eyes drop and slide down the front of me. I didn't flinch. I exhaled through my nose and the air came out in puffs of steam like stallion snorts. I paced the breaths—easy in and easy out. Their eyes touched off me and skipped around but they didn't land for very long. The shorter one stepped past me and then they were both past me, and I could hear them settling up with the machine.

“You taking two?” the shorter one asked.

“Three,” the tall one said. “Might as well.”

My mouth watered and I thought about what it would take to drop both of them and double down, and I realized that it would probably take a .38 and I didn't have a gun.

In the time it took for me to fantasize taking the guys down with a knife, doing some kind of karate move, they had settled up and were gone and Ivy had dug a cigarette out of her purse. “You don't happen to have a lighter, do you?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“Damn. I should've asked those guys. They totally smelled like weed. Did you smell them? Jesus.”

I shook my head again. All I could smell was the dirty paper scent of money.

“We probably could've got a dime bag off of them,” Ivy said. “I don't know why I just stood here and passed that up. Damn.” She pinched her cigarette between her front teeth and started digging through her purse again. “You don't happen to have any weed, do you?” she asked.

I shook my head. The knife handle was getting sweaty, and I hadn't realized how heavy it would get after holding
it awhile. The longest that I had ever had one in my hand was when I was helping my mother chop vegetables in the kitchen.

“Does your car have a lighter?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I guess so,” I said.

“Can I use it?” She held up her cigarette. She started walking down the sidewalk toward the Plymouth. I heard a siren but could not tell which direction the sound came from, or how close it might be. I wondered what kind of emergency was happening while I stood there with my mom's knife squeezed tight to my leg. Ivy stopped and looked back. “Are you coming?” she asked.

She waited for me to catch up to her, but I hung back a few steps so that she would be less likely to notice my knife-handed lockstep. “It's freezing,” she said. “I hope your heater works.”

I imagined us sitting in the Plymouth, parked at the curb with the engine going so the heater could run and Ivy's window cracked so she could ash her cigarette over the glass while I watched busloads of old women stop in front of the cash machine so they could all take a turn at the money.

There were Christmas lights in some of the store windows, and the sidewalk reflected back reds and greens and blues. I wished that Christmas lights never had to come down, but there was something naked about strings of bulbs left exposed in the daytime, and their only good moment was when the sun set and the light left the sky and they came on, strand after strand, blinking quietly. Ivy tripped on a crack in the
sidewalk that I didn't see—the concrete had been splintered and raised in an odd angle so that the two panels were no longer flush, and she hit it just right, her left foot going first, and her ankle rolled and instead of going down, palms out and ready, she grabbed for me, took two handfuls of sweatshirt, and I did what came naturally and reached out to catch her. My hand had gone numb from the elbow down and I didn't know that I had dropped the knife until I heard its dull thud on the cement, handle and then blade, a muted clatter that didn't sound metal at all. Ivy looked down but I didn't.

“Jesus,” she said.

We stood there for a minute, most of her weight pressed against me, her left ankle still on its side and my sweatshirt knotted in her fists. We were clouded in the steam from our breath, and when it finally cleared and she was able to stand upright, shake me loose, I moved the knife a little with my foot, poked at it as though I were checking a snake for life.

Ivy reached down and picked it up. She held it out toward the light in the window next to us so that the blade glowed weak blue. “This is a big knife,” she said. She kept it in her hand and walked the rest of the way to the car, and when she was beside it, she waited for me to unlock and open her door as though this was prom night and the dance was over and instead of the table centerpiece or a mint tin stamped with
Dream a Little Dream
, our party favor was a twelve-inch Wusthof, the handle black with a red trident, our school colors and the weapon of our mascot—Home of the Tritons.

When I shut her door and I could see her through the window, the cigarette that she'd dropped when she stumbled,
wrinkled but not crushed, the knife on the dashboard, I thought about running. My legs ached with the urge. A car passed on the street and I wanted to raise my hand and block my face from its headlights, but I looked into them instead, full force with both eyes open until they passed.

I swung my door open and folded myself into the seat. Ivy had the lighter pushed in and was waiting for the pop. “It works without the engine on,” she said.

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel and stared at the lighter, too.

“Any second now,” she said.

The car smelled like mildew from where the rear power window leaked. I tried keeping a towel below it, but when the rain came, there wasn't much that I could do. By December it was a water trap and created a constant smell of wet and damp that I got used to. The lighter popped and Ivy pulled it from the dash, sucked her cigarette to life, and the smell of mildew faded in favor of smoke.

Ivy exhaled loudly. “Perfect. Sometimes you get to the point where you want this taste so badly, you know? I mean, maybe people who don't smoke just don't get it—the way these just taste good—that first puff when you know you're finally getting a cigarette you've been waiting for. I can't explain it.”

I could feel the sharp edges of keys in my front pocket and I was reminded of the sharp edge of knife on my thigh, and I fished the keys out and set the ring in my lap but didn't move to start the car.

“I only smoke Lucky Strikes,” Ivy said. She held up her cigarette and squinted one eye against the smoke so she could
admire it. “Back in the twenties they used to advertise Lucky Strikes as a way to lose weight—you know, have a cigarette instead of a cookie. Women were chain-smoking them to their filters.” She exhaled and reached for the window crank but there was nothing but the armrest and the button.

“They're electric,” I said.

She cupped her hand under the tip of her cigarette and waited.

“Sorry,” I said. I fumbled the key to the ignition and turned it so that the window could come down. Ivy tipped her cigarette over the edge and I watched the ash fall and stick to the drops of moisture on the glass. I knew that by the time she finished her cigarette the passenger side of the car would be peppered with gray.

“So women were smoking these things like crazy and staying skinny and Lucky Strike's sales went up something like three hundred percent. You gotta admire that. That's why I smoke them.”

I could hear the soft click of the keys as they dangled from the ignition, and the sound became quieter and quieter as the motion ran out of them. Outside of the car the street was empty and the cash machine was nothing more than a strip of light under an awning. It was getting later.

Ivy pinched her cigarette between her lips, squinted an eye, and picked the knife up from the dashboard. “So, is this for personal protection, or are you just paranoid?”