by Ron Rash
“The way I figure it,” Donnie says, “that old man still owes us. Hell, he was paying us half what he should’ve. We worked harder for him than we ever did on that road oil crew.”
Donnie gets up from the kitchen table and goes to the refrigerator. It and the TV are the last things left in the trailer that can be plugged into a socket. Microwave, VCR, air conditioner, they’ve all been pawned, or like his car, repoed. He still has electricity, but the front room’s curtained windows and the one bare bulb make the room feel like a root cellar. Not that there’s much to see other than empty cans and pizza boxes, in the corner a generator and a welding machine we haven’t yet sold, that and a couple of four-cell aluminum flashlights stolen from the same construction site. Donnie comes back with two beers and hands me one.
“You been listening to me or not?” Donnie asks. “That Beck fellow in Asheville says he’ll pay twelve hundred an ounce. Twelve hundred. There’s got to be close to three ounces in that jar. We’ll have to break into a shitload of them snowbirds’ places to make that.”
“Did you tell him what it is?”
“I told him and he said so what, that it all gets melted down anyway. He don’t give a damn. Hell, he told me a medical student brings him a couple of gold crowns a month.”
Donnie looks at me. He’s still lit up but he won’t be much longer and I won’t either.
“What we got left?” I ask.
Donnie takes the plastic pill bottle from his front pocket and twists off the cap. He gives the bottle a shake and two tabs fall onto the table. I’m hoping hard they’re pinks.
“Snake eyes,” he says.
He leaves the two 10s on the table, rubs a fingertip over one like he wants to make sure it’s real. He’s thinking about swallowing it, though he knows he better wait.
“With that kind of money, Marvin will cut his price enough for us to deal some ourselves. I might even get my wheels back.”
“Ponder hardly ever leaves that house,” I say.
“We’ll go at night when he’s asleep,” Donnie says. “He couldn’t hear worth a shit eight years ago. You could run hounds through that house and he’d not know.”
“But if he does, or sees the flashlight,” I say. “He’s got at least one gun in there, and you know he can kill a man.”
“I’m willing to chance it,” Donnie says. “I’ll be the only one inside. Both of us go in there we’ll just trip over each other. All you got to do is drive and help me get in a window. We do it tonight and this time tomorrow we’ll be in high cotton.”
I haven’t had anything all day and the craving’s working on me. My eyes are on the tabs and I can’t get them to look elsewhere. I’m owed fifty dollars for a load of wood I cut, but the guy’s been dodging me. I’ll have to drive all over the county to track him down. I put the OC in my mouth and swallow what’s left of the beer. Donnie takes his too. I think how there was a time a 10 would have me walking on sunshine half a day, but now it just takes the edge off.
“Ain’t you tired of all this nickel-and-diming,” Donnie says, “having to hustle up money every fucking day?”
“If we could just steal a few scrips,” I say.
“You know that ain’t happening,” Donnie says. “Even Marvin can’t get them anymore.”
We sit there a few minutes. Donnie’s right. I am tired of the nickel-and-diming. Sometimes it’s a temp job on a construction crew or cutting firewood, sometimes shoplifting or breaking into a vacation home. It’s always just enough. Come morning you’re back where you were the day before. Just a week where it wasn’t that way would be like taking a vacation, just floating along the way they do on those cruise ships, everything taken care of.
“Just steal the jar and leave, right?” I ask.
“I know you’re the one that made the good grades at school,” Donnie says, “but give this old boy some credit. I’m not fool enough to dawdle in there. It’ll be like special ops. Identify the target, get in, and get my ass out quick.”
“What time?”
“We leave here at midnight,” Donnie says.
“We better wear dark clothes.”
Donnie smiles.
“You mean like ninjas?”
“A black T-shirt and jeans.”
“Sure,” Donnie says.
I get up from the table.
“You can stick around here till then,” Donnie says.
I shake my head and get out my keys. Even though I’m starting to feel the OC, the trailer’s stifling. I live in an old mill house with a leaky roof and rotting boards, but at least it’s not like being in a storage shed. Donnie follows me outside. It’s one of those nice June evenings when the air cools off soon as the sun starts to fall, the day’s heat making the coolness all the better.
“We used to haul in some nice trout right before dark,” Donnie says.
“We did.”
“That was something how we could work our asses off all day and still have the starch to wade that river two hours,” Donnie says. “I guess when you’re young like that you can do most anything.”
“I reckon so,” I say.
We stare out toward Balsam Mountain. I know we’re both remembering how good those evenings were. We’d wade into the river wearing nothing but our jeans and tennis shoes. We’d throw some water on our hair and chests and let it clean off the heat and sweat and grime. Sometimes we’d catch trout and sometimes we wouldn’t, but that didn’t much matter.
Donnie smiles at me.
“Hell, we ain’t even twenty-five yet and talking like we’re ready for the rest home. When we cash in tomorrow, we’ll buy some gear and hit the river, catch us a bunch of trout. Get a case of beer and fry those bad boys up.”
I nod though I know it won’t happen.
“Yeah, that’s what we’ll do,” Donnie says. “It’ll be same as it ever was. I bet there’s even one of them big rainbows holding beneath Three-Mile Bridge, except this time I’ll catch it instead of you.”
I pick up Donnie at midnight and we drive out 107 and turn onto Mr. Ponder’s dirt road. The few houses and trailers we pass have all their lights off, the folks inside enjoying the sleep of the righteous. We round a curve and the headlights slash across a battered mailbox with “Ponder” on it. The house is dark. I drive another quarter mile and turn around, drive back slow.
“It’d likely be fine to just pull off on the side,” Donnie says, but when I get to where the cornfield was I turn in.
I shut off the lights and bump across a few old rows, far enough to where someone going by won’t notice the truck. I turn around to face the road and cut the engine. Donnie turns on his flashlight and I do the same. As we get out, he pulls something from the back of his jeans. His hand settles around the handle and I glimpse steel.
“Chill, buddy,” he says. “It’s just a screwdriver to prize a window or that locker.”
There’s a couple of big white oaks between the field and Mr. Ponder’s house, so we use them for extra cover. A big-bellied yellow moon is out, a few stars too. We palm the flashlights so just enough light leaks out to see a step ahead. His bedroom is at the back, so we step up on the porch, moving cautious so the boards don’t creak. The front door is to the left of the window. Donnie nods at me to try the knob, just on the off chance. It turns.
“Damned if he ain’t invited us in,” Donnie whispers, placing his hand where mine was. “Go on back to the truck. If a light comes on, you be ready to haul ass.”
He opens the door slow and goes in. I cup the beam and walk back to the truck and wait. The window’s down but the cool air can’t stop me from sweating. All the while I’m looking toward the house. A smudge of light shows for a moment in the front room. Then it’s gone. I know it’s Donnie’s flashlight but I can’t help thinking that if I saw it out here someone inside could have seen it too. The OC’s worn off and I’m wishing bad I’d kept that last tab for now. I take my pack of cigarettes off the dash and light one. That helps a little, enough to final
ly let my mind drift a bit.
I think about those evenings on the river, not just the year we worked for Mr. Ponder but the summer after Donnie and me turned sixteen and worked on the highway department’s road oil crew. That was hard work too, especially since the older guys gave us the shit jobs. But we still went to the river most evenings, even the summer after our junior year, at least until we began hanging out with some hard-living guys on the road oil crew.
The best time was always right before dusk. The water got quieter, more still, especially the deep pools. Sometimes there’d be a mayfly hatch, and it looked like pebbles hitting the surface. It was the trout feeding, but they wouldn’t make splashes, just those tiny sips, as if even they didn’t want to break the stillness. Donnie and me would break down our rods, knowing a spinner wouldn’t work with a hatch going. But we wouldn’t go right on home. We’d sit on the bank a few minutes. Donnie might smoke a cigarette but otherwise neither of us hardly moved. It was like the stillness had settled inside us too. The kinds of things that could fill a mind at such times—bad stuff at home, wondering if you’d cut it in the Marines or have money enough to go to A-B Tech—didn’t seem so worrisome.
I’m so deep in the back-then that it takes a door slamming shut to remember where I am now. In front of Mr. Ponder’s house, a flashlight’s full beam slides across the ground a few moments before sweeping upward through tree branches and into the sky. Whoever it is, it’s like he’s sending up flares. The light jerks down and settles right on the truck and I’m wondering if whoever’s holding that flashlight is also holding a gun. Then I hear singing and know it’s Donnie. He comes toward me, jerking the flashlight this way and that as he sings a Jamie Johnson song.
“Damn, Donnie,” I say when he gets in. “He might not hear but he can damn well see. He can still call the law.”
“We’ve got no worries that way,” Donnie says, but I’m watching for a light to come on as I crank the truck and drive out of the field.
I don’t take an easy breath till we’re past the farmhouse, and my arms are still shaking when Donnie turns on the overhead light. He’s got a paper bag in his hand that looks to be the same one as eight years ago.
“We hit the jackpot tonight, son,” he says, and takes out the mason jar and shakes it. “Like when we was kids and had piggybanks, but what’s in here sure ain’t copper. I got us more than this jar too.”
“We said we’d not take anything else,” I say.
“I wouldn’t have,” Donnie says, “but it was too quiet in there. I mean, an old man like that’s going to snore or at least breathe heavy. I finally checked out the bedroom to see if he was even in the house. He was laid out on that bed and deader than a tarred stump. His clothes were on and arms at his sides like he was just waiting for the coffin.”
“You’re sure,” I say, “I mean, about him being dead?”
“Dude, I’ll spare you the details,” Donnie says, “but he’s been dead at least a couple of days.”
Donnie reaches into the paper bag and takes out some bills.
“His billfold was on the bureau. Forty-six dollars that he’ll need no more than this,” he says, reaches back into the bag and takes out a dental bridge, lays it on the dash beside the pack of cigarettes. “One that old has some prime gold in it.”
Donnie stuffs the money in his jean pocket and wads up the paper bag and throws it on the floorboard. The jar is between his legs and he grips it with his left hand, uses his right to twist the metal ring. It doesn’t give. He taps around the rim with the flashlight and tries again. I hear the rust grind as Donnie unscrews the ring. After he pries the lid off with the screwdriver, he takes the dental bridge off the dash and drops it in with the teeth, reseals the jar as best he can, and sets it between us.
“Damn,” Donnie says, still breathing hard. “That old man works our asses off even when he’s dead.”
The dirt road ends and I turn right onto 19-23. We cross over the bridge and come into town, everything shut down except the Quik-Stop. We pass the bank, its sign lit up with the time and temperature.
“Hell, it ain’t but one thirty and we got money,” Donnie says. “I vote we go on over to Asheville. There’s a place Jody Barnes told me about that don’t shut down till daylight hits the windows. We’ll find two girls who’ll party with us, cash in come morning, and party some more.”
I don’t have a better idea so I say okay.
“Want to clean up first, put on some nice duds,” Donnie says, “or let the girls know from the start the rough outlaws that we are?”
“Let’s go on,” I say.
“OK,” Donnie says, “but let’s run by Marvin’s first. It’ll make for a better ride.”
I don’t answer, just turn right at the stoplight and drive toward Marvin’s. I watch the headlights race ahead of us. Even going through town, we haven’t met a single car or truck. Usually I’d figure that as some good luck, but tonight it feels more like a judgment.
“What’s got you so quiet?” Donnie asks after a while.
“That dental bridge,” I say. “You shouldn’t have taken it.”
“Why the hell not?” Donnie says. “We’ve stolen a thousand times more from live folks. If you’re going to get all sorry about something, be sorry for them it matters to. It sure as hell don’t matter to that old man.”
Donnie slides a cigarette out of the pack and lights it, takes a couple of drags before he speaks again.
“Are we through talking about this?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Good.”
In a couple of minutes we pull into Marvin’s driveway. The front porch light comes on and I dim the lights and cut the engine.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Donnie says and takes the jar with him.
He steps up on the porch and Marvin opens the door, nothing on but a pajama bottom. He doesn’t look happy to be woke up, but he and Donnie talk a few moments and Marvin opens the door wider and steps back.
Donnie comes out a few minutes later with the jar in one hand and a pill bottle in the other.
“Son of a bitch was pissed at first, it being so late and all, but he sure changed his tune once I showed him the jar and he got his scales out. Three and three-quarter ounces. What does that come to by your ciphering?”
“Forty-five hundred.”
“Exactly,” Donnie says, “though Marvin had to tally it on paper. Anyway, we put four thousand of that in his pocket and he’ll charge us twelve. We sell to some of those hotshot punks over at the high school at twenty and we’ll glide a long while. It ain’t like we got to decide right this instant, but I’m telling you, it all sounds like a sweetheart deal to me.”
Donnie rattles the pill bottle.
“Hell, Marvin didn’t even want the money for these. Just said not to worry, that we’d settle up later. Get us some beer to wash these down with and we’ll be riding the magic carpet all the way to Asheville.”
We head back through town and pull into the Quik-Stop. A bell tinkles when we enter and a man comes out of the stockroom. The place seems to change hands every other week, so it’s not surprising I’ve never seen this guy. No one else is in the store or parking lot and he looks nervous as Donnie opens the cooler, takes out a six-pack.
“This is enough, don’t you think?” he says, and I nod.
We’re heading for the counter when Donnie notices the rack of fishing equipment at the back of the store. There’s a couple of dusty Zebco rods and reels leaning beside the rack. Donnie gives me the beer and picks one up to check the price, clicks the button to see if the line comes out smooth, and does the same to the other.
“We’ll come back for these when we get paid,” Donnie says.
“It’s two o’clock,” the man at the counter says. “I’m closing now.”
Donnie turns, the rod in his free hand.
“Your sign says you’re open all night.”
“I’m closing now,” the man says again.
He
glances out at the parking lot and you can tell he’s wishing hard someone would pull in, or even drive by. But nothing is moving out there. It’s just him and me and Donnie under the store’s bright lights.
“Take the beer,” he says. “It’s free.”
“Well, that’s neighborly of you,” Donnie says, and sets the rod down, takes the beer from me.
“Is it Christmas or something?” Donnie says, a big grin widening on his face. “Everywhere we go people are giving us stuff.”
“Go now,” the man says.
As Donnie heads toward the door, I pull a five out of my wallet and step toward the counter. The man raises a hand as if to fend off a blow.
“Go now,” he pleads.
“Okay,” I say, stuff the bill in my pocket, and follow Donnie out to the truck.
I pull out of the parking lot. As soon as we’re out of town, Donnie hands me a pink, takes one for himself. I put the tab on my tongue and let it lay there. Donnie opens a beer and hands it to me.
“Drink up,” he says.
The OC’s coating starts to dissolve. Its bitterness fills my mouth but I want the taste to linger a few more moments. As we cross back over the river, a small light glows on the far bank, a lantern or a campfire. Out beyond it, fish move in the current, alive in that other world.
Something Rich and Strange
She follows the river’s edge downstream, leaving behind her parents and younger brother who still eat their picnic lunch. It is Easter break and her father has taken time off from his job. They have followed the Appalachian Mountains south, stopping first in Gatlinburg, then the Smokies, and finally this river. She finds a place above a falls where the water looks shallow and slow. The river is a boundary between Georgia and South Carolina, and she wants to wade into the middle and place one foot in Georgia and one in South Carolina so she can tell her friends back in Nebraska she has been in two states at the same time.
