A List of Cages

by Robin Roe

  “He called you before he left, right?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Maybe he just got busy. Moving and everything.”

  “Maybe.” But I don’t think so. I have this persistent bad feeling, like a throbbing toothache you can’t get rid of. “I’m going to his house tomorrow. I’ll get his aunt’s number.”

  Emerald sits up and looks at me. “Do you think his uncle will give it to you?”

  No. He probably won’t just out of spite. “I’ll make him.”

  She looks worried and amused at the same time. “I’m going with you.”

  “No.” I don’t want her anywhere near that guy. “I’ll be fine.”

  I remember having a toothache once, the world reduced to one inch of pain. Nothing else existed outside of it. It was the sort of pain that defined you, and you knew you could be free of it, if only you could rip it out of your skull and toss it away.

  I feel that now, on the right side of my back under the rib cage. Everything hurts, but it all seems to converge there.

  Slowly, slowly, the points of pain multiply so I don’t know which one is worse. For just a second there’s a thought outside the pain, but then it’s gone. It’s like a song stuck in your head, but one without lyrics. A steady percussion, drumming beat, painpainpain. You can’t turn it off. You can’t pull it out.

  Russell opens the trunk. “Shower,” he says. “You stink.”

  I hurt too much to move.

  “Now.”

  I unlock my limbs. I don’t have the strength to scream, but I hear it anyway, ricocheting inside my head.

  Tears streaming, I pull off my pants and crawl into the tub, but actually turning the knobs is impossible. Russell sets a razor on the ledge beside me, then leaves. I can’t pick it up. It hurts just to sit. So I let myself fall over.

  I’m lying on my side against the cold porcelain when I hear the doorbell chime.

  IMPATIENT, I RING the bell again. Russell’s flashy car is in the driveway, so I know he’s home. Finally, the door swings open. Julian’s uncle looks like he’s seen better days. His clothes are wrinkled, he’s got several days of stubble, and dark, sweaty hair hangs into his eyes.

  “Yes?” he asks with a strained smile.

  This is the man who hit Julian, this grown man who’s big enough to make Charlie look puny. I bite down on the fury boiling up inside me and open my mouth to ask for the phone number, but this comes out instead: “Can I grab something from Julian’s room? I loaned him a book, and I need to get it back.”

  He laughs like that’s a huge joke. “You loaned Julian a book.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He took all of his things.”

  “He told me he forgot to pack that. He said he left it in his room.”

  “He told you?” His dark eyes narrow. “When was that?”

  “Uh…a couple of days ago,” I say. He glares like he knows I’m lying. “I think I’ll just check.” I try brushing past him, which is stupid. It’s not like the number’s going to be taped to the wall or something.

  Russell muscles me outside and slams the door behind him. “I said”—he gets right into my face, baring a row of tiny white teeth—“it’s not here.” I’m really glad Julian isn’t living with him anymore, because he’s pretty freakin terrifying, and he’s got to be even scarier to Julian.

  I take a step back, holding up my hands. “Okay, I get it. I lost his aunt’s number. Just give me that, and I’ll go.”

  “You lost her number.” He has this way of repeating everything you say like it’s so unbelievable that you start questioning yourself.

  “Yes?”

  “He has your number, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m sure if he wanted to talk with you, he’d call you.” And just like before, he slams the door in my face.

  I thought I heard Russell talking to someone, but now there’s only silence.

  “What are you doing?” he yells when he comes into the bathroom. “You’re just laying there!”

  I try to answer him, but I can’t. I hear the knobs twist, then water pours down on me, ice-cold like the time Charlie picked me up in the rain. Russell continues to yell, telling me to bathe, to shave, to wash my hair. I try to lift my arms, but they hurt and I start to cry.

  “If you’re not going to wash yourself, you can just get out.”

  Every movement is slow and painful. Pulling on pajama pants is excruciating. So is climbing back into the trunk. When it closes, darkness surrounds me.

  Think good thoughts.

  Elian. I’m on his ship. I can go anywhere.

  But the image breaks.

  The trunk shrinks, and it’s as if I’m shrinking too, then fading to somewhere else. The place between worlds. The split second before Elian gets from where he is to where he’s going. The long stretch of ocean that Inuit sailors fear between shores.

  It’s the place you disappear.

  MY LAMP, THE one with a pedestal shaped like a crescent moon, must be broken or the bulb must have blown, because my room is completely dark. My father is sitting on the edge of my bed; he must have heard me crying. He pushes back my sweaty hair. It’s too hot. Why is it so hot?

  It’s summer….We saw the fireworks today. We walked on the beach. I found the biggest seashell I’d ever seen. Mom called it a conch. She said, Put it to your ear. Listen. Air echoes through its chambers, and it sounds like the ocean.

  But it’s too hot. I feel sick. I have a headache. I want a cold cloth. I want my TV on. I want Mom. I try to tell Dad all of this, but he says, “It’s time for sleep now.”

  “I can’t.”

  He ignores me the way he always does when I tell him I don’t want to sleep. But this is different. I’m sick. I’m in pain.

  My father is asking me something: “How many stars?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You know the rules.” His voice is gentle. “How many?”

  I look up at the pitch-black sky. “I don’t see any stars.”

  HOW LONG? NO light streaming through. Did I miss it? Or is it too soon? How long have I been inside this shell? I’m echoing back and forth through the chambers for eternity. I’m not real.

  I’m wet. I’m hungry. He’s not coming back.

  It’s dark.

  I’m scared.

  I’m never getting out.

  I scream and claw at the walls of the shell. There’s a bright explosion of pain, a snap of bones, but I keep hitting.

  Then I’m falling.

  My face slams into something cold. Metal.

  My fingers find two holes. I try to push one finger through, but it hits something smooth, hard, and cold. I’ve turned over my shell. I need to get it upright again or I’ll drown. I slam my shoulders against the wall, but it’s too heavy. Fighting against metal and gravity and waves, I’m so tired now.

  Deep ragged breaths.

  I can hear the ocean inside the shell.

  I wake up flailing. I’ve already forgotten whatever the nightmare was about, but I remember the feeling—like suffocating. I hop out of bed, too awake to sleep now. I slip out of the house quietly so my mom doesn’t wake up, get in the van to go to Emerald’s….Then it occurs to me that she’s probably asleep too.

  Nothing’s open, so I drive aimlessly till I find myself pulling up in front of Julian’s house. The streetlamp reflects against the two rows of square windows, making them shine like teeth. No lights are on in the house, which makes sense, since it’s after midnight. Russell’s car isn’t in the driveway, but it could be in the garage.

  I head to the front door and ring the bell. As it echoes through the house, I get an apprehensive twinge. Russell’s probably going to kick my ass for waking him up. But whatever, I’ve gone this far, and I’m not leaving till he gives me the phone number.

  Only no lights come on, and no pissed-off asshole comes to the door. It’s pretty obvious no one’s home, but something is stopping me from getting back in
my car.

  What I do next is so colossally stupid that I immediately start planning my defense for when the police arrive. I’m off my ADHD meds, I’ll say, and impulsivity is the hallmark of my condition. It’s not my fault I kicked in my friend’s window.

  When no home invasion alarm sounds, I slide my hand through the broken glass, trying not to cut myself, and turn the locks. I slide the window up and slither in, making a lot of noise when I fall inside. I’m not doing this whole breaking-and-entering thing properly, I know that.

  I scramble to my feet, ready for Russell to burst into the room and scream at me for being in his house. Or maybe he’ll think I’m a freakin burglar and charge in with a gun. I freeze.

  The house stays totally silent.

  I take a deep breath, inhaling the gross, stale odor of what has to be Julian’s room and flip on the light. There’s a suitcase against the wall.

  “Julian?” I yell, even though if anyone was home they would’ve heard my fantastic entrance. I stride past his dresser and trunk into his bathroom, out into the living room, then back into the bedroom. I lift the suitcase—heavy, still packed.

  I start pacing again. There’s nothing here, but something’s wrong—I know it. I pull out drawers, looking for something, but I don’t know what. I kneel down to open the trunk.

  It’s lying on its side, so I heft it upright, grunting. It’s a lot heavier than I expected. For a second I just look at it, puzzled by the huge padlock and round holes drilled into the side. Then an idea forms…an idea so terrible, my hearts shoots up into my head and starts pounding, the noise replacing all thoughts.

  I tug on the lock, but it won’t give. A silver glint catches my eye. A key on top of the dresser. I grab it. My fingers fumble as I slide it into the heavy lock. It falls open, and I lift the lid.

  MY EARS RING like a sonic blast just split the air. All frequencies interrupted, everything goes white. I’m deaf. I’m blind. My pulse has gone so slow and cold, I can’t move.

  Julian is inside the trunk.

  His body’s contorted into an impossible position. There are shiny red welts and purpling bruises up and down his arms and back. Blood is caked under his nose and mouth. Every rib in his back is visible. His shoulder blades are sticking out, sharp like wings.

  Inside the trunk, the stale sick odor of the room is stronger—a combination of sweat and blood and urine. He doesn’t move, not even a little flicker when the light falls over him. There’s no sign that he’s breathing.

  Then, under the sharp shoulders there’s a movement so small, I don’t know if I just imagined it. Then a sound, a tiny rasp.

  He opens his eyes.

  Relief hits me so hard, I feel weak. He’s alive, but he doesn’t seem to see me. He blinks, tearing up like he’s looking into the sun.

  He makes a lurching move to rise, but he can’t. I try to lift him, but he cringes away, folding himself back to the bottom. The terrifying thought suddenly strikes—Russell. He did this, and he could come back any second. I reach into my pocket for my phone and then remember—shit—it’s still on my bedside table sitting in a bowl of rice.

  I start talking, saying Julian’s name over and over, trying to sound soothing even though I’m panicking. I reach for him, and this time he lets me lift him out. I try to avoid touching any part of him that looks bruised or cut, but that’s impossible. My hands are under his frail arms when his legs give out, and he crumbles to the floor.

  “Open it,” he says. “Please.”

  “Julian, you’re out. You’re out now.”

  “Open it…for the stars.”

  He’s not making any sense. “Julian.”

  He slides on his stomach along the floor, tries to open the trunk again, but his arms flop uselessly.

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to get back in.”

  But he keeps pulling desperately at the lid, saying something about stars. I try to grab him, but he cringes and holds his arms over his head.

  “Julian!” I’m terrified Russell will be back any second. “We have to go now.”

  He blinks at me. Something seems to register. “Adam?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can see me?”

  “I can see you.”

  He nods and closes his eyes.

  I lift him easily. I’d like to believe it’s because of my fear-fueled adrenaline, but I suspect he really is this light.

  We’re on the street when he goes totally limp, and I’m pretty sure he’s stopped breathing.

  I jog through the automatic emergency-room doors, carrying him with the steady accusing thought that I’m doing this all wrong. His head is flopping around like a doll’s—I should slow down, keep his neck stable, but he’s so still, and his skin’s ice-cold and clammy like a reptile’s.

  I stop for a minute, scan the empty white expanse of the room. Where are the crowds of crying, bleeding patients? Where are the screaming women clutching their bellies as they’re wheeled off for labor? Where are the fucking doctors?

  Through a small glass window on the opposite side of the ER, I spot a woman calmly typing at her computer. I start jogging again and call out, “A little help?” She clearly sees me—we’re making eye contact—but her face has no expression. She stands—slowly—and turns away, exiting through a back door behind her glass partition. “Hey!” I spin around the empty room.

  A minute later, a pair of double doors creak open, and the woman and a bearded guy slowly wheel a bed to us. Maybe their almost sedated calm is supposed to calm me, but it’s having the opposite effect.

  “He’s really hurt,” I tell them.

  They take him from me and lay him down. I follow as they roll the bed through the double doors with the same casual indifference as they did when it was empty. As we walk, I try to answer their questions, but it’s like I’m drunk. All my explanations are nonsensical and thick-tongued.

  They push Julian into a tiny room where the lethargic lady wraps a blood pressure cuff around his skinny arm. When it beeps, she murmurs something to the bearded guy, and suddenly no one’s casual anymore. Seeing them morph from bored to frenzied is terrifying.

  A dozen hospital workers seem to appear out of nowhere and move in tandem, somehow never bumping into each other, speaking fast in a shorthand I don’t understand. I flatten against the wall, trying to stay out of the way.

  One woman plunges a needle into the top of Julian’s hand and tapes it down while someone else attaches an oxygen mask to his face. A tall man in black scrubs rolls a giant square machine into the room, then quickly covers Julian’s chest with round white stickers. Each circle has a silver nipple that he attaches to a wire that runs into his machine. Someone else takes the long dangling cord from the blood pressure cuff still attached to Julian’s arm and connects him to a different machine. Another nurse tapes a white clothespin to his index finger; from the tip runs a long, thin wire.

  In under five minutes he’s efficiently tethered to a dozen machines by a hundred wires. He’s a cyborg. A science experiment.

  Abruptly, everyone parts for a young man in blue scrubs. He leans into Julian’s face, peels back his eyelid with his thumb, and shines a light into one eye. Julian blinks, opens his mouth like he’s going to speak, then passes out again.

  The doctor addresses me while still looking at Julian. “What happened to him?”

  My story’s a little more coherent now: A trunk. I found him in a trunk. Then he asks for details I can’t give. I don’t know how long he was inside. I don’t know when he last ate or drank. I don’t know how he got all the cuts and bruises.

  The man in black plucks the wires from Julian’s chest, leaves the stickers on, and pronounces the EKG normal.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “His heart,” the doctor explains, “looks fine. But his blood pressure is too low.”

  I follow the cords running from Julian’s arm to a black screen with rows of flashing green numbers.

  A small woman rolls in
a cartful of test tubes. I get squeamish as she takes vial after vial of blood from Julian’s arm. Then she’s off, adding five full tubes to her collection.

  A new woman arrives with a plastic bag of fluid that she swiftly attaches to the silver coatrack by the bed. She runs a narrow plastic tube from the bag to the needle in Julian’s hand.

  Julian. Jesus. He’s always been thin, but now he’s emaciated, every rib grotesquely pronounced, his heart almost visible through his skin.

  “He’s going to be okay?” I murmur out loud.

  “We’ll know more when we get the blood work back.” The doctor’s expression doesn’t fill me with much confidence. “I’d also like to run a CT scan and an MRI.”

  “A CT scan? Why—”

  Before I can finish, a nurse takes me by the shoulder and asks if I could step into the hall. Just outside are three police officers with crackling walkie-talkies. One of them, massive and scowling, marches toward me.

  “ARE YOU ACTUALLY a cop?” I ask.

  He glares and flashes his badge.

  “So you’re not about to rip all your clothes off and start dancing?” Why I just asked that, I have no freakin clue. Maybe I’m having a mental breakdown. Officer Clark—according to the silver tag on his lapel—looks more like a stripper than a real police officer, or maybe his uniform just shrank in the wash. If he wasn’t pissed before, he definitely is now.

  He crowds me against the wall, snarling, “Shut up, and hand me your ID.” I pull my license from my wallet, and he scrutinizes it carefully like it might contain clues, then passes it to another cop. “You’re the one that found him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I need you to tell me exactly what happened.”

  My story makes more sense this time around, but it still doesn’t make a lot of sense.

  “You broke into his house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you had a bad feeling?”

  “Yes.”

  “And why did you have this bad feeling?”

  I tell him that a few months ago Julian’s uncle hit him, so yes, I had a bad feeling.