You Don't Know Me

by David Klass

  “Where are you hiding?” the Bulldozer shouts. “Dickman was lucky compared to what I’m going to do to you, you soccer stooge. I’ll pulpify you. They’ll have to pick you up with a sponge and carry you away in a pail. And then I’ll pulpify that stinking feline.”

  I hear Gloria’s concerned voice. “Mom! Dad’s scaring my little D.D.”

  The flashlight beam is now swinging toward me along the dark wall. “Skull, make thyself smaller,” my brain commands. “Shoulders, contract. Hips, narrow. Okay now, everyone, on three. One, two, three . . .”

  It is amazing how true desperation aids the human endeavor. My body gives an all-out effort at transmogrification, whatever that means. Somehow I reduce myself to the size of a house cat for a matter of seconds as I wiggle out through the pet door. I bump my head. I scrape my knee. I believe some of the skin from my left elbow remains on one edge of the pet door. But the important thing is that somehow I get through it.

  Sadly, I am not outside. I don’t know where I am. I am crawling in complete darkness through some sort of narrow tunnel. There is a rank odor of cat. There are clumps of what I hope is, or was, fur. I am not enjoying my little crawl through the darkness, but I believe it would be less enjoyable to go back and face the Bulldozer. So I press on. Eventually I must reach the end of this cat crawl space.

  Soon I do arrive at the end of the tunnel, but that is not a good thing. The tunnel ends in nothingness. I fall out into darkness, plummet four or five feet, and land heavily on a pile of branches that breaks my fall. I am outside the basement of the Great Bonanza Ranch House, at the lowest point on the property.

  I do a quick inventory. I have minor cuts and bruises, but no bones seem to be broken. I hear a door opening near me. And the Bulldozer’s angry growl.

  “Flee,” my brain commands. I stand and stagger away as quickly as I can. It is thrilling just to be alive.

  When I am perhaps a hundred feet from the Great Bonanza Ranch House I hear police sirens. Then voices. High-powered searchlights begin sweeping the Bulldozer’s property, but I am four backyards away—safely out of range.

  It is only when I feel safe that I realize I am also very cold. In fact, I am freezing. That makes a certain amount of sense because my shoes, my Christmas sweater, and my tan jacket with all my cash zippered into one of its side pockets are still in Glory Hallelujah’s basement.

  I cannot go back to claim them.

  Half-naked and shivering, I set sail for home sweet home.

  15

  A Short Haul

  I do not know if you have ever had the experience of jogging home through the darkness on a cold night in late autumn, jacketless, shirtless, shoeless, and sockless, with cuts and bruises on your arms and legs, while two police cars cruise the darkness searching for you.

  If you have not, perhaps you will fail to understand the necessity I feel to get within the walls of my house that is not a house as soon as possible. The night of my big date started out balmy, but the temperature has been dropping steadily. It has been a night of some exertion and much danger, and even a home that is not a home seems like a relatively pleasant place—a shelter in the storm, so to speak.

  I begin the chapter this way to convince you that I have ample reason for not exercising proper caution in returning to a war zone. I do not conduct reconnaissance. I do not peer through all the windows on the ground floor. I do not crawl up the drainpipe like a cat burglar and pry open an upstairs window.

  In fact, the front door is unlocked and I just walk on in.

  My house is pitch-dark. I feel about for the light switch. Suddenly a hand grabs my right wrist in a grip that makes me cry out.

  I smell the hot stench of whiskey breath. The voice of the man who is not my father hisses, “Where is it?”

  “Where is what?” I ask, stalling for time, even though I believe I understand his question.

  WHOP. The hard slap to the back of my head makes my vision blur and my ears ring. He holds me with his left and slaps me with his right. I cannot wriggle free. “Don’t play games. Where’s my money?” In the moonlight that streams in through a window, I can just make out his angry face.

  “In my jacket pocket.”

  ‘And where’s your jacket?” WHOP.

  The second slap catches me on top of my ear and is so hard it would knock me off my feet if he weren’t holding me tightly. There are tears in my eyes, and I am suddenly looking back at the man who is not my father through a kaleidoscope, so that his image keeps breaking apart and re-forming. “I had to leave it somewhere,” I manage to gasp. And then, to prevent a third blow, I hastily add, “I can get it tomorrow.”

  My arm is twisted behind me in an agonizing grip that I believe professional wrestlers refer to as the chicken wing hold. “That’s not good enough. I’ll take it out of your hide, tonight.”

  “Let me go or I’ll scream,” I say, thinking that my mother must surely be home now.

  “Make a sound and you’ll regret it for weeks,” the man who is not my father counters in a not very pleasant tone.

  I expect to be marched on into the house for further interrogation and punishment, so I am surprised when the man who is not my father pushes me ahead of him, outside, into the cold darkness.

  Now, it may seem strange to you that after escaping from a riot at my anti-school virtually unscratched, and then neatly extricating myself from a basement massacre, I cannot elude, outfox, or outfight the man who is not my father.

  Allow me to share one simple and very frightening truth with you: your real enemy is someone who knows you. And the better they know you, and the closer they are to you, the greater is their capacity to do you harm. Total strangers who get a little angry and lose control at sporting events are no real threat, if the proper caution is used. Protective fathers of pretty fourteen-year-old girls will shout and sputter, get loud and use strong language, but in the end they will retreat into their warm houses and leave you alone.

  But the person who shares a part of your life, who lives with you and knows all your habits and has a keen insight into what you value most in all the world—this is the person to fear.

  The man who is not my father frog-marches me to his truck and, holding me securely, unlocks the back. I guess what he is going to do and attempt to resist, but he jerks my arm up higher, so that I yelp in pain. I consider screaming at the top of my lungs for help, but I do not do it. Screaming for help at this point is an all-or-nothing gamble—the street is dark and empty, and I know that if I do scream and no one comes to help me, the punishment will be quick and merciless. I am not willing to take the chance.

  He gets the door open and shoves me into the dark bed of the truck, hard, and I go sprawling onto the cold metal floor. By the time I get back to my feet, he has closed the door and I hear him fumbling with the lock on the outside.

  I am caged. It is dark beyond dark. I can only tell which side of the truck is the back because I can still hear him there. I throw myself against the metal door, but it does not budge.

  Then all is silent. I sit there wondering what he will do. Will he leave me here to starve? I hear a door opening and shutting near me. The man who is not my father has climbed into the cab of the truck. In a minute I hear a diesel engine turning over, sputtering to life. And then we begin to move.

  It is cold. It is dark. And I am as scared as I have ever been in my life that is not a life. The truck travels a long way at a high speed. It is too dark for me to see my watch, so I do not know if we have been traveling for one hour or for three, but it feels like we could be in another town, or another state, or even another universe.

  And then the truck slows to a crawl. I hear metallic grating and rasping sounds. A heavy iron gate is being opened. The truck drives very slowly down an incline for another few seconds and comes to a complete stop.

  For ten or fifteen minutes I am locked inside the four metal walls listening to activity all around me. I hear voices as people walk by the sides of the truck. T
hen I hear the padlock being taken off the back, and the door is opened.

  “Get out,” the man who is not my father says.

  I climb down from the back of the truck. At first I think we are in a garage, because I spot the rusty hulks of several cars that have been stripped of different parts. With wheels off axles, doors missing, and seats ripped out, they look like patients deserted by their doctors in the middle of surgery. It also strikes me as possible that we may be in a basement because the truck traveled downward and we are in a big, gloomy space with no windows visible. The floor all around the truck is piled high with large cardboard cartons.

  Besides the man who is not my father, I see three men in this large and gloomy space. Two of them are keeping to themselves, smoking cigarettes off in a corner. They are wearing dark pants and sweatshirts and do not even give me a curious glance.

  The third man walks closer to the truck, and looks me over. He is short—just a little taller than I am. His scruffy white hair clings like a determined patch of winter weeds atop a small, cramped face; it looks as if his most prominent features—his nose, his mouth, and his eyes—are competing for space on the same undersized billboard. He studies me with a sour expression, and then asks the man who is not my father, “You sure?”

  The man who is not my father replies, “You’re the one who said we’re a man short.”

  “I said a man.”

  “He’ll work like a man. I’ll make sure of that.”

  “I don’t like it. He’s a kid. He doesn’t even have shoes.”

  “He doesn’t need shoes.”

  “Come over here,” the short man says to me.

  “Leave him alone,” the man who is not my father tells him.

  It is very frightening to me that the man who is not my father is now my only protection. I have a strong intuitive feeling, whatever that means, that the men in this garage are not warm and loving people who nurture and respect adolescents as the leaders of tomorrow. The man who is not my father may well be the best of the lot.

  The short man smiles very slightly. “I’ll pay him half.”

  “You’ll pay me what he’s worth when we’re done.”

  The short man looks inclined to argue. Then he simply says, “If he’s worth anything,” and walks off.

  The man who is not my father looks at me. “Work hard and keep your mouth shut.”

  I nod.

  “Say ‘Yes sir.’ ”

  I have never in my life called the man who is not my father sir, but I have also never in my life been this frightened before. We are looking right into each other’s eyes. I hesitate a long beat and he sees my fear and my indecision. I can tell that he is enjoying this.

  The little fellow who sits in the swivel chair at the control switchboard of my brain is a notorious coward. He pulls down on the big yellow “coward” lever. “Yes sir,” I hear myself whisper.

  “Louder.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The man who is not my father smiles. “Then get to work. It’ll keep you warm.”

  I spend the next half hour helping the three men and the man who is not my father load the big cardboard cartons onto the truck. We work quickly and in silence, except for grunts and groans. For a while I have no idea what is in the cartons, except that they are all about the same size and they weigh an awful lot. Some of the cartons have loose flaps, and a few are pocked with jagged holes that appear to have been ripped into the side by sharp objects. While helping to lift one such carton, I peek through a hole and see enough to guess what’s inside. We are lifting televisions. All together there must be more than one hundred brand-new wide-screen television sets.

  I decide not to ask the man who is not my father, or his short business partner, if they have paid for these TV sets. Something tells me that they are what I believe is called in underworld lingo hot. I believe that the man who is not my father may be involved in fencing stolen goods. This would explain his occasional short hauls, and perhaps the wad of cash in his sock drawer. It might also explain his sole contribution to the furnishings in our house—the brand-new wide-screen TV that sits proudly on its oak throne in our dining room.

  Of course, I have ample reason for hating the man who is not my father, and that may be coloring my judgment. It is possible that this is a legitimate business. But it occurs to me that few legitimate wide-screen TV outlets operate out of dark basements in the middle of the night.

  We finish loading the boxes on the truck. “Get in the back,” the man who is not my father commands me.

  “Not a good idea,” the short man says to him. “If those boxes shift, they’ll crush him.”

  “Funny, I don’t remember asking your advice,” the man who is not my father says with his customary warmth and politeness. Then, to me, he says, “Inside. Now.”

  “Yes sir,” I say, but what I am really saying is: “I do not want to climb back into this truck and be crushed by falling television sets, but, hateful as you are, I have designated you my commanding officer to get me through this night’s battle, and I am prepared to temporarily bestow upon you a title of respect which you do not deserve, and to follow your orders.” I climb into the truck, and find a little room between two rows of stacked cartons.

  The sliding back door of the truck comes down, and once again I am in darkness, this time surrounded by a forest of TV sets. We travel for perhaps an hour. I hate to keep repeating the phrase “I have never been this frightened before in my entire life,” but on this unfortunate night I keep setting new records in this particular Olympic category.

  While I have always enjoyed the miracle of television, and have watched my share of stupid shows, I have no desire to die beneath a ton of TV sets. That, however, seems a distinct possibility, because each time the truck swerves or changes speed, I can feel the forest of TV sets shift around me. The big cartons are stacked three and four high, and if a stack should topple onto me, or one stack should fall into another stack, setting off a chain reaction, I would be reduced to a human pancake in less time than it takes to change channels.

  You might think that the prospect of being squashed by home appliances is so terrifying that it would completely occupy my mind during this ride. But the little fellow in the swivel chair who runs the controls of my brain is such a competent coward that he is quite capable of handling two, or even three, horrifying thoughts at the same time. And there is another thought—an insight, if you will—that keeps pestering me as the truck rumbles on through the night. It first occurred to me when I was loading cartons. I attempted to dismiss it, to slap it away. But it is the kind of thought that is like a mosquito—once it has found you it keeps circling and trying to land, and as I sit in the dark truck I am defenseless against it.

  Here is the thought: The man who is not my father is a mean man, but he is not a fool. He knows I hate his guts. He is far too smart to provide me with any ammunition I could ever use against him.

  If he was involved in an illegal activity, he would keep it hidden from me. He would know that if I found out about it, I could tell my mother. I could even go to the police. We are sworn enemies, this man and I, and he is far too cunning to give his sworn enemy a powerful weapon to use against him.

  Yet he has brought me along with him on this journey. This can mean only one of two things. It is possible that he means to silence me once and for all when our evening’s work is concluded. This does not seem very likely, however. He is a mean and even a violent man, but I do not think he is the kind of cold-blooded killer who goes around murdering fourteen-yearold boys for borrowing some of his cash.

  It is also possible that he has shown me his true colors, so to speak, because, for some reason that I cannot yet guess, he does not fear that I will retaliate. In other words, he has some powerful trump card yet to play before this night is over. He must know some reason why, even if he lets me go, I will never use this knowledge against him. I cannot imagine what this trump card could be, but even as I sit with my back to a r
ow of cartons that seem ready to fall over at any second, I can guess that it is in some way connected to my mother, and her absence from our home that is not a home.

  The truck finally stops. The back is opened, and I climb out. Our short haul has taken us to a warehouse. We may be near a port, because I smell the ocean, and, occasionally, I hear the throaty blasts of foghorns. The walls of the warehouse are concrete and the ceiling is at least thirty feet high. Thousands of boxes have been stacked along the sides to form several cardboard mountain chains. “Stack it all here,” the short man says, pointing to some wooden pallets near the truck. “Let’s go.”

  The same men we loaded the truck with begin to work. I cannot join them. My sore muscles and aching tendons have tightened up during the ride, so that I can barely walk, let alone bend over to help hoist a wide-screen TV set. I hesitate.

  “Looks like your little leprechaun is all played out,” the short man says to the man who is not my father with a laugh.

  “No,” the man who is not my father responds. “He’ll work.” And then he turns to me. His right hand shoots out and grabs a shock of my hair. I believe that for a second or two he actually lifts me off the ground, holding me by the hair. “You’re only half done,” he says.

  It feels like the crown of my head is on fire. “Yes sir,” I gasp. He lowers me back to earth, but I see that he is watching me and prepared to strike again if necessary. My brain immediately tries to rally the exhausted legionnaires in the near and far bivouacs of my body for one final campaign. It sounds the bugle call. “Arms, report for service. Legs, begin walking. We are in enemy territory. Left, right, left, right.”

  Slowly, tiredly, I find myself walking. Bending. Hoisting. Again and again. Ten minutes go by. Twenty minutes. Finally the last carton is unloaded from the truck and stacked on a wooden pallet.

  The short man takes out a wad of cash. “Here’s yours,” he says to the man who is not my father. “And twenty for Shoeless Joe over there.”

  “Fifty,” the man who is not my father says back to him.