Steal the Stars

by Mac Rogers

  “Yeah—wow.”

  “Right?”

  Meanwhile, I’d finished a quick accounting of the contents of the room.

  “So either this is the basement of a really fun granddad with like forty grandkids, or…”

  “He’s not really a fun granddad,” Teresa smiled.

  “This is a way-station,” I concluded. “Who’s the ‘he’?”

  Teresa sat down on one of the cots.

  “Well, he’s rich. Obviously. Part of the network—but really more of an angel, not so hands-on. He has a couple houses, so he’s here like, I dunno, three weeks a year? He basically says, ‘Just don’t tell me, and if they raid, you’re squatters. I knew nothing about you.’”

  “What network?”

  “It’s called—” And then she interrupted herself, turning to you. “You are gonna laugh at this, it’s a new name since last time.” Back to me. “It’s called … MATT 25.”

  Did you blush? I don’t know. I know I did.

  “The hell is that?” I spat out.

  Easy, Dak. Come on. Stop being so stupid.

  “It’s short for Matthew 25. ‘Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?” The King will reply, “Truly, I tell you—”’”

  “‘“… whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”’” I stared at you, agape. Teresa clapped her hands.

  “Right? How great is that?”

  “You can just rattle that off?” I asked, feeling like I was looking at a stranger. You shrugged.

  “I mean, it’s the most famous thing in the whole Bible, right?”

  “The network is churches, mostly.” Teresa turned back to me. “Some here, some in California, a couple in New Mexico. ICE got a lot bigger when it went private, but they still can’t cover everybody all the time. We find places people can live decently while they wait for the squads to lose interest. They’re not all as nice as this. Actually most of them aren’t.”

  “And you do this, what, on nights and weekends?”

  “It’s not regular. Just whenever this is the closest place.”

  “And I’m assuming a truckload of undocumenteds aren’t showing up tonight.”

  “Nope! Or … just you, I guess.” She laughed brightly, stood up, and looked at the two of us. “Anyway, sleep on any of the beds, there’s like twenty of them. Oh, and showers, if—I mean I don’t care, you guys smell great, just: if it makes you feel better.”

  A shower did sound amazing.

  You stepped forward a bit. I was suddenly aware of the physical distance between the two of us. We were standing across the room from each other like … barrack mates, nothing more. “Um, before you … That thing we talked about?”

  I was going to open my mouth to ask, “What thing?” but Teresa was already responding.

  “Right! The van! I need to make one more call on that. And then—are you hungry? Ooh—more importantly”—she dropped her voice to a devilish whisper—“but do you guys need to get hammered tonight?”

  You and I answered at the same time.

  Me: “No, I mean, tomorrow’s basically the biggest day of all—”

  You: “Oh my God, yes, that would be amazing.”

  Teresa laughed again, delighted.

  “Well, you guys decide. I’ll put stuff out and we’ll go from there. But definitely, eat.” She headed for the stairs, turned back, and sighed. “God, it’s so good to see you again. It’s so good to see you happy!” She tipped me a wink and disappeared.

  You caught my look right away.

  “I was stationed near here. We met on a leave weekend and hung out whenever I—”

  “‘Hung out’?”

  “I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d … I dunno.”

  I did my best to rein in whatever the fuck was galloping through my chest. “How long?”

  “Something like two years. Around there.”

  I continued to inspect the pretty ample inventory around us, as casually as I could.

  “Cool. So we’re holing up … with your crazy-hot hero-slash-pediatrician ex who you were with for like two years.”

  “Who has a garage and a hideout and no cameras and doesn’t need a credit card and can maybe get us a van.” I nodded. It was true. “There’s a bunch of things I can say right now, but … I don’t think you want to hear any of it,” you added. That was also true. We were at an impasse—entirely my fault, but palpable all the same. You shrugged, gently, not wanting to make an issue out of my giant issues. “You wanted first or second shower?”

  I wanted to say, “Who needs to take turns?” but suddenly I didn’t want to be naked in front of you. I didn’t want you to be naked in front of me. This all felt wrong and indecent.

  What the hell happened to me? What’s still happening to me?

  “You go ahead,” I said, idly fingering one of the air hockey paddles. “I’ll … look at the map.”

  You held off for a moment, probably waiting for me to dispel the awkward tension. I didn’t. You nodded and, gently, without judgment, answered, “Cool,” before heading to the bathroom.

  * * *

  SO NOW: pasta and wine.

  My first thought, ungenerous and judgmental, when she set out the dishes: she’s probably going to apologize for having to serve us something so humble.

  “Sorry, if I had more time, I’d actually make something, instead of just—”

  “This is perfect,” you stopped her.

  “Home-owner-I-shall-not-name is obsessed with wine and pasta sauces, and sometimes I just decide, ‘Hey, you know what? Tonight I’m gonna be the beneficiary.’ I won’t knock it too hard—it’s the real deal.”

  We set to serving ourselves. You knew better than to serve me—that sort of chivalric condescension was likely to make me punch you in the arm—but I found myself wishing you’d try.

  “Man, if I had access to this place I’d be here every night.” You tore into a chunk of bread before passing the plate around. You were grinning, but your eyes flicked at me, curious. Concerned.

  “Actually, I’m still not sure what’s best in terms of not attracting attention. I don’t wanna stick out too much. I can only be ‘the cleaning lady’ so many days a month.”

  “I guess it’s easier with a church.” I was determined to be a regular conversationalist.

  “In terms of cover, yeah, it’s easier to explain why people are there all the time. But private homes are overall better ’cause if they come knocking you can make them go get a warrant and maybe buy some time. A little time, at least.”

  “You know that we—Matt and me—our employers also own ICE. Different division, but the same people at the top. You know that, right?” I poured myself a healthy glass of wine.

  You stared at me across the table like I was insane. Maybe I was.

  Teresa nodded. “Right, but … you’re running away from them now, right?”

  She had me there, I had to admit.

  You reached over and topped your glass off. “It’s okay to keep drinking this? Like, he won’t miss it?”

  “He doesn’t remember what he has.”

  “Rich people are weird.” I snorted, feeling like a fraud for playing along.

  “Works for me.” You smiled. “I won’t hold back.”

  She laughed around a mouthful of pasta—still somehow impossibly graceful. “Just don’t birthday drink, okay, that’s all I—”

  “Oh come on, come on—!”

  “That’s all I ask!”

  “I can’t live that down, what, how many years later is this?!”

  Just like that, you both had exploded into some jubilant reverie, some delicious shared nostalgia, that made me feel like I had shrunk down almost to the point of invisibility. You would each d
irect something toward me, some excuse to dramatically explain the situation and groan and shout and laugh even further, but … hell, I was like the moss. Observed, accounted for, steadily disappearing.

  “It was your twenty-seventh or something! So, I take him out, right, the little brat—”

  “First of all, first of all—”

  “He gets so drunk, this one, right, he just starts singing. Like, singing. First in the restaurant, then all the way home. Now ask me what he was singing!”

  “Okay, just for some context—”

  “Steely Dan. Like, all of Steely Dan. Who still listens to Steely Dan?!”

  “They were an incredibly important—!”

  “It may have even been, like, in chronological order, but I don’t know Steely Dan well enough to say. But, I mean, you know what he’s like when he sings, right? Is he still—”

  “No.” I shook my head. I was eying both of you, polite and quiet, burning up and embarrassed at my fever.

  “You haven’t heard him…?”

  I shrugged, smiling tightly. My eyes burned inside my skull. I poured myself another glass.

  “Well, I mean, actually that’s a good thing, that’s actually a lucky thing for you, ’cause it was like letting a genie out of a bottle or some shit, I couldn’t cram him back in.”

  “Look, I was a young guy—”

  “Steely Dan at the Mexican place, Steely Dan while I got the check, Steely flippin’ Dan all the way home—”

  “It was my birthday, I was happy, right, like ‘Happy birthday!’”

  “And you have to understand, Dak, at this time, whenever this was, I had two roommates I had to sneak him past—God, that apartment was a nightmare!”

  “Right. Riiiiiiight. Oh my God.”

  “Which you’d think, you’d think, would make him stop singing Steely Dan, right?”

  “Wait, I didn’t stop? I thought I stopped!”

  “No, no, your big concession to us being, you know, inside in the middle of the night, was to sing Steely Dan like ten percent quieter.”

  “Okay, I think there’s like a lot of exaggeration happening—”

  I poured myself another.

  “There’s no exaggeration—”

  “And there’s slander happening, and I—”

  “There’s no slander, there’s no—don’t listen to him. Honestly, first thing I did in the morning was look to see if my stuff was on the curb.”

  And what about the part you skipped? I didn’t say. What about the part between the midnight singing and checking the curb? What about the last part of his birthday, where you took your clothes off and your thin bodies curled around each other like two snakes? Instead of saying that, I remembered the map of Texas I’d taken out of my pocket and was now trying not to crush in my hands. I took it out and unfolded it on the table.

  The two of you noticed and quieted down, which, while my goal, made me feel even more self-conscious. “No, no, I don’t mean to be, like,” I sputtered. “I’m saying before we hit bunks we should hammer everything out, but you can keep … talking about…”

  Welcome back to puberty, you dumb chunk, some uncharitable voice cackled internally.

  Teresa had taken a sip of wine, but hummed against the glass as she swallowed. As soon as she could speak: “So, okay, I talked to my guy, and it’s sort of a good-news/bad-news situation.”

  “We don’t really have a margin for bad news.”

  She nodded. “Well. He can get you the van—actually it’s not a van, it’s better than a van, it’s a truck. More room in the back for … whatever. But.” I braced myself. “He needs it back. After.”

  “He—” I began.

  “I said we could pay for it,” you reminded her.

  “You said you could pay two thousand. He won’t sell for two thousand.” Two thousand was all we had left in cash. We certainly couldn’t risk stopping by a bank to make another withdrawal. “He’s willing to let you borrow it, and he’s willing to come pick it up when you’re done with it … but only if you tell him in advance where you’d be leaving it.”

  You and I both sputtered over each other, trying to make sense of the situation.

  “You could just tell me, if you want,” Teresa offered. “You could show me on this map or—”

  “Great,” I growled, “and then, what, we give him a call? Shoot him an email? Maybe rent a fucking billboard?”

  “I’m sorry, he has to have that first.”

  Distantly, I heard you say my name. Meanwhile, Teresa and I were staring each other down. The tiny amount of pasta I’d eaten was turning into concrete in my stomach.

  “Do you have any idea how sensitive—”

  “He won’t leave the van here without that information.”

  “What if I hog-tie him and help myself, how ’bout that?”

  “Then I’ll tell him not to come,” she said steadily. “He’s a good man and that truck has sheltered a lot of people.”

  “What if you could tell him you’re coming with us?” you asked suddenly. I pivoted in my seat.

  “What?”

  You continued. “That way you’d see the spot yourself and you could lead him back to it later, would that be good enough?”

  “What are you talking about?!” I demanded.

  Teresa considered it. “How would it work?”

  “We take two vehicles. You drive the truck, I ride in the back, Dak drives your car. You see where we leave the van, drive home in your car, then bring your friend back to the spot the next day.”

  “Are you seriously suggesting she put eyes on the rendezvous?”

  “They’re watching the traffic cams, right? For large vehicles? But if they see her driving they won’t care, and maybe they’re not looking for us in regular cars.”

  “Why don’t you ride with Dak?” Teresa suggested.

  You turned back to her. “There’s a … thing in the truck I need to keep an eye on.”

  “Okay…”

  “Not like a—not like a bomb, I swear.” Not like a bomb, but not unlike a bomb. So far the bumped hundred-hour clock theory seemed to be holding, but, hell, if this conversation was proving anything it was that we couldn’t count on there not being any last-minute surprises.

  “Hey! Excuse me!” I bellowed. “That still leaves her, who I’ve never met before in my life, putting eyes directly on our rendezvous point!”

  “She’s good for it, Dak.”

  “I don’t know that.” I was aware of how quiet the night had been, how oppressively loud my voice had become. You looked at me, stung.

  “Wait, so my vouch isn’t good enough?”

  But Teresa interjected. “You’re right, Dak. You don’t know me. You have no reason in the world to think you can trust me.”

  “Goddamn right,” I grumbled.

  “But that’s also true of hundreds of other people who’ve been in my care, who slept in basements while I stayed awake. Matthew 25 says treat everyone who’s on the run like they’re God’s children, because that’s what they are. I didn’t betray them. I won’t betray you.”

  I wanted to put her face into the table. Not because I thought she was lying … but because I thought she wasn’t. I leaned forward.

  “You seriously … seriously … don’t want to ask us a single question?”

  She shrugged. “I never have. I never will.”

  I was suddenly exhausted. This would work. I didn’t want it to work, but it would. And I couldn’t think of any other solution. I sat back, breaking all eye contact. I gripped my upper thighs.

  “Then … I guess … that’s what we’re doing.”

  “I’ll square it with him first thing in the morning.” Her voice was empty of any malice and I hated her even more for it.

  You lifted your glass, relieved. “Okay! Okay, so we’re good.”

  “We should hit the bunk.” I scraped my chair against the concrete, folding the map back up as I did so.

  You paused, mid-reach for t
he bottle. “What?”

  I finally looked at you. You looked so young. “We should sleep. It’s the biggest goddamn day of our lives tomorrow.”

  “But … there’s still wine. I mean, we’re having fun, right?”

  “We’re leaving first thing,” I started to protest.

  “Well,” Teresa shrugged, “he probably won’t get here first thing…”

  “We can finish the bottle, though, right?” You said it to her, not to me. A minute redirection, but huge all the same.

  I wanted to say, “Fuck you. Fuck you for bringing us here. For making me feel this way. For indebting me to your fucking secret ex-girlfriend and letting me get past so many obstacles before tripping me up this close to the finish line.” Instead I said:

  “Fine. Finish the bottle. Start another one after that.” And I walked off the porch and back into the house.

  * * *

  I STOMPED down the basement, silently screaming at myself, “What are you doing, you’re walking out on dinner like a teenager? Who are you?” I headed straight to the bathroom and closed the door. My face felt red-hot from wine and rage. I needed water, I needed to puke, I needed—

  This is that scene in the movie where the character splashes water on her face, right? Try that.

  I did. A little cold water. It was nice, but … the way it beaded on my skin. I looked pebbled and ancient. I looked covered in growths.

  Where’s my moss? Where’s my life-force? Is it already gone?

  You don’t know that’s what the moss is.

  I don’t know anything.

  He’s probably apologizing for me right now, like how she apologized for serving pasta. I’m the thing you apologize to friends for.

  What are we doing?

  It’s not that I was never scared in the service. Sure, I was scared. Hell, I was scared even a few days ago—it was starting to feel like I would be some kind of scared for the rest of my life. But that scared had always seemed practical. “Okay, the situation’s this bad, so I should be this scared. Okay, now it’s this bad, so I’ll ramp up to this scared.” A sliding scale, adjusted in proportion, like a battery for focus. None of that—none of that—worked for the kind of scared pulsing in me now. If anything, my focus felt scattered to the winds. My mind wheeled and flailed: flashes of Lisa’s face, of Teresa’s face, of the woman I would only ever know as X. Why was I thinking of them? Because they were heroes, they were noble, they fought against the system. And what was I? Just a cog—a desperate one, a glorified middle manager who just needed some mission to lead. I wasn’t roiling in agony because of your history with Teresa—not completely, at least. It was because I was old, I was small, I was weak, I didn’t know myself as well as I thought, and I was so terrified of what would happen to me if you didn’t come down to this basement soon and give me something to—