The Cage Keeper

by Andre Dubus III

  “He’s not here, Dad. Where is he?”

  “He’s spyin’ on us. You watch, he’s gonna ambush us.”

  “No, really, where is he?”

  Rory sat on the rock behind him. As soon as he could feel his toes he stood and walked to the coals and April. “Vinnie! Yo, Vin!”

  There was no answer, but the stream seemed louder than before.

  “I’m cold.”

  “Me too, listen up. I’m gonna start the fire again, then I’m gonna go get your brother.”

  “What about me?”

  “You’ll be okay here, April Smapril. I want you to stay warm.”

  “You’re leaving me alone?”

  “How do you figure? Look at all these trees around you. Check out those stars up there. Seems like a good party to me.” Rory gathered up scattered bark left over from the woodpile and laid it on the coals. He got down on his hands and knees and blew until there were flames. He rested two of the hickory logs on it, and while they were catching he ducked inside the tent to get April’s flashlight. It was still turned on and her vomit was all over it. Rory wiped it clean with his steak-sauce bandana from the corner. Outside, April was standing close to the fire looking up at the black ridge of Crawford Notch against the sky. Rory tucked the light under his chin and pissed into the darkness. “Know why you can see those stars so good?”

  April shook her head.

  “’Cause there’s no fake light down here to mess it up.”

  “It’s like we’re on the moon.”

  “That’s right, a friendly moon.” Rory shook himself dry, zipped up, then took a hit off the JD flask. “I’ll go get Vinnie and be right back. There’s candy bars and peanut butter over by the rock. And we’ll cook those steaks.”

  “Dad?” She was looking at him now. In the firelight, with one pigtail loose and the other braided, the motorcycle jacket hanging on her like a leather nightgown, her face took on the shadows of a woman and she looked so much like Alene Rory felt a shiver. But there was more too; she not only looked like her mother, she seemed to reflect that pure part of her that Alene didn’t even have anymore.

  “Vinnie and Doug don’t like each other. Vinnie’s always telling Dougie you can beat him up anytime you want. Mom tells him to shut up, that you’re bad and Doug’s good; but Vinnie wants to be just like you.”

  Rory didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t thought of that, not after this past year. He turned and headed into the trees.

  First he went in the direction Vinnie had gone. He shined the flashlight on the birches in front of him and was back on the trail in no time. But this wasn’t the trail they’d used to get to the camp. That one had ended in the clearing. This one was wide and overgrown with ferns. Rory pointed his flashlight south. Ten or twelve feet down, the trail seemed to spread out and end itself in the grove. North, the fern trail went up a rise and he climbed it. Just before he reached the top he tripped on what felt like a rock. He fell forward on his hands, the flashlight breaking under him. He stood and shook it, heard the broken glass, then threw it as hard as he could into the air. It came down in the trees and he thought how nice it’d be if it hit Vinnie on his crybaby head.

  He uncapped the flask and drank. This moonlight was the balls. Even in these trees he could see fifteen, twenty yards all around him. Who needs a flashlight? With the open flask in his hand he walked through the ferns to the top of the rise. He could see the moon. It was low and almost full. It looked like it was sitting on the north ridge leading to Crawford Notch. Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty had a big fall.

  Rory drank again.

  The trail dropped steeply, and halfway down, the whiteness of the birches ended and the jack pines began. Rory was going faster than he wanted so he caught hold of a tree trunk to slow himself. He hooked his arm around it and let himself swing back and forth. The air was still, almost icy, and he wondered if there was ever any wind in this basin. He ran his fingers through his beard, then he let go of the tree and ran down the last of the trail.

  As soon as he stopped, he saw it. Straight ahead and off to the right, in front of a massive chunk of granite, was a small campfire. Vinnie was sitting beside it with his back to Rory. Rory began to tiptoe through the ferns, but then changed his mind. Fuck this; this was serious shit. “Hey.”

  Vinnie turned around and peered into the dark just as Rory stepped into the firelight and leaned against the boulder. “You’ve pissed me off today, Vin.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Rory let out a long breath and followed it with a chug off the flask. Vinnie kept his eyes on the flames. His brown hair hung over his forehead. Because his face was round there were no shadows in it; and he looked younger than thirteen. Man, he was just a baby.

  “It’s a drag you hit your head.”

  Vinnie was quiet but Rory saw him swallow.

  “You must be starvin’, huh? I am.” Rory walked around the fire, but when he started to sit he lost his balance and had to lean on the boy’s shoulder on the way down.

  Vinnie twisted away.

  Rory laughed. He didn’t know why he did, and it sounded as wrong to him as laughing could. Like somebody farting when they’re making love. He closed his mouth and put the flask to it. Oops. Not much left. Vinnie might like some. He held it out to him.

  The boy picked up a stick beside him and poked at the coals.

  “Ignorin’ me?”

  “No.”

  “You’re not? Looks like it to me. Looks like you don’t give a shit about me anymore, Vin.”

  “Everybody sucks. I don’t care about anybody.”

  “Smart kid. You’re right. Everybody does suck.” Rory raised the flask to his lips then lowered it. “Everybody but you and April. You kids are the balls. I’m havin’ a great time with you two. There’s nobody I’d rather be with tonight. I mean it.” Rory upended the flask until it was empty. He dropped it behind his back to the ground. The world was sweet and ugly, yes it was.

  “How can you drink?”

  “Hey buddy, hey palsy, hey pal, don’t ask so many big questions. Let me ask one. How the fuck you get this fire goin’?”

  Vinnie held the lighter out. Rory didn’t take it. He looked at how the fire lit up the silver sculpture of the lone horseman in Vinnie’s palm. Then he took the Bic and squeezed it, tried to hold down what was coming, but it had started before he ever realized he was in the danger zone. He hunched his shoulders as he cried. It came out in three spasms. He took a deep breath. The rest he could hold off, he knew. He might be sittin’ in the toilet, but he wasn’t going to turn to blubber in front of Alene’s boy. No way, palsies. Forget that.

  Vinnie stood and kicked dirt onto the fire. Rory stood too, but the world became a merry-go-round that smacked his butt, then the back of his head. Things were really whizzing. The night sky. The tops of trees. He sat up and watched Vinnie stomp on the coals with his shitkicker boots. “’Member that flick, Vin? When the witch melted down to nothin’? You look like you’re stampin’ her out, man. Jesus, Mighty Vincent: Killer of Witches, Son of Bitches.”

  “Watch it.”

  “What?”

  “What you just said.”

  “What’s wrong with killing witches, man?”

  “No, what you said about my mom. Don’t you ever say anything about her. Ever.”

  “Why, Vin? What’s she say good about me? Huh?! Tell me!”

  He got on his hands and knees and when he stood, he stepped on the lighter. He stooped to pick it up then fell forward toward Vinnie. The boy pushed at him and sidestepped out of the way. Rory spun half around. The boulder slapped his back. He leaned against it, then took a step and threw the lighter as hard as he could into the trees. “I never even cheated!”

  He shook his head. “Man, I don’t deserve this. No way in hell do I deserve this. She let me down. She really did.”

  Vinnie was standing still. “April’s alone. We should go.”

  “She’s alone. Shit, sh
e’s got Dougie. No sweetheart’s visitin’ me in that Gray Bar Motel. Forget it, bud.”

  “I said April.”

  In the moonlight Rory couldn’t read Vinnie’s face, but the kid was standing sideways like he was getting ready to walk up the trail and leave Rory where he stood. Like Rory Enfield was a pitiful piece of shit that deserved what he was getting. He remembered what the boy had said on the rock overlooking Crawford Notch, about somebody knowing what heaven looks like and it ain’t God. Rory knew he should spank this kid right now, just put him over his knee ’til he knows the deal. Then a thought came to him that was like ice cream in his stomach: maybe Vinnie didn’t know. Maybe Alene’d lied to him about the facts. Maybe the kid was confused.

  “Hey. I know last-summer talk is taboo, but you know the guy had cancer, right? He was sixty-three years old and his asshole was sewn shut ’cause a the cancer. That’s why he wasn’t wearing a seat belt. ’Cause it pressed against his shit bag. You know this, right?”

  Vinnie didn’t move.

  “I mean, that’s one thing I feel okay about. Really. I think in some way I helped that friggin’ guy. I did.”

  Vinnie was walking back up the trail toward camp. Rory couldn’t remember seeing him turn and head off. He pushed himself away from the boulder. If he could just hold the kid’s shoulders and look him in the face, if he could just do that, just hold the kid still, then he’d understand, he’d know that Rory Enfield was a man eatin’ a lot of shit these days for no reason, a guy who worked hard and paid his bills.

  “I’m clean, man. I got nothin’ to be ashamed of. Nothin’. ”

  Rory was halfway up the hill between the trees, but he wasn’t moving. He couldn’t remember getting here. The moonshine was everywhere and he didn’t like it anymore; it made him feel like he was at the bottom of the ocean black. He tried hard to make it up the hill but things weren’t working. He was clutching fern roots in his hands and he knew if he let go of them that he’d be pulled away by the current of the world. Night was spinning again, but in his head things were well lit and still: he could see her face, smoking a Merit, telling him she’s in love with this nurse named Doug and this guy Doug is what I really need in a man. Not you, Rory. Not you. You turn over the kitchen table so you don’t smack her. Then it’s open-throttle time down to The Hideaway where you meet Mick Welch. It’s having to go talk by the jukebox because the bar is full and you feel like you might start gushing. It’s leaving there and gunning your Low Rider past Mick’s El Glide like nothin’. It’s pulling into Aunt Betty’s Pub and coming on to Carol Jean because her old man Slim Jim is there and you’re hoping he’ll say something. It’s drinking five shots of JD in a half hour and walking out of the bar when Mick’s still in the head. It’s El Speedo time up Whittier Hill, your headlight lighting up the trees as you whiz by, your head full of her face, her dry eyes, her blond hair. It’s downshifting from seventy to twenty-five ’cause all of a sudden you want to see the moon on the ocean at Salisbury Beach. You turn off onto the northbound ramp to the highway, then pedal-shift into higher gear under a starlit sky, which you look up at now because, fuck it; stars never lie. Sailors lived by ’em for years. But you’re not quite off the ramp yet and while you’re still looking for the Little Dipper, your front wheel whacks the median strip, your buckhorn handlebars yank sharp to the left and you’re holding on to nothing but air. Then it’s the smack of the road against your shoulder and hip and you’re rolling across the highway. Your Low Rider has jumped the strip and is sliding along beside you, sparking its way to the fast lane where it comes to a stop, but you don’t. You roll right onto soft grass then down a short but steep hill that leaves you lying in a slimy concrete culvert. You’re flat on your back and you don’t see anything fixed. Everything’s whipping in a circle so you close your eyes, but then it’s worse. You open them and feel the gutter-wash push past your leather jacket collar down your back. You’re hoping none of this juice is coming from you, but you don’t really care.

  Then you do care.

  You don’t want to go to the beach anymore. You want to go back to the trailer where you’ll pick up the table if she hasn’t already. Where you’ll brew some coffee, take a shower, then talk low and gently to your wife. No. You’ll listen. Fools talk, wise dudes listen. Because you want to know. You want to understand the blueprints of her thinking. You want to feel the pulls and pushes of her heart. Then you want to get inside it and push when she does, pull when she does, but a tad more, ’til she thinks you are her and she is you and separated neither one of you will make it. It might take days. Weeks. But she owes you that, right? This is Alene.

  So you lay your arms over your chest. Good, movement. You cross your ankles and you know your legs still work. No real damage. And just as the word damage passes through your brain, your stomach muscles twist up and you turn on your side so your puke doesn’t bubble out over your face. It’s all sour mash, and it’s over fast.

  You start to crawl back up the hill. Your body feels heavy and you’re breathing hard. Your head is clear, though. You feel all right. You’re a lucky bastard and you know it. Everything about this stings like a second chance. You have to rest, so you roll onto your back and slide down the hill about three inches. On the other side of the culvert, over the southbound lanes, there is a streetlight flickering, but here it’s dark. Even with the stars, it’s dark. And quiet. You actually start to think about the weather tomorrow and how good it will be framing in the sun. It’s time to go home, though, to make sure you still got one. A car goes by southbound. Then you hear one coming up the pike. Good, you think. I’ll need a ride. You turn and start back up the hill, clutching clumps of grass and pushing off with the sides of your boots. You’re almost there when something changes: sound. The sure and steady roll of a car moving along the way it should turns to this: you hear the lock of wheel brakes. Then, like the tires themselves are terrified, you hear the long whine of rubber burning its way to what the car’s trying to avoid. Then it comes—like all that stopping did nothing—the thunderous clap of steel on steel, the scrape and clattering thunk of your Low Rider getting run over then dragged.

  Everything is quiet. You make it up the hill to see a late-model Dodge Dart sitting on your bike, but the headlights are off and they’re facing you when they should be facing north. You don’t move. The car’s windshield is shattered. You can’t see how many people are inside.

  All you hear is the trickle of oil or gas coming out of the car, or your bike, or both.

  RORY JERKED AND WOKE UP. Above him, the high leaves of paper birches flittered in a breeze he didn’t feel. The sky was cloudless and had the deep blue you see when you’re up there in a plane. He heard the flowing water behind him, then the shrill cry of a bird he couldn’t name, and as soon as he heard that he knew he’d been drunk, probably still was, and that bird was shrieking it out to everyone. When he sat up, his sleeping bag fell away from him. His leather jacket was folded up on the ground where his head had been. He imagined little April taking it off and making a pillow for him. How did he get here? Vinnie? Both of them?

  There was no fire left at all, just fine ash. He stood. The air was cool, almost cold. He looked east behind the tent through the trees, but couldn’t see the sun yet. It was probably six, six-thirty. The tent flap was down. He wondered about April’s fever, her flu. He started to run his fingers through his beard, but stopped when he felt the dried stickiness of it. He looked down at his boots. There wasn’t anything on them or on his pants, but his black Hideaway Lounge T-shirt was damp and stiff with puke. That meant he’d done it lying down. He could’ve suffocated out here in the mountains and left those two beauties to fend for themselves. He’d been clean all these months, on the straight and narrow, and not just because they took a piss sample down at the station, not that. And it wasn’t the Wednesday night meetings either, it was me, Rory thought. I liked it. I was working better, and feeling better. Even looking good again. Lost some gut. Got all the whites of m
y eyes back. And I swore I’d never blow blood again. Never.

  He turned, yanked off his T-shirt, and walked to the stream. He pissed on a scrub pine at the water’s edge, then he lay down on his belly and drank until his gut felt tight. He untied his boots, kicked them off, and got out of his jeans and underpants. He stepped into the water and Sweet Jesus, oh Lord it was colder than last night. He put both feet in and heard the cry of the bird behind and above him. But this time its sound seemed okay. It was saying, “Go on, Rore. Cleanse thyself. We’re all behind ya, kid.”

  Rory waded in to his knees. His balls shrunk and curled up into their sac. He took a deep breath and looked up at Crawford Notch. On the northern slope were two short cliffs of granite. The sun was catching them and they were almost too bright to look straight at, but they were glorious. No guts, no glory, Rory. He didn’t know if he’d just said that or thought it. It didn’t matter. He sat down cross-legged in the stream. The water was so cold it seemed to push through his flesh to his bones where it was working on breaking them. He let out three quick breaths, held it, then leaned over sideways against the current until his head and face and whole body were in it. He scrubbed his beard and kept his eyes shut. Then he opened them, and through the hazy water, he saw a twig wedged between two white rocks. But it wasn’t a twig at all; it was a black wooden cross looking right at him. Rory sat up fast and shook the water out of his hair. Every bit of him wanted to high-step it out of the stream back to his clothes, but instead, he rose slowly and walked. He squatted, rinsed his T-shirt off in the stream, then wrung it out on a flat rock in the sun. He pulled on his underwear and jeans, rolled the cuffs up to mid-shin, then glanced at the tent before he went back over the rocks in the stream to the field on the other side. He gathered broken twigs and thin branches from around the trunk of the fallen hickory. When he had an armful, he carried it back to the camp and set it quietly on the ashes. At the food pile, he picked up the three wrapped steaks. They were soft now, but they still felt cold. He laid them neatly on the pack that was still draped over the garbage barrel.