The Cage Keeper

by Andre Dubus III

“The net helps her get fish, yank. She’ll come up for air then go right back down to her feedin’ place. Then we pull on the bottom rope to feel where she is. When she’s in the middle, then shit, that’s all she wrote.” Red Willie took a pint-sized bottle out of one of his overall pockets, opened it, and took a long pull.

  “Ooo, I’ll have some of that.”

  Red passed the bottle to Billy Wayne. He swallowed then chased it with his beer. “Cap?”

  Reilly took it from Billy, swallowed once then held himself tight against the cough, the first layer of skin on his tongue and throat feeling fresh killed; he passed the bottle back to Billy Wayne and swallowed cool beer fast.

  “You divorce that Texas gal yet?”

  “Shit,” Billy said.

  “Boy, she did a number on you. Even my Martha, God bless her, wouldn’t a gone that far.”

  “That’s because Jude is a class A, number one, ball breakin’ bitch, boys, and I’ll tell ya somethin’ right now, the good Lord give me the opportunity to see that through the time I done in Rapides Parish.”

  “Shit, if that’s God’s way feel free to count me out, son.”

  “Yeah but I’m talkin’ different, Red, them bars give a man some time with hisself; hell I ain’t even ’sposed to be drinkin’. I got to report down to that center to piss in a jar for ’em whenever they call me for it.”

  “Don’t tell me no sad stories, friend. I killed a damn truckload of Germans for Uncle Sam and I ain’t seen a disability check in fourteen fuckin’ years.”

  Reilly looked at Billy Wayne standing in the firelight, saw how lean and sunken his face had gotten in the last year, a harbor for shadows. “How long were you in there, Billy?”

  Billy Wayne took another drink from the bottle then chased it again with his beer. “Eight months and sixteen days.”

  Reilly looked away and into the fire, felt his face muscles go slack as he went into a stare, his eyes open and nonblinking even as they began to water from the smoke; he looked deep into it at the glowing coals beneath the unburnt wood, saw them breathing with their own heat, thought how nice it would be to be able to wade through them, to lie down in them without burning. He watched a small blue flame in its center weaving back and forth, licking up at some brush, and he remembered the cobra he’d seen with Mimi.

  Her roommate was gone and they had spent all morning and part of the afternoon in bed, the clock radio stuck on a soft-rock FM station; they had made love for hours, had held each other tight until their arms slipped from their backs with the sweat, until the room was humid with their smells. Then they showered and dressed and went out into the cold Sunday afternoon to find bagels and coffee, ended up at The Animal Reserve.

  They were looking at the reptiles and he had tapped the glass after reading the sign that said not to. The snake uncoiled fast and rose up out of itself, its head fanning to twice its normal size, and Mimi had pulled him back as the top part of it began to weave from side to side, slow and controlled, then shot itself straight forward into the glass making a knocking sound that made them both jump.

  Reilly closed his eyes against the smoke and tried to see her face. He saw her eyes then her hair in the sunlight. He thought harder and saw her mouth and nose but this time he didn’t see her forehead or cheeks. But he had her smell and her taste. Sometimes he’d be working in the garden with his grandfather, holding a half-full basket in each hand while the white-bearded old man stooped over between the vegetable rows, a V of sweat sticking his faded workshirt to his back; he would half straighten up, then without looking hold the okra or green beans or tomatoes out for Reilly to put a basket under. Her smell came to him at these times. Among all the other earth smells his mind would play tricks on him; he’d be handling tomatoes when his nose would be filled with the milky scent of her cheek and throat, or he’d be rinsing the vegetables with the hose at the gate, letting cool well water run over his dirty hands, and then he’d taste her, would all of a sudden know in his mouth the salty sweetness of her down there. He would keep doing what he was doing, wouldn’t think about it, but it always left something opened in him, something drafty and unfinished. But he could never see her whole face, just fragments of it, and he knew that when he could see all of her in his head talking and laughing or quiet and watching, that he would be very close to not needing her anymore, that her place inside him would fill up with something else.

  Reilly opened his eyes and looked back into the fire. He heard the Louisiana twang in both men’s talking and felt he couldn’t be farther away from her if he tried. He drank from his beer then lowered it quickly; he knew what it had been doing, that it hadn’t been helping but was instead making liquid and fertile all those feelings he was trying to dry up, was pulling him inside himself to a hollow place full of bad echoes, and he knew if he had the keys to Billy’s truck he’d be running through the woods right now, would get in and start it up, would drive to Le Mae’s and fill up the tank, buy two large coffees to go then get on the interstate north. In two days he’d be with her, his face buried in her curly blond hair, smelling it, kissing her neck, not knowing what to say, hoping she’d say it for him, would be shocked at what he had done to see her and just hold him tight, invite him back.

  “Yank, you gone deaf or is this liquor a bit much for your constitution?”

  “Hell no.” Reilly cleared his throat.

  “Then let’s go, Cap.” Billy Wayne turned his back on the fire and walked unsteadily toward the creek. Reilly followed after him but Red stopped him with his arm. He gripped Reilly’s shoulder with his thick-fingered hand and looked him in the eye. “We’re going to pull her. Now you’re goin’ to have to wade in about waist deep to do any good here tonight.”

  Reilly was looking back into Red’s face lit up gold from the fire; he saw how crooked his nose was, how the skin hung dry and loose over the sharp bones of his face, a few days’ growth of white and gray whiskers covering most of it; his eyes were locked into the old man’s and he felt their hardness even though he knew that Red Willie liked him, that he called him yank with a tease in his voice Reilly understood. “Yeah, no problem, Red.”

  Red handed him the gaff. “Just hook her in the head hole of the shell and pull her back to the beach.” He was mimicking a pulling movement with both his bare arms.

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  “How ’bout some light down here!”

  Red pulled his flashlight out of his overall pocket and flicked it on. Reilly walked ahead of him and saw his shadow on the ground, then the sand and slow-moving muddy water.

  Red stood beside him and shined the light in the direction of the cork.

  Reilly couldn’t see it.

  “She’s layin’ right smack in the middle.”

  Reilly leaned forward and saw where the two lines came into the water at a steep angle from each bank, were pulled tight and unmoving in the current.

  “God damn!” Billy Wayne shouted from up the embankment behind them.

  “All right,” Red said, “when you hear that cork pop up you gotta figure you have another half a minute before she breaks water. When she does, let out a holler and one of us’ll be down with the light.”

  “Just leave it here with me.”

  “No sir, you need both hands for what you got to do, so just give us a call, yank. Now get in that creek and catch us a loggerhead.” Red Willie turned with the light and walked up the embankment to the hickory tree, rope, and Billy Wayne.

  Reilly’s bladder was full but he didn’t want to call out to them to wait for him. He pulled the gaff back until he could touch the hook then turned it with its point facing down.

  “Ready, Cap?”

  “No, let me get in there first.”

  “There ain’t no guarantee she’ll stay in that net, yank!”

  Reilly walked forward in the sand until he could feel the water moving against his ankles. He stopped and took a deep breath, opened his eyes wide and looked straight ahead and to his left. He coul
dn’t see the net lines; he wanted to urinate, to get out of that warm water he couldn’t see and go sit by the fire, sit by the fire with Mimi, the two of them here together, alone.

  “Let’s do her,” Reilly heard Red say. He heard the rope rising out of the water to his right then whizzing over the hickory branch. It stopped. “Shit,” Billy Wayne said. It moved again then stopped, moved then stopped, and Reilly knew only one of them was pulling. He gripped the gaff so hard it felt like a part of his arms. He rushed forward into the water to his knees then to his mid-thigh. He stepped forward again then pulled back as his foot touched something hard. His heart was beating fast in his chest and head and ears. He took a deep breath and stepped well over the hard thing. The current was stronger now, pushing at his hip; he was conscious of his crotch being underwater and he wished for the light. “Hey! Are you both pulling? ’Cause if it’s only one of you, how about some light?”

  The rope stopped. “Billy’s got a problem, yank.” It started up again and Reilly listened to what he had been hearing, heard Billy Wayne’s coughing turn into a heave and retch, heard the gush-splash of his insides as it hit the ground; then he heard the thrashing out there ahead of him in the dark.

  “Shit, Red, light!”

  The rope kept moving then stopped. “Has the cork popped yet?”

  “No! Something alive!”

  “I’m tyin’ her now!”

  Reilly spaced his feet apart in the creek’s bottom then lowered the hook end of the gaff in the water ahead of him and pulled back his arms to feel it. This is it, he thought. This is the kill. And he heard a sound he had never before heard but right away recognized it for what it was. “Bring the goddamned light, Red!”

  “I’m right behind ya, yank.”

  Reilly saw the light jerking ahead of him on the water then higher to the opposite bank, to the bare roots of trees half in the creek, half in the earth, their surfaces smooth from the water, hanging curved and rigid like the dead legs of a spider. “Fucking snake caves,” Reilly said and began to run in place against the current, his heart beating so fast he could feel it in his throat. He heard Red Willie stop at the edge of the creek then saw the light steady as it moved away from the bank then over him to his left, to that sound.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Get in there and snag the shit out of her, boy!”

  Reilly didn’t go forward. He looked down the gaff at what was moving awkward and heavy in the net in front of him. His eyes fixed on the shell first; it was bigger than the round aluminum skiffs he and Joey used to slide down Nettle Hill in; it was smooth and so dark green it was almost black. Then he looked at what was making that sound, a thick fleshy claw that stretched five or six inches out of one of the leg holes then flapped back against the shell with a power that made Reilly move his legs faster.

  “Well go on, boy!” Red was laughing.

  “Shine it near its head!”

  The light moved up to where the cork was and Reilly saw it, the size of a small boy’s fist, sticking three or four inches out of the shell, a double ridge of barnaclelike bumps along the top of it with a black beak that was opening then snapping shut, a tiny eye shining gold in the light. “It’s got a head like a fucking vulture!”

  “Snag her, yank!” Red wasn’t laughing anymore.

  Reilly gripped the gaff then lunged it out at the turtle; it hit the center of its shell with a crack that traveled up through the gaff into Reilly’s hands; he jumped back, wanting to throw it away from him, feeling like he’d just reached under the shell and touched it with his bare hands.

  “Get in closer, boy!”

  Reilly stepped forward a half step, the current pushing against his legs, hips, and buttocks. He began to move in deeper. He felt the weight of the gaff in his hands. This is eight feet long, he thought, that’s as close as I have to get. Then he heard the water splashing behind him and spun around quick to see the silhouette of Billy Wayne against Red’s light, small-shouldered and thin-necked, his ears sticking out from his head. “Shit!” Reilly said.

  “C’mon, boys!” Red shouted.

  Billy Wayne came and stood waist deep in the water beside Reilly. “You hook her, Cap. We’ll pull her together, by God.”

  He was breathing loud and it sounded to Reilly like it was coming from someplace wet inside his chest, and the air smelled sour around him.

  “Okay.” Reilly stepped closer to the net and felt his lower belly wetten. He couldn’t see the head and the claw had stopped moving.

  “She’s pulled in, smart old bitch,” Billy Wayne said. He leaned into Reilly a bit with his shoulder, but Reilly didn’t move. He breathed deep and reached the hook of the gaff toward the head hole of the shell.

  “That’s it, yank!”

  He rested the gaff against the net then pushed over it to the front. He lined up the hook, turned it so it was pointing at the hole, then with both his arms he swung into it and pulled to him, his back and arms straining with the weight. The big shell turned with his pull, the hole facing them, and Reilly looked straight ahead into it and saw the reflection of Red’s light in both its tiny eyes just before they closed.

  “Keep her movin’ once she’s off that net, now!”

  “Ready, Cap?”

  “Yeah.”

  They pulled hard backing up in the water with long slow steps, the current moving against the sides of their legs, and Reilly felt the weight of it as it slid off the net into the water. He stepped on the hard thing again then jumped over it. “Easy, Cap.” They pulled the gaff ahead of them and lifted their legs higher as they got closer to the bank and Red Willie’s light. Billy Wayne let go when their legs got free of the water and Reilly pulled her the rest of the way to where Red was standing.

  “Keep her movin’, yank! Get her away from the creek.”

  Reilly pulled and felt the drag of it as it moved through the sand; he was breathing hard and as he started up the embankment, his legs and arms burning, he gripped the gaff tighter and pulled the turtle to the flat ground near the fire. He turned around and dropped the gaff then straightened up and breathed deep through his nose as Red Willie and Billy Wayne came up with the light.

  “God damn,” Billy Wayne almost whispered through his breathing. He squatted and rested his elbows on his knees, put his head down.

  The fire was burning brighter now and Red Willie turned off the flashlight and dropped it into his pocket. He walked over and stood beside the turtle. “Man, ain’t she majestic. Look at her, yank. She’s old enough to be your gran’mammy.”

  Reilly looked down at it; its claws were out now resting on the ground, its head still pulled in the hole at the front of its huge shell.

  “God damn,” Billy said.

  Reilly could smell him over the smoke of the fire, could smell the half-burned whiskey in his sweat, the sweet and sour of his insides in the air.

  “Now yank, you got to respect a reptile like this.” Red walked spread-legged until the turtle was beneath him then straddled it, sat on the highest part, his bare feet kept well away from the claws on each side. He ran his hand over the light circular patterns of its shell. “She’s a beauty. Man, she’s royalty.” He reached into his overalls pocket and pulled out the pint bottle and opened it, took a quick sip, then wiped his mouth with his bare arm and held it out to Billy Wayne.

  Billy raised his head and took it.

  Red looked up at Reilly, smiling. “Did she feel like a five pounder to you, yank?”

  “No, sir.”

  “That’s right, son, that’s right.”

  Billy Wayne stood up fast and coughed hard into his hand then wiped it on his pants and spit out into the darkness toward the creek. He held the bottle out to Reilly.

  “No thanks.”

  Red Willie nodded his head at the fire. “Yank, get me somethin’ burnin’ outta there.”

  Reilly bent down and pulled out a short hickory stick, one end smoking and glowing bright orange.

  “Just right,” Red
said. “Now yank, these things don’t live as long as they do by bein’ nice to everybody all the time. But when you kill one you want to do it quick like; you don’t want to give it no pain.” Red reached down into one of the deep pockets in his pant leg and pulled out a knife, its blade long and gray.

  Reilly squatted down near the fire, his pants wet and heavy, and looked over at Billy Wayne. He was standing, his arms hanging limp at his sides, the bottle empty at his feet; he was looking down at Red Willie sitting on that big shell. His mouth was half open and his eyes were fixed in a stare, but he looked to Reilly like he was sleeping, sleeping awake and standing up, turning himself in and away from the place his forty years had taken him, and Reilly thought of Jude, could see her expression as she grabbed the hot iron skillet off the stove, a potholder between the black handle and her gripping hands, as she swung it at Billy Wayne, her sad face contorting even tighter with “You bastard!,” the side of the pan spinning then catching Billy Wayne square in the mouth. Then Jude’s face began to turn into Mimi’s and Reilly stood up, focused himself on what the old man was saying.

  “Now the meanness that has kept this old turtle alive is the same meanness we’re goin’ to use to kill her. Watch what she does, yank.” Red held the glowing stick in his left hand, the knife in his right, its cutting edge facing up. He lowered the stick until its orange tip was right in front of the head hole. He paused then pushed it in, held it, then pulled it out quick. “Now she’s hurt and pissed off,” Red Willie said without looking up. He lowered the stick again and held it in front of the hole then began to move it slow back and forth like a bow over a fiddle.

  Reilly looked into the hole from where he was; he wanted to see its eyes again before it died and he thought of what the turtle must be seeing from inside its house, smoking orange then gray wood, smoking orange then gray.

  Red pulled the stick to within an inch of the shell then out it came, its black beak snapping loud onto the burning end of the stick; Red pulled it forward and the turtle’s head followed, stretched out of the hole until Reilly could see the bumpy flesh of its neck pull smooth. He heard the stick crack just as Red Willie brought the knife down under the throat and pulled toward him and to his right, his left arm jerking up as the base of the neck snapped back into the hole like rubber, the turtle’s head still connected to the smoking hickory stick above Red Willie. Blood was pumping out of the hole in short quick spurts and Reilly looked at the head, at its little eyes closed tight, at the loose flap of neck that was dripping blood down onto Red’s arm and shoulder.