Who I'm Not

by Ted Staunton

  Carleen wasn’t any of those things. She was thin-faced, with streaked blond hair, pinched lips and eyes like bruises. Harley would have said she looked as if she’d gone ten rounds with the world. All I could say was, “Momma.”

  Carleen’s whole body stiffened. She jammed her cigarette to her lips and sucked hard. Then she threw the butt away and stepped toward me, shakily blowing smoke as if she were the dragon on her own arm. “Danny.”

  Up close, I could smell weed under the tobacco. I still had my shades on. I wasn’t much taller than she was. She clutched at her tattooed arm and twitched a smile together. Her eyes were flat and glassy as she stared at Bart Simpson’s face on a T-shirt I’d borrowed from Matt. “It’s been…It’s…it’s gr—it’s good…it’s…”

  You could tell she didn’t like hugging any better than I did, but she started for it, then stopped halfway and just held onto my arms. “Lissen.” She gave me a little shake, still staring at Bart. “Lissen, um, sorry I haven’t, ah, been by, but there’s been things, you know. Life, like.” She shot a look back at Shan. “But now…you’re here.”

  “It’s good to be back,” I said.

  “Are you?” she said. She finally looked at me. It was the blankest look I’ve ever seen. It was as if she wasn’t behind her own eyes. At the time, I put it down to the weed and whatever else she was on. I’d been on a winning streak, and I’d started to think I could handle anything the Dellomondos threw at me. Maybe I was wrong.

  THIRTEEN

  Shan wanted Carleen to go clothes shopping with us. School was coming up soon, and I needed stuff. I’d ditched the hip-hop hat, but otherwise I’d been stuck with what I had worn on the plane and Matt’s clothes when I had to. His stuff ran to Simpsons or camo T-shirts and twenty-times-too-large basketball shorts, which are fine if you’re a moose hunter or Shaquille O’Neal but not so great on me. They weren’t so great on Matt, either, but I didn’t tell him.

  With Harley, there were always lots of clothes. You had to dress for whatever line you were running. “Clothes make the man,” I read to him one day.

  “Correction,” he’d said back. “Clothes make the scam.”

  If we were working RV parks, we’d dress Walmart or Penney’s. Upscale, it depended—either designer labels or preppy stuff like J. Press or Brooks Brothers. Price didn’t matter, since Harley always paid with juiced cards. We’d boost lots of things, usually things you could resell, but not often clothes. For a little while we were heavy into that, because store security never paid much attention to an okay-dressed kid and his dad. I was a walking disguise. We stopped, though, after a husband-and-wife shoplifting team got splashed all over the news for going on one of those trash-talk TV shows and bragging about how they boosted stuff using their little kids for cover.

  Now we piled into the family van and went to Walmart and Zellers, which was like the same thing, only Canadian. I hear it’s Target now. I wondered if it was the same mall Danny had wanted to go to when he disappeared. Driving there, I was tempted to say, “So, I finally get to go to the mall with you after all,” but I kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t a Danny thing to say, and I still needed to play it right with Carleen, whether she was stoned or not.

  At the mall, I updated Danny. I picked black jeans and a pair of distressed ones, a couple plain gray tops and a striped shirt that buttoned up tight. With socks and underwear, they’d spent their limit. While Shan and Carleen talked to some friend they’d bumped into, I strolled behind a rack of shiny dress pants and boosted some tight black T-shirts to help out. It took about five seconds to lay one flat inside a gray top and fold one into the black jeans.

  I was rusty. I remembered to check for scanner triggers on the tees, but I hadn’t scoped out the cameras when we walked in. A security guard stopped us at the till. I said I didn’t do it, didn’t know how the shirts got there. Meg got called. I had to wait in a little room while she straightened it out.

  I know we all want this to work.

  Through the door I heard her telling Shan and Carleen that this was a “normal trauma indicator” and it showed how stressed I’d been. The store manager even gave me one of the T-shirts when he found out my sad story. I didn’t tell him I was still wearing a third one I’d slipped on in the change room.

  In a weird way, I think getting caught like that was a winner. It looked like exactly the kind of bonehead play Danny would have made. It matched right up with my lasting an hour in high school the next week.

  FOURTEEN

  Not that I’d planned on being there much. I hadn’t been in a school since grade six in Oregon. I’d hated it then and I didn’t see why it would be any different now.

  Meg had put me in a remedial class until they figured out what grade I could handle and how well I would socialize. There had been stuff in the news about Danny being found. The local and Toronto papers had called. A TV crew had interviewed Meg and Shan and Swofford, but they’d all been kept away from me, so there were no new photos or anything, even though they said we lived in Port Hope now. Stories had gotten around, I guess. Anyway, I was at my new locker when I heard snickering and feet shuffling right behind me. Someone said, “You really blow all those guys?”

  Usually, there are three of them. I went with that now. The main thing, no matter how many there are, is to move first and keep moving, so I just wheeled and smacked the closest guy in the face with my new math book. Which made it good for something. As the kid’s head snapped back, I kicked him as hard as I could, right where it counts, and piled on as he crumpled. When you’re my size, you hit first and hope someone breaks it up before you get hit back.

  It worked in grade six and it worked now. By the time the yelling started, I had him on the floor, hitting him anywhere I could, and a few seconds later some teacher was dragging me off and I was on my way to the office. I wouldn’t talk to anybody until Meg got there. When she did, looking hot in sandals and a summer dress, we all wanted to make it work, so the next day I started at Open Book, the “alternative” school.

  I liked Open Book. It was just a room over the Big Sisters secondhand store downtown, about a block from the library—everything in Port Hope was close. It had tables and chairs and bookshelves, and sometimes even some students. For assignments, you filled in workbooks. The teacher, Mr. Hunter, was a short head-shaved guy who wore jogging shoes with relaxed-fit khakis and polyester dress shirts. He kept his car keys in the pocket of the jacket he always draped across the back of his chair. I knew that by the second day.

  Mr. Hunter was happy if you showed up. The girls usually brought their babies with them. The guys were hip-hop hillbillies, skinny stoners with wallets on chains and bad everything. Mostly what they did was take smoke breaks in the alley. And mostly they left me alone—they were too vacant to care. One day I was passing the alley and one of them asked, “You the guy that pounded Brad Dillon?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t even know who I’d hit—and I didn’t need enemies. He took it as a yes anyway and nodded back. “That guy’s an asshole.”

  But the main reason I liked Open Book was that on the very first day, when I climbed the stairs, I saw the girl from the library.

  She was sitting by herself at a table, writing in some kind of workbook. It was a hot day, but she had on jeans and another sweater with those extra-long sleeves. I was over there before I even knew what I was doing. “Is it okay if I sit here?”

  She looked at me through her glasses and then around the room. There were two teenage moms at the far end, drinking takeout coffees. There were plenty of empty tables and chairs. She looked back at her work.

  I pulled out a chair. At least she hadn’t said no. I sat down, and my leg started bouncing. I had to know about her name. Keeping my voice low, I said, “Hey, sorry to bother you, but you work at the library, right? Can I ask you a question?”

  She kept on writing for a second and then she said, “You took money.”

  “What?”

  “When the books fell over
, you leaned across the desk and took money from the cash drawer.”

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t take any money. From where?” If I’d learned one thing in the Bad Time, it was never cop to anything.

  She didn’t even blink. “I don’t talk to thieves, and I don’t talk to liars.”

  If I’d left right then, maybe I’d never have told anyone any of this. Maybe I should have left, but I couldn’t. I had to know her name to know if my luck was going to run. “Look,” I said, “I didn’t take money from anywhere, and I’m real sorry to bother you. All I wanted was to ask your first name.”

  She bent over her work again. “Go away. I don’t talk to liars.”

  Except I couldn’t go away, not if I was going to keep my luck running. I sat there and said, “Well, if you saw me steal money, why didn’t you tell?”

  Her face got red, but she didn’t look up. “Maybe I will.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, if I had stolen money, what if I’d needed it?”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  “Well, what if I’d needed it and was never going to do it again?”

  “I’ve heard that before too.” Her head was still down, but she wasn’t writing anything.

  “Okay, sorry,” I said. “Like I said, all I wanted to know was your first name.” I pretended I was going to stand up. It didn’t work. She didn’t speak. I had to stand up. I started to push the chair in, saying, “I thought it was the same as somebody I used to know. Someone important to me. I thought I saw it on your name tag, but I wasn’t sure.”

  Now she looked up. I gave her that I wish smile I’d given so many times to so many marks. “I’ll tell you when you tell me you stole that money,” she said.

  I saw a way to spin it. I sat back down. “Okay. But I had to do it.”

  “Right.”

  “I did. It’s this delayed-reaction condition from something bad that happened to me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “No, really. It was on the news and in the paper. You probably heard.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t watch the news.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I was in it once too.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said and smiled again. She didn’t like that.

  “I was.”

  “Really? What for?”

  She leaned back in her chair. Her chest was as flat as her voice. “You really don’t know who I am.”

  “I’ve been, uh, away,” I said, “For a long time. Apart from your first name, it doesn’t matter. I don’t even want to know. Be anybody you want. Who do you want to be?”

  “Who do I want to be?”

  “Yeah.”

  For the first time, she almost smiled. “Anybody but me. Who do you want to be?”

  It was a good question. I shrugged. “I don’t even know who I am.” I laughed to turn it into a joke. “For now my name is Danny.”

  “My name tag says Gillian,” she said.

  “Gillian?” I asked.

  She said, “You say it like a J but spell it with a G.”

  It was close enough. My luck was running.

  FIFTEEN

  Maybe it was because my luck was running that I pushed it a little harder. At noon I ditched Open Book and headed back to the house. Everybody was at work or school, so I had the place to myself. I needed it.

  With Harley, you’d do fakes for the day, but then you could crash. Living in RVs and motels might not seem private to you, but there were still lots of times when I’d been left alone. Here, I was Danny 24/7 and never alone. I even had to share a bedroom with Matt. The kids were always on me to do something with them. The only place I could get away from everyone was the bathroom. I’d go there and think about Meg. The walls were thin too. Once, late, I heard Roy and Shan going at it. It was too much information. After Harley and Darla had split up, if he wanted to bring someone back he would give me money for a movie, or I’d wander a mall. I was older by then. Apart from the fact that we went around robbing people blind, the wildest thing Harley would ever do was have a beer or two watching the ball game, or smoke a little weed sometimes. He didn’t think I knew what it was at first, but I’d been with more that one secret smoker in the Bad Time. The point was, there was space.

  Anyway, when I opened the door there was a box sitting in the hall, with a paper attached to it that said Danny. I guessed Carleen had stopped by with some of Danny’s old stuff. There were little trophies for soccer, a Darth Vader poster, a couple of Garfield books, some lame CDs, bad drawings of motorcycles and dragons, a few photos of him and some other kids making gang signs with their hands, and one of him in his hat and shades, giving both fingers to the camera. It was crap, stupid. I left the box where it was and wondered how long I could go on doing this. I’d been Danny almost three weeks, and for now I was stuck being him. I couldn’t take off until I had some cash and a plan to at least get back to the States. And even if I had those things right now, I couldn’t make Danny disappear again so soon. The cops would be all over it. I’d probably barely get out of town. My best bet was still to hang in until his birthday.

  And that wasn’t forever, was it? My luck was running. Do before you get done. I made a sandwich, then did some things around the house. First, I took five dollars out of Matt’s money stash in his Lego bucket. While I was at it, I checked the cash in Shan’s boot too. There was ten dollars more—even better. I took five dollars in coins. There were so many, it would be easy for Shan to think she’d miscounted. Next, I went on the computer and searched a map of Port Hope. If I was going to get out of here, it was time to get a better idea where I was. Matt had said the place was on a lake. Well, he was right—it was on Lake Ontario, a Great Lake. Danny would have called it “a big sucker.” The beauty part, though, was what was on the other side: the USA. I was a boat ride from freedom.

  That made me feel so good that I took Matt’s bike and rode it down to the harbor. It was a really big lake—you couldn’t see across to the other side. But there were boats there, and they looked easy to get at, and on the map the lake looked a lot longer than it was wide. Maybe the States was closer than I thought. I wondered if I could steal a boat when the time came, and how hard it was to run one. I’d never been on a boat.

  I turned around and rode back to Open Book. I got upstairs just as Gillian was getting ready to leave. She didn’t frown this time. “I’ve got something for you,” I said.

  “What?”

  I pulled out the money I’d scored and lifted the five. “Take it back if you want.”

  Now she did frown.

  “It’s different,” I said. “I made this cutting the lawn.”

  “Then give it back yourself,” she said.

  “Okay, I will. If you let me buy us coffee tomorrow. Or tea or something.” She smiled a quick, tight smile and her face turned pink. She headed for the stairs. “You know I’ll pay it back,” I called. “See you tomorrow.” It was just like snowing sales ladies in Tucson, and it was worth it. As I looked out the window and watched Gillian unlock a bike from the rack where I’d stashed Matt’s, I saw Griffin, the old cop, getting into a silver Camry. Then the kid I’d jumped at school walked down the street with two other guys, maybe the ones that had been with him that day.

  I waited till they were gone, then went down and got Matt’s bike. Griffin was still sitting in his car, maybe waiting for somebody. He didn’t look my way, so I rode on.

  When I got back to Shan’s, it was still early. I ditched Matt’s bike at the side of the house and went in. It seemed like a good time to think about Meg.

  “Who’s that?” It was Roy’s voice, from the living room.

  “It’s just me,” I called. I opened and shut the refrigerator to stall for a second, getting Danny together, then I went on into the living room, making sure to toe out.

  Roy was in his recliner, still in his work clothes. “It’s a hot sucker out there,” I said.

  Roy grunted. “How come you’r
e home so early?”

  I shrugged. “I got my work done, so I could go. How come you’re home?”

  “I put my back out at work. It hurts like hell.”

  “Bummer.”

  “Matt’s bike was gone when I got home. He’s not allowed to take it to school. You take it without asking?”

  “No,” I said. “You sure? The sucker was there just now when I came in.”

  He looked at me sourly. “Get me a ginger ale, will ya? It’s a bugger to get up.”

  I got a can out of the fridge and handed it to him.

  “Dude,” he said, “I heard the bike hit the side of the house when you got back.”

  I did my confused thing, then the Danny smirk. “I bumped into it. So what?”

  Roy shook his head. “You really haven’t changed, have you? Shoplifting, getting kicked out of school…Listen, Danny”—he bit down hard on the name—“don’t take things that don’t belong to you without permission. Got it? That’s the second damn bike I’ve had to buy for Matt. And don’t make things hard for Shan either, ’specially by lying. She’s got enough problems with your mom and that dickwad Ty. You don’t like it here, see how you like it at Carleen’s—and I don’t care what your social worker says.”

  “Sure, Roy. Okay.” I nodded and bounced and Danny-smiled. Then I promised myself I’d flush his dope down the toilet before I left.

  SIXTEEN

  At dinner that night, Roy, who was propped up with cushions, said he thought I should get a part-time job so I’d “learn responsibility” and wouldn’t have so much time on my hands. I said that sounded good to me. I’d never had a straight job, and maybe Danny never had either, but I figured I could hack it, and I needed the money. Shan called a friend and arranged for me to start work for Dave the Garden Fairy that Saturday.

  Thursday and Friday, I went to Open Book. Partly I had to—well, I had to leave the house, anyway, because Roy was home with his sore back. Mainly, though, I wanted to guarantee my good luck, whatever it cost.