Who I'm Not

by Ted Staunton

  Gillian was there ahead of me both days. I sat down beside her on Thursday morning. Right away, without even looking up, she said, “Did you take the money back?”

  “Soon as the library opens,” I said. At ten o’clock I walked over to the library, signed out a book and, when the clerk turned away, dropped the five-dollar bill on the floor behind the counter. I hung around by the doors until I saw her notice the money and pick it up, then went back to Gillian. “Done,” I said, sitting back down. “Go ask them if they found five dollars, if you don’t believe me. When do you want to go for coffee or something?” At lunchtime she let me buy her tea.

  Friday, she insisted on buying me something, which was good because I was out of money and didn’t want to take anymore right away. I was hoping the Garden Fairy would pay me Saturday, the same day I worked. Gillian said she was just going to be at Open Book until she and her mom and sister moved.

  “When’s that?” I didn’t want to lose my luck.

  She shrugged. “Whenever we sell the house.” I didn’t like that. How long did it take to sell a house? It helped keep me at Open Book all day, as if I had to soak up as much luck as I could while it was still there. I even did some work to pass the time. I told the teacher I wanted to start with English, so I spent the time reading To Kill a Mockingbird, which I’d already read, and then answering lame questions in a workbook and listening to the babies cry. There are worse ways to spend a day.

  I got the Garden Fairy joke when Dave pulled up on Saturday morning. He was a bulldog of a guy with a laugh like a chainsaw revving. Two fingers on his left hand were just stubs. “I had an argument with a lawn mower once,” he said as he showed me how to start one up. “I lost.”

  Dave drove around in a bright yellow pickup with Garden Fairy painted on the sides. We went to three different places that first day, cutting lawns and trimming hedges and bushes. Shan had packed me a lunch. Dave loaned me gloves, but I still got blisters. It was hard work, but I didn’t mind much. It felt good to be outside, doing stuff, and I didn’t have to do much Danny. The only time I thought about him was when Griffin drove by once.

  The best part of the day was at the very end. By then it was cool and looking like rain. Dave the Garden Fairy and I drove a load of cuttings to a place just outside of town where he knew he could dump them. You could see the lake in the distance. We bumped down a dirt path that followed a creek along the side of a field and suddenly came out on an embankment above the lake shore. I helped Dave pitch the grass and leaves into a gully. Dave stopped for a smoke. His gray Notre Dame T-shirt had big patches of sweat. I felt pretty grubby myself.

  “Okay if I go down on the beach?” I asked.

  “Be my guest.” Dave waved his hand. Even with fingers missing, it was the size of a pot roast. I scrambled down. Barely a mile from town, it looked as if you were in the wilderness. The lake was like an ocean. Waves were rolling, and they were loud, too, like white noise from a TV not hooked up to cable. I threw stones into the water, but my arms were already sore from working, so I sat down on a log until Dave finished his cigarette, imagining what it would be like on the other side.

  When Dave dropped me at Shan’s, he paid me fifty dollars cash, Canadian. I liked that. It sounds weird, but it was the most cash I’d ever had that was truly mine. Harley might give me cash for the movies or for snacks, but he’d handled everything else. One time I’d asked him how come I didn’t get more, and he said, “Room and board. And your college fund.” A few days later he gave me an iPod and let me stock it up on iTunes. He said a kid like me would carry one. Mostly, though, it was for show. Harley had never let me use it when we were working or when he wanted me to play his memory games as we drove. I wondered where it was now, and whether you could use Canadian money in the States.

  Sunday, I was stiff as a board and my hands were sore. It didn’t matter. I had money in my dresser drawer. Shan was happy I’d done okay with Dave. Even Roy wasn’t bitching at me, maybe because his back felt better. That afternoon I asked to borrow Matt’s bike (he was playing a video game) and rode back out to where we’d dumped the leaves. The lake was calmer and the sun was out. You could feel heat coming up off the sand and stones. I sat on the stones with my back against a log for a while and listened to the waves lapping, and I felt myself relax. It felt good. It felt like the first time in forever.

  After a while I explored a little. A few yards up the beach were the ashes of an old campfire, with some blackened beer tins mixed in. In the weeds was a rusted cogwheel that looked as if it could have been from some ancient tractor or mad scientist’s machine, and on the pebbles was an old running shoe with dried seaweed clotted on the laces. I dragged some driftwood over to the log and made a little shelter. I balanced the cogwheel on one end of the log and hung the running shoe off one branch of the driftwood. There was even a block of washedup Styrofoam to use for a seat. I hung out there for a while and looked at little boats far out on the water and felt like Robinson Crusoe. When I went back to Shan’s I felt calmer than I had in a long time. Having an edge is good, but I didn’t mind calmer at all.

  Monday, I hit Open Book early, even before Gillian, and she came to sit with me when she got there. That made me feel even better. At lunch, she came out with me to the coffee shop on the corner.

  “What happened to your hands?” she asked.

  “I worked all Saturday. Made fifty bucks.” I told her about Dave the Garden Fairy. “It was a little harder than I’m used to.”

  “Dave’s nice,” she said. “He used to work at our house.” She looked out the window.

  I didn’t ask why Dave didn’t work there anymore. Instead, I told her about going down on the beach the first time, and how nice it was being there by myself for a few minutes. I didn’t tell her about going back though. That was private. All she said was, “It’s nice being alone.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Where Danny was, like, you could never be alone.”

  She nodded. “I’ve felt like that. It’s a drag.” She looked out the window again. “How come you said Danny, as if he’s someone different from you?”

  “It just—it helps keep stuff away. Sometimes I don’t want to be him. Anymore.”

  She looked at me. She stood up. “We should go back. I want to finish my work.”

  “What for?” I said.

  “So things won’t be even more messed up when I start at a new school.”

  I followed her out of the coffee shop. What I’d said wasn’t exactly a lie. I didn’t want to feel like Danny, or me, for that matter, when I was around Gillian. That was the main part, and it was completely true. But I know the way I said it wasn’t exactly the truth. It wasn’t what she meant. Did I want her to know I wasn’t Danny? I don’t know what I wanted—it just came out. I was sort of telling lies to tell the truth. Weird, I know, but what can I say? It felt right. That’s all I can say.

  SEVENTEEN

  That week was good. Roy felt better and went back to work. Dave the Garden Fairy called and asked me to work again. I went to the library once and to the beach once. Carleen stayed away. Shan tied herself up in knots explaining that Carleen and Tyson got distant sometimes and that she knew Carleen was still feeling guilty about what went on with us before. Let her, I thought. Who knew what it might get me? All in all, everyone else was happy as clams, as Harley used to say. I began to think Danny and I might have just enough in common to make this a good gig.

  At supper one night Shan smiled and said, “I hear you’ve made a friend. Fran at the clinic—no, Brooklynne, you don’t need more ketchup—Fran told me she saw you having lunch with Gillian Dewitt.”

  I was going to say no, as usual, but I felt my face get hot.

  “It’s a small town, hon. Just like always.”

  “It was just lunch,” I said.

  “Gotta start somewhere.” That was Roy.

  “Danny gots a girlfriend,” said Brooklynne.

  “I didn’t even know her last name,” I said. I
shoved a chicken finger in my mouth. It was those and mac and cheese for dinner.

  “Who’s Gillian Dewitt?” Matt asked.

  “Duh,” Shan said. “Her sister Janelle’s in your class. They used to come in to the eye clinic when I was on reception there. She’s a nice girl. I heard she took it pretty hard, about her dad and all.”

  I almost didn’t want to know. It didn’t seem fair, since I didn’t want to tell Gillian about my past either. Roy said, “What about him?”

  “Oh, you remember,” Shan said. “Last year. He was the one ran that investing service, stole all those people’s money and ran off.”

  “Riiiight.” Roy slathered margarine on Wonderbread. “Couple older guys at work got burned in that.” He did his big-guy chuckle. “Better not tell her how much you make with Dave there, Danny.” Roy inhaled half the bread slice. “Speaking of money,” he said with his mouth full, “maybe you should talk to some of those reporters and TV people.” He swallowed. “Maybe we could turn your story into some real money.”

  Shan glared at him and shifted in her seat.

  “Ow,” said Roy. “What’re you kickin’ me for? I’m just saying—”

  “He’s been through enough. We don’t want reporters and all that coming around, all over us.”

  “Geez, it’s not like it’d be some, whatsit, 60 Minutes scandal thing. He’d be a hero.”

  “No,” I said.

  “No,” said Shan. “He’s just a kid. Look what happened at school already.”

  “Fine.” Roy scowled. “I’m just sayin’. I bet they’d pay a nice price for an interview. Your loss.” He shot me a look. “And ours. It’s not like it costs nothing for you to live here.”

  I gave him the Danny smirk. I wanted to take the macaroni and shove it in his face. Maybe I should have. It would have been almost the last good thing that happened for a long time.

  The next day, Gillian and I took our lunches to the park across from the library. It still felt a lot like summer. Wasps kept straying over from the trash bin. We were sitting side by side at a picnic table, with our legs stretched out and our backs leaning against the table edge. Gillian was taller than me.

  “I have to work at the library after school,” she said. Like always, she was wearing jeans, this time with a yellow long-sleeved top. It made her arms look long and thin. Her fingers were long and thin too. She had green-and-white-striped laces in her running shoes. “What are you doing?”

  “I have to work with Dave the Garden Fairy tomorrow.” On her lap she had a zippered, blue, padded lunch box. I’d had one like it once, back in the Bad Time. She didn’t unzip it. She gazed at the library. “I mean, what are you doing today?”

  I shrugged. “Going back out to the beach, maybe. I made this little place to sit. It’s great. All quiet, and nobody goes there.” It seemed okay to tell her. Now that I knew her dad was gone, I felt as if we were tighter than ever.

  “Is it out by the railway tracks? Down a path across the field?”

  “Yeah.” I was surprised. “You know it?”

  “I’ve never been there, but kids go down there to party sometimes.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I saw a campfire and some beer cans, but nobody’s been there in a long time. It’s pretty private. You could come with me sometime.” All at once I wanted her luck for there, too. I waved away a wasp. She still hadn’t said anything. I looked at her. She was blushing. “What?” I said.

  Then I got it. She thought—My own face got hot. I spoke fast. “Listen, like, I didn’t…I mean, I don’t…like, I can’t—” And then I realized what that sounded like. It was the first time I’d lost it with words since I was little. Finally I said, looking away and swatting at a wasp that wasn’t even there, “I mean, I can, but I didn’t mean…about you.” I heard my voice melting away until it was barely a whisper. “I just…I don’t like touching, because of some things people did to me.”

  I wished I was a car fading down the highway. I must have been the color of a taillight. I didn’t even know why I was saying all that. I’d never spent time with girls. I’d never done anything with them either. Harley used to tease me sometimes. He’d say, “I’ll buy you a piece for sweet sixteen. That kind of touching you’ll like.” Then he’d grin and pop his gum. I’d never known whether he was joking. Now I never would.

  Gillian still didn’t unzip her lunch box. Her fingers rested on top of the padded blue box. I didn’t want to look up any higher. She said, “I asked what you were doing because I’m going to the movie at the mall tonight with my sister and I wanted someone to go with me. But it’s okay if you can’t.”

  I looked at her. She was still looking away, her cheeks only pink now. “Really? I mean, yeah, sure I can.” It was like a date, kind of. I mean, I guessed it was. Danny was going on a date. I was going on a date. How weird was that? Then I had my first going-on-a-date thought: the mall was over in Cobourg, the next town. “How will we get there?”

  “My mom can drive,” Gillian said, “and pick us up after.” She smiled. Then she stopped. She was looking at a car parked in front of the library. It was a silver Camry. “What does he want?” Gillian said. As if he was answering her, Griffin waved me over.

  EIGHTEEN

  “I’ll be right back,” I said to Gillian.

  I put down my lunch and headed toward him, toeing out. I could feel myself still grinning from talking to Gillian. I crossed the street and stood at the driver’sside window. It was down, Griffin’s arm still hanging out from when he’d waved me over. He looked more like cement than ever, his big gut in a gray sweatshirt spilling over faded jeans. Even the car seats were gray. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said. He didn’t sound it.

  “S’okay. It’s my lunch hour.” I gave him the smirk—full-on Danny.

  “How’s school?”

  “Good.”

  “Rough start, I hear.”

  I shrugged and smirked some more.

  “Gillian’s a nice girl. Meet her at Open Book?”

  “Yeah.”

  He looked past me, toward her. “Too bad about her dad. Ruined a lot of people. Old folks mostly, on pensions. Some of them lost their homes.” He tapped the door with his thumb. “I lost a little myself.” Then he made a little snort, a cop laugh. “He was a helluva liar.” He looked back at me. “Fooled everybody. Including me.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “It is too bad. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. Got something for you.” He reached into the back and handed me a paper. It was a photocopy of two head-and-shoulders pictures, taken from the front and the side, of a guy with the numbers 61472 in front of him. Mug shots. The guy was young and thin, with a mullet, bad skin and a shoe-salesman moustache.

  My heart started pounding in my ears. “Who’s this sucker?” I already knew who it was.

  “Michael Bennett Davidson,” Griffin said. “Also known as Michael Bennett, David Bennett, Bennett Michaels, Ben Michaelson, Michael Norton, Harley Bennett, David Benson…the list goes on. You’d know him as the guy who got you to Tucson. What did he want you to call him?”

  Harley, I thought, finally getting it—Harley-Davidson. “Mike,” I said. “Just Mike.” I wondered if Bill Blessing was on the list somewhere. I hoped not. “Like, who was he?” I had to ask, but I wanted the pounding in my ears to shut out the answer.

  Griffin sighed, hoisted his eyebrows and rhymed it off. “Out of Dayton, Ohio. Did short time for fraud and possession of stolen in Illinois and Minnesota in the early nineties, arrests in San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, after that. He might have lived in Portland for a while in the mid- to late nineties, but mostly it looks as if he kept on the move. Known to police, as they say, here and there. Age at death, forty-two.”

  I looked again at the mug shots. Young Harley looked back at me. Griffin said something I missed. I looked up.

  “How long were you with him, do you think?” he said again.

  I shrugged. “I dunno. A few weeks, maybe a month.”

>   Griffin nodded. “Remember places you went?”

  “Not really. It wasn’t exactly my territory. I kept asking if we were going north yet, and he’d say to leave the driving to him.”

  Another nod. “He ever try anything on you?”

  I shook my head.

  “I ask because he seems to have had a history of traveling around with young boys, claiming they were his sons. He was with one two years ago in Maryland, and another last winter in Florida.”

  I felt a little dizzy. I put one hand on the car roof.

  “Or maybe it was the same boy.” He did a slow, owlstyle blink. “Who knows? The question then would be, what happened to them? You might have got off very lucky indeed, especially after that first van you climbed into.”

  “Maybe,” I said. I was sweating. “Maybe I deserved a break.” I needed one now. This guy knew too much.

  “Maybe you did.” Griffin paused and shifted in his seat. The car bobbed under my hand. “How’s the family? Shannon okay?”

  “Yeah. She’s glad I’m home.”

  “I know she is. She deserves some happy. How about Carleen? Hugs and kisses?”

  “She’s okay.”

  “Yeah, I heard you went shopping together. How’s Ty?”

  “Haven’t seen him. His car got repo’d.”

  “Lucky you. Back in the day, some people thought, given those two, you might have just taken off.”

  I squeezed out, “It happened like I said.” Never change your story.

  He nodded again. “I thought different.”

  “Aren’t you retired?” I said. It was easy to sound angry. “You don’t have to think anymore. Shouldn’t you be playing golf or something?”

  “I hate golf,” he said. “Swofford plays golf. You know what golf is? ‘A good walk spoiled.’ You know who said that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Mark Twain. Know him?”