The Memory Thief

by Rachel Keener

  When I tucked it in my pocket, I imagined holding it up for you, to let sunlight catch it. I imagined how our eyes, drawn to anything that sparkles, would enjoy the show. I thought of the right words. Ones that would finally tell you my story. They went like this:

  Robbed a dead man once. His money was Momma’s prize. But I kept this. I kept the love.

  I imagined your story, too. Your very own right words, as you repeated my lip-gloss lie.

  I was walkin’ in your fields today and found you out in that bacca. Who would have ever thought somethin’ so pretty would be stuck there in that dirt?

  III

  Daddy didn’t say good-bye when he left, soon after Mr. Swarm died. He spent days tuning up his car for one last getaway. I watched him and knew exactly what he planned. Knew exactly where he was hiding the whiskey money he slipped off Momma as she slept.

  He started his car one morning and drove away. I walked out into the bacca, dug a hole, and buried the money I’d just stolen out of his glove box.

  Two weeks passed and Momma cried when she realized he wasn’t coming back for her. I knew then it was time, finally time, to run from Black Snake trailer. For good. I dug out the bag of stockpiled treasure from inside the front cinder block. I emptied it before her as she lay sobbing on the couch. I would never need to steal for her again. Never need to space out her prizes.

  “Look here, Momma,” I whispered. “More prizes than you ever imagined.”

  She sat up and fingered through it. Pulled out the change, an empty Zippo lighter, and some eye shadow. She tossed a Mars bar back at me.

  “That ain’t treasure. Money’s what I need. How come you can steal candy and makeup but not money? Your sister could.”

  “Momma, you got somebody you can call. Don’t you?” I asked. Momma was married to Daddy, but she had her own escape plans that she liked to toy with from time to time. Other men, new sideways lines, one after the other.

  She nodded her head, but wouldn’t look at me. “You think I should leave with him?” she whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re right. You’d be better off.”

  When she said that, her face broke up, her cheekbones sliced through the darkness and cut my heart. I wished that I could say, “Take me with you,” like a good daughter should. Or maybe just beg, “Don’t go.” But no matter how nice it would have been to whisper those words, I couldn’t make myself. That night, lies didn’t flow easy and warm like they were supposed to.

  And so I did the only good thing I could think of. I reached back in the bag of treasure. Pulled out a turquoise and silver ring she had overlooked and dropped it in her palm.

  Her eyes grew wide and warm. Her face softened and became nearly happy. “You’ve always been a good daughter.”

  The next morning, I stood in the middle of Black Snake trailer as she stuffed her trinkets and clothes into a tiny suitcase. She looked up and tried to comfort me.

  “Don’t worry, baby. We livin’ in America. The State won’t let you git hungry.”

  “What do you mean?” I whispered, feeling a spark of old panic.

  “When they hear you’re livin’ in this rathole trailer by yourself, they’ll come for you. They’ll git you a real place to stay. Some food and nice clothes.”

  “I ain’t gonna let them take me.”

  “No point in fightin’ ’em. It took two big policemen to pull baby Janie out of my arms. But in the end they walked right out the door with her, easy as pie.”

  She walked over to the fridge and opened it. “If you try, you can make this last a week. The Swarm boys are gonna be clearin’ this trailer out soon anyway. They’ll call the law for you when they see you’ve been left behind.”

  Momma’s boyfriend pulled up on a motorcycle. I stepped outside and watched her climb up behind him. She turned to me and shrugged her shoulders.

  “Well, bye, baby.”

  “Bye,Momma.”

  The motorcycle pulled away and I saw she forgot her cigarettes. The box still flipped open, laying on top of the cinder-block tower. Next to them was the only good gift she ever gave me. A brand new pack of matches.

  I picked them up. Paced the trailer to find the most rotten spot. A place where the sun had burnt and warped the fake wood and tin until it was ready to burn up quicker than a matchbox.

  I wanted to be certain, though. And so I stepped into the bacca. Pulled out the gas can I stole from Daddy’s trunk. Emptied it over the walls. Over the door. Lit that first match before remembering you, and all the things I wanted to show you.

  I went inside and filled my pockets. And afterward, as I lit that second match, I thought about last words. About whether I should say good-bye to the tin rectangle that I had spent so many nights running from.

  I thought about flipping it the bird, the way Janie always did as she walked away from it on her way to catch the bus. I thought about screaming a curse, the way Momma always did before she threw a dish. But then I remembered Grandma’s grave. And as I threw that match and watched the flame spread quickly, I knew that I was burning more than sorrow. More than the years of dead things that had framed my life. I was burning down trouble.

  “Bless you,” I whispered.

  Then I walked deep into the bacca, where I kept watch over the smoke that hovered low. I saw the little bits of fire that shot up into the dark sky. Working so hard to escape the dead things below. I thought of you, and the journey before me. “Carolina,” I whispered to the tall bacca. “Holy Roller,” I cried to the Tennessee moon. And after one more long drink from my whiskey bottle, I closed my eyes and let my mouth whisper, with numb lips, “Five thousand dollars.”

  The sound of screaming sirens woke me. I saw red and blue lights bounce off flat bacca leaves. Somewhere men were yelling orders to each other. The smell of hot tar swarmed over me and I knew. The bacca was burning.

  I held my sleeve over my mouth to breathe and crept as close as I could to the flashing lights. Policemen, firemen, and the Swarm boys were all working madly. Hell was behind them. Acres and acres of blazing red fire.

  When dawn came, I saw the ash on the ground. The firemen were right. Nothing burns as quickly, or completely, as a rusted-out trailer. There was nothing left. Not a dirty ashtray or a broken dish. Not a pass-out couch for drunks. Not my sister’s letter, the one she wrote before she ran away.

  Then I noticed something else. The black ash didn’t end. It stretched far and wide. It replaced everything that should have been green and growing. Nearly half of the farm was ruined. Every field behind the trailer, every barn and parked tractor, had burned during the night.

  Flat on my belly, peeking through the bacca, I listened.

  “Lost more than half our yearly income. Plus Daddy’s barns. His best tractors. Ain’t no insurance, Daddy dropped the policy years ago.”

  “Son, let me ask you a few questions about the family you said was livin’ here. They good people?”

  “Daddy never said one way or the other. They worked these fields for years. We told ’em to move on a few weeks ago, though.”

  “When’s the last time you saw ’em?”

  “The man left a couple weeks ago. Saw the woman leave earlier on a bike. Didn’t see the young one go, though. Oh, you don’t think she was inside?”

  “Doubt it. What I am wonderin’ about, though, is that burned-out hull of a gas can sittin’ there by the road. I want the fire chief to come investigate this.”

  “You think she—”

  “You kicked her family out, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And her momma took off without her.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ain’t much trailer trash won’t do. Especially the young ones.”

  “When I catch her, I swear I’ll—”

  “You won’t have to do anything. Law will do it for you. Nobody likes a firebug.”

  I edged my way backward. Then turned slowly and walked away carefully. It was easy for me. I kne
w how to turn my shoulders just so between the leaves. I knew how to find the spaces between the plants. When to duck and crawl because I needed to be lower. I grew up in the middle of that great bacca field. No one ever knew it, really knew it, the way I did.

  I walked through acres and saw the corners of Swarm house rising up with pride. Then I saw flowers, Mrs. Swarm’s joy, brittle and matted around the windows. Boxes were stacked on the porch. Moving vans lined the driveway, as daughters-in-law shouted commands of which van to put which box into. Dividing the spoils. I turned my eyes back to the proud bacca, and felt shame for that house. Once it had been something to salute. Something to pray and cuss over.

  I didn’t reach the road until midmorning. Still more acres lay on the other side, but a large For Sale sign stood in front of those. They were chopping up the farm. It made sense. Swarm farm was the largest one in that half of the state. Only kings needed that much land. Our king was dead.

  I touched the leaves gently. Soon those plants would be cut and staked and dried and carried to auction outside Knoxville. It hurt to think I would miss those auctions. I had gone every year since we’d first come to Black Snake trailer.

  I went to mourn and pay last respects. I’d look at all that dead bacca and wonder how I’d survive the empty fields waiting back home. Nothing is as lonely as a cold barn on a winter’s night. Everyone else just sighed relief and counted money. The warehouses were lined with golden-brown wilted leaves. Numbers were shouted, farm names swapped. Crates measured, graded, and weighed. And the smell. With no wind inside the warehouses and all that ripe bacca, all the tar, hanging heavy around us. The men, women, too, dipping and chewing and smoking and spitting. Sampling goods from other farms and then spitting it out to make room for more. Daddy said when the auctions were over they’d go back through and sweep the floors. Gather all the bits of bacca that lay dried and scattered like gold dust. Box it into little round cans and call it snuff.

  No matter what it was to other people—a drug, a cash crop, an honest living—to me, that bacca was home. More home than Daddy’s car. More home than Black Snake trailer. But somehow I’d finally outgrown it.

  I stepped through the fence onto Old Route Two. A road used by tractors more than cars. Anybody on their way used the highway. And anybody on Route Two lived for bacca. They grew it. Chewed it and spat it out their truck windows. Rolled it and smoked it. Bought and sold it. Carried green gold off in the back of their trucks. There were no cities built around Route Two. There was only land, rippling like my green baby blanket, and filled with thousands of acres of bacca. In the distance, mountains locked everything in. Like a giant fence.

  I crossed over Route Two and into the fields on the other side. I walked the edge of the bacca and hid quickly when anyone passed. Two cop cars drove by slowly during the day. So did the Swarm boys.

  I spent the whole day walking, and once evening came I settled for the night in the fields and glared at the mountains, somewhere in the darkness. They were still so far away. There were already blisters on my heels, but my journey to you was only beginning.

  When the sun rose the next morning I didn’t start walking. I sat in the bacca and waited. Until I saw a truck coming that I didn’t recognize. One that I knew didn’t belong to the Swarm boys. I walked out onto the road. Held my thumb up the way I’d seen Janie do once when she wanted a ride into town and Daddy wouldn’t take her.

  The truck slowed to a stop.

  “Where you headed?” asked a man about Daddy’s age. He had a graying beard and a tractor-supply hat on.

  “Towards them mountains.”

  He nodded his head, and I opened the door and climbed in. I tried to not look scared. I remembered Momma storming out of the trailer and throwing dishes at Daddy. I remembered the look in her eyes, meaner than the black snake had ever been.

  “What you so grumpy ’bout?” He reached between his legs and brought an empty Pepsi can to his mouth. Spat a long stream of golden bacca juice into it.

  I shrugged my shoulders and looked out the window.

  “You runnin’ away, ain’t you? Pretty girl like you walkin’ down the road alone. What’s wrong, Daddy won’t let you have a boyfriend?”

  “Ain’t runnin’.”

  “You from them mountains?”

  “Gonna find out.”

  He laughed and swore under his breath. “You a little crazy?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe.”

  The truth: I wanted to touch a mountain. After staring at them my whole life. Jealous that they were bigger than the bacca. Jealous that they were louder. Yelling out their presence, while the bacca only whispered. I wanted to touch a mountain and feel something great.

  The rest of the truth is that I found a map. Inside Daddy’s glove box. A dollar sign was drawn over the Carolina mountains. I looked at that sign, traced it with my finger, but didn’t see the word Money, like I was supposed to. I saw your name. Strange letters that I don’t know and couldn’t read.

  “Which farm you from?” I asked, noticing the tar stains on his hands.

  “Tucker. You?”

  “Grigsby.”

  “Well you must’ve walked a good ways, then. That’s a few hours west, ain’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “I guess that’s the big farm in these parts now. Since Swarm is closin’ down.” He shook his head slowly. “You heard of it? Shame what’s happened there. That land’s been in the same family since it was took from the Cherokee. One batch of bad sons and it’s chopped up and sold in pieces. Did you know somebody’s already lookin’ it over? Wanna make it a quiet country home. Don’t wanna work the land. Drove up and asked my boss to lease it and work it. Otherwise it’ll lay untilled. First time ever, Swarm farm won’t be a farm. It’ll just be a place somebody lives. Mr. Swarm would die twice if he knew. He always set such a high standard for farmin’. He was a gentleman farmer. A dyin’ breed. You know?”

  “I guess,” I said and nodded. But that trucker was more right than he’d ever know. Mr. Swarm was a gentleman. All the rest of us, all of the people stuck waiting beneath his sycamore tree, hated him for it. And waited for our moment of revenge.

  The day he died I returned to him. After giving his money to Momma, I hid in the bacca just a few feet from him. Daren, another farmhand, came by. He didn’t realize Mr. Swarm was dead at first, and asked whether he should start digging new fence holes. When he saw Mr. Swarm’s face, the purple lips, he swore under his breath and turned around and ran. He stopped, though. I saw the bacca leaves grow still and knew that he wasn’t running anymore.

  Daren came back and stood in front of Mr. Swarm. He looked around in every direction. Then reached down into Mr. Swarm’s pocket and pulled out his wallet. I had left a five-dollar bill behind.

  But Daren didn’t know Janie’s lesson, and he tucked the five-dollar bill in his pocket. “You won’t be needin’ this no more,” he said. He walked to the tractor. Lifted the hinges on the seat. Pulled out a pistol.

  I cussed inside my head. That pistol was worth more than the money I’d grabbed out of Mr. Swarm’s wallet.

  “No more snakes for you to have to shoot, neither,” Daren said, as he tucked it in his pocket. He opened a toolbox that sat on top of the tractor. Thumbed through it roughly. Put a few things in his pocket before he walked away.

  I knew then, that Mr. Swarm was right about us all along. Every farmhand cussed about not being allowed to step on the Swarm front porch. It seemed unfair. Arrogant. Hateful. We were the ones that made him a King. Our backs, our hands, our lives, given to raise his golden treasure. But in the end, Mr. Swarm was right.

  There are only two kinds of people in the world. The first are Swarms. People that eat inside the farmhouse. People that drink from silver goblets engraved with a royal name.

  As for the rest of us, we are all stuck beneath the sycamore tree. Waiting for the king to come and bring us paychecks. Waiting for the queen to come and bring us pie. We drink our tea
from paper Dixie cups. We rob dead people without a second thought. We are not to be trusted. We are not to be welcomed. We are thieves, every last one of us. Even the sweet little girls.

  IV

  As the trucker drove Route Two we talked about farms, bacca crops, and the coming harvest. I was careful not to reveal the truth. Of how much I really knew about bacca. Or that I was once a girl of Old Number Nine.

  “My stop’s up the road,” the farmhand said. “I’d let you come but my woman wouldn’t like it. You’re dangerous pretty.” He reached his hand out and ran his fingers across my thigh. He was shy at first, like he expected me to swat him away. But I didn’t, and he let his hand rest just above my knee.

  “Could you drive me a bit further? Maybe to them stores up the road. The one that sells candy in the barrels?”

  “This ain’t my truck. An’ I’m due in the fields.”

  “I could pay you.”

  “A kiss?”

  It would be my first. I had watched Janie with boys on the back of the bus and farmhands in the back of the barn many times. She never drew the line that I did, connecting boys she kissed to Daddy. Once he had been a farmhand chasing Momma to the back of the barn. Promising her a way out. But unlike Momma and Janie, I knew the truth about that line. It went sideways. Never up. Never out.

  Once my own breasts filled up black bras and my own hips became worthy of a dance, I was invited to those back corners. Even chased a few times. But I had no use for sideways lines. So I sat at the front of the bus. And ran from the barn corners to the bacca.

  The farmhand parked in front of the stores.

  “You can git your candy now”—he laughed, as he leaned toward me—“an’ I can git mine.”

  The muscles in his mouth pulled forward, like he was drinking a coke on a hot day. I saw the stain of bacca on his chin. Felt the scrub of his beard, the firm wetness against my lips. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the smell of bacca all over him. Sweet and peppery, like at the auctions.