by Laura Bickle
She closes her hand in a fist, quietly asks, “How are my sisters?”
The nurse places gauze pads soaked in a white cream over the wound. “You’ll need to wait for the doctor for the official word, but your sisters will be fine. The little one will just have a sore throat for a while, and the older one has some burns like yours and some smoke inhalation.”
“They’ll be okay?”
The nurse loops the gauze around her hand, wrapping it loosely up her arm. “The doctor will tell you all about it, I’m sure. But they should be able to go home soon.”
Some of the tension in Lily’s fist drains away. The color is coming back to her knuckles.
The nurse pats her cheek, gathers her instruments, and leaves the room. Lily stares at her right arm, encased in a white gauze tube.
“It looks sort of like an evening glove,” I offer. I sit beside her on the bed.
She gives me a wry smile. “Or the Bride of Frankenstein’s bandages.”
“No.” I reach out and rub a bit of soot from her cheek with my thumb. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay.” She swallows and looks at the floor. “Okay, considering.”
“It’s going to be all right. We’ll help you clean up. You can stay with us until everything’s up and running again...” I trail off. I want to believe everything will be normal for them again.
“Maybe,” she sighs.
“It will.” I’m convinced.
She looks me levelly in the eye. “Before my mom gets here...I have to know. What is Bert?”
I swallow. “He’s a demon.”
“For real? Like...from hell? With brimstone and fire?” I can see the wheels turning in her head. This punctures her reality. I can see it splitting open behind her eyes. The awareness that there’s something seething beneath the surface of our not-so-safe everyday world. “How long have you known?”
“Always. He shapeshifted to look like Santa at the first Christmas I can remember. He’s always been there.”
“Does the rest of your family know?”
“Yes. But don’t tell anyone that you know. Not my family, and not yours.”
She stares down at her hand. “I wouldn’t. He saved us. But I need to know what to say to Callie.”
“I don’t know what to tell her. She...she’s not afraid of him.”
She wiggles her fingers around the bandage. “I’ll tell her he’s a dragon.”
I nod. “That’d be good. And you can paint him on the mural on her wall.”
She grimaces. “If there’s anything left to paint.”
And I can see a gray shadow falling over her world.
WE COME HOME THAT NIGHT. All of us, in a peculiar silence settling over our oddball extended family. Bert puts the ice cream truck in park on the curb in front of the pawn shop. The night window is closed, and the signs are dark at both our place and the hamburger shop, as if we all mourn together.
Bert reels open the back door of the ice cream truck. Callie dangles her legs over the edge of the bumper. She sets down her juice box, reaches out for Bert with both hands. Hesitantly, Bert lifts her to set her on the ground. She throws her arms around his neck and snuggles into his shoulder. As he carries her, the look on Bert’s reptilian face is one of utter wonder.
I hop down next and reach up for Lily. I grasp her waist and set her down on the pavement, handling her as if she’s made of glass. Maybe I wish she still was, but I’m still in awe of the power she’d shown me. And I feel off balance.
I think I put her in a box, in my head, never thinking she’d move outside of this frame I’ve put her in. This frame of a love interest that’s likely unrequited. I used to think I was honoring her in some weird way by making her untouchably pristine and perfect in my thoughts, but maybe I haven’t been. Maybe by putting her on a pedestal without really asking, I’ve failed to realize how awesomely expansive and messy and tough she really is. And this has nothing whatsoever to do with me.
She places her hand in mine, and we follow Bert and Callie.
Carl comes to help Mrs. Renfelter down out of the back of the truck. He looms over her on the street. He’s whispering something in her ear, but I can’t hear what. She just nods and presses her hand to her eyes. He shuts the back door behind her.
Sid and my father go to the cab of the truck. Sid opens the door and offers Rose his arm. She takes it, and he leads her to the curb, toward the shop and the quiet inside.
My father stares into the dark cab. He reaches into the darkness. A white hand reaches out for him, and a shiny black shoe reflects street light.
Pops emerges from the truck, his movements brittle. He watches his feet very closely and eases down into my dad’s arms like an old man. He shuffles along, clutching my father’s arm.
We all walk inside the pawn shop, into that darkness and silence. We may not be really family, but we are something of a tribe, gathered together around a terrible fire and jumping at the shadows it summons.
Sid and my father have been busy in our absence. Papers are spread out all over the tops of the glass cases, containing phone numbers for building inspectors and general contractors, notebooks of scratched-out notes. I smell food.
We take the steps slowly for Pops. Upstairs is well-lit—every lamp in the place is turned on. Someone’s cleared the kitchen table and ordered pizza. The boxes are still warm, with paper plates arranged at the place settings around the kitchen table and paper towels folded as napkins. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen the table cleared.
This is Sid’s work. There are grocery sacks on the counter. Milk in the fridge. Callie’s favorite juice boxes chilling.
Sid puts his hands in his pockets. “I didn’t know much about what girls need...but I can pick up anything you want at the grocery. Just tell me.”
Rose nods wordlessly, then bursts into tears. Her mother wraps her arms around her, and I can’t tell who’s crying more.
Mrs. Renfelter lifts her chin. “It was arson, wasn’t it? I heard something break the glass in the front...I came running and...” Her voice falters.
My father nods. “It looks that way.”
Rose looks at her mother. “Why, Mom? Who would do that to us?”
Lily crosses her arms over her chest. “The Mob. They were here. They wanted money.”
“What for?” Sid asks.
Mrs. Renfelter swallows. “When the building was converted to a restaurant, we didn’t pull the proper permits. They asked for money to make that go away.”
“Protection money.” My dad’s jaw is hard. “It’s not like they haven’t come around here, asking for things before.”
I lift my head. This, I didn’t know. Did my dad give them anything?
“How much?” my dad wants to know. “More than the jewelry you brought in?”
“Ten thousand.” Mrs. Renfelter spreads her hands before her. “I got half. I got half, but...”
“You should’ve said something,” Sid says. “We would’ve helped.”
Mrs. Renfelter shakes her head. Pride is still evident in the set of her mouth.
“You girls will stay here until we get everything organized,” my father declares. “The building inspector and fire marshal will be here at eight tomorrow morning. The contractor will be here at nine, and we should have a better idea of what needs to be done, the extent of the damage.”
I glance at Carl, standing behind the women. I wonder how in the hell my dad managed to get a fire marshal and a building inspector out here so fast. Carl rubs his fingers together. Money.
“What about the police?” Rose asks. “If this is a crime, won’t they want to do something about it?”
My dad shakes his head. “If the Spivellis are involved, they’ll be in a hurry to ignore it.”
Mrs. Renfelter murmurs in protest, but my father waves her off. “We’ll figure this out in the morning.
“For tonight, we have things set up so that you girls can have Carl’s room and Erasmus’s room. We mov
ed the fold-out couch and one of the other beds in there, so I hope you’ll be comfortable...well, as comfortable as you can be in a bachelor pad.”
Carl’s been doing the heavy lifting. He moved his bed into my room and the fold-out couch into his. He’s removed all traces of his porn collection from his closet, I assume. An odd assortment of T-shirts and sweats is stacked in neat piles on each bed, along with towels and toothbrushes still in their packages.
“This is really nice,” Lily says. “Thank you.”
I squeeze her hand. “It’s gonna be all right.”
I even think I mean it.
I SLEEP LIKE SHIT.
I insist that Carl takes the couch, and I wind up with the Skeletor sleeping bag on the floor of the living room. Pops is snoring in his room, and I know my dad and Sid are listening as closely as I am. I occasionally hear the fluttering of low whispers from my room and Carl’s. Every time Carl turns over on the leather couch, it creaks. I lie on the floor, staring up at the rafters until the darkness gives way to gray morning.
Footsteps tap in the hallway. I pretend to shut my eyes, but a cool shadow passes over me. I look up.
Callie stands over me. She’s dressed in one of Sid’s vintage Led Zeppelin T-shirts, which hangs down to her knees. Sid has a lot of these shirts. In mint condition, they’d be worth a pretty penny. Faded and torn up, not so much.
She pokes me with one of her bare toes. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Are you awake?”
“Yeah.” I glance at the couch; Carl’s face is pressed into the armrest, and his mouth is slack with drool.
“Can you show me where the bathroom is?”
“Sure.” I disentangle myself from the fuzzy grip of Skeletor and He-Man. I take Callie’s hand and lead her down the hallway.
She pauses before the first door, puts her hand on it. “Who sleeps here?”
“My dad. Usually.” But I suspect he’s keeping vigil over Pops in the old man’s room.
She scurries across the hall and presses her hand on the next door. “Who sleeps here?”
“Sid does.”
Taking a few more steps, she puts her palm on the door that reverberates with snoring. She makes a face. “Who sleeps here?”
“Pops.” I have the absurd feeling of leading Goldilocks around the Three Bears’ lair.
She looks back down the hallway. “And Mom and I are sleeping in Carl’s room?”
“Yes.”
“And Lily and Rose are in your room.”
“Yes.” It’s nothing Lily hasn’t seen before. But I wonder what she thinks about sleeping in my bed.
“So...” She spins around to the last door. “This is where Bert sleeps.”
“No. Bert doesn’t sleep there. That’s the bathroom.” I have to say I’m momentarily amused by the image of the seven-foot lizard sleeping in the bathtub behind the mildewed shower curtain.
She screws up her face. “Where’s Bert’s room?” Her lip trembles, and she wraps her arms around herself. Her stuffed toys are likely soaked in water and ash at her house, and I have nothing here to soothe her.
Except Bert.
I shift my weight from one foot to another. I know what this looks like...like Bert isn’t part of our little family. That he’s somehow other. It was a question I asked when I was her age, too.
I’m not sure how to answer. After discovering my dad’s deal with the devil, I’m awfully committed to truth. But I know I have to protect Bert. And make some of this shit seem normal.
I stare down at her big blue eyes. I know I can trust her. Have to. I reach inside the bathroom doorway to flip on the light. “Go use the bathroom, and I’ll show you.”
I wait in the hallway, rubbing my eyes. Maybe she’ll forget and just want to go back to bed. But she pads out of the bathroom, slips her damp hand in mine, and announces, “I want to see Bert’s room.”
“Okay.” I lead her across the living room and down the stairs to the first floor.
The hallway’s silent. Sunshine leaks in through the bars over the windows, stirring up dust motes in the hallway. I ignore the doors to the vault, Pops’s office, the restroom, and the kitchenette, pausing before a door marked “Stairs.”
Callie looks up at me. “This is Bert’s room?”
“Sort of. These are the stairs to the basement.”
“Why is Bert in the basement?” Her brow wrinkles. “Was he bad?”
“No. He likes to be down near the furnace. Where it’s warm.” That much is true. He looks like a reptile, and I guess we all assume he has the same needs a lizard does for warmth. As much as he bitches about winter and wraps himself in socks and ridiculous scarves, we believe him.
I open the door and flick on the light. The bare bulb overhead illuminates some rickety wooden stairs that have never been painted. I hold Callie’s hand tight and watch the steps for splinters as we descend.
A huge boiler furnace spreads against one wall, reaching upstairs with tentacles, like a fearsome monster. When Carl, Zach, and I were kids, we painted yellow eyes on the soot. They’d faded with time, but it still looks like a sinister creature to me.
Debris in boxes and racks clutters the floor. Much of it is crap left over from when the building was sold to Pops. I assume my dad’s already gone through all the disintegrating banker’s boxes for anything valuable. I remember finding the occasional newspaper from the forties or an old coin.
We veer left along a wall. A dried-out mop-bucket is propped next to a door marked “Janitor.”
At that, I feel ashamed. Respectfully, I knock on the door. The sound echoes, and one gets the impression of a volume of great space behind the door. Something inside rustles. A smoky tongue of incense slips under the door, and a light clicks on.
“It’s just me, Bert. Raz. With Callie.”
The door opens. Bert stands in the doorway, yawning. He’s wearing one of Sid’s old Pink Floyd T-shirts. No pants. “What’s up, guys? Is the old man okay?”
“Sawing logs. I—”
Callie rushes past me and bounds into Bert’s inner sanctum.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “She missed you and wanted to see your room.”
Bert raises an eyebrow. “She’s gonna be disappointed.”
A bare light bulb illuminates Bert’s lair.
Or rather, his hoard.
Bert’s a collector of things. I guess I should be thankful he only collects seemingly-harmless stuff, and that he has a small space to clutter up. But every inch of what would’ve been a twelve-by-twelve-foot utility closet belongs to him and all his junk.
A striped hammock hangs in a corner, piled with a faded quilt and a pillow leaking stuffing. Surrounding it are shelves of things that have no significance to anyone but Bert: jars of bottle caps and pennies, a box of tail-light glass. Clothespins perch up on a wire, holding pictures of flowers and sunsets from magazines. An antique mirror leans on top of a file cabinet. The mercury is flaking from the back, and I can imagine Bert trying on different skins before it, like I would try on clothes.
“Is this your nest?” Callie chirps.
Bert sits on the edge of the hammock. “Yes. Yes, it’s my nest.”
She points to a jar of pennies on a shelf. It sits beside many other jars, separated by denomination: quarters, nickels, and dimes. “That’s a lot of money.”
I plunk down on the concrete floor. “Bert picks up any loose change on the floor.”
“It’s my nest egg,” he says. “Here...” He plucks a coin from an open jar. “Have you ever seen one of these?”
Callie stares at the silver coin in her palm, turns it over. “It has a buffalo on it. And an Indian.”
“Yes. Would you like to have it?”
“Yes, please!” Her hand closes over it. I wonder how many of her earthly belongings are left. It’s good that Bert’s giving her something physical to hold on to.
She picks up a mason jar of bottle caps. “You collect bottle caps, too? Like Bert on Ses
ame Street?”
Bert chuckles. “Yes. All of those are mine. I have some really old ones here somewhere...” He rises, rooting around to show off his treasures.
I sit quietly on the floor as Bert shows her metal bottle caps from brands of pop that are no longer manufactured. Bert lets her pick whichever ones she wants to keep. Bert shows no possessiveness or reluctance to show her. She peers into a box containing red and white glass.
“What’s this?”
“It’s glass,” he says with reluctance.
“From what?” She picks up a piece of ridged glass and stares through it.
“From car headlights and tail lights. From accidents.” Bert lowers his head.
“Why do you do that?”
Bert shrugs. “I think...I think it keeps bad luck away.” Bert’s a little compulsive. I’ve seen him combing the edges of the street after the police and tow trucks leave. I never pester him about that. I hope it doesn’t bother him that Callie is.
She stares at the red glass. “Maybe I should start doing that,” she declares solemnly.
“I’ll help you, if you want.”
Callie explores, chattering. Her fingers seem to want to crawl over every cigar box full of stones. Bert has some nice rocks: bits of quartz, amethyst, and chunks of turquoise. He gives her a piece of rose quartz that’s as big as her doubled fists and a cigar box to keep her treasures in. The cigar box has a picture of a woman in a Victorian dress on it. I suspect that this will be Callie’s jewelry box for the rest of her life.
She eventually stops looking at the things on the shelves and starts looking at the walls. They’re covered with vintage circus posters, showing elephants, tigers, and freakishly strong little men. There’s a bearded lady and a mermaid. Callie regards each one in turn before stopping at one behind his hammock. She points at it.
“Is that you?”
I follow her finger. She’s pointing at a man in armor brandishing a sword at a cowering dragon. It’s funny—I never really noticed that picture before. It’s old and faded...perhaps the clutter disguised it.
