by Laura Bickle
“Yeah. My dad said he was too busy working to show up.” Sid showed up for both of us, but it wasn’t the same. It still pisses me off that my dad couldn’t be bothered.
“Do you remember how the kids thought that samurai sword my dad brought in was the coolest shit ever? How Mrs. Carlisle made him put it back in the car, but she let him yell ‘I have the power!’ and ‘There can be only one!’ first? Do you remember how cool it was to see the kids passing around that shrunken head and that piece of pirate bullion? Dad told the story of the shipwreck and how shrunken heads were made. We were kings of the playground for months.”
“Yeah.”
“Let me refresh your memory. What our dads do is a helluva lot more interesting than most of the stuff the other kids’ dads do. Those dads lay bricks or cook food or count money or pump gas. Charlie’s dad is a mailman. Jimmy’s dad runs a hot dog truck. And Ray’s dad climbs up on telephone poles and tries not to get electrocuted. Ellen’s dad works in a chemical factory and watched his best friend get ground up in a machine.”
I swallow. Ellen’s dad told a story about how his co-worker got his hand caught in a press. When it came out, it was hamburger. He got a prosthetic hand after that. “Yeah. I remember.”
“What I’m trying to get at is...what our dads do for a living ain’t all that bad. And if that’s what I wind up doing...I’m okay with it. It sure beats flopping Whoppers at two a.m.”
“But don’t you want something more?” It sounds petulant when I say it. Like I’m talking about a fairy tale with pixie dust and the landscape just beyond the rainbow bridge.
“No. I have a life here.” He walks past me, toward the door. There’s a look of pity on his face. “And...I actually like my father, you know.”
The door bangs shut, leaving me staring at the newspaper, at pictures of somebody else’s dead kids. I ball it up in a fit of rage, twist and tear it, and jam it into the waste can. I kick the metal can for good measure, making a nice crashing sound and leaving a satisfying dent in the brushed steel.
I press my hands to my eyes, and that darkness is strangely soothing.
I KEEP TO MYSELF THROUGHOUT the day, listening to my teachers and writing down what they tell me to. I take a math test I know I did well on. I mess around enough with money in the shop that math isn’t hard at all. History’s easy for me, too. All I have to do is think about an object in the shop that’s the same vintage we’re discussing, and it makes it real for me. We’re discussing the ancient Greeks and Romans, and I can envision their gods and Caesars on dozens of coins.
And this gives me a helluva lotta time to think. I sit by myself at lunchtime. Carl is across the room, surrounded by his teammates. They go on trips and stuff together. Once, they even went camping.
It’s not that I don’t have friends. I do. Most importantly, I have Lily. And I have a couple of guys I like to hang out and play RPGs with. But Jacob is off sick with mono, and Steven got suspended for taking some Mary Jane to the last dance. It’s hard to be the Dungeon Master of none.
So I ruminate.
What if I really did take the money and go? What do I want to be when I grow up? Would I want to work in a museum? Be a historian? I might like that. It’s not so far afield from what we do now. Maybe be an archaeologist, like Indiana Jones. It would be fascinating to dig through the ruins of tombs to see what people in earlier eras valued. Or measure the length of dinosaur teeth encased in rock. I wonder what I could learn with my power in a situation like that...sensing more under the surface.
Then the pain in my stomach reminds me that I don’t deserve better than anybody else. What makes me think I deserve a bazillion years of college and all that debt in order to sweep dust off desiccated fingers? What makes me better than Mrs. Renfelter, flopping burgers on the griddle? What makes me better than my dad, wheeling and dealing for a buck?
The answer is...nothing.
I just want more. And I feel like an immature child for wanting it. For being willing to take the risk. Most of all...I want to live.
That ache stays with me through the whole afternoon, through biology and chemistry. I decide to blow off calculus in last period.
I keep walking down the glass corridors of the school when the bell rings. The school was built in the 1960s. Supposedly, it was one of the most modern schools ever at the time. They never fit it for air conditioning, never finished a lot of things. It sprawls with glass arms from one building to another. Pretty darn inefficient. But easy to get lost in.
I step outside the fifth building, down where the teachers used to smoke before it was banned on campus. From here, I can get a good view of the football field. Carl’s probably down there, doing wonders in gym class. Having a life.
I hike to the fourth building, almost empty at this hour. Music tinkles somewhere behind the grass, and I follow it. Piano. I don’t know much of anything about music, but I know when it makes me want to stop and listen. When my heart slows or quickens to the tempo. And this is Lily’s music.
The windows and back door to the music room are open, letting the breeze in and the music out. I hover on the concrete pad by the back door, trying to listen without being seen. Inside, the room’s nearly empty of people. It’s cluttered with instruments and black stands, gathered in cases and pressed against the wall. Plastic chairs are stacked on top of one another on the scarred floor.
The music teacher is at her desk, scribbling something on paper with a red pen. I’ve hated every music teacher I’ve ever had, and they all hate me. They’ve always been a series of stuck-up, disapproving bitches, perpetually pregnant, with short church-lady hair. I wanted to play trumpet when I was in fifth grade. My dad got me a second-hand trumpet that someone lost on pawn, and I joined band. The band teacher gave me a ridiculous amount of shit for not going to the school testing program to determine which instrument ‘aptitude’ I had and allowing them to assign me an instrument. She also bitched at me for having a second-hand instrument and not wanting to march in stupid parades. I refused every single one of them. Learning to play an instrument, to me, wasn’t about standing around in hundred-degree heat behind the VFW.
So, yeah. My music career was short. Mercifully short.
But not Lily’s. She’s hunched over the teacher’s piano, playing. It sounds like all the birds in the city, the pigeons, the crows, and the sparrows, got real orderly and are singing in perfect time.
I close my eyes to listen. Lily has a gift. It would be a shame if she’d never be able to do anything with it, if all her music drained away in burger grease.
“Girl’s got a gift,” a voice says, as if reading my thoughts. “It’d be a shame if her hands were broken.”
My eyes snap open and fix on the figure of Young Don, leaning against the brick wall.
Shit.
CHAPTER 20
“What are you doing here?”
I take a step back, stammering. The wall stops me, cool on my back. I glance right and left, thinking about running. My sweat-slick fingers start winding the watch my dad gave me. I hope this just looks like a nervous gesture. Once...twice...
Young Don opens his hands as if he’s trying to calm a wild animal. He looks like he’s alone, though I’m pretty sure there are weapons somewhere in his shiny gray suit. “Relax, man. I’m just here to talk.”
“What about?” My voice sounds embarrassingly squeaky, like I’m twelve. It’s probably far too late to feign ignorance, but I don’t have a better strategy.
“Business.” Young Don reaches slowly into his jacket pocket. He comes up with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He taps a cigarette out and sticks in his mouth. He offers me one.
I’m not sure what the etiquette is for this. I nod and take it. He lights his cigarette first, then mine, from a Zippo lighter decorated in skulls. Classy.
Young Don inhales smoke, blows it out in a string that looks a lot like a dragon. “Your father and I were unable to reach an agreement on the hourglass.”
I nod, puffing at the cigarette. My eyes water, but this is probably better than getting shot. Short-term and long-term odds.
Young Don continues. “So I come to you, the son. You see...I know how these things work. The old men grow older and step aside. The young men are left to manage the day-to-day dealings of the business.”
“Oh?” I have no idea what the correct response is.
Young Don nods. In sunlight, he looks younger than I first thought. His face is smooth, and I guess him to be in his early twenties. Not so much older than me. “It happened with me and my father. He got sick. He’s chained to his bed and does not have long to live.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s difficult, taking the reins of the organization. The old men don’t respect me. The young men want only money and bloodshed. Power isn’t handed down easily. It must be earned.”
I’m shocked at his honesty. I puff without inhaling and let him talk.
Young Don shrugs. “If I was a complete and utter bastard, I’d let him die. Take everything. It’s not as if my father would win any awards for Father of the Year. Still. He is my father.”
“I understand.” I think I do.
“So you understand that my interest in the hourglass is not idle power-mongering. I have a reason.” He smiles. His teeth are bleached whiter than chalk. “And I know you have your own reasons. Your grandfather is sick.”
I nod. “He is. It’s his heart.”
“I understand that this will be a difficult decision for you, then,” Young Don says. Smoke leaks in tendrils from his lips. “And I’m not without empathy. But I feel it’s my duty to explain the larger picture to you.”
I bristle a bit at that, but tamp it down. Anytime anyone’s tried to explain ‘the big picture’ to me, it’s been a condescending effort to say: You’ll get it when you’re older.
“The world runs on actions and reactions. Many moving parts. Forces at work that we can see and those that are invisible. Working in the pawn shop, I imagine you know some of what that means.”
“I think so.”
“Good. Then you’ll understand that I’ve revealed part of the machinery to you. Part of my reasoning. The other part, about actions and reactions...is about equality. Revenge. Like for like.”
The smoke in my mouth is very cold.
“The man who died in your shop asked for it, quite frankly,” Young Don says. “He was being rude. And he’s been a problem to me. But Mel was not.”
I hold the smoke behind my lips.
“He was a good friend to my father. Like an uncle to me. So you’ll understand that I’m deeply disappointed that he’s dead.”
“I had nothing to do with that. It was...the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Young Don watches me, staring at me with pale eyes the color of a hawk’s. I feel like my heart is being weighed against a feather.
“I don’t know if you’re being entirely truthful with me, Erasmus.”
I stifle a shudder at him uttering my name.
“And I never really can know, you understand,” he says. “I can only go by what the men who were there have said. Under duress, of course.”
My sweaty shirt is sticking to my back. I imagine them with their hands cut off, bleeding to death. “I saw that. In the newspaper.”
“I still haven’t spoken with two of them. I will.”
“I have no doubt.” I keep thinking about the money. He hasn’t mentioned it. I don’t know what to say. Less seems better.
Young Don nods. “I think you must also understand what I can do for you. Both in my actions and choosing not to act.”
I swallow. The cigarette is burning down to an ember. I drop it on the concrete, crush it out with my shoe.
“You’re in a position to have many things of power over time. Many things I can make use of, in my line of work. I can make this a very lucrative partnership. You and me, out of our fathers’ shadows. I can do many good things for your shop. Money. Power.”
My tongue sticks to the back of my throat. “I never...I never thought about...” I falter.
“You could be a prince of the city, if you wish. An ally. You and your cousin Carl.”
“Wow. That’s...humbling.” And terrifying.
“I can do many things on your behalf. Similarly...I can choose not do to things that will harm you and yours. I can choose to believe you and your cousin had nothing to do with Mel’s death. That you were simply there, and that us meeting this way is serendipity. Fate.” Young Don gestures with his cigarette through the window at Lily. “And I can also choose not to break a pianist’s fingers.”
“Please don’t.” My voice is low, both a plea and a growl. “You got your money. Leave her out of this.”
Young Don scrubs his cigarette out on the wall. It makes an ugly black mark on the light brick. “Then you know where you stand. You know where I stand. Decide accordingly.”
He flicks the cigarette butt into the grass and walks away. I watch him walk past the football fields with a glance at the people lining up for gym, Carl among them. He gets into a glossy black SUV parked at the curb and drives away.
The piano music echoes in my ears, but all I can think is: I’m fucked.
I DON’T FEEL OLD ENOUGH to be making life and death decisions. Deep down, I feel like a child, playing at games I don’t understand. When we were little, Carl and I played checkers by our own rules. We didn’t really understand that we weren’t playing by the rules that everyone else did. The rules were sort of the same—but we didn’t force each other to make jumps. But we didn’t understand the finer nuances when we were playing with our dads, and invariably got our asses kicked.
Bert comes for Carl, Lily, and me with the ice cream truck at 3:30. The truck waits on the curb. We walk through a corridor of snickers to get there. I should feel the heat rising in my face and the weight of their stares, but I feel oddly disconnected from my body as we walk, as if I’m floating above it. Thinking of other things, things more important than my immediate humiliation at the hands of the merry reptile driving the truck.
I don’t tell Carl about Young Don coming to see me on the ride back. I’m not sure I should. It’s strange, like something’s moved between us after our conversation this morning. I see him a bit differently now, as if he’s playing by nonsensical adult rules. We ride in silence, sliding back and forth on the stainless-steel bench seats, not looking at each other.
I don’t know what Carl thinks, but I’m ruminating on Young Don’s offer. If I’m honest with myself, I’m tempted. Young Don seems like a snake with a handshake. Part of me is thinking maybe I could deal with him, especially if it would protect the girls. Though this would be my own deal with the devil, if I went that way.
Maybe I’m more like my dad than I think.
We pile out of the truck in front of Betty’s Burgers. My dad meets us at the curb with Mrs. Renfelter, Rose, and Callie.
“The electrician just finished the second floor,” my dad says. “The GC says it’s going to be habitable by tonight.”
A smile breaks out over Lily’s face. The kind of smile I remember before all this happened. “Really?”
“C’mon. Let’s take a look.”
I hate it when my dad does this. When he pretends to be a good, upstanding citizen to everyone else but the people he lives with. He does weird-ass shit like this on impulse, things that stroke his ego and make him look like a big man. But I know the truth. He’s really an asshole. I mean, I’m happy he’s helping the girls. But it’s not all out of altruism.
Maybe I’m being petty. Or just jealous.
My dad leads us through the first floor, where a phalanx of men worked on replacing steel appliances in the kitchen and painting fresh drywall. It smells very little of fire now...just paint and dust from the saws. We file up the back staircase to the apartment above. The girls go first, Callie in the lead. She scrambles up to the second floor. It doesn’t look like it did before. Fresh drywall, all paint
ed light yellow. There’s new carpet, an almost-white shag that looks like snow. A security system’s been installed, with glass-break sensors in their white plastic housings studding the walls unobtrusively. Callie runs for her room. We follow.
It’s not the same. White carpet stretches under her bed and the one dresser that could be saved. Plush toys fresh from the Laundromat are arranged on top of the bed, covered by a new pink bedspread. I notice that Bert’s unconsciously arranged the predators, the bears and wolves, in front of the prey, the deer and the piglets. The closet’s partially open, showing some clothes with tags dangling from them. The windows are also open to air out the last of the fire smell. The dollhouse Lily made is missing. It’s probably in a soggy heap in a Dumpster in the alley.
Callie flops down on the bed, hugging her plush dog to her chest. “Mr. Snuffles! Thank you!”
“Bert picked out the bedspread,” my dad says. “For a Jersey boy, he has a strange eye for color.”
Callie splays her fingers over the pink flowered fabric. “I love it!” She runs to Bert and wraps her arms around his waist.
She’s happy to be home. So are all the girls. Rose and Mrs. Renfelter open doors on similarly yellow-painted rooms with plush carpet, exclaiming over the pretty drapes. Bert is bashfully asking what they think about toile, whatever the fuck toile is. I’m pretty sure that knowledge would shrink my testicles.
Lily pauses before the door to her room. Her eyes are closed, and I wonder if she’s remembering the fire, if she sees that bad memory playing out behind the dark curtain of her eyelids the way I see with the Bunko.
I stand beside her, taking her hand. “It’ll be okay,” I mumble.
She draws a deep breath and opens the door.
It’s the same as the other rooms, like a new apartment, with the white carpet and yellow walls. Bert has tried to make it like Lily—a purple glittery bedspread covers the new bed. And he’s found a pretty lamp with long fringe to put on the night table.
