As a Thief in the Night

by Chuck Crabbe

  Sarah brushed Ezra's hair back when she saw him and kissed his forehead. Her hand and lips said: From here we move on. Olyvia sat beside him on the couch while dinner was being prepared. She asked him questions that had nothing to do with what had happened, questions about football and girls and movies. When she got up to help she took his hand and squeezed it and the soft pressure was made of warmth and knowing. Elsie looked upon the comfort that her sisters provided him from a distance, approved of it, felt gratitude for it, but would play no part in making him feel better. Not yet. This was something he was going to have to sit in for a while, a struggle he was going to have to make his own, a cut he was going to have to feel, before she would do anything to ease his pain.

  By these and other signs Ezra saw that Sarah and Olyvia knew about the church theft. But the efforts his aunts made to help him only stung him all the more because he was undeserving of them. Ezra knew that his family saw this as a single act of misjudgment. They believed he had been led astray by Alex's charisma and that he, son of their lost and loved sister, had blindly, and maybe innocently, followed the older boy. They knew nothing of him!

  Images of his other secrets and transgressions, ones his family could not have even guessed at, paraded themselves before the horrified eye of his memory. The temptation to scream it all out, to give the Jekyll of his tale a voice with which to expiate his evil, to brand himself once and for all with all the hot iron of his guilt, seized his breaking heart. Get it all out and be done with it! Unloose the knots of lies you have tied with your cunning! Ezra had to resist the urge to throw himself down on the couch and writhe in his agony. His body wanted to twist violently, to tear at his surroundings, to throw itself about as if by a tormentor in some righteous punishment ritual. At least that would have satisfied his sense of justice. But he did none of these things. Instead he sat frozen, like some haunted soul in Dante's ninth circle, Judecca, at war with himself, waiting to sit down to Easter dinner with those who had been fooled into loving him.

  After dinner he watched a movie with the children while the adults had tea and coffee in the living room. Layne, Little Marty, and Rebecca all sat with him in the back. It was a long rectangular space at the back of the house, part of an addition that had been done at some point as a sort of summer room. There was no heating so space heaters had to be used during the cold. He looked round the room at his little brother and cousins. All of them sat peacefully, immersed in what was happening on the screen. He envied them and thought of all those nights that he had watched movies when they had first moved to Belle River. He had been peaceful then too, but it was a peace that he had always taken for granted, a possession he had never realized was his. Now he longed for that peace, like a treasure he had lost, just as through disease and injury we become conscious of the jewel of health, a precious stone we shut our eyes to until circumstance takes it from us.

  After everyone else had gone to sleep Elsie and Olyvia did the dishes together. They stood beside one another at the sink and Olyvia hummed to herself while Elsie dried. For a long time they did not talk and Elsie only listened to the soothing sound of the running water and her sister's voice.

  "You're playing again Lyv?" Elsie asked, finally easing out of the silence between them.

  "Yes. Twice a week with the Walpurgis orchestra, right by Parnassos actually."

  "Why now?"

  "Because I hear it in myself again."

  "The violin?"

  "No, music."

  "It doesn't get in the way of your work at the theatre?"

  "No," she paused and gathered herself, as if she were about to get to the point. "I don't want you to worry about the house, Elsie. I can take care of it on my own."

  "I know."

  "Good."

  "What are you guys working on?"

  "Who?"

  "The orchestra, I mean."

  "Oh, a piece played by Leon Fleisher written by Ravel, 'Piano Concerto for the Left Hand.'"

  "For the Left Hand?"

  "Fleisher lost the use of his right hand because of nerve damage. He plays the whole thing with his left."

  "Do you still love music, Lyv?"

  "I do."

  "That's good. You're lucky."

  They finished the dishes. Olyvia turned off the water but the tap still dripped and she tried to turn each faucet tighter.

  "It's okay," Elsie said, "it always drips." She hung the checkered cloth she had been using on the front of the stove and sat down at the kitchen table. "And how are you doing with everything else, Lyv?"

  "You mean since Ted left?"

  "Yeah," Elsie said gently.

  "I'm okay."

  "Really?"

  "Really. These people can't hurt me the way they used to."

  "You don't have to be strong in front of me. I know what you thought this one meant for you."

  "I did think that. But I'm not trying to be strong because I feel like I have to. I've become strong."

  "When?" Elsie asked. She thought of everything that had happened that weekend, and felt weak.

  "During hundreds of nights of loneliness and doubt and heartbreak that no one will ever guess at."

  "And now? What will you do now?"

  "Take care of your vines until you come back to them."

  "You're sure? I mean, and there's nothing critical in this, there's no one else?"

  "No, there's just me."

  "And you're okay with that?"

  "I am. I feel like I've finally grown into my own skin, like I've found the ground my feet belong on."

  "I'm glad Lyv, I really am." Elsie hugged her sister and told her that she loved her. "Remind me to give you some money before you leave," she said, after she let go.

  "For what?"

  "Flowers. I was hoping you could pick up some flowers and put them on his grave for me. Spring is coming."

  "Sure, I'll remind you."

  Elsie walked off to bed and Olyvia watched her disappear up the darkened stairs and into her bedroom.

  For a long time Olyvia sat by herself at the kitchen table looking out the window into the night. Finally she got up, turned off the lights, and as silent as a ghost snuck up the stairs and peaked inside the door at her sleeping nieces and nephews. The even sounds of their breath was the only thing she could hear. None tossed or turned or looked to be in the grips of dreams that disturbed their rest. Ezra was asleep on his side, on a bed against the far wall. Olyvia carefully stepped over Little Marty and Sarah, who were sprawled on the floor inside their sleeping bags. She knelt by the boy's bed. Ezra did not wake or stir, even when she gently placed her hand on his head. "Don't listen to them, Ezra," she whispered, running her hand slowly through his hair. "Don't listen. Sin boldly! We must sin to overcome ourselves, to evolve into that which we were meant to be. To transcend our sins, to become greater than them, is worth more than all the timid holiness they preach."

  The weeks that followed were very difficult for him. On the Tuesday that followed Easter Monday there was a story in the Windsor newspaper. The headline read:

  NOTHING HOLY FOR THIEVES

  Under the headline there was a picture of a cop with a dog. The article said that the dog had tracked them down and that the canine unit had solved the crime. Ezra had never seen the dog or heard mention of it. But the rest was there.

  Two young offenders, and an adult, eighteen year old Adam Nayeve, were charged early in the morning on Good Friday with break, enter, and theft. The three were arrested in connection with a break-in at Calvary Pentecostal Assembly in Belle River. Over three thousand dollars in church tithes was stolen and a valuable idol of Jesus Christ was destroyed. Church members spoke to the Star regarding the offence and...

  The paper could not name them and did not have to. It was no secret to everyone at school who the young offenders were. The story had spread through the halls early that morning, before he had arrived. Ezra had not wanted to go, but Gord and Elsie had forced him. All day students walked past him i
n the halls with their hands behind their backs, as if they were bound. Others threw themselves against the wall and spread their arms and legs to be searched.

  It often happens that the young criminal, among certain numbers of his peers, enjoys a degree of prestige when his crimes are published. But Ezra's crime had an element of the absurd that robbed it of its integrity. He walked around the school, his jester's cap on his head, and weathered the laughter and the occasional look of disgust. In English class he sat beside Tracy Sanichuk who was tall and thin with brown hair and fine features, and very beautiful. They were reading Macbeth and he had faked his way through most of it. After they finished reading out loud, Mrs. Perry put them to work.

  "Is it true Ezra?" Tracy asked him.

  "Is what true?"

  "What everyone is saying, about you and Alex and the church."

  "Yes."

  "Ezra, what were you thinking?" Her words were hard.

  "I don't know."

  "What did you guys do, break a window or something? It wasn't one of the stained glass ones, was it?" she asked, as if breaking a stained glass window would have been the height of sacrilege.

  "No, the door was open. We cut a hole in the wall to get into the office," he offered. She covered her mouth with her hand and her pretty brown eyes opened a little wider.

  "I don't even know how someone could do something like that."

  He had no answer for her.

  As soon as the bell rang he walked directly to his locker and gathered his things. He had to get out of there. Walking down the stairwell, among a noisy crowd of other students, he saw Nick Carraway coming up the other way. Nick's parents had no doubt condemned Ezra to the devil's care and forbidden their son to ever speak with him again. Ezra had been afraid that Nick would hate him, that he would see his act as an act against his family, and against their friendship. His stomach turned, and he wanted to go back the other way, but it was too late, he had already seen him. But none of what Ezra feared was on Nick's face as he approached him. Instead, he smiled at him and smacked him playfully on the shoulder. "Hi Ezra," he said with a smile. It was not a smile of shared mischief, but one of understanding and forgiveness.

  "Hey Nick."

  "Are you okay?" his friend asked, pausing for a moment and holding up everyone behind him.

  "Yeah, I'm okay."

  "Good. I'll see you tomorrow," Nick said with easy words. Then he bounded nimbly up the rest of the steps.

  Ezra smiled, and the smile felt strange on his face. It felt like the muscles in it had been cramped with sorrow for much longer than a few days. For a moment he was filled with his friend's small gesture and it occurred to him, for the first time, that perhaps all was not lost. He still had a friend. With that small and infinitely noble act, Ezra felt as Oscar Wilde must have when, condemned as a pervert and sinner, he left the courtroom bankrupt and disgraced and, from among the taunting masses, Robbie Ross stepped out of the crowd and took his hat off to him.

  On his way home from school Jason B. Prism stepped out in front of Ezra from one of the side streets. Ezra walked behind him, staring at the back of his tangled, matted dreadlocks. The street was wet and Jason didn't bother trying to avoid the puddles. His construction boots left their mark on the pavement and Ezra reached further than normal with each stride, absent-mindedly putting his own boot in each one of Jason's footprints. He looked more like a child at play than a sixteen-year-old.

  His lawyer told him that he should begin collecting letters of character reference for his defense. Gord and Elsie drove him to audiences with every adult of influence they knew. They went to Father Michael at the Anglican Church, to Coach Walsh at the high school, and to Al Ford, the police sergeant who had coached the minor football team. In front of each of them Ezra was forced to recount his crime. At certain points of his story he would break down into tears, his throat would seize up, and he would look to his aunt and uncle to continue for him. But of course they did not. They waited patiently until his tears subsided. When he was finished crying, they would gesture for him to make his request, and, the tale of his dire sin having been told, he would ask his confessor for a written letter extolling his virtues, his contributions to his community, and the unlikelihood of a young man with such excellence of character ever being led astray again.

  Led astray? Here Gord and Elsie sold him a lie about himself that they wanted to believe, and that he bought without believing. A fabrication that he then went out and sold to those he asked to write on his behalf. This was the lie: No evil lived in Ezra's heart. He had been a follower and a victim of Alex's charisma, deviance, and need. The older boy's experience and much more organic corruption was where the fault lay. Ezra's only real crime was that he had stolen the congregation's tithes with hands that had not listened to the honest promptings of his conscience; that, and blindness. Yes, it was a problem that he had followed, but not one with the same vilifying and threatening possibilities that other explanations brought with them. So Ezra kept the intoxication and thrill his crimes had given him a secret, and spoke the words they fed him. These were lies he wanted to believe about himself; each time he repeated them he silently hoped the repetition of the words would lull the memories of his lusts and greed to sleep, a slumber of forgetfulness and longed for peace of mind. He did not want to remember his darkness, but memory would not allow him to escape it.

  The other problem was disclosure. Details of the arrest, evidence, and statements had not yet been released to the accused. Alex didn't know yet that it had been Ezra and Adam that had given his name to the police. The day they had returned to school Ezra had moved his locker away from Alex's and had barely spoken to him since. But he could see that Alex believed that the only reason behind this was the court order against the two of them associating. Alex did not care about the court's orders. That spring, while Ezra reverted to silence and isolation, Alex continued on his downward spiral. His parents kicked them out their house and he moved in with Rick Riley, a boy a year or two older who dealt drugs and lived on student welfare in a run down upstairs apartment. A story was circulating that they had fed Rick's cat a hit of LSD and that it had jumped out the window and broken its neck when it hit the driveway. Alex had also been arrested again, apparently for stealing beer (to drink) and tools (to sell) from neighborhood garages. Anyway, his lawyer would eventually tell him how the police had found out he was involved in the church theft. He would find out that it had been Ezra and Adam. Then he would come after them.

  Elsie phoned her father. It had been almost fifteen years since she'd spoken to him and she did not know why she felt the need to talk to him now. Perhaps it was because she could now regard the abuse that she and her sisters had suffered from the perspective of an adult who understands, but does not condone, the mistakes of a parent.

  Somewhere, as a boy, in a house he had never spoken of, Harold Mignon had been inflicted with wounds no child should have to suffer. Then, as a man, a man with a broken child hidden within painful memories, those wounds had turned to cruel words, and even to blows brought down upon those he was supposed to love. For him, that he owned a successful vineyard, put a roof over his family's head, and provided food, well... that was more than he'd ever had.

  Each of us must make his own peace with those otherworldly people we call mother and father. All the strange force and conflict and love those words contain! For many this peace only comes after a long and painful war, a war that, for all the wonderful and well intentioned gifts our parents may have bestowed upon us, must be pitted in one's own heart. In many ways, it is a battle fought against all the magic costumes and false divinity the mind of a child invests their guardians with. But first we must have the courage and awareness to look. Once we have begun to see, then we must blame, and maybe even hate, the finger must be pointed, the stone must be cast. How have their faults, their blessings, their touch, hindered us? What struggles have they spared us? Which muscles have their course of action made strong and which at
rophied and made weak? How will we use what has been given, heal that which has been wounded, and pass on all that is full of hope? Where does the life our parents wish they had lived, their secret and still cherished fantasy, show up in our own steps? These are tasks on the long and painful journey to maturity and consciousness, and as anyone who has taken them in earnest can attest, ones that pose all the threats and perils of the night sea.

  Then the day comes when, as adults, our own faults and inadequacies as parents come to light. We see our own humanity in the flaws of our parents; circumstances their lives forced them to wrestle with distill our judgment and remove the sting of any bitterness we have felt toward them. Finally, and perhaps this where our real breaking away into adulthood occurs, we sympathize and understand and, most importantly, let go.

  Elsie felt like she was finally there. For her sisters it was different. Sarah had never been out of contact with the old man, she had never allowed herself to hate. Hate requires liberty, and she did not have that. Olyvia only hated. For her, hate for her father was a ladder; he was an opponent, but only one of many against which she pitted her art and made it grow strong and visionary.

  Elsie called, and he spoke to her like it had been days, not years, that had passed.

  "That's what I heard..."

  "Who told you? Sarah?"

  "Yes, your sister had to," he said, implying that she had been remiss. "A few years back now, wasn't it?"

  "It's coming up on three years now." Elsie waited for her father to make an excuse for not calling, but he did not make one.

  "And how is Gordon doing?"

  "He's doing good, Dad."

  "Where's he working these days?"

  "He's managing the terminal here in Windsor now. We moved here because of his promotion."

  "He's doing well for himself then."