Titus stared at the ground for a while with his jaw set and embers burning beneath skin. “That’s not a thing to say,” he said flatly as he rose. “My pins are twinkling, Icaruses. Think I’m fixing to pay my taxes.” He hobbled to his bed and zipped himself into his sleeping bag.
At times the boys would stifle laughter when the randomness of Titus’s utterances landed in the realm of the comic, yet sometimes a switch flicked inside him and his moods took dark swerves, his hissing voice assuming a too-loud, desperate quality, the way people speak when they’re wearing headphones. At these times the very same words became frightening, portentous.
While Titus slept, they’d searched every inch of the workhouse for clues: the hexagon boots, handwriting that matched the sign, any trace of Marcus—yielding nothing. But despite its desolation, Will preferred the elevator almost more than he did Jonah’s house. Maybe it was because his uncle and grandfather had both worked and died here that Will felt some manner of bone-deep connection to it. Or maybe it was because there was nobody to tell them what to do or to worry about them. MacVicar had said that boys frequented these abandoned places—old mills, mines, and derelict cabins—because they needed to be alone. Which was probably the only thing he’d ever been right about. Because, Will was discovering, the Outside’s most forgotten areas were both the perfect places to hide and the perfect places to grow up.
Relaxation Time
It was loosed upon her now. Like that day on the subway platform, floodgates blown open, her thoughts a maze with no openings or exits.
Her son returned home each day from school smelling like Theodore and Charlie had after work: grease, sweat, sawn lumber, and grain—the only explanation was that her fear was inventing this. But canned food had been disappearing faster than she could order it. Perhaps Will was donating it to a shelter or some organization that ministered to the poor. Though she doubted it. She’d even found the bread knife tucked in his backpack. But what could she do? Forbidding him hadn’t worked. If he ran away, she couldn’t even go out and look for him. She’d have to rely on MacVicar, whose track record for locating children wasn’t legendary.
All her tricks to deactivate thinking had failed, like old clunky jokes that nobody laughed at anymore. The elastic. Will’s artwork. Her guitar. She could no longer read. Not even page-turners. Certainly not mysteries. It was like trying to soak up water with a piece of plastic wrap. The terror was as ceaseless now as her heart beating.
She’d tried to appease her spiraling thoughts, reason with them, flee from them, but her methods had betrayed her in the end. Fear had been festering inside her, and all her efforts to contain, quell, and suppress it had only incubated and nourished it.
So it came to this. It would be no permanent thing. Not like the basement. She simply felt safe in her room. She’d been wearing the same malodorous robe for a week, unwashed dishes tucked under her bed, a greenish frizz around the dregs of vegetable soup, toupees of blue floating in unfinished yogurt cups. She’d carted the phone to her night table to order groceries. With Will gone, she convinced the regular deliveryman to accept a key so he could place the bags far enough inside the door that she could reach them. She’d innovated a method to get to the washroom or retrieve packages without falling into a hole, which involved drinking half a bottle of codeine cough syrup—luckily they delivered these by the case—and darting for the door.
But it wouldn’t be permanent. Eventually fear would release her, would retreat as it always had before, and she’d be bold enough to again roam her own house as freely as her son now roamed the outside world.
That night, panting in her bed with no Relaxation Apparatus or other means to defend herself, she was accosted with the sense that there were parts of the story she’d been leaving out. The night before Charlie died. She remembered walking at Whalen’s request up the hill in a bedlam of sleet to his house. His father was away on business, so he brought her inside. They sat in his dressed-up parlor on separate chairs. He made no move to embrace, blaming the dusty work clothes he already had on, identical to Charlie’s, but she could see now that this was an excuse, that the private world between them had already started to close.
Whalen said that according to the crew who worked the day shift that morning, there’d come an odd pinging from one of the cables that held the grain cars aloft while they were flipped, like the high strings of ten violins plucked once. There’d been a heated debate over whether the entire counterweight mechanism had lowered an inch. Whalen said he’d told Charlie, but her brother wasn’t worried. “He’s determined to get this boat loaded before the freeze,” Whalen said. “He said it’s the only way he’ll get the money to take care of you when he leaves for school next year.”
Whalen took her hand and kissed her, and she told him she’d try. On her walk home she realized that with no engineer in Thunder Bay, they’d have to call one in from Duluth to check the cable. And even with an engineer, changing a cable of that gauge meant two days of downtime. If those two didn’t unload that boat tomorrow night, for another entire year she’d be bringing Charlie’s suppers, enduring his angry tirades, listening to his sad wheeze, all while sneaking around with Whalen as the secrecy of their meetings poisoned them for good.
She returned home and said nothing to her brother about the cable. The next day, she thanked him for all his hard work and packed him two of his favorite sandwiches. “You and Whalen better hurry if you want that boat loaded before the freeze,” she said, her eyes fixed on his dust-covered boots.
Yes, she’d done her part to doom Charlie, she admitted this now while weeping into her sheets. But please let her not fail Will. Let her not be selfish like she’d been that night. Her son was too full of life, too robust, too valuable, to be taken from her. But too valuable not to be.
How was it that to give a child life was to, on the very same day—even before you could lay eyes upon their slick, purple bodies—have already given them their death?
20
Whether it was because Titus had beaten his infection or was eating regularly or drinking unblighted water, or simply that the boys had grown accustomed to his pureed speech patterns, Will couldn’t say, but he was making more sense. “I been out of people practice,” he offered once when Will was fixing him a sandwich on his mother’s freshly thawed bread, which Titus always requested. “I got a hard time sticking words into things, sticking things into words.”
With his wounds mending and the swelling reduced, Titus could stand with crutches he’d fashioned from two oars, though he still seemed an inch from collapse. Jonah had eyed Titus’s recovery closely, as one would a rousing sea monster. Then the day came when Titus could ambulate with only one crutch. “Remember when you said that once he’s better and completely dangerous again, we’re out of here?” said Jonah. “Well, he’s better.”
“But what if Marcus comes back like he said?” said Will. “What if he gets the money for his boat and needs Titus to help him?”
“Marcus never said anything to me about a boat. So who knows if Titus is telling the truth. He may have hallucinated the whole thing,” Jonah said. “By now Marcus is either already dead or he’s left Thunder Bay forever. There’s not much room left in between.”
“He could still be hiding? Another shack, farther out? We could go exploring.”
“Have you got any letters from school lately?” Jonah said.
“My mom is afraid of mail, remember?”
“Well, I have. They’re sending me to Templeton next year—you know, the school for future inmates? They said I’m not participating and missed too many days. So I’m out.”
“What about medical school?” Will gasped.
Jonah shook his head, and his face flushed. “I don’t think Templeton is an institution that really screams doctor material on your application,” he said, his head hanging. “It’s mostly Indians there, so they’ll probably take their time before they ship you, too, Will. But it’ll happen soon enough if we don’
t go back.”
“Let them. We’ll be together. You can teach yourself to be a doctor,” Will said. “I never liked school anyway. I only went there to find Marcus. But now Titus is our only lead. Something’s going to happen soon. I can feel it.”
“We did a good thing and took care of him. You were right about that. But anyone who talks about blood that much doesn’t have at least a little on their hands. What if in one of his moods Titus did something to Marcus and doesn’t even remember? And even if he didn’t, he’s still dangerous. So I’m out of here, and you’re coming with me.”
At the thought of losing his only friend, Will was swamped with a great weariness. He’d been investigating the Outside for so long, but he knew he still lacked the courage to face it alone.
“Okay,” Will said. “You’re right. He is more dangerous now. We can stake the place out, watch him from a distance.”
While they were packing up their tape player and tools and backpacks on the Distribution Floor, Titus crutched his way in. “Getting scarce,” he said nodding. “I do appraise you Icaruses tending to me while I was downtrodden. That was a queasy one. And I’ve liked spectating this little war you’ve manufactured for yourselves,” he said, gesturing to the ramps. “But I divine that you Icaruses might be interested in some extraneous travails before you scatter.”
“You mean work?” said Will. Beside him, Jonah crossed his arms.
“Here is three hundred dollars each,” Titus said, pulling six bills from his parka. “That’s for deeds you already completed. You boys can appropriate some new roller platforms.”
“Skateboards,” said Jonah as Will plucked the bills carefully. It was more cash than he’d held in his life, not counting his mother’s checkbook.
“And I’m financing each Icarus three hundred more when this new act’s through,” said Titus.
“What’s the job?” said Will.
“Stealing from people’s yards?” said Jonah, and Will shot him a look.
“Not succinctly,” Titus said. “A task Marcus didn’t stay put to see out. But I’ll have to exhibit it to you.”
Will dragged Jonah aside. “We can save the money for when we move to California to skate all year long,” Will whispered enthusiastically. “If anything happens, we’ll run. This could be what we’ve been waiting for.”
“I’m just curious when exactly you got crazier than Marcus?” Jonah said, shaking his head, running the money between his fingers, before he agreed.
They exited the workhouse through the boiler and began their climb down, during which Titus coughed and spat from every open window. After a few flights, Titus’s breathing grew increasingly pained, his face ashen as the elevator’s walls. At the bottom, Titus doubled over and muttered curses between long gasps. When he recovered, they passed an open grain chute that Jonah kicked a piece of rubble into. A chilling sound issued from deep below, like rushing water.
“Rats,” said Titus. “A majority in the bins now. Only takes a pair to tumble down to birth a hive. With no exit they’re chomping their way to the floor of all that forgotten grain. When they arrive there they’ll have at each other. Don’t go falling in, Icaruses. After nothing but stale wheat berries for decades, they’ll be game for some protein.”
They trudged Outside through muddy snow, past the towering disused iron-ore dock and the shuttered shipbuilding yard down by the river mouth. During the walk, Titus fell quiet, carefully planting his crutch in the slush. Soon they passed another elevator, like Pool 6 in design, but smaller.
Titus pointed his crutch upward. “I toiled down here as a whelp. A single of those bins can hide the yearly output of a hundred farms. That’s millions of bushels—all told,” he said asthmatically. “During the war, we were the only zone shipping wheat anywhere. Feeding the entire sphere! How’s that, Icaruses?”
“Fascinating,” said Jonah, and Will was relieved that Titus’s particular insanity made him mostly numb to sarcasm.
“Now look at us,” Titus said, gesturing incomprehensibly. Will wasn’t sure if he was referring to himself or Thunder Bay. “Only enough grain to keep the Butler’s stills going.”
“Wait, you worked here? In the elevators? My uncle and my grandfather both did, too,” Will said as they walked. “Did you know my uncle, Charlie Cardiel?”
Titus nodded and dropped his gaze.
“What was he like?”
“Oh,” Titus said, “he was tethered. And he banged up some of the populace he shouldn’t have. But he was just a colt. And would’ve atoned for it if allowed the timeline.” After that he fell quiet again. They pressed farther, crossing a rail junction where some men with a few large dogs communed next to a pile of burning garbage near the tracks, stealing predatory glances at their group.
“Is that the Butler?” Will said, flash frozen, hazarding a glance in their direction.
“Nope,” Titus said without looking over. “Those hobgoblins don’t exist.” Then he coughed loudly, his breathing a burst air mattress. “This is us here,” he said, leading them into an abandoned structure of crumbling brick, a hundred feet back from the lake. Inside was a busted ecosystem of garbage and gears and decomposing gulls and rusty clutter, as though the factory had been perfectly repurposed to manufacture squalor. They passed through a warren of unlit hallways and came to a steel door, on top of it a small window.
“Who yearns for a boost?” Titus said.
Will and Jonah regarded each other.
“Is this the job Marcus was supposed to do for you?” said Jonah.
“A fashion like it,” Titus said.
“Well,” Jonah said, “let’s get this over with. Safer in there than out here with you two nutters.” Will lifted Jonah’s foot, and he vaulted gracefully through the opening above.
Will stood in the hallway, body tensed and ready to sprint, while Titus swayed like a chopped-at tree.
“You needed Marcus to unlock this from the other side, huh?” Jonah said when he opened the door before them, but Titus didn’t answer as he plunged Inside. Long tables and rusty chairs crowded the big room, which may have once been a cafeteria. Some windows overlooked the junk-drawer factory floor through which they’d just passed. “Those rubber?” Titus said, pointing at their wrecked skateboard shoes that they insisted on wearing throughout winter. “Hope so,” he said. “Still some living wires snaking about.”
Titus hobbled over to a tarp and drew it back to reveal a large stash of garden hoses—mostly green, some black, and a few orange—coiled neatly together. “I need you Icaruses to link these up. The lot of them. These go betwixt,” he said, tossing a paper bag of what looked like hundreds of rubber gaskets. “At conclusion I want a mythic snake. No leaks, so make sure to twist tight.”
“Marcus got you all these?” Jonah said.
“He was a persistent helper.”
“But what’re they for?” asked Will.
Titus turned to the wall. “A chore I should’ve perpetuated a long time ago,” he said with an empty look, as though reading some instructions on the inside surface of his eyes. “But I got an agenda to communicate with,” he said making for the door as the boys began untangling lengths of hose. “Rally in the workhouse when you’re through. The work should do you a kindness,” he said, leaving.
Wordlessly the boys set to their task. Maneuvering the hoses while keeping them from kinking or twisting was difficult, and getting the threads to match up required more precision than they’d expected.
“I knew it would be the hoses,” Will said, thrilled.
“We’re still leaving after this,” Jonah said, lifting a heavy coil.
“Would you rather be listening to Mrs. Gustavson talk about how creative her cats are right now?” Will asked, referring to the art class they’d endured the last time they’d attended school for a full day, two weeks ago now.
They worked through lunch, until hunger left them and their stomachs fell into an eerie quiet. “You ever sleep Outside in the woods like Marcu
s?” Will asked, to keep his mind occupied.
“No,” Jonah said. “Gideon always wants to take me up into the bush to teach me stories and hunting and traditional medicines, but I don’t like camping. It’s too creepy. Too exposed. Skateboarding and school are the only reason I go out.”
Exhausted, they left the job partly done and didn’t see Titus again that day. The boys cut school for two consecutive days to finish the project, their forearms deadened from hand-screwing the hundreds of coils together. On the last day, they discovered six crisp hundred-dollar bills rolled up and tucked in the final hose. They jammed the money into their underwear before gathering their skateboards and venturing back out onto the harborfront.
“The real mystery here is what Darth Hobo plans to do with the mother of all hoses,” Jonah said.
“That’s what I can’t figure out. Maybe he’s going to turn Pool Six into one big vegetable garden,” Will joked.
“Pffffffttt,” said Jonah as they turned the corner against a brick structure, its paint detaching in scales. “Not likely.”
“Be careful there, boys!” a man said sharply after they’d nearly run into him. “What’s the big hurry?” He had white hair and a soft voice and two leashless wolves panting at his heels. The Bald Man was beside him, shovels clutched in each of their hands, sharpened silver by use, bright as starlight. Near them another man pushed a wheelbarrow with something large in it, covered by an electric blue tarp. Will mumbled an apology and made to go around.
“You two boys look tired,” the Butler said, stepping in front of Will with a look of concern. His skin was pale as halibut, his hair, a tempest of ivory cowlicks, like an illustrated ocean in one of Will’s old storybooks. Despite his age, his face was strangely boyish, with an underlying pinkness and baby-soft cheeks that appeared polished. “Don’t they look tired?” he said to the Bald Man. “Been working hard, have you boys?” asked the Butler. “Parched? Would you care for some water?”
If I Fall, If I Die Page 23