The Scavengers

by Michael Perry

  After the grocery, we stop at the hardware shop for leather repair supplies, the tailor shop for thread, and the diner, where we unload more of Arlinda’s pies and Tilapia Tom’s fish. At each stop, we leave with another signed and circled number on a piece of paper. Toad folds each note and keeps it in his pocket.

  Finally, Toad pulls the Scary Pruner to the curb before a three-story brick building with tall, narrow windows on each floor. A large hand-painted sign nailed above the door reads “MAGICAL MERCANTILE.” We unload the whirligig crates and stack them on the sidewalk. When we’re ready to carry them inside, I climb back aboard the Scary Pruner, open the hidden compartment beneath the seat, remove the bundle of rags hiding Porky Pig, and tuck him in the bottom of my pack.

  Stepping inside Magical Mercantile is like stepping into a museum inside a circus inside an antique store. The floors are made of long, narrow boards that make creaky squeaks when I step on them. Each room is filled wall to wall with long wooden tables, and along the walls there are shelves that go clear to the ceiling and can only be reached by wooden ladders hung on rolling rails. The shelves and tables are stacked with everything you can imagine and even more things you can’t imagine: one-armed dolls, patched rubber boots, plastic silverware, board games in beat-up boxes, books, mismatched dice, used paintbrushes, cans of half-used paint, thumbless mittens, jars of broken crayons, half-empty bags of balloons, colored drinking straws, and a thousand other odd things.

  “Toad Hopper!”

  I look up just in time to see a short, bright-eyed man leap from the top stair of the second floor and slide down the wooden banister. It’s Mad Mike, the owner of Magical Mercantile. He is wearing a green eyeshade, a pair of bright orange coveralls, a polka-dotted bow tie, and ballet slippers. Toad says Mad Mike wears the ballet slippers because he’s always running up and down those three sets of stairs from floor to floor, and heavy boots would add up. Other people say Mad Mike was once a circus acrobat. The way he leaps off the banister and lands lightly on his feet, it could be true.

  “Whaddya got?” says Mad Mike, skipping around behind a long counter.

  We arrange our crates and Mad Mike digs through them eagerly, commenting now and then. “These mini-boomerangs are real hot sellers! Kids love these kaleidoscopes!” After he inspects each new item, he scribbles on his list. But this time, just before he circles the final number, I cover it with my hand. “Hold on,” I say. “I’ve got one more thing.”

  I reach into my pack and pull out my carefully wrapped treasure.

  18

  “PORKY PIG!” SAYS MAD MIKE, THE MOMENT I REMOVE THE RAGS. It’s a race between his eyes and his grin to see which can go wider. “Oh-ho-ho! That’s a beauty!”

  I hand him the pig and he studies it from every angle. “Porky! I haven’t seen him in years!”

  Then he looks at me. “You just dug this up?”

  “Yep,” I say. “Just dug it up.”

  He places it on the counter and stares at it, cocking his head this way and that. Finally, he scribbles a number on a piece of paper and hands it to me.

  The number is bigger than I could have dreamed.

  But I am Ford Falcon. Falcons have clear vision and know when to go in for the kill. When I saw the excitement in Mad Mike’s eyes, I knew I really had something. I stare at the number and suck slowly on one tooth so it makes a long, sad, squeaky sound. Toad taught me that move. It’s a way to give yourself a little time to think, and also to make the other person worry about losing the deal. Finally I make a face like someone just offered me a dish of cold fiddleheads and shake my head.

  “Who else you gonna sell it to?” says Mad Mike.

  “Oh, I’m gonna sell it to you,” I say, “but for twice that.” I’m bluffing, because he’s right, no one else will buy this pig, but I also know from the look on his face that he already has this pig sold.

  “Hmm . . . ,” says Mike, looking at the pig again. Now he has his poker face on, but it’s too late. I guess maybe he thought he was dealing with some sweet little girl. Mad Mike, meet Ford Falcon.

  “You need me, I need you,” I say. “Give me a good number.”

  Mad Mike crosses out the old number and scribbles a new one. On the inside, my heart leaps. But on the outside I don’t show a thing.

  I suck my tooth again and make Mad Mike wait a little. Then I point to a red rubber ball on the shelf behind his head. “Throw in one of those for my little brother,” I say, “and we have a deal.”

  Mad Mike takes the paper, circles the number, and signs his name. As he turns to get the rubber ball, Toad jabs me in the ribs and whispers, “Well played, Ford Falcon.”

  I grin, and sneak another peek at the number. Even though there was a lot of luck in finding that pig, I feel proud, because if I hadn’t been down there digging it wouldn’t have happened. Now I will be able to buy extra supplies to help my family. Before we leave I will stop back at the grocery to buy salt and sugar and molasses. At the hardware store I’ll get sulfur matches, a good soup ladle for Ma, and a pickax for Dad. I’ll even buy a sack of hard candy for my snot flicker of a brother, Dookie. A little treat to go with the red rubber ball.

  But first, there is something else.

  “Mad Mike, I need to buy some tea.”

  I could just buy some tea at the grocery, but it’s plain old stuff and usually stale. Not only does Mad Mike have tea that is fresh, he has tea in tins. Pretty tins, decorated with scrolls and designs and frilly letters, just like you’d want if you were going to brew up a batch and settle in with a book. Even in the hardest of times, you’d be amazed at what you can find if people want it bad enough. And if you want something odd or hard to get, Mad Mike is your man. The heavy steel-toed boots on my feet right now came from Magical Mercantile. The sulfur and saltpeter Toad uses to make his Whomper-Zooka powder come from Mad Mike. There are rumors that if you want guns, Mad Mike can get those, too. How Mad Mike gets ahold of some of these things is anybody’s guess. He may be a tad shifty in his wheelings and dealings, but he’s good at what he does.

  “Whaddya have in mind?” says Mad Mike. All of a sudden he’s all perked up again, like a fox that spots a mouse. Or like he’s the falcon.

  “Earl Grey,” I say. “For my ma.”

  “Oh boy,” he says, heaving a sigh. “It’ll cost ya.” He speaks regretfully, shaking his head as if each word is breaking his heart. At least he doesn’t suck his tooth.

  “I know. But lucky me, I sold an overpriced pig earlier today, so I’m loaded.” Toad grins and elbows me again. But Mad Mike is grinning too. The one thing a wheeler-dealer likes to do is wheel and deal.

  Mad Mike disappears into the back room, returning with a small square container. It’s deep black and trimmed in dark red and bright silver. He hands it to me, and the tin feels glossy smooth against my palm. On the front a scroll is unfurled like a banner, and inside the scroll, in golden letters that are pressed into the tin so I can feel them with my fingertips, are the words “Earl Grey Tea.”

  We dicker over the price a little, but I let Mad Mike off pretty easily. I can buy a lot of tea with what he paid me for that pig. He wraps the tin in a soft cloth, and then a paper bag. As I carry it out the door I think of Ma and how she’ll smile when she sees it and I figure it’s worth all the Porky Pigs in the world.

  I do the last of my shopping, picking up the things for Ma and Dad and the candy for Dookie, then Toad and I take our BarterBucks to Banker Berniece. She’s a small, quiet woman with her hair up in a tight bun who always wears a man’s suit and tie and sits behind a huge wooden desk that makes her look even smaller. The desk sits squarely in front of the gigantic bank vault door with polished steel handles and big dials and thick brass hinges. This makes Banker Berniece look tinier still.

  “Activate yer abacus, Miss Mathematicus!” says Toad as we enter the bank. Honestly, sometimes it’d be nice if he could just say hello like a normal person. Banker Berniece doesn’t smile or frown, she just looks up and in
a flat voice that is neither friendly nor unfriendly, says, “Good morning, Mr. Hopper,” then reaches out to take the wad of BarterBucks slips Toad has dug out of his pocket.

  One by one she smooths the crumpled papers and arranges them neatly on the desktop. Then she opens a desk drawer and takes out a fountain pen, a bottle of ink, an envelope, and a giant book that says “LEDGER” on the cover. She arranges them all on the desk, each in its place, as carefully as she arranged the BarterBucks slips. Then she goes through the slips one by one, entering them in the ledger with the fountain pen. After the last one is written in, she reaches into another drawer and pulls out a wooden rack that holds a bunch of colored beads mounted on slim iron rods. The first time I saw it, I thought it was some kind of weird rattle-toy, but Toad wasn’t being completely goofy when he mentioned the abacus, because that’s exactly what it is.

  While the index finger of one hand moves slowly down through the numbers she just wrote in the ledger, the index finger of Banker Berniece’s other hand dances over the abacus, flicking beads back and forth. I can hear soft little click-clack sounds as she works her way down the page. When she adds in the last number, she writes it in the ledger and circles it. Then she adds everything up again, puts a check beside the number in the ledger, and turns the heavy book so Toad can sign it. Then she writes the same number on a piece of paper, signs and dates it, and hands it to Toad along with an envelope. He initials the piece of paper, seals it in the envelope, and writes his name and today’s date across the seal.

  Now I hand her my slips. When she smooths out the piece of paper that shows how many BarterBucks I got for Porky Pig, I watch for her reaction, because for me, it’s a pretty big number, but Banker Berniece’s expression doesn’t change. She just goes straight to flicking the abacus. Toad says that’s part of why he trusts Banker Berniece. She treats everybody and every number just the same. You don’t want somebody who’s oohing and aahing over the details, Toad says, because that’s the kind of person that will be just dying to tell someone else. Actually he said “deceasing to yammerize the populace,” but sometimes it’s easier just to say things my way.

  After I sign and date my envelope, Banker Berniece turns to the safe and, standing so we can’t see, spins the dials, flips the handles, and swings open the safe door. Following her inside, I take a key from a string around my neck and insert it in the lock on a safety deposit box. Banker Berniece puts a key in the other slot, and we both turn until the door springs open. I put my envelope inside with the envelopes from previous trips, close the door, then we both turn our keys again and the box is locked. At the end of the day Berniece will lock the ledger in the safe also, but the “envelope system,” as we call it, is Berniece’s way of making sure there’s a backup record of how many BarterBucks each person has.

  After Toad locks his envelope away, Banker Berniece places the ledger on a shelf inside the safe, then closes and locks the heavy door. On our way out of the bank, Toad turns and says, “Thank you, Berniece,” just as plain as you please.

  “Yes,” says Banker Berniece.

  Back on the street, Toby has fed and watered all the animals. While he goes in to settle up with Banker Berniece for the fish he sold, Toad reaches into a compartment on the Scary Pruner, pulls out a small canvas bag, and tosses it to me. It jingles when I catch it. “Arm the secret weapon!” says Toad, and I sigh. In addition to the chain mail he made for the dogs and oxen, Toad made Hatchet a pair of razor-sharp spurs, a set of tiny barbs that attach to the tip of each wing, and a stainless steel pick that clamps over the tip of his beak. We usually wait to put these things on Hatchet until the more dangerous ride home, and it’s always a painful tussle.

  Suddenly I realize I left Magical Mercantile without taking Dookie’s red rubber ball. I toss the bag back to Toad. “Gonna leave that to you and Toby,” I say, over my shoulder, as I run across the street.

  I find Mad Mike at the counter. He’s packing Porky Pig into a crate. “Aren’t you going to put him on the shelf?” I ask. Mad Mike looks down at the pig already half-ready to ship, then back at me. It’s like he’s taking a moment to form a careful answer. “Well, I . . .” Then he just sets the pig aside and says, “I have a customer who likes these sorts of things. He has a standing order for anything that fits his memory space.”

  “Memory space?”

  “We all grew up in a certain time and place. And for most of us, as we get older our memories of that time get sweeter. Especially if everything else in our world has changed in ways that make it hard to keep up, or remember how things once were. So some people like to surround themselves with objects that remind them of those times. That’s what I call a memory space. It’s not so much a place as a feeling.

  “I know it’s hard to believe, when you look around at this world and what people really need,” says Mad Mike, “but you can make a living scavenging memories.”

  “Well, if I ever have a memory space, about the only thing in there will be a knuckleheaded brother and a stick for digging in the dirt,” I said.

  Outside I hear an explosion of flapping and squawking.

  “And a rooster,” I say. “A stuffed rooster.”

  Outside, Toad has the Scary Pruner turned and pointed back up Main Street. Monocle is panting happily. Hatchet is on his perch clucking grumpily and looking dangerous. Toby is sitting silently at the rear. The only sign that he’s been wrassling Hatchet is that his ears are a little redder than usual. I wish I had seen that.

  Two hours have passed since we arrived in town. We need to get going. It would be nice to eat lunch at the diner, but the longer we stay the more active the GreyDevils will be, so we’ve each taken a sandwich to go. I climb up beside Toad and as easily as if he were ordering those sandwiches, he says, “Okay, boys, here we go,” and Frank and Spank lean toward home.

  The GreyDevils start trailing us pretty much as soon as we leave town.

  19

  THEY ARE GHOSTLY AT FIRST. JUST HINTS OF SOUND AND FLITS OF movement. A shadow on a tree trunk. A twig snap. A shift in the tall grass. The sun is still high, but suddenly the countryside feels darker. I grip my ToothClub tightly, and check the strap on my helmet. My eyes dart left and right, trying to spot something—anything. Then a GreyDevil steps into the open. It is draped in rags. Its face is sooty and smudged. It shuffles toward the wagon, staring hungrily at our cargo. “Back off, you tatterdemalion mummy-breathed flat-footer!” yells Toad. The GreyDevil stops, its yellow eyes staring as we pass. Its grubby face is cut with tear streaks and snot streaks. I guess I’d have a snotty nose too if I was breathing the smoke from all the things they burn on those bonfires.

  Another GreyDevil approaches from an angle, and sidles up near Frank and Spank. Hatchet fluffs his neck feathers and cackles like he’s trying to hack up a fish bone. Wrapping the reins around the buckboard rail, Toad reaches for his bullwhip. I hear the splap! of leather on skin, and the GreyDevil yelps and grabs one arm. A trickle of sickly dark blood seeps from between its grubby fingers.

  Frank and Spank just keep moving along, and another GreyDevil approaches from my side of the road. I pull out my SpitStick and hit it right between the eyeballs with a pepper-pea. It grabs its face and drops to the dust, moaning and rolling into the ditch.

  “Well played!” hollers Toad.

  “That’ll run the ol’ eyeliner,” I say. I’ve seen makeup ads in Toad’s old magazines, and some of those women look a lot like GreyDevils. Yet another GreyDevil puts a hand out toward Frank’s flank. Once again Toad flicks his whip and—pop!—the Devil yanks back his hand and stands there sucking on the sore spot.

  It’s fun to talk tough about Toad pinging GreyDevils with his bullwhip, or about toasting their butts with rock salt, but this is not just an armchair adventure story. I would like to do nothing but sip tea and read poetry with Ma, but sometimes you have to dig in the dirt to survive. Sometimes you have to go out into danger in order to survive. And sometimes you have to strike out in order to protect
yourself, and your things, and the people you love. Right now the Scary Pruner isn’t just filled with things we want, it’s filled with stuff we need. And if the GreyDevils take our stuff, it’s not like the old days when you could just get more stuff. So we can’t politely ask the GreyDevils to leave us alone.

  For two or three miles the pepper-peas and whipcracks do the job. The GreyDevils come in close, more for a look than an attack, and only one or two at a time. Toby pops one on the forehead with the end of his fight-stick just as easy as if he were shooting snooker and that GreyDevil’s head was a cue ball. The Devil drops to the ditch, and Toby hasn’t even shifted in his seat.

  It’s even kinda fun for a while, like shooting silly targets at a carnival. But GreyDevils are beginning to line the roadside ahead, and when I look back, I can see a growing cluster of them gathering behind us. Just like stray dogs, GreyDevils can be troublesome on their own but are most dangerous when they start running in packs. Although GreyDevils aren’t really healthy enough to run. Shuffling in packs, I guess. And they’re not so bright, what with their brains all cheese-holed by chemical smoke and PartsWash, but they’re hungry and they’re desperate, and they know travelers are easy pickings. Especially if the travelers are in an overloaded wagon pulled by dos oxii.

  Mainly we just want to keep them at bay as long as possible. We learned a long time ago that it’s a long haul home, and you don’t go straight for the Whomper-Zooka. We carry plenty of extra saltpowder packs but the supply isn’t endless, and you don’t want to use up your precious reserves on the early stragglers. The Whomper-Zooka is built for a crowd. So we stick to smaller weapons as long as we can. Some days we can get all the way back home without blasting anyone.

  Today doesn’t look like one of those days. Like bees in a swarm, the GreyDevils aren’t capable of planning an attack, but once they get worked up and swirling in the same direction they become a terrifying force. And now they’re starting to do just that. The sound of their feet never stops. It’s like a thousand snake bellies slithering over dirt. I can hear their rattling coughs, and even the sound of their breathing is creepy, like someone blowing bubbles in warm cheese. They wear anything they have found—rugs with armholes, T-shirts advertising soda pop or music festivals, strips of old curtains and carpet they’ve ripped from abandoned homes. Some are wearing rough sandals made from discarded tires, although they’ve been known to tear those off and pitch them into the fire. During snow snaps they bundle up in furs and scavenged insulation, decrepit tarps—whatever they can find.