I tore each of the corners of the napkin and folded them in and then folded the napkin again and then one more time and then started to pull off thin layers of the cotton paper in tiny patches, making a snowflake out of it like an elementary class project.
Another car had pulled up next to me while I slept in mine on Winkler Road that Sunday night. I peeked out from my backseat to see a couple of people leaning across the bucket seats of a Honda kissing each other. The guy suddenly saw my head poking up in the window and yanked his car into reverse, tearing out of there and throwing a half-full can of beer out of his window. It smacked solidly into the Buick’s rear panel as a girl screamed “Fuck you!” out of the Honda while it sped past.
A couple of beers at the bar before deciding what to do about going home wasn’t going to hurt, I decided, as the bartender set one in front of me. “There’s a lot of ways to look at things, so the truth is kind of a variable, anyway,” I told her, staring down at the napkin as I unfurled it completely to reveal a patchwork of small tears in its soft, fibrous tissue, and held it between my face and hers.
“You’re a deeply honest liar,” she told me, looking perplexed through the myriad holes in the napkin.
“I know,” I said quietly, letting the napkin drop. “I don’t know if I can ever tell anyone the truth again, though.”
40.
Besse was asleep by the time I made it home, as I’d hoped, around two or three in the morning. I tip-toed in through the living room entrance, instead of the garage, because it was just that much farther from the bedroom, terrified of confronting her after all of these days. I had no idea what she was thinking or how she felt by now, only that it was going to be ugly when we saw each other next. We’re done, I thought, as I laid myself on the couch in the curtained darkness of my living room; it was just a matter of one last, bitter, nasty argument. I decided to pack my things and sneak out while she was at work in the morning, assuming she’d be leaving soon herself if I didn’t. I made a solemn oath to do this as soon as I woke, right before I passed out from the perfect exhaustion of paranoia, self-righteousness, anger and guilt.
But I woke with a different thought as the sun crept around the curtains into the living room, framing me on the couch, and the arrhythmic groans of sex resounded down from upstairs. I sat up and immediately shoved my feet into my boots, lacing them up with short, hard yanks, my pants still on from last night.
“Oh yeah,” Geechie or Beulah grunted from above as I wrapped the laces around each other into a tight knot. “Now,” she gasped, “there.”
I hesitated only a moment at the door to listen for her final cry before heading out the door to find Elle, even as I heard Besse walking out of the bedroom.
Both Geechie’s and Beulah’s cars were parked outside still.
What did the one do while the other had really noisy sex?
41.
I raced out toward Elle’s house, knowing she’d be leaving for work, and passed her going the other way. I slammed on my brakes and cranked the wheel at the same time, my tires screeching angrily, my tail end spinning and nearly sliding off the road. I pushed the gas pedal back toward the floor and sped after her, arriving right on her ass and beat on my horn until she stopped.
She hopped out of her car before I climbed out of mine, storming toward me. “What the hell is your problem?” she screamed.
“Hey,” I said, calmly. “I need your help.”
But she wasn’t listening. “You have to quit following me! You’re freaking me out,” she warned.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, confused.
“Following me to Opey’s,” she snapped. “And parking outside my house. And watching me and my boyfriend on Winkler Road the other night. And everything else.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, surprised. “I didn’t even know you were there.”
“Bullshit,” she snapped.
“I was there first,” I told her. “How could I have followed you there?” I asked. “You sound like I’m stalking you. You invited me to go to Opey’s, for Christ’s sake. All I ever did was drive by here once.”
“Why were you on Winkler Road the other night then?”
“I can’t go home because Besse will leave me the next time I see her,” I confessed, tight-lipped to keep my jaw from quivering. “I was sleeping in my car there. Thanks for waking me up.”
Her anger receded, and her eyes softened. She believed I was telling the truth. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know about that.”
“It’s alright,” I said.
“Then what is this all about?” she asked, turning and waving her hand at the cars and the road. “Why are you chasing me down right now?”
“I need your help,” I repeated calmly.
She exhaled but remained guarded, crossing her arms over her chest and waited for me to speak.
“I need the combination to the safe,” I said, point blank.
Her jaw dropped. “What safe?” Her arms uncrossed, her hands fell to her hips.
“The combination to the safe. In the office at the factory,” I explained.
“I don’t have it,” she said. “And I have to get to work right now.”
She turned to walk away but I grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back, pushing her against the side of my car. “Listen,” I pleaded, inches from her face. “Van’s in a lot of trouble and we need that money,” I begged. “You have to get me that combination.”
Her eyes shot open in terror as I pressed her against the car, staring intently into her face. “Let go of me,” she said.
“We’ll make it look like a break-in. If anyone gets in trouble, it’ll be Van,” I assured her. “It won’t go any farther than him, I promise. He’s already in a lot of trouble. If he gets busted, he’s not going to take us down with him.”
“You’re out of your mind,” she snapped. “You need to stay away from me.”
“Get me the combination and I’ll leave you alone for good,” I promised.
42.
“Just come stay at my house,” Van said, crouched down at the door to the office. He shot a glance over his shoulder and then right back to the lock. “You don’t need to sleep in your car on some goddamned dirt road.” He held the door handle in his gloved left hand while poking a metal wire into the lock. “Stay at me and Retha’s house,” he insisted, glancing at me, the parking lot, and the lock, alternately.
“I don’t know, Van,” I said, nervous. But not about staying at his house. Breaking into this office was a mistake. Elle could get in a lot of trouble for this, or get us into a lot of trouble. She was complicit in all of this too, which could either scare her into silence, as we hoped, or into talking, especially if the police questioned her, as I feared. It worried me, this one factor out of our control. “What if Elle talks?” I whispered, eyes following the parking lot up the road, looking for headlights coming down.
“She don’t want to talk,” Van assured me. “I’ll put the fear of God into her if I got to. But for now, I’ll leave it in your hands. She’s your piece of ass, you handle her. And if you can’t, I will.”
That scared me even more. I swallowed the little bit of saliva that was left in my mouth. “It won’t be a problem,” I said.
Not too long after the dayshift had left earlier that day, as Van and I were just settling into an evening of piecing coffin parts together and drinking beer, Elle poked her head tentatively into the glue room. Van saw her too and casually stopped feeding boards and yanked out a cigarette, lighting it as he strolled quietly off in the other direction.
I wandered over toward her, not sure what she had to say. “What’s up?” I asked, uncomfortable. I had asked her for a ridiculous favor that morning, right after she had accused me of stalking her. I was surprised she had come in here to find me, was certain she had nothing good to say to me. It hadn’t gone, or ended, well this morning. I didn’t have nearly Van’s criminal experience at getting what I wanted out
of people.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” she said. “I had it all wrong.”
“It’s alright,” I said tentatively, waiting to see what she had to say, what she thought she had wrong. Because she pretty much had it all right.
“You weren’t chasing me,” she conceded. “You were running from someone else. And you showed up those other times because I’d asked you to. I was flirting with you. Because I like you. And I wanted you to like me.”
I nodded. I wanted her to think of it that way. I didn’t want to say anything to change her mind, but I took some of the blame to help her relax. “I’m sorry,” I told her. “I did follow you around a little bit, showing up at your house and all that, and I did chase your car down this morning. You had no idea what was going on.”
She smiled shyly. “I didn’t mind all that,” she said, glancing around her. “Except this morning, because you scared me.” She sighed deeply, rolling her eyes up at me. “Look,” she whispered. “I don’t want to see Van get in trouble.” She shoved a piece of paper into my hand, squeezed my fingers, and darted off.
Now, breaking into the office, I couldn’t forget the anger from that morning, the apology and the shy smile from the afternoon. I had used her, and this could easily go bad for all of us.
Van suddenly twisted around, grinning up at me over his right shoulder. The door popped open and swung inward. Our shadows stretched in from the moonlight behind us. Van hopped nimbly back to his feet and stepped into the office, looking back at me, covering his lips with a finger and motioning for me to hurry. I stepped in and closed the door behind us. We both stood there for a second, letting our eyes adjust. Our shift ended officially in about seven minutes. Our plan was to be back in the factory by that time, pretending we were walking away from the machinery for the first time that evening. There were a couple of small rooms in the office building, and one main room. The safe wasn’t hard to find once our vision improved enough for us to detect the reflection of moonbeams through the window off its metal dial. The safe was built right into the wall. Van had memorized the combination after I had given it to him earlier.
I kept the piece of paper Elle gave me, an insurance policy against her talking. It was in her handwriting.
Van held a penlight in his mouth, his keys dangling off of it, their jangly noise setting my frayed nerves on end. He spun the knob on the safe rapidly, gloves still on his hand, and it sprung open in no time. Van turned the light off immediately, glancing out the window for signs of anyone approaching. Satisfied, he reached in the safe and pulled out a few stacks of bills. He fanned them in front of me for a second, grinning over the pile of cash at me. He stuffed the money into a pocket of his leather jacket.
“How much is it?” I asked, anxious, still glancing over my shoulder. “Thousands?”
Van shook his head, but didn’t seem too disappointed. “Less than two, probably,” he whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”
He closed the safe door quietly behind him. A set of headlights turned into the driveway to the factory’s parking lot and illuminated the office for a second. Van slammed me against the wall and I froze there. My breath would have come in gasps if I could have breathed at all. A trickle of sweat ran down the bridge of my nose and then slid off the side of my nostril, perhaps the only movement in the whole room. The car remained right in the entrance for a moment, then backed out and sped off. As soon as it was gone, Van headed right for the door, and I followed immediately on his heels. We stepped out into the night. My heart stopped pounding and heat flushed through my body despite the cool night air. I started to trot back to the factory, but Van hissed at me.
“Walk!” he snapped. “Don’t look suspicious. There’s no sign of a break-in, so we only need to not be noticed right now. They’ll think someone in the office took that money, or someone with a key or something. It was a clean pick.”
“Who do you think that car was?” I asked, as we forced ourselves to stroll back to the factory.
“Your girlfriend,” Van said, matter-of-factly.
“Besse?” I asked, baffled. “She wouldn’t come here.”
“Elle, shithead,” Van corrected. “She come here afraid you was going to break in. She changed her mind and wanted to stop you, but she chicken-shitted out and left.”
We slipped back into the factory and I began to breathe openly for the first time, but it damned near escalated into hyperventilation and no matter how heavily I breathed, I couldn’t seem to get any air in me. Van didn’t realize at first, pulling the money out of his jacket pockets and jamming it into his lunchbox.
“Jesus Christ!” Digger shouted, suddenly strolling into the break area and seeing me just as I dropped on the bench by the table, gasping for air.
Van frantically finished stuffing the money and slammed the lunchbox closed, before turning to find Digger crouching over my airless, panic-stricken body. He shoved himself between me and Digger, tossing his lunchbox onto the picnic table right next to us in the break room. He slammed his boot down on the top of my boot. I had steel-toes on, but it still hurt like a son of a bitch and when I tried to gasp in pain, oxygen sliced its way into my lungs with a piercing pain and my breath came back in huge, heaving pants.
“What the hell is going on here?” Digger snapped, looking from me to Van to Van’s lunchbox, but Van automatically shifted to block Digger’s view of the box, even though it was closed. “Where have you guys been? I’ve been looking for you for half an hour!”
Van paused, at a loss for words for once, but I spoke up, my syllables coming between gulps of air. “I wandered out into the dump again,” I told Digger. “And huffed the pipes.”
Digger looked at me like I was depraved of a soul. “What the fuck is your problem, kid?” he asked, shaking his head and sneering at me.
“Hey, leave him alone,” Van barked at Digger, scowling down at him.
Digger backed off, afraid of Van’s wrath. “Give me a cigarette before you go,” he ordered Van, but demurely, trying to maintain some dignity. “Kid’s going to get us all fired, is all, pulling that shit,” he muttered.
“Kid ain’t going to get fired, or get us fired, as long as I’m here,” Van told Digger. “And you can just mind your own business and keep your damned mouth shut.”
There really was no arguing with Van, so Digger took the cigarette Van handed him and walked sourly off. Once Digger was gone, Van turned to me. “I don’t know what your fucking problem is, kid, but you better get your shit together. Let’s get out of here now, but I want you to come over to my house and split this shit up.”
I leaned back against the break room table beneath Van’s suspicious glare. “I don’t need any of it,” I said, clambering off the bench to my feet. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I waved my hand at him without looking back.
“Hey!” he shouted, softening his tone. “Come over later. I don’t want you sleeping in your car somewhere - you could attract the cops.”
I left anyway, walking down the steps of the back porch toward the parking lot and my car. Van followed me out. “I don’t fucking trust you, you little shit,” he screamed, but I ignored him, climbing into the Buick and starting the engine. “You better come over later.”
I sped off, leaving Van and the factory and the stolen money behind. I wanted to find Elle. If I could get her to give me that combination, I could get her to do anything.
43.
I drove down Main Street after leaving the factory, debating whether I should try to find Elle at Opey’s or swing by her house or up onto Winkler Road to see if she was making out with her boyfriend or whether to leave her alone altogether, tell her I had nothing to do with it, that I just gave the combination to Van, the same way she gave it to me, and whatever happened after that I didn’t know anything about.
I couldn’t go home. I hadn’t packed my things, chasing Elle down instead. Van had invited me over, but I couldn’t go there either, not because he wouldn’t welcome me - in fact, I was
certain he’d be extremely relieved if I showed up - but because I didn’t want to need Van for anything more. He was a loudmouth and an idiot, and I had put myself on the line for him. I realized with a sickening churn in my stomach that this could escalate into a hell of a lot of trouble for me, more than I dared admit.
I determined to drive past Elle’s to see if she was there and then Opey’s and then down the back roads. I had time to kill. Then home. If Besse was still up, I’d have to consider Van’s house. Or keep driving in circles. Maddeningly wider and wider circles of helplessness and directionless indecision. A crow without a meal, a graveyard of options. A coffin for a prison. Could I die from doing nothing?
A couple of blocks from the edge of town I spotted Besse suddenly, though. A truck was double-parked in my driving lane on Main Street. With no oncoming traffic, I pulled into the opposite lane to drive around it without slowing down. As I started into the other lane I realized the truck was actually double-parked next to Duke’s piece of shit and that Besse was climbing out of the truck in my lane and hopping into the driver’s side of Duke’s. I watched her waving at the truck in my rearview mirror as it pulled out behind me. A horn wailed in front me of me but it was too late. I yanked my wheel hard to the right to get back in my lane, but the front driver’s side of my bumper smacked into an oncoming Cavalier. I bounced off it toward the curb on my side of the road but straightened my car pretty quick, the truck slamming on its brakes behind me. I didn’t look around to see what everybody else was doing. I stepped on the gas and tore out of there. I was roaring out of town before that fucker in the Cavalier even touched his cell phone.
I raced down the road past Elle’s but her car wasn’t there. I whipped onto Winkler Road and floored my car. No sign of her. I didn’t dare drive all the way to Opey’s. The police would be looking for me soon for fleeing that accident. And that would just be the start of my troubles, I knew. I started toward Van’s house, but didn’t want to bring any more problems his way. At this point, that could only bring even more trouble my way. I was the loose hinge on Pandora’s box, the one thing that threatened to blow it all wide open and expose a whole chain of crimes that included theft, drugs, murder, and a simply deep criminal complicity between Van and me, even though I wasn’t part of all of it. I knew Van’s crimes. I had crimes of my own. We were connected through the robbery tonight. I was terrified one crime from either of our pasts would catch up to us and bring us both down for everything.
Seeing Crows Page 15