The Cage Keeper

by Andre Dubus III

  “I’ll be seeing y’all in just a few days,” his father had said. “And this weekend we’ll see a movie and go out to eat. Okay?”

  They were all quiet as he got into his old car and started it, then backed up, and headed down the hill. Dean watched it move slowly toward the bridge, the exhaust from its tailpipe turning blue in the cold air. He was no longer aware of his brother and sisters standing beside him, or his mother crying in the house; he could see the back of his father’s head through the rear window and he wished he had said something strong or funny for him, so that he would not worry about them out here in the woods alone. Then Kip had scooped up a handful of gravel and run down the hill and threw it, but their father’s car had already reached the bridge, and Dean only hoped that he had had his window rolled up and was not looking in the rearview mirror.

  Dean looked out at the lake. It was the same color as the sky, and he knew it was cold, but with the mist covering it, it looked to him like one big hot bath. He turned away from it and walked over to the other side of the bridge. He saw mist there too, thin white flumes of it skimming along the moving surface of the river. He knew the snow was doing this, but it looked to him like the mist was coming from the marsh. He rested his rifle against the railing, then leaned forward to try to see where the river cut to the west before it made its curve northeast. But all he saw were the evergreen trees at the base of the hill behind his house, and then the marsh, more sunk in white than the river even.

  He picked up his rifle and walked off the bridge and started the climb up the gravel driveway to the rear of his house. He was so hungry now that his stomach didn’t rumble anymore and he wanted only orange juice. When he reached the top of the hill there was already enough snow on the driveway so that he could barely see the pebbles of the gravel beneath it. He climbed the back stairs and the sockful of BBs rolled on and off his thigh. He heard TV noises coming from inside the house, and he wondered if his brother and sisters knew it was snowing outside. Cool flakes melted wet on his face, and as he opened the back door of the porch and leaned his rifle against the wall, he imagined the snow as it fell into the marsh; the mist would lift as the air got colder and the straw and mud became a blanket of white. The snow would stay all winter and in the spring Dean would walk into the woods, maybe even with Kip; they would follow the right fork until just before the hemlocks. Then they would walk off the gravel road toward the marsh. They would come to a little hill where they would stop and look out over the wide and swollen river. It would be all the way to the base of the slope, covering everything, even the bottom three or four feet of the pine tree. Dean would be holding his rifle and Kip would be carrying the BBs, and together they would just stand there, he and his brother, watching the high water as it flowed over the marsh, and carried all the dead things to the sea.

  FORKY

  My coffee’s gone cold and I look at her over the rim of my cup. I look at her throat, at the tiny part that moves as she talks. I listen to her life and I know when to nod my head and when to smile. But my stomach tightens as I try and look like I know what she’s saying. I see her naked, her belly against mine. And I think how she was probably still intact my first year down.

  Johnny looked too much like my brother Marty with his smooth face and small shoulders, and when I saw him that first time at the commissary, I knew I wouldn’t let this kid fall, not this one. And I’d been in for four, three more to go. And nobody fucked with me after the first two. They called me Forky.

  I was a first offender. And I never would’ve gone down if I had listened to Marty, if I hadn’t a used the .38. But I did. And when that fat manager went for me I turned and stuck it in his face, watched him turn to butter. And before I knew it I’d gone from County to the state pen at Canon. Five to ten for armed robbery. And I couldn’t even cry.

  That was the last time I saw Marty. An hour or so at County before Canon. He said to get a rep right away, to watch for the lifers. Then he said the words and I said them back. And I was glad I said them. And I thanked Jesus I said them after that letter came from my sister in Jersey, three years down the road.

  I light her cigarette and watch my hand shake. And I know it’s not the coffee ’cause I drink a shitload of it. I’m wondering why she’s taking all this time with me, and I think it can’t be the free drinks. She don’t seem the type. And even though she ain’t one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, she’s all right. And I want to tell her where I’ve been. But I wait.

  It was my sixth day in the joint. And the word was out that I was Leroy and Wallace’s lady-in-waiting. Wallace was the biggest. At mess I looked and found his bald brown head, shining like the corridors after lights out and looking just as hard. He was at the end of the table near the aisle, and looking back now, there wasn’t nothing to it at all.

  They don’t let you eat with metal. So I had to settle for plastic. And I knew I’d have to get a running start to do the damage I wanted to do. So three tables before his I lengthened my stride, picked up speed. And my heart was beating so fast I didn’t think I’d be able to line it up right. But then Wallace looked up and his black eyes caught me and he flashed that gold-toothed smile, the one that says, “You’s mine.” And that’s all I needed. I drove it in fast and twisted quick so that my fork broke off inside. Then Wallace was up with a kind of grunt-hiss, then a wail as he fell over backwards off the bench. He wouldn’t let go of my arm and it was warm and wet with that shit from his eye. I wanted to wipe it off, but then there were the guards and it was lights out.

  She asks me why I don’t talk much and I tell her I like to listen. Then I tell her she’s beautiful and she gives me that look I ain’t seen in seven and a half years. The one that says I don’t believe you, but thanks anyway. I ask her to dance. It’s a slow one and I can’t believe I’m smelling a woman, this close. And I remember junior high. Me and Be Bop Little. She had the biggest ones in school and all the guys used to call her Be Bop Floppity Flop. Once I got her for a slow dance and I had to pull away I got so hard. I have to pull away from this one, too. Just a little. She looks up and gives me a half smile with her lips. And I swallow hard.

  Johnny was a smart one. Even though I was older and bigger, sometimes he’d make me feel young and small around him. He was always reading a book. Always writing to the warden and his PO. Always talking a couple of dudes out of a fight and the hole. And he always had a string a top-notch jokes when we were drinking at night. I remember him after his first shot of tomato jack. Man, he hugged me like a sonuvabitch. Couldn’t believe he wasn’t gonna go five more years without a snort or two. Then he found out it was a secret formula. So he typed the recipe up one night and passed it out to all the joes in B.

  The number’s over and I’m so nervous I jump off the wagon and switch over to a CC on the rocks, a double. She’s not talking as much, and I think how I don’t want her to get stiff. I don’t want my first time to be with someone who’s not gonna remember. So I down my drink and ask her if she wants to go for a walk. I get her a pack a cigarettes at the machine by the door. Then we’re outside.

  It’s almost cold, not too bad, just enough to wake you up and clear your head. The stars are out and you can smell the snow, because it’s city snow.

  “Where’d you get a name like Forky?” she says.

  I stop and look down at her, like it’s the first thing I’ve heard her say all night, and I think how young she looks for having two kids already. Then I take a deep drag off my cigarette and look straight ahead as we walk.

  I did ninety days in the hole for gouging Wallace. And in all that time, in all that emptiness and quiet, I never stopped being scared. And then the voices made it worse. And when I got out I was so scared I must’ve been the meanest motherfucker in Old Max. And then I found out about Wallace, about him almost killing one of his own boys for using my name around him. And when I heard that I knew I’d taken something out of him. I knew he wouldn’t come after me alone. So I got a shank.


  We walk up the street and it’s pretty quiet ’cause it’s a Tuesday night. There’s still some ice on the walk and I let her hold my arm so she don’t slip. She smells nice and I feel myself start to swell again. I think I should start talking more so I start to ask her her kids’ names. But when I do my voice sounds phony, like it’s in a deep hole that it’s gotta shout at to get out of, but it’s gotten so used to the hole that it don’t even try anymore. So I leave it alone. She’s come this far without it.

  A bus swings around us on the corner of Fifth and Euclid. I see people in it. They’re all staring straight ahead and their faces look gray in that light, like wax. And for an instant I get a chill, deep, like a shock. I turn and pull her towards me. She’s got surprise on her face. But it ain’t hard; it’s soft. So I lean into her and she tastes like gin, but she’s warm and she lets me use my tongue as she slides hers over and under mine. I feel a sudden weakness, but I’m hard and I pull her closer. I want her to feel it, to know it. And when she doesn’t stiffen up on me I feel like my soul is being offered back. And for a second I see Ma, washing my hands for me, hers bigger than mine, all slippery and warm with the soap and water. And it feels like medicine.

  It was rec time and me and Johnny was in the yard. I had gotten him into my routine and we had just finished, red and sweating like bastards. I straightened up to walk and Johnny headed for the fountain in the shadows of the tier. I had just started when I froze still. I remembered Leroy’s face my sixth or seventh time around the yard, he and one of the brothers under the tier. And running back towards it I knew something was going down ’cause it was quiet there, empty. And I knew they was in the blind, that corner no tower guard could see around.

  By the time I got around it I had my shank out, and when that first sonuvabitch turned his head I sliced him clean right beneath the hairline. Then Leroy turned towards me and that’s when I saw Johnny, a flash of him, white as a ghost, but breathing. Leroy got in a crouch.

  “Uh, big man heah. Big man mothuh Fork. Watchoo want mothuh Fork?”

  His shank was catching the light of the sun as he turned it over in his hand. But I wasn’t even there, man. I was five stories up, calm and together, watching, waiting for my move. Waiting for the burn. And I didn’t give a fuck. I wanted him. So I stopped and stood and let him come. And when he did I shifted to the side and let him come into it himself. I aimed high and caught him in the shoulder.

  “Cocksuh!”

  He moved again, this time wildly, and I got ahold of his knife hand then cut him again in the same place, jabbing hard till I struck bone. His arm went limp against mine and I butted him hard in the chin with my head. And down there in the dirt, breathing hard and holding his own wound, he didn’t have no fear in his eyes. But I could smell it, man. And I could feel it too, cold and clammy. So could Johnny, ’cause that’s when he came up from behind and gave him a good swift kick to the back of his head, snapping Leroy’s big mouth to his chest before he went out. Then we were outta there. Running and laughing like whores, fucking giddy with ourselves, man. Scared shitless.

  Her place is small and it smells like laundry and fruit. She pays the sitter, young and fat, chewing gum. Then we’re alone. In the kitchen she pours us gin and in this light I see the crow’s-feet at the corner of her eyes, the tiny hard look of her hands as she cuts the limes. I look at the walls, at all the kiddy drawings lining the room, and I see me and Marty slugging it out over a box of crayons. She hands me my drink and I think how much I like brown eyes, the way they take you deep down somewhere, and then it just comes out.

  “I’ve spent the last seven years of my life in the joint.” She don’t say nothing. Just looks at me.

  “Prison,” I say. For an instant I see myself back on the street, breathing the cold, heading for the north side of town, back to my one-room where I gotta keep the shades down so the streetlight don’t keep me up. Then her eyes take me deeper.

  “I’ve spent that time working and raising two kids, mostly alone.”

  “Yeah, but I was in jail.”

  “And I was married.” We laugh and I feel shaky again. She sees it. So we sit and drink our gin.

  Johnny’d pulled all the boys together after mess and told ’em how short I was. A few of them came in one at a time during the night. Mac brought me a milk carton full of raisin jack. And he only stayed for a shot. He had eight more to go before parole, but he was warm, man.

  “You motherfucker, Fork. Take care of yourself.”

  Valdez and Leary came in together. Valdez was like always, dark-eyed and quiet, but Leary was talking like a sonuvabitch.

  “Man, it ain’t gonna be the same, Forky. Who’s gonna be the great white hope now, motherfucker? Who’s gonna put it to ’em like you done?”

  “Johnny’s in trainin’ for the spot, ain’t ya John boy?”

  “Damn straight,” Johnny said. Then he took a deep one off the jack. He looked so little there then and I was sorry I said it. I offered them some jack, but they knew how tight me and Johnny was and they didn’t want to work on our last bottle together.

  “Well, what the hell, Fork.” Leary gave me his hand. “Get some for me, man. Hot and juicy.” On the way out Valdez handed me his crucifix and gave me sort of a bow, like he was Chinese or something.

  Johnny passed me the carton and I had all my shit taken care of so I swallowed two or three times. Man, it was Mac’s best, like brandy.

  “You going back east, Forky?”

  “I don’t know, man. I been thinking about hanging out on the eastern slope awhile. I mean, shit, Johnny, you’re a short timer, too. Almost as short as me. I was thinking about hanging around till you’re processed out. Then you and me go back east and let ’em know what’s fuckin’ what. You and me Johnny.”

  I passed the jack back feeling for the first time a lot bigger and a little older, and it gave me a kind of shudder. That’s when I handed him my shank. He had the carton held to his mouth and when he saw it he stopped. Then he looked straight ahead and drank.

  “You use it, motherfucker.”

  He was smiling at me.

  “If the man comes, put it in his fucking gut. No hesitation.”

  He was sitting there looking at me, looking small and wise again. And I knew that he’d keep it in his fuckin’ house, that he wouldn’t carry it.

  “I ain’t bullshittin’, Johnny.” He took another swig then passed it back to me.

  “Hey, Fork.” He reached over and started scratching my head. “What’s this?”

  “It’s your fuckin’ ass-wiping hand.”

  “Nope. It’s a brain eater.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “What’s it doing?”

  “Beats me, Johnny boy.” Then he looked me in the face, real serious, already a little glassy with the jack.

  “Starving.” Then he let loose, laughing like no tomorrow. He stretched out his legs and went into his high-pitched laugh.

  I looked at his little body shaking on the mattress. Then I got it, but lifted the carton quick so he couldn’t see me smile.

  I look at myself in the mirror. Not bad. Still lean. I look at her deodorants and perfumes, her floss and skin cream, and I wonder how I got here. Then I find the pink razor and I use soap and hot water and shave as close as I can. But she uses it on her legs and I cut myself twice on the chin. And I feel the same way I did with Bertha back in Jersey eleven years ago. She was big and black and she’d been taking kids’ cherries for years. The neighborhood man maker. Marty had it all fixed up, and I think I only spent two hours in the bathroom before. Shaving, zit cream, aftershave, mouthwash, deodorant, and I finally decided to keep my rubbers tucked in my skivvies for quick reference. I’m more than nervous, but there’s something else. I check my face. There’s something else. I wait until the blood stops, then I go to her room.

  She’s sitting up in bed, smoking, the sheet covering her, and I like how small her shoulders look. But I’m rubbery all over and I feel a sudden urge to jus
t sit across the room and let somebody else do it.

  “I thought people got fat in jail.”

  I suck in my gut then show her my arms. She laughs. I drop my skivs and slide in next to her. She reaches over to the bedstand and passes me a drink. I see she’s already got one.

  “I need this,” I say.

  “Seven years is a long time.”

  “Seven and a half. I feel like Rip van Winkle.” I laugh.

  “You don’t look it.” She’s smiling. And I think how confident she looks knowing she’s gonna be the one to give it to me. I down the rest and pass her back my glass.