The Cage Keeper

by Andre Dubus III

  “How did you eat?”

  “I had my .30-.30. I built that cabin after the first two weeks of freezing my ass off.”

  I moved closer to him and held his hand, leaned my face into his shoulder and smelled the dampness of his army jacket. He let out a little laugh.

  “I’ve gotten better! It used to be the first thing I’d tell people. ‘Hi, how’re you? I’m a vet. I get disability for being crazy.’ Jesus, I’m getting better.” We kissed.

  CHUCK COMES AROUND and sits beside me. “You want another?”

  “Yeah, okay.” I slide my glass towards him but he calls Larry and I look up, see Larry’s gold chain, his smooth and always shaved face.

  “What’re you, workin’ a double, Sal?”

  “Oh hi, Larry. I didn’t see you. I’ll have another one of these please.” I hold up my glass.

  “Just relaxing tonight, huh Sally?”

  “You got it.”

  “I’ll take a Bud, pal,” Chuck says. He turns to me. “So what’s the matter?”

  “Why should anything be the matter? I’m just sitting here having a few drinks is all.”

  “Yeah? Then why do you look so shitty?”

  “Thanks.”

  Larry brings us our drinks and Chuck pays him in ones, leaving him a dollar for a tip. We clink our glasses together and Chuck finishes his off all at once while I sip off mine, tasting more vodka than cranberry and grapefruit. He raises his hand to Larry for another.

  “Hard day, Chuck?”

  “Catch-up time, darlin’, catch-up time.”

  I look straight ahead over the bar and out the window, at a man and woman getting out of their car, at the woman’s yellow top standing out bright in the late afternoon gray. “Chuck, you ever feel like, like you’re just not good enough?”

  He sips from his new beer, thinking about it.

  “I mean like all day and all night? Even on your days off?”

  “No.” He looks at me. “Do you?”

  I take a deep drag off my cigarette and turn away from him. He asks me again, but I know if I talk I’ll cry. I put out my cigarette and suck my drink through the straw until it makes that liquid sucking sound in the ice.

  “Hey, Sal.” He touches my shoulder. “How’re you and Mr. Rick doing these days?”

  I turn to him and hold up my empty glass. Larry brings us our drinks, but he doesn’t stop to talk. I watch how fast he’s moving back there, his gold chain swinging over the beer cooler, and then I know he’s been moving that way for a while now. I look around at all the people that have come in, hear their loud talk and laughing and it’s like somebody just turned up the sound to a show I hadn’t been watching. And so I watch them, look at the young businessmen with their jackets that match their ties that match their shirts that match their shoes, laugh with their mouths open so wide, holding their Glenlivets and Tanqueray tonics, so fucking sure of themselves, and I know if I was working they’d be patting my ass and leaving a quarter tip for a twenty-dollar tab. I look across the bar at two girls who come in here a lot, always so dressed up because they type and run for coffee at one of those law offices up the street. They wear these white blouses with little pretty ties and tight flannel jackets that go halfway down their skirts, and they think they’re so fucking important with their briefcases full of other people’s work, talking to me and Marcie like we were born just to bring them their lousy white wines and brandies. And then I see Larry’s gold chain swinging over the beer cooler again, see him smiling and sweating for all these assholes, trying to make a living, and I feel that part of me come out that always comes out when I’m around people when I shouldn’t be, the part that hates, that wants the soft humming in my head to get so loud that it blends in with all the noise in the room, so I can look at them all without thinking about how much they make me think the world’s going to end because everybody sucks so much, until I can sink back into the voices and clinking glasses and music like that’s all there is, until I’m numb. I lift my drink to my lips and like how my arm works without my telling it to. I look at Chuck. “Rick’s a fucking asshole.”

  HE’S GOT ME UP against the car, his tongue thick and cold from the beer, and the door handle’s digging into my back. I pull away.

  “What’s the matter?” he says.

  “Nothing.” I kiss him quick on the cheek. “Let’s go.” I walk around the back of the car and balance myself against the roof while he unlocks the door from the inside. I get in and he kisses me again, pulls me into it with his hand behind my head, the other one pressing against my breast through my clothes. We stop and I lean back against the window, my head heavy on my shoulders, and watch the green glow of the lights above his lap.

  I’m out of cigarettes and I ask him to stop at a 7-Eleven before we get on the highway. He turns and parks in front of a doughnut shop, leans over and slides his hand under my skirt, squeezes my leg. “I’ll use the machine. Be right back.”

  I press down on his hand with mine, liking how cool it feels, and I tell him to hurry. He only has AM on the radio. I play with the dial, but I get talk shows and flick it off. I look at Chuck through the glass, watch him getting change, and I see how wide his back and shoulders look compared to his ass, see how the bright light brings out the blond in his hair and I want him to hurry up, to give me my cigarettes and buy us some beer, to get us out of the city with all of its fake light, to hit the highway where it’s dark and go real real fast, and if the radio won’t work, then we’ll sing something and fill up the quiet of the car with our sounds.

  He gets in and hands me my cigarettes.

  “Let’s get something to drink,” I say.

  “I’ve got plenty at my place.” He leans over and kisses me hard and I kiss too, pulling my head back a little to keep his tongue from going deep, feeling strange about not thinking about where we were going.

  “Can’t we just drive somewhere?”

  He looks at me kind of confused, then smiles. “Yeah, sure, I know where we can go.”

  We get on the highway with nothing to drink and I sit closer to him. He puts his arm around me and I rub his stomach under his shirt, undo one of the buttons and scratch his hair. He kisses the top of my head and I can hear his heart beat in his chest. I sit up and light a cigarette. I don’t offer him one and look out the window at the night, see the lights on in the ugly square houses near the highway. I pass them every day on the bus, look at their little fenced-in yards with the little round plastic swimming pools and rusted metal swing sets, the grass all dry and yellow, worn down to dirt in some places.

  “Hey babe, c’mere.” He puts his arm around me again and pulls me closer. I can smell the bar on him and ignore it, lick his ear and scratch the back of his head under the hair.

  He turns off the highway and drives down a street lit up on both sides with the light from gas stations and all-night stores. I take a drag from my cigarette and put it to his mouth and we smoke it together until it’s gone, his arm around me, squeezing my breast through my jacket. We’re on a street with no streetlights and not many houses either. He stops in front of an empty place between two houses, a little grassy field I can just see the beginning of, it’s gotten so dark. He turns off the car and is on me with both hands. He twists himself away from the steering wheel and we go down onto the seat. His whiskers burn my face and we kiss long and deep, my hands pulling on his back. He moves against my legs and I can feel him through his pants. I arch my head back away from his face.

  “Let’s go outside,” he says into my ear. “I’ve got a blanket.”

  “Okay.”

  He’s off of me and I hear him outside moving things around in his trunk. I remember waking up late for school. Mama, she used to make me walk, and right before I got there, when I could see the red brick building through the trees, I’d turn and go down the street to Danny’s Donuts, sit there for hours making two cups of coffee last the rest of the day, never having said to myself that that’s what I was going to do, lett
ing my body decide, letting it take me out of my life. I get out and close the door real soft. I breathe deep through my nose and smell fresh-cut grass and motor oil. My mouth is dry and wants something cold and sweet. He closes the trunk and comes over to me with a blanket over his shoulder, I can’t see his face but I can feel the smile.

  I slip off my shoes and lie down on his blanket. I hear the zipper and hold up my arms. He finds them and lies beside me, his legs hairy and warm against mine. He moves his hand under my skirt and touches me over my underpants. I lift up a little so he can pull them down. He gets them past my knees and I sit up and pull them down and over my feet. I lie back against his arm. He leans down and kisses my open mouth, his tongue sliding over my teeth, then down deep. He pulls my skirt up over my hips and I help him with one hand. I’m breathing fast and I reach down and hold him there, feel his heart beating in it, warm and hard; I spread my legs beneath him and he holds himself over me with his arms straight, everything tingles and I rub it around the outside first, leaving my wetness on him. He pushes forward and I guide him in, then reach my hand around his back. I close my eyes and let my feet come off the blanket as he pushes all the way, opens me up. I hold him tight, feel the muscles move in his back, and I let my body move with his, feel the ground against the back of my head, everything’s dark, and there’s Ricky, hopping alongside Rex with one foot in the stirrup then pushing off and swinging his leg over as he comes down in the saddle. They’re moving, Rex’s tail jerking black and shiny in the sun; they jump the fence and come down together in one motion, moving fast out into the plains, heading for the mountains, Rick’s shirt rippling in the wind, moving faster and faster, jumping over some brush then coming down hard without stopping, going into the shadow of the mountains. He pulls his rifle out from somewhere in front of him then raises it with one arm to his shoulder and fires at the hills five times fast, the barrel jumping up each time, making a hollow cracking sound, little puffs of white smoke hanging in the air behind them. He lowers it then flings it out away from him into the weed, bends low over the saddle, his face almost rubbing against Rex’s neck, then kicks into his sides with his boots. They move into darker shadows and I see his hat flip off his head, hang in the air for a second, then drop. I open my eyes wide to the darkness, to Chuck’s grunting, his mouth wet on my throat, and I’m holding him tight, moving with him, moving, feeling him shudder as the first little wave of heat fills me. I hold him tighter and look up at the sky.

  WHITE TREES, HAMMER MOON

  It was only a three-hour ride north to the White Mountains of New Hampshire but until today had begun Rory Enfield had worried about it, had worried that if this time in the cab of his pickup was bad, that if they were all quiet with each other and didn’t know what to say, or if the two kids weren’t getting along and he had to settle something, then the whole weekend would collapse on itself before it ever got going. But driving up the sunlit highway with April sitting between him and Vinnie, the three of them talking loose and relaxed about whatever came up—about nine-year-old April having made a banana cake at school, about Vinnie’s friend Mark being thirteen like him but with a minibike already—Rory felt both silly and relieved; he should’ve known: kids adjust, grown people don’t. And this morning he’d take what he could get. Right now it was good just sharing the same air as the two stepchildren he wouldn’t see for a long time. Be thankful for small things, he told himself. Be glad you’re alive at all.

  It was twelve-thirty when they came to the first tree-covered slopes of the mountains. They were all hungry so Rory stopped off at The General Store in Woodstock and bought a smoked sausage and cheddar cheese, sour pickles, a loaf of french bread, a bag of chocolate chip cookies, and three Cokes in green glass bottles. Behind the store were some picnic tables under the pines. They sat at one and ate.

  Rory cut some sausage for April with his fold-out Puma knife, but she didn’t seem to notice. She pinched off a piece of cheese then put it on a cookie. Rory sipped his Coke and watched Vinnie make himself a sausage and pickle sub. It was huge, about half the loaf and half the meat.

  “You eat all that you’ll get cramps on the hike.”

  “How long is it, Daddy?” April studied her cheese and cookie sandwich, then ate it.

  Rory scratched his beard. “Five miles.”

  “Five? Wow.”

  “Yeah so take it slow, okay big man?”

  Vinnie nodded then swallowed.

  The air was cool and Rory could smell pine pitch. May in the White Mountains was nothing to fool with, he knew. He zipped up his motorcycle jacket. “Where’s your sweaters?”

  “In Vinnie’s pack.”

  “I think you’ll want ’em tonight.” He leaned over and kissed April on the top of her head. Her braided blond hair smelled clean and a little like cherries.

  “I’m getting a coffee for the road. You guys clean up and I’ll meet you at the truck.”

  THE RIDE TO CRAWFORD NOTCH took another hour but nobody seemed to be counting the minutes. At first the road was very narrow with tall evergreens on both sides; Rory pointed out which was which as they drove by. Most were eastern white pines, he said, but there were some black spruce and jack pines too. He told them how a lot of other carpenters don’t know about trees but he thought they should. It’s like a butcher not knowing anything about cows or pigs. He took the truck around a curve and up a long hill. When the road began to level again, there were no trees to the left, just the sky and the rounded peaks of mountains rising out of a wide valley that seemed to go on for miles. Rory rolled his window down and rested his elbow outside. Vinnie did the same.

  At Franconia, they left 93 for route 302 that cut east through the national forest. For thirteen miles the road dipped, climbed, and curved. Around Breton Woods, on Vinnie’s side, they could see the white-water river that led to Arethusa Falls.

  Rory pointed his thumb out his window. “Take a look.”

  “What?” Vinnie said.

  “Yeah, what?”

  “Mount Washington.”

  “That big one with the snow all over the top?” April put her hands on his leg as she turned and looked out the cab’s rear window.

  “That’s it.”

  “It’s not that big, Rory. Mount Everest is big.”

  Rory glanced past April at Vinnie. He’d never heard that before; what was this “Rory” shit? Vinnie was looking out the back window at the mountain. There was hurt in his face, that, and some kind of vague fuck you. Rory wanted to mention how the wind can blow up to two hundred miles an hour up there. He didn’t want to talk about anything else: “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me that, Vin.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, what?” April said as she sat back down and looked straight ahead.

  “Rory.”

  “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

  “Right.”

  “I don’t like that name, Dad.”

  “See Vin, she calls me Dad. Grown people call me Rory; your mom calls me that. I’ve been with you kids since April knew only about fifty words. You can call me what you used to.”

  Vinnie sort of half nodded but he didn’t say anything.

  They were quiet for almost a mile and Rory was beginning to wonder if he’d said something harder than he thought he had. They passed a Deer Crossing sign. April read it out loud and started talking about Bambi and mean hunters. Thank God for April, Rory thought. Sweet April.

  There was only one car in the parking area of the Crawford Notch Trails. It was a white Toyota with an I Brake for Animals sticker on its rear bumper. Rory could picture the owner, probably some skinny carrot-eating bastard who didn’t smoke or drink and sipped tea after a long hike alone. He pulled the truck up close to the opening of the trails.

  “Which camp are we going to?”

  “Wild Birch.”

  “That sign says seven miles, not five.”

  “I know it, Vin. I didn’t want to scare you off.”

  “Y
eah sure.” Vinnie opened his door and got out of the truck. “I can walk a hundred miles easy.”

  “No you can’t. Nobody can walk a hundred miles, can they Dad?”

  Rory held the door for April. He walked around the truck and let down the tailgate. Vinnie was already standing in the bed of the pickup. He had his nylon pack on and held a rolled sleeping bag beneath each arm. He was breathing hard but was trying to hide it by keeping his mouth shut.

  “Slow down, buddy. I know you’re strong, but we have to pack ourselves right for the walk.”

  “Can they?” April was standing beside Rory looking up at him.

  “Some people can.”

  “Like Mick Welch.”

  “That ugly man you live with, Dad?”

  “Hey Vinnie, Mick doesn’t walk anywhere he can bike. When him and his wife go food shopping he rides his Harley right into the store up and down the aisles. Marie just sits behind him and grabs what she can.”

  “Really, Dad?”

  Rory smiled down at April, then winked at Vinnie. Vinnie looked away and hopped out of the truck.

  The dirt trail was wide and hard-packed. For the first mile it was flat and cut through a short section of woods, then a grassy field. The sun was at its highest point and Rory didn’t think it was quite sixty-five degrees. The kids were walking ahead of him. First Vinnie, then April. She had wanted to carry more than just her bag of marshmallows so Rory had strapped her sleeping bag to her back with his belt. He tied a knot, and when he cinched it in, she smiled and said it was like they were all soldiers in a war or something. Vinnie was still carrying his sleeping bag, their own little pack, plus his canteen of water. Rory’d told him it was all too much, that he would get tired after a mile or two, but he was glad the boy was doing it; Mick’s camping gear probably weighed seventy or eighty pounds at least, and Rory didn’t think he could carry more than he already was.