The Cage Keeper

by Andre Dubus III

  Outside, Rory untied his sleeping bag from the frame. He finished wiping the steak sauce off everything, then he carried the empty pack down to the stream and dipped it in against the current. The water felt so cold against his wrists he was surprised there wasn’t any ice formed around the rocks or at the edge of the stream. After he rinsed out the pack and shook off the excess water, he laid it over the garbage barrel near the hackberry tree. It was already too dark in the birches to see much, and he figured any wood he’d find under the ferns would be too wet. He glanced at the tent, picked up the flask, and headed for the stream.

  He stepped over rocks and made it to the other side without getting water on his boots. He couldn’t believe how dark it’d gotten. It’s the Notch, he thought. There’s probably more sunlight on the other side. In the meadow before it, ten yards downstream, was a fallen shagbark hickory. Rory set his flask down and wondered how, with all the higher trees around, lightning had picked this one. He kicked a long dry limb off the trunk, braced one end over his shoulder, the other on the ground, then stomped on its middle and broke it in half.

  He started making a pile for him and Vinnie to carry back to the camp. April had felt too hot, he knew that. He’d build a fire close to the tent to cook over and he’d make April drink three canteens of water, stay in her sleeping bag. When he first touched her face, he thought she’d just walked too hard and needed to rest. But then her cheeks had felt feverish and her eyes got that dark but distant look people get when their world starts to look unworldly. He wished he’d brought some aspirin. Band-Aids too. He picked up the flask and felt the liquid promise of it in his hand. He uncapped it, passed the opening under his nose, then took a short hit: oh Jesus Mary and Saint Joseph’s what a treat. The Big Man’s own elixir. A ten-month drought ended. A fat check cashed. Rory just knew the center of the earth was filled with the stuff. He gathered an armful of wood and started back over the rocks he could see. Just before he reached the other side, his left foot slipped into the water and a light beam shone into his face. “Who the fuck is that?”

  “Me.” Vinnie lowered the flashlight. He had put on a heavy wool sweater and was eating a candy bar.

  “Oh. I forgot you had a light.”

  “Doug gave it to me.”

  “That’s right too. It’s good you brought it, Vin. All I got is a lighter.”

  Rory dropped the wood on the ground near the tent. “Man, the sun turned in early, didn’t it? I can hardly see your face.”

  “April’s sick.”

  “I know it.”

  “Mom had the flu last week.”

  “Good.”

  “Good?”

  “I mean it’s good April’s got the flu instead of heatstroke, or sunstroke, or whatever you call it. I was worried about her not sweating.”

  “She never sweats.”

  “Give me your flashlight. I want to check on her.”

  “She’s got her own.”

  Rory couldn’t see if Vinnie was smiling or not. He could only see the vague outline of the boy’s head and shoulders, the white of the birches behind him.

  “Can I do the fire?”

  Rory reached into his jeans pocket for his Bic lighter. It was still in the silver sheath Alene’d given him on their seventh anniversary, just a few months before nursing school and Doug Cohen. Beneath the sculpted figure of a bearded man on a horse were the words Even long riders need somebody. I love you. A.

  Rory handed it to Vinnie. “Don’t lose that.”

  “I won’t.”

  Rory stuck his head inside the tent. April was lying in her sleeping bag. Her flashlight was on the ground near her head lighting up the yellow canvas wall behind her. Her eyes were closed; she looked like she was asleep.

  While Vinnie started the fire, Rory took his flashlight and headed back over the stream for more wood. He wedged the butt of the light into the ground so he could see. The hickory must’ve been down for a while; the upper branches were breaking easily from the trunk. He thought how lucky they were the wood was this dry, but the farther down the tree he worked the thicker the branches were and he wished he’d brought along a hatchet. By using all his weight, he could still pull the limbs free, but now, to break them in half, he had to lean them against the main trunk and jump with both feet on the center of the branch. The first one cracked cleanly in half, and the second and the third, but on the fourth branch Rory slipped and came down on his butt. The metal flask pushed flat and hard against him. He reached around and pulled it from his pocket.

  On the other side of the stream, Vinnie had the fire going. He had stacked the wood end-to-end to form a pyramid, and the flames were licking in and around the base of the logs. For a minute, Rory didn’t know who he was looking at. The kid with the wool sweater on standing by the fire did not look like a kid; he looked like a short clean-shaven man. Rory swung his legs off the branch and leaned back against the main trunk. He uncapped the flask, drank from it, and glanced at the six sections of broken tree on the ground to his left. They had snapped under him like nothing, like they’d been waiting all fall and winter for him to come along in his steel-toed boots and hundred-eighty-five-pound body to do just that, to finish what a bolt of lightning had already started, to break them up and burn them back to dust.

  Like Cohen finishing off him and Alene, though even now, right this minute, Rory had to admit he still had a hard time believing what this past year’d shown him, that as a twosome he and Alene had definitely run out of juice. Looking back, there were signs he could have noticed. She did drop a smoke grenade here and there. The first seemed minor, but it was the jab before two more jabs before the right cross to the nose. She told him he’d look better if he shaved his beard and just kept his moustache. Not more handsome, but better. Then she stopped wanting to go on Sunday Harley runs from barroom to barroom with Mick and Marie. She said it was boring. She had nothing to talk about with Marie, and everybody drank too much. She’d rather stay home with the kids. Then this: one night she actually asked him to sell his hog, to trade it in for the down payment on a nice car so when they all went out as a family, they wouldn’t have to squeeze into the cab of his pickup, and she wouldn’t feel silly putting on mascara only to sit in a truck with loose nails rolling around her feet.

  Rory sipped from the flask. Until the wipeout last July, things were going okay. He drove around Merrimack and Amesbury and Haverhill. He’d bid on one- or two-man building jobs. He’d get them, lay out plans, order stock, then do what he could. At night he went straight home to his trailer, Alene, and the kids. Four or five nights a week, after eating something Alene’d cooked—ham and beans usually, or spaghetti with meat sauce—he’d kick start his scoot and ride the tar to The Hideaway Lounge for a few beers, a couple blackberry brandies. Sometimes, if the girl next door could come and sit, Alene’d ride with him, would hug his gut all the way down windy 110. Then it’s summer. Alene’s going to nursing school three nights a week and one Wednesday she comes home an hour early, her face drawn and smoking Merit after Merit, to say that she’s in love with a nurse named Doug and this guy Doug is what I really need in a man. Not you, Rory, not you.

  The JD wasn’t going down smooth at all. Not like good stuff should. Instead of a warm slow seeping, it seemed to be kicking its way down his throat. And the buzz felt wrong; it was coming too fast, after only a few shots, and it wasn’t rounding out any of the sharp edges. It was somehow leaving everything ragged. The flames of Vinnie’s fire were almost as high as the tent, but Rory didn’t see Vinnie anywhere. He put away the flask, gathered up the hickory, and waded shin-deep through the stream to the camp. He dropped the wood near the tent and crawled inside.

  The rear wall was still lit up by April’s flashlight. She was on her hands and knees and Vinnie was kneeling beside her holding her forehead with two hands. Rory could smell the vomit as he crawled up beside Vinnie. Just as he got there April retched twice. When she was done she began to cry. Rory took out his bandana and reach
ed past Vinnie to wipe her mouth. She turned her head away and dry-heaved.

  “It’s still got steak sauce on it, Rory.”

  Rory tossed the bandana into the corner. He rested his palm on April’s back and patted gently.

  “You smell like whiskey, you know.”

  Vinnie was looking at him, but Rory couldn’t see much of his face. “How’s that any of your damned business, Vin?”

  The boy turned and crawled fast out of the tent. April was crying again. Softly, though, like she didn’t want anyone to hear her. She sat back on her calves and wiped her mouth with her hands.

  “I’m sorry you’re sick, sweetie.”

  She sniffled and nodded her head.

  “Come lay on your brother’s sleeping bag while I clean up.”

  “Do we have any Coke?”

  “No, hon, just water. I’ll get it.”

  The fire was huge and Vinnie was dropping the last of the six logs into it.

  “The fuck’re you doin’?” Rory reached into the flames and grabbed the log Vinnie’d just dropped in. With his boot he nudged out three more and kicked them onto the bed of rocks near the stream. Smoke rose from all three and one of them was burning.

  “Your sister’s got a fever and you’re doin’ this. Nice.”

  “Oh screw you.”

  Rory stood very still. Like doing that would allow those three words to fly past him and get lost in the woods. An accidental discharge. A simple mistake. But standing still wasn’t working. Vinnie was looking right at him and what he said hung between them like a still-raised fist that’d just sucker punched Rory. He was on the boy before he knew he’d moved. He gripped Vinnie’s sweater in his fists, pushed him back, then jerked him close so their faces were almost touching.

  “Listen you little turd. Nobody talks like that to me. Especially you.” Rory pushed him back and let go. Vinnie half waved his arms to get his balance then fell, his head hitting the base of a birch tree. He rolled onto his stomach and started to cry. Then he got on his feet.

  “You suck, Rory! You suck!” He turned and ran into the grove.

  Rory opened one of the Coors and took a long drink. He sat on the rock near the garbage barrel and heard Vinnie yell the same words again. The kid had it coming, no doubt about that. And he’s lucky too, Rory thought, I could’ve smacked him but I didn’t. I just pushed him.

  The tent flap opened and April stuck her head out. One of her braided pigtails had come undone. When she walked toward Rory, he smiled.

  “I’m gonna call you half-braid.”

  She glanced at the beer in his hand. She looked over the food supplies until she found the canteen, then she rinsed out her mouth and drank until she’d swallowed six or seven times. “Did you hit Vinnie?”

  “No honey, I didn’t hit him. I yelled at him and I pushed him, that’s it.”

  “Why though? We’re supposed to be camping.”

  She sounded like she might start to cry, but when Rory knelt down to hug her she stepped back.

  “Where did he go?”

  “Just in the woods a little ways. If we keep the fire going good, he’ll see us.”

  Rory pressed his palm to April’s forehead. She still felt warm, but she didn’t seem as feverish.

  “I hate throwing up.”

  “Feel better?”

  She nodded and shivered. Rory took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. The leather sleeves covered her hands and hung almost to her knees.

  “Want to cook your steak?”

  She shook her head.

  “Sure?”

  “I just want some Coke.”

  “How ’bout a peanut butter sandwich?”

  She shook her head again and looked toward the stream. The fire lit up the rock bed but left the water in darkness. The gurgling rush of it was all Rory could hear.

  Without turning her head, April stepped closer to him. “I think I don’t like that sound.”

  “Why hon? It’s nice.”

  “No it’s not. It’s like it’s dying to get away from you for some reason. I like lakes better.”

  “Strange girl.”

  “I am not.”

  “Are too.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Only kiddin’.” Rory sat on the ground against the rock and patted his thighs. April paused then moved to him. She sat on his legs and leaned sideways against his chest. “What if he gets lost?”

  “He won’t get lost.” Rory clasped his hands around her shoulder, but didn’t pull her in too close.

  “I’m scared.”

  “No monsters’ll getcha while I’m here, sweets.”

  “Yeah but you’re going to jail for a whole year.”

  “That’s true. But you have your mom and brother.”

  “And Dougie.”

  “Him too.”

  April curled in a little closer. “He says you deserve it. He says you should have to stay in jail a long time.”

  “He says that to you?”

  “No, to Vinnie and Mom. Vinnie mostly.”

  Rory saw himself walking into his old trailer, yanking Cohen off the couch, then tossing him outside where he’d lay into him until nurses couldn’t help, just surgeons.

  “But I don’t listen ’cause I know it was just an accident.” She rested her cheek on his shoulder and was quiet. A wood-spark cracked out of the fire onto the dirt. Rory let go of her to sip from his beer. The whiskey flask was pressing against his butt, and he wanted some, but he didn’t want to disturb April. He could smell her hair: woodsmoke and little girl sweat, just the hint of cherry shampoo.

  “Besides,” she said into his shoulder, “I’m not afraid of monsters. I’m just afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “Everything, Dad. All the time.”

  RORY FINISHED HIS BEER. He wanted the other but couldn’t get to it without moving April. He reached behind him and skinned his knuckles getting the flask out of his back pocket. He unscrewed the cap with his left hand against April’s shoulder, then he drank. The Jack was still going down rough. His tongue stiffened against it first, then his throat. When the whiskey reached his stomach, his gut muscles seemed to hold still like they were bracing themselves for bad news. But soon the heat of it down there started to feel good. It’d been three seasons, but his pilot light wasn’t out yet. Rory Enfield’s furnace was back and cranking up steam. For what? he thought. For everything, God damn it. For April. For the thirteen-year-old boy with his head up his ass in the woods. For the hard-time bullshit Rory knew he might have to face starting Monday. He was glad he hadn’t listened to Alene and shaved his beard; he would look more boyish then, he knew.

  He sipped from the flask, then lightly rested his chin on the top of April’s head. The fire was burning down fast, cracking out sparks that rose up in a heat fume then vanished before the treetops. Rory thought of his old man in Derry, the way he’d sit on his back porch with a cold beer at dusk in the summer. His three-quarter-acre lawn would still smell like fresh-cut grass from the day’s mowing. The sun’d be going down behind the stand of poplars at the property’s edge, and Rory Enfield, Sr., dressed in cutoff jeans and a white V-neck T-shirt, would be sipping a can of Olympia, saying, “Son, if it never gets worse than this, I’m going out happy.”

  And maybe that’s how it felt now. Really. Never mind the particulars, Rory thought. This is a camp we’ve made for ourselves. This is my ass sitting on the ground in a basin of wild birch trees in the middle of the White Mountains. This is a girl who calls me Daddy. He sipped more Jack. One thing would make this all better, though. No, two. First would be one last ride on the bike. Mick’d been good last night. A true bro’ showing true colors. He had taken out his Harley El Glide instead of the Triumph ’cause the Tri’s seat was short and flat and Rory would’ve had to hold on to Mick like a woman. But the El Glide was another story: a cream-colored ’69 shovelhead that had a wide Goodyear tire in back and a real narrow one in front off of hydraulic glide f
orks. It looked like half a chopper with its seat curving up and over the rear tire, so that Rory had sat a head above Mick. And last night, the first time since last July, Rory’d felt the rush of road wind in his face. Like getting baptized with fast air, it was not only part of the thrill, it was the thrill. What made a man ride the tar in the first place. And even though it was Mick’s sled and not Rory’s dream machine—not his Harley 1340 cc Low Rider with the buckhorn handlebars and the red gas tank with Born to Ride etched in beneath the HD logo—even though it wasn’t that, it would do. And after only one or two Cokes at The Hideaway, then The Eighteenth Wheel, before Mick’d even finished his Miller, Rory had nudged him toward the door to cruise to the next place. And feel free to take the back roads, bro’. Feel free. But Mick had opened it all the way up Amesbury Street and they were still going a C-note when the lights of Aunt Betty’s Pub came into view. Mick down-shifted without jarring once and they pulled into the parking lot behind pickup trucks and vans, the little Jap cars of the bank tellers and secretaries who Rory knew got wet over guys like him and Mick. They had a kid or two at home and no man. Pretty spiders in a pretty web. Mick parked his sled and they’d gone inside where Rory drank a Coke and thought about tonight and Jack Daniel’s and the kids.

  The flask was quickly losing weight. Rory capped it. He’d want some after the steaks, he knew. But you can’t cook steaks without a fire and he realized there wasn’t much of one left. So where was all this light coming from? He could see the tent clearly. He could even make out the black lines in the birch trunks. It was the moon. Its light was everywhere. The clearing and stream were bathed in it, and where the water foamed over the rocks was no longer white but pale blue. Rory remembered Vinnie, the second thing that’d make this night better, and he pulled gently on April’s shoulder. “Honey, let’s get up.”

  She moaned and curled in closer then she raised her head and stood up all at once. She started toward the fire’s coals, stopped, and crawled into the tent. Rory’s legs were asleep. He drew his right leg up, then his left. He had no idea what time it was, though it seemed late.