Thieves I've Known

by Tom Kealey

  On his drive home he passed the lines of pickups and station wagons, lights on, driving toward work and school, slow in the morning’s slush and ice. He watched for animals from the woods. They came out fast if you didn’t keep an eye out. Killing a raccoon was bad luck, and deer was worse.

  At home, he left his boots just inside the trailer door, and he changed his socks because that was good for his circulation. His wife was in the kitchen, and an omelet—spinach, which he didn’t much like—was frying in a pan. Mona rubbed lotion on her arm—an old habit, she’d been burned bad as a child—and squinted up at him as he sat down. She looked tired and old, although she was ten years younger than him.

  “You put your glasses on, you could see,” he said.

  “They hurt my eyes this early.”

  “I could be a serial murderer with a chain saw, for all you could tell.”

  “I know your walk,” Mona said. “A man with a chain saw doesn’t come in here with just his socks on.”

  He took a seat. “You get that prescription changed and you’d be all right.”

  “I had it changed, and the lenses were too heavy. I’m not having that same fool conversation with you this morning. I can smell a cigarette on your clothes. You got no business giving me any lectures.”

  Grimsley decided not to argue with her. It was bad luck. Although his mother hadn’t taught him that, he’d learned it on his own. Mona set the lotion aside, pushed her chair away from the table. At the stove she flipped the omelet, pushed down with the spoon. They listened to the sizzle of grease, the ice slipping from the trailer outside. The sun was beginning to rise. He switched the lamp off and watched the shadows of trees on the frozen pond, the birds pecking at the snow. Mona set the omelet on a plate, brought him a knife and fork, a mug of juice. He ate quickly: the spinach didn’t taste so bad when it burned his tongue.

  “Today’s Thursday,” Mona said.

  Grimsley concentrated on the omelet. He counted the bites remaining—six if he was lucky—and said nothing.

  “You said you’d go over there by the end of the week,” she said.

  “Saturday’s the end of the week.”

  “Saturday you’ll be out on your boat, and tomorrow you’ll tell me a man needs to enjoy his Friday. Today’s a good day to go.”

  “Is she going to the hospital today?”

  Mona sat down in the chair across from him. “The next time that woman goes’ll be the last time, and then you’ll have that hanging on your head. Don’t make me get mean with you.”

  Grimsley thought she was being mean already, but he kept the thought to himself. He ate a bite of omelet. He didn’t like visiting the dying—that was big-time bad luck unless you were family or a minister—and he didn’t like making promises without first thinking them through. He looked over at his wife.

  “I’m just fixing things, right?”

  “The woman’s granddaughter is staying with her, and she could certainly use a little help. There’s a hole in the bathroom and a leak in the kitchen. How’d you like some water running through your kitchen this time of year?”

  “I guess I wouldn’t like it very much.”

  “You’re pushing it,” she said.

  He looked at his watch, bought a little time while he thought things through.

  “I’ll go over in the afternoon,” he said.

  “This afternoon?”

  “By the time you come home, I’ll be there and back.”

  “And those things’ll be fixed?”

  “If I can fix them in an afternoon, they’ll be fixed. If not, tomorrow.”

  “On a Friday?”

  “Nothing like helping people on a Friday.”

  Mona picked up the bottle of lotion and put her glasses on. “Helping someone doesn’t have a time limit.”

  Shelby set her book on the dresser and picked up the oxygen line from the tank. Her grandmother pressed her head back against the pillows, squinted her eyes. She coughed up something gray and solid into her mask. Shelby wiped it out with a handkerchief. She rubbed her grandmother’s temples, something the woman had liked weeks before, although now Shelby couldn’t be sure. She cut back on the oxygen, set her grandmother up against the pillows, brushed the hair out of the woman’s eyes. Out the window, she could see the shadows of trees against the pond and a single bird, pecking at the snow. Later, the visiting nurse—Karl, a man Shelby had a secret crush on, was terrified at the thought—changed the woman’s dressings, the bedsheets, gave the woman an injection of pain relief though a tube into her leg. Shelby read her books in the bedroom, and when her grandmother slept, in the kitchen. History mostly, things she liked: Roman emperors who built a seawall for fishermen, who supported the arts and theater, who poisoned their fathers (she didn’t like that), who built roads through what would become France.

  Over the past weeks, she’d read about cave dwellings, about sea scrolls, about Amelia Earhart (two books about her), and about one of the first known cartographers, a Russian named Yirvus. She walked to the library in town on Mondays, a nurse—not Karl—stayed for most of that day, and Shelby brought back as many books as would fit in her pack. Her grandmother had been dying for many weeks now. Shelby had dropped out of the tenth grade. She read about da Vinci, about James Farmer, and about the first woman to reach the North Pole. She read and reread a book on the Dust Bowl of 1934. Shelby kept a notebook, copied passages that she wanted to remember. She’d not been much of a reader before, had liked television and the radio, but the sound bothered her grandmother.

  In her reading, Shelby found that she didn’t much like the British, though that was likely due to Churchill. She did like a nun in the sixteenth century named Elizabeth Byrd who had done little of anything, but who seemed to notice a lot: waterbirds, the sky at night, dragonflies. Meriwether Lewis was the best writer, Shelby thought, although Wilbur Wright was close behind. She read at a varied pace—mostly depending on her grandmother.

  On this morning, she took out her pen, opened her notebook. Do you not insist too strongly on the single point of mental ability? To me, it seems that a thousand other factors, each rather insignificant in itself, in the aggregate influenced the event ten times more than mere mental ability or inventiveness. If the wheels of time could be turned back, it is not at all probable that we would do again what we have done. … It was due to a peculiar set of circumstances which might never occur again.

  She read for a half hour, copying a passage here and there. After, she checked on her grandmother again, turned the heat up in the room, placed two tablets on the woman’s tongue, sitting her up straight, pressing a cup of water to the lips. The woman looked at her but her eyes didn’t seem to focus. When she was set against the pillows again, she mumbled, “It’s too deep out there. You need to come in a little.”

  Shelby sat on the nightstand and brushed the woman’s hair, held her hand for a few minutes. A man’s voice from the other room opened her eyes. She placed her grandmother’s arm back under the covers and switched off the lamp. She closed the door behind her.

  “Good morning,” said the man. He stood in the doorway to the trailer. He was old and stooped a little, seemed to keep the weight off one leg.

  “Yes sir,” said Shelby.

  He paused for a moment, as if she’d addressed someone else.

  “I’m here to fix some things,” he said. “My wife’s name is Mona, and I believe she talked with you.”

  “All right.”

  She showed him the pipes in the kitchen, the aluminum pan filled with water and the towels spread on the floor. It was cold in the trailer, a draft seemed to come from the bathroom. He bent and took the flashlight from his pocket, inspected things, ran his finger along the rust and the mold.

  “That’s behind the wall,” he said. “You had anyone look at this?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t have a lot of money.”

  Grimsley looked at the wall under the sink aga
in. “That won’t cost much.”

  She showed him the bathroom and the plank of wood on the roof. The bulb over the sink flickered. He brought a chair from the kitchen, set it in the tub, had her hold it still. He stepped up, pulled away some plaster, pressed the wood back, inspected the hole. A bit of snow fell down in his eye. He felt the damp along the ceiling.

  “This whole thing is rotten,” he said.

  “How much do you think?”

  He looked at her, genuinely confused. “How much do I think?”

  “How much do you think it will all cost?”

  The light flickered in the bathroom again. Grimsley looked up.

  “That do that much?”

  “All the time,” she said.

  “Anywhere else?”

  “All over.”

  He looked down at her and smiled a little. “You’re having all kinds of trouble.”

  Her expression didn’t change.

  Grimsley paused. There was something off about the girl, he thought. He stepped down from the chair. He felt a sting in his knee, almost slipped when he took his weight off it, caught himself with his hand on the tub.

  “You all right?” Shelby said.

  He closed the lid on the toilet, sat down. He pushed his fingers to the base of his kneecap.

  “This thing acts up on me when it’s got a mind to.”

  He sat for a while, rubbing at the knee. The pain was sharp, behind the cap. He watched the lamp bulb flicker, let the pain run its course. After, he limped into the kitchen, sat down on the remaining chair.

  “Do you have some ice?” he said.

  “I have some snow outside.”

  He nodded. “That’ll do.”

  She found a plastic bag and went out. Grimsley rolled up his pant leg, looked at the blue skin. He took the bag from her when she returned, stretched his leg, and set the pack on his knee.

  “It’ll be about fifty for the roof,” he said. “We might skip the plaster, just put some insulation up there with some plastic. The wiring might be extra.”

  “I think the wires will have to wait.”

  “It’s bad luck to let things go.”

  “Maybe so,” she said. “My name’s Shelby. I can get half that fifty now, and maybe the other half in a week or two.”

  “That’ll do. People call me Grimsley.”

  “Mr. Grimsley, when’ll your man come?”

  Grimsley looked up from his knee. “What man?”

  “The man who’s going to fix the roof.”

  “I’m going to fix it.”

  Shelby looked at his knee. “I can’t help you if you take a fall.”

  He looked back at her. “You’re not going to help me if I take a fall?”

  “I’ll help you,” she said. “But I can’t pay for the doctor or anything.”

  “I got enough doctors already.”

  “One of the nurses might be around,” the girl said. “They could have a look at you.”

  He frowned. “You’re talking like I’m already out there with a broken neck.”

  “I’m just saying,” she said. She tapped her knuckles three times against the wooden table. “I hope nothing happens.”

  “Don’t knock on wood,” said Grimsley. “Snap your fingers instead, it works better.”

  When his knee felt better, he hobbled back to his trailer across the snow. He found his toolbox and some old work clothes. For some reason, the girl, Shelby, reminded him of his own sister, a woman he owed a few phone calls to. He hadn’t spoken with his sister since last Christmas. She lived on the other side of the country now. There was always something about her that made Grimsley feel inadequate and foolish. Like he thought their conversations were about one thing, and then they turned out to be about something else—something over his head. The girl made him feel that way. As if she was having two conversations, one with him and the other with someone more interesting and important.

  He drove into town and found the pipes he’d need. He bought some washers, a large roll of plastic, a collection of nails and screws, and a pack of cigarettes that he hid under the maps in his glove compartment. He drove to the sawmill and picked out some pieces of scrap wood, borrowed a ladder from the foreman. In the old woman’s trailer, he turned off the water and set the plastic down in front of the sink, turned the faucet until it ran dry. He didn’t much like the smell in the trailer—mold and dust, and another smell that came from the woman’s bedroom that he tried not to think about. Shelby sat at the kitchen table, had put on an extra sweater, watched him as he bent in front of the sink, as he set himself flat on his back. She took out her pen and the Wright brothers book, and she went back to her journal.

  It is my belief that flight is possible, and, while I am taking up the investigation for pleasure rather than profit, I think there is slight possibility of achieving fame and fortune from it. It is almost the only great problem which has not been pursued by a multitude of investigators, and therefore carried to a point where further progress is very difficult. I am certain I can reach a point much in advance of any previous workers in the field even if complete success is not attained just at present. At any rate, I shall have an outing of several weeks and see a part of the world I have never before visited.

  Grimsley tried to be quiet with the wrench against the pipes, not for Shelby but for the woman. He pulled out the backboard, wiped up the water in the back, set the rusted pipes on the plastic.

  “You want some help?” said Shelby.

  He looked at her. He almost said, You can help by leaving me alone, but that would’ve been big-time bad luck.

  “I’m all right,” he said instead.

  “I could hold the flashlight.”

  He sighed, he hoped silently. “If you want.”

  She set her notebook aside and sat on the floor next to him. When he asked, she passed him a metal file, some sandpaper, a plastic washer. They could hear the ping of rain on the rooftop of the trailer.

  “That’ll get in the bathroom,” he said.

  “I put the wood back.”

  He held up his left arm, looked at his watch. She shined the flashlight there.

  “Not sure we’ll get to that today,” he said.

  “That’s all right.”

  “Don’t you go to school or something?”

  “I dropped out.”

  He was surprised. “Really?”

  “The studying gives me problems.”

  “Maybe you studied too much,” he said.

  “Never heard of that.”

  “Too much of something is bad luck.”

  “How do you know when it’s too much?”

  He looked back at her through a crook in the pipes. “The studying?”

  “Anything.”

  Grimsley considered her question. He set the wrench against the floor. This was exactly the type of conversation he’d been worrying about. “I don’t think it’s my business to tell you to go back to school or not,” he said.

  She blinked. “I didn’t know I’d asked you that.”

  “Isn’t that what I just said?”

  “Sort of,” she said. “But I didn’t know you were thinking that.”

  He frowned. “You see that scrap of sandpaper?”

  She found it under his boot, and he took it from her, handed back the wrench. He worked the grit off the edge of a pipe, closed his eyes so as not to get blinded by the falling sand.

  “How old are you?” she said.

  “It’d be bad luck to tell you,” said Grimsley

  “You look kind of old, but you act a lot younger.”

  He took up the wrench and readjusted the flashlight in her hands. If he just kept his mouth shut here, he was going to be in for all kinds of good luck.

  “Did you finish school?” said the girl.

  The question seemed to indicate that he hadn’t, though that was not her tone.

  “Are you asking if I graduated?”

  “Yes.”

  “I gra
duated, but I didn’t end up walking in the ceremony.”

  “That’s strange,” she said. “Why not?”

  He didn’t answer that. He had been in jail at the time. He’d driven drunk and killed two of his friends who were riding with him. The memory came back sharp and clear. He suddenly wanted to get out from under the sink and away from this girl.

  “Are you glad you finished school?” Shelby said.

  “I hadn’t really ever thought of it,” said Grimsley.

  The girl thought that over. “That doesn’t push me either way.”

  At home, Grimsley set his flashlight back on the dresser, put the toolbox away in the closet. He changed his socks, which made him feel better. In the kitchen, he sliced up onions and potatoes, took out the cream from the fridge, made some soup at the stove and left it to warm for Mona. He cut a few slices of bread and set them on his bowl and ate his dinner in front of the television, watching a game show and a special about penguins, who he thought were pretty stupid. He drank a beer so he could sleep, and as he set the empty bottle next to the empty bowl, he closed his eyes and propped his feet on the stool he’d carved when he was younger. He had a dream where he lay flat in the middle of a pond as snow fell on him, covering him until he looked like a large, irregular mountain range or a white sand dune. He was both under the snow and watching himself on TV. There were penguins under the ice who kept knocking, waking him up. The penguins were very adamant, as if he owed them something and they had arrived to collect. The snow felt hot, not cold, and it burned his skin. There was a narrator on TV who told him the man under the snow had been there a thousand years and would be there a thousand more.

  When he woke, he could hear Mona in the kitchen, and he didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. The TV was turned off, but he could see the blue glow of another set, out the window and in his neighbor’s trailer. Mona brought her soup in from the kitchen and sat down next to him. She worked at a printer’s shop all day, and the tips of her fingers were stained blue and red.

  “How’d you do?” he said.

  “Same as always. How’d you do?”

  “That girl is frightening,” he said. “She’s like something out of one of those movies where people get possessed.”