Kaleidoscope Eyes

by Jen Bryant

He squeezes my hand, releases it.

  “Sure,” he says. “Stay as late as you want.

  It won’t be too long now and you’ll be doing

  homework at night.”

  “I know,” I reply, already halfway to the door.

  “Don’t remind me!”

  Malcolm and Carolann are already inside the van

  eating Mt. Pocono peanut brittle

  from a bright orange can.

  “OK,” I say. “Let’s get started. We have to

  come out of here tonight

  with a plan for getting that chest.”

  Malcolm agrees. “Once those Boy Scouts start

  tromping around in the woods,

  they’re gonna find it.”

  “Unless we fill the hole back in,” Carolann offers, breaking

  off a huge piece of brittle, splitting it

  in two, handing a half

  each to Malcolm and me.

  “But then what?” Malcolm points out. “We’re right

  back where we are now. Plus we’re in school,

  which complicates everything

  and takes up a whole lot of time.”

  We go back over all the ideas we had

  that night at the diner:

  1. Flood the hole to soften the roots

  (won’t do much to break up the rock).

  2. Use acid to dissolve the shale and use tools

  to cut through the roots (the acid might destroy the chest

  and whatever’s in it; we don’t have the right tools).

  3. Burn the roots with a torch

  (ditto—too risky for the chest).

  4. Use ropes and a pulley to lift it up from underneath

  (but how do we get the ropes under the chest in the first

  place?).

  We eat way too much peanut brittle, hoping a little

  sugar high will provide the answer.

  It doesn’t.

  Finally, I say what I’ve been thinking about

  for the past three days: “Guys …

  I think I know a way that might work.”

  My friends stop chewing. I wait.

  “Well, OK already,” Carolann says, gulping down

  what’s in her mouth and putting the lid on the can.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  I am quiet a minute, as if silence

  might help me believe that my idea

  is the right one, the one that Gramps himself

  would choose if he were alive, if he were in charge of

  this adventure,

  this problem,

  this chest,

  this mess,

  this three-foot-deep hole with tree roots and shale,

  with an iron band and a mermaid,

  with green-shirted Boy Scouts,

  with hardly any time left

  till school.

  I take a deep breath.

  “I think we need to tell Harry.”

  After work on Tuesday, I ride my bike

  two miles over to the lumberyard

  and wait.

  At five-thirty, Harry walks across the parking lot toward

  his car,

  where I am drawing circles in the gravel

  with my sandal.

  “Hey, Lyza—what’s going on?”

  He’s definitely not expecting to see me way out here.

  Then, quickly, a little desperately: “Is Denise OK?”

  (Jeez, he even sounds like a husband!)

  “Oh, yeah. She’s fine,” I reassure him.

  “Probably home burning another meat loaf right now.”

  He laughs as he unlocks his trunk,

  pulls off his gray Dillard’s Lumber T-shirt,

  exchanging it for another one with a caricature

  of Paul McCartney on the front.

  Harry’s chest is tan, his shoulders stronger

  than I imagined. One thing’s for sure:

  Denise has much better taste in men

  than in music.

  I look around to be sure we’re alone.

  “Harry?” My voice isn’t too steady.

  He looks at me more seriously now.

  His right hand slams the trunk shut.

  “What is it?”

  “Harry … I need to know if you can keep

  a secret.”

  His eyes narrow just a bit. He looks at me funny.

  “Lyza, does this secret have anything to do

  with Denise—or with anything illegal?”

  I shake my head. “No … it’s not about Denise.

  Honest. I would tell you. And I am NOT

  buying, selling, or using any drugs!”

  Harry studies me. He jingles his car keys.

  “OK. Yeah. I’ve kept my share

  of secrets for people. So what’s yours?”

  I lift my bike off the ground, swing my right leg over.

  “Meet me in the parking lot of the

  A.M.E. Church. I’ll get there quick as I can.”

  Harry’s not with me—yet.

  “Why? What’s up at the church?”

  “Please. Just… just trust me. I promise

  I’ll explain everything once we’re there.”

  I start pedaling away, not wanting to give him

  any more time to decide.

  I turn onto the main road and pick up speed.

  It feels good, for a change, to use my legs

  instead of my back and shoulders.

  As Harry passes me,

  I can hear John, Paul, George, and Ringo

  singing “A Hard Day’s Night” on the radio,

  which, come to think of it,

  sums up the whole summer

  pretty darn well.

  My friends are sitting on the front steps

  talking to Harry when I arrive.

  Carolann has the maps

  and the handwritten transcript

  of Captain Kidd’s ship’s log;

  Malcolm has the key to get us into

  the church. We enter by the back door,

  walk through the kitchen, and spread the maps across

  the choir-room floor.

  Malcolm turns on the light that’s over

  the piano, and the three of us sit

  on the bench. Harry sits cross-legged on

  the floor, looking confused but, so far,

  patient. Since we’re in church, I pray

  silently that I have not misjudged him—

  that he will keep our secret

  and not rat us out. And more important,

  that he’ll actually help us.

  After we agreed that Harry might be

  our only answer to saving the chest,

  we decided that each of us should

  tell one part of our story, and since

  Harry knows me the best of the three,

  I got elected to start. First I explain how

  I found the maps and the letter

  from Gramps; then Malcolm reads

  the documents we found in Brigantine;

  then Carolann tells how we used all that,

  plus the metal detector, to find the site

  we’ve been digging up at night

  right behind the church. “We don’t

  come every night—just as often

  as we can,” she explains, sliding off

  the bench, pacing a little, then sitting

  back down again. “Sometimes it’s just

  two of us, sometimes all three,

  but we’ve been sneaking over here

  for more than six weeks and now we’re

  stuck.” When Carolann’s done,

  Harry stands. He looks down at the

  maps and then at the three of us

  lined up on the piano bench like

  magpies on a fence. Finally, he says:

  “That story is so wild … you can’t

  possibly be making it up.”

  I feel all
three of us breathe

  a sigh of relief. He believes us!

  “So when do I get to see…?”

  A wedge of light sprawls across

  the choir-room floor. “Someone’s comin’—

  grab the maps!” Malcolm croaks.

  We dive down and gather them up.

  Malcolm tucks them in his shirt.

  And Harry—color-blind, grave-keeping,

  Denise-loving Harry—stands

  like a soldier between us

  and whoever has intruded.

  The wedge of light

  that sprawled across the choir-room floor

  is quickly blocked by the full figure

  of Mrs. Eunice Carter.

  “Malcolm DuPREEEE!” she bellows.

  Her eyes slide across the rest of us.

  “What are you-all doin’ in here?”

  Sweat beads are already popping out across

  Malcolm’s forehead. “Aunt Eunice! … uh…

  hi… uh … we were just… uh …”

  Stepping toward her, Harry interrupts.

  “Excuse me, ma’am—uh, Mrs. Carter …

  you see, I was just… uh … I don’t have

  a piano at home and I was just… uh …

  hoping to use this one here to … umm …

  to rehearse a Beatles tune.”

  Mrs. Carter’s eyes light up. “Oh, I love them.

  Which one you singin'?”

  I exchange looks with Carolann:

  Uh-oh. He’d better pick one we

  all know the words to.

  Harry turns around, starts walking slowly toward

  the piano. He looks at me, mouthing:

  “Ticket to Ride”? and I nod OK.

  We gather around the piano

  with Harry playing,

  Malcolm and me singing alto,

  Carolann and Mrs. Carter singing soprano,

  and we belt out the most

  unrehearsed, improvised version of “Ticket to Ride”

  that South Jersey has ever heard.

  After singing that song with us twice more,

  Aunt Eunice leaves with her sheet music

  and her casserole dish

  (which is what she came there for).

  We wait, just to be safe, in the parking lot

  in Harry’s car

  until the sun goes down, until we’re sure

  no one else is around. Malcolm stands watch

  while Carolann and I take Harry through the side yard,

  which we’ve walked across

  so many times that we know it by heart

  even in the moonless dark.

  At the woods’ edge, I flick on my flashlight,

  let the beam fall

  on the tree trunk about ten feet in.

  “There—can you see anything?” I ask.

  Harry peers into the woods. He shakes

  his head. “Nope. Not a thing.”

  Carolann and I smile. “Good,” she says. “Because we spent

  almost as much time covering this thing

  as we did trying to dig it up!”

  We roll back the tree, lift the branches

  and the plastic. We lie on our bellies, scoop

  out a few shoefuls of loose dirt. We move

  away so Harry can look down

  into the hole at the long-haired,

  fish-tailed woman at the bottom.

  Harry just keeps repeating:

  “Man … unbelievable. Man oh

  man oh man … unbelievable…. Man.”

  And then: “You did all this yourselves, by hand?”

  We show him our bruised wrists

  and blistered fingers.

  We show him the hollow tree where we’ve been dumping

  most of the dirt.

  He walks around the hole. He pulls

  on his ponytail. Then he walks around again, staring

  down at the mermaid and the tangle of tree roots

  that have grown around the chest

  like an octopus clinging to a boat.

  He pokes the shelf of shale with a branch;

  he lies down, removes his boot, and pounds it

  with the heel. “That’s not budging.”

  “We know,” I say. “And that’s why we need

  your help. We need special tools and someone who’s

  strong enough to use them

  to break through the rock and the roots.”

  Carolann pulls one of her mystery books

  from her knapsack: The Mystery of the Fire Dragon.

  On the cover, it shows a man

  using a pointed thing with a handle

  to smash the thick rock wall

  of his cell.

  “How about something like this?” she asks,

  holding the book up to Harry’s face.

  “That’s a pickax,” Harry explains.

  “We have some at Dillard’s….” He leans over

  the center of the hole.

  “Yeah, a pickax might do the trick.

  Probably a hacksaw and lopping shears for the roots.”

  He turns to me:

  “Your father knows nothing about this?”

  “Nope,” I reply.

  “How about Denise?”

  “Nope.”

  He nods toward Carolann and back to Malcolm.

  “Not their parents, either?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Nobody but you three?”

  “Nope—just you. And you promised,” I remind him.

  Harry holds up his hand.

  “I know, I know. Don’t sweat it, Lyza….

  It’s just… well, we use the tools at the lumberyard

  during the day—”

  “But not at night, right?” I interrupt. “No one would

  know if we borrowed them then—right?”

  “No, not at night. Yard’s closed till morning.”

  “Perfect!” I say. “Then can you bring them here

  on Thursday after work? We’ll meet you

  at eight-forty-five.”

  I stand on one side of the hole.

  Harry stands on the other. I look him straight in the face

  and wait for his reply.

  At last he sighs, shakes his head.

  “Good Lord! How did I end up taking orders from

  two Bradley women?”

  Part 8

  Lately things just don’t seem the same.

  Actin’ funny, but I don’t know why….

  —from “Purple Haze”

  by Jimi Hendrix

  10,000: Estimated number of anti-war protesters at the

  Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

  12,000: Estimated number of police—same place.

  6,000: Number of National Guardsmen called in as reinforcements.

  7,500: Number of U.S. Army troops called to Chicago to help quiet the riots.

  And all this time

  we thought

  the war

  was in Vietnam.

  Wednesday passes pretty quickly.

  Thursday is an eternity. On my work shift, I triple-wash

  every glass and dish. I stack and restack

  the dinner plates, rearrange the bowls.

  Mary Sue glares at me the whole time.

  “Don’t be so ambitious,” she scolds.

  “Makes the rest of us look lazy.”

  That wouldn’t be hard, I feel like saying. (But I don’t.)

  At home, I heat up the least-burned piece

  of Denise’s meat loaf and choke it down.

  I sweep the kitchen and vacuum every room.

  Dad calls home at precisely eight-thirty.

  “I’m giving my last exam, so don’t wait up.

  But leave the lights on, OK?”

  OK, Dad. No problem. Click. Breathe.

  Carolann and Malcolm are outside waiting.

  They look as nervous as I feel.

  �
��We should split up tonight,” Carolann suggests.

  “Take different ways to the church. Just in case.”

  This seems like spillover from her mystery-book reading.

  I turn to Malcolm. “Can’t hurt,” he shrugs.

  “OK,” I say. “I’ll take Maple—you two take Walnut or Main.”

  We head out separately. We meet up again shortly

  in the churchyard, where Harry Keating

  promised he’d be waiting,

  but he is nowhere to be found.

  We sit together

  at the edge of

  the A.M.E. Church

  parking lot waiting

  under the starry

  sky with the thin

  sliver of moon: five, ten,

  fifteen, twenty minutes—

  and still, no sign of Harry.

  A pair of headlights spear the dark

  and we are deer

  caught by flashlight in the neighbor’s garden.

  I have seen

  the look on Denise’s face when Harry is late

  and I have

  that same look now as Harry kills the engine

  and jumps out.

  Dressed entirely in black, he is carrying

  a canteen.

  “Sorry, guys,” he says. “The boss had a meeting

  after closing

  and I couldn’t get the tools until everyone left.”

  He pops open

  the trunk, pulls out a pickax, hands Malcolm

  the hacksaw and shears.

  “I know the National Organization for Women wouldn’t approve,

  but I’m only

  willing to do this once,” Harry says. “So how ’bout

  us guys give this

  our best shot while you girls stand watch?” Malcolm—

  who at first was mad

  at God and at Harry (for not getting drafted)—now

  seems to like

  having Harry around. “Good idea,” he says. But

  Carolann frowns.

  “That’s not real fair to us, ya know….” She wags

  her index finger,

  looking to me for support. Truthfully, I am torn: