The Best People in the World (20 page)

I said, “So, all that talk of the mortar being in bad shape. What do Alice or I know? The whole time you were building this.”

The walls seemed to wick away the sound. Every word we said, every noise we made, was disassembled and lost.

A wave of regret passed over Shiloh's pudding face. “Parker didn't think you needed to be involved.”

“But what is it?”

“It's just a place for me to go to clear my head.”

“Cool,” I said.

Beneath the bench sat his red enamel toolbox. An iron spike,
like one might use to anchor a circus tent, had been set into the ground near one wall. Attached to it were nearly a dozen thin, insulated wires, each a different color, which in turn ran to some of the objects in the room: all three of the lamps, the frame of the chair I sat on, another fastened to the handle of the toolbox. Half a dozen coiled wires concluding in alligator clips hung from small nails set into the workbench.

“Alice and I wouldn't have been much help building a bomb shelter,” I admitted.

With his heel Shiloh pushed the toolbox farther beneath the bench. “It's really more a workroom than a bomb shelter.”

“Parker must have thought you were crazy when you told him you wanted to build this.”

“It wasn't my idea, Thomas.”

I looked at the locked cabinets.

“What? He thought you'd need a room to get away from Alice and me?”

“If I wanted to hide from you, why would I bring you down here?”

He pulled a pen out of his pocket and set the writing tablet on his lap, signaling that he wanted to change gears.

“So he didn't build this for you.”

“Doesn't seem like it.”

“Then he built it for himself.”

Shiloh bit the cap off the pen and wrote something on the pad. He turned it so I could see what he'd written. “Methods and Criteria for the Conservation of Limited Water Resources.”

“Is the thing he stole up there?” I asked, pointing at the locked cabinets.

“Don't take it personally, Thomas. I just like to have a bit of privacy.”

It made sense to me.

He seemed as if he might have been on the verge of saying something, but then he turned away. “Here's how I see it,” he said. “The only essential uses for water are food preparation and personal consumption.” He wrote these things and then he made a slashing line underneath them.

“What about personal hygiene?”

“Yes,” he said, “yes.” Then he made a frustrated sound and tore off the first page of his tablet and copied what he'd written before, leaving space to write “personal hygiene.”

“What about dish washing?”

“Sure,” he said, smiling. “I'm going to call that ‘cleaning.' You and I will know what I'm talking about.”

We looked at the list for a moment and considered whether we'd forgotten anything.

“What we've got to do,” explained Shiloh, “is make a conscious effort to reduce consumption and increase conservation in these specific arenas.” He tapped the pen on the pad of paper. “This is a good start. Before this is over you and I might have to boil stream water for drinking.”

“Alice will love that.”

“Even if we don't always see eye to eye,” said Shiloh, “she gave me a place to stay when I didn't have anywhere to go. She didn't know me from Adam and she invited me into her house. I owe her a debt. What I don't know is if she's going to let me stay around to repay it.”

“You belong here as much as me or Alice.”

“I think you're a great kid, but that's not my point.”

I tried to tell him that I liked him, too. Then I tried to tell him that, in my opinion, most people liked him. When I realized what I was saying, I just sort of let the words dry up in my mouth.

This struck him as funny. We were some type of friends.

“Are all the cabinets full of candy bars?”

“Just that one,” he said, pointing to the one we'd been in.

“What's in the other ones?”

“Pop.”

“Seriously?”

He shook his head. He pointed up, as in “Let's go upstairs,” and when my eyes followed his fingers, he switched the bright lights on and off, blinding me. “Sorry.”

I heard him toss the cardboard aside and then the hatchway
opened again. He took my wrist and helped me crawl back into the basement.

 

Alice discovered a contempt for me. At issue was whether I'd ignored something she'd said or forgotten it. Forgetfulness (a passive offensive, instead of the active one) seemed the lesser crime. The problem I faced was that to convince her I'd forgotten something, I needed to remember it. Alice recognized this and refused to aid me with clues. Of all her features, her mouth hated me the most.

I promised her that I had only forgotten momentarily, that it was on the tip of my tongue. I got her to sit on the edge of the bed and rubbed the back of her neck. I lifted the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head.

“I have to teach you everything.” She was one of those people who could say anything as long as she believed it.

“Yes.”

“You don't even know how to fight.”

“How should I fight?”

She gave me a pitying look.

Later the sun caught us in bed.

Horses clomped down the road. A man and a woman, each steadying a child in the saddle in front of them. The woman rode on a piebald, the man on a sweaty chestnut. They wore straw hats and tight western-style shirts. Something about the way they wore the clothes told us that these were really just costumes for riding; they probably had other costumes for working, or, in the children's case, for school. The family rode down to where the road ended and then they came past us again and were gone.

Across the fields, something skirted the edge of the woods. When the sun hit its coat, Alice said, “Fox.” It seemed to be keeping an eye on the riders. This pleased Alice, the idea of prey tracking the hunter—not that the riders were fox hunters, but still. Even before the fox disappeared, she said she wanted to see it again.

I stared at Alice standing at the window. She had gotten so skinny. Where she used to have a little belly, now there was only a
crease of skin. Her hand kept catching her underwear as it fell off her hips. And, inexplicably, I remembered the thing that Alice had accused me of ignoring.

“Come here,” I said.

She wouldn't leave the window. “It's crossing the road,” she said.

“But why did it cross the road?”

“They're supposed to be very intelligent,” she said, turning to see why I'd called her.

“Where's my surprise?” I said.

She held up a finger, telling me to wait. I heard her open the hall closet. She shifted things inside.

“Close your eyes.”

A heavy box landed on my lap. “What is it?”

Alice stood defiantly, her arms crossed beneath her breasts. She walked back to the window and took another look.

I turned the box in my hands for clues.

“You've drawn this out too long already. Just open it.”

Inside, two winter boots nested among crumpled tissue paper. They had high, laced leather uppers mated to chunky rubber bottoms.

“Boots,” I said.

“Boots.”

A small note card was propped between them.

“Should I read this?”

“Ugh.”

I couldn't really read the card right away, though, because I felt so overwhelmingly happy.

“Do you hate them?” Alice asked, sitting next to me and considering the boots.

“They're my favorite thing.”

“Did you read the card?”

I shook my head.

“‘Thomas,'” she read. “‘With your feet warm and dry this winter, you won't have an excuse for abandoning me. Until then you can park them under my bed.'”

I said, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

She took one out of the box.

Even barefoot I couldn't get my foot in. “They probably need to be broken in.”

I held the boot to my foot. No amount of breaking in would be sufficient.

Alice looked upset. She'd gotten the size from my old shoes. I reminded her that the reason I'd stopped wearing those shoes was that they no longer fit.

“How can you still be growing?”

“Let me try them again.” I almost wrestled a foot in. And I believe I would have succeeded, just to spare Alice.

She yelled, “Stop! You're making it worse.”

Which was true. Already the seam where the leather and rubber met showed signs of extraordinary stress. My toes weren't faring much better. Maybe my mistake was trying too hard. Despite the mix-up I felt certain I was in a moment that I would recall later when I needed to feel truly loved.

The store clerk took one look at the torn seam and refused to exchange them.

Alice asked Shiloh to try them; they fit him fine.

12

High

I was pulling weeds in the driveway. The grass that grew there wasn't any sort of bother, but once I started pulling it up, I couldn't stop. It wasn't work; it was an imitation of work. I looked forward to the imitation of satisfaction I would experience when I was done. Alice sat on the porch swing, feigning an interest in what I did.

Across the road a hawk stalled and plunged, again and again. Whatever it hunted eluded it. Maybe it only pantomimed hunting.

Alice reached a foot down and set the swing rocking. I stood up and stretched my back. An engine strained just over the hill. I heard the stones pinging off the fenders.

A truck came racing toward us, fishtailing in the loose gravel, too
fast. The driver locked up the brakes and the four tires carved four furrows in the soft road. The truck came to rest sticking halfway in the ditch that ran alongside the road. A cloud of dust, as fine as flour, drifted across the field.

The driver hopped out to look at the truck. He wore yellow nylon wind pants and one of those four-flapped hats like Sherlock Holmes.

Shiloh got out on the passenger side. He called out to us, “This is Dupree.”

Dupree said, “That was my first attempt parking.”

“I'm teaching him how to drive,” said Shiloh.

“That's what it looks like,” said Alice.

Dupree put his hands on the truck and rocked it back and forth. The right-rear wheel didn't touch the ground.

“We need to borrow Thomas for a couple of hours,” said Shiloh.

“Me?” I asked.

“Borrow him for what?” asked Alice.

Silk-screened across Dupree's shirt:
SECRET AGENT ORANGE
.

“I can't say,” said Shiloh.

Alice asked me what this was about.

I had no idea.

Alice sat up. “You're not planning anything illegal or dangerous?”

Shiloh put his hand over his heart. “As God is my witness.”

 

The three of us climbed into the truck. Shiloh put it in reverse, but we didn't go anywhere. The wheel in the air was the only one turning.

Shiloh told me and Dupree to get in the bed to act as ballast. The two of us clambered in back. Dupree said, “Hi.” He seemed to be either in great spirits or insane. We crouched beside the tailgate. Now the spinning wheel was on the dirt, but still the truck didn't want to back up, so Shiloh drove into the ditch instead. He didn't stop, but picked up speed and then, with a turn of the wheel, launched the truck up the embankment and onto the road. I felt my body lifting up and weightless and then I was crashing down on the metal bed.

“Oh, God,” yelled Alice. She started running toward us.

Shiloh stopped the truck.

“Hot dog,” I said.

I turned around to trade looks with Dupree, but he wasn't in the truck anymore. I looked up. He wasn't in the air. Then I saw, lying in the middle of the road, Dupree. I climbed down from the truck.

“He's okay,” said Shiloh.

Dupree sat up compliantly. “Wow,” he said.

“Sorry, pardner,” said Shiloh.

Alice asked him if he was okay.

Dupree wandered off into the ditch.

“You going to be sick?” Shiloh asked.

Dupree looked up, surprised. “I'm looking for my bike.”

“What's he talking about?” asked Alice.

“You fell out of the truck,” explained Shiloh.

“Maybe you should rest for a while,” said Alice.

Dupree sat in the ditch.

The three of us looked down at him.

“Who is he?” Alice asked finally.

“He knows Gregor,” said Shiloh.

After a minute Dupree stood up. He dropped his pants. We turned away while he pissed in the high grass.

When he got back onto the road, he said, “I'm ready to travel.”

“Maybe you ought to see a doctor,” said Alice.

“You want to see a doctor?” asked Shiloh.

Dupree didn't seem to realize that they were talking to him. He got in the truck.

“Thomas?” said Shiloh.

I leaned toward him.

“Aren't you coming?”

Alice didn't look at me. She didn't wave as we drove away.

 

Dupree told Shiloh where to turn. We came into this town that was exactly where I never thought a town might be, and then, in the middle of this town, we came to a golf course. I'd only seen golf on
television, but it was the same in person. Men zipped around in gasoline-powered carts.

“I didn't realize it would be so hectic here,” said Shiloh.

“They're having a father-son tournament,” explained Dupree.

On closer inspection, in every cart we saw an older and a younger version of the same person. Which explained why the golf pro wasn't happy to see us. He wanted us to come back later in the afternoon. He made an appeal to Dupree, but Dupree wasn't listening. Finally the four of us got onto a cart—Shiloh and me holding on back where the golf bags are supposed to ride—and the pro chauffeured us across the course. The golfers waved to the pro as we scooted past.