'We’ll help you,” Cut ’N Style said.
His hutch had a little gate which was kept closed by a hook latch.
'You do it,” I told her. 'I don’t want to get in trouble.”
But Cut ’N Style wasn’t worried. She flicked the hook without thinking twice.
'You’re free.”
I might have opened the little gate for him and pointed above the weeds and foxtails to the mesquites. It was there, among the trees, that he could flee. I wanted to help him more, but I didn’t. Unlatching the gate was enough.
Then I peeked into the shed, making certain Dickens hadn’t seen what we’d done. But -- with his butt aimed toward the doorway, his hands digging inside the duffel bag -- I knew he was unaware. And glancing at the hutch, I saw that the gate now hung open; the prisoner had already slipped away. He was quick, that squirrel. He understood what to do, where to go, how to hide. He wouldn’t be tricked or trapped again - and, as the sun warmed my shoulders and arms, I was glad.
21
That day, Dickens and I became ghosts.
As we tiptoed up the back steps, he said, 'Can’t wake Momma so we can’t talk like this ‘less it’s in my room.' His voice dropped to a whisper, 'We talk like this first.”
'We’re quiet ghosts,” I said. 'Your house is the witch’s cave, and we’re disappearing and we won’t get caught.”
He grinned.
'Yes, I think that’s right. I think that’s a good idea. ‘Cause Dell will wallop me for having company.'
Then we entered the cave-house -- coming into the kitchen, not saying a word, holding hands, the sunlight vanishing with the push and turn of a knob. I felt nearly as blind as Cut ’N Style, but Dickens led the way, tugging gently at my arm. And we floated through darkness, two ghosts, inhaling the familiar mixture of varnish and Lysol, gliding over slippery floorboards, proceeding down a hallway lit only by a cat- shaped night-light.
What’s it like? Cut ’N Style wondered.
Halloween, I thought. Black enough for bog men, black enough to fool bees that it’s bedtime.
Each door we passed was shut -- except one, beyond which I glimpsed the shadowy outline of a mounted game head, an elk perhaps, hanging above a sofa, its massive antlers like branches, bifurcating upward and almost touching the ceiling.
Dickens pulled me further along, around a corner, away from the night-light. Another hallway? A doorway?
What’s it like now?
Don’t know. Can’t tell.
He let go of my hand. And suddenly I heard a click and an overhead lightbulb flickered on -- so bright, so unexpected, stunning my sight for a moment.
'My room,' he announced, closing the door.
His room -- cramped, untidy, befitting a pack rat. Stacked along a wall were National Geographic magazines, hundreds of them, in five or six precarious piles. The floor was a clutter of T-shirts and socks, underwear and jeans, his flip-flops and swimming suit, Coke cans and plates with dried food, spoons and forks -- more National Geographics, the pages spread, a chance collage of deserts, starry skies, constellations, killer whales, ocean sunsets and schooners and coral reefs.
'Sometimes it’s messy,' he said. 'Sometimes things stick to your feet, so you better get on my bed so you don’t crush nothing important, okay?'
''Okay.”
Tacked over his bed was a map, not Denmark, but some- where else, somewhere with wide ranges and long valleys, indistinct, very blue and strange. And the bed -- where he asked me to sit -- just a drooping cot, the sheets a green sleeping bag, the pillow a bunched ski jacket.
'I got treasure,” he was saying, on his knees, reaching beneath the cot. 'I’m rich sometimes. I discover fortunes.”
Then he hauled out a tackle box, setting it in my lap. I watched as he knelt between my legs, unfastening the clasps and lifting the top, revealing his prized booty, mostly small things. A gold cuff link, his blue goggles, Army the arm, a bulging Christmas stocking.
And pennies -- maybe a thousand, or a zillion?
'Fifty-four. That's almost a hundred, I think. Look at these, I found these sornewhere.”
A pair of false teeth; I held them, pretending the teeth were biting Cut ’N Style’s head.
'Chomp chomp,” I said. 'Chomp chomp chomp.”
Dickens frowned.
'Don’t do that,” he said. 'That’s wrong.”
Then he took the teeth, exchanging them for the bulky Christmas stocking.
My stomach grumbled.
'Is there candy in it?”
'No, the secret,' he told me, shaking the stocking, letting the contents drop to the cot.
'Dynamites,' I whispered.
Dynamite, he explained, with time fuses and blasting caps; both sticks weren’t really sticks at all -- not even red like in cartoons -- but slender tan tubes, fashioned from wood pulp or paperboard. In my hands, they felt lighter than rocks.
'How do you boom them?”
'Like firecrackers, I think,” he said, his voice rising with excitement. 'Like a war bomb!” Then his cheeks puffed and deflated, and he made an exploding noise.
'Kaboom!” I said, tapping a tube with Cut ’N Style’s chin.
His palms slid up my legs, scooting under my dress, stopping on my thighs.
'Like the end of the world. But if you use them you can’t use them ever again. Then they’re worthless junk, just blown to bits. So I’ll keep them ‘til I’m an old man and then I’ll kill that shark with Lisa and be a hero, I'm pretty sure.”
'I’ll help you. That way we can be on TV.”
'‘Cause you love me.”
'I’m your wife forever.'
He laid me back on the cot, where I clutched the dynamite -- a tube in each hand -- and gazed up at the odd map. And as he pressed an ear to my stomach, his fingers touched my panties.
'That baby’s sleeping,” he said. 'It’s snoring.'
'She’s growing,' I told him. 'She’s coming tonight or tomorrow.'
'I bet it’s pretty. I bet it’s pretty like you.”
He was over me now, looking down at my face. But my attention was on the map, on its aquamarine details, the jagged ridges and broad basins.
'Where’s that place?' I asked.
'The whole bottom of the sea,” he told me.
The whole bottom? I couldn’t comprehend it.
He mentioned that the deepest part of the ocean plunged further below the surface than the highest mountain stretched above it. And undiscovered countries existed in the depths, entire cities with people and dogs. There were castles and farms beneath the seas. There were husbands and wives and babies and ghosts.
'And silly kissers too. Kissers that do this-'
He stuck his tongue out and wiggled it at me.
'Yuck.”
Then I wiggled my tongue. We’d never kissed like that, but the idea made the tingles begin. Dickens’ mouth
