The trunk was wedged a bit, having been shoved under the rafters when we hastily piled Roy’s furniture and boxes near the stairway. I bent over, grunting as I threw my weight against the handle. It budged finally, then began grinding across the layer of dust on the floor, the brass corners digging into the wood and producing a loud screech. I paused in a clumsy squat, like a cat burglar listening for awakening home owners. The girl wouldn’t come up here, surely. She probably hadn’t even noticed the noise.
I attempted to lift the lid of the trunk so as to check the contents, but the lid was either locked or rusted shut. I would need tools, and in reality, I would probably be better off moving the trunk downstairs, so that I could take my time with it, down where the air was cooler. I scooted it a bit farther, pausing at the stairway to consider the potential weight of the trunk, added to the component of gravity and the slope of the stairs. At times, knowledge of physics can be useful. I mentally calculated that the load should be manageable, provided that I stayed in front of it and eased it down a step at a time. The later problem, then, would be what to do with the trunk when I was finished with it. Even empty, it was probably more than I was capable of moving up the stairs.
But first things first. I slipped in front of the trunk, then braced myself with my back against it to slow the descent. Drawing one last fortifying breath, I reached behind myself, tipped the beast off balance, and started the downward trek one step at a time, each very carefully. One,
bump
. Two,
bump
. Three,
bump
.
The process was going well at stair six, moving according to plan, and then suddenly the contents shifted and the trunk began to list onto its side.
I heard a sharp gasp, which I assumed was my own, and next I knew, I was bumping down the steps like a youngster sliding on his backside, the trunk, now askew, pushing me along, moving faster and faster. It toppled off near the bottom, rolled to the side, and burst open, and the contents and I landed in a pile in the hallway.
In the addled moment that followed, I heard the girl rushing up from the first floor, calling my name: “J. Norm? J. Norm?”
I had, quite literally, exposed the mission, or more properly, the mission had exposed itself.
Chapter 6
Epiphany Jones
When I skidded around the corner into the upstairs hall, there was J. Norm, crumpled in the opening to another set of stairs with books and papers all around him. He wasn’t dead, at least, which was good. He was trying to get up, but he’d gotten all twisted around with his feet up over his head. Some kind of big black box was wedged between his legs and the wall.
“What’n the world are you doin’?” I hurried down the hall and stepped across a few papers to get a look at the stairway behind him. A lightbulb swung back and forth up top, and I could see an attic with paint cans and boxes. Everything smelled dusty and old, like the closet where the water heater was in Mama and Russ’s house. “Where’ve you been?”
J. Norm tried to pull his legs around so he could get up, but he was seriously stuck. His face was red and he started raking up papers and old magazines that’d spilled, and shoving them back in the black box, which was a big, old-timey trunk. “I told you not to come up here,” he hollered at me, panting.
“You don’t want me up here, you shouldn’t make noise like that. I thought the house was caving in.” I took another step and my foot slid on a magazine until I was halfway to the splits. “You been climbin’ up those stairs?” Man, if his daughter found this out, she’d shoot us both. If she didn’t want him on the big, pretty stairs with the carpet and the nice handrail, she sure didn’t want him going up these rough ones with nothing to hold on to.
“Those stairs are none of your business.” He tried to get a handhold to turn himself around, but he couldn’t do it. His arm quivered and caved in, and he slid on the magazines again, then just stayed there, breathing hard. I felt sorry for him, until he opened his mouth again. “They’re
my
stairs. I can climb them if I wish.”
He brought out the Epie in me, and she brought the attitude. “Well, that ain’t what your daughter says.”
“I’ll thank you not to use such grammar in my house. Poor grammar is a hallmark of poor education. I suspect you’re a more intelligent girl than you portray. I’ve seen you doing your homework.”
I wasn’t sure whether I should get insulted or feel like he’d paid me a compliment.
“Well, listen at you, Mr. High and Mighty,” I said. “I’m not the one on the floor, now, am I?”
He snorted, grabbing his own leg and trying to pull it around. “As you’ve already invaded my privacy here, you could help me to my feet.”
“I don’t know if I want to.” Shoot, it might be good for him to stay there on the floor awhile. “I help you up, you’ll go climb the stairs again. Maybe I ought to just go ahead and call your daughter. She can figure out how to keep you off the stairs.” I looked the mess over, and I could pretty much figure out what’d happened. “Were you trying to move that big old trunk down here?”
“It slipped,” he said, like it was an excuse. “Otherwise, I was getting along just fine.”
“Yup. You look fine.” I cleared out some papers and stuff so I could get in behind him and hook my elbows under his armpits, the way I’d learned to do with Mrs. Lora after she got so sick. The worst part about helping somebody out of a spot like that wasn’t the lifting; it was that it was embarrassing. While I was dragging J. Norm off the stairs, I thought the same thing I used to when I helped Mrs. Lora off the bathroom floor:
Man, if I ever get like this, I’m gonna find a gun and shoot myself.
I wondered sometimes if God would hold it against a person if they got in such bad shape that they couldn’t take it anymore, and so they did something. I knew the answer, of course. One thing me and Mrs. Lora did together was go to church. Every time the doors were open. Mrs. Lora was a Southern Baptist, and so the doors were open a lot. Even after she got weak and wobbly, and her skin turned yellow and thin, I’d help her to the car on church nights, and we’d putter the six blocks across town. I drove, even though I barely had my learner’s permit. It wasn’t far, and we never went over thirty.
I dragged J. Norm off the last couple steps. He groaned, because I was yanking his arms off, but I didn’t have any choice. By the time we got out of the opening, both of us were huffing and puffing. J. Norm rolled over and sat up against the wall with his legs folded to one side and his head leaned back, and I slid down against the doorway.
“You all right?” If we had to call an ambulance, we’d be in so much trouble. What would I do tomorrow if I didn’t come here? If I got caught anyplace but at school, Mama’s house, or work, I could kiss my happy home good-bye. At least being here was better than being at home.
“You think I better call the doctor?” I asked.
“Most certainly . . . not.” J. Norm cracked one eye open—just a little slice of blue with bloodred around it, but it looked like he meant business.
“You at least gonna take the pills your daughter said you should eat if you got a heart spell?” His shirt pocket was hanging open a little, something round inside. I figured it was the pill bottle. He patted a hand over it, like he was making sure.
“Just need to . . . catch my breath.” He wheezed and coughed, the sound weak, thin, and hacky.
I didn’t know if I should believe him or not. A couple times, Mama’d laughed and called this job
the suicide watch
. She figured someone as nasty as J. Norman Alvord didn’t deserve all the fuss. “But you’ll take the medicine if you need it, right?”
His eye closed, and he pulled his lips together over his teeth, then swallowed hard, his chin jerking up and down like it hurt to do. “I . . . believe so.”
“You promise?”
The one eye opened again. “Beware. You . . . could be mistaken . . . for someone . . . who actually cares.” He spit the words out in little breaths.
Heat went into my cheeks and drained down to my shoulders. Was he teasing with me? Maybe his plan was to keep me talking until it was too late for me to force a couple of the pills into his mouth. Maybe that’s why his teeth were clamped so tight. “I just don’t want you to go and have a big, stupid heart attack while I’m here, all right? At least not till after I get paid for this week. I got plans for that money.” Every week, my money was in an envelope on the counter with Deborah’s supper note. Cash, the cold, hard kind. I’d been socking it away, not giving it to the church to pay for damages like Mama thought. DeRon had told me that some anonymous athletic booster was gonna pay off all the broken stuff, so the basketball boys wouldn’t end up in trouble. If Mama knew that, my money would be gone to pay the light bill, or buy beer, but she didn’t know, so it was all good.
J. Norm kind of laughed, or maybe he was just coughing. Finally, he settled down again and some color came back into his skin. “I’ll endeavor . . . not to expire . . . before next payday.” He opened both eyes and watched me like he was trying to figure me out. It made me feel weird. Mostly, people don’t look at you real close when you’re sixteen. They don’t try to see inside. They just take a pass at what clothes you’ve got on and your makeup and whatever, and put you in some box or other. Good kid, bad kid, sexy kid, regular kid, poor kid, rich kid, got potential, got none. That’s okay, sorta. It keeps you from having to work too hard to show them anything.
“Well, because where else am I gonna get me a job around here?” I pointed out.
“Get
myself
a job.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
He smiled a little. It looked like his pasty old face might crack, but he did it. “I suspect that you could do anything you set your mind to.”
I stared at him for a sec, trying to figure out what he meant by that, because at first it sounded like J. Norm had actually said something nice. “You sure you’re all right? I’m not gonna need to, like, do CPR on you or anything, am I? They taught us that in health class at my old school.”
“A frightening thought. Health class . . . CPR.” J. Norm closed his eyes and shook his head, static fuzzing his little hairs against the paneling. “I don’t think any lifesaving measures . . . will be necessary.” He sat there a minute longer, then turned toward the wall and started to fold his feet under him, his hands pushing for support.
I got up and stood behind him with my arms out like I might catch him. I guessed I would’ve if he’d needed it, but he didn’t. He wobbled a little on his feet, looking at the mess that’d come out of the trunk. “Magazines,” he grumbled. “
Life
magazines.”
“These are seriously old-school.” I leaned down and grabbed one. It had a sailor kissing a girl on the front. “Where’d you get all these?”
Taking a hankie out of his pocket, J. Norm wiped his forehead. “They were my mother’s, I’m sure. She was a woman given to reading and to saving things.”
“Looks like it.”
He reached for one of the magazines, but stumbled instead.
I caught his arm. “Tell you what, J. Norm. How about you go sit down in that room you lock yourself in all the time, and I’ll pick up the stuff here? You want me to take it back up the steps, or what?” I looked at the stairs, trying to figure if I could get the box up there or not. But if we left it like this, Deborah would see it when she came, and there’d be trouble. One way or another, I had to get J. Norm’s mess cleaned up.
He shook his head, looking at the trunk. “Nothing but magazines. Trash.”
The magazines were cool, actually. I picked up a couple more. “What was supposed to be in there?”
He sighed, his shoulders sinking. “A dream,” he whispered as he walked away. “A midsummer night’s dream.”
I cleaned up the mess and hauled it all back upstairs. The attic was, like, three times the size of our house. From the center part around the stairway, the peaks of the roof ran out in four long tunnels, each one with a window, so there was plenty of light. The place was dusty and smelled old, and cobwebs hung in the eaves like Halloween decorations, but it was quiet and kind of interesting up there. When I finished putting everything back, I stood on the top stair a minute, looking at old doll furniture and a three-story dollhouse I would’ve killed for when I was little. There were boxes of toys that’d never been opened—rockets you could put together and shoot off, and model cars, and a coffee can filled with brushes and paints that were all dried up. The space near the stairway was like a toy store, frozen in time. It was hard to imagine having all that stuff—so much you crammed it in the attic and left it there.
I picked out a few of the magazines to ask J. Norm if I could keep them and look at them. We had a paper to do in my stupid English class, for one thing. Maybe I could get stuff out of the articles. If Mrs. Brown didn’t like stuff about weeds, maybe she’d like stuff about the John F. Kennedy assassination.
Finally, I went back and found J. Norm in his office at the top of the stairs. He was sitting in the chair with his elbow braced on the desk and his head resting on his hand, his face turned the other way.