Read Online The Cage Keeper by André Dubus III - Free Book Online

still coming down, but not nearly as hard. I touch my cheek under my left eye and feel the sticky stuff left over from the adhesive tape and gauze. I got rid of all that as I left the station, and I alternate holding my left eye open and keeping it closed. Right now it’s closed and the eighteen wheeler in front of me looks like it could be two car lengths ahead of me, or six. I look at my watch, one thirty-two A.M. Twenty-four hours ago almost to the minute, I was lugging McElroy’s things down to the tomb of the center: his radical books and immaculate work clothes, the picture of his dead son and runaway wife.
    In the passing lane I leave the semi behind me, rub the slit in the upholstery of my dash, and hear what my brother, Mark, will say about all of this: “We’ll throw everything at him, Alley. We’ll put that fucker back behind the walls forever.” I think of that fat woman after she pulled the trigger three times and watched what the kick and blast in her hands could do to a man. There was no color in her face at all; her flesh got as white and lifeless-looking as bread dough. Then she slumped in her stool and covered her face with the hands that had done it, that had known more power in a few seconds than she had probably ever imagined. I have never seen anyone shot before. A man’s body doesn’t take them straight and unflinching like a silhouetted target. I wonder if the beer in Elroy’s belly gave him any relief at all. I doubt it.
    I drive and drive and think of nothing. At three thirty-four A.M., I pass to the west of Cheyenne. The streets and some of the buildings are still lit up. And the sidewalks are dusted with snow, no footprints on them yet. At four oh-two A.M. I cross the state line into Colorado. The road is dry in front of me, no fresh snow anywhere. When I get into Bellington I pull into Winchell’s and buy two chocolate eclairs and a large coffee with a little cream, no sugar. There are no customers and the girl behind the counter looks young, around seventeen. When she takes my money she looks up at my face.
    “Wow. The other guy looks worse, I hope.”
    “I’m afraid so.”
    “Good. Have a nice night.”
    “You, too.” I take my bag and as I’m leaving, I think how wrong it is for a girl that age to be watching a cash register at this time of the night. Then I imagine a big .45, or a long .357, or a short and flat .380 semiautomatic probably sitting under the counter to back her up. I get back on the road and eat my eclairs all at once. If my father had been working at the 7-Eleven in Wyoming last night, what would he have done? Would he have gone for Elroy’s vital-organ zones? Or would he have aimed for his elbows and knees and shoulders?
    Just before Longmont I finish my coffee and decide to take 119 southwest to Boulder instead of continuing straight on down into Denver and my apartment. This thing with Elroy’s going to take a long report. I’d just as soon get it done with now. I open my left eye as I go through a blinking yellow traffic light in the center of Longmont, then close it as I hit the rushing yellow lines of 119 heading towards Niwot. There is snow on both sides of the road, old snow. I run my fingers through my hair then miss something and know it’s my wool cap. I remember the way it looked on Elroy as he lay bleeding, curled up and still. It was almost jolted off him, but then stayed, sitting on the back of his unconscious head as pointed and idiotic-looking as a party hat.
    When I drive through Niwot I see the Sunoco station up ahead and I open my left eye to that same kid sitting in the lighted office leaning back in his chair reading a magazine. That’s what Wilson’s doing right now I know, reading when he should be outside doing a perimeter check before daybreak, walking around the center, cold or not, shining his flashlight up under window ledges, looking for nickel bags on a string.
    At five thirty-six in the morning I drive into Boulder. The