and like something in a carnival at the beach if it was painted bright, but right now looks like nothing but a big old dead birthday cake, turned all black and gray.
I knocked and she come to the screen, the old lady, all skinny as sticks and wearing sharp-shaped glasses under her scraggly old hair, it all in a bunch. After she got over being just scared of seeing me through the screen she gave in, mainly ’cause I warned’r how if she don’t clean’m now, gutters, I mean, the whole house gonna fall apart and be full of workers from the city who gonna put her out after crawling all around her house and spoiling her privacy.
She looked hard at me, her eyes squinty behind her glasses, and her mouth all pinched up. Then she said, No, son. I don’t want any help from you. Now you go away! Her voice sounded all shrill like some nasty bird.
But I weren’t hearing that, so I said, You gonna get an injunction from the city, ma’am. Neighbors round here’ll do it, and you gonna have cops all round and men stamping through your living room tearing it all apart, and then they gonna take the whole place and sell it out from under you and putchu in the old folks’ home, I know it.
I sold it hard, making like I might put in the injunction myself if she don’t hire me, and you should’f seen her eyes go wide, ’specially with me talking so much ’bout the old folks’ home.
She agreed to twenty dollars, whole job.
Now, she a crazy lady and wouldn’t let me inside her house at all. So I went up the side, climbing first the porch posts and then doing this sort of jump-flip to get on the roof, and then damn near kicking myself seeing I could’f got up easier and safer just climbing one of them pine trees beside her house and jumping down.
First level roof I cleared, using a bag, plastic one she handed to me out a shuttered window. I pulled ten years’ worth of twigs and leaves and pine cones out the gutters and stuffed’m in the bag, and when it was full I dropped it down to the yard. Roof shingles was old and cracked and covered with dirt and bird dookie, and some of’m busted under my tread making me slip, but I never did tell her.
Next roof up I did use the pine tree to get there, tallest one. But for way up on top at the attic, the pinnacle up there where it’s round and got them diamond windows, I had to climb with my fingertips and shoe sides, and I tell you it was scary, half the time hanging all teeter-totter over the open space’f the lower roofs with nothing to hold on to but an old shutter clasp.
Up there I filled bags and tossed’m down, holding’m in my teeth as they got all filled up. Near the windows I peeked inside, and what I saw was just dark clutter with blankets and dust and old brown wood, and stuff like framed pictures on the walls and right there in the middle of the floor a sort of woman-dummy like you see in department stores, just like a ghost standing in the murk, but with no head, and swathes of cloth hanging off’r from a dress that never got made. It was hard to see more, ’cause that diamond window glass was thick and warpy and inside the room was old and dark.
Then I seen something else.
First I could barely make it out, and it was just a feeling. But then something strange hit me and I looked hard.
Right there inside was a few boxes, cardboard ones stacked on the wall. And my mouth went dry.
’Cause I be damned if they ain’t the same boxes I seen in the dark house next to Simon Hooper’s, boxes with tomatoes printed on the sides.
I hung on there thinking. I was damn curious. Maybe there was something worth getting in those boxes. Maybe those jewels was real. I seen’m in one house, and now I seen’m here, so somebody was taking care just what to do with’m. I figured the old lady downstairs maybe had done it. But it was a man who come in that house, and there weren’t ever no man around here. So unless she’d hired a man, I couldn’t say what happened. And then I
I knocked and she come to the screen, the old lady, all skinny as sticks and wearing sharp-shaped glasses under her scraggly old hair, it all in a bunch. After she got over being just scared of seeing me through the screen she gave in, mainly ’cause I warned’r how if she don’t clean’m now, gutters, I mean, the whole house gonna fall apart and be full of workers from the city who gonna put her out after crawling all around her house and spoiling her privacy.
She looked hard at me, her eyes squinty behind her glasses, and her mouth all pinched up. Then she said, No, son. I don’t want any help from you. Now you go away! Her voice sounded all shrill like some nasty bird.
But I weren’t hearing that, so I said, You gonna get an injunction from the city, ma’am. Neighbors round here’ll do it, and you gonna have cops all round and men stamping through your living room tearing it all apart, and then they gonna take the whole place and sell it out from under you and putchu in the old folks’ home, I know it.
I sold it hard, making like I might put in the injunction myself if she don’t hire me, and you should’f seen her eyes go wide, ’specially with me talking so much ’bout the old folks’ home.
She agreed to twenty dollars, whole job.
Now, she a crazy lady and wouldn’t let me inside her house at all. So I went up the side, climbing first the porch posts and then doing this sort of jump-flip to get on the roof, and then damn near kicking myself seeing I could’f got up easier and safer just climbing one of them pine trees beside her house and jumping down.
First level roof I cleared, using a bag, plastic one she handed to me out a shuttered window. I pulled ten years’ worth of twigs and leaves and pine cones out the gutters and stuffed’m in the bag, and when it was full I dropped it down to the yard. Roof shingles was old and cracked and covered with dirt and bird dookie, and some of’m busted under my tread making me slip, but I never did tell her.
Next roof up I did use the pine tree to get there, tallest one. But for way up on top at the attic, the pinnacle up there where it’s round and got them diamond windows, I had to climb with my fingertips and shoe sides, and I tell you it was scary, half the time hanging all teeter-totter over the open space’f the lower roofs with nothing to hold on to but an old shutter clasp.
Up there I filled bags and tossed’m down, holding’m in my teeth as they got all filled up. Near the windows I peeked inside, and what I saw was just dark clutter with blankets and dust and old brown wood, and stuff like framed pictures on the walls and right there in the middle of the floor a sort of woman-dummy like you see in department stores, just like a ghost standing in the murk, but with no head, and swathes of cloth hanging off’r from a dress that never got made. It was hard to see more, ’cause that diamond window glass was thick and warpy and inside the room was old and dark.
Then I seen something else.
First I could barely make it out, and it was just a feeling. But then something strange hit me and I looked hard.
Right there inside was a few boxes, cardboard ones stacked on the wall. And my mouth went dry.
’Cause I be damned if they ain’t the same boxes I seen in the dark house next to Simon Hooper’s, boxes with tomatoes printed on the sides.
I hung on there thinking. I was damn curious. Maybe there was something worth getting in those boxes. Maybe those jewels was real. I seen’m in one house, and now I seen’m here, so somebody was taking care just what to do with’m. I figured the old lady downstairs maybe had done it. But it was a man who come in that house, and there weren’t ever no man around here. So unless she’d hired a man, I couldn’t say what happened. And then I
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