The Cage Keeper by André Dubus III Page A

cuts all the way through the rope around my wrists. When it falls free he sits back and I open and shut my hands. I wince at the pain-tingle of them coming alive again. They feel as swollen as my eye, as stopped up as my nose. I am not in good shape.
    “A fair pound of your flesh is all I ask, sir.”
    I look quickly at Elroy. He is holding the handle of the knife between his clasped palms, the blade sticking straight up past his fingers.
    “What?”
    “The flesh of the man who owes me. It’s a play, Allen.
The Merchant of Venice.
I even acted the entire role of Shylock once. Ah, but I have forgotten that, too. Those were my cultured days in Greeley, kid. Those were days of suspended disbelief. What some fools call faith.” Elroy rests his Bowie in his lap. I look at my watch; it’s ten-seventeen, but this fact gives me no bearing. It could be morning or night, weekday or weekend, I don’t know. I have only felt this way once before, when your whole constitution just goes liquid and will take on any shape that wants it. I want to reach over and touch Elroy’s shoulder, tell him I know how gutted and ripped open he feels. But I don’t move. I look straight ahead at the windshield wipers pushing away the snow as it falls, see the snowbank in front of us. I smell exhaust and imagine dying in this car with buzzed and deathly sad Douglas Agnes McElroy. I think of my brother, Mark, and his pretty, plump wife, Anne. I can’t imagine that they’re living life as usual in their condominium park just outside of Denver. I can’t imagine that they don’t know things aren’t so good with me right now. And Leon. He’s working the night shift waiting for Wilson so he can make it down to The Rhino before last call. Do they really not know that I am stuck in my car in Wyoming with escapee McElroy? Do they really not know that my eye is closed up from where he punched me? That my legs are tied? That he has the biggest knife I have ever seen and is getting drunk and morose and now, shit, unpredictable?
    “Will you help me get to Saskatchewan, Allen?”
    “I thought I was.”
    “I don’t want to
make
you do it anymore.” Elroy’s voice just got as high and wavering as an old man’s—full of phlegm. “I am tired of hitting my head against the wall.”
    “Let’s go back, then.”
    “Nope.” He clears his throat, rolls down the window, and spits outside. “No, kid. We are not going back. I am never going back. I am driving to Saskatchewan. It is there or dust for me. I am through with your Fascist House and every other manner of institution, for that matter. Never mind the eleven years of
my
life.
Forget
that. I gave my boy to this land.” With that last word, he picks the knife up out of his lap, clutches the handle, then stabs the point into the soft of my dashboard. He pushes all the way in, sliding the blade under the vinyl until I can see only the handle. He wipes his nose and sits up straight. We are both still, looking through the windshield together like something out there might have an answer for all of this. I look at Elroy behind the wheel and think of his black hair and smiling face in that oval portrait. I smell beer, then actually turn to reach for one, when Elroy snaps out of his trance and bangs the steering wheel with the palms of his hands. “God damn, Allen. Our time has come.”
    He puts the car in gear then jerks forward towards the snowbank. He gets her in reverse then pulls around the utility station and out into the road. He brakes and the wheels lock and we slide in the dark. Then we’re driving back through the residential neighborhood, all lit up with discount-store electric cheer, heading for the 7-Eleven and, I think, a felony. I have never felt more gray about anything in my life. I almost want to nudge him and shout, “Not yet, Elroy. The store will be open for two more hours.” But I stop myself. The road is soft with snow beneath us and we’re gliding over it fast, too fast. I’m