The Cage Keeper by André Dubus III Page B

so nervous my left eye opens. It pulls apart sticky then burns. My right eye fills up and I wipe it dry as we hit the road between the Christmas houses and the 7-Eleven. There’s one car parked in front of the store, the same one that was there two hours ago, the fat lady’s. Elroy swerves into the parking lot and we do a half doughnut then slide and come to rest parallel to the curb in front of the place.
    “A pound, a pound. A pound of Saskatchewownd,” Elroy says in a voice both raspy and clear. He opens the door, pulls the knife out of my dash, belches, then turns to me in the light of my car. He’s breathing fast, like we just ran here. “You can do it if you like, Allen. There’s no feeling like it.” He looks through the windshield at the store. “Has she seen us?”
    “She’s looking right at us.”
    “Then it’s now or never.” He smiles, pats me on the leg, and in seconds, is inside the store. There is a hot-coffee sign taped to the window in front of the counter and I have to lower my head close to the dashboard to see. My heart is beating very fast. McElroy is standing at the counter with my cap on his head and his dungaree jacket buttoned up to his throat, his collars flipped up like Elvis. He’s got his hands behind his back and is smiling red-faced like he is embarrassed but excited too, like the woman behind the counter is looking at a part of him he didn’t ask for but can’t do anything about either. I can’t see the fat lady’s head because of the sign in the window, but she is standing up facing Elroy and her polyester pea green turtleneck is sticking with static to her belly. Then McElroy moves very quickly and has his rough hand on her shoulder and is holding his huge Bowie knife an inch from her stomach. I see her plump fingers as her body turns towards the register. They have rings on them, lots of them, and I know that one of them is a wedding ring. I think I am going to throw up. I open my door and start to get out but my legs stay hugged together and I fall on my side and bang my head on the snowy concrete. I pull myself up until I am standing, holding on to the roof of my car, and I start to hop towards the glass door. “You’re not going to do this, Elroy! You’re not going to do this!” I make it to the curb and reach for the door’s handle, when I see Elroy backing away from the counter. He has his hands and knife up in the air beside him and he is talking and smiling. I swing open the door then see her and the raised pistol, then hear it go
thack, thack, thack;
but I don’t see it anymore because I am looking at Elroy as he takes one in his right shoulder, then twists and hunches as he gets one in the neck, then lunges sideways into a shelf as he catches the last in his back. His Bowie hits the floor before he does and clatters and spins down the aisle towards the coolers. Then the fat lady, pale as death, points her trembling gun at me. I jerk my hands over my head.
“I’m not with him. I’m his hostage. I’m not with him.”
She keeps that pistol pointed at me and I see her chin start to quiver. I point at my feet.
“Look. He tied me up. Look at my face. He did
this.”
She lowers her gun, then sits down on her TV chair. “Oh, my Jesus,” she says. “Oh, my holy Jesus.”
    I looked at Elroy curled up against the shelf on the floor. My cap is sitting way back on his head and his eyes are closed. There’s a small hole just under the jaw and blood is leaving it in a pulsing, peaceful trickle. I hear the fat woman weeping. I let go of the door, lean back against it, and close my eye.
    3
    The officers from the Platte County Police Department were very nice; they patched up my eye and after I spent an hour and a half writing reports with them, they offered to put me up for the night in a hotel. But I turned them down. I’m just too keyed up to sleep. I pass a car on my right then get into the traveling lane. The highway is wet and slick but clear of snow. It’s