His Illegal Self

20

Was she really going to buy these mad vines and raging wild lantana, palm trees, chaos, coffee. She might as well have bought an elephant-but you could not hide inside an elephant and you could certainly hide here. That was its single virtue, to place her up a dirt track at the asshole of the earth.

The boy did not like it here, but he could not decide his fate. She was the adult. She followed the two men inside the hut, completely unclear about everything, whether she should buy or walk away, whether they were here to rob or help her. Surely she could defeat them if she had to-one man who could not see and a second man who could not read.

She sat cross-legged in the hut and watched, through a lead-light window, a tiny yellow bird, hovering. It was exquisite, beyond use or understanding.

Adam “located” the tea and “organized” the kettle and Trevor rubbed papaya salve onto the long thin cut that the boy’s toenail had made on his hairless barrel chest. He was a mole, vole, pit bull, otter, seal, just not her type, although he didn’t understand that yet. They all sat on the cushions and Adam poured the tea, smiling at some out-of-focus fact that was his alone to know. He was emaciated as an Indian ascetic, as unrelated to any life she knew as the yellow hummingbird outside the window.

So! she said. Because she wished to appear definite.

So? said Trevor. Was he mocking her?

So, we’re here to talk business, I assume. She was a child playing with money, not her money, but thousands, almost countless.

So, you want to live an Alternative Lifestyle, said Trevor.

He was mocking her, but she was way tougher than he was. Another thing he did not understand.

So, Dial, you know there are problems.

She heard him say vere for there and pwblems for problems. She had a degree from Harvard. He couldn’t speak or spell. She raised an eyebrow.

You pay Adam foreign money, what can he do with it?

You quite like my foreign money. I see you everywhere these days.

Trevor exhaled, as if offended. But of course he was a criminal, one of the shifty classes her younger brother found so admirable.

All right, he said, now listen.

I’m listening.

No, you are being twitchy and sarcastic. You don’t know who I am. You think I am a creep. You don’t understand what I have given up to come here.

What have you given up?

There you go, he said, that’s what I mean. I was in the middle of building a new gate.

Well she had been about to take a job at Vassar. A gate, she said. Mocking him.

A stockade, said Adam, sucking up. A bloody stockade, Dial, he pleaded.

There was some weird unworldly singsong in their voices, like elves, she thought.

I had six strong men all lined up to work with me, said Trevor, and now they’ve gone away. Thank you, Trevor, he said. That was nice of you, Trevor.

Meanwhile the disgusting little flies crawled across the surface of the table. She covered her skin with her dress and she could feel the weight of her remaining money-all there was now between her and Sing Sing. She could not ask him if he had already robbed her.

He said, Do you know how much an American dollar is worth?

He said “worf.”

Australia has a dollar of its own, Dial. You’re in Australia now. An Australian dollar, he said, is worth more than an American dollar.

Oh God, she thought. This is like the health food store. They hate us. We didn’t even know they fucking existed and they’ve been down here hating us. What did we ever do to them?

I bet that just seems wrong to you, he said. You know every country has a telephone code. You know what America’s is?

It was 1, of course. She got the point. She said, Why don’t we just cut to the chase. You’re saying I would have to pay Adam more than we agreed. Is that it?

It’s number one, he said. God bless America.

You’re jacking up the price.

No.

Just say it, man. Like to my fucking face.

But Trevor wouldn’t fight. He produced a pouch of Drum tobacco and got busy with a cigarette. He looked hurt and offended and why wouldn’t he if he was what he said he was. But if he was cheating her he would act the same.

I don’t understand you, babe. Why would you want to piss me off.

He engaged her eyes directly. Way too invasive. She couldn’t hold them long.

Who else is going to help you?

She looked away, as if impatient, but really fearful of being wrong.

Maybe you shouldn’t buy Adam’s place, he said. You don’t look like a farm girl to me.

Well, it was not her money. It was all she had.

Just give me a figure, she said. Just do it.

Six thousand Australian dollars is six thousand six hundred American dollars, Trevor said. He said “fowsand.”

Ten percent of that is six hundred and sixty-six.

And he continued but she could not hold the numbers still. She was a Harvard graduate but she could not even do the math. He meanwhile, the autodidact, was spinning numbers in the air.

All right, she thought, I’m doing it.

She pulled out the fuse wire and ripped off her hem. She counted out the money, showing the full length of her gorgeous leg and pushing out currency like cookie dough onto their filthy table.

The boy was going to hate her-tough!

Trevor grinned-the broken teeth, the injured ear.

Excuse me, she said.

She was a fool, a total fool. She felt the wet on her cheeks before she understood that she was crying. Trevor called after her, but she fled the hut, walking briskly. As soon as her feet were on the earth the tears arrived in floods. Then she ran, along the path up to the bananas and down the hill to the spring and from there to the rain forest where she ran to hide inside the shed.

The boy was standing. Diane Arbus. Clenched jaw. Holding out his arm to show his insect bites. All across the floor were bits of paper, not a single one torn straight, some white, some folded over and over, and also little stones and seeds and a pack of playing cards that had gone missing from her bag.

Mommy.

The dark strength of the misunderstanding squeezed her gut. She felt his body hard against her, so familiar, so foreign. As she held him she looked down at his magpie nest. There was a picture of Dave Rubbo which brought her heart into her throat, and a torn pack of impatiens seeds which was somehow almost worse.

We’ll get used to it, he said.

You’re a brave boy, she said. He squatted over his stuff and gathered it together. He knocked over the jar. It rolled all the way across the floor and fell into the forest with a small fat thump.

Floor’s not level, she said, her voice all thick with snot.

Will I have my surprise? he asked.

Surprise? She laughed, self-mocking, desperate.

When we went to Philly, you know.

What a shitty time you’ve had, poor baby.

The boy clocked the ruined velvet hem tied around her waist.

How can my dad ever find us now, he said.

Suddenly, it was time for truth.

Your dad doesn’t want to find us, baby. You know that. Once she had said the words they settled in her gut like a large gray river rock, little bugs crawling out beneath.

No, he said, gathering himself into himself again. He wants us. He wants me. She could see the tendons in his neck, the tightness of his little jaw.

You remember, baby. In Seattle.

No, he cried.

She thought, I cannot do this, not now. He’s too frail.

Shush, she said.

She had heard the cat, that’s all. It was a straw. She grasped at it.

Shush. Listen.

She got him to crawl, reluctantly, by her side until they were at the doorway like a pair of andirons waiting for a fire.