Free The Cage Keeper by André Dubus III Page B

deep. She works harder but they are not leaving, inner pockets of heat that can’t be rubbed away, and their voices have come too; Freeze’s and Barry’s and Papa’s and now Glennie’s, who touched her mouth with his fingers once and said,
“Don’t smile when
you’re not happy, Lore. It don’t help nothing.”
    Barry grunts and she grips the tremble in his legs then finishes it, opens her eyes again to the light, to Barry backing up, hopping one-footed into his wet underpants over the gravel and parched grass.
    At the car, Lorilee opens the front door at the passenger side.
    “In the back,” Freeze says.
    “I’m sorry.” In the backseat Lorilee is sweating and when Freeze rewinds the tape then turns it up her head aches more than ever. “Freeze?”
    “What?”
    “Do you think maybe we could get some food?”
    Barry gets in the car and looks over his shoulder at Lorilee. “You have money?”
    “No.”
    “Well then.”
    Freeze laughs and then Barry does too, shaking his shaved head back and forth. He bends over to tie his sneakers as Freeze backs the car up fast over gravel. When he gets it turned around, Lorilee looks out the window down at the sun on the water in the quarry, wishes she had at least waded in and splashed the good part of her face.
    Freeze drives fast into El Cerrito. They stop at Kentucky Fried Chicken then are driving again, Barry handing the coleslaw back to Lorilee, she passing the plastic containers of gravy and mashed potatoes up to him.
    “Have some chicken, paisan,” Barry says to Freeze.
    “Don’t want it.”
    Barry tosses a roll into Freeze’s lap. “Here.”
    Freeze picks it up and drops it out the window. “Junk.” He looks in the rearview mirror at Lorilee. She is chewing carefully, the wind blowing her thin blond hair out of her bruised face. “I wouldn’t eat after her if you
paid
me.”
    Lorilee stops chewing; she looks at the back of Freeze’s head then swallows and looks back out the window.
    “Whatever,” Barry says. He reaches into the grease-spotted cardboard box for another piece of chicken.
    Freeze takes them up a hill where there are large brown and yellow painted houses with wide yards of shaded green grass, the trees tall enough to shade the houses too. Lorilee looks through the back window and can see the bay out there below them: white clouds have covered the bridge and moved in on the city. She sees the tops of buildings sticking out of the fog catching the sun in their tiny square windows. Then they’re in darkness passing through a tunnel made of heavy square bricks covered with orange and green painted words Lorilee can’t understand. They come out again into the day and Freeze slows down as they move into Berkeley.
    “I don’t get it, Freeze,” Barry says. “Why’d your mother send you a hundred bucks?”
    “How the fuck do
I
know?”
    “Hey, I’m sorry, all right? Jesus.”
    “I don’t know. Maybe the bitch is feeling guilty.” Freeze looks over at Barry. “Let’s go blow it.”
    “Now you’re talkin’, bud.” Barry opens his mouth long for a bullhorn of a burp.
    Freeze turns right onto Telegraph. The street is narrow but the sidewalks are wide, shaded by trees that look to Lorilee like they were built there just like all the different shops with windows full of clothes and stereos and hanging green plants. She looks out at two women on the sidewalk sitting on a jewelry-covered blue blanket under a tree. One has long braided hair that hangs down in front of her and they are both barefoot, the bottoms of their feet black with dirt.
    She leans her head back against the seat and tries to ignore the electric scream and thump of the music coming from each side of her head. People are looking at them as they drive by and Lorilee wishes Freeze would turn it down. She can’t remember ever coming here before, to this place full of so many different-looking kinds of people, and so she watches them, sees in the darkened doorway of a