Free Memory Boy by Will Weaver Page B

some bushes red with them. Those berries were as hard and clear as agates. I picked them, but I had nothing to carry them in except my hat, which I had to put back on my head ’cause it was cold. When I got home, the heat of my skull had thawed the berries and red juice was running down my neck. I looked like I’d been in a fight with a bear. I made jelly that night. Whole cabin smelled of it, hot and tangy .
    Okay, fine. I could do something with the bear part. Maybe make up that the bear had broken into his cabin. Hand-to-hand combat. Who was going to know? Plus I’d heard that Litzke graded mainly on volume. Some kids said he had a scale and weighed the final project: The heavier the interview, the more the pages, the better the grade.
    My brothers, my whole family, they always thought I was crazy. Just because I lived alone and saved my money. Not like them, with credit cards and house payments and fancy cars. I told them, when you pay interest, you’re working for the bank. Banks are like prisons—you just can’t see the walls. They said I was nuts. Just because I never had a credit card in my life, and no house payment, either. Nuts, they called me. But that’s how I could live so cheap—I never paid any interest to nobody. But you live like a hermit, they told me. Maybe so, but I’ll bet I got more money put away than you do, I told them. Which was a mistake. You never want to tell anybody—not even your own family—what you got. Because once you tell, you’re a marked man .
    Mr. Litzke took great pleasure in asking me how Mr. Kurz and I were getting along.
    â€œFine,” I told him.
    Once he dropped by Mr. Kurz’s room to check on us. Luckily I managed to hide my tools.
    â€œWell, are you two getting a lot of work done?” he asked loudly.
    â€œA lot,” I said. So far Mr. Kurz and I had repaired four skateboards, and I had cleared a total of eighty bucks reselling them.
    Mr. Kurz stared suspiciously at Litzke. We were all silent.
    â€œCarry on, then,” Litzke said.
    After he left, Mr. Kurz muttered, “Who was that guy?”
    â€œHe works for the government,” I whispered.
    â€œThat’s what I thought,” Mr. Kurz said.
    They never found me, though. They came up north and were snooping around, asking, but no one knew where my cabin was. That’s because it wasn’t on the tax roll. He, he, he. Why buy your own land when there’s thousands of acres of it just sitting there? State lands belong to the people. And that’s me, I’m the people. A veteran, too. In the War I fought in Italy, Germany, France, you name it. Before the War I was different. I liked people. But when it was over in forty-five, all I wanted was a little peace and quiet. So I went up north and found me a spot on the river and built me a shack on the Mississippi. Near Itasca Park, that’s all I’ll say. Better than a shack. A nice little cabin. No roads to it, either—but you could get to it by car. He, he, he. That’s all I’ll say about that. Anyway, when my family couldn’t find me, they had to leave me alone. Which is the way I wanted it. I lived by myself for over fifty years. Happy as a clam, too. My mistake was coming down to the city for my sister’s funeral. She got old and died. Don’t know how that happened. But she was the only nice one among my brothers and sisters, so I took the Greyhound bus down from Bemidji. I was eighty-nine myself by then. They were waiting for me, oh yes. All smiles. I should have known something was up. After the funeral they said, Hans, we want you to stay on with us. No thanks, I said. They said, You can’t go on anymore living like you do, like a wild man, like a hermit—look at you, they said. I said I liked my life just fine. They said, We have a place for you here in the city. A place of your own, they said. They kept smiling. All smiles. That night I slipped out