The Tin Box Read online

  It had probably been a small storeroom originally, and the walls were still lined with shelves. But instead of extra cans and boxes, these shelves were stuffed full of books. Paperbacks, mostly, almost all of them showing signs of wear. There was also a crowded magazine holder and, in the corner, a small table with a big, battered ledger.

  Colby looked around the room with the same pleased smile someone might give a grubby but well-loved child. “When my grandpa took over the store—back in the late forties—he decided the good citizens of Jelley’s Valley needed literature. So he brought in a book rack and filled it up. Only hardly anyone bought the books. They’d just stand there and read them. Nobody ’round here had much extra spending money back then. Most still don’t. Finally Grandpa just started letting people take the books home for free, long as they promised to bring ’em back. And after a while, folks started bringing their own books too, when they were done with them. Finally Grandpa set up this room. Our collection grows a little bit every year.”

  “So it’s… a library.”

  “Yep. Only nobody’s ever bothered with a card catalog and they’re not really shelved in any particular order. Folks are supposed to write down what they’ve borrowed in that book there, but most don’t bother.”

  “Then how do you know if they’ve returned the books?”

  Colby shrugged. “Everyone does. Well, except Pete Akers. He kinda never gets around to it. Once or twice a year I go to his place and gather all the books. He leaves ’em all over the place. It’s like an Easter egg hunt.”

  “Oh.”

  Colby clapped William’s arm, making him flinch. “Now that you’re a resident, you have borrowing privileges. Want to take anything home with you?” He waggled his eyebrows again and very nearly leered.

  William’s cheeks heated and he backed out of the room. “Uh, no. No thanks.”

  Did Colby’s grin ever fade? He twitched one shoulder. “’Kay. But now that you’ve been shown the inner sanctum, you’re welcome anytime.”

  They exchanged a few more words as Colby finished totaling William’s purchases. Well, Colby did most of the talking, commenting on everything William bought and offering recipe advice. William mostly nodded and grunted. When he paid, their fingers brushed, and William jerked his hand back so quickly he almost dropped the bills.

  Finally, he gathered the handles of the plastic sacks onto his arms.

  “Isn’t it kinda creepy being all by yourself in the loony bin?”

  “I like the quiet.”

  “Yeah, but still… I’d be really lonely.” For once, Colby looked serious.

  “I like solitude. It’s peaceful.”

  “Sure,” Colby responded doubtfully. Then he seemed to make an effort to perk up again. “But now you’ve got my number, so if you need anything, feel free to call. I’ve lived here almost my whole life so if I don’t know how to help you, I probably know someone who does.”

  “You’re probably related to someone who does.”

  The corners of Colby’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. Maybe he was a little older than William had originally guessed. “Exactly. Welcome to town, Will.”

  This time, William didn’t bother to correct him.

  Three

  THE cows were beginning to seem familiar, like neighbors you waved at but never really got to know. As he drove, William tried to concentrate on the cows and the winding gravel road rather than on Colby Anderson. Thinking about Colby made him uncomfortable, and William didn’t like feeling uncomfortable.

  He briefly considered heading into Mariposa once he had dropped off his groceries at home, but by the time he arrived back at the asylum, he’d decided to postpone that outing for a day or two. He could survive another night with the crappy sheets and another morning without coffee.

  His footsteps echoed loudly in the building lobby. He imagined what the space must have been like when there were patients here. Did it have that hospital smell? Would a visitor have been able to hear the muffled sounds of people laughing, crying, screaming? Were family members eager to see their invalid relatives, or did they dutifully shuffle in and then flee as soon as possible?

  Did any of the patients who entered the building for the first time suspect that they’d never leave, that they’d end up planted in an unmarked grave in a nearly abandoned plot of land?

  Jeez. Those kinds of thoughts made him almost as uncomfortable as Colby did.

  William put away the things he’d bought and then fixed a sandwich. The heat hadn’t yet crept back into the building, but he knew it was only a matter of time. He took off his jacket and shirt and shoes. Maybe when he made his big shopping trip he’d look for a pair of shorts. He didn’t currently own any. He used to occasionally use the gym on campus, but even then he always wore sweatpants.

  For the next three hours he sat at the big desk, entering and double-checking long strings of data. Sometimes birds flew by the window, distracting him, but for the most part his surroundings were as quiet as he’d hoped. Without interruptions, without the shuffle of undergrads in a hallway or Lisa busying herself around the apartment, he was able to get quite a bit done.

  He stopped only when his bladder insisted on a break. He stood and stretched the kinks out of his back, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and padded to the bathroom.

  He intended to get back to work after his brief hiatus. But his muscles protested; he’d been sitting too long. After a few moments of indecision, he grabbed the big key ring and went for a wander through the building.

  The place wasn’t in as bad a condition as he’d expected, at least on the ground floor. Yes, everything was faded and scuffed and generally old-looking, but with a good scrubbing and a few coats of paint, the hallways would probably be pretty decent. There were a lot of doors, most of them marked only with numbers. He opened a few of them, but the rooms were generally empty or, at most, contained a few broken pieces of furniture or scattered papers. In one small room, a pair of grayish cotton pants and a matching top lay on the floor, along with a threadbare brownish-green blanket. They were the first really personal things he’d seen, and he couldn’t help wondering who had worn those clothes and slept under that blanket.

  It was only after he’d wandered for some time that he got a good sense of the building’s layout. It had been built on a sort of grid-like plan with several long parallel hallways running in each direction. In the center of each section was a small courtyard, completely surrounded by the institution’s three-story-high walls. The courtyards had cracked concrete, weedy-looking trees, overturned wooden benches, and rusted metal chairs. Maybe inmates had been allowed some outdoor time in those courtyards, brief glimpses of blue sky framed by blindingly white stucco walls and barred windows.

  He found a series of offices and the huge kitchen, which was in shambles. He discovered a large tile-lined room with showerheads, drains in the floor, and a pair of stained tubs. There were two rooms with moldering couches—former lounges, probably—and one with a bunch of ancient tables and something that looked like a makeshift stage against one wall. There were three large dormitories with rows of narrow, rusty bed frames. And he peeked into a few small windowless rooms that looked suspiciously like cells.

  By the time he found himself back near his own apartment, he felt tired, overwhelmed, and a little depressed. And he hadn’t even stepped foot yet on the second and third floors. Maybe he never would. After all, it was pretty unlikely that intruders had somehow secreted themselves up there. But he paused before entering his apartment and looked speculatively at the adjacent room. The records were kept in there, according to Jan. He didn’t know exactly what those records might be. It could be interesting to poke around a little. No, he told himself. Dissertation. He headed for his laptop instead.

  WILLIAM hated dreaming. He was a psychologist and knew dream activity was necessary for a healthy brain, but if he could have taken a pill to keep his slumbers dream-free, he would have. He wasn’t especially prone to nightm
ares. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d experienced anything worse than mild anxiety in his sleep. No, what bothered him was his lack of control over his mind’s nighttime activities. As soon as REM hit, his subconscious took him in all sorts of directions he’d rather not go.

  Tonight, for instance, while the fans whirred and the hospital creaked and groaned, William found himself on a stage in a library so vast that no walls were visible, only row after row of books. Colby Anderson was with him on the stage, managing to look very masculine despite wearing a sequined pink dress that would have put the most outrageous disco diva to shame. A hidden pair of speakers was blaring “It’s Raining Men” at top volume, and Colby was gyrating toward William, spinning and leaping and thrusting his hips obscenely. “Come on, Billy-boy,” he said, holding out a hand. “Come dance with me. You know you wanna.”

  “No,” said William. But he didn’t sound very sure of himself. “I have to study.”

  “You’ve been studying your whole life. Now it’s time for the test.”

  And suddenly the area in front of the stage was packed with people. Fred Ochoa and Jan Merrick were there. So were all the teachers and professors William had known throughout the years. Even Mrs. Castiglione from first grade was there in her smiley-face painting smock and her neon-colored sneakers, the Mr. Math Shark puppet on one hand. Lisa was there with a group of her friends. That lady from the general store was there in her lavender sweats. A couple of kids stood at her side looking forlorn. Pastor Reynolds stood nearby, eyes narrowed as he stared at William. And William’s parents were there too, his father with his jaw set grimly, his mother looking weepy.

  And naturally William was nearly naked, standing onstage in his underwear. He didn’t even have the dignity of boxer shorts. Instead, he realized with horror, he had on a gold lamé G-string that showed off his scrawny frame and emphasized the bulge at his crotch.

  “This isn’t my G-string! I was wearing a jacket and tie!” he yelled to the crowd. He didn’t know if they could hear him over the music.

  Colby sashayed closer. “It’s time to dance.”

  “No!”

  And just then a tram silently rolled to a stop beside the stage. It was filled with people, but the windows were frosted so he couldn’t see who they were. Colby made a grab for him. William leapt back, turned, and ran for the tram. But he tripped over something near the edge, and then he was falling, falling….

  He woke with a jerk, sticky with sweat. He grumbled as he freed himself from the twisted sheets, then nearly tumbled off the mattress when he tried to stand. With only the moonlight to see by, he attempted to smooth the bedding and rearrange the pillows to his liking. He lay back down and squeezed his eyes shut. He refused to think about the damn dream. It was nothing. Neuron bursts that had no meaning. Freud’s crap about defense mechanisms and symbolism, about trains and phallic symbols was the product of an overheated Victorian imagination, completely unsubstantiated by empirical proof. William was just tired and stressed and a little discomfited by the move, and that was all.

  He tossed and turned a bit, trying not to disturb the sheets too much, and the sharp details of the dream began to soften and fade. By morning he’d probably have forgotten it entirely. But what he couldn’t push out of his consciousness was how large the bed was, and how small and alone he felt huddled in its center.

  THE birds were noisy this morning. He imagined them gathered outside his window like something from a Disney cartoon, demanding that he get up and do his chores. But he did not feel remotely like Cinderella or Snow White as he plodded to the bathroom, showered and shaved, and made himself tea and toast. He really, really needed to get a coffeemaker.

  Still, he managed to get a fair amount of data entry work done, then chased down a couple of journal articles he needed. One was available online through the university, but the other would have to be acquired via interlibrary loan. He should receive it as an e-mailed pdf within a week, according to the library’s web page.

  He was surprised to see that the clock in the corner of his computer screen said it was nearly one thirty. As he ate lunch, he decided he was already getting tired of sandwiches. He needed to make that shopping trip to acquire more substantial groceries. A really big salad would be nice, with some strips of chicken and Asian-inspired dressing.

  When he lived with Lisa, he’d kept a little gas grill on their apartment balcony. He’d liked to cook a bunch of chicken breasts on it, and then he and Lisa would spend several days finding creative ways to incorporate the meat into their dinners. It was a method that worked well with their busy schedules. Every now and then, when money wasn’t too tight, he’d grill up a couple of steaks instead. But he’d left the grill with Lisa. He doubted she’d use it, but of course he’d had nowhere to keep it when he was living in his office. Now, though, he wished he had it. Maybe he’d buy one of those compact kettle grills when he went shopping.

  “You’re going to end up buying everything in the store,” he said aloud, and then sighed. Two nights alone in the asylum and he was already breaking his vow not to talk to himself.

  Maybe some exercise was in order. But heat had again settled heavily in the valley, and the mere thought of exposing himself to the relentless sun made him feel exhausted. Fine, then. He could walk for miles inside the building.

  He still didn’t venture upstairs, but the first-floor corridors were plenty long, and as he traveled them for the third and fourth times he noticed more details. Like the names scratched into a doorframe—Jamey, Charles, Robert—and the small splatters on one white ceiling that looked disturbingly like blood. He saw that some of the bed frames included wide leather straps for wrists and ankles. Tiny ants had invaded one of the rooms, forming a busy highway from the corner of a window, across the wall and floor molding, and under a loose floor tile. He made a mental note to e-mail Jan and ask whether he should do something about them.

  The afternoon was growing late when he found himself back at the little room with the discarded clothing and blanket. As he had the day before, he leaned against the doorframe, gazing at the pieces of worn fabric. There was something very sad about them, like discovering a lost doll with its hair mostly cut away and its plastic skin all grimy. Which was a stupid thought. Probably the items hadn’t even belonged to a patient. Staff had lived in the building too, and Jan had told him that before full-time caretakers were hired, squatters used to occasionally take over a room or two, or local teens would sneak inside to get high and have sex.

  Yeah, fine. But the room was still depressing.

  He was going to turn away and continue his wanderings, maybe make his way back to his laptop for more work. But then his neat, orderly mind noticed something off: along one wall, the floor molding—about eight inches tall—wasn’t set flush with the wall and wasn’t quite parallel to the floor. It looked as if it had been pulled away and then hastily and poorly put back into place. It might harbor more ants, or perhaps even rodents. He ought to take a closer look in case the whole building was in need of an exterminator’s services.

  His footsteps seemed oddly muffled inside the small room. Up close, he saw that the gray clothing was very thin and appeared to have been crudely mended more than once. He carefully avoided stepping on the fabric.

  He crouched to inspect the strip of wood more carefully. Yes, it was definitely sticking out at one end, but he didn’t see any sign of insects or rodents. He curled his fingers around the top edge and gave an experimental tug—and then nearly fell on his ass when the long piece of wood came free.

  The walls in the building were plaster and lath. Someone had scraped a good bit of the plaster away and broken some of the laths, leaving a little cave at the bottom of the wall. The hole was less than a foot long and maybe six inches high, and it would have been obscured completely by the molding if the wood had been properly in place.

  Despite the dirty floor, William laid his cheek on the linoleum and looked into the space. Shoved inside as
deeply as possible was a metal box.

  After a moment’s hesitation, he carefully stuck his hand into the cavity, grasped the box, and pulled it out. As he lifted it, something shifted softly inside. The outside was a dull rust color and had several small dents. There were no markings, but the lid sported thin hinges, a flimsy clasp, and a wire handle.

  Whoever had hidden the tin box in the wall was long gone, probably even long dead. But still William felt as if he were intruding into something private as he eased open the clasp and tried to push back the lid. It stuck for a moment but then gave way with a little squeak.

  The box was filled with yellowed papers, each folded precisely in half. He lifted the topmost one and unbent it to reveal rows of neat, slightly faded handwriting. He squinted at the topmost lines. Up against the left-hand margin were the words Mar. 18. 1938. Below that, a salutation: My dearest Johnny.

  Four

  IN HIS little apartment, with his half-eaten dinner in front of him and the TV tuned to a news station purely for the company of its noise, William contemplated the box he’d found. He hadn’t read the letter beyond the first line. Instead, he’d refolded it, replaced the tin lid, and carried the box back with him. Now it sat on his small dining table. The box had clearly never been anything special, and it hadn’t weathered the decades well. But there was something enticing about it, like a treasure chest or a surprise parcel that had arrived in the mail. He wanted very much to open it and read the contents. But he was forcing himself to wait.

  “Finish dinner first,” he said out loud. “And do some work. Then you can snoop.”

  Okay, maybe it was time to give up on the no-talking-to-himself rule. Lots of people thought out loud. In fact, in one of his classes they’d read a couple of studies that suggested talking to oneself could actually help improve cognitive process under some circumstances. Besides, he hadn’t seen another human being all day and his throat felt rusty.