The Tin Box Page 4

  He finished his meal—grilled ham and cheese with a sliced apple and some chips—and washed the few dirty dishes. Then he turned off the TV and switched on a Bach violin concerto. He sat in front of his laptop and entered data until the lines of numbers grew wavery and he became afraid of making mistakes. He shut down the computer, settled into one of the comfortable armchairs, and opened the tin.

  Mar. 18. 1938

  My dearest Johnny,

  I don’t know how I will get this letter to you or when, but I will write it anyway. Because my thoughts are always with you, my love, even though our bodies are separated by so many long miles.

  I have been quite a scoundrel. It’s only lately I’ve earned the privileges of pen and paper, and only after weeks of struggling very hard to be good. I’m supposed to be writing to Mother and Father, telling them how delightful my stay is and how caring the staff, and how I’m certain I’ll be cured in no time at all. But I’ve stolen some of my writing supplies and a lunch tin belonging to one of the orderlies, and I’m writing to you instead.

  And oh Johnny, I will not be cured.

  I want to be free of this oppressive place, of course. The food is terrible, the sounds and the stench even worse. There are bars on every window and all human dignity has been taken from me. They treat me worse than a child or an invalid—here I am something foul and diseased.

  If I were cured I would be free.

  But if I were cured I would not love you any longer, would not long for your voice and your touch. And that is a loss I can bear much less than the loss of my freedom.

  Yrs always,

  Bill

  William realized his hands were shaking. He set the fragile paper on the table and for a long time simply sat with his eyes unfocused and his stomach churning.

  The name was a small coincidence. William was a common enough name now, and a hundred years earlier, it had probably been used even more often. He told himself that the shared name meant nothing at all. But he could almost hear someone whispering it, the sound skittering along the aged floorboards like a dust bunny blown by a breeze: Bill… William.

  He got up so abruptly that his chair nearly toppled, and he hastily folded the letter before shoving it back into the tin and jamming on the top. He was half tempted to replace the damn box in the hole where it had lain hidden for so many years. But instead he took it across his room and placed it on a shelf so high he had to stand on his toes and stretch his arm. And then he sat down with the television turned very loud, drowning out the voices from his past.

  HE HADN’T slept well. Maybe there had been more dreams, although he couldn’t remember any in the morning. He’d awakened at least a half-dozen times with sweat forming a thin sheen on his chest and with the sheets, like ropes, pinning him in place. When the bird chorus sang him out of bed for good, there was still no coffee.

  “I’m going shopping today,” he proclaimed aloud. And he heartily agreed with that decision, so at least he wasn’t arguing with himself. Because that would be crazy.

  He managed to shower, shave, dress, eat, wash dishes, and check his e-mail without looking at the aged tin box. He was beginning to wish he’d stowed it elsewhere; it loomed over him like a gargoyle. He had thousands of square feet of building to keep it in. When he returned from the store he’d find a new place for it, somewhere he could forget its existence.

  The sky was a pale gray, the temperature markedly cooler than during the previous days. He didn’t think rain was likely, but he was glad for a bit of a break. Summer would arrive soon enough, and that would mean endless weeks of heat. His poor little Corolla looked forlorn in the parking lot, all by itself. The blue paint job had dulled in recent years and the car had picked up a collection of scratches and dings. It ran well, however, and he’d recently bought new tires. A new car was a concept so far in the future as to feel like science fiction. By the time he had the cash for a new vehicle, everyone would likely be zooming around with personal jetpacks.

  After William started the engine, he realized he was low on gas. He always felt uneasy when the tank got too low, and uncertain of the distance to Mariposa, he decided to fill up in Jelley’s Valley.

  The service station was not a well-known chain, and William was a little worried about the quality of the gas. He came to a stop next to the row of pumps and cut the engine. There was no credit card option, so after a bit of indecision he entered the small building, which proved to house a small mechanic’s garage as well as a counter and cash register. A large man in his late fifties was seated on a vinyl-upholstered kitchen chair next to the cash register, watching something on a tiny TV. He didn’t look up when William entered.

  “Um, I need some gas.”

  The man grunted at him. “Pay after you’re done.”

  William headed back to his car just in time to see a man jogging over from the general store. Colby. Today he wore a pair of cutoffs, a tight T-shirt with sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, and flip-flops. “Hey!” he said a little breathlessly when he arrived at the Toyota.

  William nodded and shoved the nozzle into his car, expecting Colby to continue into the garage.

  But Colby came to a halt next to the pump. “You don’t have any mail yet.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  “Are you all settled in?”

  “I guess so.” The pump whirred and hummed as the gas began to flow, but the numbers turned very slowly.

  “What do you do all day out there by yourself?”

  “I’m working on my dissertation.” Which wasn’t exactly true, but wasn’t quite a lie.

  “Yeah, I figured that. They usually get grad students to stay there. Mostly not by themselves, though. The last girl had a boyfriend, another student, and the one before that was a guy with a wife and a baby.”

  William sighed. “It’s just me.”

  “Well, I’d go crazy with nobody to talk to all day. Some days are really slow over at the store. You know, hours between customers. I hate that.”

  William glanced at the empty parking lot across the street. “Is today one of those days?”

  “Yeah. But I don’t care because today’s my day off. Grandpa still comes in to work Wednesdays and Thursdays.”

  “Ah.”

  A silence fell, but Colby was smiling and didn’t seem inclined to move on anytime soon. His shirt was really tight, and when he moved even a little, William could see his chest muscles flex. Colby must spend a lot of his free time working out, William concluded. Which wasn’t a line of thought he felt comfortable with, so he cleared his throat. “Maybe…. Do you know the closest place where I can get a wider range of groceries?”

  “Our selection’s not good enough for you?”

  “No, it’s just that—”

  “I’m joking with you.” Colby grinned crookedly. “What we have is pretty limited. I’ve been trying to talk Grandpa into carrying something a little more exotic, like maybe some frozen Thai food—God, I love Thai—or maybe some free-range meats. He’s not convinced.”

  “There’s probably not a big demand for that kind of thing here.”

  This time, Colby laughed. “Just me. And maybe you?” He tilted his head and gave a considering look that made William really uncomfortable.

  “So, is there someplace else I can go? I need some non-food items too. Housewares.”

  “Mariposa, then. Take me with you, and I’ll direct you right where you need to go.”

  William imagined being confined in the car with Colby and found himself shaking his head. “I’m sure I can find it on my own.” After all, how big and confusing could Mariposa be?

  “Yeah, I bet you could. But I need some stuff too, actually, and I’m sort of carless at the moment. I’d appreciate the ride. We could even have lunch. There’s a place that has great burgers, really cheap.”

  Unable to think of a way to refuse without being rude, William said, “Um, okay.”

  “Great!” Moving quickly—maybe out of fear that William wo
uld change his mind—Colby zoomed around the car, opened the passenger door, and plopped himself inside. He twisted around to face William and waved.

  When the tank was finally filled, William replaced the nozzle and went inside to pay. The cashier managed to complete the entire transaction without once looking at William or saying anything intelligible. Apparently some sporting event needed all his attention.

  “Is he a relative too?” William asked as he started the engine.

  “Who, Donald Hall? Nope, no relation. Actually, he and my dad got in some big fight long before I was born—I think maybe over a girl—and even though my dad’s been dead almost twenty years, none of us Andersons speak to the Halls. He still buys his groceries from us and we still deliver his mail, and we still get gas there. Not a lot of other choices for any of us. We draw the line at car repair, though, which is why my poor old Bunny is still good and dead.”

  They were on the highway, but William spared a glance at his passenger. “Bunny?”

  “My Rabbit. I know, not a very creative name. What’s your car called?”

  “My car doesn’t have a name. It’s an inanimate object.”

  Colby made a dismissive pffft noise. “Now you’re gonna hurt her feelings.”

  “It doesn’t have feelings. It’s a car.”

  “You assume she doesn’t have feelings. But maybe she does, just in an automotive sort of way. Like my printer. That thing has an evil sense of humor. It’ll work just fine when I print something stupid, like a recipe or something, but when it’s important—invoices from the store, maybe—the damn thing jams or pretends it’s not speaking to my computer. And when I finally do get it to work, it spits a half-dozen copies all over the floor.” He shook his finger. “It’s mocking me. And then there’s my iPod….”

  William couldn’t tell whether Colby was joking since his smile seemed pretty permanently affixed. Maybe Colby liked to show off his nice teeth or showcase his dimples.

  After a few miles of quiet, Colby began to fiddle with the stereo dials. When he hit the right combination of buttons, a CD started up. It was a Schubert string quartet.

  “You listen to that?” Colby asked incredulously. “Don’t you have something better? In your glove box, maybe?”

  “There’s a Beethoven disc in there. I think some Liszt too.”

  “Anything a teeny bit more modern?”

  “I had a Stravinsky but it got scratched.” William had his gaze on the winding road in front of him, but with his peripheral vision he could see Colby shaking his head.

  Colby switched off the CD and began to hum instead. William didn’t recognize the tune, which wasn’t surprising. He wasn’t much into music. He had only a basic knowledge of the classical stuff, and he listened to it mainly because his father had always listened to it when he drove or worked. In fact, most of William’s small collection of CDs had been gifts from his parents. He’d never been sure whether they thought he liked the music or were hoping he would come to like it. Maybe they just couldn’t think of anything else to give him for his birthday and Christmas.

  Not surprisingly, Colby was humming something bouncy. He jiggled his leg too, and tapped his fingers on the door handle. William had to remind himself to be annoyed, and he tried not to focus on the fact that Colby was so close in the small car that they were almost touching. It was better to focus on the road—a lot of drivers evidently mistook this highway for the Monaco Grand Prix racetrack. People kept zooming past him even though he was going several miles over the speed limit.

  As they drew closer to Mariposa, Colby directed him off the highway, past a few blocks of houses and a church, and around a little park with swing sets and a slide. Their destination seemed to be a strip mall containing a restaurant, a hair salon, and one large store—Frank’s Grab’em.

  “Are you buying perishables?” Colby asked as William parked the car.

  “Probably.”

  “’Kay. Then how about lunch first?”

  William wasn’t really all that hungry, but he followed Colby into the Java Joint, which proved to serve coffee, frozen yogurt, sandwiches, and burgers. They took a booth near the front. There were only a few other customers in the place: a couple of older ladies dining together, a guy in his thirties poking at an iPad, an older man reading a newspaper. The waitress appeared long enough to plunk down plastic menus and a couple glasses of water, then disappeared into a back room.

  “Avoid the eggs,” Colby advised. “But the burgers are always good.”

  “Okay.”

  William hid behind his menu. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten out with someone who wasn’t Lisa or a fellow student. It hadn’t really occurred to him on the drive over that he’d be forced to make conversation with Colby for the length of the meal.

  Eventually the waitress reappeared. William was thankful to be able to order coffee at long last. He asked for a cheeseburger too, as did Colby. Colby wanted a Diet Coke. “Gotta watch the waistline,” he said, winking at the waitress. She giggled.

  With the menus gone, William had nowhere to hide. He pretended to be closely examining his surroundings, but in fact the Java Joint was pretty unremarkably decorated, and he couldn’t avoid Colby’s thoughtful stare.

  “You don’t like me much, do you?” Colby finally said.

  “I… I don’t think I know you well enough to not like you.”

  “Yeah, but you sort of make these faces and you keep flinching away.” He narrowed his eyes. “Are you homophobic? Afraid you’ll catch my queer cooties?”

  If William had been sipping his water, he would have choked. As it was, he coughed rather loudly. “I’m not a bigot.”

  “It doesn’t bother you to be seen with a flaming gayboy?”

  “I don’t care what anyone else thinks.” That was true, more or less. Once he’d given up on gaining his parents’ respect, the only judgment he’d feared was his own. Unfortunately, he was a harsh critic of himself.

  “So then what’s the deal? Hermit? Confirmed introvert? Asperger’s? Maybe you just disapprove of my stylistic choices.” Colby gave a significant look at his own tight and fairly skimpy outfit, and then at William’s Oxford shirt and sport coat. “Are you the fashion police, Will?”

  “William.” He wanted to frown, but Colby was looking genuinely upset, his sunny smile replaced by troubled eyes and a frown. For the first time, William felt guilty for how he’d been acting. Colby seemed like a nice guy. Friendly and cheery. It wasn’t his fault he made William uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, Colby. I think I’m just kind of a jerk.”

  The grin reappeared, and William was strangely relieved. “You’re not really a jerk,” said Colby. “We just need to work a little on your social skills. Loosen you up a little. ’Cause Will, my man, you’ve got a stick so far up your ass you must be tasting it. Who the hell put it there?”

  William felt a little flutter of panic at the question. He intentionally pushed it down and focused instead on the coarseness of Colby’s language, which made him blush. It didn’t help that he knew Colby was right—William was about as uptight as they came. And Colby wasn’t the first to accuse him of it. Even Lisa used to complain and tell him to ease up, and she was wound pretty tight herself.

  The coffee arrived, hot and blessedly caffeinated. William burned his tongue but didn’t especially care. Coffee had always been his one true vice, the one thing he wanted, knew he shouldn’t have, and couldn’t quite give up. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the rich, bitter flavor. He imagined he could feel his veins singing in happiness. Oddly, the song sounded a lot like the one Colby had been humming in the car.

  “I’ve seen guys look less blissed out than that after a really good orgasm.”

  William opened his eyes to glare. He looked around, but if any of the other customers had heard what Colby said, they weren’t reacting. “I need to buy a coffeemaker,” William said.

  “Yeah, Frank’s will have one. How come you didn’t bring yours with you to J
V?”

  “JV?”

  “Jelley’s Valley. See, now that you’re a local we can let you in on our secret lingo.”

  “Oh.”

  “So why no coffeemaker?”

  After taking another soothing swallow, William answered carefully. “I didn’t have one before I came. I used to just go out for coffee.” That was sort of true. A few years back he and Lisa had splurged on a really nice Italian machine, the programmable kind that brewed coffee and espresso and probably did your income taxes if you punched the right buttons. Naturally, Lisa had kept it when he left. And during those miserable weeks of living in his office, he did go out for coffee, buying it from a campus vendor when he could afford it, pouring it from the burner in the graduate student lounge when he was broke.

  “I guess that’s one of the advantages of living in civilization. You can go out for stuff.” Colby seemed neither sarcastic nor sad, just matter-of-fact.

  “Have you really lived here your whole life?”

  Colby had been slurping at his soft drink; now he smiled around the straw. “Why? You figure I’m a little too colorful for JV?”

  “Maybe,” William answered cautiously.

  “I thought so too, when I was a kid. Couldn’t wait to shake the dust from my feet. I graduated high school early, when I was only sixteen. Took off for the bright lights. San Francisco—homo heaven, right?”

  “And your family let you go?”

  Colby shrugged. “Dad was dead. Mom was remarried, to a truck driver. He has a house up in Redding but he spends most of the time on the road. Mom too. They’ve got their rig all set up like a little apartment, practically. It’s pretty cool. And Grandma and Grandpa, they were a little overwhelmed with me, I think.” He batted his eyelashes, which were unnaturally long. “I was just too fabulous for them to deal with.”