Book of Mercy (17 page)

The man deftly sliced a piece of meat from the charred rabbit with a big hunting knife and offered it to Ryder. Ryder hesitated. “Go on, boy. Don’t be stubborn or stupid. You know never to turn down food when it’s there for the takin’.”

Rabbit Man was right. That was one of Ryder’s own rules. But he had never eaten a wild thing, a soft creature of the woods, something not found in the day-old section of the supermarket or the dumpster behind a restaurant. It was like watching someone carve up one of Antigone’s deer.

“Rabbit’s some good eatin’,” the man encouraged.

Licking his lips, the hungry Ryder gently pulled the meat from the tip of the man’s knife and lowered himself to the ground. He crossed his legs and studied the meat.

“Go on,” said Rabbit Man, “you wouldn’t want to offend the chef.”

Ryder cast a quick glance at Rabbit Man then began to nibble on the meat.

“Well?”

“It ain’t a cheeseburger,” Ryder mumbled, which caused Rabbit Man to shatter the night with another gleeful roar.

Ryder’s last meal had been the morning before. A farmer found some stale cookies in his glove compartment and insisted Ryder take them as he hopped out of the back of the pickup. He thanked the man for the ride and the cookies and watched the truck head toward the interstate. By the time Ryder had walked a mile down the empty back road, the cookies were gone.

Rabbit Man poured half the beans in another tin can and handed the can to Ryder. Ryder imitated the man, who ate the beans by scooping them up with his fingers. As Ryder licked hot juice from his fingers, the fork in Rabbit Man’s pocket winked at him.

“I see you lookin’ at my fork,” Rabbit Man said. “Don’t get no ideas about my fork.”

“I won’t,” Ryder said quickly. The can of hot beans burned his hands, but he didn’t mind. The heat felt good.

“This here fork ain’t for eatin’ food. This my penny fork.”

“A penny fork?”

“You ain’t never heard of a penny fork?” The stranger seemed disappointed in him. He plucked the shiny fork from his pocket and played with it. It reflected the firelight, and Ryder blinked. “You dig out pennies with a penny fork. It’s as strong as can be. They don’t make ’em like this anymore. Survived the Civil War, World Wars, Vietnam. Hell, I even used this as a weapon in Iraq. Listen to what your mama says, boy, you play with sharp things and you could put an eye out.” Rabbit Man stared at the fork, suddenly thoughtful. “Not necessarily your own.”

Ryder swallowed and felt his muscles tense. This situation was turning weird. He had about made up his mind to be on his way, when the stranger continued in a lighter tone, “But now, I use this fork only for pennies. Can’t help myself. Whenever I’m near a brick wall, I gotta dig out those pennies.”

“You find pennies in walls?” Ryder asked.

“Lots of ’em. You know, an old house or old masonry in a garden, they have lots of chinks in ’em. The mortar loosens and crumbles. And people stuff pennies in those cracks in the wall.”

“Why?”

“For good luck, boy, for good luck. Those pennies are their wishes.”

The stranger offered Ryder another slice of rabbit. Ryder nodded his thanks and chewed the odd-tasting meat as if it were one of William’s specialties.

“But why do you dig them out? For the money? Pennies. Don’t hardly seem worth it.”

Rabbit Man shook his head. “I dig out their wishes and eat ’em and then they become mine.”

Ryder choked on the rabbit. “Eat ’em? You eat the pennies?”

“Like candy.”

“But why?”

“Because we all need wishes, boy. I don’t get sick, and I never have trouble catchin’ a rabbit when I’m hungry. If I feel a need to talk, someone like you happens along. I don’t freeze at night, and my matches always light, even when they be wet. Undesirables leave me alone. That’s because I have all those good wishes inside me.”

“How many wishes have you eaten?”

“Thousands probably.”

“And they never made you sick?” Ryder asked.

“The wishes haven’t. Now the pennies are a different matter. You gotta watch your copper intake, you know.”

Ryder slept by the fire that night. Rabbit Man offered Ryder his only blanket, but Ryder declined. “You keep it. I’m gettin’ used to the invigoratin’ quality of the night air.” Invigorating had been one of his vocabulary words in English class.

Rabbit Man laughed. “Invigoratin’. I gotta remember that one.”

That night Ryder dreamt of Star. She stood on a hill with her arms stretched to the sky. “Wish on me,” she said to him. “Wish on me.”

He regretted not saying good-bye to Star. It felt wrong to leave without a word. He should have gone by her house that night and tossed a pebble against her window. He would have liked to have seen her one last time, leaning out the upstairs window, laughing at him, blowing gusts of frost with her warm breath.

He also saw Antigone in his dream. She was in the truck stop where they first ate together. She was asleep, her cheek cradled against her arm on the tabletop. The table was filled with food, more food than three pregnant women could eat. And still the waitress brought more. She balanced a greasy platter of sausages on Antigone’s sleeping head and shrugged at him, “She always orders more than she can eat.” He wanted to fling the sausages on the floor. Didn’t she know Antigone was a vegetarian? The smell alone would kill her.

An owl swept the air just above his head, so low its wings almost brushed his cheek.
Hoo hoo hoo-hoo.
Ryder jolted awake.
Hoo hoo hoo-hoo.
The huge bird settled on a branch of the oak in the middle of the field. Its head swiveled in the moonlight; dark eyes studied him. Its deep voice barked again.

Ryder shivered and inched closer to the fire. The last time he saw the Professor it had been a night colder than this. They’d met up in an alley under the single streetlamp. The Professor preferred a well-lit alley to the shelters, some place he could read one of the books from his precious sack. That night Ryder had scolded him for trading his gloves for a book.

“Man, you don’t know nothin’. Every day you survive, it’s a freakin’ miracle,” he’d said, pulling off his gloves and handing them to the Professor. “Put these on. They got holes, but they’re better than nothin’.” He leaned down and tugged the layers of sweaters closer to the old man’s whiskery chin.

“So what did you get for the gloves?” Ryder asked, settling on the cold concrete next to the Professor, his knees drawn up to his chin. He leaned close, offering his warmth. The gloves had long ago lost most of their fingertips so Ryder could see the Professor’s cracked fingers as they caressed the old cloth cover, which was worn in spots and bent at the corners.

“
The Last of the Mohicans.
A bloody good swashbuckler. The hero is named Hawkeye.”

“Hawkeye, huh? That’s a cool name.”

And then the old man nestled into Ryder and began to read. His precise tongue, sharpened perhaps in a fine British finishing school (according to one rumor on the street), carved images and served them up for Ryder’s imagination. Time slowed, moving as if in a peaceful dream. Ryder closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the hard brick wall. Words echoed down the silent alley, floating up through the cold darkness, mixing with snowflakes.

Ryder didn’t know how long he and the Professor had been asleep when he heard footsteps. Immediately, he was awake and alert. He feigned sleep, however, to find an edge. Ryder always looked for an edge.

The three men who attacked them were after the Professor’s bag. They thought it was full of stuff to pawn, perhaps some clothes warmer than theirs, maybe some booze. When a hand reached past Ryder to grab the Professor’s moth-eaten sweaters and shirts, Ryder instinctively kicked it. The thief swore, lifted Ryder by the jacket, and flung him across the alley. He slammed into a pile of boxes, the bones in his spine rattling like a child’s toy.

While two of them held Ryder, squirming and twisting in their hands, the leader punched the Professor with huge fists, slamming his foot into the pile of human rags again and again, until the old man released his desperate grasp on the sack. Finally, the leader snatched it, looked inside, and then upended it in disgust. Books poured down on the Professor’s body.

“Books. Ain’t nothin’ worth nothin’,” said the leader. He grabbed the book from the Professor’s limp hand,
The Last of the Mohicans,
and ripped the pages out. He flung them into the air. They snowed down around the Professor. He nodded at one of the other men, who then slammed a fist into Ryder’s gut, doubling him over. Ryder dropped to the concrete as the men melted into the night, laughing. He crawled over to the Professor.

Ryder pushed the Professor’s sweaters aside with shaking hands and pressed his ear against the old man’s chest. It was such a skinny chest, nothing more than loose skin dangling on bones. He heard a slight rattle. “Man, I gotta get you to a hospital,” he muttered, pulling the Professor into his arms.

The Professor coughed and sputtered blood.

Ryder was crying now. “You and your goddamn books. I knew some day they’d get us in trouble.” He rocked his friend. “Don’t you die on me! Not tonight. Professor . . . Professor?” Once again he desperately listened for a precious pounding inside the old man’s withered chest. Nothing.

Hadn’t Ryder warned the Professor? He wanted to shake the old man and shout: see how quick it can happen, how the world can spin out of control in a moment? Snowflakes came out of the night and drifted down onto the Professor’s peaceful face. They caught in his whiskers and sparkled. They dissolved against his chapped lips and mixed with the frozen tears on Ryder’s cheeks.

Ryder sniffed, straightened the Professor’s sweaters, pulling them tighter. Patting his old friend’s chest, he said, “You shoulda kept the gloves, crazy old man.”

T
HE
J
ANUARY MEETING OF
the Mercy Study Club came to order with a growl.