Andrew Vachss - The Weight

That’s how Rena sounded now.

Back then, I’d waited around after school until the worst one came out. I didn’t know her name, but I could see she was with her special friends.

When they saw me coming, they didn’t know what to do. A guy like me, I wasn’t supposed to be around people like them. I stepped close to the leader girl. Before she could say anything, I slapped her, hard enough to make her fall down and start crying.

“Tell your boyfriend I did that,” I said. “He’s not gonna do nothing. You know why? Because he don’t give a fuck about you. He’s only with you because everyone knows you give the best blowjobs in school.”

I never did find out what happened at school. I never went back, and they never came looking for me. But I was on the same corner every night, and people knew it. Her boyfriend, that pussy could have found me anytime he wanted.

Only he never showed. So I never found out what happened in school. I wanted to call the girl they’d been torturing, but I guess I was afraid that I’d only made things worse.

I wasn’t going to do that this time. So all I said to Rena was “Sure, you have. But I know something about that desk you don’t… At least, I think I do.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The desk. The proof you need is in the desk. Only, Albie had it fixed so’s it takes three people to get at it.”

“There’s only two of us.”

“I know. But I can do what two of the people are supposed to. You do the other part.”

“Like two partners?”

“I… I guess so. Maybe that’s right. All I know is, that desk has to be lifted up. Way up. All four legs have to be off the ground. High off the ground. That’s the two-man job.

“Then the third one stands underneath. There’s like this water stain. On the underside, I mean. You have to look real close to even see it. Then you have to tap right on it. Not hard, just, like, with your knuckle.”

She got out from behind the desk. “Give me that phone,” she said.

I handed it over. She tossed it onto this old couch. It was some dark leather, and it didn’t look comfortable. But it had a bunch of rugs and stuff on it, so the phone didn’t make a sound when it landed. Neither did the pistol.

“Let’s do it, Sugar.”

I crawled under the desk. It would have been an easy lift, only I couldn’t get my head free to take the weight on my shoulders. I crawled back out.

“What?” she said.

“It’s probably not all that heavy, but I can’t lift it like you do a squat. And I don’t think I can hand-press it from my knees.”

Rena went over to the desk. She looked at it a long time. Then she said, “It has to go up, but it doesn’t have to go up level . Just lift one end, okay? When you get that up, slide your left shoulder underneath. Put your left palm up, like you were getting ready to press. Then just slide your palm more to the left. Slow, just a little at a time. When you get it far enough over, you push with the one hand and I’ll haul up on it, too. Then you’ll be able to get your right hand inside.”

She showed me with her hands what she was telling me to do. I could see it.

“Okay? Now, when you get both palms under it, just push . Like it was a… I don’t know what you call it, but I saw you do it. In the gym, I mean.”

She was right, too. Once I got one end up, the rest was easy. I got my palms under it, bent my knees, drove it up, just like doing a squat-thrust. One with serious weight to it-the damn desk felt like it was made of lead.

Only one rep! I kept saying to myself. I can hold this up all night . For a minute, I thought I might have to. I couldn’t look around, but I could feel Rena wasn’t in the room anymore.

But then I felt her against me. Smelled her. Her, not her perfume. I couldn’t see what she was doing, but I could see a flashlight, so I knew where she’d run off to.

I heard a couple of little taps against the wood, and something dropped on my head. It didn’t knock me out or anything, but the surprise almost made me drop the desk.

“I’ve got it,” I heard her say. “Let it down easy , okay? I’ll help.”

In the living room, I watched her unwrap something in white tissue paper. She did it like she was disconnecting an alarm. Inside all that paper, there was a little bag. It looked real old, like it was once red but faded to a brownish color now.

Like the thumbprint in Solly’s book , I thought to myself. I knew that little bag had to be Jewish. There was a gold star embroidered on the front with Jewish writing inside it. Underneath, there was like a whirly thing, also in gold, and two green-leaf things coming out of each side. The bottom was all gold fringe.

“It’s his tallit ,” she said, real soft.

“His what?”

“His prayer shawl. That’s what’s inside that bag. You get one of these when you’re bar-mitzvahed. On your thirteenth birthday. For Jews, that makes you a man. In the temple, you wear it over your shoulders.”

“How come you know all this?”

“Albie told me, what do you think?”

“You went with him? To the-?”

“No! And Albie didn’t go, either.”

“Well, Solly said this was something Albie left to you. In his will, I mean. Doesn’t that prove Solly has it?”

She didn’t say anything. For a long time.

She was still sitting there, with that little bag in her lap, when I got up and walked back to that suite.

It took me a while. By the time I got there, a whole set of books was on my bed. Big, thick ones.

Albie’s ledgers, I guess. Because that little blue book Solly wanted, it wasn’t there.

It was still nighttime when she came back to where I was-3:51, with a blinking sun. There was enough light from the hall for me to see she only had her underwear on.

She lay down next to me. Before I had a chance to even think about what was going on, she put her lips against my ear.

“We have to get out of here, Sugar.”

“Now?”

“Right now. Pack up your stuff. Everything , understand?”

“What about your-?”

“The keys are in the Lincoln,” she said, stepping over what I wanted to ask her. “Put all your stuff in the trunk. Then come back to the living room. I’ll have stuff, too. A lot more than yours. If it doesn’t fit in the trunk, we’ll just throw it into the back seat.”

“What hap-?”

She put her finger over my mouth. Then she jumped up and ran out the door.

It was easy for me to pack. The only problem was that new stuff Rena had bought for me. I didn’t have a suitcase for that, so I just threw it in the back seat, loose.

In the living room, there was Rena. And about half a dozen different bags.

“If I had a strap, I could-”

“Just make a couple of trips, Sugar. I’ll be carrying some of them, too.”

The garage was dark. She got behind the wheel of the Lincoln and hit the button for the door, then hit it again as soon as we rolled out.

Only, Rena didn’t take the driveway. She turned and drove out behind the garage. It looked like a damn forest, but she drove through it like there was a road somewhere.

A few minutes later, she stopped.

“Unload it all,” she said. “Don’t worry about being neat-just get everything out of the car.”