D Gillespie - The Toy Thief

“Sallie?” I asked.

“Her mom,” he answered with a cocked eyebrow.

We never talked about Ruth, but I got the sense that he wasn’t nuts about her either. I suppose that handing the phone off to a nine-year-old was proof enough of that theory.

“Hello?”

“Jack,” a tart voice said, “Sallie brought a camera to your house.”

It could have been a question, but the tone made it a simple, blunt statement.

“Yeah…” I said, and my dad tapped a knuckle on my forehead and frowned. I looked up just in time for him to mouth the word ma’am .

“Yes, ma’am. We were making movies. She left it over when—”

“It’s very expensive.”

I didn’t really know what to say to that, but she didn’t give me a chance to respond.

“I can’t come just this minute. I have too much to do. Can I trust you to keep it safe until this evening?”

“Uhh… yes, ma’am.”

I wasn’t quite sure what she thought I would do in a couple of hours. Maybe sell it for crack.

“Good. I’ll come over after work… wait… I’m on the phone…”

I could hear some kind of commotion on the other end of the line, and I instantly recognized the voice. Sallie sounded worked up, and despite Ruth’s protests, her daughter kept nipping at her heels.

“Yes. Yes . Fine,” she said to Sallie. “I’ll be over tonight,” she directed at me. “Now Sallie wants to talk to you.”

There was a fumbling of the phone and a smattering of annoyed whispering.

“Mother!” Sallie said. Then footsteps, plodding away, followed by a slamming door. “Ugh. Jack, you there?”

“Yeah. What was that all about?” I asked as I too fled to my own room on the cordless phone.

“She’s just ridiculous. Dad doesn’t even care about the camera, but she’s in there shitting bricks.”

“I noticed.”

“Look,” she added, a bit nervously, “I also left… my doll.” She paused for a second, just long enough to let my eyes finish rolling. “I just got out of there so quick this morning. I’m pretty sure it was over by the back, where Memphis made his big debut.”

She was right. I remembered it from the night before, because I had been especially annoyed that she felt the need to drag that stupid thing out when we were so busy. It was sitting on the end table, just next to where the camera had been.

“I remember,” I said, sounding annoyed. “I musta missed it this morning when I got the camera. I’ll find it.”

“Thanks,” she said quietly.

After the call, I kept thinking about the way her mom had talked to me, and I muttered something smart-assy to myself when I walked into the living room. I checked the spot where I had seen the doll the night before. Then I checked the floor underneath the table, behind the couch, and under the couch.

Nothing.

I knew, almost at once, that Andy was to blame, but I knew better than to go storming in there without any proof. Then it hit me.

The camera.

I had no clue how long it had been running, but I felt confident that it had lasted long enough to catch him in the act. Even as disinterested as he was, Andy knew how much Sallie loved that toy, and getting back at her would be wonderful payback against me.

Sallie had had enough forethought to bring her dad’s power cord in case the battery went dead, so I hooked it up along with the AV cord – one of the white-yellow-red setups. We still had it plugged in up in the cluttered playroom from the night before. I don’t know why we called it a playroom. There was a tiny TV, some board games, but little else. It was really just another hiding place for us whenever my dad felt like being conversational and we just wanted to be alone.

Once everything was plugged in, I hit Rewind and ran the whole thing back to the beginning. Then I hit Play and sat back against the orange beanbag chair. There were some sputtering images of our rehearsals: Sallie wearing a black wig that made her look surprisingly like me. Me slowly explaining how the choreography of this scene or that scene would work. Jump to the stage, half askew, the camera being nudged into place and the world turning slowly into focus. I squinted and cocked my head this way and that, trying to find where the stupid doll could be hiding. Just once, for a second, I saw it, leaning against a lamp on the end table, right where I remembered it. Then we adjusted the camera again, and it was gone from the frame.

I fast-forwarded a bit, bored now, but still hopeful that I might catch Andy in the act. It would be a special moment for a little sister to have irrefutable evidence like that. If he hadn’t dissected the damn thing, I might even have a chance to get it back. The screen flickered, and there he was, Memphis in all his fat, orange glory. With a cringe, I hit Play and watched it unfold.

That damn cat.

In the scramble that followed, the camera dropped onto the edge of the couch, and the unmistakably sweet sound of Andy’s laughter rose up, filling the room once again. Without a moment of hesitation, I turned down the volume to a whisper. I wasn’t ready, despite how pissed I was, for Andy to hear it all again. Part of it was fear of retaliation, but much more than that, I hated the fact that I was the one who silenced that amazing peal of laughter. It was true, deep regret that I felt in that moment, knowing that I might not ever hear a sound like that again.

There was the light sound of my slap, and the laughter was gone, followed by the slight sound of stomping feet. And then nothing at all. The image showed the edge of the couch, the bottom of the end table, the cardboard stage on the floor, and, farthest away, the sliding glass of the back door, a sheet of blackness. I had to get closer to the screen to make it out, but there it was: the single cotton foot of the doll, resting at the corner of the screen. Pink. Soft. A physical manifestation of everything sweet inside Sallie.

Ugh.

I waited and watched, not quite ready to fast-forward because I was so certain that the deed would happen at once. After we fled to the bathroom, Andy had nothing but a cold glass of Coke and a red, stinging cheek. I know exactly what I would have done in that moment. I would have found the first thing in reach that belonged to him, and I would have destroyed it. Shredded it. Pissed on it even. Anything to give that pain away to someone else.

I don’t blame a nine-year-old for being petty, but it was amazing how poorly I understood my brother in those days. He never hurt me, other than by simply ignoring me, and I don’t know why I felt so certain he would this time. Something about that slap had tipped some invisible balance, like a globe spun upside down, and suddenly, I was the one on top.

I’m not sure exactly what Andy did with the rest of that night, but he never did reappear in front of the camera. So I watched, and watched, and watched, and when I finally couldn’t stand it, I hit Fast-Forward and let the world spin by, minutes reduced to seconds. Even at double or triple speed, it was terribly boring, and my attention had fluttered to something else in the room when I heard the tape stop. I’d come to the end, and as far as I knew, I had nothing to show for it.

Instead of giving up, I ran the tape back a few seconds and hit Play just to be sure, and there it was. The door still showed black beyond the thin glass, and the cat stage still waited unused. But the doll…

It was gone.

Again, I hit Rewind and stared at the corner of the screen, waiting for the single moment when the foot reappeared, and in a flash, it did. I think I gasped a little when I saw it, and I fumbled for the Play button. There was some movement, a lightly shaded shape that glided around the side of the couch. Memphis, his tail curling up as he explored in the dead of night.