Sean Beaudoin - Welcome Thieves

“This place must really cost,” Jake says.

The bell rings one more time. The grounds are quiet. Vendors lower their umbrellas, begin to leave. Tiffany Marzano is wearing chef’s pants, the kind with a drawstring and little blue checks. There’s a tan ring of skin between the hem and her boot. A gold anklet with an emerald charm hangs in the gap.

Jake has seen it before. At a client’s. Triaged it into the hold himself.

Tiffany Marzano yawns, stretches, steals after all.

“Every night I park the truck on a different street. People walk by, have their conversations, their arguments, no idea I’m there. It’s snug. I got candles. I got books and wine and a sleeping bag. The hold makes this ticking sound as it cools, sort of like music. And then when the sun comes up, it expands again.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Yeah, but they were gonna find out, take the keys away eventually.”

“I could talk to St. Cloud.”

“You could, huh?”

“I think he likes me.”

Tiffany Marzano turns. Her face is different from the front, prettier.

“At first I thought you were dumb. Then stoned. Now? Who knows?”

“I’m a vampire,” Jake says, adopting a thick Hungarian accent. “I may not have mentioned before.”

“Nope, I’d have remembered that.”

“Yes, I remember thees place back ven eet was just rocks and grass. Ven there were only horses and pale stable boys and ze hint of plague as it rose from mounds of burning garbage.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Yeah, but they were gonna find out, stake me in the heart eventually.”

Tiffany Marzano laughs, holds out her wrist. “Well drink up, Vlad. We got three more hauls to do.”

Jake takes her hand, warm and rough, presses it to his cheek.

Flesh degrades but antique Turkish rugs persevere. Memories fade while busts of Maria Callas callously seek new homes.

There will always be more donations, they will never stop.

There will always be too many cars and not enough streets, traffic all the way to the pandemic.

The sun will set, and then it will be night.

The moon will rise again on the decadent carcass of San Francisco, and by then Jake will be very, very high.

I am the point guard, best player, and team captain.

Which means we suck.

At least until Makarov transfers to West Boylston.

“We’ve got a new teammate,” Coach Grout says, with four days of gray stubble and a belly like he’s smuggling hams. “All the way from Ukraine or whatever. Let’s make him feel at home, okay Bolts?”

There are a few smirks. A couple comments. The dude is tall but way skinny. With Coke-bottle glasses and Russian sneakers that don’t even have a name. No swoosh, no nothing. Hair that would be mod if it were intentional, all feet and hands, looks like he’s about twelve.

“SCRIMMAGE!” Coach yells.

I bring the ball up, right away brick a three. Makarov skies for the rebound, makes a move that leaves Washington duct-taped to the floor, dribble, dribble, dunk.

“Wow,” says Poltroni, a chubby Italian with hair on his neck.

“Wow,” says Xavier, lean and springy and accurate within twelve feet.

Coach Grout just chews his whistle.

I trot over and inbound to Washington. But Washington isn’t there. Makarov is. Pale, unblinking. Like some Siberian deer hunted way past extinction. And then twitch , he steals the pass, spins, dunks off my head. Everyone on the bench laughs. All six people in the bleachers laugh. My brother, Steve, who’s watching from the doorway, laughs.

“Still only counts for two points,” I say.

“There are twos and there are twos ,” Poltroni says.

Coach diagrams an elaborate play, X defeating O. Makarov sort of sign-languages that in this case, we actually want O to win. Coach erases furiously. He redraws and O comes out on top. Everyone nods.

I look over and Steve’s gone.

Then Coach blows his whistle, kicking off another hour of nonstop Makarov highlights.

THAT WAS TWO months ago. Now we’re 14 — 0, the West Boylston Bolts in first place, Makarov averaging 38 a game. We stomp Warren G. Harding by 20. We crush Hamilton Poly and Winthorp Remedial with ease. The Fitchburg game, Coach has the scrubs in halfway through the second quarter. “SCRUBS!” he yells, and even their parents chuckle. Someone starts a chant: “WE SHOUT FOR GROUT!” A dozen fans join in and the gym echoes out out out. The Fitchburg kids are scared. Their coach is sweating and their parents are silent and Makarov keeps flashing his grin at the end of the bench. Our scrubs score maybe twice in the second half and we still win by a dozen.

I BLOW OFF my last class. My brother is waiting in the parking lot.

“Need a ride?”

He’s got cool shades and dangly hair and one enormous arm resting against the side of his vintage truck. Of course it’s vintage . Why can’t it just be a truck? Of course it’s dangly , why can’t it just be hair? I sling my duffel into the flatbed, where it clonks against tools and scrap metal. It’s scrap because Steve works. There are tools because he can fix things. Like, for instance, your broken heart. Just ask half the cheerleaders in town.

Or their moms.

People watch with envy as I jump in.

“Belt up,” Steve says.

I put my foot on the dash.

“Foot off the dash,” Steve says.

I leave it there.

The truck backfires like a cannon as we squeal by a line of kids walking to the gym. They stare and point. My brother is still a legend at West Boylston. First for sports, but that fades. Then for girls, but they eventually graduate. Now it’s mainly for being big and cool and not rubbing it in everyone’s face all the time.

“Want to check out Comedy Hour?”

“You know it.”

There’s a dry cleaners at the top of the hill that overlooks school. Steve eases around back, in the shade of a padlocked Dumpster. It hides the truck but gives us a sniper’s view of oncoming traffic below.

I spark the joint, blow a plume in his face.

“Where you get this dirt weed anyhow?”

“Quiet, it’s starting.”

Once the final bell rings, cars pour out of school and grind up the hill, where they disappear into an ancient train tunnel. It’s a vestige from the pioneer days, cut straight through wet granite. Somehow being beneath all that rock lulls people into thinking they’re safe, unwatched. For a hundred yards of darkness they revert to their lizard brain, can’t help but get a little weird.

And then each car emerges right below us into a shock of bright sun.

Like a paparazzi flash, a startled portrait, snap!

The dullest are captured up to the third knuckle, excavating sinus. Others sing or dance, pop and lock, eyes pinned like bats swooping down on a grape. Their faces are manic or slack, stoned or terrified, netted fish and Chilean miners. Dudes grip their tools in lonely boredom. Girls drop the pose, lipstick smeared. There’s chubby transfers and balding teachers, band geeks and burnouts, mathletes and athletes, the beautiful and the ignored, all framed behind a windshield, all unwitting and beautifully innocent, snap!

We weep with laughter, rock the cab, punch each other’s shoulders in disbelief.

“Dude! No way. Check it. Check him out! Look. Look at her! Oh, dude! Oh, DUDE!”

Comedy Hour makes me want to give every student a hug and a snack, each teacher a pat on the back, makes me like my worst enemy so much more. In fact, it’s probably the best show in the history of television.

Except maybe the part when Angie Bangs drives by in her mom’s Jaguar. She always emerges unscathed, fine and composed and not the least bit hilarious. Partly because the truly beautiful are almost never compromised by anything, bright light or tunnels or random opinions, and partly because I’ve been in love with her since eighth grade, which everyone in school but Steve apparently knew about, a fact that became obvious after he hooked up with her at a party a few weekends ago.