Read The Lifters Page 8


  “Maybe it wasn’t so bad?” one woman wondered.

  “Must have been in the basement,” one man said.

  “This is exactly why we need Propositions P&S,” said another.

  “Just the opposite!” yelled another man. “Only one force of nature could have done this, and that’s a moose. Moose, plural. Maybe a dozen of them. They travel in small armies, as you know. This is exactly why we need Propositions M&H!”

  The argument grew louder, and took in most of the people watching the rescue workers. Opinions seemed evenly divided, too, between those who wanted to improve the parks and schools and those who wanted to prevent attacks from moose by monitoring the city with a helicopter.

  The crowd eventually thinned, but Gran stayed, watching the rescue workers come and go for hours. He stayed because he thought he might see Catalina. It seemed only logical that she would be there—she’d been there after the house of Therése and Theresa came down.

  But this time she did not appear.

  Gran went home. It was Sunday, and he assumed school would be canceled. But the next morning, his mother was in his doorway.

  “Get up. You have school today.”

  He couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe it. But he was already late, so he dressed and ate and was back at the school twenty minutes after he’d woken up.

  As he walked up to the building, again it looked as if nothing had happened to it. From the front, there wasn’t a brick out of place. No cracks or crumbles. No broken windows.

  So he walked up the steps, passing a number of teachers who had assembled there, talking rapidly and urgently. He opened the door.

  And almost fell into an enormous pit. Before him, beneath him, was a great yawning chasm as big as a hockey rink. Far beyond he could see the back wall of the school, and to his right and left he could see hallways that were intact, classrooms intact, but the middle of the school had dropped through the Earth. The hole before him was about thirty feet deep, a messy oval littered with bricks and tile and pipes, schoolbooks, desks and pieces of chalkboard.

  “Just go around,” a voice behind him said. He turned to find the principal, Ms. Druck. She shooed him with her hands, as if he were a puppy lingering too long after doing its business. “The new room assignments are posted near the cafeteria.”

  All around the hole there was yellow police tape, but otherwise there was nothing preventing Gran or any other student from falling into the pit. He skirted the hole, and made his way to the cafeteria wall, where he saw a typewritten sign, newly laminated:

  IF YOU NORMALLY HAVE CLASSES IN ANY OF THE CLASSROOMS NO LONGER IN EXISTENCE, YOU WILL NOW MEET IN THE ROOMS BELOW:

  THEN: ROOM 103—NOW: LIBRARY

  THEN: ROOM 105—NOW: GYM

  THEN: ROOM 107—NOW: CAFETERIA

  THEN: ROOM 109—NOW: ROOM 110

  Gran jotted down the new room assignments and went to homeroom, which was, he realized, in a classroom that had been unharmed.

  “There is a hole in the school,” Ms. Rhapsod said, as businesslike as ever. “Now please turn to page 88 in your textbook.”

  The next two periods were similar in their strangeness, in their mundanity, though one of his classes, health, was held in the cafeteria, which smelled of burned tomato sauce.

  It wasn’t until lunch that he had a moment to really think about what all this meant. He stood above the sinkhole, looking into its chaos—a chaos that no one seemed inclined to clean up—when he saw Catalina standing on the other side of the hole. He rushed to her.

  When she saw him coming, she looked down, then left and right, as if assessing which way she could go to most easily escape him.

  “What’s happening?” he asked. “I don’t understand.”

  She leveled her eyes at him and sighed, as if deciding whether or not to lie to him.

  “It’s the Hollows,” she said, and Gran was happy she’d decided to tell him the truth—though he didn’t know what the Hollows were. He was about to ask, but she was staring into the chasm, and thinking aloud. “…But two of these in one week is really new. I don’t get it either. I have to ask the Regional Manager. Sorry. I have to go.”

  Catalina was already walking away.

  Gran followed her. “Wait. I can help. I helped before.”

  She didn’t slow down. “I shouldn’t have gotten you involved. Just forget it, please. There’s already enough trouble.”

  She walked faster, now looking around, distracted, as if another collapse might happen at any moment.

  “Are you following me again?” she asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “It seems like you are. I’m walking and you’re right behind me. That’s following.”

  “But you know I can help. I did before.”

  At that, she stopped, turned and set her eyes on Gran. “Actually, you can do something for me. Go into the boys’ bathroom and see if there are any cracks in the floor.”

  Gran, thrilled to be given a task, ran down the hall and opened the bathroom door, only to realize that this was Catalina’s way of getting rid of him. When he returned to the hole in the floor, she was gone. He peered into the void, reasonably sure this was where she had gone.

  But Gran couldn’t follow. There were teachers all around, students everywhere. He couldn’t get down there without being seen and provoking a frantic rescue.

  Only Catalina could have gotten underground without being detected. And only Catalina would know why this second collapse had happened. Or if she didn’t know, she was surely trying to find out.

  “Grant?” a familiar voice said. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Gran turned to find the Duke behind him. “You were going to investigate that hole, weren’t you?”

  “No,” Gran said. It was the closest thing to a lie he’d ever told the Duke. And worse, Gran was almost certain the Duke knew he was lying.

  Gran couldn’t look at him. They stood side by side, peering into the hole, the twisted wires and concrete, and Gran felt the need to tell Duke the truth. But when Gran turned to him, the Duke’s eyes were wet.

  “What’s the matter?” Gran asked.

  “I just never thought it would happen here,” the Duke said.

  Gran went back to class, but couldn’t concentrate. Something about seeing the Duke so upset got him not just upset but enraged. And inspired. And needing to do something about the situation. He wanted to fix it, wanted everything to be better so the Duke would never have to feel like that again.

  He knew he could help if he could get underground and follow Catalina. But first he had to get underground and into those tunnels.

  After school he looked for Catalina, to no avail. He pictured her running through the tunnels, fixing things, alone. He wanted to be there too.

  He needed one of those handles. Could it be that easy—to get a handle and do as Catalina had done, to lift the earth and make a door where none had been before?

  It seemed ridiculous to even try. But he had nothing else to do. So he walked to the flea market by the grocery store, where he knew shoppers could buy any kind of old thing, any piece of machinery or antique.

  The sun was setting when he arrived. The market, drenched in orange light, was a meandering mosaic of ramshackle booths and tents, each helmed by a lonely man or woman, invariably sitting in a folding beach chair. Gran passed a booth selling lamps, and one selling helmets, and one selling old guns, and finally found a sprawling booth tended by an old man with shoulder-length white hair. In the sunset’s low light, now pink, he looked like some ancient mutant—half-human, half-lion.

  “Can I help you?” the man said. His voice was deep and his accent unfamiliar.

  Gran scanned the offerings on the tables. There were piles of hinges, and keyholes, and doorknobs, all old and worn-out. Some of the bins had price tags on the outside, signs like ANYTHING HERE: $1 EACH.

  “No, just looking,” Gran said.

  Gran continued to look through the piles. He kne
w he needed a tool that could pull something, but otherwise he wasn’t sure what he wanted. He was reasonably sure he would know it if he saw it. It should be ornate, he thought. And strong, with intricate designs on it. Something impressive.

  “We don’t get too many kids around here looking for this kind of thing,” the old man said. “You looking for a particular piece of hardware? For Dad?”

  “Just a handle,” Gran said.

  “You know what size or shape you’re looking for?”

  Gran shrugged.

  “What are you pulling? A drawer? A cabinet?”

  Gran shrugged again.

  “A door?” the man asked.

  “I don’t know,” Gran said. Gran had been moving down the table, and he’d noticed that the man had been mirroring his movements from the other side of the table.

  “You have a budget?” the man asked.

  “I have eighteen dollars,” Gran said.

  The man smiled with his mouth and his eyes, a satisfied and delighted smile, as if he’d cracked a secret that Gran had been trying to conceal.

  With that, the man ducked into his trailer and returned with a wooden box bearing a strange insignia on its cover—something like a dragon with the face of a lion. He set the box on the table and opened the lid. Inside were an array of handles, all of them far more elaborate than the ones Gran had been sorting through in the bin. They looked much more like the one he’d seen Catalina use.

  “This the kind of thing you’re looking for?” the man asked, a mischievous light in his eyes.

  “It is,” Gran managed to say.

  In the box there were silver handles, bronze handles and copper. They bore carvings and even jewels. One was covered in rubies and emeralds. Gran picked up each one, feeling its surface and heft. He lifted and replaced ten or twelve before he found a bright handle of polished gold.

  “Not real gold,” the old man said.

  But otherwise it was magnificent. It shone gloriously in the last rays of the sun, it was as heavy as lead, and bore ornate markings that Gran assumed were connected to some centuries-old mystery.

  “Is that the one?” the man asked.

  “It is,” Gran said. He was absolutely sure.

  “Forty dollars,” the man said, and Gran let out an involuntary sound, something like a squeak. He didn’t have anything like forty dollars. He had eighteen in his pocket, and that represented all the savings he’d accumulated cutting lawns and gardening in his old town.

  “I have eighteen,” Gran said.

  The man cocked his head and smiled. “That’ll do it.”

  Gran ran from the flea market, down the street and into the hills. He had an inkling that Catalina could go underground anywhere she chose, but he figured for this, his first attempt, his best bet was the wide flat hillside where he’d first seen it happen.

  As he ran, the weather darkened and the wind picked up. What had been a sunny day turned surly and cold. Just the kind of weather that had held sway when he’d first followed Catalina and realized her power. So he took this change in the atmosphere as a sign that this was meant to be, that the night was right.

  He arrived at the spot out of breath. He looked all around and saw no souls, mammal or avian. He was alone. He took the handle out of his pocket and even in the darkening sky it still appeared regal, golden and aglow, a thing of power.

  Then again, he felt silly. The act of attaching a piece of metal to a hillside—it seemed ridiculous. But he’d seen Catalina do it a dozen times, and when she’d done it, it seemed effortless and right. And he’d seen her pull a door out of the earth itself. It had to be possible. But could it be possible for him?

  He crouched down, holding the handle tight in his right hand. He aimed it into the hillside and pushed it deep into the earth. He took a breath and pulled.

  Nothing happened.

  He pulled nothing back. Just his hand, holding the handle with some dirt and grass attached. Now he really did feel ridiculous. Out of habit, he looked around, expecting someone to have materialized just to see him do this dumb thing and laugh heartily.

  But there was no one.

  So he tried again. This time he pushed harder. He pushed deep into the grass, and felt something like rock beneath. Maybe this was the sign he’d made a connection. So he pulled back, this time ready to lift the full weight of a fifty-pound door.

  Nothing happened.

  Or rather, something happened, but it wasn’t the right thing. He pulled so hard that he landed on his rear, five feet from the hillside.

  Again he looked around, sure that someone had seen him, and again relieved that no one had.

  He tried again. And again. He tried in that spot, and all over the hillside. It seemed nonsensical to keep trying, but just as crazy not to.

  Eventually he gave up. It was getting dark, and he was tired, and he was embarrassed. To be alone, in the middle of a barren valley, and still be embarrassed—that is an unusual level of embarrassment.

  Gran was also unusually late. He checked his watch and saw that it was seven, which meant he’d missed the dinner hour, and would be in trouble with his mother.

  He slumped home, jogging a bit, walking a bit, feeling dejected and confused. Catalina was gone, somewhere under the earth, and he couldn’t find her. He couldn’t do what she could do. And he’d spent his last dollar on a useless handle.

  If tomorrow Gran’s mother asked him to borrow three dollars for milk, what would he say?

  I lost it.

  It was stolen.

  I spent it on a door handle.

  He realized then that the man who had sold him this worthless piece of metal had known it was worthless. Once he’d known Gran had eighteen dollars to spend, he’d found some piece of junk that looked more expensive, and he’d tricked him into thinking it rare and wonderful.

  And worth all the money Gran had.

  It was worth nothing.

  Maybe Gran was worth nothing, he thought.

  A dope gets duped, his father had once said to him.

  Gran felt like a dope.

  He entered the house to find his mother and sister on the couch, watching a TV show about ballroom dancing. His mother didn’t look up. Sometimes she confronted Gran when he’d misbehaved or come home late, and other times she said nothing and did nothing, as if she’d decided his misbehavior couldn’t justify the ruination of her evening. Knowing she hadn’t made him dinner—or if she had, she’d eaten it herself—he got a bagel from the fridge, covered it in peanut butter, and went to his room.

  Then he remembered something.

  With the bagel in his mouth, he pulled the ladder from the ceiling, careful to do it quietly, hoping his mother would not hear.

  He set the ladder on the floor and climbed up. He pulled the chain dangling from the single bulb that hung from the beam above. The attic filled with light and shadow. He found the box of his great-great-grandfather’s tools and metalwork. He rifled through the box until he found something that he thought might work. It was the brass C he’d picked up when his father had first shown him the attic. The weight of it in his hand felt just right. It felt like it had been carved to fit his hand.

  “Gran?”

  It was his mother.

  “Just a second!” he yelled down.

  He rushed to the ladder again, and stepped quietly down. He brought the chair over so he could reach the attic door to close it. But when he stepped onto it, and was holding the door, closing it, the earth shook. It felt like the house had been picked up and rattled like a box of cereal. Gran held on tight to the attic door as long as he could.

  But then he fell.

  He hit the wood floor hard. A searing pain shot through his shoulder. Something felt wrong with his head.

  “Gran? That you?” his mother called.

  He raised himself to his knees.

  “I’m fine!” he called out. “Just fell. Don’t worry.”

  Instinctively he reached for his head and felt someth
ing hard. It was the brass C he’d found. It was in his hand.

  The dull brass was now streaked with red. He used his other hand to touch his forehead, and found it was wet with blood. He sat up, and when he did, the pain in his shoulder screamed. He’d heard of people dislocating their collarbones, and Gran wondered if that’s what he’d just done.

  The other thing—and this was a different thing, a good thing that made the pain from his head and shoulder bearable—was that he felt suddenly but absolutely embraced by destiny. The handle in his right hand fit so tightly and so well that he was sure it meant something.

  In the lives of humans, there are moments that feel very much apart from the majority of moments. That is, in any life there are many hundreds of thousands of hours and millions of minutes, and though those hours and minutes might be filled with contentment, or joy, or pain, few of them are bathed in the light of destiny. Very few of them feel as if one has been taken from their regular life and lifted into a new, extraordinary existence. It is these moments that bring an ordinary life into the realm of the extraordinary. It is these moments that are doorways from a life lived to eat and drink and sleep, into a life lived to do monumental things.

  “Gran? You sure you’re okay?” his mother called out.

  He heard her start toward him—the wheels on her chair squeaked and gave away her movements—and he knew he couldn’t have her see him like this. She would call an ambulance, she would worry, her night and the next few days would be occupied with caring for him.