small garden between the cabin and the river. Unlike the house, it was tidy, even meticulous.
Near the floor by the fireplace I found a phone outlet, but nowhere was there an actual phone. Technophobe: the word fit my father perfectly. No phone, no computer, no television, not even a radio. I dreaded oppressive nights spent here in this tiny space with nothing to fill the silence.
Already on my knees, I began scanning the titles of the books bottommost to the ten or twelve stacks. Most of these were quite old, and my eyes resisted their small print and faded colorings. I hopped into a squat to better read some of the spines. There were two disintegrating books rubber-banded together: Antropologium and Mikrokosmographia. I took them between my fingers, but as I did so, the floor-to-ceiling pile bulged sinuously. I left them alone. Above them, Historical Sketch of the Edinburgh Anatomical School and Great Medical Disasters. There was a pattern here, but it could be explained away: this was an unrepresentative sample, a grouping of books perhaps collected from the discards of a hospital library. I shifted to another pile several feet away. The Confessions of an Undertaker. An audiotape titled Highlights About Wood Caskets. A thick yellow brick of magazines called Casket and Sunnyside; a smaller stack of a publication titled American Funeral Director. And creating stability concerns near the ceiling, the massive Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media. At least this title had some tie to the newspapers surrounding me.
This was the personal library of Ken Harnett. I backed away, trying to revive the memory of the colorful and reassuring books Janelle and Thaddeus let spill into the rooms of Boris and his sisters. Instead I could only see my father’s dark and troubled face. Sanitary worker or not, this might be a man I shouldn’t meddle with; I thought again of my mother’s disfigured ear. But instead of stopping, I dove into his bedroom, tearing at his sheets, lifting coats from the floor to see what was secreted beneath.
I found myself facing the narrowest of closets tucked behind the bedroom door. Inside, a few clean white dress shirts, a black suit, even; some ties draped over a nail. Interesting, these items—but I forgot them when I saw the safe. It was large and metal and secured with a combination lock. I kneeled in front of it and gave the handle a pull just in case. Nothing. I tried 10-20-30. I tried the combination of my old gym locker, 32-0-25. Nothing. I gave the safe a push to gauge its weight. It did not budge.
Behind the safe, wedged between it and the wall, was yet another surprise. I nudged my head through the hanging shirttails and pants legs. It was a cardboard box filled with alcohol. Carefully I lifted a few random bottles. It was the cheap, hard stuff, and plenty of it. Most unsettling of all was that it was well hidden, and the only one Ken Harnett had to hide it from was himself.
It wouldn’t do me any good to knock back any gin, no matter how raw my hunger. I dragged my feet back to my dusty corner and, feeling too much like a dog, curled myself up on the duffel bags that were my bed. What a strange and mixed-up misery I felt. Come home, I urged him. My very next thought: Stay away.
10.
AFRAID OF AGAIN SHOWING up to school drenched from a thirty-minute run, I kept myself alert after waking up at four-thirty. I even tried to make coffee, but the outcome was tepid and bitter, and the caffeine only upped the intensity of my hunger. I waited for him as long as I could, praying that any minute now, he would return, any minute now.
I reached school early and successfully opened my locker, though still I had nothing to put inside. My green backpack I had protectively left at home, and my books, if they existed, still hid within my father’s fearful collection. I didn’t want to sift through those titles ever again.
Just outside the door to Pratt’s English class, Laverne stopped me in the hall. “Good morning, Joey! You find those books all right?”
Students herded past me on their way to class. Several of them shot me doubtful looks. Instantly I saw the scene through their eyes: some short, skinny new kid making friends with the overbearing fat lady who yelled at them for running past the principal’s office. I needed