Rows of hammers lined the walls, hard black worker hats on wooden worker bodies. I called his name and looked through the store again
but no luck, so I left, unsettled. On my way out, I picked s’A Of up a lug nut from the bolt bin and popped it in my mouth, sucking on the metal, sticking my tongue inside the ridged hole.
I headed over to my parents’ house.
Halfway there I spotted a tree with a beige tumor on its root. I would’ve passed it right by, not even noticing, sometimes trees have tumors on their roots, wondering where is that Mr. Jones, but as I got closer, the tips of the roots formed into angles and lines until my eyes focused and I saw that it was awax 13 on a string, nestled at the base of the tree. My heart stopped for a second. I spit out the lug nut. Bending down, I picked the number out of the dirt and hung it from my arm. What did this mean? I stroked the hard wax. I kept walking, worrying that this was some kind of message from Jones to the world, not sure what the message could be, when I turned the corner and crossed the street and saw, strung on the side of a hedge, a solid wax
8.
The edges of my skin shook into ice. This was wrong. This was not right. Behind me, some adults pushing a perambulator rolled down the block. When they turned the corner, I ran to the hedge, picked the 8 up carefully, warm and yielding from the sun, and unhooked it from the brambles. I held it for a second: 8. A bad mood, a short life. Then hung it next to 13.
Over the next five blocks, I found more numbers, let loose like stray dogs, my heart shaking each time I saw that dirty string and angled glob of wax swinging off the back of a bench or hanging from the branch of a tree. 23. 37-4- 11. All levels. All types.
Ages and moods and deaths spread everywhere.
I collected each necklace carefully, brushing off the dirt and hanging them over my arm. Where was Jones? Decaying on a beach?
Starving on the highway? I slipped 23 over my head, wax bouncing against my ribs as I walked. I waited for a sense of harmony, but the truth was I felt much lower than:z3, maybe more at about lo, and so it seemed false to advertise the wrong number and therefore disrespectful to Mr. Jones’s system. I took it off.
I tried knocking on his door again but no one answered.
At my parents’ house, I found my father in the backyard, on his knees, trying to pat down the grass that had not yet grown back from his failed Shape of Health.
How are you doing? I asked. I was wearing beige. I knelt beside him, and handed over the plant food.
He was ripping up dried blades. I could still see the open circle clearly, brown and distinct, the broken part of the arc filled with green grass.
My father pulled out a few more handfuls, then put a palm on my shoulder. Thanks, he said, squeezing. He reached in the bag and sprinkled bits of plant food, like fish food, right on top of the burn marks.
Nice to see you, he said. What else you got there? He looked at the tangle of wax and string on my wrist. I waited for him to recognize the numbers, advise me on what to do.
Numbers, I told him, raising my arm slightly.
He nodded, agreeable, and then stood and walked forward to the sliding door, back into the house.
Mr. Jones had lived next to my parents now for over twenty years, grading my math tests and advising on plant food, but there hadn’t been even a flicker of recognition on my father’s face.
This is a man’s heart, I said, quietly. I am holding somebody’s heart right here.
We both went into the living room: me with that diary on my arm, my
father sinking into the sofa. I called out a greeting to my mother, who was in the dining area, working. She grunted. I asked her if she’d seen Mr. Jones around town this weekend; she said no, come to think of it, and asked why. I said no reason. Air felt thin in my nose. My father wrapped himself in a blanket even though it was warm in the house, and clicked on the TV. He spent a few minutes resettling his throat while we sat together on the couch, flip ping the channels around, finally settling on some sepia action movie. It was yet another bank-robbery story, but he seemed to be enjoying it, and there were the bank robbers together running and there was the heiress with her long dress and long lashes and there were the guns and bam-bim-boom, commercial. I missed the science teacher hard, watching it.
How’s school? he asked.
There’s no one in the hardware store, I said.
My father put his feet on the leather footstool.
What do you need? he said. Toolbox is in the garage.
I petted the wax of the numbers. I don’t need any tools, I said.
He straightened the blanket over his legs. I wanted to know how he was doing, in a real way, but I didn’t know how to ask.
Instead, I reached into the shelves over our heads and brought down the scrapbook of him running, him young, the black-and-white photos of a man who had not been black-and-white then. I looked at the ribbons, ran my finger over the curled satiny old blue.
First place, first place, first place.
Do you miss running? I asked.
First place, second place, first place.
The show was back on. Now the cops were in on it. Now they were all chasing each other in their cars. Race race race. Cops turn.
Robbers turn. Screech and lean. Corners. Everything was very fast.
The actors were of another time, with different bone structure, wider foreheads, wavier hair. My father didn’t say anything until fifteen minutes later at the next commercial and then he just turned to me and said Yes.
I forgot what I’d asked and then, against my will, remembered. I tore a piece of plastic off a scrapbook page when I realized what he meant. I wanted to see what it would take to get him to move fast-A gun? A bomb? Me? I’d dash past him, lap the block four times, cheeks red from exertion, alive! alive! panting, done by the time it takes him to walk to the doorway and watch me go.
I closed the scrapbook, which smelled faintly of mildew by now, blew some dust off its cover, and replaced it on the shelf next to the skin-disease books. The TV show was back on and I said bye as the sound of gunshots rang out. He smiled at me, closed his eyes. Afternoon was getting to him. I adjusted the numbers on my arm and went to say good-bye to my mother, who was immersed at her desk with photographs of snarled jungles next to clean text in white squares.
She worked steadily and I stood over her, watching. She matched up the corners and lines. She drew the glue stick neatly along the backs of the papers.
You know, I said finally, no one from here is ever going to go to any of these places.
The yellow light from the lamp made her face yellow and she looked up at me, eyeglasses on the bridge of her nose. I felt mean. I waited for her to yell. I was wishing she would yell at me, her rude daughter, pack her bags, and prove me wrong, come back with defeated snakes curled up her forearms in scaled bracelets and a tan of dirt, her legs all fine thighs and lean savvy calves.
All she said was: So.
Monday morning at school began normally.
I made myself a cup of peppermint tea in a dented steel mug, and brought it with me into my classroom.
The night before, I’d stored the wax numbers I’d found on some towels, nestled like jewels on terrycloth. That evening, I’d called all the Joneses in the phone book-there were twelve-but no one knew where he was and a few people didn’t even know who he was. One number had a different area code and I could hear cars and trucks in the background while I talked to the old woman, Mrs. Hilda Jones, living the last of her life in the big city.
What’s his first name? she asked, in a rickety voice. I had no idea. Minehead? I ventured. Minehead Jones? She said no and have a good night dear, and when we hung up, I missed her. I missed the sounds of those trucks in the background, people out driving the grid of the city.