Albertine Appears

I Am Astonished

    When I arrived at Raskol’s house, I knocked on the screen door, hoping that my knock wouldn’t bring one of his brothers. In fact, I hoped that his brothers wouldn’t be at home, because I knew that when I tried to tell my stories to Raskol they would ridicule my adventures and heap scorn on my entire experience, and on me.
Raskol himself opened the door, which was good, but even better was the fact that a voice came from the dim interior behind him, the voice of his sultry older sister Ariane, calling out, “Hi, Peter. Welcome home,” in a tone that seemed to have in it not only admiration but also something extra that allowed me to imagine that she might be as hungry for me as I was for her.
    I started in.
    Raskol stopped me with a hand on my chest. “Let’s get out of here,” he said with surprising urgency.
    “Where are we going?” I asked, hurrying along behind him down the wooden walkway.
    “Cap’n Leech’s,” he said. “I’ve got a lot to tell you, and I could use a beer.”
    “A beer?” I said. “Cap’n Leech has beer?”
    “There’s beer at Cap’n Leech’s,” he said. “That’s where I keep my beer.”
    “You have beer?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Great,” I said. “I could go for a beer. You know, speaking of beer, that reminds me of a funny thing that happened to me out in New Mexico. One night, Matthew, if you can believe this, said to me—”
    “The Cap’n is dead, by the way,” Raskol said.
    “Oh yeah? Cap’n Leech is — what? What did you say?”
    “I said Cap’n Leech is dead.”
    “What — what happened — to him — and to —”
    “To him? Heart attack. To his sacks of money? I’ve got them. They’re safe.”
    “Where?”
    He gave me a look. “They’re right where they’ve always been,” he said, “hiding in plain sight.”
    “You mean —”
    “They’re the furniture in the hovel, same as always.”
    “You’re keeping the cash in reserve, until you need it?”
    “Something like that,” he said, “except that I already had to spend some of it.”
    “Oh?”
    “Yeah. There was Ariane’s abortion —”
    “You — you — she — she —”
    “I had to help her out. If my parents ever found out that she’d gotten herself knocked up they would have hit the roof, you know what I mean?”
    “Well — I —”
    “And my brothers would have beat the shit out of the guy, maybe killed him. Probably killed him.”
    “Yeah, I suppose —”
    “And they’re in enough trouble already.”
    “They are?”
    “I don’t want to go into it.”
    “Oh. Sure. I understand.”
    “Fortunately, the Captain died.”
    “I see what you mean.”
    “So did Jake Rosen, by the way.”
    “He died?”
    “Yeah. He was trapped inside the Sweet Shop when it burned down.”
    “The Sweet Shop burned down?”
    “Yeah. The whole town smelled like burnt sugar for about a week. Didn’t you notice the charred remains of the building when you came through town?”
    “No — I — I —”
    We had arrived at the Captain’s hovel, now Raskol’s hovel. “Before you go in,” he said, “I just want to prepare you.”
    “Prepare me? For what?”
    “Well, the Captain’s in there,” he said. “I had him embalmed. He’s in his coffin.”
    “His coffin? You mean that box? The one we used as a boat when we were kids?”
    “Right. That’s it.”
    “I guess I’m going to want that beer,” I said.
    “Hey,” he said, suddenly lighthearted, “I can’t wait to hear about your adventures, and there’s somebody else who’s going to want to hear them, too.” Before he could tell me who else would want to hear about my adventures the door to the hovel was flung open from inside, and there, standing in the doorway, was Miss Clam Fest.