Lives in Periphery
by EleCivil

Chapter Two: The Keeper of the Strays

            Curson, Michigan was an interesting blend of urban and rural. The downtown and business districts could have passed for any mid-size metropolitan area, the suburbs were planned and bland, but the outer limits were surrounded by farmland. If one was giving directions to anywhere outside of Curson, those directions would always include the phrase “…and then you drive through fifteen miles of corn and cows.” Clifford Royce – Cliff, as he preferred – was glad that this was the case. It meant that Curson Public High School had an Agricultural Technology department, full of all kinds of farm tools and materials.

            School had let out twenty minutes ago, but Cliff had simply grabbed his bike from the rack, rode around the block a few times, and circled back to the Curson Public campus. He ditched his bike in the trees that separated the school’s property from the neighborhood, and walked casually toward the AgriTech department’s storage shed. It would still be unlocked. Mr. Nestor, the AgriTech teacher, always hung around after school for at least an hour, and he didn’t lock up until he left.

            Cliff nudged the door to the storage shed open by barely an inch. No light escaped from inside. That meant Mr. Nestor was elsewhere – the shed was windowless, and no one would be in there without a light. At least, no one who was supposed to be in there. Cliff pushed the door open just enough to slide inside, then pulled it shut behind him. He fumbled in his pocket for his key chain. It had a small but powerful LED flashlight hooked to it, which he thumbed to life. The perfect darkness of the shed was cut by blue light, which cast a glow across the walls.

            Carefully and slowly, Cliff made his way to the back of the shed. He squeezed through the rows of tools and bags of seeds until he saw what he was looking for: a large, open sack. In addition to teaching students about growing crops, tending to farm animals, and running agricultural businesses, the AgriTech department taught students about raising house pets, usually fostering a few cats and dogs from local shelters. Cliff dropped his backpack to the floor and unzipped the back pocket. He began shoveling handfuls of loose kibble into his pack.

            From outside, he heard movement, making him freeze mid-shovel. He turned off his flashlight and crouched behind shelf. Was Nestor back already? This could be bad. If Mr. Nestor found him skulking around the AgriTech shed unsupervised and after school hours, Cliff doubted that he could talk his way out of it. He could just picture his parents’ reaction when they got the call. “Mr. and Mrs. Royce, your son was caught burglarizing the school.” He forced himself to take slow, silent breaths as he waited for the sound of the shed’s metal door scraping the gravel, but it never came.

            Instead, he heard something much, much worse. He heard the padlock on the shed’s door click shut, followed by the door rattling, as if someone were double-checking to make sure it was secure. From the sound, it was plenty secure. Mr. Nestor hadn’t caught Cliff, dragging him into the daylight and calling his parents. No, he had unknowingly locked Cliff inside the AgriTech shed. He wouldn’t be back until morning. Not only would Cliff get busted for robbing the shed, but he would be stuck in the pitch dark shed all night. He doubted his parents would notice, but the thought of sleeping in the dirt with no food or water and with only spiders for company…that was enough to make him shudder. Of course this had to be the one day Nestor decided to leave work early.

            Cliff’s breathing sped up. He tried his best to keep from panicking while he figured out what he could do. Finally, after weighing his options, he ran to the door and pounded on it, calling for Mr. Nestor. Better busted now than later. He could make up something about wanting to look at the tools or whatever. He could play dumb. No teacher ever mistook him for a genius, and he knew how to use that to his advantage. But there was no response. He cursed under his breath. He had hesitated too long; missed his window. Unless he could find a way out, he was going to be stuck there all night. His throat suddenly felt extremely dry.

            Flipping his flashlight back on, he did a sweep of the area. There were a couple drums of water, but he didn’t know how clean they were, or whether they had been treated with some kind of insecticide or weed killer. He didn’t want to chance it. It was going to be a long, thirsty night. Cliff swung his flashlight over to the fertilizer. He had heard that you could make a bomb out of the stuff, but he didn’t have the slightest idea where to start. Even if he did, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be in a locked shed when a homemade explosive device went off. He could already see the headline: “Idiot Freshman Blows Himself Up Trying To Rob School.”

            He sat down next to his backpack to think. A thin beam of light – a knife’s edge – crept through the crack between the shed’s doors. Cliff could see the shadow indicating the hasp where the padlock was fastened. The shed’s doors were thin, cheap sheet metal, certainly not built to last. Cliff swung the flashlight over to the tools, where it fell on a large hammer that the AgriTech kids used to drive pegs into the ground.

            ‘Hell, if you’re going to play outlaw, you might as well go all out.’

            He walked back to his backpack. His hands were shaking now, anticipating what was coming. He reached into his pack, but then stopped. Again, might as well finish the job. In for a penny, and all. He packed a few more fistfuls of kibble into his pack and zipped it before tentatively reaching for the hammer.

            Cliff gripped the handle firmly with both hands. He wasn’t a weakling, but he wasn’t exactly a power lifter, either. With a grunt, he swung the hammer hard at the door, right at the crack. Right where the hasp cast its black outline against the bright evening sun. With a startlingly loud clang, the flimsy metal doors bowed outward from the center, but didn’t give. It left a wider gap, however. Cliff lifted the hammer overhead and swung down again, hard. Another horrible clanging, and pain rippled through his arms and shoulders. If anyone was anywhere near the shed, they were no doubt hearing this. But there was progress! He had a clean shot at the hasp, now, and it looked loose. So loose that it was wiggling, barely secured at all. One more swing would do it, he was sure of it.

            Cliff hoisted his backpack across his shoulders, ready to run as soon as he was out, and wound up for one last good swing. Just as he had predicted, this direct shot knocked the cheap, poorly installed hasp clear off its hinge, allowing the door to slide open. An involuntary whoop escaped Cliff’s throat as he saw sunlight spearing through the changing leaves. Freedom! And better still, Nestor was nowhere to be seen! No witnesses! He had gotten out clean!

            “Oh, hell.” A voice from his left made Cliff jump and drop the hammer to the ground. It barely missed his toes. “They’re going to blame me for this. I don’t even know what this is, but they’re going to blame me for it.”

            Cliff didn’t recognize the other guy, but he looked like another freshman. Or maybe a short sophomore. The kid was dressed kind of preppy – polo shirt and khakis, neat hair, nice shoes – definitely not the criminal type. Not like Cliff.

            “Well?” The kid said. “Run!” And with that, he took off.

            Cliff didn’t have time to think. He just ran. Mystery Kid wasn’t very fast – even with his head start, Cliff soon passed him. He ran on instinct, now, not thinking about where he was going. Eventually, he found himself at the rust yard. It made sense – that’s where his feet always took him when his head didn’t have any better ideas.

            A long time ago – probably the eighties or something, Cliff thought – Curson had been striving hard to become “the next Detroit.” Except, in a good way. Manufacturing plants opened up on the outskirts – little metal pockmarks against the amber waves of grain. They didn’t last. Now, there were abandoned factories and junk heaps just sitting around. Chunks of broken machines rusted into the gravel lots in front of condemned buildings. Cliff had always been drawn to them; the abandoned machines and the ruins of a failed empire. This one was fairly close to Curson Public, and it had become Cliff’s after school hideout. No one else knew this – they’d probably think he was weird – but the way he saw it, some people are called to the trees, some people are called to the water, and he was called to the rust. Given his childhood on the outskirts, it seemed as natural and comforting to him as a cool breeze.

            Cliff dropped his heavy backpack to the ground and stood with his hands on his knees, catching his breath. He wondered when he had gotten so out of shape – he could swear that he never got this winded just from a trip to the rust yard. Then he realized that he had left his bike at school, having run the whole way. Well, mystery solved.

            That was when he realized that there was someone next to him, also breathing heavily. He looked over to see that same kid from before.

            “Okay…” The kid gasped. “…What did you do?  So I’ll at least…know what they’re going to blame on me. You steal something?”

            “Why?” Cliff asked. “Why do you think they’ll blame you?”

            “They think I did everything. All the time. They’re…sometimes right.” The kid said, now pacing in circles, his hands gesturing through the air. “And they know I was there after school. Training for tutoring. I know it’s going to happen. They’ll send a note to my first class, then it’s ‘Evan, we know you were the only one at school after hours. Why did you break into the shed? Were you trying to make a political statement about factory farms?’ Though, now that I think about it, the downfall of the family farm is a tragedy, and AgriTech promotes-”

            Cliff tuned him out. He only caught some of what the kid – Evan, he said? – was saying between his huffing and puffing. He was afraid that he would get blamed for Cliff’s smashing of the AgriTech shed. Cliff felt cold, all of a sudden. He didn’t mind getting caught, himself. He had made peace with that possibility when he made the choice to go on this mission in the first place. But getting someone else in trouble? No, that wouldn’t work. That was the opposite of what he had wanted.

            “E-Evan?” Cliff said, interrupting the tirade.

            “Huh?” Evan looked up. When his eyes caught Cliff’s, they widened at first, then began to narrow, as if he was trying to figure something out. “You know my name?”

            “You said it. While you were…um…”

            Evan laughed. “Sorry. I guess I went full soliloquy on you. Feel free to just slap me in the back of the head when that happens.”

            Cliff wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Evan used a lot of words that Cliff wasn’t used to hearing, so he ignored that part. “I don’t want you to get blamed for this. If they come after you, just tell them it was me. Cliff Royce.”

            Evan cocked his head and stared again. Cliff had to stop himself from laughing at that – he was sure that Evan thought it looked really smart, like he was a chess master trying to think fifty steps ahead, but the expression reminded Cliff of a pug, tilting his head at an unfamiliar sound.

            “You…want me to snitch on you?” Evan asked. He shook his head. “No way. I don’t turn informant. No. Goes against all my principles. Which, incidentally, involve going against all my principals. No. Endeavor Findlay Court is no snitch.”

            “Look, I don’t want you taking the blame for me. I knew what I was doing, and I knew I might get caught. It’s fine.” Cliff was practically pleading at this point. “I’m not saying to go knock on Vargas’s door first thing in the morning and turn me in. I’m saying that if they come at you, give them my name. It’s not snitching if I give you permission.”

            “Not happening. Forget it. Hey, maybe they won’t blame me. It’s not like you set the place on fire.” Evan paused. “But, come to think of it, what were you doing in there? If you don’t mind my asking. I’m something of a connoisseur of criminal mischief, after all, and I don’t get a chance to meet many other masterminds.”

            “If I were a mastermind, I wouldn’t have gotten locked in that shed,” Cliff said. “And I’m not a con-whatever, either. I just…here. Let me show you.”

            Cliff took a few steps further into the rust yard, raised his fingers to his lips, and let out a long, loud whistle. From different directions, shapes began to emerge. Two from behind the overgrown rust heaps, one from inside the building. Three different dogs – strays, by the look of them – came out into the open. Evan stepped back at their sudden appearance. There was some kind of small, white terrier mix, a brown spotted beagle, and what looked like a black lab.

            The black lab, despite its dusty fur, seemed to be in better shape than the others. It was still wearing a red collar, though there were no tags. He ran straight up to Cliff, who immediately knelt down and started petting him and scratching behind his ears.

            “Awww…I missed you, too, big guy.” Cliff said, his voice elevating into a pitch reserved for communicating with dogs and babies. “Hey, I got you something! Wait here.”

            Evan watched as Cliff unzipped his backpack and took out a few large handfuls of dry dog food, which he piled up on the ground. As soon as the lab was occupied, Cliff repeated the process for the terrier and the beagle.

            Evan took a few steps forward so that he was next to Cliff, but he didn’t take his eyes off of the strays. “So, you did all that to steal dog food?”

            Cliff nodded. “This guy,” He said, pointing to the lab, “His name’s Midnight. He was mine. He still is. But my parents decided it was too expensive to take care of him, so they said I had to get rid of him. But the shelter people told me that big, black dogs don’t get adopted. That if he didn’t get picked by someone, they’d…” Cliff’s voice cracked and he could feel his eyes starting to water. He fought it back, not wanting to start crying in front of someone he just met. “I couldn’t. So I took him here. And I guess he found these two, somewhere. I don’t know how long they’ve been out here. At first, I could feed them myself, you know? Cut grass, rake leaves, skip lunch. Whatever. But I couldn’t find enough work this week. And the only place I knew that had dog food lying around…”

            Evan nodded. “So you robbed the rich to give to the poor. I can get behind that.”

            “So, you can turn me in if you need to. I knew I might get caught, and that’s fine. I’ll make something up about why I was in there after hours. I didn’t take anything big. They probably won’t even notice the dog food. It’s not like I took a whole bag or something.”

            “Eventually your teachers are going to wonder why all your homework smells like kibble.”

            “I’ll tell them I was trying to get my dog to eat it. Perfect excuse.”

            Evan laughed, which made Cliff start to laugh with him. It felt good to laugh after the tension he had felt all day, and it gave him an excuse to blink the water out of his eyes. He was fairly sure Evan hadn’t noticed that. But then again, he did have that chess master gaze. He probably noticed a lot of things. It made him wonder if Evan had done that on purpose – setting him up for a punch line to cheer him up. Like even in casual conversation, he had been thinking several moves ahead.

            “Hey, are these dogs safe?” Evan asked. “Like, they won’t bite me or give me fleas or anything, will they?”

            “Midnight’s good,” Cliff said, “and his flea meds should work for another month or so. I can’t vouch for these two, though. They’re a bit more stand-offish. They’ve been on their own for too long, and if they ever did have people to take care of them, those people abandoned them. Can you blame them if they see a strange person and want to take a chunk out of them?”

            Evan didn’t say anything for a while after that. He did walk up and pet Midnight a bit. That was enough to make Cliff think that Evan must be a good person. Midnight only likes good people. More than that, though, there was something comforting about the short kid with the big words. He gave off this air of constantly focusing on small details, like he was studying everything, looking for importance. Being around him made Cliff feel safer, somehow, like no one would be able to get the drop on them.

            And then Evan jumped to his feet and shouted “Oh, crap!” loudly enough that it echoed off of the factory ruins.

            Cliff jolted, and gave him a questioning look.

            “It’s after five o’clock!” Evan said, holding out his cell phone, as if to prove the point. “My dad didn’t even know I was staying after! He thought I would be home an hour and a half ago! God, he probably thinks I got detention. Or three! Served consecutively! I’ve got to go!”

Cliff watched as Evan took off running. About thirty feet out, he skidded to a stop and ran back, still with a manic look in his eyes. “Um. Nice…nice meeting you. Later!” With that, he turned on his heel and took off again, kicking up dust and gravel.

“…Later.” Cliff said, even though at that point, only the dogs were within earshot.

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When the sun started to set, Cliff sighed and started the walk back home. He considered just camping out at the rust yard. It wouldn’t be the first time – he even had an emergency backpack hidden inside one of the factory windows, packed with some bottled water, granola bars, and a blanket. Even so, he didn’t want to rely on that too often. That was for rare occasions.

On the walk home, he passed the school to pick up his bike. He could see from the tree line that the shed doors were still open – probably too bowed and busted to close, now – with the hammer on the grass where he had dropped it. He considered going back and trying to hide some of the evidence, but then he remembered that he had just told someone to rat him out, so it would be a waste of time, anyway.

This was going to go down as one of the strangest days of Cliff’s life, so far. He had spent the whole day at school with his stomach rolling as he tried to talk himself out of his plan to rob the AgriTech shed and to convince himself to go through with it at the same time. He had experienced turmoil, terror, sadness, and for a few minutes, excitement. He didn’t think that his criminal career was off to a very good start, however. He would have to think of something better, next time. The thought that there was going to have to be a next time brought back the twisting feeling in his guts.

‘I might have kind of, sort of, made a new friend, though.’

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