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Back Just Thieves Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
  1. Cover
  2. Other Titles
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. 1
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 2
  18. 12
  19. 13
  20. 14
  21. 15
  22. 16
  23. 17
  24. 18
  25. 19
  26. 20
  27. 21
  28. 22
  29. 23
  30. 24
  31. 25
  32. 26
  33. 3
  34. 27
  35. 28
  36. 29
  37. 30
  38. 31
  39. 32
  40. 33
  41. 34
  42. ACCOMPLICES AND EASY MARKS

I went back to my car and took a large garbage bag out of the trunk. I took off my shoes and coveralls and gloves and put them in the bag and put the bag in the trunk. I would burn them later, along with the clothes I was wearing. I would cut the steel wire into tiny pieces and put it in with the clothes and the broom handles all of it in the fire.

I drove home and went directly to the shower. Afterward I flossed my teeth, staring intently at each tooth and the thread moving back and forth between them. I kept my mind focused on what I was doing. The gum started to bleed between the canine and an incisor, the blood washing over the teeth. I let the cold water run until it got as cold as it could get, then filled my mouth with cold water and let it stay there for a moment. I spat it into the sink and then brushed, carefully and deliberately. It was all the same. It was the same as the night before and the night to come. Tomorrow I would get up and go back to work and tomorrow night come home and stand in front of the same mirror in the same bathroom and go about the same business. That’s all I had to think about.

I went to the couch and read a few pages in a book Casey had given me. It was about scientists studying fruit flies. They were creating mutant fruit flies and putting them in glass jars and watching them, hoping to find out about genetics and behavior. Other scientists were doing the same thing with fungus and bacteria. I read about how after millions of years of evolution, we still share the same genes as fruit flies and fungus and bacteria. It’s all the same. I tried to only think about fruit flies and the fact that atoms are not alive and we’re nothing but atoms and maybe none of us are alive, not really, more like puppets moved by these particles that control us, like flies and fungus and bacteria. I tried to think about that. But twisting through every sentence on every page was the thought of the empty bed in the other room, and the thought about Frank and what I had done and hadn’t done and how nothing was the same.

28

THE CRASH

CASEY WANTED TO HELP, SO I LET HER.

“I want to find the driver, the guy who hit us,” I told her. “Can you see if an ambulance went to the scene, maybe if someone went to the emergency room, anything like that?”

Casey said she could look into it.

She had access to the hospital records, I guess. It took a few days but she came back with a short list of names.