I Am the Messenger

"Well, not on anything." His voice is coming back to him. It's his again. "I put it in a fund and can't withdraw it for at least a few years. I put in, I earn interest." He's very serious now. Pensive. "I can't take it out."

"At all?"

"No."

"Not even in an emergency?"

"I don't think so."

I become loud again. My aggression seems to strip the street naked. "Why in the hell did you do that, Marv?"

Marv cracks.

He cracks by walking hurriedly around the car and getting back in, behind the wheel. Holding on.

Quietly, Marv cries.

His hands appear to be dripping on the wheel. The tears grip his face. They hold on and slide reluctantly for his throat.

I go around.

"Marv?"

I wait.

"What's happening, Marv?"

He turns his head, and his disheveled eyes angle for mine.

"Get in," he says. "I'll show you something."

On the fourth attempt, the Ford starts and Marv drives me through town. Tears stream his face. Less reluctant now. They veer down. They look drunk.

We pull up at a small weatherboard shack, and Marv gets out. I follow.

"Remember this?" he asks.

I remember.

"Suzanne Boyd," I say.

The words stagger slowly from Marv's mouth. Half his face is trodden with darkness, covered, but I can still make out the outlines, the forms.

"When her family left town," he says, "there was a reason they just disappeared...."

"Oh God," I try to say, but the words are inhaled. They don't find their way out of me.

Marv speaks one last time.

When he moves, a streetlight stabs him, and the words flow out like blood.

He says, "The kid's about two and a half."

We get back in the car and sit in silence for a long time, and Marv begins to shiver uncontrollably. He has a tanned face, Marv, from working outside, but he's as white as paper as we sit in his car.

Now it all makes sense.

I see it.