"Jack, give me a hand, will you?" I gestured him over to where I was working. "Shine it right in here."
"Whatever you say, Len." He peered with me into the buried old boxcar. The flashlight, steady in his calloused hands, was a poor substitute for the sunlight that glared off of every shard of shattered glass, every discarded hubcap, every run-down, rusted lawnmower in the entire municipal dump. My dad used to call it Pop's Discount Emporium.
"What do you make of that?" I pointed through the gaping door of the boxcar. On the floor there lay a sock monkey. It was grimy and worn, well-loved, waiting patiently beside a plastic teacup for someone to let it out. You could grow old, waiting like that.
Jack scratched his nose with one stubby fingernail. "God, how long has this thing been buried?"
"Longer than I care to admit." Longer than Jack had been alive, at least. That boxcar had been our pillbox bunker. It had been our silver-finned rocket ship to Mars. It had been scarier than the broken tooth headstones of a graveyard by moonlight, before it was buried in an autumn landslide.
We stood there on flattened cans and thought our separate thoughts. Then I said to Jack, "Why don't you climb down and see what else is in there."
"Oh, no, you're the one who dragged me over every square inch of this pile of shit. You go."
I looked down into the hole, and shivered, even though it was a balmy 65 degree day. Coastal weather. I'm used to it. But I couldn't make myself go in, not first.
"I don’t think I can," I said hesitantly.
"Do I have to dare you?" he laughed at me.
"Please, Jack."
"Oh, all right." He looked at me quizzically, then shrugged. We cleared some of the wicked-looking metal scraps away from the hole, and he climbed on down, leaving me there with my fragmentary memories.
Pretty Lori Hastings with her buck teeth and galoshes. She always bragged about those big pink boots, and it drove me crazy. When an October squall came howling out of the West I proclaimed that her boots were no good at all — no good, unless she dared to run to the dump and stand in the boxcar for a whole minute. And off she went through the tree-snapping winds.
My memory isn't what it used to be. I can't for the life of me recall whether she ever came back.
I listened to Jack stomping around the boxcar for a few minutes, his boots scraping against the rusted metal floor. He's a good boy, Jack is, takes after his mother. Now there was a fine woman.... No, I never knew Jack's mother. Thought he was my own son for a moment there. I used to hope my mind would go before my body, but now I know better. Now I know....
I was impatient now, hoping Jack would hurry up. I opened my mouth to say so. There was sudden stillness down in the car, and in the silence I became aware of a pair of feet tramping across the piles of trash toward me. It was a security guard, wearing an amused smile on his face.
"Usually it's high-schoolers I have to chase away from here," he said when he got close enough.
I didn't know what to say. He shook his head.
"I'm going to have to ask you to leave. This is private property, as you should well know." He looked down into the open door of the boxcar. "Please come out of there, sir," he said to Jack, who did. But only after tucking the wire-cutter away inside a pocket.
The guard escorted us to the perimeter and we walked back to Jack's truck.
"Well, I hope you're happy." There was dirt all up and down Jack’s pant legs.
"Find anything?" I asked casually.
"Absolutely nothing."
"Huh."
I was immensely relieved, but Jack hadn’t noticed. Not sure what I would have said to him if he had.
"I'll drive," I said. Jack nodded. I climbed in, revved up the engine, and we left the dump behind.