The Best American Noir of the Century

“But we’re trapped here, Monroe,” he said. “All we got here is Boston Falls, the Mohawk Cinema, Main Street — and the Wentworth Shopping Plaza ten miles away. And a lot of brick and smoke and trees and hills. Here, straight As and straight Fs will get you the same thing.”

“I know. The lumberyard or Parker or Devon Shoe.”

“Or maybe a store or a gas station. We’re too smart for that, damn it.”

“And we’re too broke for college.”

“That we are,” he said, resting his head on his knees. “That we are.”

He remained silent for a while, a trait of Brad’s. We’d been friends since freshman year, when we were the only two students who were interested in joining the debate team — which lasted a week because no one else wanted to join. We shared a love of books and a desire to go to college, but no matter how many hours we spent together, there was always a dark bit of Brad I could never reach or understand. It wasn’t something dramatic or apparent, just small things. Like his bedroom. Mine had the usual posters of cars and rocket ships and warplanes, but his had only one picture — a framed photograph of Joseph Stalin. I was pretty sure no one else in Brad’s family recognized the picture — I got the feeling he told his father the man had been a famous scientist. When I asked Brad why Stalin of all people, he said, “The man had drive, Monroe. He grew up in a peasant society and grabbed his ticket. Look where it took him.”

Brad wanted to become a lawyer and I wanted to write history books.

“Feel it,” he said, his voice low, rocking back and forth. “Feel how it’s strangling us?”

I felt it. If we didn’t go to State, then next summer we’d be on that slippery slope where we couldn’t get off, a life at the mill, a life of praying and hoping for a nickel-an-hour wage increase, of waiting for the five o’clock whistle. A life where we would find our friends and amusement at the Legion Hall, Drakes Pub, or Pete’s Saloon, where we would sit comfortable on the barstools, swapping stories about who scored what winning touchdown at what state tournament, sipping our beers and feeling ourselves and our tongues getting thick with age and fear. Just getting along, getting older and slower, the old report cards with the perfect marks hidden away in some desk drawer, buried under old bills, a marriage certificate, and insurance policies.

“We gotta get out,” I said.

“We do. And I know how.” Brad had gotten to his feet, brushing potato-chip crumbs from his pants. “Monroe, we’re going to become thieves.”

* * *

The next day we were at Outland Rock, tossing pebble’s into the river. We were upstream from the mills, and the waters flowed fast and clean. About another mile south, after the river passed through town, the waters were slow and slate-gray, clogged with chemical foam and wood chips and scraps of leather. Outland Rock was a large boulder that hung over the riverbank. We were too lazy to swim, so we sat and tossed pebbles into the river, watching the wide arcs of the ripples rise up and fade away.

“What are we going to steal?” I asked. “Gold? Diamonds? The bank president’s Cadillac?”

Brad was on his stomach, his feet heading up to the bank, his head over the water. “Don’t screw with me, Monroe. I’m serious.”

I shook my head, tossing another rock in. “OK, so you’re serious. Answer the question.”

“Cash.” He had a stick in his hand, a broken piece of pine, and he stirred it in the water like he was casting for something. “Anything else can be traced. We steal cash and we’re set.”

The day was warm and maybe it was the lazy August mood I was in — the comfortable, hazy feeling that the day would last forever and school and September would never come — but I decided to go along with him.

“OK, cash. But you gotta realize what we’re working with.”

He looked up at me, his eyes unblinking behind the thick glasses. “Go ahead, Monroe.”

“Our parents still won’t let us drive by ourselves, so we’re stuck with our bikes. Unless you want to steal a car to get out of town — which doubles the danger. So whatever we go after has to be in Boston Falls.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“There’s another thing,” I said. “We can’t go into the National Bank or Trussen’s Jewelers in broad daylight and rob em. In an hour they’d be looking for two kids our age and they wouldn’t have a hard time tracking us down.” I lay back on the rock, the surface warm against my back, and closed my eyes, listening to some birds on the other side of the river and the swish-swish as Brad moved the stick back and forth in the water.

“Burglary,” he said. I sat up, shading my face with one hand. “Burglary?”

“Yeah. We find someone who’s got a lot of cash and break into their house. Do it when no one’s home and they’ll blame it on some drifters or something.”

Somewhere a dog barked. “Do you realize we’re actually talking about stealing, Brad? Not only is it a crime, but it’s wrong. Are you thinking about that?”

He turned to me and his face changed — I had the strange feeling I knew what he’d look like in ten years.