I Am the Cheese (7 page)

Adam was amazed at his ability to lie, the way his mind had been quick to invent a new set of circumstances for himself and his parents. But he wondered,
Why
? Why is it necessary to lie?

“Well, I figured it was something like that, Ace. Anyway, too bad—if Rawlings had been your old hometown, your father and mother might have enjoyed meeting him. They could have had a reunion and all.”

“Well, thanks anyway, Amy. I appreciate it.”

END TAPE OZK005

The rain begins without warning, slashing at my face, pelting my body. Clouds have gathered as I have been pedaling along toward Carver but they haven’t concerned me because the sun and the clouds have played disappearing games since my departure this morning. Then a sudden torrent greets me as I pump along a narrow section of Route 119. Mud kicks at my legs because the front tire has no fender, nothing to prevent the mud from splashing. The rain slants toward me and the bicycle. I am driving into the storm.

I draw up at the side of the highway and ponder the situation. Squinting, I see a house about a quarter of a mile away, but I don’t want to get mixed up with people. Trees offer the only shelter and I push the bike toward a large maple, heavy with branches. The rain showers leaves down as I approach and I realize the tree won’t offer much protection because most of the leaves have already fallen. I lean against the tree trunk in disgust. The rain is really coming down now, in wavering sheets, tossed by the wind. The cold enters my clothes, seeps into my skin and into my
bones. My father’s package is soaked and the road map is ruined. I pull my father’s package off the bike and hug it to me, slipping it inside the jacket. The package is wet but I don’t mind. The rain continues. I watch the map dissolving. And I am suddenly hungry, ravenous. I am starved. I can’t ever remember being as hungry as this.

A car passes, a station wagon with wooden panels, and the driver looks back as if he might stop. But he doesn’t. I wish he had stopped. I could have thrown the bike into the back of the car and have driven along warm and dry inside. But I’m also glad that he didn’t stop.

“You are a nut,” I tell myself, my voice sounding strange in my ears. The rain dances on the ground, the way water jumps and leaps if you drop it on a hot stove. I shrivel into myself, hugging myself, cold and damp and miserable. I am not damp, I am drenched.

“I’m going back,” I yell.

“No, you’re not,” I answer.

My voice is lost in the wind and the rain.

“All right, all right—I am going to Rutterburg, Vermont,” I sing out, lifting my voice above the sound of the rain. A rumble of thunder answers me—the gods are listening—and I press my back against the tree and I feel stronger suddenly, as if I am part of it all, part of the tree and part of the storm, part of the thunder and part of the rain. I lift my face and the rain pours down. And I begin to sing:

But, of course, he did remember, finally. It was all clear and lucid now, unforgettable. He knew that his father kept his private and official papers in the bottom drawer of the desk in the den. An insurance agent required a desk at home, where he could fill out the never-ending series of reports and keep the documents and the other paraphernalia of his trade. Adam knew that the bottom drawer contained certain certificates that were taken out only on special occasions. Like the time he needed a birth certificate to show that he was old enough to join the Boy Scouts. (Adam dropped out after a few meetings—he wasn’t interested in standing at attention, tying knots, or going on hikes.) Ordinarily, his father locked the drawer. The key hung on his key chain, along with the house keys and car keys and some others. His father always tossed the chain casually on an end table near
the front door when he came into the house. Adam waited for his opportunity.

Actually, he was barely conscious of his desire to check the bottom drawer. He had become convinced that the visiting editor had made a mistake. Amy had never mentioned his visit again. Looking at his father in his proper suit and tie, Adam was ashamed of his suspicions. In fact, what suspicions, really? And yet that day when he saw the key chain on the table, and knowing that his father was out mowing the lawn, Adam knew that he would look into the bottom drawer. He picked up the key chain; the keys were cool to his touch. He could hear the lawn mower at the far end of the front lawn. Perfect. His mother was upstairs. She was always upstairs these days. She came down to prepare the meals and do the housework but increasingly she stayed in her room. At any rate, his father’s desk was located in a spot from which he could observe the steps going upstairs.

Keeping his mind blank and his motives muffled, Adam walked to the desk, inserted the small key into the drawer lock, turned it, and pulled the drawer open. The drawer contained a dozen or so brown envelopes. Adam lifted out a few. The envelopes were identified with his father’s familiar scrawl:
Mortgage. U.S. Treasury Bonds. New England Tel. and Tel. Stocks. Birth Certificates
.

He opened this last envelope and took out the three crisp sheets of paper inside. They were official looking, a blue seal at the bottom. Signed by Tobias Simpson, Town Clerk, Rawlings, Pa. Adam inspected the certificate that bore his name: Adam David
Farmer. “We gave you my name as your middle name,” his father had explained long ago, “because two Davids would confuse everyone.” Adam inspected the certificate—and it all checked out. His birthday, February 14. Valentine’s Day. His mother was sentimental about birthdays and Adam’s in particular. She shopped for days and always baked a special cake. “A lovely day to be born, Adam, a day of love and tenderness,” she said. He looked at his father’s and mother’s birth certificates. Same official-looking paper, same signature: Tobias Simpson, Town Clerk.

Adam flicked through the other envelopes. Insurance policies. Social Security cards. He looked at his card and his number. It was new-looking, fresh, untouched. Why would someone his age need a Social Security number? Suspicion made him pause and in that pause, the sound of the lawn mower grew louder, and Adam held his breath. The lawn mower’s motor receded and Adam exhaled. He remembered that you needed a Social Security number to open a bank account and his parents had presented him with his own bank book and fifty dollars deposited in his name on his tenth birthday. There was only one envelope left in the drawer. It was sealed. Adam held it in his hand, the envelope almost weightless. He knew that he could not risk opening it. And he also knew that it probably contained nothing suspicious at all. In fact, he felt ridiculous and guilty investigating the contents of the drawer.