Boys Life

an open doorway, into the building’s cool interior. Light bulbs hanging on cords threw shadows between more mounds of junk. Here and there larger things rose up from the gloom like Martian machines and presented a glimpse of mysterious curves and edges. Something squeaked and skittered; whether mice or bats, I don’t know. The place sure looked like a cavern, where Injun Joe would feel right at home.
    “Watch your step here,” Mr. Sculley cautioned us as we went through another doorway. Then he stopped beside a big rectangular machine with gears and levers on it and he said, “This here crusher just ate your bike about fifteen minutes ago. It was the first one in.” He prodded a barrel full of twisted and crumpled metal pieces. Other barrels were waiting to be filled. “See, I can sell this as scrap metal. I was waitin’ for one more bike to start breakin’ ’em up, and yours was the one.” He looked at me, the overhead bulb shining on his rain-wet dome, and his eyes were not unkind. “Sorry, Cory. If I’d known anybody was gonna come claim it, I’d have held on to it, but it was dead.”
    “Dead?” my father asked.
    “Sure. Everythin’ dies. It wears out and can’t be fixed for love nor money. That’s how the bike was. That’s how they all are by the time somebody brings ’em here, or somebody calls me to come pick ’em up. You know your bike was dead long before I put it in that crusher, don’t you, Cory?”
    “Yes sir,” I said. “I do.”
    “It didn’t suffer none,” Mr. Sculley told me, and I nodded.
    It seemed to me that Mr. Sculley understood the very nucleus of existence, that he had kept his young eyes and young heart even though his body had grown old. He saw straight through to the cosmic order of things, and he knew that life is not held only in flesh and bone, but also in those objects-a good, faithful pair of shoes; a reliable car; a pen that always works; a bike that has taken you many a mile-into which we put our trust and which give us back the security and joy of memories.
    Here the ancient hearts of stone may chortle and say, “That’s ridiculous!” But let me ask a question of them: don’t you ever wish-even for just a fleeting moment-that you could have your first bike again? You remember what it looked like. You remember. Did you name it Trigger, or Buttermilk, or Flicka, or Lightning? Who took that bike away, and where did it go? Don’t you ever, ever wonder?
    “Like to show you somethin’, Cory,” Mr. Sculley said, and he touched my shoulder. “This way.”
    My dad and I both followed him, away from the bike-crushing machine into another chamber. A window with dirty glass let in a little greenish light to add to the overhead bulb’s glare. In this room was Mr. Sculley’s desk and a filing cabinet. He opened a closet and reached up onto a high shelf. “I don’t show this to just anybody,” he told us, “but I figure you fellas might like to see it.” He rummaged around, moving boxes, and then he said, “Found it,” and his hand emerged from dark into light again.
    He was holding a chunk of wood, its bark bleached and dried mollusks still gripping its surface. What looked like a slim ivory dagger, about five inches long, had been driven into the wood. Mr. Sculley held it up to the light, his eyes sparkling behind his glasses. “See it? What do you make of it?”
    “No idea,” Dad said. I shook my head, too.
    “Look close.” He held the wood chunk with its embedded ivory dagger in front of my face. I could see pits and scars on the ivory’s surface, and its edges were serrated like a fishing knife.
    “It’s a tooth,” Mr. Sculley said. “Or a fang, most likely.”
    “A fang?” Dad frowned, his gaze jumping back and forth between Mr. Sculley and the wood chunk. “Must’ve been a mighty big snake!”
    “No snake, Tom. I cut this piece out of a log I found washed up along the river when I was huntin’ bottles three summers ago. See the shells? It must be from an old tree, probably laid on the bottom for quite a while. I figure that last flood we had pulled it up from the mud.” He gingerly ran a gloved finger along the serrated edge. “I do believe I’ve got the only evidence there is.”
    “You don’t mean…” Dad began, but I already knew.
    “Yep. This here’s a fang from the mouth of Old Moses.” He held it in front of me once more, but I drew back.
    “Maybe his eyesight ain’t so good anymore,” Mr. Sculley mused.