The Fiction of Owen Thomas

The Number 6

A Novella

Excerpt C

Harlan had been disappointed to drive by Swanson’s Field late in the afternoon and to see that Christopher Dupree was not waiting for him.  He knew this meant that Warden Mopes had most likely let him get off work early for his birthday and had probably even given Christopher a ride home in his car.  Just the same, it would have been good to share the story of Mr. Black and Mr. Gray with someone who could really appreciate it.

Harlan pulled the Number Six to the side of the dirt road that ran behind The Gravy Boat Inn.  He stood and stretched and was about to open the doors when he saw what he thought was a bit of litter in the aisle about three quarters of the way towards the back.  He let go of the door handle and walked back though the quiet, darkening bus and picked up a rectangular piece of paper the size of a playing card that felt kind of heavy and glossy in his hand.  He held it out in the failing light and examined it. 

On one side, the paper showed a watercolor of a little bunny on a green hill that rose up in the foreground over an ocean.  A round yellow sun dominated the upper left corner.  The bunny, which looked to be nosing his way into a tuft of clover, was a soft earthen brown.  In yellow script lettering written over the water it said: “God Is Watching Out…” The “G” in “God” was written fancy and was much bigger than the other letters on the card and at first Harlan didn’t recognize the word at all because the “G” looked like the number “6” to him and that was how he read it.

Harlan turned the paper over.  The back was all white with the word “FOR:” printed in the upper left corner, followed by a bold line on which was written, in a careful young hand, the name “Emily Potter,” which was followed by an address on South Mill Road. The paper card had been punched with a hole in the corner through which there was still a short piece of brown kite twine. 

Harlan thought back to which of the children on their way to the courthouse might have been Emily Potter, but they were all a blur and he could not single any of them out in his head.  He remembered them more by sound that by sight.

Harlan put the card into his pocket and then suddenly froze in his own skin.  Under the seat next to the place where he had found the card, sat a gray metal lunchbox. 

He looked over his shoulder and slid it out into the aisle and looked at it for a moment.  He crouched down and opened it.  Inside the lunchbox was a yellowing apple and what looked like a thin sandwich wrapped in a sheet of wax paper.  Harlan used two fingers to open the wax paper.  He found two pieces of white bread and a light brown slice of meat. 

Harlan frowned and leaned back against a seat.  He closed and latched the lunchbox and set it up on the seat next to him.  He got down on all fours and looked under the seats.  On the other side of the bus, more towards the back, he saw the black lunch box.  He crawled over on his hands and knees and fished it out into the aisle, his heart rattling the bars of its prison now that the initial stupefaction had passed. 

Not so gingerly this time, he opened the black lunchbox.