WHEN I GOT to the junkyard, Terry let me in. "They're fighting," he said, leading the way back to the bunker.
The Mole was a sodden lump, seated on one of the cut-down oil drums he used for chairs. Elbows on his knees, chin in his hands. His coveralls were so dirty they worked like camouflage- his dead-white face looked suspended in air, light shifting on the thick lenses of his glasses as he followed Michelle's swooping circles around him. She was wearing a white raw silk coat that reached past the tops of her black boots. A black cashmere turtleneck sweater and black slacks that puddled over the tops of the boots. Long strand of pearls around her neck. Her hand flicked them back and forth as she snapped at the Mole. Simba sat next to the Mole, head cocked, ears flared. Fascinated.
She whirled as we came into the clearing, hands on hips.
"Stay out of this, Burke."
"I came to see Mole," I told her.
"You'll see him when I'm finished with him."
"Mom…" Terry started.
All the hardness went out of her face. "This doesn't concern you, sweetheart. You know the Mole and I argue sometimes. Soon as we're finished, I'll let you take me out to dinner in town, okay?"
The Mole's head swiveled toward me. "She wants to have the operation."
"Mole!"
"You think the boy doesn't know?"
It went quiet then. I lit a cigarette, waiting. Terry went over to Michelle, took her hand. "It's okay, Mom."
She kissed him hard on the cheek. Pulled away from him. Walked right up to the Mole, leaned into his face. "It's me. I waited for this. I know I kept talking about it, but now's the time."
"It's dangerous."
"It's not dangerous. You think this is like a coat-hanger abortion? They know what they're doing."
His head swiveled to me again. "She wants to be a citizen."
"I know."
"None of you know."
The Mole's eyes were liquid pain behind the glass. "You can't live out there, Michelle. It's not for you."
"You just don't want to lose Terry. How selfish can you be, Mole? You want him to spend his life in this junkyard? Never go to school?"
"I go to school, Mom," the kid said quietly.
"Oh, sure you do, honey. I'm sure you know all about tapping telephones and beating burglar-alarm systems. Maybe someday the Mole will teach you how to blow up buildings."
The Mole's head came up. "Tell her," he said, his voice rusty. He didn't use it much.
Terry tapped Michelle's hand, making her look. "Mom, I study physics. And chemistry. And math. I do. Ask me anything. Burke got me the textbooks for all the first-year courses at college. Mom, I already know the stuff. Mole is the best teacher in the world."
"And what are you going to do with all this knowledge, baby? Go to med school?"
"I don't want to go to medical school."
"No, you want to live in a junkyard with this lunatic. Well, you're not."
"Mom…"
"Don't 'Mom' me, Terry. You want to end up like Burke? You like the idea of going to prison?"
"The Mole doesn't go to prison."
"Ask him why. Ask your teacher why he didn't go to prison."
"I know why, Mom. I know Burke took the weight for him that time in the subway tunnel. Mole told me all about it. That's what family does."
"That's what good criminals do, honey."
"That's the rules."
She grabbed the boy by his shoulders. Shook him roughly. "I know all about family. My biological parents taught me very well. They weren't family, so I picked my own. And we picked you. All of us, not just the Mole. You're not growing up in the underground. You're not going to spend your life like this."
Tears ran down the kid's face but his voice was steady. "I lived with them once. The citizens. Remember, Mom? Remember how you found me?"
Michelle dropped to her knees in the junkyard, clutching the boy's legs, crying. He patted her head gently, whispering to her. The Mole moved away. I followed him.
"It's not safe" is all he said.
"The operation?"
"The boy. He can't live out there. Maybe Michelle could. Go back and forth all the time. It's not right to split him like this."
We walked through the twilight, jagged shadows spiking from the cannibalized cars. I moved between two of the cars. Stopped short when I heard a snarl. A white pit bull was lying against an old Cadillac, tiny squealing puppies nursing underneath her. Even Simba stepped around her.
"I never saw a pit bull here before. I thought they were all dog fighters."
"Terry found her. They were fighting dogs on the other side of the meat market…you know just past where the trucks pull in?"
"Yeah."
"She lost a fight. They left her there to die. We fixed her up. Now she's part of the pack."
"Like Terry."
He didn't say anything for a while. I lit another smoke. We made a wide circle, giving Terry and Michelle plenty of time.
"The boy knows Hebrew too," the Mole said, defensively. I dragged on my cigarette, remembering the boy's Bar Mitzvah.
The kid already knew how to blow up buildings.