Spoonbenders

Her signature was beautiful: a mountainous “M,” a towering “T,” with beautifully spiky characters after each.

At the very bottom of the page was this:

P.S.

How can I love someone I’ve never met? A mystery.

Also tucked into the springs was a plastic baggie that contained the two joints Irene had confiscated: one full, one half consumed.

My grandmother, Matty thought, is delivering drugs from beyond the grave.

How did she know about what was happening to him? Could she travel into the future? Even if she could do that, who delivered the all-too-physical envelope and Ziploc bag?

The letter and pot were freaking him out, but the message of their simultaneous appearance was unmistakable: it was his duty to help Frankie.

A half hour later he snuck out to the nest behind Grandpa Teddy’s garage and lit one of the joints. He needed to get as much of it into his lungs before he was unable to keep smoking. He thought, This is not a healthy life choice. And then: Duty calls.

—

He stayed out of his body for hours, his longest trip on record. He hovered in Mitzi’s Tavern, in Mitzi’s office, practically in Mitzi’s shadow. Friday, payday, made her office much more interesting than in previous visits. He watched her receive visitor after visitor, all men, most of them white, who brought her envelopes of cash. Mitzi would put them into the desk drawer, chat for ten seconds, then send the men packing.

As soon as they left the room, she moved the envelopes to the safe. It was then that Matty would sweep in, push his ghost noggin close to hers, and steal a glance at the dial. But Mitzi continued to make it impossible to read the combination. She leaned over the safe from her chair, her bird hand covering the dial, and spun it fast, barely looking at the numbers. For all he knew she’d kept the same combination for decades and could do it blind. After a couple of hours, he thought

he had the starting number—28—but even that was a guess, because the dial was hash marks between every fifth number, and it could have been 27 or 29.

Mitzi barely left the room. Between visits she smoked, ate from a can of peanuts, read the paper, and drank coffee. Matty read over her shoulder, and mentally suggested solutions to the crossword puzzle. (He was usually wrong; Mitzi was really good at crosswords.) He killed time by floating around the room, peering into nooks and crannies. How malleable was his shadow body? Could he shrink down to mouse size, and go looking between the walls?

He also spent time pondering the morality of stealing from this old woman, and whether this was what Grandma Mo meant by helping his family. Frankie said Mitzi was a major criminal, but to Matty she seemed like a bored old lady doing a boring job.

A big change to her routine came when she filled a tumbler of water to make a drink that wasn’t coffee. She opened up a canister of Goji Go! that was sitting on the floor and stirred in a healthy portion of powder. The canister wasn’t here yesterday. Embrace life! was written in marker on the lid. Frankie, evidently, could sell this stuff to anyone, even his worst enemy.

Another man came in and paid. Matty again tried to see past Mitzi’s hands, and again saw nothing. He felt his body—his real body—cramping up from sitting too long in one position. The pot was wearing off.

He was glad he hadn’t told Frankie he was trying again. Another failure would kill the man. He’d seemed so sad last night. Loretta had gotten mad at him, thrown him out of the house. He didn’t talk about it in front of Matty, but it clearly had to do with his money problems. Which sent Matty to bed feeling worse for his betrayal.

Then came the letter, and the means to help. What choice did he have.

Mitzi got up from the desk and walked down to the bathroom. This was her third visit in a half hour. He never followed her into there, no way. When she came back, she looked pale. She sat behind the desk just as another client, an old white guy with spiky gray hair, handed over his payment for the week. Mitzi barely seemed to be paying attention as he talked, and didn’t even bother to put the envelope into the drawer. When he left, she bent toward the safe.

Matty edged forward, eager to try a new idea. He thought of his body growing thinner. He spread out like Mr. Fantastic, thin as a slip of paper, and slid his transparent self between Mitzi and the safe. He was less than an inch from her hand when it touched the dial.

She turned the dial, and stopped. She’d never paused like this before, but he wasn’t going to question it. He counted the hash marks and saw that the first number was definitely 28. One down! Then she turned the dial again, and paused. Her hand slipped down. A moment later, a red goo spattered the front of the safe.