The Ram Keys I Lifted Off the Hook

The Hook by the Door

The first morning I took the Ram, I did not sneak. I want that clear too. I was not hiding anything.

I got up at my regular time, I made my regular coffee, and when it came time to leave I walked to the hook and took his keys the same way I had taken mine every morning for six years.

I left the carpool slip on the counter. I had written it out the night before at the kitchen table while he snored down the hall. The Casey’s on Route 54. Carpool leaves 5:30 sharp. Fifteen a week, gas money, see the driver.

I even looked up the driver’s name so he would know who to find. When I saw whose name it was I sat back in my chair and I did not know whether to laugh or feel bad for him.

I will get to that.

I left the slip face up and I took the truck and I drove to work, and I was pulling my gloves on at line two when my phone buzzed in my coat.

Greg. 5:40 in the morning. Where are the Ram keys.

I let it sit a minute. Then I typed back with one thumb. Took the truck. Carpool leaves Casey’s at 5:30. You already missed it. Call Dale, he’ll swing back for you.

He called me. I was on the floor by then with the line coming up to speed, the molders slamming and the hoppers roaring. I slid the phone back in my coat and let it ring through all that noise.

He called again at 5:51. Again at 6:04. I pictured him standing in the driveway in the cold with no car in it, his breath going up white under the yard light, looking at the empty hook.

I am not going to tell you it did not give me one small mean flicker of satisfaction, because it did, and I would be lying.

That night he was waiting at the table.

“You cannot just take my truck,” he said.

“You gave away my car,” I said. “To your mother. Without asking me. I didn’t scream. I didn’t call her and make a scene. I took the one set of keys left on the hook and I went to work, same as I do every day.”

“That’s different.”

“Tell me how,” I said. “I’ll wait.”

He did not tell me how. He pushed his potatoes around his plate and he did not tell me how, and that was the most honest thing he said all week.