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*

People With Problems is a collection of stories I wrote, one a week, like scooping strange fish from the sea. All different sizes, textures, colors…

Then I asked talented artist friends to each choose a story to illustrate, and it was as if I had released my fish back into the ocean and saw them return with mates.

I put a lot of care into exploring the subjects of the stories, which range from absurd, to darkly comic, to heartbreaking. Kirkus Reviews was complimentary with regard to their breadth and depth:

A collection of 29 character-driven works of flash fiction … shows that a lot can be done with a very limited word count.

– Kirkus Reviews

I hope you enjoy meeting the book’s various People With Problems as much as I have.

It’s available as a paperback or ebook—both of which include the full-color illustrations—from these retailers.

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Thanks for reading, and thanks for your support!

Jessica sees a few people crying. Under the rain rattling on the roof, she can hear even more. Life-jacketed and lined up on a plastic bench in a bright orange capsule with a hundred other tourists. Couples, families.

A four-year-old boy next to her keeps asking between sobs, “Mommy, why are we in the little boat?”

His mom has her sweaty face against the foam shoulder of her life jacket, and her breath heaves. They were all given seasickness pills when they boarded, but hers isn’t working. “It’s just a little longer, honey. Just sit—” she swallows, “sit tight, okay?”

Jessica sees the “big boat” out the rain-streaked window, many-storied and lit like a skyscraper, its nose sinking into the dark water as if ashamed.

*

Jessica bowed her head at dinner and chewed carefully.

She’d been liberal with the adhesive, because that night she planned to order the steak—her first in two months. She pinned her hair back and made up the scar on her cheek as best she could.

But even cut into small pieces and squished between her molars for a long time, steak was too tough. She was grateful that Chelsea and Trevor—those were their names?—probably didn’t notice her difficulty chewing while they described their cruise around Australia the year before.

Chelsea is pregnant and shouldn’t have ordered the swordfish, but Jessica didn’t say anything.

She felt her front-left teeth start to move. Too much adhesive. Her lip tightened against them. “Mm-hmm,” she said, nodding. She held up a finger and tried to say, “Excuse me,” but the teeth popped out and flipped between her lips, the metal support clicked against her real teeth.

Trevor said, “Oh. Sure,” and looked at his food.

“Oh,” as in, he hadn’t expected a thirty-four-year-old woman to have a denture. “Oh,” as in, now he better understood the scar showing through her makeup.

In her cabin Jessica spat the denture into her hand. Her left incisor stood alone at the front of her mouth, the one they could save. Her molars huddled in the back.

She ran warm water and scrubbed away the adhesive, then added more from the tube in her purse and pushed the denture back in. The false teeth settled around her incisor like strangers at the dinner table.

She decided to order room service instead—mashed potatoes and gravy.

*

Trevor is in the back corner of the lifeboat holding up his phone and frowning. Chelsea’s head rests on his shoulder. She and Jessica meet eyes. Chelsea looks away and puts a hand on her belly. Jessica has to make herself look away.

A crew member screeches open the hatch and fires a flare into the rain. The black water out the window lights pink-orange.

The boy asks, urgent, “Mommy, why is there fire?”

Others snap alert and look out the window.

“Honey, that’s not—” She covers her mouth. Her fingers graze Jessica’s life jacket. “I’m sorry,” she says, “could you wa—” she swallows, “watch him while…”

Jessica wants to say no, but the mom is already standing and shuffling between everyone’s knees toward the open porthole.

The boy screams for her and gets up.

Jessica holds his arm. “Stay here.”

*

Ryan said looking at her reminded him of what happened.

He should have been the one to drive, but he had a drink after dinner. The other car shouldn’t have swerved.

In the hospital, she felt his tears on her cheeks. She felt his lips push hers into the new emptiness behind them.

When he pulled away he didn’t look at her. It felt like he never looked at her again.

The last thing she said was, “Please stay.”

Her sister got her the cruise, for a “fresh start.” She shouldn’t have gone.

But she did. To get away from everyone’s sad smiles and overlong hugs. The house, empty of Ryan’s things. The closed room with the crib and playpen still folded in their boxes.

*

“Your mommy’s feeling sick. She’ll be back.”

His face is wet and red. “Why is mommy sick?”

She wants to say it’s because his mom is weak. “Because we’re in a boat, and there’s a storm.”

“Why?”

She waits for an answer to come. “Sometimes bad things happen.”

Ryan had jumped ship, and their son had drowned in her waters.

She feels the boy’s stare on her cheek. “What’s that?” He points.

She touches the scar. “I got hurt.” Now it’s her turn to cry. Her lips tighten, and she feels the denture loosen. In the midnight rush to get to the lifeboats she’d been hasty with the adhesive.

“How?”

“I was—” Her teeth slip, click against the others. She puts a hand on her mouth.

“What’s that?” His eyes are patient, fixed on her mouth. His little barrel chest rises and falls under his life jacket.

She sucks at her teeth, pushes the metal ridge with her tongue until they settle back into place. Then she smiles. “My teeth,” she says carefully.

“Can I see?”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a crew member says from his windowed perch, “the coast guard is on their way. Shouldn’t be long now.”

Cheers and applause.

But the boy’s eyes haven’t left Jessica’s tight lips.

She hesitates. Then she parts her teeth and pops the denture loose, holds it for him to see. Four resin teeth in two humps of pink resin gum. Metal wire spans the gap between them and curls at either end to hold them among her real teeth.

His eyes get bigger. This is when he screams, her face forever burned in his mind as the toothless witch in the lifeboat.

Instead, his little finger rises to his mouth and pulls his lip down. He grimaces. His pink tongue squishes through the gap where he’s missing his middle-left incisor.

Jessica’s eyes blur. A drop crawls down her cheek. She asks, “Did it hurt?”

“Yeah.”

He was a software engineer, which I guessed even before he told me. Shoulder-length greasy brunette hair twisted into a sloppy bun. Pink splotches of acne in the creases on his forehead from always looking surprised or frowning. He alternated between two fleece jackets—a red one and a light blue one—over various tee shirts with warped collars and cracked iron-on graphics for local IT companies, cargo shorts with pockets full of stuff, and flip-flops. He said he wasn’t allowed to be barefoot at work, so on weekdays he wore socks.

His voice had a goofy wobble in it that worsened when he thought something was funny. When he concentrated hard on something he rubbed the tip of his middle finger between his brows, which made me wonder if he used to wear glasses.

The house was a small three-bedroom, his childhood home. He told me he was a few years out of college, living in an apartment in the city, when someone broke into the house and his parents died trying to defend themselves. Never caught the killer.

Nelson later moved back into the house and used his meager inheritance to build a powerful gaming PC. I heard more minutiae about that computer than his parents’ murder. Maybe it was a defense mechanism; maybe he was trying to be honest without scaring me away.

He told me all of this over pizza after I finished moving in Tuesday night.

It was the first I’d heard of a break-in—let alone a double murder—in the house. The neighborhood was quiet, with decent schools nearby. I could see it as a potential target for someone looking to nab some heirloom jewelry or a small wad in a safe, but lacking the nerve to hit a rich house. An amateur who might panic and murder a couple in their late fifties over some pearl earrings.

I didn’t want Nelson to think the story creeped me out, but I didn’t know what to say about any of it, so I shook my head, finished my beer, and slowly crushed the can.

“Wow, I’m sorry,” I finally said.

“We should do this every week,” he said.

I put the hunched can on the table. “Sure.”

He pointed at me. “Tuesday’s our day, Chris. Mark it.”

Wednesday morning I set up my desk in my bedroom and got to work. Cold calling homeowners to offer them eco-friendly alternatives to spray foam insulation. I’ve got a headset, and I like to pace around when I’m calling, but with the bed and the desk my room is too small for that. So I sat jiggling my leg and staring out at the driveway and the identical house across the street.

Nelson spent almost all his at-home time in his bedroom—his parents’ old bedroom—and he said the third bedroom had been his parents’ office. Since he wasn’t using it, I wanted to find a way to make it my office.

But endearing myself was hard with Nelson’s erratic schedule.

The few times I saw him out of his room he was on the couch writing code on his laptop, with metal music loud in his headphones and the Game Show Network muted on TV.

He usually left early in the morning, and he’d come back in the afternoon, microwave a can of chili or a bowl of ramen, shut himself in his room for several hours, and leave again around eight at night.

I made a point of heading to the kitchen around that time to find out where he was going. Maybe to a bar; maybe he actually had friends and didn’t want to intrude on my time settling in, when on the contrary I was happy to buy him a few drinks.

But he said he was heading back to work. His company was in the middle of updating its server security, a round-the-clock operation.

“Amateurs,” he said shaking his head.

I didn’t mind having the place to myself. I hadn’t had such a big couch and TV in my apartment. So I indulged, thinking I’d see his headlights through the front window and politely head to my room when he got home.

*

When I woke up there was an infomercial playing, and I heard movement in the kitchen. I only had to move my head a little, and in the glow of the TV I saw Nelson behind the kitchen counter, shirtless, hair down and ratty, rummaging on a shelf.

He turned around. I squinted my eyes to look asleep, and watched his dim shape come around the counter—he was completely naked. There were scratches and bruises on his torso and legs. He cradled a box of crackers and a couple of cans in his arms. He crept. I couldn’t see his face clearly, but I could tell he was watching me as he went, then disappeared into the hallway, and I heard him shut the door.

I waited a long time before I turned off the TV and went to my room.

The next morning I found a note under my door saying I should ask before taking his cans of chili, since he always bought a specific amount to last until his next shop.

To keep this from blossoming into resentment, I bought some more chili and met him in the kitchen that afternoon. I offered him the cans—a couple more than I’d seen him take the night before—but specified that I wasn’t the one who ate the chili.

“Maybe you were sleepwalking,” I said, thinking of the scratches and bruises. “Some people do that. Sleep eat, or even sleep cook.”

“I sleepwalked when I was really little. I don’t remember that, but my parents said I scratched up the walls and stuff a few times. I saw a sleep specialist when I was five, and it hasn’t happened since. But I never ate during it.”

I made a mental note to put a lock on my bedroom door. “Okay, well, I promise I didn’t take your food. But here’s some more chili anyway.”

He stared at me and his voice got wobbly. “I mean, I was hungry this morning. How could I be hungry if I apparently ate two cans of chili and a box of frickin’ crackers?”

*

That evening while he was at work, I went down the hall past his room into the closed office. It was the same size as my bedroom, but with only a desk in it there was much more space. Enough to pace around. Or I could even get a treadmill like I’d wanted in my old place.

There was a framed photo face-down on the desk. Teenage Nelson and his parents in front of a forest backdrop, the gilded signature of a mall photographer stamped in the corner. Young Nelson looked the same only less developed, his forehead wrinkles just beginning. His dad was thick and bald, with suspenders and a big smile. His mom was lanky and beaky, had a page boy haircut and warm eyes.

I put the photo back face-down.

He hadn’t mentioned how much time had passed between the murder and his move into the house, but some boxes labeled with his spindly handwriting were stacked against the wall. I wondered if his boxes could go in the wall cabinet, out of the way.

Three of the cupboards were full of binders marked with addresses and logos for Green Groves Landscaping.

The furthest cupboard was empty except for scraps of pink fiberglass insulation and dust bunnies. I bent down to look, and noticed that a messy hole was broken through the wall into a dark crawl space. The air from the hole was cool with a faint stink of feces.

Keys ratcheted in the front door. There wasn’t time to get back to my room so I closed the cupboards, shut the office door, and turned off the light.

His keys jingled, the door closed, and the deadbolt slid.

I wondered why I’d reacted that way. It was technically my house too; I paid rent. But now I had to commit to the choice to hide.

Footsteps went into the kitchen. Metal peeled, a spoon scraped, the microwave beeped and whirred.

“Hey, Chris.”

I heard him go to my bedroom door and knock. I don’t know why I’d thought to close it, but I’m glad I had. My neck went cold trying to remember if my light was off.

“Chris. You wanna beer?”

I didn’t want a beer, I wanted to ask him about the hole in the wall. I wasn’t about to set my office up next to a nest of rabid raccoons. But I also couldn’t ask him then, when it was obvious I’d been sneaking around behind his back.

The microwave sounded five loud beeps and he walked back into the kitchen, took the bowl from the microwave, and came down the hall.

I ducked behind the desk.

His bedroom door closed, his knob lock clicked, and I heard the beep of his computer starting up.

I waited by the door, ready to lunge behind the desk if his door opened. His spoon clinked in his bowl through the wall.

When I heard typing and clicking, I pulled the office door open slowly, stepped into the hallway hearing the soft sound of carpet pile under my socks, and pulled the door closed behind me.

But I hadn’t pulled enough, and the latch slid past the metal plate on the jamb, striking loudly as it sprang into place.

The typing stopped.

I took lunging steps on my toes down the hall, ready to hear Nelson’s door open behind me.

But I made it into the living room, and by the time I reached my bedroom door I heard typing again.

*

In the night I awoke without knowing why. No light, no sound. Just a feeling that made my eyes open, and I stared at the dark streetlight-orange ceiling. Then my eyes moved further down and saw my door was open.

Barely visible in the doorway stood Nelson’s naked shape. His face was hard to see, but I could tell he was staring at me.

I stared back, waiting, my fists clenched the comforter with the childish idea that I was safe as long as I stayed under the sheets. But the rest of me knew that trick only worked against imaginary monsters.

In the vague shape of his face, Nelson’s mouth opened—another dark hole in the dark doorway—and a shriek rushed into the room, felt like the sound reached under the covers to grab me.

And he moved. Fast. On top of me.

I jerked the covers over my head, contorting myself under his weight.

“Nelson!” I shouted into the mattress, “Nelson, you’re sleepwalking!”

He clawed wildly at the comforter. I heard it ripping.

I curled up to fold my knees under my chest.

The stuffing of the comforter was thin, and I felt his nails scratch through the last layer of fabric over my back.

I extended my legs and thrust upward.

He screeched and flew from the bed, thumped loudly against the wall.

I jumped off the bed and flipped on the light.

“Nelson, wake up!”

I saw the scratches and bruises all over his body, his angry eyes through dirty hair, dried chili smeared around his mouth. He sprang up and clawed at me. I tried to kick him in the groin and grabbed his neck and squeezed.

The back of his head exploded and sprayed the walls. His body fell onto me, heavy, and we toppled back onto the bed.

I threw him onto the floor where he fell splayed, and I saw a gnawed plastic band on his wrist.

The light in the living room turned on. Nelson appeared in a tee shirt and briefs, with a smoking pistol balled in his hands, pointed at the body on the floor. His splotched forehead wrinkled, eyes wide through hanging strands of greasy hair.

“Who is that?”

I grabbed the shredded comforter and jumped behind the bed.

“Chris, who the fuck is that?”

“I need you to turn me into someone else.” The young man had a quiet voice and earnest eyes.

Henry put his book down on the display counter full of wounds, temporary tattoos, fake teeth, and jewelry, and looked over his reading glasses. “Who do you need to be?”

He had owned the tiny costume shop for over a decade, and had seen a few nervous customers come in for hair dye, clothing, and fake blemishes, who might’ve been evading some kind of capture. But none of them had asked for his assistance so directly. It was just a vague hunch he had about them, anyway.

The young man’s collared shirt was clean but very wrinkled. His shoelaces were almost broken.

“What kind of trouble are you in, son?”

“It’s not like that.” He looked out the glass door, tilted his head to see between the scarecrow and gargoyle in the window. Then he took a paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and pushed it toward Henry.

Henry looked down through his reading glasses and saw in poor handwriting: Please. I am not dangerous. I will not hurt you. I will pay $175 for you to close your store and help me personally for one hour. I have done nothing illegal. Please. -Andrew

Andrew smiled a little through wet eyes.

This was either the strangest trick ever pulled on Henry, or the most direct call for help he’d ever seen. He wished his son Tom had been as forthright about asking when he needed it. When Tom’s baby came, he’d sent Henry an email with a photo, a beautiful little girl. Henry drove out to surprise them, but they weren’t there. The rental agency said Tom and his girlfriend were evicted for months of unpaid rent. Too embarrassed or proud to ask for help. Emails to Tom’s address bounced back as undeliverable. Spending his days in the costume shop, Henry wondered if Tom had disguised himself and was somewhere out there, hidden in plain sight.

This young man wasn’t Tom, of course.

Andrew pulled a ratty ziplock bag from the pocket of his jeans, opened it, and removed two fifties, three twenties, a ten, and a five. Some coins remained when the bag went back in his pocket.

Henry looked him in the eyes and waited. When Andrew didn’t look away, Henry went to the front door and flipped the sign to CLOSED.

“Lock it, please.”

“If you’ve got a death wish, son, I want no part of it.”

“I’d feel safer.”

The back door was a one-way lock; Henry thought to keep that path clear in case something happened. He locked the front door. “Good?”

Andrew looked at the ceiling. “Do you have cameras?”

“Yes, I do. And I’m keeping them on.”

“Good. Do they record sound?”

“They don’t.” Henry regretted this answer without knowing why.

“That’s fine.”

Henry looked at his watch, “One hour,” and stepped behind the counter.

Andrew stared at a basket of glow sticks for a long time. “I hear a voice.”

“There’s no one else here.”

“No, I mean in my head.”

The detail of “in his head” made Henry liken it to Tom’s “depression.” He picked up the bills, rolled them into his pocket, and stayed a step back with his arms folded. “What’d the voice tell ya today? To kill the manager of a struggling costume shop?”

“It’s not like that. The voice only hurts me.”

“If the voice is in your head, a disguise won’t fool it.”

“I want to become it.”

He stared. “That’s one way to take charge. What does this… voice look like?”

A corner of Andrew’s mouth lifted. “I’ve never seen it.”

“Well, that’s a wrench in the gears, isn’t it?”

“It says disgusting things about me. Calls me a creep. Says I’m worthless.”

“Sounds like a bully. Is that it, a big bully?”

“Yes, but not strong I don’t think. Inside he’s a coward.”

“Acts tough.”

“Yes, exactly.”

Henry sighed. “Let’s see what I’ve got.”

They started with clothes. From several costume racks Andrew pieced together a baggy shirt and pants, a thin chain necklace, a wallet chain on his belt loop, a wig of bleached hair, and a baseball cap with the bill curled tightly around the eyes. It resembled an outfit Tom had insisted on wearing to school when he was struggling to fit in. Henry had used the phrase “punk weenie” to describe Tom’s appearance, and Tom didn’t look him in the eye for three days.

When they got to makeup, Henry was surprised to find that despite never having seen the voice, Andrew had very specific ideas about its face. He asked for a long, narrow nose, “As if it’s always pointing a finger at you,” he said.

Henry tried to remember a trick he’d seen back when he had a makeup person working at the shop. He swirled the sponge on the pad of makeup. Andrew twitched when it touched his nose, then closed his eyes and held his breath. Henry dabbed carefully. He became very aware of the whistling in his own nose.

Andrew said, “Make my eyes look smaller, if you can. Like they emit judgment but absorb nothing.”

“I’ll… give that a shot.”

He drew a deep wrinkle into Andrew’s brow, and added concealer to cover Andrew’s slight eye bags and flatten the sockets—far from perfect, but not a failure.

Andrew said, “This is very good. Do you have a full mirror?”

“In the dressing room. Be right with you, I’m going to the restroom.”

Andrew’s eyes welled up again. “Thank you.”

Minutes later, Henry emerged from the restroom and heard grunting. He pulled the curtain to find Andrew standing at the mirror. Blood drizzled from his crushed nose, and fresh bruises glowed on his jaw and cheeks. His eyes wheeled to find their reflection.

“Jesus!” Henry wrapped his arms around Andrew to stop his fists. “Don’t do that, son. You don’t wanna do that.”

The garage was already closed for the night, but Toby was still in the convenience store and I buzzed him.

He’s got a lazy eye, so while he plugged his nose and the rest of his face opened up all surprised, his right eye pointed over at the workbench like it was still too scared to look. “Shit… That’s not a… person, is it?”

“Smells like it was alive. Looks like a person. Does it qualify, being that size?” I said. “It’s like a toy.”

“Could be a toy.”

It was about the size of a G.I. Joe. It had green slippers, baggy red-and-yellow-stripe pants, a frilly rainbow polka-dot shirt, curly red hair, and a shiny blue cone hat with a green pompom. But it wasn’t a doll—its puffy half-open eyes were too real. Its makeup was smudged on its shirt and in the glove box.

I took a flathead screwdriver and lifted the thing’s limp arms and legs. They made tiny patting sounds when they fell back down. I pried its lips, and they flapped like a real person’s would. Its jaw hinged open. The screwdriver tip clicked on its tiny teeth.

*

Before Stacy and I split up, we used to take the kids to Flat Beach where there was a gas station curiosity shop with a real taxidermy mermaid. It wasn’t a real mermaid, of course, but it was real taxidermy—the front half of a monkey sewn onto the back half of a fish. They kept it behind a purple curtain in a back room. Cost a dollar each to see it, and we saw it twice each trip. The kids loved that thing.

I told this to Toby while we had a smoke and waited for the garage to air out.

“Move the map racks and the gas cans to the far wall,” I said. “It could go in that nook by the soda fountain. Put a curtain up. Perfect spot.”

“Just lyin’ dead on a table?”

“Nah, we’d use wire to put it in a pose. Maybe like it’s juggling.”

“You think this is something people know about, but just you and I never saw?”

“Well, how many new things do we hear about these days? Everything’s been seen.” I watched a car turn left at the light. “I get the impression if it was common knowledge, we’d know too.”

The car pulled into the lot and parked at a pump. The driver got out and walked toward us.

Toby stepped on his cigarette and said, “Just a moment, sir, I’ll meet you at the window,” then went back through the garage. The guy went to the night window.

The stink was still in the car, so I put some bleach on a rag and wiped out the glove box.

In the passenger side mirror I saw the guy standing at the garage door.

Toby came back. “First customer,” he said as he took the garbage bag from the workbench.

“You told him?”

“Is it a secret?”

I got out the car and followed him.

He untied the bag, staring at the guy with his left eye while his right eye made sure no one else was watching. He held the bag open. “Look at that.”

The guy leaned and looked. “I don’t see anything.”

I took out my penlight and shined it in the bag. The clown’s legs were straight together, but its arms were bent funny.

“A doll,” the guy said.

“That is not a doll,” Toby said.

“Smells like shit.” The guy put his hand over his nose and frowned at me. “What is it?”

I shrugged. “We don’t know. We found it.”

The guy leaned again, and I obliged with my light.

Toby asked him, “How much would you pay to see this?”

“I still don’t know what I’m looking at.”

*

I tacked our first dollar, which the guy had given us, to the wall above the workbench. I’d explained to him about the Flat Beach mermaid, and how this was probably worth more, but he said the dollar was all he had on him.

But he gave us that dollar after he’d already seen it. Which meant something.

*

The car belonged to an old man, who brought it in because the fans weren’t blowing strong enough.

We figured if he ever knew about this thing, he’d forgotten about it. That might be how it died. Forgot to feed it or give it water or air or something. Just let it die in its makeup. It had tiny makeup stuff? Did it put on its own makeup, or did the old man help? And who made the clothes? Were they doll clothes?

I opened the hood to look at the ventilation, and saw the second clown wedged between the exhaust manifold and the cylinder head. Its nylon clothes were scorched on the metal so I had to scrape a bit. It didn’t smell as bad as the first, a bit cooked.

We couldn’t put that one on display, it’d scare the shit out of kids.

I laid it out on a rag on the workbench to surprise Toby.

And it turned out the old man’s fans weren’t blowing strong because a third little clown had chewed a hole through the heater casing and wedged itself inside. I started to think the stupid things had all killed themselves trying to find warm spots to hide.

That third one was in perfect condition, just suffocated or something from the heat. So now we had two good ones—we could set them up like they were juggling together, or like one was spraying seltzer water in the other’s face. We could rig a button for the kids to push and make the seltzer water spray.

That would mean waterproofing the skin with some kind of lacquer after whatever taxidermy we’d have to do. I’d call my buddy Sal to get his help. He’s good with squirrels, which are about that size, and he’d probably know something about waterproofing the skins.

Then I realized we could use the burnt one, too. If the bones were still good, Sal could set up a skeleton display. It’d be better than that ridiculous fake “mermaid,” because it’d be scientific, too, since it’s real.

I felt all shaky installing the new casing because I was thinking how word of mouth would explode about this. Families lining up through the parking lot. And museum types too, when they caught wind of it. They’d beg us to sell these things to them. We’d say no until the price was right. And even then we might still say no, just because. How often do new things like this come out? Not very often, and it’s never something like this.

Stacy would drop off the kids for one of my weekends, and I’d escort the kids in right away and let them look as long as they wanted for free. But Stacy would have to pay her admission and stand in line like everyone else. She’d spend all that time seeing the excitement on everyone else’s face, so impatient to see.

I fantasized about her coming at the same time as the museum people, and I laughed. That’d be too perfect.

*

I took my penlight under the car to look around. Sure enough, I saw some bright colors between the pipes—another one. Then tangled in some cable—another! I hooted loud.

Toby came in and shouted when he saw them lined up on the workbench. “Holy shit, we got five of ’em?!”

“Shut up and help me with this.”

We raised the car on the lift and found three more in the wheel wells. Two of those three were useless, but we got more rags and lined them up on the bench anyway. All their shiny clothes were different colors like jewels.

I could imagine them rigged with mechanisms to balance on balls, swing from trapezes, somersault over each other. For fun we could throw in some of Sal’s squirrels and make the clowns hold whips and chairs like lion tamers.

Toby stayed the rest of his shift and helped me take the car apart. By morning he was asleep sitting against the wall, the car was just a shell on the lift, and there almost wasn’t room on the workbench to put any more of them.

I lowered it and lastly popped open the trunk. There was an old jack and a set of jumper cables. A hole was chewed through into the foam of the back seat. I lifted the trunk’s false floor, where instead of the spare tire there was another one with long blue hair, eyes closed. Its limp body was wrapped like a cat around a handful of tiny squealing clowns, each about the size of my thumb, blind in the light and struggling to suckle at the pom-poms on their mama’s jumpsuit.

But the first two cars drove right by. No swerve, no brake lights, no reaction, and I couldn’t see their faces so I didn’t know if they even saw it. And then there were no cars for a while, so I spent time trying to find better placement and like crawling trajectory so they’d see it, but not so visible that they could just stop and get out and see it was just a toy. The point was it had to trigger a split-second honest reaction.

You’ve already figured out most of the story. It’s easy to guess just by looking around. But you’re missing the details, the extra thought that went into my plan, the stuff that made it interesting to me.

I saw another light through the trees way off over there—which scared me for a second, because I was using my phone flashlight and I was jumpy about the idea of someone else being out here too. But it was a car, so I put the baby into position on the gravel shoulder, pointed at an angle so when the car came around the corner the baby would be, not facing them, but angled toward them so they’d see its face. Seeing the face made it less likely they’d mistake it for a rabbit or something. And seeing the face is scarier. The expression is funny—it’s smiling, and its eyes are pointed to the side like the baby doesn’t see you or doesn’t care. It was funny to imagine someone in the future trying to fall asleep and having flashbacks of this plastic doll face they saw in the woods.

I have a thing like that with a drawing of a giraffe in a book from when I was really little. The giraffe’s neck is tied in a knot. It’s supposed to be funny or cute, and on the next page the other animals help untie it, but whenever I see or think of giraffes I think of the one with the knot in its neck and I can’t breathe.

That’s not important. I don’t have to remember to tell you that.

With the first two cars I’d figured out a good time to release the baby so it’d be in the middle of the road when the car finished the turn. So I flipped the switch and held the baby crawling in the air, and waited for right when I saw the headlights pass between the two thick trees, which meant it’d be like another fifteen seconds before the car hit the straightaway, which is about how long the baby would take, at this angle, to crawl to the middle of the road. And when the headlights blinked between the two thick trees I put the baby down and it started crawling, and I ran off the road.

When the car started the curve I could tell the baby’d be right on the yellow line when the car saw it, it was so perfect. Around the curve the headlights stabbed through the trees and bushes right across the baby’s face, but of course the driver still couldn’t see it yet. I ducked under the ferns, and I figured since I was hiding on the side the baby was crawling toward, then even if the driver stopped and was brave enough to get out of the car they wouldn’t find me. At least not right away, because they’d first look where the baby was crawling from, and I could run if I had to.

But the baby must’ve caught on a rock or leaf or something, because it turned before the yellow line. When the car came around and saw it, they swerved the way they weren’t supposed to, and they found me anyway without even seeing me. Their headlights spotted me for like a split second, stared right into my eyes.

I remember all of this. I’m trying to remember all of this so I can tell you later when my mouth works again. I can hear you asking questions, and I have the answers. You get that it was supposed to be a joke. “Gone wrong,” you said, which okay, I can’t move or talk now and that wasn’t my plan, so yeah, gone pretty wrong.

Part of me’s glad the driver’s okay, because this wasn’t supposed to hurt anyone, but I’m not looking forward to any lectures or “get well soon” stuff from her. She’s still sitting there wrapped in a thick blanket not saying much more than what happened, so I can’t tell what kind of person she is.

They’re moving me now, carefully changing my position to lie straight on their rolling bed thing. Stretcher. Or gurney, it’s a gurney. So I’m leaving now. Remember the timing of those two thick trees. Remember where I hid. The car is there, wrapped around the tree that was just behind me, which was near the start of the straightaway. The driver must’ve reacted super quick. Impressive.

I don’t see the baby anywhere. Probably stuck in a bush, or you put it in one of those plastic evidence bags. Imagining that makes it hard to breathe.

*

The first.

Arnold and the few other first-time losers were silent, lined up inside the curve of the elevated wooden racetrack painted white with red lanes. Down its length was an opalescent patina of dry slime in meandering streaks.

One shoe hung from Arnold’s fingers by its laces, his sweaty sock balled in its mouth. The floor was cool and rough under his bare foot and the pads of its five toes.

*

The guy next to me jabs my ribs with his elbow. He’s following number 3 or 27. But my 52 has stopped to curl and explore its shell, its number painted in blue. Against the push of the crowd, I won’t move until 52 moves.

*

The second.

The previous winners sat in cushioned risers. They all leaned forward, grinning when the race agent slipped his shears around Arnold’s second pinky toe.

The other losers behind him in line looked at the floor. But one man with six fingers folded his arms and watched.

*

Elbow guy shouts, “Come on! Go, go, go!” at whichever snail is his. He shouts so loud he coughs, with a mangled fist in front of his mouth.

When he coughs some of the snails jerk into their shells, a couple of them change course. Bettors scream.

I tell myself it’s a coincidence, avoid superstition. This guy has no more power over the race than anyone else.

*

The third.

They all watched as the race chief shook the winner’s hand and handed him a giant cardboard check.

Arnold imagined the heavy check pressing its edge into his own fingers.

A flashbulb timed perfectly with the thick snip of his bone.

*

Wesley or Leslie or something like that—I can’t remember—is still back at the starting box, punching the barrier wall and screaming at 95 to move. His face is hot and wet. He knows his chance of winning is slim now, but not zero. There’s still at least six hours to go.

I’m sure the winners in the risers love this guy’s desperation, watching his squeezed face through the binoculars they hold with precision-made articulated fingers. Clucking to each other with silicone servo tongues.

Their minds have erased the memory of ever having been him.

*

The fourth.

With the previous loss of one ring toe, Arnold’s balance had changed. But then losing the other restored his equilibrium.

*

Tom always promised if he won, he would never sit and jeer with the winners. “I wouldn’t do that to you fellas,” he said.

We all say that.

But we haven’t seen him since his win; he’s kept his promise.

If a day comes when we do see Tom in the risers we’ll lose all hope, because we’ll know that spiritual poison is inevitable, even for the most resolute.

*

The fifth.

It hurt Arnold to run with only two toes on his right foot. He had to stop.

*

Elbow guy is wearing a threadbare brick-red corduroy jacket. He’s jabbed me so much I start to think the jacket might’ve been brand-new at the start of the race, and he’s worn it down against my washboard ribs.

*

The sixth.

Arnold despised stairs. He bought a cheap plastic cane, and while using it he imagined the fancier cane he’d buy when he won. He’d use some of the winnings on replacement toes with fine titanium bones sheathed in padded silicone. TV said those were the most comfortable. He might spring for the “real skin” texture.

Even after adapting to the step of his new toes, he’d continue to use the fancy cane. He’d wield it like a trophy.

The cane would be real ivory with a spiral of gold inlay, topped with a polished sphere of green and white marble.

*

Elbow guy coughs again, and some bits spray out his fingers into my eye. It stings.

I stab him back with my elbow for room to rub my eye, and little crystalline grains come away stuck on my finger.

A guy with his head floating between our shoulders sees this and grabs elbow guy. “Cheat! Cheater, cheat!” he screams. He points at the track, where the snails nearest to us have again retracted into their shells. Number 79 is foaming.

*

The seventh.

Arnold bet on number 16 in honor of his son Ethan’s birthday. 16 placed second.

Tom’s won.

Tom didn’t look at Arnold, and was quiet as he left with the check under his arm.

*

Elbow guy struggles in the man’s grip. I grab his other arm, the elbow he kept putting in my ribs, to help hold him.

The crowd noise has changed.

A race agent in red and white stripes runs behind the barrier to us.

I hold elbow guy’s arm against the barrier, and the agent handcuffs his wrist to an iron ring. That’s when we all see that elbow guy’s palm is covered with crystalline grit.

*

The eighth.

Standing outside the arena at dawn on uneven achy feet, Arnold heard another bettor say the slime is thick enough for a snail to slide along a razor’s edge, unharmed.

*

Someone shouts, “Checkiz pockets!”

The agent reaches over the barrier into elbow guy’s jacket pocket and removes a baggie of salt.

With his other hand the agent wields a hatchet and swings it into the guy’s wrist, freeing him from the handcuffs with a hard, wet sound.

Cheers from above. Binocular eyes shine.

Cheers among us below.

I’ve got the guy’s blood in my eye, which stings a little less than the salt.

*

The ninth.

Arnold brought Ethan, who was finally old enough to attend a race. They both placed their bets on snail 31.

Ethan stared at the previous winners in the risers as his pinky toe was clipped. Seeing his son’s stoicism, Arnold wiped away a proud tear as the agent bandaged the fresh absence of his right big toe.

*

Elbow guy crumples holding his wrist, and the crowd closes around him to press against the barrier.

The agent waves the dripping hatchet like a flag of surrender while young trainee agents in smaller red-and-white-striped outfits pluck the snails from the track into buckets, and another brushes the salt from the track with a hand broom and dustpan.

The hatchet agent shouts, “The incident of malfeasance has been dealt with! Snail 79 has been injured! Bettors favoring snail 79 are disqualified!”

A few curses from the crowd, the sound of tickets ripping.

Number 79, foamy and puckered, is removed from the track and placed on the center podium, where an agent crushes it with a brick.

“We request your patience while the track is reset!”

79’s bettors are ushered from the arena. Elbow guy squeezes out through the crowd’s legs to find a medic. The rest of us wait and rub our foreheads and put hands on hips. Muttering.

The snails are put in the starting box. A trainee mists them with a spray bottle, and we cluster next to the gate.

In the tumult, my son appears at my side. Other bodies push me off-balance and my last toe strains to keep me up. I put an arm across my son’s shoulders, and he puts an arm across my back.

All hush. The gun fires, and the gate lifts.

52 starts to move.

*

The last.