The Freak pretends not to hear her and looks at herself in the wall mirror next to the racks of clothing. The Freak can barely see herself. It’s either a trick of light or it’s the side effect. She could be disappearing. She’s not sure.

  She goes outside and starts in a new direction. Toward the country. Toward the house in the woods—the house of Marla and Gottfried Hemmings.

  Marla and Gottfried are well-known to The Freak.

  The Freak is not well-known to Marla and Gottfried.

  The Shoveler: Meet the Beach-Bum Grandson

  When a ceiling fan falls, knocks over two gallons of water, and you’re so busy cleaning up the water that it takes the client’s beach-bum grandson to say, “What are you going to do about the paint?” while he points to an entire gallon of yellow wall paint spilled on the perfect oak floor to even notice that the paint fell, it always happens in slow motion.

  I shouldn’t judge the grandson—Malcolm—but he’s not nice to Marla and he never showers and he’s always talking about poverty. I’m not sure what he knows about poverty—in the two months I’ve been working in Marla and Gottfried’s house, he’s flown to Jamaica three times.

  Malcolm is cool about the spilled paint, though. He jumps into action and that’s good because I wouldn’t have known where Marla keeps the shitty towels or the scrub brush. When he asked what I was going to do about the paint, he wasn’t being a smartass; he was genuinely concerned about the paint. I was still beating myself up for not putting the tarp down yet, for maybe breaking the ceiling fan, for being allowed to breathe after making a mistake of this magnitude.

  “Dude—if you wouldn’t have noticed, it would have hit the rug. Thanks.”

  “It’s cool. They’re out for at least another hour. We can totally get this done before then,” he says.

  “I didn’t think you were the kind to help,” I say. But then I hear myself and I sound like an asshole. “I mean, I thought this wasn’t something you’d do.”

  “If you want me to stop, I can,” he says. He’s got two paint-soaked towels in his hands and is maneuvering them into a black trash bag.

  “Thanks. No. Don’t stop. I meant something else. It didn’t come out right.”

  “It’s starting to dry at the edges,” he says.

  “It’s latex. We can wash it once we get it all off the floor.”

  “I never thought Marla would go for yellow,” Malcolm says. “She’s not usually bold like this.”

  “It took me a while to convince her,” I say. “Gottfried loves it, though.”

  “They’re so weird,” Malcolm says.

  “Yeah.”

  “You have no idea what it’s like having them as grandparents,” he says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Seriously. It’s hell,” he says.

  I don’t want to explain my life to Malcolm. I don’t want to explain that I wish I knew who my grandparents are. In fact, Malcolm’s complaining enlarged my invisible family tree. I never really thought about the fact that I could have four living grandparents. Four people who might be wondering where I am. Four people who might give me Christmas presents or wish me a happy birthday.

  I’m not sure what to say.

  I concentrate on whether the rags I’m using are clear of color. I’m trying to see just how much more I have to wipe up before it seems as if I didn’t make this huge mess. Malcolm is at the edges of where the puddle was and he’s using a scrubbing pad to get the dried bits off. I’d say we’re about five minutes from erasing this mistake from history.

  “What do you want me to do with the can?” he asks.

  Shit. The can. I look over and into it. It sat on its side for so long while I was busy cleaning the water spill that there isn’t but an inch left in it. Nothing to salvage. “Close it up and put it with the others in the garage?” I say. “Shit. I guess I’m going to have to explain how a gallon of paint disappeared.”

  “They’re not going to notice,” Malcolm says.

  “They notice everything,” I argue. “You just said. It’s hell.”

  “They’re very happy with you so far. They can’t stop talking about the great job you did upstairs,” he says. “And they think you have great manners. Marla wishes you could replace me, I’m sure.”

  “Nah. They love you. They’re just weird.”

  Malcolm looks abruptly heartbroken. He wipes the area down one more time and we walk around where the spill was. The floor looks shinier in that one area than the rest of the floor. We say, in unison, “We should mop the whole floor.”

  Malcolm puts his hand out to indicate that he’s got this. He also points to the ceiling and nods as if to tell me to get back to the job I’m supposed to be doing. I wanted to get all the first-floor ceilings done this weekend, and now I just feel like driving home and going to bed.

  Malcolm returns with a mop and a bucket. I ask, “What time do you think they’ll be back?”

  “Why?”

  “I need a smoke.”

  He opens some app that allows him to see where Marla’s phone is. “She’s all the way over at the farmers’ market. It’s like an hour away. Plenty of time.”

  I go sit on the picnic table on Marla and Gottfried’s back deck. I light a smoke and try to take a deep breath at the same time because, holy shit, I just spilled a gallon of paint on their floor and nearly ruined their rug and I may have broken their ceiling fan and I should have asked Malcolm for help when I was doing that but I didn’t and I wonder why. All in one deep breath, I think that and a million other things. Only when I take a few more deep breaths do I see that my knees are yellow from the paint and my hands are covered and I realize there is no way to hide the whole stupid debacle from Marla when she comes in. She knows I’m doing ceilings today. All white. No yellow.

  Malcolm comes outside. He sits down next to me and puts a cigarette in his mouth. Only it’s not a cigarette.

  “You look stressed,” he says.

  “I’m so fucked.”

  “Not really. I mean, Marla’s a reasonable woman for the most part.”

  “I know this is gonna sound like I’m being a dick, but you should be happy you have them, you know. Not everybody has grandparents—let alone grandparents who would take a kid in. Like—you know. I mean, I don’t know what’s up with your parents or why you’re here, but it’s nice that you have a place to go.”

  None of that came out right.

  Malcolm nods while inhaling from his not-cigarette. He offers it to me. I pass.

  “That sounded like I’m a dick. But I hope you know what I mean.”

  He nods again, slowly, like he’s either taking it in or trying to figure out what to say or both. But he doesn’t say anything.

  “I only have a mom,” I say. “I don’t even know who my dad is.”

  “My dad’s dying of cancer,” Malcolm finally says, still nodding.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. It’s fucked up.”

  “But he takes you to Jamaica like twice a month,” I say.

  “Beats him just dying here and it being the only thing I remember about him, I guess,” Malcolm says. “I’d rather go to treatments with him, though. I miss my room and my stuff, and Marla’s always trying to make me eat shit I don’t like to eat.”

  “I’ve heard,” I say.

  “You should see what we eat in Jamaica. I’d eat anything, really. Except lamb. I hate lamb,” he says. He stubs out the joint on the sole of his shoe and puts the half he didn’t smoke in his wallet. “I’m gonna stay down there when he dies. I have friends and people who can take care of me and stuff.”

  “And a girl, I bet.”

  Malcolm nods. “And a girl.”

  “I think I’m just going to clean up and take off before they get home,” I say. “I’m sorry about your dad. That must suck.”

  “I’ll help you put the fan back up if you want.”

  “Nah. I still have to do that room. I’ll put it in the garage and get the ceiling done tomorrow.”

  Malcolm goes inside first. I finish my cigarette, go inside, and move my supplies back into the garage. I think about how Malcolm has a plan and I wonder what my plan is. So far, my plan has been to follow Mom around everywhere. That’s probably not normal.

  On my drive home, I pass a lot of farmland. It’s all dead now, soon ready for spring planting. I’ve always felt like I belong in those fields—not those specific ones, but just working outside or something, like I’m supposed to be a farmer. I don’t even know how often to water a houseplant. This is probably the stupidest thought I had all day except for thinking I could take a ceiling fan down by myself.

  Jake & Bill are coming for your daughters

  The tuxedo shop is full of scary-looking guys. Bill Marks is getting married. No one ever would have guessed that this could happen, least of all Jake. Best man. He’s trying to look happy, but tuxedoes aren’t his thing. Never been to any event that required more than a T-shirt, jeans, and shitkicker boots.

  Jake’s been waiting years to go to a gathering. Not a wedding. A gathering—the kind Bill and the rest of his groomsmen go to. Bill said he had to wait until he was eighteen, but Jake knows there are guys there his age. He and Bill walk around with Bill’s snake—school parking lot to school parking lot—and talk to the other boys like them. Boys like them. That’s what Bill told him to look for since he got to middle school. Look for other guys like us. Bring them to see the snake after school. The more, the better. We’ll win this country back.

  Now Bill’s picking out which tuxedo he thinks looks good on him. “Tails?” he says. Bill’s two friends, both shaved to bald, shake their heads. No. No tails. Guys like us don’t wear tails. Jake just shrugs. He’ll wear what he has to.

  “Don’t look so sad, Jake,” Bill says. “Didn’t you know the best man always gets laid at the reception?”

  Jake rolls his eyes. “Don’t need to get laid.”

  Bald friend #1 says, “You getting enough with the high school girls?”

  Bill says, “Let’s just say Jake doesn’t know the meaning of the word no.”

  Jake feels discomfort crawl up his legs. Sweat forming at the back of his neck. Bill’s bragging on his girls when he hasn’t had a girl since their trip to New Jersey and Bill knows it. And she didn’t want to do it anyway. Pissed Jake off. He isn’t responsible for what he does when he’s pissed off. That’s what Bill said.

  “How about this?” Bill asks. “Real mobster shit, right?”

  The bald friends nod. Jake nods. Whatever it takes to get out of the tuxedo store.

  * * *

  On the way home, Bill turns to Jake and says, “Ashley says I can’t keep the snake. Will you take care of her for me?” He rolls through a stop sign and doesn’t even notice.

  “Ashley or the snake?”

  Bill laughs. “I’m serious.”

  “On one condition,” Jake says. Bill nods to hear it. “Before you get married and leave me in that house with those freaks we call parents, you take me to a gathering.”

  Bill looks thoughtful for a minute. Nods. Says, “Anything for my little brother.” Then he runs a second stop sign. Two blocks later he rolls through a third stop sign with a cop right across the intersection. Bill waves. The cop waves back.

  * * *

  The roads are wet from spring rain. The mud from the new addition to their development covers everyone’s cars. Jake and Bill’s dad tried to get the construction company to shell out for neighborhood car washes at the last township meeting, but no one wanted to listen to him. Mr. Marks thinks he has power he doesn’t have. That’s what people say about him, anyway. Jake’s heard it at school. So what if he’s the manager of some company? He’s not anyone special. Jake isn’t anyone special, either, and so Jake’s not responsible for anything he does when he’s pissed off. That’s why he spends most of his days in the in-school suspension room.

  Fact is, Jake can’t see a future without Bill around. Bill’s the closest thing he has to a father even though his father lives right there in that house with them. Cuck. That’s what Bill calls their dad. He’s an immigrant-loving cuck.

  Jake rarely thinks about how their mother is half Mexican. She’s more white than Mexican, but she speaks Spanish. Or she can. She doesn’t because Bill told her that in America, we speak English. Had her pinned up against the kitchen wall and was about to beat her in the face with the toaster. She’s never spoken a word of Spanish around them again.

  Loretta Bleeds

  The bites never heal because Loretta scratches at them every night. Her sheets are pockmarked with brown stains. Probably six months since her mother last washed them.

  Act Two, Scene Whatever. It’s a Saturday; two weeks to Easter. It’s been more than two weeks since her dad took her to Arby’s and stole food. Since then, she’s eaten small freezer pizzas or stale cheese sandwiches. Three nights she didn’t eat anything at all because no one told her to. The actors who play her parents have been working really hard on their fight scene. They replay it every night and the husband character is working on his improvisation. Sometimes she hears the sound effects—the slaps and kicks and breaking things. He’s really coming along for a guy who only has nights to rehearse.

  Even on Saturdays, he leaves for work at five in the morning, which gives her mother time to practice lines between rehearsals. Loretta thinks maybe she’ll take her mother to the laundry room to wash sheets today. But when she goes into the living room, her mother isn’t there. She’s not in the kitchen area either. Loretta checks her parents’ bedroom door and it’s open a crack. She presses her body against it so she can walk in but something is blocking the door. She pushes harder and it doesn’t budge.

  “Mom?”

  No answer.

  “Mom?”

  She pushes harder. Whatever’s blocking the door isn’t hard like furniture. It’s soft. Loretta presses again. She hears a low moan.

  “Mom? Wake up. Mom?”

  Nothing. The door is only open about an inch. Loretta can’t see in. She gets on the floor and wiggles her fingers in the crack that’s open and tries to feel what’s in the way. She feels hair.

  “Mom?”

  Nothing. No moan. Nothing.

  Loretta sits in the hallway with her back against the door. She doesn’t want to push too hard, but if her mother is what’s blocking her entry, she knows she needs to get in. Could be a pile of laundry. Could be a bag of trash. Could be my mother.

  This was not in the script.

  She braces her legs on the opposite wall and presses her back into the door. No sound. A little movement. She rocks until the door is open a few more inches. And she finds what she knew she would find.

  * * *

  There’s always a surreal moment before dialing 911. A moment when you think you should do something else. A moment when you think it’s all a joke or a mistake or maybe you’re just not seeing things right.

  Loretta squeezes through the bedroom door and leans over her mother. She turns her on her side. Listens for breathing. Barely there. But there. Barely.

  “Mom?” She shakes her. “Mom, wake up.”

  There’s always a moment before calling 911 when you don’t see anything but the foreground. You don’t think to look for weapons or evidence of an intruder. You only see fleas jumping and Loretta marvels at how high they bounce and how she wishes she could catch a few and train them. Add them to her troupe. She thinks of Gerald and how he’ll feel replaced and how low his self-esteem already is. Poor little guy will never get out of his father’s shadow.

  There’s always a moment before calling 911 when you think you’re the one in trouble. You think you’re doing something wrong. Your life is wrong if you have to call 911. Your thinking must be faulty.

  “Mom! MOM! I’m calling nine-one-one. If you’re okay, show me so I don’t have to call them.”

  No movement. Barely breathing. Fleas jumping. Did one of them just flip? Do they think this is open audition?

  There’s always a moment before you call 911 when you think this must be your fault. You overslept. You ditched school last Wednesday. You burned that blue dress and maybe when they come and look for evidence they’ll find it in ashes, in the corner of the lot. Maybe they’ll think you’re the problem, not the mother barely breathing on the bedroom floor, not You-know-who.

  You’ve heard them on TV. Those 911 calls. The callers are always so desperate and crazy. You don’t want to be one of those. You want to be calm. You want to express your concern and not seem like you come from a place like this. A place where you know you have to call 911.

  Loretta shakes her mother one last time and looks at her face. Pale. Bruised. Bitten. Drawn sad like a clown in the center ring, waiting to be cheered up by the next act.

  Loretta knows her lines. She’s practiced them. She dials the phone. “Hello?” she says. “Nine-one-one? We have an emergency.”

  Audience sits motionless. Loretta’s improvisation has always been impressive.

  Marla Still Believes Blood Is Sacred

  Marla has a secret. She’s had it since 1962 or 1970, depending on how you look at it. That’s a long time to have a secret. It’s a long story, and she never finds the time to tell it. It’s a mix-up and a solution at the same time.

  Fact: If Marla’s mother hadn’t done what she did in 1962, Marla wouldn’t be alive right now and she would have never married Gottfried and they would have never had five beautiful babies and they would have never had such success in real estate and they wouldn’t have this house and they wouldn’t have the money they do.