I actually find them more comfortable than normal dress shoes, although the heels take getting used to. Just don't wear them in remotely adverse weather. Although if you slip and fall, you'll look cool doing it.

9: Gary – A Pleasant Interlude 

One time my Uncle Gary sprayed me with a hose. Another time I watched him sit and drink a Pepsi. Never saw him do anything else ever. Would only see him these two times. But I told myself he would protect me. He was family. 

On the day he sprayed me with a hose he had been released from prison. My grandmother spotted him in the back of my mother’s car when she came to pick me up for a weekend visit.  

“Is that Gary”, she asked. 

“He needs a place to stay”, my mother explained. 

We all knew why he had gone to prison, even though we really didn’t know. No one ever talked of Gary. A dark secret in a family that normally loved how dark their secrets were. 

He had only been 14 when he did whatever he had done. I think took a boy living next door. Burned his hands on a radiator. Hung him with a belt in front of my cousin who was the boys friend. Then let him go home with his burnt hands and his purple neck and face red from screaming. 

He was arrested within the hour. Was disappeared from the time he was 14 to the time he was 21. No one talking about him. No one visiting him. God knows what happening to him. God knows what making him worse. 

But we weren’t really sure what happened. 

“That’s all I’ve been able to find out, but who knows what’s true and what isn’t in that family”, my father would say when speaking of this boy who he had always liked the best of all The Brothers. “It’s probably true though. Honestly, it's probably worse. When I think about all the things he used to tell me, I’m surprised he never killed someone” 

Gary and my father would spend late nights in fields drinking beer where my father was much older and had to buy the beer for this tiny child who was already balding. Sometimes they’d talk about robbing people and shooting whoever tried to get in their way. Sometimes Gary would talk about how he raped his sister. Or maybe that he just wanted to. 

“You can’t trust anything these people say. Who knows if that even happened. But it might have. I think a lot of people supposedly raped Sharon” 

But all I knew of Gary was him spraying me with a hose in a backyard and it being a good memory. Not thinking about all the things he had supposedly done. Probably not understanding them. Just remember him smiling and laughing and seeming happy out in the sunshine and all that water making everything wet. 

Years later, when I saw him for the last time, it was different. He never moved. Was just sitting on my Other Grandmother’s couch, staring at a wall and drinking Pepsi and looking sad. Never going anywhere or saying anything. His only home being this couch when he wasn’t in prison, which he always seemed to be just getting out of. The last time because he and his blind girlfriend impersonated a cop. Gained entry to someone’s house and stole their Royal Dalton figurines. Got arrested with the hour, but now was out again and on this couch and drinking this Pepsi. 

As I walked through those wet fields, and over those hills towards my home, I thought of Gary. Or at least as much as these two memories would allow. Thought about how such a person could help me. Wishing for a way for the Skinhead to know exactly what kind of company he’d just got mixed up in. That all I needed was to make one phone call. To this tiny little man on his mothers couch. Drinking soft drinks and haunted by his memories of nearly killing a child. Or maybe just sadness over never raping his sister. 

Who really knew with Gary. But I knew he could help me as I thought to myself all alone during those walks home. Shivering in my boots. Growing wetter by the second. 

11 

Who was I kidding? I wasn’t calling Gary for nothing. I didn’t even have his number. And those punches my Uncle Evan had taught me in the living room when I was a kid weren’t any good either. He wasn’t even really a vampire. I had only been punching a couch cushion and he never really thought I was knocking anyone out anytime soon, even though he kept saying he wanted credit if I ever managed to beat anyone up. 

“That's my fist you’ll be hitting them with”, he was always boasting, “And for Christ’s sake, don’t put your thumb inside it!” 

But that didn’t stop me from hoping these were what kept the skinhead away. How I knew secret people who did terrible things. That I had vampire fists I could scrunch up hard and tight whenever threatened and smash faces with like they were the chipped and bony edge of a tombstone.  

Somehow, the skinhead knew just by looking at me, dressed in the old rain and tobacco stench of my jean jacket, and the clomp of my father’s cowboy boots, that shooting me in the stomach would be a bad idea. That he didn’t have a chance, even if I bled out in that school parking lot. That whatever blood might pour from the hole in my guts would only be the beginning. Something he would have no control over still to come. Coming to settle scores from a dingy couch. Or from beyond the grave. Something that didn’t even need to be true to be appear dangerous. That could be read in the bad poetry I had scribbled all over the sleeves of my jacket. 

But every day, as I left for school, I would worry that maybe today would be the day my luck was up. That he might finally see there was actually no one there to save me. And sometimes my father would ask me as I was leaving if I had sorted out my problem yet. If he could have his roll of quarters back. Never suspecting it was Gary I was fantasizing of coming to my rescue. Not him, even though these were his weightlifting in the basement years. Walking around the house shirtless, like he was something real tough.  

Maybe he was expecting me to ask for his help. But I knew he was no good either. I had seen him when the cracks started to show. When the doorbell would unexpectedly ring and it was my friends. Watched him run and hide from them and sometimes even helped clear his path of chairs to let him get away faster. Forever terrified he would be seen. Scurrying into other rooms. Squeezing behind doors. Not moving a muscle until whatever parade of dorks I had allowed into the house had left. And he could start strutting around the kitchen shirtless again. Flexing his muscles. Pretending he could beat up some kids if only I ever asked him to. 

SUMMER YESTERDAY, SUMMER TODAY, SUMMER TOMORROW 

I remember plans to look at clouds tomorrow and being excited in bed thinking of what I might see. That it could be anything.  

My grandmother had given me the idea and I had written it down on a list of things I should do.  

It read:  

12. Clouds. 

Number 11 had been Treasure. Had come up with that one of my own. 

I remember that whole day digging up golden coins. The ones I had buried in backyard holes the day before. Golden coins that were gold buttons I stole from my grandmothers knitting bag. Still remembering where they all were the next day and able to dig them up fast.  

I remember not being able to wait. Eager to be rich and to get all the stuff I needed. The materials needed to construct a robot. To pay Italian contractors to build a giant backyard rollercoaster. To write a cheque for the prosthetic severed head I saw for sale in the back of a magazine. To get all of it. To get everything. 

So eager, I didn’t even wait for the rain to stop. Pushing my hands down into the mud and pulling them out with my fists. Golden coins. Dozens of them. Exactly where I put them.  

No one had been watching like I had worried. Nothing stolen and all of them for me. At least until my grandmother got wise and rushed outside into the rain. Remembering her at the kitchen sink and washing them beneath the tap. Before they could be put to good use. Turning them back to buttons. 

But it was okay. Summer was safe. Many more days to spare. Still had my list to remind me about clouds and could just lay there thinking about how many of them there was going to be tomorrow. How I was going to look at all of them. Figure each one out. Fill the sky with robots and rollercoasters and prosthetic heads and the kind of things that were much too expensive for a boy my age to ever call his own. But that he could maybe see up in the sky and claim as a constellation, if he just lay in the grass long enough.  

If he was just clever enough.  

Tomorrow. 

2: Richard and JR and the Bird 

Richard spelled egg with an e on the end and was somehow in the smart kid's class. JR was a freckled kid who always seemed to be wearing a woolen winter cap and somehow lost a baby-tooth every day for a whole year. No kid ever had more teeth fall out. Had jars full of them on his dresser. 

They were brothers. 

One day they peeked over my fence while I was skating in my backyard rink. They had small heads and lived across the street. Were in younger grades so not worth talking to but crawled over the fence anyways and were soon sliding across my ice in their boots. 

I didn’t want them there and went inside as soon as they got too close. Left them out there in the backyard, but they didn’t stay there. Climbed back over the fence to appear at the front door. And every day after school after that. At our door and ringing our doorbell and getting Murphy barking. Me telling them I couldn’t come out with the door open just a crack. The snarling mouth of a Yorkshire Terrier poking out where my feet should be.  

But they wouldn’t go away. Richard constantly talking about trains. JR constantly wiping his nose. Me closing the door and them just staying there.  

They followed me to school and looked for me during recess. Kept close. Were always around and at that age, when you find someone standing next to you enough times, you eventually forget they aren’t actually your friends and start calling them friends.

Maybe start hanging out with them.

Good to have around when you keep getting into fights with your other friends and no one your own age is hanging out with you anymore. 

Richard and JR’s parents were getting a divorce and they cried a lot. I told them my parents were never even together at all and never cried about it once. Well, maybe one time, but it wasn’t so bad.  

Told them I was sure they’d get used to it as we hung out beneath their backyard porch. Crouched down in this place we barely fit. Giving them tips on how to have a good life without any parents at all and then throwing gravel at each other. Handfuls of it until one of us jumped up and bumped our head and started crying. 

Usually me, because I was tallest. 

One morning they found a dying bird on their lawn in a rainstorm. Cats were everywhere and they didn’t know who else to come to, to help save it. Rang my doorbell. Got Murphy barking. Got me outside looking down at the bird on their lawn in my rain jacket. 

We took the bird with us beneath the porch where we took turns holding it against our chest. Its eyes and beak shiny even in the shadows. Could feel it breathing heavily. Passing it between us, around and around. Taking our turns holding it tight, thinking we might save it if we just could love it enough. Loving it very hard and telling it it wasn’t dying. Loving it until its head suddenly fell off and rolled into the gravel.  

Not a drop of blood. Fell off clean. Lay there between us looking up. Shiny eyes and shiny beak just as shiny as they’d ever been. 

The rain was dripping down and all three of us were crying. We had never all cried at the same time before, usually taking turns. But this time we all cried just as hard as each other. Drowned each other out and made a horrible noise. Cried until we couldn’t help it and started laughing. And laughed and laughed until we couldn’t help it and started throwing the bird head at each other. Bouncing it off our foreheads. Losing it in the folds of our jacket. Chasing each other out into the rain with it. Throwing it as far as we could. Crawling around in our neighbors wet grass trying to find where it landed.  

Until we lost it and went home. 

4: They Live in the Ceiling, They Die in the Sink 

Baby mice. Looking like pink chewed-off pencil erasers all over the kitchen floor. My mean cat knocking them all over the place. Can barely tell the living from the dead. Don’t know where to put them or how to save them. Cover them with teacups to keep the cat away. Let them die of something different in the dark. All of them dead when I peek underneath the next day. 

Bald baby mice raining from the ceiling. Every day more of them. No tea cups left in the cupboard. Trying to keep them safe even when I know my cat must have already got a tooth in them. Even when I can’t see the hole, the cat always getting to them first. Can hear them when as soon as they hit the floor. A sound too tiny for my ears. 

“I haven’t saved one”, I tell my girlfriend. Washing the dishes. “Not one”. My hands barely register how hot the water is. Filling the kitchen with steam. Also the squeaks of drowning and boiling mice rising from somewhere beneath the pile of dishes. Wondering what that sound is as I rinse plates with my red hands. Not knowing they are down there until the sink is empty of everything but their damp grey bodies. 

I’m filled with sadness when I realize what I’ve done. Go to bed early. So much tragedy for one kitchen. Think maybe I killed their parents when the baby mice slow to a trickle. The ones fucking in the walls. Suddenly less and less of them to leak through the hole in the ceiling. Nothing left alive to drip down to the floor. Nothing for my cat to stick its teeth in. All my teacups back in the cupboard, filling with dead spiders. 

Whenever my upstairs neighbours see me outside they sing the praises of our murderous cat.  

“He’s The Beast. A real mouser, isn’t he? Don’t think I’ve seen any for days” 

I nod. Let him take all the credit.  

BEDBUG IMPERIAL

 flaldld 

Every city has other places you can go live instead. Places other than where you’re already at. They're out there. All over the place. You can find them in the newspaper. Full of phone numbers you've got to call to talk to strangers so you can meet them out on the sidewalk. They’ll bring the keys. Give you a good look at what your new life might suddenly look like.  

Sometimes there are floor drains in the kitchen. Sometimes the shower is cement and painted the color of oxblood. Sometimes you can already hear people fucking in the ceiling. Sometimes you can’t believe how big a rat turd can be.  

Sometimes it’s so big it gets you wondering how many it would take to completely fill a sink. How many rats would have to shit there to do something like that?  

Gets you wondering if this is where you should move?  

If this is the right place to start everything all over again?  

qyoodkkdoq 

But I didn’t die. 

I didn’t even know how to put my couch together.  

I didn’t even have a couch. 

It was a futon, in pieces on the floor. 

I just lay there on the floor looking at it. 

Staying alive even without any carpet. 

Without the kind of hands that could put a futon back together. 

On a floor forever, which was okay. 

But then suddenly realizing how to do it. 

That putting a futon together was easy! 

Jumped up in excitement.  

Destroyed my back. 

Lay on the floor, not putting it back together for a couple more days

But at least now knowing how. 

zodldodiql 

I ran into my ex on the street after work and screamed at her in front of a McDonalds.  

Her new boyfriend wants to know when I’m going to pick up my big dresser. The one that won’t fit in my new place because it’s too big. 

She says he had plans for the bedroom before he got there and he’s getting frustrated. And as long as it’s there he can’t put the bed where he wants it to go.  

I ask her if she knows how many apartments in the city didn’t have my dresser in it. 

She doesn’t answer so I tell her fucking all of them. 

I tell her to go move to one of those. 

I keep yelling and can remember the look of every face that walked by us. 

Then get on a streetcar and continue on my way home.  

It’s stupid far. 

aprupjfaAGJP 

I’m the bait. Try not to move around too much. Shouldn’t take my blood so far away they have reason to come looking for it. Don’t want to lure them into the other room. The one with all my good stuff that I never see anymore.  

Got to stay in this room where everything has already been thrown away. This is where I want to keep them. This is how I’ll control it. Laying on my mattress all day, waiting for them to come out. Set my alarm so I never sleep longer than one hour. Just enough time to be surrounded but not quite long enough to find myself covered in them.  

Think only of them in my bright room with the lights always on. Then go right back to sleep after murdering as many as I can. Hoping to lure some more out. Need to kill them all before morning. Take off all my clothes to make myself really tempting. 

Laying there naked I can hear them beneath me. Know what they are doing. Have read all about their mating habits and can nearly hear the females screaming. Tell myself they deserve whatever I do to them.   

I can kill them now without thinking. Just got to move quick when I’m awake and not worry about it. Get them before they slip back into the mattress. They can tell when you open your eyes and immediately start to run away. Run slowly but there are so many of them. Can never get them all, but the ones I get I make sure are dead. 

I’ve got tissues nearby to squeeze them in. They make a popping sound between my fingers when they die and the tissue fills with my blood. Make the same sound when they explode all on their own without me even touching them. Sometimes getting so fat on what they drink while I’m sleeping I open my eyes to see them barely able to move. Sloshing back and forth until they burst everywhere. Making me laugh, even though I know what just exploded was mostly me. 

My mattress is turning brown with dried blood. 

I no longer care what it must feel like to be crushed in my hand. 

Sfj00fja0j0dnpsg[nggs[ndjig0j9e0j9spj 

At night I can hear a little man laughing and hooting along to his music. Having a really good time on the other side of the wall. Sitting on his floor, now with nothing but a radio in his apartment. 

Hear him hooting and laughing and covered in bug poison and not seeming to care about any of this. 

Somehow already knowing the poison doesn’t stand a chance and finding something very funny about it.