Winning stories 2017

1. Trading for Diamonds by Julie Wise-Andrews

Scottsdale, Arizona 1989

I’m pretty sure I’m in trouble when I see Dad’s black Suburban pull up in the church parking lot. Mom sits next to him in the passenger’s seat. Dad never picks me up from anything. I can see that their faces are serious as I walk up to the car.
    “Both of them? We’re in trouble,” Mandy says, echoing my thoughts as she flips her blond hair out of her coat collar with a perfectly manicured hand. “They must have already called our parents. So stupid.” 
Our youth group leaders are keeping their distance from us over by the church van. The ride home from the ski mountain was colder than snow. None of the other youth group kids would talk to us. We weren’t allowed to ride back to Scottsdale in the other van with the guys, which is fine with me. I’m pretty angry that Matthew and Duncan didn’t get in trouble. Nobody wants to mess with Duncan. His mom is the mayor of Scottsdale, and their family is one of the biggest donors to the church. The group leaders searched our room instead and found Mandy’s tequila. If they had gone through Matthew’s room, they would have found the epic stash of weed the boys were smoking on the ski lifts all weekend. 
Dad gets out of the car and takes my skis from me. He loads them into the back of the Suburban. I hand him my bag and my boots, and after he sets them down, he turns and hugs me tight. Something is definitely up. I don’t think Dad has hugged me since I turned thirteen two years ago. 
 “Get in the truck, honey,” he says. “We’ll talk on the way home.” 
Mom clears her throat after Dad pulls out of the church parking lot. “We need to tell you something. There isn’t an easy way to say it, so I’m just going to tell you. Royce died this weekend.” 
I laugh. Royce is my best friend Traci’s stepdad. “No way. I just saw him the other morning. He drove us to school. He was joking with us.” 
Why would Mom say such stupid words that can’t be true? 
Royce didn’t come home last night. Mom thinks he’s going to kill himself. That’s what Traci said on Friday morning. It was so out of the blue, I laughed, just like now. Traci laughed too. I didn’t see her for the rest of the day, and then I left for the ski trip. I forgot until now. 
 I feel punched in the stomach. 
“Did he kill himself?” I ask. The words are surreal coming out of my mouth. 
Mom takes a sharp breath. “Yes. How did you know that?” 
“That’s what Traci’s mom said when he didn’t come home on Thursday night. We thought it was a joke. They always fight when Royce tells Deb she can’t have something she wants.” I stare out the window as we drive up Tatum Boulevard. It’s dark now, and light shines out of the tall windows of mansions on the rocky slopes of Camelback Mountain. We’re silent for a few minutes. “How?” 
“What?”
“How’d he do it?” I ask. 
“He…” Mom stops. 
“How?” I can feel Mom weighing how much to tell me. 
“With a gun,” Dad says, glancing over his shoulder at me in the backseat. 
“In their house?” I don’t know why it matters. 
“No. In the desert. After he dropped you girls off at school on Thursday.”
Thursday. I was tired that morning. When Royce pulled up to our house in their green Cadillac, Traci was sitting in the front seat. The shotgun seat. 
I’m shaking. I’m not cold, so it doesn’t make sense that I’m shaking like this. I look at the back of my hand. The streetlights shine on my skin through the window. Then darkness, then light again, a pattern back and forth almost like stripes, faster when Dad speeds up, slowing when he brakes to stop at a red light. 
“Are you all right?” Mom asks. 
“I’m fine.” I don’t know what I am. Dad’s profile shines in the light of the oncoming cars. My dad is here. He isn’t dead. Traci’s dad is dead. I guess I’m not in trouble for the tequila-boys-ski-trip situation. My stomach turns. I grab onto the handle on the door. 
“Can I call Traci? Is it okay to talk to her?”
“We can take you over there. Jessica is over at her house right now. She’s been there most of the weekend.” 
Of course she is. The three of us are always together. Church youth group is the only time when I do stuff without my best friends. Jess and Traci aren’t into church. 
“I guess we should go,” I say.
Royce. The only Dad Traci has ever known. Tall, always smiling. Dead. 
You girls are quiet this morning. That’s what he said, driving us to school.
When we pull up to Traci’s house, her circular driveway is filled with cars. It looks like every light is on in the house. 
“Will you come in with me?” I ask my parents. 
“Sure,” Mom answers. “We were here most of the morning.” 
“It’s a circus in there,” Dad mutters under his breath as he climbs out of the car. We moved to Scottsdale three years ago from Minnesota. My dad thinks everything is a circus. The flash of the nouveau riche offends his Midwestern sensibilities.
Besides, it’s always a circus at Traci’s house. Her sister Jamie is the president of the senior class and a member of our high school sorority. There’s always crazy stuff going on, like kids building the Homecoming float on the Landry’s tennis court in the backyard or hot football players eating Royce’s BBQ by the pool.
Their mom, Deb, is gorgeous but crazy, a total climber, and she’s making sure her daughters grow up in the center of everything. She grew up on a reservation somewhere, but when she was a teenager, she ran away to California and married Jamie and Traci’s real dad who made her into a model. He disappeared after Traci was born, and Deb married Royce who’s richer than God and spoils everyone rotten. Spoiled, I guess. Past tense now.
Dad doesn’t even ring the bell when we get to the front door. We walk into their large, circular foyer. Tons of framed family pictures sit on the round marble table in the center of the domed room. I can see into the great room filled with people I don’t know. Food is everywhere, and everyone holds a glass of wine or some other drink. It looks like a party except there isn’t any music, and no one is smiling. Mom leads me in by the arm. 
“The girls are probably up in Traci’s room. That’s where they were most of this morning,” she says. “Go ahead. I’ll tell Deb that you’re here.”
I’m heading up the stairs when a shriek splits the silence. Deb comes stumbling into the room dressed in a long black velvet dress. Her face is hidden behind huge black sunglasses even though it’s nighttime.  She walks like she’s drunk, and she bumps into the table with all the pictures. When one of the frames falls over, she picks it up and holds the picture of Reid up to her face. Then she throws the picture to the floor, crying.
“Fuck you, Royce,” Deb slurs as she cries. She falls into the wall. A bunch of people help her into a chair. 
Dad was right. This is a circus. 
“She’s been like that since the police came on Friday and told her. She’s taking fifty pills a day,” Jessica says from the top of the stairs. “Come on. Traci’s up here.”
“Is Traci like that?” I ask as I follow her down the familiar white-carpeted hallway. 
“No. She’s sad like a normal person,” Jess answers. “Sorry. Is that bitchy?”     “I don’t know,” I answer. “I don’t know anything at all.”
When we walk in the room, Traci is sitting on the floor by her stereo. Albums are scattered around her.
“Hi,” I say, standing stupidly near the door. 
“Hi. I’m supposed to be picking out music for the memorial service. How about this one?” Traci says, holding up AC/DC’s Highway to Hell album. “Just kidding.” 
I walk over to her and sit on the floor. “I’m so sorry about Royce. Are you ok?” 
As soon as I say his name, her face crumples into sobs. I grab her and pull her into me. Jess sits next to us and puts her arms around both of us as we all cry. “I’m sorry, Traci. I’m so sorry. What can I do?” I rush out the words through tears. 
“No one can do anything,” she says. “I just don’t understand. I don’t understand.” 
We sit like that for a long time, hugging and crying. Traci pulls away first and dries her eyes on the sleeve of her pink cashmere sweater. “I don’t know where all the tears come from. You’d think I’d run out.” 
“I don’t think it works like that,” Jessica says. 
“No, it doesn’t,” Traci turns to me. “How was the ski trip? Did you hook up with Matthew?” 
“No, Mandy and I got busted with tequila.” I look into her face. Her eyes are red and swollen, but she’s beautiful, my sweet friend. Carat diamond earrings sparkle from her ears. Royce gave her those earrings for Christmas this year. I was so jealous. “We really don’t have to talk about my ski trip, Traci.”
“I’d rather talk about your ski trip than my dead dad.”
Traci had so many presents under her tree this year, each wrapped professionally with rich-looking paper and big velvet bows. Later, Traci told me that most of those wrapped boxes were empty. Deb wanted to make sure it looked like they were all getting everything they wanted and more.
Have a good day. See you tonight, honey. 
Those were his last words as we got out of the car. 
What a liar.

***
    

Mom makes me breakfast the next morning. She doesn’t ask me about the ski trip, which is rare. Mom always wants to know everything about me: where I go, whom I’m with, when I’ll be home. She’s not like Jessica’s mom who throws money at her to make her go away. I have to really work to pull off as much crazy shit as I do.  
    “Traci’s going to be living with us for the next couple weeks,” Mom says as she puts pancakes onto my plate and sets the syrup on the table.
     “Because Deb’s such a mess?” I ask. “I’m surprised Deb doesn’t hire someone. Can’t she buy someone to manage her kids? She buys everything else.”
    “Don’t be rude, Julie,” my mom warns. “That family is going through the most awful thing I can imagine.” Mom clears her throat like she always does when she has to say something unpleasant. “There isn’t any money. They’re broke except for the insurance money, and there’s a chance they won’t get that either.” 
     “What? You’re crazy, Mom. How can they be broke? They have everything.” 
    Except Royce. 
    Mom makes herself busy around the kitchen island. “They don’t have anything, actually. The house and the cars will be gone by the end of the week. Most everything was paid for with credit that can’t be paid off.” She stops moving and leans back against the fridge. “Not everything is how it seems. You should learn that.”
The house with the tennis courts. The Laura Ashley dresses. Vacations and toys, manicures and spa days. All the things that made me feel bad for how much I wanted my parents to be cool like hers.
Mom continues. “And Royce thought that his family cared more about having the insurance money than having him alive. That’s the most tragic thing I can imagine, Julie. Think about that when you’re bugging me for new skis and diamond earrings.”

***

A week later, I hold onto Jessica’s arm as we walk down the aisle. Matthew, Duncan, and the rest of the guys are sitting behind us wearing black suits and black Vans. Most of the school is here. Traci and Jamie sit with Deb and the extended family in the front pew. Deb’s crying hard, but nothing can smudge the permanent makeup that is tattooed on her eyes. Mom and Dad, solid and serious, hold hands a few rows in front of me. Reverend Stanley waits near the pulpit. The sunlight shines through the stained glass and casts strange colors on the white cloth draped over the closed casket.
     When the service is over, I watch Traci’s face as she walks down the long aisle holding onto her sister’s arm. I can usually read her mind, but I have no idea what she’s going through now. She’s tough one moment, even laughing. Then, she’s on the floor, crying in my closet. She hasn’t been back to school yet. 
The service at the gravesite is a blurred, mind-numbing mess of tears and too-bright sunshine and hugs. Then, hundreds of people drive to Traci’s house for one last party before the bank takes everything on Monday. The sun sets over the city view that stretches out past the back yard. Someone hired caterers who set up long tables of food outside, and a uniformed bartender stands behind the makeshift bar on the patio. People eat and drink and laugh too loudly. Matthew goes to get us some drinks. I wander through the house, looking at more pictures of Royce that sit next to lit candles on every flat surface. 
Jessica puts her arm around me, and she picks up a picture frame. In this one, Deb and Royce stand with Jamie and Traci in front of the Eiffel Tower. Jamie’s sweet sixteen. She took friends to Paris for her birthday. Traci’s been planning to bring me and Jessica when it’s her turn next year. Jessica and I hug and cry until the shoulder of my silk party dress is soaked with her tears. Matthew comes up behind us with tears in his eyes too.
“Get a room, you two,” he tries to joke. We wipe our eyes, and he bear-hugs us. 
“Check out the party,” Matthew says, staring outside as half of the high school and their parents mingle around the back yard, looking out of the city lights. “Cheers, Royce,” he says, downing his spiked drink in one gulp and grimacing. 
“I’ve got to get out of here,” I say. I look across the yard to where Deb is holding onto Traci to stay standing. Traci looks down at her shoes as her mom points a long red fingernail in her face, berating her about something I can’t hear. “And we’ve got to get Traci away from her mom. She’s totally out of control.”
“Michael’s old place,” Matthew says. Michael is our buddy, and his house is just down the mountain. We all nod. “I’ll get the others.”
A few minutes later, I’m in Matt’s truck. Michael follows us with Traci, Jessica, and Duncan. We park down the street in the shadows of tall, old trees. Michael’s house isn’t really Michaels’s house anymore. His parents sold it a few months ago when they went bankrupt and had to move into an apartment. No one else has moved in yet, though.
“Is this a good idea?” I ask.
“Probably not,” he answers. “But screw it.” He grabs a plastic bag out of the dash and tucks it into the inner pocket of his dark suit. He waits as I climb out of his truck, and we walk across the shadowy street, my tall heels clicking on the uneven pavement. We’re all quiet until we walk through the side gate into the grass. I slip my shoes off and feel the cool yard under my feet. The only light is the moon. Matthew takes a swig out of the bourbon.
“Did you steal that bottle from my house?” Traci asks. 
“Yes. Yes I did,” he answers solemnly. “I didn’t think your mom would miss it.”
“Please. I doubt she’s missed me yet,” Traci says. She reaches for the bottle. 
She passes it to me, and I take a big swallow. Lying on the grass, whiskey burning my mouth and a cigarette in my hand, I feel like I’m breathing for the first time in a week. No more standing around in the crazy-town of Traci’s house. No more stained-glass churches. Just cool desert wind that feels cold on my skin as lightning flashes against the mountain. The wind picks up, and I smell wet mesquite in the desert air. A winter storm is coming over the mountain. 
Traci is crying. Michael and Jessica sit on either side of her. She leans her head on Jessica’s shoulder. I’m crying too.
“What do you think happens when we die?” Traci asks. “Do you think we go somewhere? Or do we just stop?”
“What do you mean? Like heaven?” I ask, wiping my face with my hand. 
“Or hell,” Matthew says. I punch him in the arm behind Traci’s back. She doesn’t need to think about places like hell. 
“Heaven? I don’t know. Maybe. I hope so,” Jessica says.
“If there’s a heaven, do you think that Royce’s invited?” Traci asks. Her voice is small and shaky. 
“If there’s a heaven, do you think any of us are invited?” I ask, trying to make things lighter. 
Matthew thinks for a second, and then, he answers. “Yeah, I think so, Julie. We’ve fucked up, for sure. But we’re kids, you know? It’s a long life.” 
“Or maybe it isn’t,” I answer. 
“Or maybe it isn’t,” he echoes. Matthew leans closer to me and whispers. “But it’s not our choice. And you sure as hell can’t trade it for diamonds.”

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2. This is the life by Madévi Dailly

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I think that if I joined the circus, I would get lost and end up traveling somewhere I am not supposed to be at. I'd be standing at a dusty phone box in Marietta, Georgia with the boss in some place like Manassas, Virginia shouting down the line at me. The line would be bad and crackle and spit and I'd have to keep on feeding quarters into it. I would trace my finger down the scratches on the phone box and stare down at the gap in the sole of my shoe where my sock poked out and blame it on the timetable that made no damn sense. I would say things like ‘Yeah, I know, I'm sorry’ and ‘I'll be there, I promise’ but the boss would just shout and tell me to get my ass over there pronto or he'd give my job to somebody who actually wants it. The line would go dead but there'd be peach trees everywhere, big flowers smelling of summer and fat bees buzzing around them, scaring little children who would scream and run to hide in their mothers' skirts. It'd be a beautiful day in Marietta, Georgia and I could think about staying there for a week or two. There'd be a girl there who had a sweet smile and she could introduce me to her folks who run the grocery store and they could take me in for a while. I'd sleep in the attic and do odd jobs round the place and at night the girl and I would sit on the porch and count fireflies. We'd sip soda in cold glass bottles that we'd sneak from the grocery store and talk about the fine things in life like our dreams and aspirations. She would hold my hand right there on the porch and it would be small and warm around mine. She'd want to be a nurse or a schoolteacher and I'd want to join the circus but I would have blown it.

It would be a lot easier for me, I tell you, if I could travel by circus train if there is such a thing. The train could stop to pick me up in Marietta, Georgia on the way to Virginia. There'd be steam and loud whistles on the platform. I'd wish my loved ones would be there to hold me tight and say ‘Take good care of yourself you hear’ and ‘Don't forget to eat your greens’ and make me promise to write home even though no one really does that anymore. I’d wish Dad would hang out at the back with his gut out and his vague eyes and Momma would kiss me hard on both cheeks. The circus people would smirk at me through the windows of the train but I'd have to let her, or she'd make a face like she was angry at me.

But there would be no one there for me, just me on the endless platform. The train would be painted dark green on the outside with big gold letters that said "CIRCUS FANTASTICO”. I'd walk past dark, musky cars for the animals and climb onto he train without looking back. I'd have an old suitcase with a gash taped up on one side and not much inside of it. I'd put it down on the thin dirty carpet and flop down on the bunk with my hands under my head and think ‘This is the life’. The train would roll away with all those hands waving on the platform. Then my bunkmate would come in and tell me to get the hell out of his bunk and I would move because he'd have a moustache and a shaved head and arms that bulged out of his vest. But he'd be OK and after a while he'd call me ‘kid’. At night I'd lie awake staring out the window watching the beat of lights in empty stations passing us in the dark. Sometimes I'd think about the girl in Marietta, Georgia but there'd be nothing to do about it so I'd roll over and try to get some sleep.

I probably need to start thinking about an act because I don't want to be the guy who sells popcorn or peanuts or one of the traveling clowns. I want to do something important and dangerous like maybe the trapeze or the tight rope. I wouldn't have a wire because that would get in the way when I tumbled high above the crowd in my costume of feathers and silver. They would twist their necks back and say ‘He's going to fall!’ but their shouts and gasps would fade away in the dark. There would just be me and the rope and the heat of the lamps and the sweat between my fingers and the great empty space below. I would hear the swoosh of skirts in Marietta, Georgia as I pushed the girl higher and higher on a swing beneath the sweet peach tree. There would be the sound of her laughter cutting through the air and her small hands clutched around the ropes and the golden haze of her hair as it spun around her face. Everything would smell of grasses and honeysuckle, when I would be up on that rope, even the crowds and the dirt below.

There's nothing wrong with clowns but I don't know if I could make people laugh like that, laugh like they remember that the joke is on them and that they know all the sadness in the world. I guess you have to start somewhere so it would be OK if I was the guy who sells popcorn or peanuts for a while. The children would smile at me and say ‘Thank you, mister’ and maybe I could save the tips to help me pay for my costume. I would like that, ‘mister’, because for a minute I'd forget about my thin arms and the way the trapeze girls never look at me. It'd take a while to sew all the feathers on one by one for my costume so I'd have to be patient about getting up on that high rope.

I've never been in the circus before so I would probably join a small one to begin with. We wouldn't travel far, maybe just up and down the coast in our old green train with chipped gold letters. After a while I'd get sick of the bunk sticking into my shoulders and my ribs and the loud rattle of the cars. People would turn up and disappear in every new town, clowns and acrobats and bearded ladies and trained dogs and soon the howdies and g'nights would start melting into each other and I'd just learn to keep myself to myself. There'd be little fairs in little towns with big stars like THE

LARGEST PIG IN THE COUNTRY or THE BIGGEST PUMPKIN YOU HAVE EVER SEEN and before the show I'd walk around on my own with my hands in my pocket and my collar turned up, wishing I had a scarf. I'd watch the families with their fat smiling faces gone rosy in the cold. I'd watch the kids on the merry go round spinning round and round and up and down in happy oblivion. I'd watch the teenagers pressed against each other behind the tents with their breaths tasting of cotton candy. At night when I'd try to sleep I'd see the bright neon lights of the carnival pulsing against my eyelids and I would hear the pluck pluck pluck of a bass in my ears. I'd smell the acrid stench of beer and burned onions on my skin. The big tent would be small and wet. I'd crawl under the dirty canvas to sit on the wooden benches and taste the salty smell of horses and sawdust and mildew. There'd be one guy, a little person, a dwarf, who'd wear a cape but no shirt and he would eat fire. We'd climb up the ladder and sit on the trapeze and talk about whores and fireflies and drink cheap whisky from a flask. He'd be the closest thing I had to a friend. He would get off the train in the next town and I would never see him again.

I'd like the train to take us to the coast because I've never seen the ocean. I'd buy postcards with pictures of piers and Ferris wheels to send back home. We'd stop somewhere out of town and set up on a patch of yellow grass with rusty fencing near the tracks. The highway would arch and fold around us. There'd be the roar of cars and trucks and when the lights went off the tents would just look like broken toys in the corner of a playground. I'd try to tell my folks back home about the smell of horses and the strong man's moustache and the sadness of clowns but when I'd sit down to write I would only think about how bad the food was, how bad the pay was, how grey the ocean was. I'd think about the aches in my arms and the back of my legs and the broken things in my suitcase. I'd walk between the tents stepping on cans and plastic bags and climb over the fence where they keep the animals at night. I'd want to tell my folks about the camel, the stench of piss and shit around its legs, how it would raise its head to look at me in the dark. The camel would stumble up on its dirty legs and push towards me until its long neck reached over the fence. It would just be a shadow straining against that fence with steam coming from its nostrils and spit in its mouth and dark grey eyes opened up to the night. I would warm my hands on its stinking fur and we would stand there in the roar of the cars and trucks from the highway overhead. I'd want to tell my folks back home about the camel but I would never send the postcard and they wouldn’t understand it anyway.

The next day I'd know I was done. Luckily I wouldn't have gone that far. I would leave my broken suitcase on the train and walk into the nearby town. There'd be no peach trees, not there in that place with its grey empty streets and its still gardens. I'd forget about the rope, the rope high up above the crowds, I'd forget about the feathers sewn onto my costume one by one and about the camel and the lights, I’d forget about the girl in Marietta, Georgia and I would get on a bus, any bus, and not know where I wanted to go.

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3. All the horrors of the half known life by Joan Mathieu

Like right now, it all comes back to me -- the smell of dead crickets, the sound of Amber’s skull cracking. I remember I’d been thinking a lot about whirlpools that day. You know about whirlpools, right? How some fish linger near the bottom of these water tornadoes and all they have to do is open their mouths and inhale the small fish that get sucked down. Those are the smart fish. Those’re the ones that grow monstrous and haunt your dreams.

They’d issued me a walkie-talkie the size of a brick, and I had the whole day ahead of me, drinking my thermos coffee and watching the pine trees weep resin from their wounds. I had my own wounds. Nineteen years old, working a minimum wage job for the county, and failing in a very public way. I mean everybody I knew came to the park – old teachers, neighbors, camp counselors, and all those rich bitches from high school -- streaming by on their way to the beach. Laughing at me, you know, my ugly brown uniform, clodhoppers, and that stupid walkie-talkie. Being the park gatekeeper was only slightly less demeaning than operating an interstate tollbooth. I felt helpless. I needed to change. I needed to be somebody else.

And then it happened. A truck pulling a bass-fishing boat rolled up to the gatehouse. I stepped up to the window and, even before the driver rolled down the window, I became her. Sarah, my best friend in 5th grade. Sarah, who was pretty and kind and everything I was not. Instead of giving the fisherman his ticket in my typical gloomy silence, I waved and smiled – and it was easy because it wasn’t me, it was Sarah waving and smiling and saying, “Howdy!”

“You’re pretty chipper this morning,” he said.

“Maybe I should switch to decaf.” I sounded just like Sarah – or at least how she’d sound if she wasn’t dead.

The fisherman laughed. He was old, practically toothless and kind of gross, but I kept babbling at him like he was Leonardo DiCaprio. “So, um. Gunna get out there and catch some fish, huh?”

“What give me away?” he said. “The boat and tackle, I guess.”

“I’m pretty sharp like that.” I laughed and twisted my braids -- the way Sarah used to do, except she had golden hair and mine was shit-brown.

“Remind me, you’re a county rez?” I asked him.

“Pulling my leg? You know damn well I’m non-rez – heh heh.” His liver-spotted hand thrust three dollar bills at me. “Here you go, young lady.”

“Gee, thanks. Here’s your ticket. Catch a big one for me, kay?”

“I’ll sure try.”

I gave him a resident day pass, which only cost $2, and pocketed the extra dollar. That’s not what Sarah or, you know, decent people would do, but I needed gas money. I have to say it felt weird getting that fisherman to be so friendly with me. Most people steered clear of my sour face, so being Sarah kind of felt like a superpower.

I sat back down and thumbed through People, mostly looking at the photos, flipping through all the crap about the O.J. Simpson trial. Unlike the rest of the world, I was pretty bored with it all. About 8:30 my boss, Nick Grimsson, showed up, his truck barreling between the

pines. Nick was a Vietnam Nam vet and weirder than shit. He studied the ground when he walked like he was still looking for panji traps and trip boards, always whispering to himself, his red-rimmed eyes flitting up at the tree branches and back down to the ground. If he could help it, he never looked you in the eye.

He stopped his truck and rolled down the window, letting out the odors of a freshly lit cigarette and, if I had to guess, day-old semen. He had a black eye the color of a plum. He was clean-shaven, and wearing his softball shirt under his ranger shirt. Nick had a habit of getting drunk after ballgames and flirting with married women behind the bleachers. While I knew not to ask Nick about the black eye, Sarah didn’t.

“Gosh, Nick. Where’d you get that shiner?”

He looked out toward the lake, and rubbed his chin. “Fock it.” He coughed and spat out the driver-side window. “We got a new hire coming in. Amber something. She’ll do a little maintenance, and fill in for you and the like. When she gets here just, uh, send her down to the office.”

“Sure thing.”

Nick lived on a completely different plane of existence. You could almost hear the static in his head. Almost see the stray transmissions bending in and out like they did on my Dad’s old Zenith, carrying pictures of weird shit on a channel you could never tune in.

Nick hit the exhilarator and his truck growled down to the maintenance building – a cavern of galvanized metal sheets and reinforced concrete floor. This was the guts of the

operation: office, bathroom, and a bunch of park maintenance stuff like tarps, paint cans, utility ropes, tractors and utility carts.

I went back to my stack of People magazines, and spent a few minutes looking at pictures of people who died that year. Dean Martin, Orville Redenbacher, Burl Ives, Jerry Garcia. Pretty soon, Pete Conklin arrived in his Lincoln-Continental four-door convertible. He was a well- preserved 60-year-old, with a dyed black duck’s ass hairstyle and spotless white t-shirt. Always the same get-up. Typically, he’d drive by the gatehouse without a glance, but today as I was continuing my Sarah experiment by greeting him from the gatehouse porch, he hit the brakes and backed up.

“Wow, such a cool car.” That was a lie. I hated that car.

He grinned and handed me a pamphlet with a bloody, aborted fetus on the cover. I promptly handed it back to him. He did this with everybody he met, sort of on a constant basis like a nervous tick.

“This is gotta be the first time you smiled at me all summer.” He looked me over with his pinched, stupid face. “Thought you were this stuck-up brat. What happened?”

Pete was a compulsive masturbator – everybody knew it. But we all sort of felt sorry for him. He’d been written up for exposing himself to two female rangers in his 10 years working there. He’d been on his best behavior for a while, which was good because a third incident and he’d be fired. Nobody wanted that. Pete had five kids. Everyone figured it was bad enough they had a pervert Dad, but why make them destitute on top of it? Had I not turned into Sarah that day I would’ve never talked to pervert Pete. But Sarah had been a girl who took everyone at face value. Trusting. Always finding the good in everybody. Maybe that’s why she died.

For now, Pete channeled all his deviant behavior into that car. It had belonged to his mother, he said. He’d never had a father, so you had to figure she’s the one fucked him up. But who knows. Mostly all he cared about was that car, and overturning Roe v. Wade.

Pete pushed his eyeglasses up his nose. “Say, how bout I take you for a spin round the park sometime after work. I mean, what’s the harm?”

“Sure, sounds great,” I said, but thought never in a million years.
“So why the heck’re you so friendly all a sudden, Miss Snooty? You win the lottery or

something?”

I must have laughed or giggled or something because he just kept staring at me in wonder. Finally, he said, “Know what my mother would a called you? A keeper. And you’re a gate keeper. Get it?”

A car pulled up behind him, thank God, so I just waved at him, and he motored down to the maintenance building. About noon, the new girl, Amber, came up to the gatehouse on foot. Her Dad, I guess, had dropped her off. She was tall with curly hair, and a round face. She had skin the color of flour, and was kind of pretty in a 1940s pin-up sort of way. At the same time you could see she was roller rink trash and as dumb as any domesticated animal.

“Don’t you hate these uniforms?” I said, still in Sarah mode. “Makes me feel like Eva Braun or something.”

“Whatever.”
“So where’re you from?”

“California.” She began chipping red polish off her fingernails. “Have to stay with my Dad this summer. I hate it here.”

“Going to college or anything?”
“Yeah, like, I’munna be a brain surgeon.”

“Really?”

She looked me up and down like I was mentally defective. “No, jeez. I’m engaged. My boyfriend drives a Trans Am.”

“Sounds dreamy. In California?”

“Yup. He’s gunna come here and like save me from this shithole and my stupid asshole Dad.”

“This job isn’t bad, really. Except one thing.”

“What?”

“Well, this one ranger, Pete.” Normally, I wouldn’t say anything about Pete, but I wanted to keep him out of trouble, you know, for the sake of his kids. “Steer clear of him, ok.”

“Why?” Amber’s eyes got really wide, and suddenly she was interested in everything I had to say, which made me regret saying anything. “Just, uh, he will...he’s, you know, he’s been written up a couple times for... I don’t know. Misbehavior.”

“Like what kind of behavior?”
I really hated this girl. “Forget I said anything okay.”

“Yeah, well, whatever.” She jammed a stick of gum into her mouth and started chewing – like a cow. “I can take care a myself.” Chomp chomp.

That day, Pete came down to the gatehouse to talk to me (Sarah) about five times: at lunch, during his two breaks and as he was out checking the trails. It was that last time, when he came zooming up in the utility cart with Amber at his side that I knew things were going to go bad for Pete. I didn’t know what Amber’s angle was, but she was up to something. I’m very good at recognizing character defects. Like maybe she planned on suing the county for sexual harassment? Or wanted to get her kicks watching her boyfriend beat Pete up?

I was eight when my Mom, Bernadette Helen Mateo, went missing. Happened on Halloween. Sometimes, I wondered how I’d have turned out if she hadn’t.

An hour before sunset things got real quiet in the park. It was a Sunday night. I was listening to a blues channel on the radio and thinking, but not so much about whirlpools anymore. On his way home, Nick stopped by the gatehouse to collect the day’s receipts.

“You’re gunna show Amber how to lock up the park.”

“Sure thing.”

He gazed straight ahead as if he saw an army of ghosts darting in and out of the trees, and then, without another word, he hit the gas and sped away. A minute later, Pete crawled by in his Lincoln Continental. He gave me a thumbs up and shouted, “A keeper.”

God knows how I passed the time. I might have watched the spiders or read a book or something. Before long, a sulky-faced Amber came trudging up. The lake in the distance had turned dark purple, and it was close to dusk. Two small lights beamed out from across the water, where some kids were probably smoking dope in the cemetery. A single robin chirred from the blue pines into air that still smelled of burnt hot dog.

Amber, who was still chewing gum, stood there with her arms folded over her stomach. All the nail polish had been chipped away, and her hands were stained with yellow paint.

“Hi there,” I said, chirpy as hell. “Yeah.”
“Wanna get started?” “Whatever.”

After showing her how to lock up the gatehouse, we headed over to the bathrooms and concession, which reeked of Pinesol. We locked all the doors and headed back to the maintenance building.

“So now all we have to do is put away our walkie-talkies.”

By then it had gotten dark, and about all you could see were bats fluttering in and out of the blackness.

“So I saw you got stuck working with Pete,” I said.
“Yup.”
“How’d it go?”
“He never said or did anything, if that’s what you mean.” She seemed disappointed. “Okay good.”

“What’s his deal, anyways. Cuz that tall guy -- what’s his name?” “Nick.”
“Nick said something bout him, too.”
“Like what?”

“Like just ignore Pete, he’s harmless and that.”
“Did Pete give you one of those pamphlets?”
“Yeah. And like I told him about my boyfriend and he sorta clammed up.”

The light in the office burned behind a curtained window, but in the main warehouse, in the shadows, you could feel the big silent pieces of equipment, sharp objects and hazardous substances the OSHA manual had warned us about. What happened next, I can’t explain, except that some forgotten injury had swollen in the dark of my mind.

I told Amber to help me move the paint cans to higher shelves and roll up the tarp. The tarp was etched with yellow lines of paint and one of her boot prints. Sand sifted along the tarp creases as we dragged it across the floor. When she turned her back on me, I knocked her out with my walkie-talkie. The crack her skull made surprised me a little. And when she fell there was no sound. She fell right in the middle of the tarp, so it was easy to roll her up, same way I rolled Sarah up in that carpet in the room where they kept the big paper for cutting construction paper. The carpet spiraled around Sarah’s golden head. Amber had dark hair that sort of blended in with the tarp’s mud color. I found some nylon rope and bound up the tarp around her, and then I dragged her down to the mooring dock.

Here’s what happened. In 5th grade, Sarah stole Scotty from me. Scotty was a new kid, an exotic Southerner, skinny as a whippet, smoked cigarettes and had a glass eye – all the girls were crazy about him. Sarah stole him from me, just by being alive, you know, just by being Sarah. I guess you could make a case that Sarah died by accident. I mean, how was I supposed to know? But Amber was no accident.

The following day, after the toothless old fisherman’s lure got stuck on the tarp, they dragged Amber to shore. Nick radioed for me to call 911 and the sheriff. After they arrived with sirens blaring, I locked up the gatehouse and ran down to the lake. It was a beautiful day – blue sky, sparkling water and just hot enough to make you want to go swimming. A crowd of picnickers, dripping water and holding Frisbees and marshmallow sticks, had gathered around to gawk as the water pour out of the dead girl.

“Fock this.” Nick turned and looked right at me, and it was like he saw me in a way that no one ever had. And all the weird shit you try to understand, it was right there in his eyes.

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4. Old People by Zoe Downing 

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My Aunty Jan says there is no greater crime than hurting someone who can't defend themselves. She works at an old people's home in Matraville and she said that old people can't even feed themselves or go to the toilet without help, let alone defend themselves from a bad person. One of the old men she looks after got robbed by his own son. She said that the son made Mr. Patrick sign over his right to make decisions and once he’d done that he stole all of his money and belongings. I don’t understand how he managed to do it since Mr. Patrick is pretty much still all there. Well he did think I was his wife once, which is a bit weird since I'm only twelve and he's at least eighty but Aunty Jan said that sometimes, in order to cope with the fact that he needs someone to help him go to the loo, he transports his mind back to when he was happiest.

Sometimes I wonder what the old people Aunty Jan looks after were like before they got old. 

It’s really hard to imagine them being anything other than old, as if they’ve always had no teeth or could never quite hear what you were saying. It’s also really hard to imagine an old person being anything other than innocent. Like Mr. Patrick. Really, if you think about it he could have been a drug dealer when he was younger or even a murderer! 

My Sunday school teacher, Mr. Richards agrees with Aunty Jan. Once he said that there are two types of people who go straight to hell, those who hurt the elderly and those who hurt the young. 

I guess my step father Jeff is going to hell because he’s done both of those things. When I was younger, about six or seven, he hit me. He just came home from work one day, it was one of the days when mum and him had been arguing heaps, he just stopped and stared at me with a really weird look on his face and then slapped me. Mum wasn’t there when it happened, and I never told her. I was too embarrassed. 

Dad left when I was about two, good riddance my mum said. I don't remember him, although sometimes I think I do. False memories I think they're called, when you've heard a story so many times that you start to build a picture in your mind and then the next time you think about it you remember the picture you built before and then the next time it feels like a real memory. In my false memories dad doesn’t have a proper face, it’s like he’s too far away for me to see him properly. 

I have lots of false memories of mum crying when dad was around, but then I also have a lot of her crying from when he wasn't around anymore, and I think those are real memories. Mum said it was better without him,  just the girls, she’d say.  Before Jeff moved in. 

I told you Jeff had hurt an old person, well that happened about a year ago. He was with his buddy Craig. Craig is just as bad as Jeff, if not worse. They both smell the same, like stale cigarettes and beer and a cologne that either makes me want to puke or sneeze, I can never figure out which. Craig is always round our house, watching the footy and farting loudly. Jeff laughs at everything Craig says, even when it isn’t very funny, and especially when he farts. 

I don't think Mum likes Craig very much, even though I saw them kissing once. Well Craig was kissing mum more than the other way round. They were down by the side of the house where the bins go. Craig was leaving the house and he saw mum out there, he walked up behind her and put his arm around her waist, mum didn’t know he was there, I could tell because I saw her jump back in surprise when he touched her.  He turned her around and pushed her up against the wall.  I don't think she liked it very much, she tried to push him away but he’s so much stronger than she is. I watched them from my bedroom window and when mum came in to say goodnight she'd smelt like stale cigarettes and beer.

Anyway, about two months after that Craig and Jeff had hurt an old man. They’d knocked him over when he was alone at night and stolen his wallet. They hadn't been caught and they were pretty proud about that. Mum didn't know, she wasn't in the house when they were talking about it, but I was. I could hear them from my bedroom. We don’t live in a big place and my bedroom is right inbetween the bathroom and the living room.

Mum doesn't like old people.  Once she said to me, "Marianna don't let me get old, ok. I want to die before that happens." Sometimes I understand why she wouldn't want to get old but sometimes it doesn't seem so bad. Like Mrs. Gregg who comes into the shop where mum works. She must be at least ninety, her hair is really thin and white and she uses a walking frame. I serve her every weekend when she comes in to buy her lottery tickets and she always says the exact same thing to me. "You're a pretty young thing, what's your name dear?" I tell her my name is Marianna and she says it's a nice name and then she tells me to have a lovely day. She's a really nice old lady, I can't imagine her being a drug dealer or a murderer when she was younger! She’s obviously not quite all there but she always looks so happy which I think is the most important thing in life. My primary school teacher, Mr.Willoughby said that if you can be happy nothing else matters, but then I guess he also said Mathematics is your best friend so he’s not really that reliable.

Jeff and Craig are both tradies, I don't know exactly what they do but they drive around in utes and have toolboxes, sometimes they work together and sometimes they work with this other guy called Jon. I've only seen Jon once. He came to pick Jeff up for a job one morning. He has a really gross looking scar under his left eye. I asked Jeff how he got it and he said Jon got into a fight at the Palace Hotel and someone knifed him. He's a bad Cunt Jeff said. 

Jon runs scams on people who need work done on their house, he does some work but then charges them as if he did a lot more than he actually did. This is called fraud, we learnt about it at school.  

The worst part is that Jon has done this to Mrs.Gregg! I heard Craig and Jeff talking about it, they said that when Jon was at Mrs.Gregg’s house committing fraud he’d seen a safe in her room and he reckons that her husband was loaded and there’s probably something worth stealing in there. Jon’s planning on going back to Mrs.Gregg’s house and he’s going to try and open the safe and steal her belongings but Craig thinks that Jeff and him should get there before Jon and steal the stuff for themselves.                                                

When I was younger I used to hang around with this boy who lived next door called Jack. We always used to play together, our parents moved in next door to each other when they were pregnant with us and we were friends as soon as we were born. Sometimes we would run away from home together, we'd pack our bags full of sweets and then go down to the end of the road. When we got there we never really knew what to do next so we would just come home again. Once we’d got bored of running away we decided to become detectives and solve all the crimes happening in our street. They weren't real crimes, well if they were they weren't about very important things, like who took the last scoop of ice cream or who left muddy footprints by the back door. But now there's a real crime happening and I wish Jack was here to help me solve it. 

When we were eight Jack got locked in his car when his mum went to the shop. I don't know how but the car caught on fire and Jack couldn’t get out. Eventually the man from the 711 broke the window and rescued Jack but his face was really burnt. After that Jack and his mum moved away because his mum didn't like what people were saying about her and she wanted to go somewhere noone knew them. It's a shame because I think Jack would have really liked to help me save Mrs.Gregg from Jeff and Craig. 

It was a Monday when Jeff and Craig planned to rob Mrs. Gregg. I remember this because it was the day I was supposed to have a really big test at school. That morning I told mum I wasn't feeling well. I made my voice sound croaky and kept my eyes a bit closed so she would believe me, and she left me in bed whilst she went to work. 

When she'd gone I got dressed really quick and then got back into bed. I could hear Jeff snoring on the couch, he had got too drunk to even get into bed the night before. 

I lay there for ages thinking about my plan; when Craig came round to pick Jeff up I was going to follow them downstairs then sneak into the back of the ute and go with them to Mrs.Gregg’s house and when they went to break in I would call the police and then they'd definitely go to prison. 

I wondered if mum would be upset when Jeff went to prison or whether she'd be happy that it was just the girls again. Thinking about it being just me and mum again made me feel good, I almost forgot what I was supposed to be thinking about and nearly fell out of bed when Jeff’s phone rang. I think it made Jeff jump too because I heard him use the F word. 

I got out of bed and opened my door a tiny bit to hear what Jeff was saying. 

Mainly it just sounded like a lot of grunts but right before he hung up I heard him say, “no worries mate.” Then he muttered something about snoozing and losing as he walked past my bedroom.  I quickly shut the door and got back into bed.

It was a few minutes later that I heard the ute drive past outside, I don’t know how I didn’t hear Jeff leave the house but I suddenly realised that he must be going to Mrs. Gregg’s house now and I wouldn't be there to catch him and call the police!

 I ran downstairs as fast as I could and unlocked my bike. I pedalled really fast, probably faster than I ever had before, I even crossed the road without waiting for the green sign. I think it's ok to break those kind of rules when you're trying to save an old person. It's like the opposite of what Mr. Richards says about criminals going to hell, perhaps if I save Mrs.Gregg I’ll go straight to heaven. 

It was only when I’d got halfway up Bunnerong road that I realised I didn't actually know where Mrs.Gregg lived. Well I knew she lived in Chifley because I'd heard her tell mum in the shop. I kept cycling towards Chifley trying to imagine what Mrs.Gregg’s house would look like. It seemed like the kind of house that would have an overgrown garden because she can't bend down to do any gardening and there would probably be cobwebs on the walls. I started to think that after I save her from Jeff I could help her look after her garden. I was thinking pretty hard about Mrs. Gregg’s garden when I suddenly saw Jeff’s ute. 

It was parked between two houses; neither of them looked like the house I’d imagined to be Mrs.Gregg’s. 

I quickly got the camera out and took a picture in case I needed it for evidence. When I put it back I realised I had forgotten to bring my phone so I couldn't call the police! I felt a bit panicked, I thought about what Jeff and Craig did to that old man and I got nervous that Jeff might have hurt Mrs.Gregg as well.

The first house was red brick and it had grates over the window, kind of like a prison. I went up to the door but when I got close a massive dog jumped at the window. I don't like dogs and I didn't think Mrs.Gregg could have a dog like that so I thought she probably lived in the other house. 

 That house did look nicer, it was painted cream and had a brick wall around the garden and a green gate. At first I couldn't get the gate open, it had one of those latches that you have to hold up and either push the gate or pull it. I pulled for ages until I figured it was a push one. I crept up to look through the window in the door but when I leant on it it opened and I kind of tripped into the front room. The house smelt funny, like how the oxfam shop smells when mum takes me shopping there. By the wall there was a a big wood dresser with loads of photographs on, some of them had Mrs. Gregg in them with children who looked the same age as me and they were all wearing really colourful clothes, and looked really happy. Next to those there was one big photograph of a girl that looked like Mrs. Gregg and a man holding her hand, the photograph was a funny colour, like it had accidentally been put in the wash. I walked through the room as quietly as possible and looked into the living room. Mrs. Gregg was sitting down. She was in a rocking chair a bit like the one my Grandpa used to have, with wavy arm rests and when you lean back it feels like you might fall over but you don't. There was a ball of blue wool at her feet and she was holding a knitting needle. 

“Oh hello Marianna dear,” She said when she saw me. It was funny that she recognised me even though she never remembers my name when I'm in the shop. I was so happy to see she was all right, that at first I didn’t notice Jeff. 

He was lying down, I couldn't see his face because it was behind Mrs. Gregg’s rocking chair but I knew it was him because I recognised the boots he always wears. His arms and legs were at weird angles to his body and there was a blue piece of string hanging off his belly. When I walked around the chair I could see the piece of string was coming from his neck. It was wrapped around it really tight and the skin was all red and then I saw the grossest thing I'd ever seen, there was a knitting needle sticking out of Jeff’s eye!  

“Not a very nice man that one, is he dear.” I didn’t notice Mrs. Gregg standing next to me with her walking frame and she kind of made me jump.  She smelt like one of those purple things that mum puts on the wall to make the room smell nice and it calmed me down for a second but then she walked towards Jeff, really slowly with her walking frame, and when she got to his head she leant over and pulled the knitting needle out of his eye. It made a horrible noise, like how it sounds when the last of your bath water goes down the plug hole. There was blood and some other gooey stuff dripping from the needle, it went right into the carpet and looked like it would probably leave a stain. 

Then Mrs. Gregg just sat back down in the rocking chair. She got a scrunched up tissue from her sleeve and wiped the blood and goo off the needle and then picked up the other needle and just started to knit. 

I think I must have fainted then because I don't remember anything after that. At first I thought it was a dream but then Jeff didn't come home that night, and he didn't come home the next day or the next. He must have been gone for a week when mum realised he probably wasn't coming back. I don't know where she thinks he's gone but she cried for about a month non stop.

It's been about six months since that all happened. 

Craig still comes round even though Jeff isn't here and sometimes he stays the night. Him and mum whisper a lot and he never farts anymore. 

I still see Mrs. Gregg every weekend when she comes to the shop to buy her lottery tickets, it's funny because she still says the exact same thing to me every time, "You're a pretty young thing, what's your name dear?" and I don’t know what to say, so I just tell her my name is Marianna. It makes me think that maybe it never happened and I definitely just dreamt the whole thing, but sometimes as she leaves she kind of winks at me. 

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