Read Online Upright Beasts by Lincoln Michel - Free Book Online Page A

the door. “Don’t let nostalgia get in the way of safety.”
    She has a six-year-old wrapped around her leg and a baby hooked into her arm. I can tell this lady is one who craves the visuals.
    â€œOne moment you’re sipping ice tea on your lawn chair,” I say, rubbing my boot across the welcome mat. “The next moment, your little girl has bonked open her head on the bottom, chlorine rinsing her brain.”
    The mom gets a twitch in her eye when I say that.
    I fill in the deep ends of pools door-to-door. Make them all an even shallow. Learned how from videos online. It’s a better business than you might think. All I have is a sump pump, a cement mixer, and some cans of blue paint. I had some other things, like a backhoe and a minivan, before the divorce. Now Sarah, my ex, has those things. Well, not the backhoe. The city repossessed that and then gave me a nice big fine.

    The cement truck is mine and custom-made. A commercial cement mixer hooked up to the back of an ’82 Ford.
    â€œIs that thing up to regulation?” the woman at the door asks.
    â€œFuck the regulations,” I tell her. “We’re talking about children’s lives.”
    I study faces a lot. I used to be a painter. I even sold a few portraits to Sarah’s family, before the divorce. The woman in the doorway has a trustworthy face, soft and fuzzy like a TV interview lady.
    â€œIs the mister around?” I say.
    â€œI’m afraid the mister isn’t ever around,” the lady says, looking down at the little girl. “He is, uh, on a long vacation.”
    I nod my head sympathetically, offer a discounted rate, and hand over my card.
    It all started when this showboat was doing backflips at night in the community pool. Apparently he had the deep end mixed up with the shallow. His lady friend ran screaming down the street buck naked.
    I was there when they fished him out. If you wanted to see a good face, you should’ve seen his. All pop-eyed and head flopping around like a fish. It was disquieting.
    The community was in an uproar on account of both this and the toddler who’d drowned last year during swim class, but City Hall wasn’t doing anything. I knew a business opportunity when I saw one. Sarah was walking out the door for girls’ night and gave me a face like, Boy, I hope you know what you’re doing.
    My first job, so it was kinda lumpy. But there were a few people who might have said I was a hero. One newspaper did, and I carry a clipping around to show the customers.

    I think my favorite faces are the faces of children. Like the next day, when I’m back at the lady’s house, lowering a sump pump into the deep, and the little six-year-old is smushing her pudgy face right into the chain-link fence.
    â€œWhat’s your name?”
    â€œPetunia,” she says.
    â€œOh,” I say, “like the flower.”
    â€œNo!” she shouts.
    I hook up the hose to the pump and turn that sucker on. The girl’s face gets all white and she runs inside.
    It’s a hot day, and I sit on a deck chair under a faded blue umbrella. Watching all that water being sucked into the sewer makes me wish I had a beer. A few minutes later, Petunia is back outside stuffing fish sticks in her face. She hands me one through the fence. It’s still a bit frozen on the inside, but I swallow anyway.
    â€œThanks,” I say. I can see her mother watching behind the glass door. I give a little wave, flash my kindly neighbor face.
    â€œCome around if you want,” I say, and I lie down in one of the pool chairs, listen to the sump pump churn. The sound reminds me that I need to call my ex-wife.
    Straight to voicemail.
    â€œIt’s good to hear your voice, Sarah,” I say. “Wondering if you can give me Bob’s number.” Bob’s our old plumber. I’ve got a burst seal in my basement. I pump it out every morning, but there’s a new pool each