started.â
âStarted on what?â I asked. âWhat?â
âItâs a surprise,â he replied coyly.
âWell, if Iâm gonna bankroll your lazy butt,â I stressed, âeverything you earn belongs to me.â
âIâll save you from rats eating your face off,â he said, and made a bucktoothed rat face.
That got me. I gave him the ten.
He jammed it into the pocket of his cutoffs, then began to half flop and half crawl across the sand like a fish with feet. After he had gone about ten yards he turned to grin at me. âWhen I come back, Iâll have evolved,â he said.
âYeah. Youâll be a newt,â I muttered under my breath.
As soon as Pete left I opened my black book and began to wonder what awful things I could write about. I looked around the beach. I knew that beneath the normal surface of society lay hidden the twisted underbelly of life. Thatâs the good stuff I wanted to write about, but everything looked pretty normal from where I was sitting. The lifeguard stood in his orange tower. The tourists were spread out on hotel towels, and after baking under the sun all morning they looked like neon-pink hors dâoeuvres on crackers. The palm readers were setting up their striped tents, and the ice-cream vendors were working the crowd. Nothing looked suspiciously abnormal. I stared at the blank pages of my book and thought, Donât panic, youâve always been a magnet for weirdness. Sit tight, it will come your way.
Suddenly a bald guy with a swollen belly and a gold chain around his neck so thick you could anchor a ship on it slogged a path through the sand and stood in front of me. He had on so much suntan lotion he glowed like a freshly glazed donut.
âI want ten cards, dated the next ten days. On each one I want you to make up an excuse why I canât return to prison on time. And make it believable. You know, like my mother died and I have to attend her funeral. Or theyâre throwing me a parade for pulling kids out of a burning building. Stuff like that. Iâm on a furlough and I have to send them to my parole officer. Fil pick âem up after lunch.â
He pulled a folded ten-dollar bill from the little mesh pocket inside the waistband of his stretchy tiger-print swimsuit.
I held out my hand, and he dropped it in. The bill was damp. Iâll sterilize this later, I thought to myself as I smiled up at him.
âMake âem good,â he warned me. âYou have a nice typewriter. Iâd hate to see something bad happen to it.â
âDonât worry about a thing,â I said nervously, then smiled at him as I recited my business jingle. âYou go free, and leave the writing to me.â
He marched off, probably to go kick sand on little guys with cute girlfriends.
I gave him ten days of the worst bad luck I could imagine: Sun-poisoning rash on privates from day at nude beach. Stung on eyeballs by man-oâ-war. One hundred stitches in foot from stepping on childâs rusty sand shovel. Inner tube swept out to sea by rogue dolphins. Needed blood transfusion after wicked mosquito attack. Witness to a lifeguard mugging. Ear infection from sea monkeys. Amnesia caused by heat stroke. Buried in sand whilesleeping and left for dead. Needed hip replacement after crippled by suicide surfer.
I closed the typewriter case with a snap. I figured if my postcard business didnât work out I could write headlines for the
National Enquirer
or
The Weekly World News.
When he returned he read each one, slowly, with his lips moving. âYou have a sick mind, kid,â he declared.
I was thrilled. âIâm going to be a writer,â I said to him. âThe sicker the mind, the more money you make.â I held out my hand for a tip.
âIâll give you a tip,â he said, and ripped the cards in half. âIf my parole officer read this junk heâd probably track me down and have me
Nina Revoyr
Nora Ephron
Jaxson Kidman
Edward D. Hoch
Katherine Garbera
Stuart M. Kaminsky
Chris Ryan
T. Lynne Tolles
Matt Witten
Alex Marwood