LITTLE HITLERS

I took a job selling little Hitlers on the street. They were two inches tall and perfectly articulated. I had a good corner outside a Starbucks, and I would let the Hitlers wander around the table and wait for customers. Most people just stopped to gawk or listen to them orate in their weird squeaky voices. People always asked what they were saying. I told them, I don’t know, I don’t speak German. But the truth is, I do. My parents are from Frankfurt. But I have kids to feed, and I knew that a translation would blow the sale.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY

Imagine the bathroom at Comicon, after three days of servicing doughy, frantic men wearing latex costumes and fed nothing but pizza and chicken fingers and burritos. Inside I found a Ghostbuster and a fat Wolverine leaning against a stall door, listening to their friend who sat inside. Eight more seconds, said the Ghostbuster, and I win. Wolverine cracked his knuckles and chided, Pride before the fall, bub. For some reason I asked them, What are you guys doing? They sized me up. Winning a bet, the Ghostbuster sneered. From inside the stall a voice called out, No, you’re not.

ONE FOR THE ROAD

I cleared the snow off my car, and inside I discovered a body. He didn’t look like he was sleeping, he looked dead. It’s hard to explain the difference. The police and the paramedics came and loaded him into an ambulance. A policeman told me, Sometimes they break into cars for shelter overnight. Looks like he froze to death. Make sure to always lock your doors. I said I would, then, I think he took the change out of my ashtray. I need that money for tolls. The policeman blinked. I blinked. Somehow, he knew I was lying.

EGO

Scientists discovered an alternate universe where everything was the same, with one difference: in 1966, Burt Ward did not win the role of Robin in Batman. Instead, the part went to Charles Manson, in this world an actor, not a messianic murderer. Upon hearing the news, Burt Ward was furious. Manson’s too old to play Robin, he said. He would have been thirty-two in 1966! Robin is supposed to be youthful! Ward’s grandchildren shook their heads. Granddad, they said, Relax. You’re still the Robin of this world. Ward cried, That’s not enough! I should be Robin enough for the Universe!

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Miles hired a board of directors. He wanted their help—what to wear, where to shop, what to eat—thought they might help him get a girlfriend. They sat at a long wooden table that he moved into his apartment and voted all day long. One week in, during a budget meeting, he realized that his CFO was familiar, was in fact James Toblowsky, who he’d known, vaguely, in High School. James, he said, don’t you remember me? James cleaned his glasses with his necktie. Miles, he said, Nostalgia is counterproductive. Miles nodded. He knew he was in good hands.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Miles hired a board of directors. He wanted their help—what to wear, where to shop, what to eat—thought they might help him get a girlfriend. They sat at a long wooden table that he moved into his apartment and voted all day long. One week in, during a budget meeting, he realized that his CFO was familiar, was in fact James Toblowsky, who he’d known, vaguely, in High School. James, he said, don’t you remember me? James cleaned his glasses with his necktie. Miles, he said, Nostalgia is counterproductive. Miles nodded. He knew he was in good hands.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO DB COOPER?

He ended up in Berkley, where he used the money to fund a production of Hamlet with an all-dog cast. They wandered the stage and literally chewed the scenery. Voice actors stood behind the curtains and read the dialogue into microphones, and the dogs were fitted with electrodes, so they’d jump a little when it was their line. That was to make it easier on the audience. When the run ended, he released the dogs in a supermarket parking lot at night. He’d used all the money he’d stolen, he didn’t know what to do next. Neither did the dogs.

THE WEREWOLF AT WORK.

He made up excuses to call for her. Stephanie, have you seen the Chandler report?

She would smile and pluck it from the clutter on his desk and ask, What would you do without me? She smelled like a house filled with children. They would watch movies as a family in bed and fall asleep in a pile. And then, in the morning, the children ripped to pieces. Stephanie headless in the doorway, covered with blood and thick black fur.

That’s enough, he said, and then filled the room with Lysol to block out the scent of her hair.

THEY’RE NOT ALL GOING TO BE WINNERS

She said, I was thinking you can’t read.

Of course I can read, I said. I read all the time.

She said, I know you can, I was just thinking, what if you can’t. Like, what if you’re tricking me?

I asked her, Why would I do that? And she said, Because you’re embarrassed by your illiteracy.

Look, I said. I’ll prove it. I’ll write you a story.

So I wrote this one, and gave it to her, and said, What about now?

She handed it back and said, I’ll believe you when you write a good one.

MAIN STREET ON A COLD NOVEMBER MORNING

She could have been my grandmother—well, not mine, but someone’s, wrapped in rags. I gave her a dollar and she smiled and said, God bless you.

I said, God bless you too, ma’am, and felt good about changing the world for the better.

The old woman rose to her feet and growled at me, If you’ve got God’s ear, ask him why your face smells like a dick.

Two questions occurred simultaneously. How do I ask for my dollar back? And, what if my face did smell like a dick? Had someone maybe molested me in my sleep?

MEAT DREAM

I was eating a pile of raw, bloody steak. There was no fork or knife, so I pulled the meat apart with my fingers and teeth. My gums grew sore from chewing, juice stained my lips. Reams of discarded fat piled all around my feet.

I woke, and turned to discover that my wife was gone.

I reached out and felt the indentation of her in the mattress. It was cold. I looked past that to the collection of half-empty pill bottles on the dresser that I’d yet to toss out. She’d been gone for a long, long time.

WOODY ALLEN DREAMS

A stand-up comedian is cursed by a witch, so that everyone he meets tries to kill him. Little girls rake his shins with colored pencils, cops open fire, his wife tries to brain him with a heavy first edition Proust. There’s no one he can trust. He hides in the woods and fails to make fire, fails to find food. He sneaks back into the city and finds the witch, and she tells him, there was no curse. This is just your life. In his sleep, Woody smiles. He knew that, somehow, all along.

Haunted

I incurred the mummies curse for spitting on the floor of his tomb. I had some grit in my mouth, and I guess I’m a shitty archeologist. So the ghost of every bug I ever killed started to haunt me. Every fly swatted, every ant lured into a black plastic trap. Every mosquito that bashed against my windshield. That seemed unfair, more the mosquito’s fault than mine. Do you know how many spiders you eat in your sleep? Hundreds. It could be worse, it is just the bugs. I once hit a kid with my car and fled the scene.

Wisdom

The master gathered his students in the shade of a fig tree and bid them ask any question. After much consideration, one novice asked, “What if a panda were to mate with a polar bear?”

The master sat in contemplation. After some time, another novice offered, “Perhaps, a pandola bear cub?”

The novices nodded in agreement, until the master cleared his throat and said, “You are as children. The offspring of the union means nothing. What matters is front row seats to the conception.”

A leaf fell from the fig tree and settled in the master’s lap.

HEY! WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE?

Even all these years later, after the corrective surgery and physical rehabilitation, after the trial and the media frenzy, after countless hours of community service spent sifting wet garbage under the blazing sun, after failed attempts to reconcile with family members and friends, after the death threats, after countless moves from apartment to apartment and town to town; it feels like it was worthwhile when I remember the look on the zookeepers face when he walked into the cage and discovered what I had done.

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT LOSING YOUR VIRGINITY?

I’ll leave out the part with the barn, and the fire. The bit with the dog is hilarious, but irrelevant to the story. I’m ashamed to have ever taken hostages, so that’s out. There’s the bag of methamphetamine, and the birds, and the train wreck…but so much of that I swore to never speak of again. Should I start with the ghost, and his promise? No, it would take too long. Where does that leave me? I guess: her name was Amy, late one Halloween night, in the back seat of her car.

3. Minutiae

The morning Shana got married, Charles severed his ring finger with a hammer, so it couldn’t be re-attached. Two good thwacks, and then it was lying there, bloody and weird. Have you ever lost a finger? You look down and think, How was that ever a part of me in the first place? The bleeding wouldn’t stop, so he went to the ER. The nurse there said, Good thing you’re a lefty. He flexed his hands and shivered. He’d taken the wrong finger. Shana always complained he didn’t pay attention. He conceded the point, but missed her all the same.

2.LIFE OF LUXURY

I won the lawsuit. Commas fanned across my account balance. I hired a butler. He stood around watching me watch TV. Fun at first, but then I started to feel judged, like he knew how I got the money. I hired a maid to keep him company. They stood there staring and waiting and judging. I dropped the remote so they could fetch it, spilled soda for them to wipe up. The remote stopped working, the couch stained. I said, Fifty each to fuck for me. They balked and sued. Lost the house, lost the couch. Easy come, easy go.

1. Zombie

ZOMBIE

Inside, dim light did battle with plumes of smoke. The regulars along the bar were grizzled men with knobby hands. At the end of the bar there was a zombie chained to the wall. Neither of us had ever seen one in person, just heard stories or seen documentaries about the outbreak. We sat as far away as we could and ordered drinks. The zombie moaned, and someone tossed a peanut at its head. Dave had just been dumped, that’s why we were drinking. He looked at the zombie and said, He looks like I feel. I said, grow up.