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Vic painted flames and guns and naked chicks and grenades and Dixie flags and Nazi flags and Jesus Christ and white tigers and rotting ghouls and more naked chicks. She didn’t think of herself as an artist. Painting kept Christmasland from calling and paid for Pampers. All other considerations were of little importance.

Sometimes, though, the jobs dried up. Sometimes it seemed she had painted every motorcycle in the Rockies and there would never be another gig. When that happened—when she had more than a week or two without painting—she found herself grimly waiting. Readying herself.

Then one day the phone would ring.

It happened in September, on a Tuesday morning, five years after Manx went to jail. Lou had gone out before the sun came up to tow someone out of a ditch, left her with Wayne, who wanted hot dogs for breakfast. All those years smelled of steaming hot dogs and steaming baby shit.

Wayne was parked in front of the tube, and Vic was squirting ketchup into cheap hot-dog rolls when the phone rang.

She stared at the receiver. It was too early for the phone to be ringing, and she already knew who it was, because she had not painted anything in almost a month.

Vic touched the receiver. It was cold.

“Wayne,” she said.

The boy looked up, finger in his mouth, drool down the front of his X-Men T-shirt.

“Do you hear the phone ringing, Wayne?” she asked.

He stared at her blankly, uncomprehendingly for a moment, then shook his head.

It rang again.

“There,” she said. “There, did you hear it? Don’t you hear it ringing?”

“No, Em,” he said, and wagged his head heavily from side to side.

He turned his attention back to the television.

Vic picked up the receiver.

A child—not Brad McCauley, a different child, a girl this time—said, “When is Daddy coming back to Christmasland? What did you do with Daddy?”

“You aren’t real,” Vic said.

In the background she could hear the children caroling.

“Yes I am,” the girl said. A white breath of frozen air seethed through the small holes in the earpiece of the receiver. “We’re just as real as what’s happening in New York this morning. You should see what’s happening in New York. It’s exciting! People are jumping into the sky! It’s exciting, and it’s fun. It’s almost as fun as Christmasland.”

“You aren’t real,” Vic whispered again.

“You told lies about Daddy,” she said. “That was bad. You’re a bad mother. Wayne should be with us. He could play with us all day. We could teach him how to play scissors-for-the-drifter.”

Vic slammed the phone into the cradle. She picked it up and slammed it down once more. Wayne glanced around at her, his eyes wide and alarmed.

She waved a hand at him—never mind—and turned away, struggling not to cry, breath hitching.

The hot dogs boiled over, water jumping out of the pot and spattering into the blue flame of the gas burner. She ignored them, sank down onto the kitchen floor, and covered her eyes. It was an act of will to contain her sobs; she didn’t want to scare Wayne.

“Em!” her boy called, and she looked up, blinking. “Sumfin’ happened to Oscar!”

“Oscar” was his word for Sesame Street. “Sumfin’ happened, an’ Oscar went bye-bye.”

Vic wiped at her streaming eyes, took a shuddering breath, turned off the gas. She walked unsteadily to the television. Sesame Street had gone to a news break. A big jet had hit one of the World Trade Towers in New York City. Black smoke churned into blue, blue sky.

A few weeks later, Vic made space in the closet-size second bedroom, tidied and swept. She moved an easel in there and mounted bristol board on it.

“Whatchu doing?” Lou asked, pushing his head through the door the day after she set herself up.

“Thought I’d draw a picture book,” Vic said. She had the first page sketched in blue pencil, was almost ready to start inking.

Lou peered over her shoulder. “Are you drawing a motorcycle factory?” he asked.

“Close. A robot factory,” she said. “The hero is a robot named Search Engine. On each page he has to work his way through a maze and find some items of importance. Power cells and secret plans and stuff.”

“I think I’m popping a boner for your picture book. Awesome thing to do for Wayne. He’s going to shit.”

Vic nodded. She was happy to let Lou think she was doing it for the kid. She had no illusions, though. She was doing it for herself.

The picture book was better than painting Harleys. It was steady work, and it was there every day.

After she started drawing Search Engine, the phone never rang unless a credit agency was calling.

And after she sold the book, the credit agencies quit calling, too.





Brandenburg, Kentucky


MICHELLE DEMETER WAS TWELVE THE FIRST TIME HER FATHER LET her drive it. A twelve-year-old girl driving a 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith through the high grass in the first days of summer with the windows rolled down and Christmas music playing on the radio. Michelle sang along in a big, happy, braying voice—off-key and off-time. When she did not know the lyrics, she made them up.

Come! All ye faithful! Jiggy and triii-umphant!

Come all ye faithful, sing yay for the Lord!