The O. Henry Prize Stories 2016

by The O Henry Prize Stories 2016 (retail) (epub)

  Andy and Danny are the last of a time gone. Perhaps, as they each secretly pray, they may be among the first of a time yet to come, when Port William will be renewed, again settled and flourishing. They anyhow are links between history and possibility, as they keep the old stories alive by telling them to their children.

  Sometimes, glad to have their help needed, they go to work with their children. Sometimes their children come to work with them, and they are glad to have help when they need it, as they increasingly do. But sometimes only the two old men work together, asking and needing no help but each other’s, and this is their luxury and their leisure. When just the two of them are at work they are unbothered by any youthful need to hurry, or any younger person’s idea of a better way. Their work is free then to be as slow, as finical, as perfectionistical as they want it to be.

  And after so many years they know how to work together, the one-handed old man and the two-handed. They know as one what the next move needs to be. They are not swift, but they don’t fumble. They don’t waste time assling around, trying to make up their minds. They never make a mislick.

  “Between us,” says Danny Branch, “we’ve got three hands. Everybody needs at least three. Nobody ever needed more.”

  Marie-Helene Bertino

  Exit Zero

  BEFORE THE RINGING PHONE startles Jo into upsetting a stack of crackers she’d been matching to cheese, before the man asks for Josephine and she says No one calls me that, before he identifies himself as the executor of her father’s will and inhales sharply as if bracing for collision, Jo sits at her kitchen table, listening to her landlord’s children pretend to be astronauts. Two floors down in the courtyard, they’ve improvised robes for space suits. Her ritual is to eavesdrop for indications that the bigger two are excluding the little one. She likes to imagine herself interceding, lifting the bullied child into her arms while admonishing the bigger two. Today the children are getting along, so Jo enjoys an off-duty feeling. It is Sunday. She assumes her father is still alive in that she is not thinking of her father at all. After the phone rings and the crackers vault, the children yell Blast off! and the executor, braced, delivers the news that her father is dead and had lived in New Jersey, in a house that is now hers.

  The will is practical, matter-of-fact. The house is to be sold, her father cremated. Whatever money is left after funeral costs and whatever is left of him—cremains, the executor calls them—are hers. Cremains. Though it sounds like a cross between a dried cranberry and a plastic comb girls use to gather hair, the word enacts violence. An unseen force yanks Jo’s shoulder blades, as if someone has pulled to smooth her the way you would a bedsheet.

  The worst of the news conveyed, the man relaxes into chat. Rio Grande, he says, is a one-strip mall town. The Econo Lodge is the only motel. The other side of the peninsula is Cape May, where the beach is beautiful, even now, in midwinter. Exit Zero on the Parkway. He promises to leave the key in a lock box hanging on the front door if she will go soon, like tomorrow. It will be up to you to clear the contents of the house before it sells, and your father has a few…she hears the nervous click of a pen…sensitive items. Will you have help? Siblings or…

  Only child. Jo stares at the address on the pad of paper. She is an event planner for a national organization of doctors. Right now, one hundred cardiologists are beginning their initial descent into Miami for a drug conference. She has coordinated accommodations and activities for their free time: massages, art deco tours, twilight snorkeling. I’ll have to take a leave of absence at my job. She expects the executor to sympathize. She thinks she knows his character because he is the purveyor of news that produces immediate intimacy. He remains silent. Sensitive items?

  It’s on a cul-de-sac, he says. Please go soon, like tomorrow.

  They have famous fish tacos, don’t they? she says, meaning the town.

  He says, They have what?

  —

  Jo follows the executor’s directions four hours south to a marshland town overrun by sea reeds and canary grass. She parks in front of her father’s house, ranch-style on a prim cul-de-sac. Bright windows. Exhaust stews around the idling station wagon.

  —

  The workout resistance bands arranged next to his bed are a surprise, as are the razors in the medicine cabinet. A few of his hairs remain in the hollow of a blade. Coarse and black like hers. Jo closes the mirrored door. His bedspread, a halfhearted floral, is perforated by an array of precise divots, as if it has recently been the resting place for a constellation of stars. Later, Jo will pinpoint this as the moment she should have suspected. Instead, she ticks through a plan: She will empty one room each day. She will not take one thing—not one thing—home. She will not use her father’s possessions to puzzle out an image of what his life looked like before he succumbed to the disease she hadn’t known was hollowing his kidneys. Professional cleaners will arrive in a week, the house will be put on the market, and Jo will rejoin her life in New York. Already her phone vibrates with messages from work.

  The refrigerator contains several jars of apricot juice. Lined, labels out. Jo transfers them to the counter. No milk or crusted ends of butter. Only these jars.

  The drawers are stuffed with brochures for zoos from all over the world. A zookeeper’s card is fastened to the fridge with a magnet for the Cape May Wildlife Association.

  Jo jerks the chain for the pantry light and finds hundreds of boxes of matzo stacked in uniform rows. Apricot juice, zoo brochures, and matzo. Were these the sensitive items?

  By the end of the day, the contents of her father’s kitchen have been transferred into trash bags she bought at a Shop and Save. A week ago, Jo did not know where her father lived. Now she is dragging the most delicate part of what kept him alive to the curb. The sun has retreated behind the water tower that reads: RIO GRANDE: A GREAT PLACE TO GET FROM HERE TO THERE! The false daylight of Atlantic City hovers behind it. The mailboxes glow blue in a trick of dusk. The basalt smell of a neighbor’s fireplace. A faraway seagull laments. Jo pulls the sides of her coat tighter and checks her messages.

  Her assistant, calling about a cardiologist who forgot his conference ID.

  Her assistant saying never mind, he found it.

  Her assistant saying never mind the never mind, please call.

  The last message is her mother’s sister in California, apologizing for a change in plans that will prevent her from attending the funeral.

  Jo slips the key into the lock box, imagining the satisfying crack of opening a beer in her room at the Econo Lodge.

  I didn’t like him but I wanted to come for you, her aunt says. I appreciate that you have no siblings to help.

  Jo hears a sound in her father’s backyard and halts. Behind a green slatted gate, something animal stomps and haws.

  Your mother hoped you’d have a husband or boyfriend when the time came. Of course, she never imagined she’d go first.

  Jo walks toward the yard as whatever lurks there quiets, detecting her. She hesitates before unlatching the gate. A motion sensor illuminates the driveway. She blinks to clear her vision, steadies herself against the flimsy tangle of plastic fencing.

  On the other end of the line, her aunt sighs. Kiddo, there is never a perfect time.

  Jo opens the gate. The yard is half-bathed in synthetic light. Dark humps of mowing equipment, planters, and rakes abandoned near the back. A picnic table warped by years of weather relents against the earth.

  In the center of the yard, a silver unicorn stamps in place. Seeing Jo, it exhales sharply through its nostrils. Cold breath pillows above its head.

  The motion light quits, plunging them into darkness. Jo loses her grip on the phone.

  —

  Back inside the house, Jo hunts the trash for the discarded zoo brochures. She calls the zookeeper and gets his voice mail. Howdy, he says. You’ve almost but not quite reached me. She hangs up, calls again, and leaves a message. She repeats her phone number three times.

&n
bsp; The unicorn has followed her inside. It hooves open the pantry door and pushes a box of matzo to the floor. The fulgid, metallic hair that covers its body appears purple from certain angles, like the reed fields that turn and change color in wind. Its mouth is perfunctory and lopsided, and arranged, even when it’s chewing steadily, like it is now, into a smirk. It does not seem violent or aggressive. It seems unenthused. If it weren’t for the horn—the only pleasant thing about it, Jo thinks—navy-colored with flecks of glittery mineral issuing out from an active, spiraling core—it would look like a pissed-off donkey.

  Jo understands why it has been left in the backyard. It chews several crackers at once, leaving a mess. It gnaws the knob to the silverware drawer. She cannot leave it here to destroy the house before it goes on the market. It follows her into the yard where she relatches the gate with it inside. She walks to her car and turns the key in the ignition. Heat sighs through the vents. Jo resents the added responsibility this creature brings and the havoc it could wreak on her schedule.

  Thanks, Dad, she says, to no one. Her voice sounds tried on, two sizes big.

  Jo drives to the strip mall, where she finds the taco shop and stands in line. Except for her father’s orderly development, nothing in this town seems governed. Thin teenagers glare by the shop, curled like parentheses. Restless zoning restrictions permit a Kmart next to a real estate office next to an apartment complex. Jo cannot see the ocean but the ocean is everywhere: pooling in the swells between foxtails, frizzing the hair at her temples. Its mascot, the horseshoe crab, appears in decal form on car bumpers, motel signs. Seagulls holler over her as she walks back to the car. Anything left out in this night will be demoralized by cold and salt. She will not think about the creature standing alone, hunching its back against the wind, shifting its weight from hoof to hoof for warmth.

  —

  Her return to the yard summons the motion light. She peers through the gate slats to where the unicorn stands, unsurprised, regarding her.

  Jo converts the backseat of her station wagon into what the manual calls an after-antiquing space. The unicorn climbs in and rests its chin on the console between the front seats.

  I can’t drive with your head there, Jo says.

  The unicorn snorts but doesn’t move.

  It’s a short ride, she bargains.

  The unicorn repositions but leaves a rough hoof where it will brush against her hand when she shifts gears.

  Jo and the unicorn drive to the Econo Lodge in silence. It spits when she attempts to help it unfold from the car. She leads it to her room, grateful that no one is in the reservation office or the pool decorated to look like a tropical island. Jo uses extra pillows and one of the motel’s unfriendly blankets to hew a makeshift palette. She fills the miniature coffeemaker with water and places it on the floor. The unicorn sniffs but does not drink. Jo retrieves a bottle of apricot juice from her bag and refills the coffeemaker. The unicorn laps it up. Jo refills it and the unicorn drains it again. Satiated, it flicks a critical gaze to the television, the bathroom, her clothes. It soundlessly swallows her hairbrush. Jo scrambles to zip her suitcase but the unicorn is too fast. It ingests a tube of mascara. Its tail twitches and an elegant line of feces plummets onto the thin carpet. The room fills with the tang of leather and armpit. The unicorn lowers itself onto the blanket and falls asleep.

  Jo checks for balls and finds no balls. A girl, then. A feeling of solidarity shivers over her but is quickly replaced by the factual odor of dung. Jo turns on the television set. A newscaster named Jasmine reads tide reports for the Delaware Bay as Jo uses motel shampoo to scrub the feces out of the carpet. Jasmine. A fragrant kind of rice.

  —

  Later, wet hair wrapped in a towel, Jo checks in with her assistant. The cardiologists are enjoying cocktail hour. They have complimented the ice sculpture she ordered to be cut in the shape of a heart.

  Jo dials California and defines the term cremains for her aunt. She doesn’t mention the unicorn farting in its sleep by the bed, its flatulence sounding like the upper notes of a xylophone, operatically high. Cremated and remains, she says. A hybrid. The overspecificity feels like a gut punch. Hocked spit after your opponent is already down.

  —

  And I will tell you what I told your father, the zookeeper says when he calls the next morning. You are not equipped to take care of a creature of this nature.

  Jo is driving and swatting the unicorn away from chewing the upholstery. This morning it defecated on my suitcase.

  She, the zookeeper corrects her, defecated on your suitcase.

  Jo says, I thought unicorns would be peaceful and calm.

  His laugh sounds like a mean bark. You have a lot to learn about unicorns.

  —

  Jo crouches inside her father’s bathtub, scrubbing grout. Her father was a retired electrician with no history of whimsy. What was he doing with a unicorn? Was it a gift meant to ease her grief? Was he holding it for someone who will show up to collect it, a wizard, or…?

  His bathroom is neat but not clean. It takes three tries to whiten the tub.

  Jo returns to the living room covered in bleach. The unicorn has gnawed through one of the packing boxes filled with wrapping supplies and has strewn ribbon and tissue paper across the carpet, making it look like the aftermath of a party. She bats the unicorn’s nose with an empty roll of ribbon.

  Bad Jasmine, she says.

  —

  That evening she meets the zookeeper at Applebee’s. He is a squat man in high-waisted jean shorts with erratic facial hair. His speech is punctuated by the nervous, barking laugh. They sit in a padded booth and order dinner. It’s been over two days since Jo has interacted with a live human being and she is giddy and talkative. She details the unicorn’s eating habits and bad behavior. Today, Jasmine kicked out the heating vent and broke the bathroom mirror.

  Jasmine? The zookeeper chuckles. That’s a little girl’s name. Her name is ______. He makes a sound like a breeze moving through plastic tubing in an open field.

  He is part of a team working to repair beach erosion after a recent hurricane. Without enough sand, the horseshoe crabs won’t have room to mate. This affects the Red Knot bird population arriving from Argentina expecting to refuel on crab eggs.

  Everyone here seems obsessed with horseshoe crabs, Jo says.

  They’re as old as dinosaurs, he says. Their relationship with the Red Knots is important.

  Suspicion deepens his eyes to a mean green. Jo is aware he is drawing lines around himself and this town, but she’s too tired to care about little birds.

  What is it you do, Jo?

  I plan events.

  He uses his fork to lift his steak as if he will toss it over the bank of booths. You know how to make God laugh?

  No, she says.

  You make a…

  She forks the last piece of chicken into her mouth and chews. She doesn’t feel like participating in a joke about her work.

  Plan? he says, finally.

  In the lull between entrées and desserts, he hitches up his pant leg to reveal the silver slap of a gun. I have one in my car, too, he says.

  Jo experiences simultaneous desires to laugh and run. Who are you going to shoot at Applebee’s?

  No one, hopefully. But you’ll be happy if we get robbed.

  If we get robbed?

  Mistaking her question for interest, he places the gun on the table for inspection.

  When are we getting robbed? she says.

  I wouldn’t know exactly, would I? Go ahead. Try the grip.

  No, thanks. Like collecting items into a purse, Jo gathers herself inside of herself.

  People get robbed here, he says. We carry guns for protection. We care about the relationship we have to our surroundings. And the names we use matter. Your unicorn isn’t an “it,” she’s a “she.” Even your father understood that.

  My father? Now Jo is suspicious. Did you spend a lot of time with him?

  I d
id. He leans against the hard plastic of the booth. We were getting to be friends, maybe. He seems to be gauging whether she is ready to hear something. He was a good man.

  The waiter approaches, balancing apple cobbler on a tray. They look up from the gun on the table.

  —

  On the way back to the Econo Lodge, Jo stops into a liquor store. On a television hanging over the counter, the announcer named Jasmine reports on what she calls the ongoing horseshoe crab situation. The Red Knots are expected to land in a month. If the horseshoe crabs haven’t produced enough eggs the birds won’t be able to gain enough sustenance to endure the second leg to Antarctica. They will fall out of the sky somewhere over Canada. A Red Knot appears on the screen. It is smaller than Jo would have guessed—the size of a Ping-Pong ball. Even now, trucks from Texas are hauling tons of sand through the night, Jasmine reports. Jo imagines the zookeeper shooting bullets into a mound of sand.

  —

  At the motel, the unicorn is restless. She balks and pivots, drags her neck along the floor. Something red winks near her hindquarters. When Jo tries to investigate, Jasmine figure-eights out of her grasp. Jo traps her in the bathroom between the sink and shower and looks closer. A few inches of ribbon hang from the unicorn’s sphincter. Wrapping ribbon from her father’s house. That he used to wrap presents. For whom? She closes the door, trapping the whining unicorn in the bathroom. The unicorn has ingested an unknown length of ribbon that now wants out. Jo could cut it but has no idea how much is left inside the creature. She pours whiskey into a glass and takes a long drink.

  She returns to the bathroom, closes the door, and kneels by Jasmine’s side. She pulls the tail aside so it does not impede the opening and takes the ribbon between her thumb and forefinger. She tugs, revealing another half an inch. The muscles in the unicorn’s legs constrict in discomfort. Jo has never been this close to the creature. The fur that looks bristly from afar is soft and parts easily to reveal improbably pink skin. A current of cool air circumnavigates her body—light jacket weather. Jo pulls and the ribbon emerges slow inch by slow inch. Jasmine tenses. A prolonged, high-pitched cry ripples through her long throat. Jo slows her pace. The unicorn shudders as the end of the ribbon finally emerges. Jo flushes it and allows Jasmine to back out of the bathroom and sink into her makeshift bed. Jo dry heaves into the bathroom sink.