Porter knew that he had correctly secured the log inside the compartment, but when he opened the door, the machine spat splinters and sawdust so forcefully that it sprayed from the stage into the dining area. Sage and Edwin and Angie were pelted with the stuff.
Angie screamed and shielded her face.
Edwin started sneezing.
Sage ran up on the stage. “Maybe you should turn it off, man,” he said.
Porter realized he had been frozen in horror. He quickly touched the button and the machine sputtered to a stop. He looked at the pile of shavings and sawdust in the compartment, and then, fearfully, he looked at Jack.
Jack’s face was a mask of rage. His lips were pressed together in a tight line. Porter knew that when those lips parted, whatever came out of them was going to be bad.
It was. What came out first was not even words but the roar of a lion furious to discover it has been caged. He pounded the table with his fists. Finally, the words came. “You absolute idiot! Is this some kind of a sick joke?”
“No, sir,” Porter said. He was shaking and sweating profusely. “Something must have malfunctioned this time. It was working great before. You can ask Sage—”
“Sage the liar?” Jack asked, his words dripping venom.
No matter how terrified he was, Porter wasn’t going to let Jack talk about his best friend like that. “Sir, Sage isn’t—”
“Don’t argue with me!” Jack yelled. “You all seem to have forgotten who’s in charge here.” He stood up from the table. He looked at Porter, then at Angie, Sage, and Edwin in turn. The look on his face was one of sheer disgust. “I can’t imagine there’s a business owner in the world with a sorrier group of employees. Lazy, incompetent”—he looked at the machine and the mess of shavings and sawdust—“destructive! No wonder this business is in the toilet. I’ll go down with my ship like a good captain should, but I know who’s to blame for it: the crew. I’ve got half a mind to fire you all here and now, but we open in thirty minutes, and look at this place. Clean it up, people!”
He stomped back to his office and slammed the door.
“Jack sure was mixing his metaphors there,” Sage said. “I’m confused. Are we on a ship or in a toilet?”
Angie shook her head. “I don’t know how you can joke at a time like this. We’re all going to get fired.”
“Oh, I don’t think he’ll fire us,” Edwin said. “He won’t want to hire and train new people, not with the business going under. We’ll just lose our jobs when the restaurant closes.”
“Is that supposed to be good news?” Angie asked.
Porter sat down with his friends at the table. They were the saddest looking bunch he had ever seen, and he couldn’t help but feel it was all his fault. “I’m sorry,” Porter said. “I don’t know what happened, but I do know I let you all down.”
“It’s okay,” Sage said. “All inventors learn from trial and error. Today was the error part. There will be better days.” Sage rose to his feet. “Let me go get some supplies to clean this up.”
Together, they swept the stage and wiped down the sawdust-covered tables. They used the giant wet-dry vac to suck up all the shavings off the carpet. Porter and Sage carried the failed machine back to its place in the storage room. Porter was desperate to look inside it and troubleshoot, but he knew that if he hoped to end his night still employed, he needed to focus on one thing: following Jack’s orders to the letter, no matter how demanding or ridiculous they were. He and Porter returned to the stage and mopped up the dusty residue.
By opening time, all evidence of the disaster was gone. Jack emerged from his office and surveyed the dining area.
“See?” Porter said. “Spotless. You can’t even tell what happened.”
“It’ll do,” Jack said. He took two steps closer to Porter so he was standing right in his face. “That dangerous piece of equipment you’re responsible for could have destroyed my whole restaurant.” He pointed his index finger at Porter. “You’re fired. The rest of you, too. Get out. Now.”
“So you make us clean up like we’re going to be opening and then you fire us?” Sage said, confused and hurt.
Jack grinned through his rage. “You see, unlike you all, I’m not a fool. I knew if I fired you, then asked you to clean up, the place would still be dirty.”
from The Puppet Carver
by Sage Brantley
Sylvester knew that he could feel now because he had felt pain beyond imagining. After he had paid the Fixer in money and promises he didn’t look forward to keeping, the Fixer had connected Sylvester to the machinery, and pain had shot through his body with the force of electricity as every new nerve, muscle, bone, and tendon in his body were shocked to life. The pain was so strong, he seemed to be able to see it, even hear it, as its intensity drowned out the sounds of his own screams.
But since Sylvester had paid the price in pain, now he could feel pleasure, too. As he walked the city streets, he could feel fresh air in his new lungs. He crossed the street, went into the park, and touched the bark of a tree. Hard, rough. He stopped at an ice-cream truck and bought a cone just so he could touch his lips to its coldness. A lady walked by with a fluffy white dog on a leash.
“Excuse me … could I please pet your dog?” Sylvester asked her.
The lady smiled. “Sure. Sophie loves everybody.”
Sylvester knelt down and buried his newly sensate hands in the dog’s fluffy coat. Tears sprang to his eyes. Now he knew what “soft” meant.
“Thank you,” Sylvester said to the dog’s owner.
The woman looked at him strangely. She said, “You’re welcome,” but quickly walked away.
Sylvester looked down at his hands. They felt alive. For the first time since his creation, he felt alive. His hands itched and burned in desperation. All he could think about was what he wanted to touch next.
* * *
Jack sat alone in his office, looking at the evening’s few receipts. The only good thing about his situation was that he’d finally fired his idiot employees, so he could at least wallow in his misery in peace. He knew if he went home, Becky would want to talk to him about whatever new ways she had found to spend the money that they didn’t have.
He knew he should have a talk with Becky about finances, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it yet. Becky had married him in part because he was a “good catch” with a promising future. How could he tell her he hadn’t made good on that promise? Would she even stay with him if the money ran out? This was a woman who grew up with a mother telling her, “It’s just as easy to love a rich man as a poor man,” and who had jokingly suggested that the words for poorer be struck from their wedding vows.
Tick. Tick.
What was that noise? Jack didn’t know if it had been going on a while without him noticing or if it has just started. Either way, now that he had heard it, he couldn’t stop hearing it.
Tick. Tick.
It sounded like an especially loud watch. Or a ticking time bomb. Had somebody planted a bomb in the restaurant? If they had, it was a blessing. Jack tried to turn his attention back to his bookkeeping, but the noise was too distracting.
Tick. Tick.
It was more than distracting; it was maddening. What was that Edgar Allan Poe story Jack had read in high school, where the guy kills the old man and then is driven crazy by the nonstop beating sound of the old man’s heart? It was like that.
Tick. Tick.
The sound seemed to be coming from behind the stage. Maybe it had something to do with one of the animatronics? Well, there was no way to get any work done with this sound rattling around in his brain. He might as well try to find the source and see if he could make it stop.
Tick. Tick.
The sound was louder when he was on the stage, so he was definitely getting warmer.
He went backstage to the storage room.
TICK. TICK.
The sound was much louder now. It seemed to be coming from the back of the room
behind an old dusty curtain one of his idiot employees had hung up for some reason. He pulled back the curtain.
TICK. TICK.
The sound was much louder now, unbearably loud. Jack clamped his hands over his ears. He looked at the disabled animatronics lined up like figures in a wax museum. They weren’t where the noise was coming from.
TICK. TICK.
It was coming from the contraption, the horrible mechanical abomination that fool Porter had made. The ticking sound, clearly coming from deep inside the machine’s bowels, was making it shake so hard it seemed in danger of falling over. Jack pushed the button on the outside, but nothing happened.
He opened the door, and the sound grew so loud he was sure it could be heard from outside the building.
TICK. TICK. TICK. TICK.
There was some type of control panel inside the machine. Maybe if he just stepped in for a moment, he could find the right button to make the horrible ticking stop.
He stepped inside. It was a tight space. Jack hated tight spaces.
The door slid shut with a click. He reached out to open it, but there was no handle on the inside. He thought of banging on the door and yelling, but there was no one there to hear him. And even if there were, there was no way he could be heard over the horrible ticking, which was now so loud it felt like it was coming from inside his own skull.
But then the ticking was drowned out by the whirring of machinery. The contraption appeared to have turned on. He looked at the walls of the machine. They were lined with circular blades that had started to spin and were now extending from the walls toward his body.
What was it that idiot had called this machine? The Puppet Carver.
Jack’s heart pounded in terror. He was going to be carved. There was no way to escape.
All around him, the sharp metal blades reached toward his body, less than an inch from making contact with his arms, his legs, his face.
This was it. He was going to die. And painfully. How long would it take, he wondered, for someone to find his body? No one would think to look for him here. Not until there was a smell.
Jack shut his eyes and prepared for the worst.
BANG.
He gasped, startled by the deafening noise.
The loud bang was followed by a cloud of black smoke that filled the small space where Jack was trapped. There was a smell of ozone. He coughed and wondered if he would asphyxiate before the blades in the machine had time to shred him.
Wait. The blades.
The blades had stopped spinning. The machine was quiet. It must have malfunctioned in some way.
The door slid open, releasing the smoke from the compartment. The machine made a sad sputtering noise, and then was still.
Jack was alive! He couldn’t believe it. He stepped out of the compartment like he was stepping into a new, better world. He looked himself over. No harm done, not to him anyway. The Puppet Carver might be broken beyond repair, but it hadn’t really worked right in the first place.
Jack felt himself smiling. When was the last time he had smiled genuinely? He couldn’t even remember. But now, back from the cliff’s edge of death, there seemed to be so many reasons to smile. The problems that had consumed him before didn’t seem as important. Money didn’t matter that much. All that mattered was that he was alive.
Jack walked out of the building. He looked up at the night sky. The stars sparkled, and the moon blanketed the world in a silver glow. It was so beautiful that tears sprang to his eyes. When was the last time he had really seen the moon and stars? When was the last time he had cried?
Looking back at the last decade of his life, the only feelings he could remember were anger and fear. Anger at his employees, at his wife, at his son. Fear of losing money, power, status. What kind of a life was that?
Well, that stopped now. It was a new day. Well … a new night anyway. He was going to be nicer to his wife, to his son, to his employees, to the random people he transacted with in day-to-day life. Jack felt his heart brimming with love and kindness. He was like Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol after his encounter with the ghosts, no longer a mean old miser but a man who could find the goodness in life and people and even within himself.
Jack got in his car. How fortunate he was to have such a nice car. How fortunate he was to have a car at all! Many people were not so lucky. He started the car and headed toward home. He hoped Becky was still awake. He had a lot to say to her.
“Oh!” he said as he drove by the Golden Heifer. He turned back to the restaurant and pulled into the drive-thru line. When it was his turn, the voice on the intercom said, “Thank you for choosing Golden Heifer. Please order when you’re ready.”
“Actually, I have a question to ask you,” Jack said.
“Yes,” the voice said.
“Are you the young lady who was working the drive-thru Tuesday night?” he asked.
“Um … yes, sir.” She sounded uncomfortable.
“Good. I’ve got something I need to say to you. I’ll just pull up to the window, okay?”
“Uh … would you like to speak to the manager?”
“No. My beef is with you.” Jack laughed. “Get it? Beef? Because you sell hamburgers.” He couldn’t tell if the drive-thru worker thought this was funny or not.
When he pulled up to the window, the young woman said, “Oh. You.”
“Yes, me,” Jack said. “But I’m a very different me than I was last night. I wanted to apologize for my behavior. You were learning a new job, and you were doing your best and being very polite, and I was rude. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you?” the young woman said, but her inflection rose as if she were asking a question. Clearly, she was finding this encounter puzzling.
“Thank you,” Jack said, “for your politeness and understanding.” He sat there and smiled at her.
“You’re welcome.” The young woman looked at the line of cars growing behind Jack’s vehicle. “Did you want to order anything, sir?” she asked.
“No, I’m good.” He found himself chuckling. “I’m really, really good. You have a nice night now.”
“You too.”
Jack drove away, feeling the weight of one of his regrets lifting. But fixing one isolated incident like a drive-thru dustup was easy. With Becky, with Tyson, there were years of bad behavior on his part, way more than he could fix with a simple I’m sorry.
An idea popped into Jack’s head. Doughnuts. Doughnuts would be a start.
Back when he and Becky had been young and broke, they used to meet for dates at the Dunky Doughman, an all-night doughnut place near the copy shop where Becky had been working at the time. Despite its stupid name, the Dunky Doughman was the perfect place for a cheap date. The two of them would scrape up enough money for a doughnut each—chocolate frosted for Becky and maple frosted for Jack—and two cups of coffee. The manager didn’t mind that they only spent five dollars and took up a booth for hours, talking and drinking cup after cup of coffee. Or if he did, he never said anything.
That was back when he and Becky really talked to each other. Before the money, before parenthood, before all the stresses of responsible adult life. They talked earnestly about their dreams, their goals, their future. If Jack brought home doughnuts from the Dunky Doughman, maybe it would remind her of those conversations. Maybe it would be the first step toward getting them talking again.
There was no street parking near the doughnut shop, so Jack had to use the parking garage a block away. He wasn’t thrilled by this fact; really, the Dunky Doughman wasn’t in the safest neighborhood to be wandering at night. But he had become increasingly convinced that showing up with a bag of doughnuts might be the path back to Becky’s heart. It was a thoughtful gesture, and it had been a long time since he had been thoughtful.
Jack didn’t like parking garages. There was something eerie about the flickering fluorescent lighting and the way sounds echoed. The elevators always seemed to be on the verge of breaking and were infested b
y foul and mysterious odors.
Jack breathed a sigh of relief when the elevator doors opened. He hustled toward the garage’s exit. At first he heard only the sound of his own shuffling footsteps. But then he was sure he heard another pair of footsteps behind him. He casually glanced over his shoulder. There was no need to be afraid. It was probably just some regular person on a regular errand like he was.
But Jack saw no one.
He chalked it up to the weird echo effect of the parking garage and walked through the exit onto the street. He walked past a dry cleaner’s and an insurance office. Most of the businesses on the street were dark and locked up for the night, but in the distance, he could see the light of the Dunky Doughman sign with its smiling doughnut mascot.
He heard the footsteps behind him again. He turned around but only saw a flash of movement as whoever it was ducked into an alley.
Jack was pretty sure he was just being paranoid; after his near-death experience earlier in the day, it made sense that his nerves were on edge.
He heard the steps again. They sounded wet, squishy, like somebody walking in galoshes in the rain. Jack started walking more quickly, and the steps sped up to match his.
He was tempted to turn around and confront the person, but what good would that do if the person were armed? He broke into a run—though he knew he was too out of shape to run for long. The squishy steps behind him ran, too.
Suddenly the doughnut shop seemed too far away to be a safe destination. He had to go inside somewhere—to find a place with people and lights, a place where his pursuer would not follow him. He caught sight of an office building on the left, tried the door, and found it open. Once inside, he noticed that the door had a chain, which he quickly fastened. There was also a lock on the doorknob, which he turned.
Feeling a little safer, he took a deep breath and turned around to survey the space where he found himself. There were no people, and the only light was from a single bare bulb overhead. The building looked abandoned. Graffiti had been spray-painted all over the walls. The glass in the windows had been smashed, and doors that had once led to offices had been torn off their hinges. He glanced inside one room to see a desk and a broken office chair and piles of garbage, probably from people who had been squatting in the space.
The Puppet Carver Page 3
