THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2016 by Peter Brown Hoffmeister
Cover photograph copyright © 2016 Getty Images/Frank Huster
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 9780553538106 (trade) — ISBN 9780553538113 (lib. bdg.) —eBook ISBN 9780553538120
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
In the Mouth of the Crocodile
For My Grandma
Retribution
Jeopardy! and AP Lit
The Pervert’s Guide to Russian Princesses: Princess #3 (Second Draft)
Swimming in Circles
Poet One and Two
Antifreeze
Pablo Neruda
Walk Out Slow
This Is What We Hold
Green
Edging
Losing
Fishing
The Pervert’s Guide to Russian Princesses: Princess #11 (First Draft)
The Matrix
Of Monsters and Men
Osprey’s Hunt
Xbox vs. DVDs
Baby Daddy
Yellow Wig
What Happens Then?
T. S. Eliot and Basketball
Ivy Dreams
Alternatives to College
The Love Song of a Shadowboxer
The Pervert’s Guide to Russian Princesses: Princess #23 (Revised Draft)
The Ballad of Bass and Carp
Wallflower
Tombstone Blues
Your Feet
Like Coyotes in PDX
50-Foot Monsters
Planks
Locusts
The Camps
The Pervert’s Guide to Russian Princesses: Princess #29 (First Draft)
Nerds
Maybe This Is Nothing?
Missionaries
Sign on the Cross
Canoe Ride
Kermit Washington
Household Pets
Smashing
The Pervert’s Guide to Russian Princesses: Princess #31 (Rough Draft)
The Fridge
The Clinic
All the Way Home
Zeus
Going D-1
Notification
Past Mistakes
“Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream”
Milky Way
The Pervert’s Guide to Russian Princesses: Princess #37 (First Draft)
Listen
I’m Only Bleeding
Crime and Punishment
On the Road Again
In My Head
Neighborhood Watch
Slip Past the Cheese Girl
Codependence
Joker Man
Shrapnel
Hollis Brown Lived on the Outside of Town
Will
Enter the Distillery
I and I
The Art of Seduction
The Pervert’s Guide to Russian Princesses: Princess #43 (Revised Draft)
On Fathers
On the Court That Night
Waiting
ICU
Saltines and Sprite
These Times Are Easy
Visiting
Crocodile Hunting
Needing the Juice
No Hypnotism Here
Where’s John Starks Now?
The Pervert’s Guide to Russian Princesses: Princess #53 (First Draft)
Do What We Do
Two Gods to One
Mr. Tyler’s Porch
Waiting Again
When You Gonna Wake Up?
Corrections
Visiting Hours
No Matter What
Family
Finding
The Service
The Pervert’s Guide to Russian Princesses: Princess #69 (First Draft)
Acknowledgments
TO
ADRIANN RANTA
IRENE
26
IN THE MOUTH OF THE CROCODILE
When it’s good and dark, I drag the two duffel bags to the edge of the lake. Out in front of me, smallmouth bass come alive on the surface of the water, and I wish I’d brought my fishing pole. But it’s good I didn’t—I don’t want to draw attention to myself.
One of the bags twitches.
Down the east side, there’s a series of wooden docks, all the same length, like gray piano keys jutting out into the lake. There’s no one out on any of the docks now. I double-check each one. Make sure I’m alone.
I slide the first caiman out of its bag, the rubber bands and duct tape still in place. The caiman doesn’t fight, so I start taking off the tape layers. When I get down to the big rubber bands around its mouth, I lean my forearm on its upper jaw the way the man showed me when I bought them. Then I take the final rubber bands off and jump out of the way.
The caiman opens its mouth and hisses, but it doesn’t move.
“Go,” I yell. “Get in the water.”
It doesn’t go anywhere.
I say, “Get.”
But it stays where it is and hisses at me.
I back away. Take the other duffel bag up the shore a bit, far enough to give myself a little room but still close enough to see the first caiman’s outline.
When I open the second duffel bag, I find that the caiman has wriggled free of most of its duct tape and rubber bands. It’s clacking its jaws and thrashing around in the bag like it’s trying to do a 360.
It whips its tail, and I say, “Whoa,” and zip the bag closed again, feeling lucky that I didn’t reach my hand in first. I step back and wait for the caiman to calm down.
After a minute, the bag goes still. I step forward, unzip it all the way, and jump back. The caiman fights and turns—flips the bag over before sliding through the opening and sidewinding toward me up the bank. The last piece of duct tape is still stuck to one of its back legs, keeping it off balance, a hitch in its step, but it’s coming at me anyway.
I sprint backward, duck under a branch, trip on a root, and fall on my face in the dirt. I scramble to my feet and grab a stick, spin around to defend myself, but the caiman’s not there. Not where I can see it.
I don’t know much about caimans other than what I read online after I saw the ad, but I do know that they love to hunt and can run 30 miles per hour. That quickness worries me. And their jaws.
I creep back toward the water, toward the bank, holding my stick, hoping I’ll see the caimans before they see me. But it’s dark now and I can’t tell what’s a log or a clump of grass, or a small crocodile. I creep forward. Now I’m close to the lake and I can’t see the first caiman, let alone the second. The duffel bags are out in front of me somewhere and the two caimans are there too, and I’m holding the stick and turning back and forth slowly, peering in
to the darkness all around me.
I planned on leaving no evidence, no sign that I was ever here, but I don’t want to get attacked either, and it’s dark now, and the reptiles are on either side of me.
I listen. Wait. Hunch down and look. But it’s too dark.
I back up, watching my footing, and keep backing up, scanning for shapes in the dark. I turn at the big tree, and I’m closer to the road now, and the streetlight comes on, a yellow slant over my shoulder.
When I get to my bike, I grip the handlebars and take one last look at the lake.
That’s for you, Grandma, I think, for your last summer here.
Because fuck cancer.
FOR MY GRANDMA
Because fuck living in a manufactured double-wide in a trailer park after working hard her whole life as a teacher for not enough money, being disrespected by students and principals and school districts. Fuck being here in this trailer park and waiting to die.
Fuck cancer.
Because this will give her more entertainment than sitting in her room. This will give everyone along the lake some entertainment, something they need, something to talk about.
RETRIBUTION
I pedal the dirt path back to the pavement at the streetlight—my empty trailer bouncing over the ruts—thinking about when I saw the ad for the caimans posted outside the bathrooms at the Chevron gas station, duct-taped to the wall. It read:
EXOTIC SOUTH AMERICAN CROCODILES
Growing Too Fast. Over Four Feet. Must Sell. Cheap.
And reading that was like when I change gears on my bike and they grind for a second and it feels like the chain’s going to bind up and break, but then it slips into the right place and suddenly I’m in a good gear and there isn’t even a noise and I’m pedaling along the road like I’m flying.
—
I cruise down the street to the backside of the park where I can push through the gap in the hedge. But before I go home, I stop at Mr. Tyler’s single-wide, stash my bike and trailer under two huge rhododendrons, and sneak up to his porch.
The warm stink is awful. I hold my breath and look to see if anyone’s around. Check up and down the street. Wait and listen as I crouch at the top of his front steps. The green plastic turf on his porch—shining in the light of the streetlamp—looks like layers of shaved wax.
I haven’t pissed in hours, my bladder full. I whip it out and start pissing on the railings, across the front of the porch, take a step and splash some of it on the rocking chair, and as I’m finishing, turn and let the last few drops dribble down the front steps.
No one sees me, and I hop off the porch and jog back to my bike.
JEOPARDY! AND AP LIT
That night, before I go to my tent, I check on my grandma. She’s in bed watching Jeopardy!, talking to the TV. I sit next to her as she says, “What is heliocentrism?”
One of the contestants says, “What is heliocentrism?”
Then the host says, “That is correct.”
I say, “Hey, Grandma, how are you feeling?”
My hand’s next to her on the bedspread. She pats my fingers. “I’m doing well,” she says. “Quite well.”
“Really?”
She smiles at me and squeezes my hand. “I think so. As well as can be expected.”
The contestant on the show picks another square and the host reads the answer. Grandma says, “Who is Henry the Eighth?”
The contestant says, “Who is Henry the Eighth?”
I say, “Is this a rerun or do you always just know the answers?”
Grandma smiles at me. “I was a high school teacher for 36 years, sweetie.”
“And that’s how you learned everything?”
“Well, my first school was a small school and I had to teach five different subjects while I was there, so I learned a lot along with the students.” She squeezes my hand again.
I say, “Did you like teaching?”
“Yes,” she says. “Definitely.”
“Then tell me a story.” I’ve always liked her stories, it doesn’t matter what they’re about. When Grandma and I used to go out in the canoe together, she’d tell me stories the whole time.
“Okay,” she says. “Let me see….” She drums her fingers on the back of my hand. I can tell she’s thinking because she doesn’t answer the next Jeopardy! clue.
“Okay,” she says. “This one’s from one of my last years of teaching.” She shifts her shoulders. Resettles on her pillow. “I was teaching AP literature to a class of 35 students. There was this one boy, sort of like you, looked like you, had a serious face all the time like you, but he was always falling asleep in class. He was a bright enough boy, but I couldn’t keep him awake when I lectured. So one day, while he was asleep, I walked right up to him and leaned in close to his face and blew on his nose. When that woke him up, I said, ‘I almost kissed you. One more second, and I would have.’ ”
“You said that?”
“Yes. And you should have seen his face. I was almost 70 years old by then, all wrinkly and shrunken down, and he just about jumped out of his chair when he saw my face so close to his. I told him I couldn’t wait for another chance to kiss him, that I would take that very next chance to plant a big wet one on his lips.”
“Grandma.” I shake my head. “He never fell asleep again, did he?”
“No,” she says. “He almost did so many times, but then he’d sort of startle awake, and I’d see him check to see where I was in the room. Everyone else would see that too. His classmates would watch him, especially if he seemed tired. It became a sort of fun side story in that class, something that thickened the plot.”
“He was probably terrified.”
“He was a really nice kid. I just wanted to pull his leg a little.” Grandma shifts again on her pillow, makes a small noise in her throat like she’s trying to swallow something sharp.
“Are you okay?” I say. “Are you hurting a lot?”
“A little. But I’m okay.” She closes her eyes.
“Do you need a pill?”
“No,” she says. “I don’t like the pills.”
“Are you sure? You might need one.”
“No thanks. I just need some sleep.”
I kiss her forehead and stand up. “I’ll let you rest.”
When I’m at the door, she says, “Travis, you know I love you?”
I look back and she has her eyes closed, her head tilted to the side.
My eyes get itchy and I open my mouth, but I can feel how creaky my voice is going to sound, so I don’t say anything.
Somehow Grandma knows I’m still in the doorway. “You sleep well tonight,” she says. “36 nights in a row?”
“Yeah. Good memory.”
She smiles, her eyes still closed. “Goodnight, sweetie.”
“Goodnight, Grandma.”
Coming down the hall, I hear her say, “What is photosynthesis?” just before the TV contestant says, “What is photosynthesis?”
When I enter the living room, I see a light, a spark, out on the back porch. I stop and watch. There’s the spark again, then a flame above a pipe, and I see my grandpa’s face lit by that small light. Grandpa inhales, holds his smoke, and exhales. He’s standing sideways, not looking in the house but down at the pipe in his hands. He sparks the lighter and puffs again. Turns and looks out at the lake. I stare at his dark outline.
There’s a paperweight on the table, smooth and round and heavy, with ZION NATIONAL PARK chiseled into it. I think about throwing it through the plate glass, watching the glass shards explode onto my grandpa. I pick it up, hold it in my hand. Then I set it down. Turn around. Go back to the bathroom and brush my teeth, wait, lean against the wall, wait until I hear my grandpa come into the house and walk past me, down the hall to his bedroom.
Then I leave the bathroom, go through the living room and out onto the back porch, through the thick marijuana smoke hanging under the eaves.
Down at my tent, Creature’s left a page of his
writing on my sleeping bag.
The Pervert’s Guide to Russian Princesses
Princess #3 (Second Draft)
Princess Nina Georgievna, your face long enough to travel by car, your memories of your father like the color indigo at the break of midnight, executed Romanovs in 1919.
You tell me to come forward. You do not look at me as I walk around you. You hold up one finger, spin it in the air, and I keep walking.
Royal. You make your hand flat and I stop.
This is what I must do:
Lean in. A bottle of pure Mexican vanilla in your purse, I smell the scent behind your ears.
Stand behind you and peel the dress off of your shoulders. Run a finger down the ticked line of your spine.
Use my thumbs to rub the knots in your trapezius muscles.
Make up stories about your father being alive and well, hiding in Northern Europe, in Sweden, in an apartment in Stockholm.
This is the Part Where You Laugh Page 1
