The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014

by Daniel Handler

When I got back to Afghanistan, I met with several men preparing to go to Australia. One of them, Qais Khan, opened a small autoparts shop in Kabul in 2005. Qais told me that for years, while Afghans from the provinces came regularly into the city, he did very well. Since 2010, however, the deteriorating security situation in the rural areas adjacent to the capital had stultified commerce and ruined many retailers. Last year, Qais’s shop went out of business; now he was struggling to feed his wife and two children.

  A couple of months ago, 15 of Qais’s friends paid a smuggler at Sarai Shahzada and left for Indonesia. Among them was Qais’s next-door neighbor, a driver for a member of Parliament, who decided to flee after receiving three letters from the Taliban threatening to kill him. Qais told me he was waiting to hear whether his friends were successful—in which case, he would go as well.

  “And if they’re not?” I asked. “If they’re sent to Papua New Guinea or the Republic of Nauru?”

  Qais thought for a moment and then admitted he would probably go anyway. In fact, he had already taken out the necessary loans to pay the smuggler. “At least there you have a chance,” he said. “At least there is a possibility.”

  I felt obligated to tell him he was wrong. “You won’t get to Australia,” I said.

  Qais didn’t seem to hear. The words simply didn’t register. “Australia, Europe, America,” he said. “They’re not like here. You have a chance.”

  LUCIE BROCK-BROIDO

  Two Poems

  FROM Stay, Illusion, a poetry collection

  You Have Harnessed Yourself Ridiculously to This World

  Tell the truth I told me When I couldn’t speak.

  Sorrow’s a barbaric art, crude as a Viking ship Or a child

  Who rode a spotted pony to the lake away from summer

  In the 1930’s Toward the iron lung of polio.

  According to the census I am unmarried And unchurched.

  The woman in the field dressed only in the sun.

  Too far gone to halt the Arctic Cap’s catastrophe, big beautiful

  Blubbery white bears each clinging to his one last hunk of ice.

  I am obliged, now, to refrain from dying, for as long as it is possible.

  For whom left am I first?

  We have come to terms with our Self

  Like a marmoset getting out of her Great Ape suit.

  Currying the Fallow-Colored Horse

  And to the curious I say, Don’t be naïve.

  The soul, like a trinket, is a she.

  I lay down in the tweed of one man that first frost night. I did not like the wool of him.

  You have one mitochondrial speck of evidence on your cleat.

  They can take you down for that.

  Did I forget to mention that when you’re dead

  You’re dead a long time.

  My uncle, dying, told me this when asked, Why stay here for such suffering.

  A chimney swift flits through the fumatorium.

  I long for one last Blue democracy, which has broke my heart a while.

  How many minutes have I left, the lover asked, To still be beautiful?

  I took his blonde face in my hands and kissed him blondely on his mouth.

  A. T. GRANT

  The Body

  FROM Collected Alex, a chapbook

  The Dead Body at the Party

  I could drag the dead body to the party. But the people. The people holding glasses of beer or wine or Diet Coke. The people having a good time. The people that would expect me to have a good time. They would expect me to make conversation and not worry about the body. The body that I have been dragging around for years and years. The body that is leaking and rotting and beginning to smell the way a leaking, rotting dead body smells. Maybe they would be able to tell from the smell that I have not been taking care of it. That I am performing an experiment. That I have not been feeding the body its special formula. They would notice the scribbled hair, the wrecked fingernails, the trail of goo that leaks from all of its holes. And they would try to start a conversation. They would say:

  That’s some dead body.

  How long have you had that thing.

  And where do you get something like that anyway.

  Do they come with instructions.

  What’s the rate of decomposition.

  Do you ever—you know.

  Did you get it because of that movie. What was it called.

  It must make a great punching bag.

  It’s been how many days since you’ve given the body its special formula.

  Then they would address the body directly. Ask if it isn’t tired of being dragged around by this guy all the time as they jerk their thumbs in my direction. He’s such a character, they would laugh. And they would put a drink in the body’s hand and pose it like it was flirting with a group of women. And they would take photos of the body and me with their iPhones. And then there would be a tagged photo of the body and me on Facebook the next morning. The tags would read:—with The Body and Alex.

  I could drag the body to the party. I could lug the body downstairs from my apartment and into the car. I could strap the body in, start the car, and drive. But we don’t go to the party. We don’t really go anywhere.

  The Day They Gave Me the Dead Body

  My eighth birthday was when my parents gave me this dead body.

  Go ahead, my mother said. It won’t bite.

  My parents held each other and watched as I inspected it. They were so excited. My mother bit her lip. I lifted the dead body’s arm by the wrist. Its skin was smooth and felt like it might burst if I gave it a sharp poke. When I let go, its hand smacked against the hardwood. I stuck my finger between its third and fourth ribs. One of them felt broken. I sat for a moment on its chest. No movement. I opened its mouth to look at its teeth. A bad smell came out of the mouth, so I closed it. I opened its eyelids. The eyes were little black discs with nothing behind them.

  How do you play with it, I asked.

  Well, you don’t play with it, exactly.

  Oh, I said. I looked up and down the body again, then rolled it over. What am I supposed to do with it.

  Pick it up, my father said. He picked up the body and threw it over his right shoulder. Like this, he said. Carry it around awhile, see how it feels.

  So I did.

  The body was much larger than me, probably twice my size. I staggered under its weight. It looked like it was about twenty-five years old when it died.

  Once I got it balanced on my shoulder I asked, How long has it been dead.

  They did not answer. My mother got the camera, while my father beamed at me, the body draped over my shoulder. They looked so proud. I placed the body on the floor as gently as I could. I looked into its face. My mother raised the camera. I heard the flash begin to charge.

  How did it die, I asked, still looking into the body’s face.

  The camera snapped, flashed.

  The Experiment

  A few weeks ago I decided to stop giving the body its formula. I wondered if I would still be able to carry the body around. I wondered if the body would break into pieces or turn inside out or dissolve completely. I wondered if I would feel guilt about destroying the dead body that had been given to me, or if someone, I don’t know who, the Dead Body Protective Care Service if such a thing exists, would come and take the body away from me.

  When I had the idea, it felt like a hole opened in my head. I am not sure where the idea came from. But it came. Maybe I saw a farmer carry a feedsack over his shoulder, then heave it into the back of his truck and dust off his hands. Maybe I saw a couple on television break up, their bodies stiff on the screen. Maybe it had been a particularly long day of carrying the body around. Maybe I was just tired.

  Wherever You Go

  Always keep your dead body close, my parents told me. Never let it out of your sight.

  But, I said, but it’s so heavy.

  It will make you stronger, my mother said. I looked at the floo
r, but she lifted my chin so our eyes met. You can do it. You have to try. For us.

  So I began carrying it everywhere. First I practiced carrying it around my room. I learned how to avoid the corners of my bed, my desk. I learned to raise the body up so its feet would not drag.

  Careful, my parents would say when I raised it too near the fan or when I went through a doorframe. You don’t want to knock it in the head.

  I looked at its head, swollen with lumps.

  Okay, I said.

  Once I could carry it safely around my room, I practiced carrying it back and forth through the house. I learned all of the trouble spots of the indoors. Sometimes my parents gave me lessons for particular spots—

  Take the stairs one at a time.

  Be careful not to let the hair dangle into the lit stovetop.

  Don’t let the body rest too close to the fireplace or an ember might jump onto its clothes.

  Same goes for the space heater.

  Be sure the arms and legs don’t flop and knock over the ironing board.

  Be careful not to slip and drop the body when you take it out of the bathtub.

  —and so on.

  I carried it for hours each day. When one shoulder got tired, I switched the body to the other. When both shoulders got tired, I set it against a wall. The dead body made a good cushion. I leaned against it and used its legs as armrests.

  After a few months, my carrying was good enough to take the body outside of the house.

  Stares

  At first it was difficult to get used to the stares. I was the only kid on the block that carried a body around. I knew that all eyes were on the body, and because I carried it, I knew that all the people who looked at the body saw me, but only out of the corners of their eyes, pale and out of focus. Sometimes I felt the need to compete with the body for attention. I tried wearing a bright red shirt. I tried wearing a very tall blaze orange hat. I tried walking with a limp. I tried shouting everywhere I went. No matter what I did, I never felt the attention clot directly onto me as I carried the body down the street.

  Even at home, I felt like my parents always looked at some neutral point between the dead body and me. Every picture was: the body and Alex playing mini-golf, the body and Alex at the beach, the body and Alex - Christmas ’95. And when they said anything to me, they made sure to also reference the body somehow: Did you have a good day at school. Did the body stay propped up the entire time. It was as if they were afraid of showing favoritism.

  Once when my family was at the city park, I laid the body flat on the grass and covered it with a pile of leaves. Then I lay down on top of the pile. Where did the dead body go, I said. Looks like I’m the only one here.

  Later I began to enjoy the soft focus. I carried the body up and down the street for hours. I wore dull gray clothes so that I could feel myself dissolve into the background, into the warm and grainy feeling.

  Routine

  After a few months of lugging the dead body everywhere I went, we began to settle into a routine.

  Every morning I helped the body out of its sleeping bag. I stretched the dead body’s arms high over its head, then I opened its mouth and I yawned. I set the body in the corner while I made up my bed, then I used its arms and hands to roll up its sleeping bag and stash it under my bed.

  Then we went into the bathroom. I cleaned the crust out of my eyes, then its eyes. I propped the body on the toilet while I showered, but it never had to pee or anything. Then while I peed I let the body soak in the bath. The body always left a thick oily film on the water’s surface. My parents gave me special soaps to use on the body after it had soaked for several minutes. These will preserve the body, my father said. We want it to last for a long time, don’t we.

  After I brushed our teeth and combed our hair, I worked each of the body’s joints. You have to work its joints every day, mother said. If you don’t it will stiffen up and become difficult to carry and store in different positions.

  She told me I should also stretch and flex its muscles each morning. These are the things that make a body last, she said. It’s just as important to keep a dead body in shape as it is to keep a live body in shape.

  When we finished our morning workout, we went downstairs for breakfast. My parents would give me cereal with marshmallows. To the body they gave a teaspoon of a special liquid formula. It was thick, and it took a long time to drip down the body’s throat. I imagined it sliding, sliding, sliding down into the belly.

  Once I asked if I could taste the special liquid formula. You have your cereal, my mother said. Eat up.

  I just want to try it. What happens if you put it in a live body.

  Son, my father said. The formula isn’t made for a live body. Bad things would happen. He put his hand on the back of my neck. Promise your mother and me right now that you won’t ever taste the formula. That you’ll only feed it to the body.

  I shook my head yes and said, I promise.

  Besides, that stuff can’t taste good. My father squinched his face, then smiled and patted me on the head. Better go. You don’t want to be late for school.

  My mother screwed the cap onto the bottle of formula and put it on the top shelf. I kissed my mother and father like always. Then I puckered the body’s lips and made it give my parents each a kiss too.

  I still wondered what the special formula tasted like, but I never asked about it again.

  Recess

  At recess the kids made up songs about me and the dead body. One of them went: Alex and the body/flush them down the potty/dead ones, dead ones/they both fall down.

  After the kids sang the song, they would poke the body, then scatter across the playground, holding their noses. Then they would make P.U. and yuck faces. They would squeal and giggle.

  Then I would haul the body up the tallest slide and sit there for a while. We would watch the other children climb on the monkey bars and pretend the old tires were a fort. We would watch them play freeze tag and hide-and-go-seek.

  Don’t you wish we could run, I said to the body one time.

  When we got tired of watching, sometimes I let the body slide first so it could cushion me when I landed. Other times I slid first with the body right behind me for extra momentum.

  The teacher always noticed after one or two slides.

  Alex, she would say. We’re happy to let you bring your dead body to school, but we can’t let you take it onto the playground equipment. It will make a mess, and that wouldn’t be fair to the other children, would it.

  I guess not.

  Now, she would say with a smile, there are plenty of places where you and the dead body can play. Run along and have fun.

  The body and I always ended up making mounds in the dirt pile, humming.

  A Chest of Drawers

  Sometimes the dead body gets so heavy.

  Sometimes I get tired of carrying it on my shoulders, so I drag it and its mouth fills up with mud and leaves. And for some reason it is more bloated at certain times than at others. It must be humidity or something. Or maybe its dead organs are swelling.

  When it gets so heavy, I wish the dead body were a chest of drawers. I could pull out some drawers to lighten the load.

  Once I tried cutting off one of its legs. It made the body a little bit lighter, but then a few hours later when I was ready to reattach the leg, I had trouble finding it. Then once I found the leg, I couldn’t slide it back into the joint. We had to take the body to a doctor.

  Well, the doctor said, I’m afraid I’ve got bad news: the patient is dead. He laughed and clapped me on the back. Cheer up, son, he said. We can fix the leg.

  Hours later, we left with the leg reattached and cherry suckers for the body and me, which neither of us ate. My parents didn’t say anything, but I could tell they were upset by the quiet of the car ride home, by the way they touched my head as they tucked me into bed that night.

  I felt awful. Maybe I should just take the organs out, I thought. Then I could use the
body as a bag. I could open it up and crawl inside.

  The Woods

  I pick up the body and hoist it over my shoulder. My shoulder is sore from carrying the body yesterday to the grocery store and then around the shopping mall, where I bought some new boots, and then all around the parking lot when I forgot where we parked. So I switch the body to my other shoulder and begin walking into the woods.

  The woods are where the body and I feel the best. All of that quiet and no expectations. No walls or other people. We can be the dead body and the guy who carries the dead body. And if we walk for long enough, we always find a dead tree that is held up by some living trees.

  The ground is still wet from the rain and mist this morning. Water drips from the leaves onto the body which then drips onto me. My new boots are heavy. These are by far the deepest footprints we have ever made, I say to the body. I take a step and watch my foot sink deep into the mud, then I watch the print fill up with water as my foot leaves the depression.