by Aimee Bender
The man cocked his grossly oversized fist. Instead of a fist, eyes hit Ralph as both popped out of the man’s head. “Ah shit,” he tried to say, but he had reached critical mass and exploded all over the yard instead.
The initial shock wore off; Ralph felt around. His body was intact and, miraculously, none of the mess had splattered on him or his clothes. It was everywhere else, though, even on some of the other houses.
Then he realized the globs and splatters weren’t just random. They spelled out a clue that began by a neighboring tree, stretched from the bear up to the front of the house, went over a fence and ended by a lamppost the next yard over.
DON’T TRUST BILLBOARDS, it said.
Ralph recited these words a hundred times in an attempt to store them in long-term memory. Then he wondered if it really mattered. He remembered nothing specific from past clues, just disembodied references to various individuals, groups, cults and drugs. Perhaps the clues were all being stored in a mental vault of sorts, one that he could access at the correct time, but maybe that was mere wishful thinking.
And how long had it been since he sold a dildo? A year? Ten years? A hundred?
Had he even sold a first one? All he remembered was going to many houses and knocking on many doors, so many that they all blurred together and seemed like the same big door that led into the same big house.
Maybe he just needed another sign, one that would lead him to a new house, a better place where he’d not only find a clue, but sell a dildo, too. To find it, he’d just have to keep walking.
And so Ralph walked for longer than he thought he could without the sun going down.
Maybe he wanted it too much, or wasn’t looking hard enough. Fear told him that it was his fault. He was too blind to see what had to be right in front of him. Ralph tried to shake away this thought. It leached into him, instead.
“Come on! Just give me something I can recognize!” Looking up at the eye in the sky, he imagined that it was taunting him silently.
Ralph considered breaking protocol by trying the closest house. Another part of him felt that this might be a bad thing, that he might be punished, somehow and by somebody.
He put the case down. It had become even more of an anathema to him. Stretching his arms and back, he felt something in his pocket press against his leg. He pulled out a cell phone.
Interesting, but he knew no one apart from himself.
Wait. He’d forgotten about Mom. Now, more than anything, he wanted to talk to her. She had been dead for a very long time, but that didn’t stop her from being there for him, day after day.
Maybe she would have some answers, too, but Ralph couldn’t recall her number. In desperation, he pushed random buttons on the pad. To his surprise, the phone on the other end started ringing. In three rings, it was picked up.
Ralph said “hello” and heard only a lullaby, hummed in his mother’s voice. Seconds before, he couldn’t remember the sound of it. It seemed so warm and familiar now. Vaguely, Ralph recalled doing stuff with Mom when he was small, things like going to a place full of steel cages and vicious, wild animals. Whenever he thought of her, she had a blank-face.
She finished the lullaby. “How are you doing, dear?”
“About the same … at least I think so.”
Her voice had a caring lilt. “And how exactly is that?”
It seemed now that his mom always had a way of getting the truth out of him. He exhaled and spoke. “I went to a bad house and … and I just don’t want to do this shi—” he stopped himself before he could say a bad word—“anymore. I want to go back home, but to do that, I’ve got to keep knocking on these doors!”
“I understand. You’re frustrated. But trust me, it’s not as bad as you think.”
He sighed. “I just want you to tell me something about how things used to be. Anything. It doesn’t matter. Even the smallest detail will help me feel whole again.”
Silence greeted him for too long.
“… Like what school did I attend? What was my favorite color? Where did we live?”
“All those things are confidential, dear.”
“Okay, Mom, okay. It’s just that … being dead and all, you must know some of the secrets.”
“I do. But you know I can’t tell.” There was a slight pause. “But I can tell you this…”
His hands tingled. “Please, Mom! Please tell!”
“This happened long ago. I was in the hospital with the flu. Doctors thought I might die, and I felt so terrible I believed them, until The White Man came.”
“The White Man?”
“Yes, and he told me that you, who had yet to be born, would grow up to become a very special type of man, a traveling dildo salesman.”
“Why have you never told me this?”
“I’ve told you. You just don’t remember.”
Ralph looked down at his shoes. “Oh...”
“Don’t worry, Son. For now, simply know that you are meant to follow this path. It is your Way. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mom, I do.”
“Good. And never get on that bus. You’d be cheating destiny.”
He was taken aback. “How did you know about the bus?”
“Mothers know all. I also know a sign will appear to you soon, and it will make you very, very happy.”
Suddenly, the pavement in front of him reared up. Ralph covered his eyes, for a second thinking it might crash down on him like a wave, but it took a detour to the right, shooting through a nearby yard and across the porch where it stopped at the door and landed with a thud.
“Do you see the sign?” Mom asked.
“I do. And yes, I’ll do a good job. I’ll sell all my dildos, just like you want. But Mom…”
“What, Son?”
He bit his lip. “Can I ask a favor before you go?”
“Of course.”
“Will you … will you please call me after I finish with this house, just in case it turns out bad, too?” He hated that he sounded so vulnerable.
“I’ll try, but I can’t make promises. Getting to the phone more than once a day when you’re dead isn’t easy.”
“I understand, and no need to promise anything. Thanks, Mom.”
“You’re welcome, Son.”
Following the new road, Ralph scanned the chosen property. Physically, the house was the same as all the others, but a fountain towered in the yard. Rusting steel fragments of varying shapes and sizes shot forth at wild angles from a wide, saucer-shaped base. The top ended in a huge nozzle that spurted black, oily water. Ralph wondered if the owner might be an artist, someone who might appreciate his dildos, buy them all, and incorporate them into his or her work.
He stood at the door for a few seconds for composure’s sake, but, before he could knock, the door opened slowly, not with a squeal, but a mechanical hum and the sound of uncoiling springs and grinding gears.
Before Ralph stood a robot, or, rather, what looked like a Halloween costume or cheap movie approximation of such. Its body was just a dull tin box with slots and knobs and gauges on it. Some appeared painted on. Its head was similar to a bucket, with a cutout slot for the mouth, two red plastic flares serving as eyes and a black dot for the nose. Legs were thick, woven wire bundles. The wires untangled and split into prongs that served as rudimentary feet; it didn’t appear to have functional knees.
“Good day, sir.”—Then he wondered if he should call a robot “sir”—“My name is Ralph, and you look like an individual who might be interested in one of my fine dildos.”
The robot made bleeping sounds. Ralph took that as a “yes.”
He brought his case into view. “Well, then I suggest grabbing one, or even a handful, now, as this is a one-time only opportunity.”
The robot bleeped again.
“Why don’t we step inside? I could show you some of my finer specimens. Believe me when I say, dildos are one of the world’s most versatile inventions.”
It started leak
ing oil onto the carpet.
Ralph felt flustered. Perhaps the best he could do was leave. “Well, good day,” he said. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
As he was about to turn away, a pinprick of light appeared in the center of the robot’s chest and lengthened across it in a beam. The beam arched down and became the outline of a door, the demarcated segment opening like a drawbridge as Ralph’s case rumbled and light emanated from it in rays. Then locks unfastened, and dildos, dozens and dozens of them, flew from the case and into the robot. When the last dildo was through the breach, the door and case both slammed shut.
For a second, Ralph feared that the robot might take the dildos and leave without paying him. But the door opened again, and a belly-full of pennies slid out from it onto the porch.
He picked up one of the pennies, studied it. The obverse featured a happy-looking walrus head, wearing a monocle. The reverse said only, ONE CENT.
Ralph put this coin in his pocket as a souvenir. The rest, he scooted off the porch. “I give these to the ground,” he said. As if on vocal cue, grass blades wrapped around the pennies. The ground swallowed them and, afterwards, expelled air like a burp.
Ralph didn’t mind the loss. Money was a means of transaction, and, once that transaction was complete, it became meaningless.
Big-top music started playing in the robot’s house. He looked past the robot just as a banner unfurled from the ceiling, stretching from one side of the living room to the other as streamers and confetti fell.
CONGRATULATIONS, RALPH!
—GOD
Knowing something, somewhere, had been watching heartened him. Perhaps certain powers—powers that cared for his best interests—were congratulating him on sticking around and seeing it through to the end.
“Thank you,” he said, though to whom exactly he could not say.
The robot spat out a roll of white tape from a slot where a naval would be were it human. When the roll stopped getting longer, Ralph reached down, pulled it off.
Maybe this was his ticket out of the world, but the script was reminiscent of hieroglyphics, and he could decipher none of it. One marking was somewhat evocative, though. It was a heart, and it reminded him of a locket that hung on an old woman’s neck. Within that heart image, he realized suddenly, were words too small to read.
He folded the strip, put it in his pocket. “Good day, sir,” Ralph said, more out of habit, as he was sure the thing hadn’t heard him, then added, sincerely, “And thank you so very, very much.”
“Good day to you, too,” the thing said in a low, halting electronic register.
On the road, Ralph was met with a feeling like déjà vu. It was, he realized, also a feeling of joy. Before, joy had been just a word, no way to conceptualize it. As he pondered this, he realized that he might just love the robot. It had finally squared his circle.
Ralph glanced up at the sky, looking, perhaps, for a flaming chariot or magic carpet. When would he transcend this place? He hoped it would be soon, but if he had to wait, be patient, then so be it. At that moment, Ralph realized that he still carried his case. How silly of him. He tossed it to the street.
In his pocket, the phone rang. His smile was so wide it felt eternal. He couldn’t wait to talk to Mom, tell her the news. “Hello!” he shouted before she even had time to speak.
“My, you sound excited!”
“I am, Mom; I am! You won’t believe this, but I sold my dildos to a robot!”
She sighed. “Robots are such nice people.”
“They are, Mom. Really and truly.”
“I’m so proud of you, Son.”
“I’m proud of me, too! It’s over and I can go home!”
On the line: awkward silence.
“Mom?” Ralph asked.
“I hate to say this,” she said, finally, “but have you looked in your case since the robot bought your dildos?”
“No. Why?”
“I just think you should look, that’s all.”
Ralph bent down, opened the case. A large pink dildo, threaded with pulsing veins, sat to the left of a smaller translucent blue one and to the right of a realistic-looking yet grossly oversized basic model.
“Oh shi—crap, Mom!” Ralph said. He considered rushing back to the house. There, he would accost the robot, make it buy the last three dildos.
“You are never to return to a house you’ve already tried,” Mom said, her tone a bit sterner. “It’s part of the rules.”
“Okay. I’m just … a little disappointed.”
“Still, Son, this is good,” she said. “In fact, it’s very, very good. Just think of how much closer you are now…”
“I know. I know. Being close is great, but it’s not the same as making it.”
“I understand, dear, but you’re doing great. I’m so very proud of you. Never forget that and keep plugging away. Do it for your old, dead mother.”
“I will. I promise. And thank you, Mom.”
Ralph could almost see her smile. “No, thank you. You’ve said all I wanted to hear.”
CHAPTER THREE
Sunrays no longer shined through clouds. Night insects screamed in the distance. In front of and behind Ralph, the lights in all the houses went out simultaneously.
Thinking back, he couldn’t recall ever seeing homeowners in their yards after dark. No flickers of light or shadows passing by windows, either. Perhaps everyone left via tunnels or simply ceased to be until morning.
If so, he imagined it’d be okay to sleep in one of the houses, as it seemed a crime for so much space to go unused, night after night.
Then Ralph thought he remembered something about a big, threatening black shadow that warned him never to approach any house after dark. But what if that shadow was just a phantom from some long ago dream? Maybe he’d already entered houses, slept in them numerous times.
A rested salesman, Ralph figured, was preferable to an exhausted one, so he stepped onto the property. In lieu of a plastic animal, a metallic sculpture of a red broken heart sat on a marble base surrounded by a small herb garden. Directly behind the house: a patch of dense woods.
One of the windows was open slightly. From it, Ralph heard a song, its melody warm and happy, its lyrics muffled by walls. Curiosity overpowered him. He walked to the sill, took hold of it and pushed himself up.
Losing his balance, he fell from the window to the floor. His left shoulder stung a bit but the pain was forgotten as he heard the lyrics to the song clearly:
Your trials are near their end.
Relax in memory;
Relax in what soon shall be
And become yourself again…
First his shoulders and then his mind relaxed as he walked through a den populated with comfy looking furniture and charming knickknacks. A set of bronze hands, clasped in prayer, sat atop the TV. Old porcelain dolls lined the mantle above a lit fireplace.
In an adjacent bedroom, colorful jars of perfume were displayed on the dresser. A gray shawl was draped over one bedpost. A rack full of yellowing magazines sat by the nightstand. On the wall above the bed was a family photograph, faded, tattered at the edges and containing three smiling people. The smallest guy looked like the sort of kid Ralph might once have been.
Ralph remembered, suddenly, that this was the room where his grandmother had once slept. Her name was Meg. Or Marge. Or Mabel. Ralph wished he could call her as well, but maybe she’d been dead for so long that her voice was just a whisper.
He entered a short and narrow hall before finding himself in the kitchen. On the refrigerator, held up by an apple-shaped magnet, was a drawing of a stick figure standing beside a stick house in a stick world with a happy sun and no leering blue eye in sight.
FOR GRANNY, said the big, red, crayon-rendered words at the top.
Turning to his right, he saw the entranceway to the dining room and, through it, a massive, ornate wooden table, ostentatious in such an otherwise homespun milieu. China plates and platters and cups h
eld enough food to satiate at least twenty people. Ralph eyed the turkey in the center of the table. His stomach rumbled, and he looked down at his stick-like arms, then felt the ribs beneath his shirt.
Still, he stared at the food for another minute, reveling in the sheer awesomeness of the spread before approaching the table and taking his seat. He touched the turkey leg. It was hot. The stuffing produced warm steam that condensed against his hand. He seized a knife, gold from the looks of it, and dug in, slicing off a chunk of turkey breast. He dropped it on his plate, took a bite and oh did it taste wonderful, like Christmas and Thanksgiving combined.
Quickly, he reached for a spoon buried in a bowl of mashed potatoes, but, upon lifting it, noticed that it was connected by wire to the bottom of the bowl. Something clicked; a guillotine blade from the ceiling smashed into the table. Ralph looked down. His fork had been halved; the top quarter of his thumb was gone, too.
He stood up. A blade as wide as the room itself descended, splitting the entire kitchen. The left side of the room fell away as the turkey rose from the plate, picked up a carving knife with its wing and flashed it. The severed neck mimicked a mouth and smiled unpleasantly.
A third blade whooshed, this time from the side. Ralph ducked as it sheared away the uppermost quarters of the house. Before he could reorient himself, whirling blades on stalks and nozzles shot up from the floor, busting boards and sending clouds of dust and crawlspace skeletons into the air.
The devices gave chase, playing oddly soothing Muzak from tiny speakers all the while. Ralph’s feet wanted to tap against his volition, but he couldn’t let these frequencies into his brain. He ignored them as much as he was able and jumped over a fourth blade that threatened his feet.
Outside, he ran in the direction of the woods. The nozzles, hoses and blades shut off their music, made disconcerting chattering sounds. Turning, Ralph saw the open, needle-filled maw of a hose hovering mere inches from his neck.
