See You in Paradise (22 page)

SPIDERWEBS that connect her bicycle to the cellar wall, which are severed when, some months after her death, he fills the tires with air, straps on her helmet, which is too small for him, climbs onto the bicycle, and rides as fast as he can through the darkened streets of their town, screaming her name at the top of his lungs, until at last he is arrested for disturbing the peace and spends the night in jail, which he later realizes is exactly the place he wanted to be that night, which is perhaps the reason that he elected to ride, while screaming, the bicycle, which he leaves behind at the police station and never sees again

THE QUILTED GRAY METALLIC-NYLON VEST that the Korean exchange student lost outside the Christian Center, on the back of which is printed an incomprehensible English phrase

THE NEW MAP on which his hometown is not marked, as it no longer exists, because the state forced its residents to sell their homes so that the new reservoir could be created above them, which reservoir, with its waterfront casinos, has greatly increased the value of the surrounding properties, many of which are owned by the senator who lobbied to have the reservoir project approved

A BOTTLE OF PAIN RELIEVER brought on a business trip that proves, at the moment it is most needed, to be filled not with pain reliever but with buttons

THE HOUSEPLANT that will not die

FIFTY PAIRS OF OLD BLUE JEANS found at secondhand clothing stores and brought, at great expense, on a trip to eastern Europe and the former Soviet Republics, where, rumor had it, old blue jeans could be sold for a lot of money, but where this was no longer true, as so many previous visitors had heard the same rumor and done the same thing, creating a glut of old blue jeans, which were not even all that stylish there anymore, and causing the entire trip to be ruined by the necessity of hauling around these huge suitcases full of other people’s jeans, which smelled kind of bad, as if those other people were currently wearing them

ACRID MIST that, not long after a crash is heard from the chemistry storeroom, begins to seep out from the under the closed door

WORK GLOVES, once owned by the farmer, routinely used for calving and for the slaughter of cattle, and hardened with blood and slime into the exact shape of his hands, that are many years after his death discovered hanging in the barn by the farmer’s son, who tries them on and finds that his own hands, though soft from his life of relative affluence and leisure and work behind a desk, fit perfectly

THE PHOTOGRAPH of the woman and her children and the children’s father that the father has been cut out of, which the woman uses to mark her place in
Valley of the Dolls
when she goes to the window to see what is the matter

THE DECK OF CARDS that his children have added extra aces and kings to, because it’s more fun that way, but which he is accused of cheating with and is beaten up for during his regular card game, a beating he will have to explain to his wife with some lie, as he has been insisting that he works late on Friday nights, not gambling, an activity she believes he was addicted to but has been weaned from with the help of Gamblers Anonymous, an organization he never joined, despite what he said

SNEAKERS hanging from the power line, with one half of a boy’s broken glasses stuffed into each toe

THE URINE SAMPLE produced for the canceled doctor’s appointment and forgotten in the back of the fridge