Kelly Link: Get in Trouble: Stories

“Alan,” Lindsey said. Second warning. She knew he was keeping count.

“Sorry,” Alan said. He put his hand on Jason’s leg. “ Husband’s collection of gay porn. She and Elliot, wherever he is, are still married. I had the biggest hard-on for Elliot. He always said Lindsey was all he wanted. But it’s never about what you want, is it? It’s about what you need. Right?”

“Right,” Jason said.

“We’ll talk later,” Lindsey said. “Beh slam bih, tuh eb meh.”

“Sure,” Alan said. “Talk, talk.” He blew her a kiss.

How did Alan do it? Why did everyone except for Lindsey fall for it? Except, she realized, pedaling her bike down to The Splinter, she did fall for it. She still fell for it. It was her house, and who had been thrown out of it? Who had been insulted, mocked, abused, then summarily dismissed? Her. That’s who.

Cars went by, riding their horns. Damn Alan anyway.

She didn’t bother to chain up the bike; she probably wouldn’t be riding it home. She went into The Splinter and sat down beside a man with an aggressively sharp cologne.

“You look nice,” she said. “Buy me a drink and I’ll be nice, too.”

there are easier ways to kill yourself

The man was kissing her neck. She couldn’t find her keys, but that didn’t matter. The door was unlocked. Jason’s car still in the driveway. No surprise there.

“I have two shadows,” she said. It was all shadows. They were shadows, too.

“I don’t care,” the man said. He really was very nice.

“No,” she said. “I mean, my brother’s home. We have to be quiet. Okay if we don’t turn on the lights? Where are you from?”

“Georgia,” the man said. “I work construction. Came down here for the hurricane.”

“The hurricane?” she said. “I thought it was headed for the Gulf of Mexico. Watch out for the counter.”

“Now it’s coming back this way. Won’t hit for another couple of days if it hits. You into kinky stuff? You can tie me up,” the man said.

“Better knot,” she said. “Get it? I’m not into knots. Can never get them untied, even sober. This guy had to have his foot amputated. No circulation. True story. Friend told me.”

“Guess I’ve been lucky so far,” the man said. He didn’t sound too disappointed, either way. “This house has been through some hurricanes, I bet.”

“One or two,” she said. “Water comes right in over the tile floor. Messy. Then it goes out again.”

She tried to remember his name. Couldn’t. It didn’t matter. She felt terrific. That had been the thing about being married. The monogamy. Even drunk, she’d always known who was in bed with her. Elliot had been different, all right, but he had always been the same kind of different. Never a different kind of different. Didn’t like kissing. Didn’t like sleeping in the same bed. Didn’t like being serious. Didn’t like it when Lindsey was sad. Didn’t like living in a house. Didn’t like the way the water in the canal felt. Didn’t like this, didn’t like that. Didn’t like the Keys. Didn’t like the way people here looked at him. Didn’t stay. Elliot, Elliot, Elliot.

“My name’s Alberto,” the man said.

“Sorry,” she said. She and Elliot had always had fun in bed.

“He had a funny-looking penis,” she said.

“Excuse me?” Alberto said.

“Do you want something to drink?” she said.

“Actually, do you have a bathroom?”

“Down the hall,” she said. “First door.”

But he came back in a minute. He turned on the lights and stood there.

“Like what you see?” she said.

His arms were shiny and wet. There was blood on his arms. “I need a tourniquet,” he said. “Some kind of tourniquet.”

“What did you do?” she said. Almost sober. Putting her robe on. “Is it Alan?”

But it was Jason. Blood all over the bathtub and the half-tiled wall. He’d slashed both his wrists open with a potato peeler. The potato peeler was still there in his hand.

“Is he okay?” she said. “Alan! Where the fuck are you?”

Alberto wrapped one of her good hand towels around one of Jason’s wrists. “Hold this.” He stuck another towel around the other wrist and then wrapped duct tape around that. “I called 911,” he said. “He’s breathing. Couldn’t or didn’t want to do the job properly. Bad choice of equipment either way. Who is this guy? Your brother?”

“My employee,” she said. “I don’t believe this. What’s with the duct tape?”

“Carry it with me,” he said. “You never know when you’re going to need some duct tape. Get me a blanket. We need to keep him warm. My ex-wife did this once.”

She skidded down the hall. Slammed open the door to Elliot’s room. Turned on the lights and grabbed the comforter off the bed.

“ Vas poh! Your new boyfriend’s in the bathroom,” she said. “Cut his wrists with my potato peeler. Wake up, Lan-Lan! This is your mess.”

“ Fisfis wah , Lin-Lin,” Alan said, so she pushed him off the bed.

“What did you do, Alan?” she said. “Did you do something to him?”

He was wearing a pair of Elliot’s pajama bottoms. “You’re not being funny,” he said.

“I’m not kidding,” she said. “I’m drunk. There’s a man named Alberto in the bathroom. Jason tried to kill himself. Or something.”

“Oh, fuck,” he said. Tried to sit up. “I was nice to him, Lindsey! Okay? It was real nice. We fucked and then we smoked some stuff and then we were kissing and I fell asleep.”

She held out her hand, pulled him up off the floor. “What kind of stuff? Come on.”

“Something I picked up somewhere,” he said. She wasn’t really listening. “Good stuff. Organic. Blessed by monks. They give it to the gods. I took some off a shrine. Everybody does it. You just leave a bowl of milk or something instead. There’s no fucking way it made him crazy.”

The bathroom was crowded with everyone inside it. No way to avoid standing in Jason’s blood. “Oh, fuck,” Alan said.

“My brother, Alan,” she said. “Here’s his comforter. For Jason. Alan, this is Alberto. Jason, can you hear me?” His eyes were open now.

Alberto said to Alan, “It’s better than it looks. He didn’t really slice up his wrists. More like he peeled them. Dug into one vein pretty good, but I think I’ve slowed down the bleeding.”

Alan shoved Lindsey out of the way and threw up in the sink.

“Alan?” Jason said. There were sirens.

“No,” Lindsey said. “It’s me. Lindsey. Your boss. My bathtub, Jason. Your blood all over my bathtub. My potato peeler! Mine! What were you thinking?”

“There was an iguana in your freezer,” Jason said.

Alberto said, “Why the potato peeler?”

“I was just so happy,” Jason said. He was covered in blood. “I’ve never been so happy in all my life. I didn’t want to stop feeling that way. You know?”

“No,” Lindsey said.

“Are you going to fire me?” Jason said.

“What do you think?” Lindsey said.

“I’ll sue for sexual harassment if you try,” Jason said. “I’ll say you fired me because I’m gay. Because I slept with your brother.”

Alan threw up in the sink again.

“How do you feel now?” Alberto said. “You feel okay?”

“I just feel so happy,” Jason said. He began to cry.

one boy, raised from the dead

During the summer between third and fourth grade, Lindsey had witnessed the mother of a girl named Amelia Somersmith call a boy back to life when he fell off the roof during a game of hide-and-seek. He fell off when a kid named Martin saw him hiding up there, and yelled his name. David Filgish stood up and just to show he didn’t care that he’d been seen, he turned a cartwheel along the garage roof, only he misjudged where the edge was. He had definitely been dead. Everybody was sure about that. Amelia’s mother came running out of the house while everyone was standing there, wondering what to do, looking down at David, and she’d said, “Oh, God, David, you idiot! Don’t be dead, don’t be dead, don’t be dead. Get up right now or I’m calling your mother!”