Amelia Gray - Museum of the Weird

Almost to the center. But the center of me is that brick. It’s there when you bring my cheeseburger no lettuce on a steaming red tray. It’s there when you reach into your flat front pouch for my straw. It’s there when you pull your hair up behind your visor when you go in for your shift and when you lean over the grease trap with your scraper and bucket. It’s there when you stand at the register, Jenny, your unpainted fingernails hovering over the keys as you think of those old dollar bills, the tens and rolls of quarters, wondering if you shouldn’t just no-sale the register and open it, one of those times when blue-eyed striped tie Bill is smoking a cigarette in the bathroom and looking at the Sears catalog he has hidden behind the toilet. You could just open that register and reach in with two hands and pull out fistfuls of cash and put it into your front pocket, stuffing it all down there, paper-wrapped straws scattering across the greasy floor. You’d walk out and throw your visor into the garbage and you would never come back.

But where would you go, with your great treasure? I see you on the beach at Galveston, peeling off that thick dirty uniform and walking slow into the water, trading the salt of french fries and tater tots for the healing salt of the ocean. I see you saving souls in that warm water, Jenny, I see you taking men in that water and making bricks of them all. You sink them there and build a wall with them, and create purpose to their roughness and use to their weight. You build a sea wall and stand on the other side with your feet planted wide on the hot sand, your golden hair streaming behind you like a flag of independence.

You have a power, and there is no reason this power should frighten you. Surely you see how Bill looks at you, and the men paving the road and even me over my cheeseburger no lettuce sucking chocolate milk through a straw. We are all drawn to you, but I am the only one who understands that draw, knowing how I started the kiln’s fire myself, long ago. Now, my guts are full of clay and you can dig it out yourself. Open me up and hold the dangerous brick in your hands, feel that awful weight.

Maria Telesco

Leasing Office

Windy Pointe Apartments

1220 Thorpe Ln.

San Marcos, TX 78666

January 8

Dear Miss Telesco,

As you well know, I typically prefer to address my complaints to you personally. I look forward to the hours we spend together each week, discussing the maintenance terms of my lease. We are women of respect and empathy, and informal communication is often sufficient. However, I felt that I should address my complaint with you today in the form of a signed letter.

I always look forward to the Windy Pointe Apartments’ Annual Christmas Decoration Contest. You could say it is one of the few reasons I might remain in an apartment complex with a mold infestation. Thank you, by the way, for sending Charles and Marcus to repaint my ceiling. (They told me it was dust but we both know that’s not true, don’t we?)

Creating the beauty of the season is a matter of placing clean, bright lights precisely in place, lining the window with washable fire-resistant faux-nettles, and hanging germ-free antimicrobial cloth garland over the balcony in a way that perfectly accents the blue in the rails. Charles was a dear for sanding them, by the way. I know he did not find any termites but it’s possible the termites escaped, isn’t it? Perhaps the entire rail should be replaced?

Besides the cheer these decorations bring to the hearts of the children of this apartment complex, I have always appreciated the eighty-dollar rent deduction the first place prize always brought. Last year, I used the extra money to purchase a tarpaulin for my living room floor — a once-over with bleach kills the bacteria that falls from the ceiling while I am sleeping at night. This year has been tough, and I was hoping to be able to afford another set of acid-free storage bags for my summer clothes.

Obviously, you cannot imagine my shock and disappointment when Sandra McCloskey in Apartment 3-B won first prize.

Sandra McCloskey placed a tree on her balcony, a real tree that affects my real pine allergies. She “decorated” the tree with strings of popcorn, which attract birds that sit on her unwashed balcony ledge — birds that proceed to defecate, I can only assume, on her balcony rail. Additionally, Sandra McCloskey (I think we can speculate that she is not a Christian woman) invested in one hundred blue icicle lights, which she did not consider cleaning before nailing them at unevenly spaced intervals to her overhang. I saw her take those lights directly from the box and hang them. I watched her do this.

Miss Telesco, this loss is not a matter of pride for me — at this point, it is a matter of my health and safety. Though my contest entry perfectly blended the purity of artistic expression with the sanctity of an antimicrobial environment, I can understand your position as impartial judge, perhaps wishing to reach out to the younger, pine-loving crowd that has so recently flooded into our quiet home. However, I think it would not be beyond your power to ask Sandra McCloskey to remove her “decorations” at the earliest possible convenience. She’s had her fun, she’s won her prize. Let her spend the money on tainted meat and ineffective coconut-scented soaps. All I ask is that, in future competitions, you not allow her menace to continue before the eyes of the world, and of God.

Happy New Year!

Helen Sands

The vultures were everywhere. On the local news, the meteorologist speculated calmly after his seven-day forecast that the vultures were eating moss by the river. They weighed down trees and circled over the town.

I found Brenda looking at the sky when I came back from hauling boxes to the trash bins behind the daycare.

“They’re over the baseball diamond behind the high school,” she said, “three blocks away.” She shielded her eyes against the sun, watching.

“Everybody’s looking up these days,” I said.

“The radio says it’s good for the muscles in your neck,” Brenda said. Inside, the children had already begun to destroy the carton of Easter eggs we had hidden in the snack room.

* * *

At home, I told my boyfriend Toby that he had to come with me to Evelyn Merkel’s to mop her floors and fight the vultures.

“I don’t want to go anywhere near any vultures,” he said.

“It’s my money, then.”

“It would be your money, anyway. I’ve got some ideas,” he said. “I need time to put something together and I can’t waste it on vultures.”

“Fine,” I said.

* * *

Evelyn Merkel was wearing a housecoat with a nightgown underneath, and her hair was curled in rings that fell over her shoulders. She set her thin hand on Toby’s back and gave him a little push over the threshold.

“Out back,” she said.

Mrs. Merkel had a metal pole in the yard to hold up the clothesline and two vultures were chasing each other around it. They screeched and darted, beaks terrifying and open, showing sharp tongues. I couldn’t figure if they were playing or fighting. When Toby moved the curtains to the side, they turned at once and screamed at us. Mrs. Merkel tugged the curtain back over the window.

“I don’t want them knowing we’re in here,” she said. “Do you two want breakfast?”

“We already ate,” I said.

“What do you have?” said Toby.

She had English muffins and unsalted butter. Mrs. Merkel said she wanted to make orange juice but couldn’t due to the vultures monopolizing her citrus tree. Out back, the birds made frantic scraping noises against the metal pole.

Toby found a rake in the garage while I finished the dishes. Mrs. Merkel switched on a soap story. Toby stood at the door, gripping the rake with both hands. It was the old kind of rake, with a heavy metal bar at the end and tines that could aerate a lawn if you dragged it. On the television, strangers danced at a party.