Sean Beaudoin - Welcome Thieves

Uncle Benny nods, half smiles. His indifference is maddening, lips pursed like Adam isn’t even worth the refutation. Or congratulations.

“So I guess once I’m family I’ll start at Welcome Thieves.”

“I see.”

“Yeah, I’ll work my way into your confidence over a meteoric decade’s rise, all the while secretly engineering a board insurrection that leaves you penniless.”

Uncle Benny cocks his head, shrugs.

“Under my stewardship, the company will morph into providing immersive wilderness experiences in Wyoming. You’re probably not hip to the whole Paleo thing, but it’ll be like printing twenties in the basement.”

“Sure,” Uncle Benny says.

“The thing is, I’m not gonna do all that for the cash. Or even Eve. Basically, you and your sweatshop thongs have made the world a tackier, more imbecilic place. Someone has to blow the whistle. Even if just for karma’s sake. Which, honestly, I don’t even believe in. But that just proves my point.”

Uncle Benny muses, probably about whether or not to signal one of the security types milling by the exit. Then he cocks his head, pulls a Bluetooth from his other ear.

“Excuse me. Emergency in Hong Kong. What were you saying?”

Adam points to the awning, which sags and billows in turn.

“Just that I’m Fred, your tent rep. This here’s our top model.”

Uncle Benny eyes the fabric like a pro.

“Well, I guess this deluge isn’t your fault.”

“No sir. If you care to re-examine the fine print in your contract, we are not responsible for torrents, spates, or acts of God.”

Uncle Benny slips a fifty into Adam’s top pocket, and then they watch people dance. Some are really good. Others bumble around, drunk or clumsy or just out of practice. The groom flails maniacally, cummerbund undone and stuck into his belt like a tail. He twirls an ancient woman in black wool. Adam fears for her bones, forced to clack knees to the swollen chorus of “Hungry Like the Wolf.”

And then there’s a bang, the sound of wet flesh coming together by the ladies’ room.

“Uh-oh,” Uncle Benny says, jogs toward the crowd already gathering around Eve and her sister, who are nose to nose.

Adam heads out into the rain, follows a wash of runoff down to the oddly precise line where the fake grass ends and the cactus begins. Bones of a million animals, lizards, birds, and armadillos rise from the sand, newly exposed and glistening. He remembers the book covers too late, pulls them from his inside pocket in sections, wet and unintelligible.

After a while, Eve’s hand slips into his.

“Everything okay?”

“It is now. I should pull her hair more often.”

“I think Benny really likes me.”

“Doubt it.”

“How come?”

“He doesn’t even like himself.”

“What a backward way to see the world.”

They kiss while looking out over the desert floor, which in the pounding rain could be the Pacific, or even Mars.

Dear Gabriel,

We may all drown here. It’s becoming biblical, not necessarily the best omen for a wedding day. The word antediluvian means “before the flood,” as in pre-Noah. You know, the guy and his Ark? Two of every animal, brides and grooms. Here, the groom is working his way through a carton of no filters. You don’t smoke, do you? Get it out of your system now, if you have to, while your organs are still resilient.

Well, I got nothing to go home to now. I’m a man without a campus or country. Which would be a good title for a book but a bad line for a headstone. Anyway, I guess I’ll try somewhere new. Here? There? Who cares? All you really need in life is one friend. I have one friend. Her name is Eve. Go ahead and make your jokes, get them out of the way. Adam and Eve. Lucy and Ricky. Kanye and tits. Sometimes perfect symmetry p0rtends unearned privilege and random birth defects, but in our case, perfect, uncut kismet.

Hey, maybe this summer we can take you to a movie, something with monsters but no guns. Or we can all go get drunk. Get a bottle of wine and park out by the airport and watch the planes come in.

Gabriel, it’s vital to remember that there’s absolutely nothing you couldn’t take 80 percent less seriously.

Except possibly generalized statements involving percentages.

I know this is too wet to read, but, really, that just proves my point.

Love, Uncle Adam

The author would like to thank the many people who at one time or another read various incarnations of these stories, and provided invaluable support and perspective along the way:

Kristine Serio, Liesl Wilkie, Christian Bauer, Cari Phillips, Diana Spechler (look her up, read her books), Jillian Smith, D. B. Miller (look her up, read her articles), Greg Olear (look him up, read his articles and books), Martha Brockenbrough (look her up, buy it all), Hank Cherry (drool over his photographs), Antonia Crane (killer memoir), Garth Stein (you’re halfway through it now), and Jonathan Evison (ignore him). Also, Joe Daly, Kevin Emerson, Noël Casiano, Larry Benner, Janet Steen, Maria Behan, Hank Kyburg, Matty “Clum” Heller, and Stella.

My fabulous agent, Jennifer de la Fuente, and the sometimes Cormac-like road we traveled together at Fountain Literary.

Angelo Gianni for Full Visual Support.

The editors of all the journals who published earlier, vastly inferior versions of many of these stories. Support lit journals! You don’t even have to read them: Pay the cover price and hand the copy to someone on the street. Buy a subscription and donate it to the library. Send them a blank check and a box of Red Vines.

Dark Coast Press for refusing to acquire this manuscript; Aaron and Jarret for not putting it out far too soon and entirely unready; hero figures in the first chapter of the book that Should Never Have Been.

Certain cafés where sections of these stories were written, redlined, and lashed together again: Bauhaus, Caffe Ladro, Fremont Coffee Company, Stone Way Cafe, and Uptown Espresso.

For “Nick in Nine (9) Movements,” Mike Nesi, Adam Sandone, Dave Renz, and P. J. Casey. For “All Dreams Are Night Dreams,” Johnny Minton and just another night in Vegas. For “Hey Monkey Chow,” the sad and disturbing case of St. James Davis, attacked by his pet chimpanzee in 2005, and the San Francisco Chronicle article that described it. For “And Now Let’s Have Some Fun,” the insanity of UFC 3, caught late at night and totally at random, but mostly for a cross-dragging Kimo. For “Base Omega Has Twelve Dictates,” Ricardo Perez and his unwavering love of two toss-off paragraphs that I finally broke down and turned into a story. For “Exposure,” if you don’t remember being there, you weren’t there.

A very great thanks to everyone at Algonquin, including Elisabeth Scharlatt, Brunson Hoole, Craig Popelars, Lauren Moseley, Kelly Clark Policelli, Debra Linn, Ina Stern, Emma Boyer, Brooke Csuka, Anne Winslow, and Steve Godwin.

And especially Chuck Adams, for his wit, style, and editorial grace — but mostly for believing in this collection from the very beginning.

SEAN BEAUDOIN is the author of seven novels and a short story collection, including Wise Young Fool and Cornelius Wrathbone, . His short stories and articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Salon, Glimmer Train, the Onion, the San Francisco Chronicle, Narrative, and Spirit . He is a founding editor of TheWeeklings.com, an arts and cultural commentary website. (Author photo by Martha Brockenbrough.)