Nebraska

“Where's Frankie?”

“Who cares?”

A great crush of party goers was pushing against the lobby's glass doors, yelling to get in, each wearing green cellophane sunglasses. Gordon and Bijou exited and a couple was admitted; screams rose and then subsided as the big door closed.

The two strolled past a penny arcade, a calliope, a gypsy fortune-teller's tent, a lavender emporium where chimpanzees in toddler clothes roller-skated and shambled. At a booth labeled Delights, Bijou observed a man spin apples in hot caramel and place them on cupcake papers to cool, and she seemed so fascinated that the corporal bought her one. Bijou chewed the candied apple as they ambled past the stopped rocket ship, an empty French café, a darkened wedding chapel. They walked near pools where great frogs croaked on green lily pads that were as large as place mats, and gorgeous flowers like white cereal bowls drifted in slow turns. The couple strolled into gardens of petunias, loblolly, blue iris, philodendrons, black orchids. Exciting perfumes craved attention, petals detached and fluttered down, a white carnation shattered at the brush of Bijou's hem and piled in shreds on the walk, the air hummed and hushed and whined. Cat's-eye marbles layered a path that veered off into gardens with lurid green leaves overhead, and this walk they took with nervous stomachs and the near panic of erotic desire. The moon vanished and the night cooled. Creepers overtook lampposts and curled up over benches; the wind made the weeping willows sigh like a child in sleep. Playland was everywhere they looked, insisting on itself.

Then Gordon and Bijou were boxed in by black foliage. The corporal involved himself with Bijou and they kissed as they heard the orchestra playing the last dance. Bijou shivered and moved to the music and her boyfriend woodenly followed, his cane slung from a belt loop, his bandaged right hand on her hip. Her cheek nuzzled into his shoulder. His shoes scruffed the grass in a two-step. The music was clarinets and trombones and the crooner singing about heartache, but under that, as from a cellar, Bijou could pick out chilling noises, so secret that they could barely be noticed: of flesh ripped from bone, claws scratching madly at wood, the clink of a cigarette lighter.

Bijou felt the corporal bridle and cease dancing, and then start up again. He danced her around slowly until she could see what he'd seen, but Bijou closed her eyes and said, “Forget about him. Pretend he's not there.”

The Killers

His name is Rex. He says he was fifteen his very first time, and says his boss flew back in his chair like he'd been hit in the chest with a fence post. Rex says he worked in the basement wash rack until he got his chance, then he slapped the chamois twice across the hood and watched the boss close up. The garage door rang down on chain pulleys, then the boss rode the belt lift up to his office. Rex opened the car door and lay across the transmission hump to jerk the shot-gun out from under the springs. He zipped up his cracked leather coat and rode the lift up to the parking lot's office. He punched himself out on the time clock, wrapped the shotgun up in coveralls, and slid it under the bench. His boss, who was Art, had his pants unbelted, unzipped, tucking in his shirt. He said good night. This was 1960.

Rex walked up the hill to the lunchroom. And down by the auditorium, Ron dropped a cigar at his shoe. Ron was the man who got him the job. Rex says the cigar ash blew red across the sidewalk.

At the lunchroom, Rex ate a fried ham on rye. It used to be a trolley, the lunchroom. Green and yellow and too much light. A man at the end of the counter licked egg yolk off his plate. Rex drank milk until the news came on, then paid the cook with two bills and told him thanks for the change. And no tip.

The guy who got him the job was still down the street. He bent over the match in his hand. Cigar smoke sailed up when he lifted his head. Ron gave him the go-ahead.

Rex stood next to the time clock with the shotgun in his hands and the coveralls on his boot tops. The time clock chunked through four minutes, and I guess Rex thought about how some things would stop and some things would just be beginning. He walked to the office in his stocking feet. When he opened the door, Art looked up.

“I thought you were gone,” Art said.

Rex swung the shotgun up and dropped it down on the desktop, cracking the glass. He centered the barrel some with his hip. Art grabbed for it quick and then pitched back in a mess while the big noise shook the windows and gray smoke screwed up to the overhead vent. The chair was pushed back three inches. You could see the skid on the tiles. Art sat there like he was worn-out, his glasses cockeyed on his face. Rex turned out the lights. Luckily he saw how his socks picked up the dirt, so he got out a mop and washed the floor, then put on his boots and locked up. He leaned the shotgun next to the drainpipe and walked down the hill, his hands clasped on top of his stocking cap.

Ron dropped the envelope out of his pocket and was gone.

It was in 1940 that Max leaned across the seat and opened the car door. The man at the corner stooped and looked at him, holding his coat flaps together. “You, huh?”

“Get in.”

They drove in silence for a while. Al bit a cuticle and looked at his finger. Al got a cigarette out and lit it with the green coil lighter from the dashboard. The smoke rolled up the window glass and out through the opening where it was chopped off by the wind. At a stoplight Al said, “Look at my hands.” He held them, shaking, over the dash. “Would you look at that?”

Max said, “To tell you the truth, I'm a little jumpy too.”

The man's eyes were glassy. “You know what I've always been scared of ever since I can remember? I was always afraid I'd wet my pants.”

Max smiled.

Al looked out the window. “You think it's funny, but it's not.”

“I'll let you relieve yourself first. How would that be?”

“That'd be sweet.”

They worked in and out of traffic and found a parking place. Al got out and straightened his coat. He pressed his hair in place in the window reflection. Max got out, flattening a gray muffler against his chest, then buttoning his black wool coat. He put his key in the door and turned it. They both wore light-colored homburg hats. Al tied both his sh

oes on the bumper.

“How far is it?” he asked.

“Three blocks.”

They walked in step on the sidewalk. Max held his hat in the wind.

“What are you using?”