The Firebug of Balrog County by David Oppegaard Page B

drive gone horribly wrong? Did you pitch her down a well? Chuck her into a bottomless sinkhole?”
    â€œI’m laying a foundation here. It takes time.”
    â€œA foundation of death.”
    â€œWhat time is it, anyway? I think we’ve entered some kind of shadowland where the laws of time no longer apply. Purgatory.”
    â€œHer nose is pierced, man. I hear those girls are crazy in the sack.”
    â€œWhy? Some kind of metal-poisoning thing?”
    â€œMetal poisoning?”
    â€œMetals can poison people. They seep into your blood.”
    â€œRight. Whatever. The point is—”
    â€œSam, I know what I’m doing here. She’s a headstrong little pony and is going to take some rustling.”
    â€œThat’s your cowboy accent? You sound like a stroke victim.”
    â€œYou’re just jealous I get all the ladies.”
    â€œWow, Mack. You went on a car ride with a girl who fell asleep. You’re like a god of carnality walking amongst us mere mortals.”
    â€œI wish somebody would stop in and buy something. Just one goddamn customer.”
    â€œI thought you hated customers.”
    â€œI do.”
    â€œBut without them, you’re nothing. You’re useless. Just a guy sitting behind a counter watching your life tick by.”
    â€œOne rake. That’s all. I’d just like to sell one motherfucking, ass-poking rake.”
    â€œAss-poking?”
    â€œIt’s October. People need to rake their lawns. This isn’t some crazy hardware store dream, right?”
    â€œNot as crazy as you getting it on with that goth chick.”
    â€œThat dream is beautiful, Sam. Not crazy.”
    â€œIf you say so.”
    â€œC’mon, people. One rake. We can do this shit.”

The Graveyard
    H ickson’s graveyard sits on a peninsula that juts out into a polluted body of water called Baker’s Lake. The graveyard’s first plots were planted along the outer edges of the peninsula, with subsequent generations of dead spiraling ever inward.
    The edges of the peninsula have slowly eroded over time. A few years back, we had a big spring flood that swamped everything. Later that same summer, a fisherman on Baker’s Lake reeled in what he thought was a whopper of a fish but turned out to be the rib cage of a four-year-old boy.
    The boy had been dead for over a hundred years.

Company
    T wo days after my terrif ying and erotic country drive with Katrina, I came home from work to find all the lights on and jazz music coming from the kitchen. The living room had been tidied up, the hardwood floor mopped and waxed to a glossy sheen. After years of my father’s laissez-faire approach to housekeeping, the effect of this domestic glow was so disorienting I checked the framed family photos on the wall to make sure I’d entered the right house.
    â€œMack, is that you?”
    I stuck my head through the kitchen doorway.
    â€œThere he is. There’s my guy.”
    Dad beamed at me from the stove. He was wearing a white chef’s apron and his nice sweater. His round eyeglasses were fogged from stove heat.
    â€œHey Dad. What’s up?”
    â€œDinner, buddy boy. That’s what’s up.”
    â€œYou’re cranking the jazz, huh?”
    â€œWe’re having spicy shrimp stir-fry.”
    â€œUh oh.”
    Dad laughed and wiped his hands on his apron. “C’mon, it’ll be great. I got a foolproof recipe from the Internet. It got sixty-eight five-star rev iews.”
    â€œOkay … ”
    â€œAnd I bought Thai beer. It’ll be like we’re eating out.”
    I glanced around the kitchen, noting the smell of rice pouring out of the rice cooker and the surprisingly clean counters, which were usually cluttered with dirty dishes and mangled bits of vegetable during Dad’s stir-fry process. The kitchen table was covered in the good white tablecloth, had a small cattails-and-cheatgrass centerpiece, and