Flat Stanley & The Praying Mantis
Hunting for retribution in a budget casino can make you question your life choices.
Gordo and Mayra’s First Night in America
The man opened the door in a maroon robe. He had drowsy eyes and thin hair raked at an angle that embarrassed the young couple, who’d obviously woken him. “ 你是誰？為什麼這麼晚了還來按我的門鈴？”
“No power,” said Mayra. “We,” she bobbed the baby and nodded to Gordo. “Below,” she pointed downward. “No power,” she made a throat-slitting sign.
“Ehh?”
Gordo murmured, “He thinks you want to kill him.”
A Survivor Story
So we went. Two trains, two boroughs, thirty or forty stops. We finally rumbled into the Poor People’s Paradise, as it’s called, after what seemed like two hours. And I guess it was worth it just to see the open horizon at the edge of the city. You slog through it every day, dwarfed by the massive buildings and sidewalk crowds, checking cross-streets and peeking into storefronts—pondering the money, history, ambition—and generally you forget that New York City ends. The empire state of it, the New York state of mind of it. All that stuff goes mercifully quiet and flat.
Three Calls
Hearing the house settle in soft groans, we asked each other, “Did you hear that?” “I think so.” “And that?” “Yes.”
It’s strange how visceral it still feels now, this terror I invented out of nothing. Most of the memory’s power is fed by what happened next. But I prefer to think—no, I’m certain I would have handled things differently, if not for the call a month earlier, when a real monster appeared.
All The Hard Ways
It’s always strange to walk down the street with your ex-girlfriend, and her new boyfriend, and also some guy who thinks you stole his bicycle.