Sleeping Animals
By Nathan Leslie
All these animals are sleeping, everywhere sleeping—in the gravel, in the weeds, on the dotted lines, on the straight lines, right in the middle of the black. We use the shovel to lift the animals and slip them into their bed. Their bed is a plastic bag, and we carry these to the back of the van. There is a box for the small ones. There is a rectangle for the medium ones. The big ones—they go right in the middle, also on plastic. There is plastic on the plastic, and it is red and sometimes brown and sometimes brown and red, all this plastic. I know they are sleeping but I pet them and maybe they will wake later. If they don’t respond, it is okay. Later, when I am home, I place the sleeping animals in my head and I circle them around and give them a gentle squeeze. This doesn’t help them, but I know.
I’m crew but Jimmy is captain. In between is Ali. Ali likes me but doesn’t like Jimmy. I like Jimmy but I’m not sure I like Ali. Ali tells me what to do. Jimmy asks me questions. Can I peel that one from the pavement? Will a knife do the trick or will maybe the shovel do? Do I want Ali’s help? Yes, I do. I feel bad for these sleeping animals who are so sleepy.
Nobody wants what we have in the van. This is too bad and everyone looks frowny. The soup kitchens won’t take the sleeping animals unless they are low. If they are low, they will take one or two deer, but we have to do the sawing. They will never take a squirrel or raccoon or skunk or turtle, even if all in one piece. All these sleeping animals go to waste.
Ginger says this is just temporary, but I know it’s all summer. I know it’s all summer because I kicked that girl and then she fell and sprained her arm. I didn’t mean to kick the girl or sprain her arm, but I did it because she called me “tard,” and that’s the one thing I can’t swallow. I can’t swallow “tard” because it’s not true. I can do things just like anyone else. I’m here helping sleeping animals—and where is she? This is the girl who goes by Trica, but her real name is Tracy. The name change thing is supposed to confuse me, but it doesn’t. I just think of her as T. She can figure out the rest of her name if she's so tricky.
Ginger is my new mom. My old mom is sleeping and my older mom is also sleeping. Lots of sleeping happening, except for me. I’m really awake.
*
I don’t mind it, really. Even Ali. Ali says things through his teeth because he brought a knife into school. He says it wasn’t a real knife and he forgot it was even in there. It was in there, he told me, because he was camping with his brother and he uses the same backpack for both. He said nothing about Bruce. Ali says he just forgot. But the metal thingie went off and then the police had him in cuffs. He tried to say why but they didn’t care. So I do feel bad for Ali. But I also don’t feel bad for Ali because he doesn’t smile and people who don’t smile are a question mark. And people who are a question mark I can’t 100% trust. And people who I can’t 100% trust, I try and stay ten feet plus away from them. And people who are that far away from me disappear. And people who disappear I forget about. And people who I forget about stop existing for me completely. That’s it for them.
I’d rather lift sleeping animals with the shovel, especially the wide shovel that makes it easy. Just me and the animals. I look into their eyes and say a little sorry, sorry in my mind. Then they slip into their plastic bed. I slip them into it, but I like to think they help with the slipping in.
Ali usually holds the bag, teamwork. Sometimes it’s the other way around. Jimmy mostly drives. Unless it’s a deer or something of that size and then it’s all three of us. We have to hydrate, Jimmy reminds me. Which means water. Which means taking breaks. I never mind taking breaks from things, even things I like. I could take breaks all day long and never get bored.
Inside the van I look at the animals. There are six snakes and twenty-six squirrels and five chipmunks and three possums and five raccoons, seven foxes and six deer. Usually it’s more sleeping deer, but in the summer, there is less, Jimmy says. He’s not sure why. Ali smiles through his lips. He is growing a goatee and he rubs it. He’s only sixteen he says, but he seems way older. Something grumbles in my belly.
“Keep it to yourself, Yokey,” he says.
My name is York, which is different, but that’s what my older mom thought I might like. Ali maybe hears York as Yoke.
Ali smokes too much. I tell him he stinks but this just makes him smoke more. When he smokes he scowls. I know he isn’t always like this. He just wants to be, sometimes. He likes to be dirty.
There was that time when Ali dropped pebbles at the cars from the overpass. He aimed for the hood, but I did see one that hit a windshield. I couldn’t do it.
Ali says he doesn’t mean to do bad things, he just can’t help it. He doesn’t understand, either.
*
Ginger has Christmas lights everywhere—even in July. There are red and white and green strings on the walls, along the counter, in front of the door. She thinks it makes the house more of a home. Ginger doesn’t like to cook though. We usually eat Kraft with a little piece of fruit or something else on the side. “For the vitamins,” Ginger says.
Ginger doesn’t hate her job, but she doesn’t like it. She’s down at the Best Buy. She doesn’t understand computers or speakers. She doesn’t know anything about televisions or gadgets. But they pay and she can put things on the floor and point people in the right direction, sometimes. Sometimes it works out, she says. Other times they look at me like what the heck?
It’s me, Ginger, Rocky and Billie. Billie is young but smart and he talks about Mesopotamia a lot and other history things. He knows where places are on the map and can talk about them. He understands how rivers work. He knows about the animals I find and what they eat and how long they live and he knows about the cars and roads and other things. Rocky is more like me, but older. He works at the arts and crafts store next to Best Buy and puts yarn in baskets and arranges bottles of rubber cement and buttons and sewing needles. I am proud of Rocky because he’s like me but better and nicer and a much better sleeper.
*
We’re back in the van and Jimmy says we’re going to try a stretch of highway in the woods, where it can be worse. The animals come out of the woods and then they fall asleep and it’s difficult to see sometimes, he says, but that’s what we are supposed to do. That’s why we have the contract, he says. I’m not sure what a contract is or has to do with it, but Jimmy says he works for them and needs to be a good listener and employee, so he’s driving us west where it gets hillier and greener and darker. That’s from the pine trees, Jimmy says. Especially in the afternoon.
Ali is sleeping on the rectangle with a blanket underneath him, which is good for me—that way I can just talk to Jimmy and maybe learn something. Jimmy knows things about the way things work and I’m always trying to understand even if it’s difficult.
“I have something for you,” he says and he hands me a plastic bag. Inside the plastic bag: a pair of work gloves. Nice thick ones, the kind I need. They must be made of horse or buffalo because they seem hairy and they remind me of whiskers, but more of them.
I thank him. I always thank people, as Ginger taught me to do. If you don’t thank people then they won’t give you things in the future, I learned. I learn things all the time.
“I don’t want you getting a disease or getting all cut up,” Jimmy says.
“You can’t get a disease from a sleeping animal,” I say. This is when Jimmy tells me they aren’t sleeping. What are they doing then? I don’t get it.
*
We’re in the pine trees and it’s dark and the sun is way over there. I have the nice work gloves on and we’re driving slowly and spotting. This is a way. Ali spots a fox and I spot a turtle. Too many turtles, all the time sleeping. Ali spots a raccoon and I spot a baby deer and then I spot an opossum. We are using the shovel and I pat them and I hope they feel better.
This is when a truck comes up slow from the other direction. They are doing the same thing, driving slow, spotting. We are going uphill and they are going downhill. Jimmy pulls the parking brake. I can hear it catch.
He turns around so he can see us and we can see him.
“This is the Halzernotzens,” he says.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a couple. Edgar Halzernotzen and Frieda Halzernotzen, though Frieda runs the show. They have been doing what we’re doing for years, except they are in it for the money. Rumor is they run a sausage operation and they use the meat as filler. But you don’t worry about any of that—you just let me do the talking.”
So we’re driving uphill and they are gliding downhill and they both stop in the road and Jimmy pulls the parking brake and steps out of the van. Ali looks at me as if he has a stomach ache.
I can hear Jimmy and the woman talking. I can see Edgar watching. He is hairy with black and grey patches in his beard and his hair looks like somebody tried to set it on fire. She has tattoos all up her arms with angry red spikes jabbing up toward her neck. Then I see her pull a gun out from the back of her jeans. She points it at Jimmy and points it at Ali and me, also. Ali ducks under the van window.
“Shit,” he says. “I knew this was going to happen.”
He says they are known for robbing state operations. They have a reputation and everybody is terrified of them.
Why are we talking to them then? Why aren’t we running away from them? All I want to do is run away. I am fast and I have legs.
So I burst out of the van, the side facing the woods. “Come on, Ali!” But I know he won’t do a thing.
And I hear the gun go off, either up in the air or maybe at me. But I keep running and I don’t look back. I trip on a root and my legs are hitting the weeds and thickets and sticks and branches and poison ivy and I kick rocks and there is no path but I’m running and I’m not looking back and I keep running and getting scratched by the bushes and things and hitting the bark and I don’t stop.
But then I run around a big tree and stop quick so I can take a quick look and I listen and I don’t hear anything or see anybody so maybe it’s okay. I keep walking away from where the Halzernotzens were though and I keep doing that.
*
When it’s dark in the woods it’s very dark and I don’t have anything to make light or eat or do anything. So I sit on a rock and I lean against a trunk and I sleep. The next day, I think for a while and then I want to walk back to the van and have Jimmy drive me back. I am tired and hungry and I’d like to sleep and eat a cheese sandwich with tomato slice.
But I think I maybe walk the wrong way because I walk for a long time and I don’t see a road or any people, so then I go a different way towards the sun and I think that must be the right way because it was sunny when I left and if I head toward the sun I’ll find the old sun. But I walk for a long time and still I don’t see the van or the road.
And it’s like this for many days.
I do call out for Jimmy and even Ali and even the Halzernotzens and even Ginger but nobody answers and I can only hear squirrels and birds and insects in my ears. I try to open my mouth and catch the insects but it’s hard to eat them when they won’t fly in. When I went fishing I remember we found worms under a log so I do look under some logs and rocks and I do find a few worms and things and I eat them. It is disgusting but at least it’s a little filling and a little wet. My mouth is so dry. But I also eat some orangey red things because I am so hungry but these taste nasty and I wish I hadn’t. There’s this film over my tongue like it is taped (but it’s not).
I keep walking but then I don’t feel so good and I really really need some water but there is nothing—not even a creek or a river. Just trees and plants and birds. So I try eating some leaves because maybe they have water in them but they taste sour and nasty also and I almost gag. I chew on them like gum.
I have to sit down in the dry leaves. It’s not comfortable there because there are pinecones and things. I can’t swallow or talk now and I’m sweating a lot. I have to lie down. I can feel my heart beating fast and I’m breathing quicker even though I’m not moving. I’m resting here in the leaves and pinecones and it’s getting dark again. I can’t even lift myself to find more worms and centipedes. I am falling asleep. Just like the animals and now I understand why they wouldn’t wake up when I petted them. I have nothing to say or do. I can only close my eyes and I can’t open them back, not right now.
Nathan Leslie (he/him) won the 2019 Washington Writers' Publishing House prize for his collection of stories Hurry Up and Relax, his tenth book of fiction. He is currently the series editor for Best Small Fictions, he runs a reading series in Northern Virginia, and he is the publisher/editor of Maryland Literary Review. He has written for The Washington Post, Kansas City Star, Orlando Sentinel, Orange County Weekly and many others.