Dinner Party of Lies

Brandon? No, her customers. \n\nDue to the impending blizzard, they moved the delivery point to Watertown, a larger town off the highway, to a parking lot where the old Shopko had been. \n\nI knew that strip mall. I knew that Shopko, before it had been turned into a pawn shop and [[second-hand store]].

In the west, there’s usually some redneck in a pickup truck ready to beat me up for how I live my life. \n\nIn the east, they say odds are improving (even though [[it]] doesn't seem like it sometimes).

“Yeah, farming can be a rough business,” I commiserated even though I had no idea what the fuck went into running a farm. “Lots of overhead — all that equipment, livestock, labor, taxes,” I babbled on.\n\n“They weren’t exactly farming debts.”\n\nNow [[the kids]] were starting to get [[restless]]. \n\n

He had a point. \n\nRandolph [[often did]].

“No, we sold it,” she replied, not meeting my eyes.\n\n“Time to cash out to Monsanto, huh.”\n\n“Not really. [[Debts]].”

My brain fast-forwarded to the hustle. The string cheese company. The ad agency. The hunting outfit. \n\n“Just in the area, had some [[time]] so I thought I’d stop by. Anything I can help you with?”

“No, these scales were not for livestock or vegetables. They were small, for grams and ounces. And next to these scales were guns and boxes of bullets. Melissa was disturbed by it all. She was angry, too. But she was not surprised.”\n\n“What exactly are you [[getting at]], Niko?”

My fingers hovered above the keyboard mid-code. Wait — were they not splitting up now?\n\n“We have our needs, Tristan. And it’s nice to be with someone who knows what he’s doing.”\n\nGod. The confessionals. I shrunk down in my chair, behind the laptop screen.\n\n“Oh please, Tristan, enough with your [[virginal ears]]."

What could I say? I wiped my nose and watched her cuddle her restless baby, waiting for her to continue.\n\n“He’s a drug dealer, Melissa, you’re probably thinking. Well, not anymore. He [[sold all that]].”

How’s the wife? Finalizing the divorce papers as we speak. \n\nThe kids? Swiftly enslaving themselves in debt, [[day]] by day, as they flunked their way to unaccredited and worthless degrees. \n\nAnd the farm hocked to secure their futures? Now occupied by a Muslim Somali woman and her herd of goats.

I chuckled. Interchangeable Midwestern white guy from the photos? “Oh, I don’t think Brandon knew anything about any drug stuff. From the looks of it, all he does is watch hockey and work on the farm all day.”\n\n“Worked on the farm,” Niko corrected. “And his livelihood didn’t exactly involve crops. I’ll email you a few articles for you to read later. But for now, let me tell you about [[the shed]].”

"Everything started out within the law, or pretty much so in any case. They had a lot of off-market pharmaceuticals they needed to sort out for distribution and we had a place where they could get that done with nobody knowing. And we’d help out. Not a [[bad]] deal.\n\n"Creative enterprise, Brandon called it. That appealed to him, same with sticking a middle finger to Obamacare by getting people the painkillers they needed direct from the source."

True. The farm was no longer in his possession.\n\n“He lied to you and betrayed you. Okay, yes, but his back was up against the wall. He was [[desperate]].”

Just kill me [[now]].

“I don’t know how things work in Finland, but here, if they search a package and discover drugs, you’re fucked.” \n\nMelissa had worked at a pack-and-ship store in college - an odd job from long ago that now factored into [[our dilemma]].\n\nShe had seen things go down, namely a DEA agent busting a customer for cramming pot into a box of cookies and sweatshirts. “People in logistics watch out for these things.”

Brandon?\n\nNo, [[the police]]. From South Dakota.\n\n

Nothing. Just darkness.\n\nReally?\n\nOnly 200 miles ahead of us in a flurry of snow, visibility zero.\n\n[[Brandon’s truck]], the words caught in my throat.

We could have just made the delivery. \n\nKept the boxes intact. \n\nIf we had, Prairie Drug Lord Brandon and Shelly might be together now, playing darts at the bar, laughing, starting fresh. \n\nThose kids might be attending school student loan-free, maybe even moving on to grad school as [[well]], such was the value of the product we failed to transport.

We had been taken as fools. And now we had to get ourselves out of this mess. The delivery had to be completed, yet transferring drugs across a state line was a felony. \n\nHence [[our dilemma]].

I meandered through the Twin Cities, trying to figure out what to do. This meandering took me to Melissa’s studio. I was lucky to catch her, it turned out. With two kids now, she was doing more and more of her work from home.\n\n“Did you ever get your money from those guys at the bail bonds shop?” she asked me.\n\n“Nah,” I muttered, hoping she’d [[change the subject]].

There was this video going around. A piglet pushing a little wheelchair across a farm for abandoned animals. Enter his little buddy: a legless baby goat.”\n\nNiko laughed. He had been among the millions worldwide who'd clicked (and cicked) during working hours. Melissa was less amused. Maybe this tale brought back memories of a favorite pet. Maybe she wasn’t a fan of pork — I couldn’t remember. “You’re comparing my child to a handicapped farm animal?”\n\n“I think they prefer to be called differently abled. Speaking of [[farms]], yours is really beautiful. Do you go out there often?”

“Our girl, of course, was the first one to guess. ‘You’re getting a divorce.’ She said it with about as much emotion as I’d say ‘I’m going to go out to the garden’ or ‘I’m going to take some turkey out of the freezer for dinner.’ \n\n"And within five minutes, we all were back to our separate rooms in the house watching TV or playing around on the Internet or whatever. \n\n"That night, I checked in on each of them before bed. ‘We’ll figure something out for the holidays,’ I told them. \n\n"Well, both of them already had plans. How [[about that?]]”

For lunch, Shelly picked up sandwiches from Jimmy John’s. \n\n“My treat,” she insisted even though I felt a little [[wrong]] accepting more free food after the stack of donuts. \n\nThen she told me about her circumstances — the polite, sanitized preamble Minnesotans always lead with and the story she didn’t realize I already knew.

“I thought your family liked Sarah Palin.” I swiped for the thousandth time at my dripping nose.\n\n“No, they were more Ron Paul kind of people.”\n\n“Ron Paul’s still alive?”\n\n“I don’t know. I don’t track all that.”\n\n“[[What do you want]] out of this dinner, Melissa?” I asked, my question muffled by Kleenex.

She murmured and nodded.\n\n“Things went better than expected,” I then told her, because in its own weird way, things had.\n\nMelissa smiled — sad? Relieved? Hopeful? \n\n“[[I guess]],” she ultimately replied.

\n“Melissa had just given birth, so we didn’t bother her with these things.”\n\nMy conversations with Shelly and these stories about the farm sparked even more curiosity about Melissa. Melissa was a flinty soul, and as much as she tended to overshare certain details about her life, she remained taciturn about many others. Like anything that wasn't picture-perfect and Instagram-ready.\n\n“So, tell me more about your time as [[a drug runner]] in the oil fields.”

“I got a new customer today,” I announced. “Well, actually I’m scheduled to meet with her later this week, so she’s not officially a customer yet. But she sounds desperate.”\n\n“That’s awesome, Tristan.” Melissa navigated a spoon of goo into her youngest child’s mouth.\n\n“She’s in [[a ton of trouble]].”

Ham World sold its meats through the Internet and at a retail storefront-slash-headquarters, located in [[a mall]] in Sioux Falls.\n\nIn that sad-ass location, no one ever walked into Ham World. No one even walked by.\n\nWhich made their extra payment to me, a huge amount for services only half rendered, even more of a WTF.

“Get out here,” they ordered, practically shoving me from the car. “We’ll pick you up when we’re done.” \n\nAnd so I [[rolled out]] into the wind and snow.

According to the owner of the store, the knife had been the property of the first settlers. “He said they used it for protection, to defend themselves against wolves and bears and -”\n\nI knew exactly where the antiques owner had been going with that sentence. I had done my time in the [[white man’s]] history class.

I thought this every time I visited Melissa’s hockey- and oil-funded house. Surreal to be with people who weren’t two steps away from car repo and the bail bondsman.\n\nAlso noteworthy: How these rich parents could [[drink]].\n\nAs a warm buzz spread through my body, the conversation turned to [[work]].

They sent me home with a big bag so I had several meals covered for the week at least, if not peace of mind and clarity. \n\nAnd I wore Melissa’s Peter Rabbit mask for the entire drive back to South Dakota, because why not freak a few people out?\n\nRandolph’s was the second [[opinion]] I sought.

As Shelly told me about Brandon's [[mother]], she shoved a fistful of stems into a vase. It was the kind of glass vase that looks expensive when it arrives on your doorstep but ordinary when you see dozens of it in a supply cabinet.

It hadn’t been a gated community, people could drive freely in and outif they [[ever]] wanted to, but it did have security because a lot of the seriously rich oil execs lived in the big McMansion section.

And now he surveyed his surroundings. “House is looking good, little sister.”\n\nMelissa blushed and smiled. “Excuse the boxes in the hallway. That’s that order of masks for South Dakota I told you about.”\n\nNiko presented our guest with a [[cold bottle]] of beer.

“Do you think they’ll [[do]] anything to me?”

“What?” Melissa glanced back. “Did you say something, Tristan?”\n\nJust clearing my throat, I told her. \n\nIt was too late. \n\nWe were [[too far]] out of town.

A child’s treehouse, in a backyard owned by a white hipster and a Northern European engineer. \n\nWho would dream of looking here? [[we all agreed]].

“So now this is a matter of manners?”\n\n“He’s family."\n\nSilence. \n\n"Being back in touch with Shelly again has made me appreciate family again. Made me miss it. Don’t you [[miss yours]] sometimes?”

It was the security guard who worked at the complex, the one who later snapped, drove to Canada and gunned down Raymond Fournier. Somehow, the rent-a-cop had figured out that Melissa had indeed worked as a delivery driver for Dickinson Catering. He had recognized a photo of her in a snow suit, or something like that.\n\n“’Where is she?” the security guard demanded. “I know she was involved in the drug ring, so bring her out.” \n\nWell, of course, Melissa wasn’t there. Niko didn’t know where the hell she was. He was spending every waking minute trying to [[find]] her.

He described the [[fancy housing development]] where his townhouse had been located. \n\nMelissa disappears, Niko [[wonders what happened]] to her and soon after, Dickinson Catering is raided.

“The first time, we had no choice. But the second time. Even after we sold the farm, even after that disastrous deal, we didn’t need to go back down that path again. We could have started fresh, lived a humble existence. \n\n"There’s nothing wrong with working in a warehouse, working retail, or living in a modest home, or even an apartment. Most people get by that way. But humble wasn’t exactly Brandon’s style, as you might have guessed.\n\n“Selling the farm was [[our last chance]]."

I woke to the stank of my sickroom, the wool blanket sweaty against my body and the humidifier vapor thick in the air.\n\nNiko stood in the doorway. I sensed that several hours, if not days, had [[passed]].

“The pipeline, dude! How can you condone that?” \n\nRandolph always gave me shit when I told him. Who am I to control the ways of the white man, I retorted back – to a guy who pumped up young kids with sketchy energy drinks and the music of rappers and Satan. \n\nHow can you expect me to save the world when I can barely pay my bills? And I'm not going to accept the hospitality of a friend while insulting the work of [[her husband]]. Just not cool.

“Hey, Brandon.” Shelly walked out from behind the counter. Her hands for once were empty, no bundles of flowers or packing tape with her this time, and she rubbed them nervously against the sides of her jeans.\n\n“We’ve got a hockey match and a play this weekend,” he said. “I can go to the first one and you the second. Or we can both go to both. Present a united front.” \n\nBut the way he looked at her was about more than the kids and logistics. \n\nHis eyes said it all; he [[wanted her back]].

The shed. I braced myself. Nothing [[good]] ever happens in a shed.

Alone in the house with Prairie Drug Lord Brandon, the kind of guy who could run an illegal operation off his farm for years without getting caught. \n\nThe kind of guy who consorted with ease with criminals and captains of industry alike. The kind of guy who could almost convince you that immigrants were out to steal your job or Obama was the Kenyan-born second coming of Satan.\n\nThe kind of guy who beats up a guy like me once he finds out how I [[live my life]].

Perhaps because we were talking in the wholesome setting of a children’s tree house, he left out the [[that]] part about how they screwed each other senseless at every opportunity.

Niko set his tumbler aside. “Melissa, are you okay?”\n\n[[Another shriek]].

“I was talking to Brandon. I heard you eavesdropping. Your footsteps aren’t exactly light.”\n\nI exhaled, relieved, until my nose immediately refilled with snot. Damn cold.\n\n“Are you serious? You actually thought I was having an affair? Holy fuck, that’s hilarious. But please keep all this to yourself for the time being. I’ve got [[a little explaining]] to do first.”

Yeah, the white girl. The Minnesota version of a Brooklyn hipster. The girl who lived in the $700,000 log cabin. No answer. \n\nI called again. Same thing.\n\nOf course. Melissa always [[screened her calls]].\n\nMaybe I should just [[leave a message]].

I always ask about the kids when people bring up divorce — politely, of course. Because no one had ever asked me or Bertram or Benedict how we had felt about our situation. \n\nOf course, our free-spirited parents — Dad and his many girlfriends, then their many boyfriends — hadn’t technically been married. And most of them were long dead by now. \n\nEveryone had been kind and loving. They all reassured us that none of this was our [[fault]]. But we would have appreciated a little more proactive interest on their behalfs.

\n\nI anticipated the toss of the diaper bag, the meaningful look, \n\nthe suddenly sloping shoulder and the yawn — [[I’m so tired!]] — conveniently released before bath and story time.

An anniversary gift for the parents. Mom’s a lawyer. Dad works at Mayo, I explained. \n\nYeah, see, non-crackers can [[prosper]], too.

I helped Melissa pick out her ensembles for dinner, for dancing, for their elegant morning brunch. “Plus a little something something,” she pointed out the corset, garters and scarves at the side of the suitcase. “You have no idea how hard it is to get laid on a regular basis when you have two small children.”\n\n“You’re right. I have no idea,” I agreed. I held my head in my hands, which was just a mistake because that cold was only [[getting worse]].

I handed him my keychain with the bottle opener. Always be prepared. Even in [[a tree house]].

Niko had brought the knife to North Dakota, mostly because it was cool rather than for any protection concerns. \n\nAnd the next time the security guard stopped by, he invited him in. \n\n“You’re right,” he told the guy. “We should probably talk. Here, [[have a seat]] in the living room. I’ll bring you a beer.”

Suddenly hungry, I noticed the growing pile of wrappers on the floor. “Are you eating your children’s Halloween candy?” I asked in disbelief.\n\nMelissa nodded. “That bag weighs twice as much as Lucas does. There’s no way he’ll be able to finish it all.”\n\n“And Elisa doesn’t even have teeth yet,” Niko noted, eager to change the subject. “She was a good addition to our operations this year. We took in nearly twice as much candy. Do you think it’s because of the costume or because she’s naturally so adorable? [[Help yourself]] by the way, Tristan.”

Now he jumped to his feet.\n\n“Oh, I am not okay,” Melissa replied. “Not okay at all.”\n\nThis was [[rage]], not injury, and it was swiftly intensifying.

She sat herself at the foot of my bed, a quilt wrapped around her flannel pajamas. Her hand on mine was ice cold.\n\n“The funeral’s tomorrow, Tristan, if you’re [[well]] enough to join us.”

“I’m freezing my ass off and the language is impossible,” she rolled her eyes, irritated but not really. “But the people are nice, the kids are adjusting and everyone’s really happy to have Niko back. You’ll need to visit us sometime.”\n\nSure, like I’d ever have the money for [[a vacation]] to Helsinki. \n\n

Even in my financially precarious state, I started to feel bad for accepting their money. “This cool?” I asked as I gestured to the envelope with the extra check, hoping I wasn’t embarrassing them.\n\n“Yeah, it’s all cool,” they replied.\n\nAs I showed them the demo, I noticed something was off with the kerning on the titles and the resolution of the pictures. Easy to fix, I assured them. They gave me permission. “[[Go for it]].”

I will not even think about work, about this Shelly lady, about my overdue rent, about my shit-can excuse for an automobile until [[later]]. Much later. \n\nI would spend my day at the coffeehouse, in a radical act of self care (as my Minneapolis peeps would call it) with the company of copious caffeinated beverages and a thick musty book.

All bound for South Dakota to some crazy random millionaire with illicit tastes. \n\n[[Mode of transport us.|https://lifeinanortherntowncom.wordpress.com/]]

The door slammed shut. The truck drove off. \n\nSummoning my last bits of consciousness and energy, I helped Melissa with the dishes. Niko sprawled on the couch with his now-empty flask and one of his kid’s wayward stuffed animals tucked beneath his arm. \n\n“Your brother seems like a nice guy,” I said because in a weird way, if you didn’t know [[the back story]], he actually did.

Melissa returned with a thick photo album — real, print photos, old school, not like the digital frame in the dining room that displayed a new hologram every 10 seconds: the family at the farmer’s market, the family by the lake in Duluth, a pumpkin patch, a Christmas tree.\n\nThis album was the Kodachrome chronicles of a ridiculously attractive Minnesota farm family. Seriously, it was like a John Deere or Con Agra storyboard come to life.\n\nWe started our tour sometime [[in the 1990s]], judging by the clothes and hair.\n

But everything was [[the same]] as when we had left.

“And as he was sitting there, warming up, getting comfortable, I crept up behind the couch and placed the knife under his chin. Right at his throat. \n\n" ‘Don’t ever come back here or bother me again. And don’t ever bother Melissa. If I ever hear that you have, rest assured, I will kill you.’\n\n“And I never heard from him again. Which was a good thing, because he later went on [[to murder]] someone."

I poured my scotch into a potted plant as Melissa rummaged around in the hallway. \n\n“Wow, Brandon taped them all up for me over the weekend. That was thoughtful of him.”\n\nThen a [[shriek]].

They took turns in the driver’s seat. I slept in the middle, wedged among the boxes. \n\nWe couldn’t have picked a crappier day for a drive, the clouds turning black and the scent of incoming snow thick and sweet in the air.\n\nFor music we started out with NPR then switched to satellite radio, which was [[okay]] by me, punching the menu’s dozens of channels to distract ourselves.

Brandon turned to his sister. "Thanks for spending time with Brianna by the way, Melissa. It’s been a little rough for her.”\n\n“No problem, she replied. "She’s a sweetheart. Besides, any excuse to get out and see some art.”\n\n“Brianna’s pursuing a future in theater design, did she tell you? I say good luck trying to make any money off of that. But you two,” he gestured to me and Melissa, “seem to be [[doing okay]]. And [[Shelly]] appreciates all of your work on her website."

“Brandon’s a tough guy. He never gets sick. Besides, Elisa and Lucas are walking bundles of baby germs and snot, and we don’t keep them quarantined from the [[dinner]] table.”

When business opportunities brought me over that state line again, I drove past their old farm. \n\nIt [[stood vacant]]. \n\n

Then Shelly turned to Melissa. \n\n“Okay, I have to confess, I did the math and counted back nine months from Elisa’s birth, and it falls right when you were helping us on the farm. How did you two pull that off? Did you sneak away? Did you keep your [[voices down]]?”

So had Niko, apparently, because he caught himself just in time, right before the word “Indians” slipped out.\n\nBut it was a poor save.\n\n“And [[deer]].”

“Well,” she conceded. “Not a lot that can be done about it now. [[How is she doing?]]”

"Like he was a real cop working the case. So one day, I had finally had enough. I knew he’d be stopping by my house again — he was predictable — and this time I’d be ready.”\n\nThen Niko took me on a tangent to [[Wyoming]].

Elisa, I [[remembered]]. That was her new one. A Hispanic name for one of the whitest children I had ever seen.

Copyright 2018 People + Places\n\nThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. \n\nAny resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Views of the characters do not necessarily reflect the views of the author.\n\nI'm good. I'm not going to sue or plagiarize. [[Start]].\n

Silently, we returned to a slumbering neighborhood, streetlamps twinkling in the snow. \n\nCell phone connectivity announced itself with a message that lit up Melissa’s phone. The neighbors did know how to text after all. The kids were tucked in, sleeping soundly. All worn out from playing outside.\n\nWe pulled up to that Art Forum log cabin. Niko pressed the button of the garage door, then coasted the vehicle [[into darkness]].

Because proms are boring, we ended up at a campfire with my cousins instead. Completely drunk. Totally innocent. \n\nHer parents didn’t believe that, though. They threatened to kill me the next morning, then outright banned me from their 200-person, one-stoplight town.\n\nWhat happened to [[the girl]]?

"And just to warn you,” I said, logging in and flipping through a few screens. “When I say '[[meet people]],' in my case, I mean guys.”\n\nShelly didn’t bat an eye. “That’s fine. That's what I'm looking for, too.”

"Here out in the middle of nowhere. This was new, Melissa remarked. \n\n"We peered through [[a window]]."

It makes sense — central location, arteries to and from Canada, Chicago, Milwaukee, Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis. \n\nAnd a whole lot of wholesome-looking Garrison Keillor white people [[no one would suspect]]. The ones who still had their teeth, that was.\n\n

“I’m lonely,” she replied, leaning against the counter, staring out [[the window]]. “That’s what I am.”\n\n\n\n[Learn more about Shelly.|https://www.instagram.com/p/BWpbqRTBPlB/?taken-by=ofpeople_places]]\n\n\n\n

“I need the money,” I told her. Through a voice mail earlier, my landlord had given me his ultimatum. “I’m going to cash the check tomorrow at least.”\n\nMelissa clucked and shook her head, ripping into a box of Hot Tamales. “Are you sure about that?”\n\n“Yes,” I emphasized. “I’m going to cash it. It’s legitimate payment for a legitimate exchange of services. And I need the money.”\n\n“People [[end up dead]] when they get mixed up in things like this,” Niko interjected.

For an eternity, I waited, playing it cool. Because who doesn’t want a frozen treat in the middle of a snowstorm? And finally I let the cold, cold ice cream slide slowly down my burning throat, eyes glued to the [[parking lot]] across the highway. \n\n

Because every night there I was, working hours past sunset, living off hummus wraps from the morning’s white-boarding (more like water-boarding) sessions and listening to my copywriter friend bitch. \n\nFirst it was an op-ed. Then it was a thought leadership piece. Now they want a haiku about a fucking unicorn. Or [[something]] like that.\n\n

And the way Shelly replied crushed these hopes.\n\n“I’ve got to catch up with the books this weekend. Tax time. Sorry, Brandon.”\n\nTax time. Sorry Brandon [[indeed]].

But fortunately, Melissa had this parenting thing down. \n\nBy day two of Niko’s absence, I mounted the steps of my basement quarters without fear.\n\nUntil the night I heard Melissa’s voice in the darkened living room, buffeted by gusts of rustling winds. \n\nIt wasn’t a conversation with her husband or anyone else I knew. I could tell from the tone and the time of the call. Niko would have still been at an evening presentation or reception.\n\nSo [[what the hell]] was going on?

Shelly paused, groped for the words. \n\n“I liked her at first, too. She seemed very pleasant and personable. But near the end, I think Brandon was right not to trust her. Have you talked to him lately, by the way?”\n\nMelissa hedged, mumbled something noncommittal. “Have [[you]]?”\n\nShelly mumbled in kind, similarly evasive.\n

“She drove a van and delivered stuff. Food, I think.”\n\n“For Dickinson Catering. Raymond Fournier’s company. The man who was arrested for drug trafficking, who was later murdered in Quebec City. Maybe you read about it all in the news?\n\n“Did she ever tell you [[why she left]]?”

Then, finally, Randolph gave me the lowdown on the other side of the Dakota economy. \n\nHe wasn’t involved with any of this illegal shit personally, of course, but when you run the city’s leading music and smoke — pardon me, vape — shop, you hear [[things]].

“Benedict needs money,” [[Bertram]] texted me.\n\nWho doesn’t need money? I texted back. \n\nI had bigger problems to worry about. Like my impending financial [[death]] spiral.

body[data-tags~=Tristan] { background-color: darkolivegreen; }\nbody[data-tags~=Tristan] a { color: darkgray; }\n

Innovation. Disruption. Brand ownership. Melissa’s stories— traffic jams on two-lane roads, wells with with flames shooting everywhere, the foreign strippers she met for happy hour, the redneck coworkers — were my escape from all that b.s. \n\nEspecially when she got to the part about the guy, now [[her husband]].\n\n“I think he’s just inviting me over to be nice.”

Niko and Melissa made the second and infinitely more horrific drive back to South Dakota [[on their own]].

As he bolted from the car to the wall with the light switches, then flipped the lights, first for the garage, then for the house, I steeled myself. \n\nI anticipated figures against the wall, cocked weapons, cold eyes. \n\nThe end was [[inevitable]].\n\n

This time last year I had been covered in glitter, starting my night with a party and ending it at 8 a.m. with my cheek all clammy against the syrupy table of an IHOP, wondering how I had gotten there.\n\nNo [[swarms of ghosts]]. Plenty of other strange apparations, though.\n\nA different place, a different time.

Some murmur followed, a response garbled by a clank in the heating system.\n\nWhat’s the route?\n\nEverything along I-29, Fargo to Kansas City.\n\nA sick feeling grew in the pit of my stomach. I was tempted, so tempted, to just ignore it. Don’t be crazy, Tristan. It’s probably nothing. It’s probably [[just a coincidence]].

She shrugged. Her face darkened. “You know how it goes, Tristan.”\n\nI did. I [[did indeed]].

“You always thought I was from Canada.”\n\n“I know.”\n\n“Why — because I’m polite and [[dress well]]?”\n\n

“Yeah, yeah, right around back.” \n\nHow should I announce his presence, I wondered? Husband? Ex-husband? \n\n[[Prairie drug lord]] was probably ill-advised.

“Think about hockey players. They pick a team, knowing what they know at the time, and they hope for the best. If they end up on good teams, they do well. \n\n"Their careers can totally take off. If they end up on a team in a slump, or with poor management, they might have two, three years max before going down to the AHL or lower. There’s a lot of [[fate and chance]] involved."

Randolph gets that joke [[said]] to him nearly once a week. And each time he just smiles and says nothing in the inscrutable way of our people.

It was Saturday, the blinds were [[now]] drawn, and my futon set me just a few inches off the spinning floor.

“The new owners have, shall we say, an interesting take on hired help.”\n\n“Why do you say that?”\n\n“There was a [[Somali Muslim]] woman out front with a herd of goats.”\n\nI swiped my nose. I was on the cusp of getting a cold. The symptoms were coming in, and they were undeniable. This one was going [[to be bad]].

The following night found me and Melissa at that kitchen table.\n\n“I know you think I’ve [[lost my mind]].”

Niko made a killing working for some natural resources company. And Melissa wasn’t exactly suffering. After North Dakota, she had started her own business designing custom-painted goalie masks for rich little hockey players. \n\nIt was a market that defied logic on the surface but had no bottom. White people will spend money on anything. Beanie babies, yoga mats, kale smoothies and now hockey masks that looked like bears and monsters. An entrepreneurial success story thanks to Melissa’s talent and hard work. That and the website I designed for it, one of my first and — in my humble opinion — one of my best.\n\nAnd [[here we all were]].

Through the morning, I coded and she worked. As the phones rang and delivery people and customers walked through the door, she hustled through the store, pretty floral dress swirling around her stacked-heel boots. \n\n[[Cheerful]]. Competent. \n\nWas prairie drug lord Brandon a fool for [[letting this woman go]]?\n\nMy first day of work [[exceeded]] her expectations.

I nodded, smiled, shrugged. I was broke, living in their basement - [[a girl]] like Prairie Drug Lord Brandon's daughter could only dream of such a life. What could I say?

And once I started coding, they promptly forgot I was there. \n\nThey retreated to the little office in the back and didn’t bother to close the door.\n\nI could hear everything.\n\nAnd they sure as hell weren’t [[talking about ham]].

How about that indeed.\n\n “How’s your life treating you, Tristan? Everything good with [[your family]]? Not to pry or anything.”

\n\nOf course, Niko admitted, he had expected [[that]] this favor would get cashed in later in life — like a job requiring a move to some crazy part of the world, or a cancer diagnosis, a milder form that ultimately goes into remission but nevertheless requires lots of short-term care and compassion. \n\nHe had never anticipated such dramatic demands mere weeks into the relationship.

It was late in the afternoon. I had just run the first successful test of Shelly’s new, improved online ordering system. \n\nMy fake note — “congratulations on your new life together” — successfully dispatched with a delicate white vase of teacup roses.\n\nIronic that a note about [[marriage and happiness]] should appear on my screen at that very moment.

“I’ll figure something out.”\n\n“Get back in your car and follow me. You’re staying with us.” \n\nOh no, that was really too much to ask, I told her. I knew people around town. There were a few guys who would probably put me up. Old flames and flings, [[whatever]]. \n\n

Of course he wanted to hear all about [[my tour]] of the string cheese factory first.

“I know you’ve been working late and you’ve got other stuff going on, but join us for dinner on Friday. We’re grilling up steaks.”\n\n“What’s the big occasion?” Like I didn’t know.\n\n“My brother is coming over for [[dinner]].”\n\nBut I had a cold, I pointed out, forcing even more of a hack for effect.

“Met a chick. Thought I’d send her a bouquet.”\n\n“Didn’t know that farm animals appreciated flowers.”\n\n“Fuck yourself, Tristan. And close that fucking door on your way out to [[Minneapolis]]. You’re letting the cold in.”\n\n

Brandon swooped the baby from my inexperienced arms. “Christ, don’t drop her,” he admonished. Niko meanwhile glared from the background. “Absolutely adorable,” he then marveled, balancing her like a pro.\n\n“You have two kids of your own, right?” I asked to make conversation.\n\n“I do. A boy who’s been in college a while and [[a girl]] who just started."

But not sorry me. I was living large, rent-free, in Melissa’s modern art, modern day log cabin. \n\nDuring the day, Niko went off to work, the nanny took the kids to the park or the museum or some infant music class, and Melissa and I whipped out our computers and art supplies. Just like old times in the creative department without the cubicles or douchebags.\n\n“Hey, on the way back from South Dakota, I happened to drive by your family’s old [[farm]],” I told her as we pecked away at our keyboards.

Before Minnesota, before North Dakota, he had lived there as well. This guy just loved the American Midwest. \n\nIn Cheyenne, he had visited an antiques show and purchased a knife. \n\nIt was from the 1800s, beautiful mother of pearl handle, viciously sharp. Like nothing he had ever seen [[or owned]] before.

The guy from North Dakota, first introduced to me through a cell phone snapshot: he and Melissa on a balcony with a bunch of snow and deer in the background. Go inside already, there’s a warm house right behind you, had been my first thought.\n\nThey had met in the [[oil fields]] of Williston of all places. As Melissa drove her delivery van— a step down in status but several steps up in pay — I languished in my cubicle, employed and secure but jealous of [[her freedom]].\n\nAnd entertained by her stories. People always confide their [[romantic drama]] to me. Tristan the dating counselor.

Our flight out of Watertown was a blur - all clenched knuckles, ragged breaths and shaky knees. \n\n“Don’t panic. Don’t do anything that looks suspicious,” Melissa cautioned as Niko drove.\n\nAs for me, I could not tear my gaze away from the rear-view mirror. I waited for accelerating headlights to fill it up. [[I listened]] for the shouts and gunshots.

I pondered that. “She misses him, I think.”\n\n“Stupidity is doing the same thing [[over and over again]] expecting a different result,” Randolph sagely advised, polishing the bongs and pipes in the display case until they glistened.\n\n\n[[Same groundhog day situation with my money problems.|https://lifeinanortherntowncom.wordpress.com/]]

With a woman and a flower shop. \n\nAnd it ended in a tree house, with [[miles and miles]] of road in between.

In lieu of filing for a divorce, as Joan Didion would have put it had she ever been stupid enough to get herself into such a situation, Melissa shot him a glare. \n\n“We’ll tell them it’s a family emergency. Because it could be. I [[could kill]] right now.”

“Oh, they knew,” Shelly sighed. \n\n“One Friday night, we all just stared at each other in that big beige living room in the new house that never really worked with our farm furniture. \n\n"The kids, of course, resented the timing because they wanted to go out with their friends. ‘Your father and I need to tell you something, and I think you already have [[a good idea]] what it is,’ I told them.

They had no clue about the tree house out back.\n\n\n[[Get the rest of the story...|https://lifeinanortherntowncom.wordpress.com/]]

Another problem I would have to try to fix. But not today. Looking at the store’s clock — Grateful Dead, attached to a lava lamp, who uses lava lamps anymore? — I repacked my bag and grabbed my coat. “Gotta run.”\n\n“Where [[you going]], dude?”

Recalcitrant Bastard

Randolph, of course, was not so contemplative. “The hell — it’s not like you ever met the dude, Tristan. And did you even finish reading that massive book?” \n\nI forgot. He had accompanied me to the library to [[check it out]]. And noticed that I never returned it.\n\nAnd now, looking at the flower shop online order form, he snorted. Randolph’s a big guy, so he can get away with this. “Why would I want to write hipster bullshit with footnotes on a funeral wreath?” I ignored him and got to the point of the problem.

I probed this on a hunch during my next visit to her studio. \n\nAfter a brief roll of the eyes — “Niko was only supposed to talk to you about the fucking shed, how embarrassing” — Melissa added some context to all of those articles about North Dakota, all of the things that happened after we temporarily lost touch that year. \n\nWhen [[things got interesting]].

It was all a bunch of crap, of course. \n\nI’d been an orphan since age 14 with an extended family who was brilliant for sure but definitely not curing cancer or chairing any corporate boards.\n\nOn the surface, to those who didn’t know us or take the time to learn, we were the typical Indian Country cliché. \n\nBut hell if I was going to [[explain us]] to this woman.

After Melissa’s parents died, he explained, they had traveled to the farm to help Brandon and Shelly pack up and settle [[the estate]]. \n\nThen one day, Shelly, “who is actually quite nice,” Niko assured me, offered to take Lucas into town [[for the afternoon]]. \n\nFinally, they [[arrived]] at a shed.

My reasons were not entirely altruistic but [[something else]]: The whole situation — working for Shelly, living with Melissa-— was getting pretty damn awkward.

Which made their extra payment to me, a huge amount for services only half rendered, even more of [[a WTF]].

We could have stalled, called in sick, waited for Brandon to pick up his messages then pick up his goods.\n\nWe could have called the police. Two responsible white people, never mind the Indian. A nice house in a wealthy Minneapolis suburb. \n\nOur story might have [[well]] been believed.

Rye porter followed by red wine followed by three IPAs and [[secrets]]. Never a great idea.\n\nThe [[good news]]...\n\nBarely a foot from my face, [[my phone]] vibrated.

“There is not enough alcohol on this planet,” Niko muttered beneath his breath as he stocked the fridge. Melissa gave him a sharp look.\n\nWhat to [[talk about]] with Brandon? \n\nThere was always [[hockey]].

“They insisted on hand delivered, and they’re paying an assload for them. So hand-delivered they’ll get.”\n\n“Did you ever see them?” Niko interjected. “They requested one of her earlier works that actually looks like a buffalo — amazing detail in the fur and the whiskers. Melissa’s best yet. Would you like to see it?” \n\nI nodded. Why not? If it wasn’t all [[packed up]] and if it was no trouble.

I was groveling before the largest ad agency (give me more work, give me more work) in the state’s largest city in a shirt all pressed and tight-fitting in a way I think looks sharp but people outside of Minneapolis cast me the side-eye for. New from H&M. Bold to be wearing out west.\n\n“She [[said]] it was something wrong with the e-commerce system.”

So there it is. We can take it over.\n\nDo you think we really need to right now?\n\nIt’s an [[expansion opportunity]].\n\n

I found them on the porch, bundled in blankets, her cradling the gun, him the knife. \n\nI waited for them to [[wake themselves up]].\n\n

“Shelly’s Flower Shop.”\n\n“Shelly’s Flower Shop,” she repeated.\n\nWith that, she disappeared into the next room. I gave Niko a “what the hell” look and he of course offered no explanation, loyal to his wife and complicit in whatever [[revelation]] she was about to make.

“Driving back to their house. Eating dinner. Plotting how to kill us. I don’t know.”\n\n“Any word from Brandon?”\n\n“No reception out here, remember?”\n\n“I don’t want our kids [[to be around]] when he comes by to pick his things up.”

“I stay over because of the icy roads and we sleep in the same bed. But he’s being a gentleman, damn him.”\n\n“Of course he is. He just met you.”\n\n“I have [[my needs]].”

No one stays in one place anymore.\n\nThat’s what the guy at the Midtown Global Market told me when I said I was moving full time to South Dakota. \n\nWhat could I say? Such were the times in which we lived. \n\nI think I quoted something by David Foster Wallace, for good measure. In any case, the guy just stared at me, handed me my empanadas and wished me [[good luck]].

After dinner, Niko and I took to the family xBox.\n\nFollowing an hour or so of animated violence, we crept upstairs to the playroom to check in on Melissa. There she lay, sprawled on a pile of stuffed animals, softly snoring, a sleeping child on either side. Not one of them made a peep as we covered them with a quilt.\n\nThen Niko grabbed a six pack of beer from the fridge and our coats from the entryway. \n\nHe motioned for me to [[follow him]] [[outside]].

Chicken wings. Nachos. Hot sauce. On the TV screens around us, the Vikings were losing. The Vikings were always losing, it was just one crap season after another. But our group didn’t care. Our bellies were full and our brain cells sufficiently lubricated. \n\nAs Shelly and Melissa rattled on and on about parenting tips and Niko kept the kids occupied, I rode the buzz of my cold medicine and [[watched the city fade]] into twilight, then dark.\n\n

“Thank you very much, Tristan. It’s been a pleasure working with you so far. I can only hope my own kids turn out as well as you.”\n\nI kept those words in mind that evening as I met with my landlord, begging one last [[time]] for forgiveness before he kicked me out into the street.

Her husband whispered this into her knit hat as her head slumped against his shoulder. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.\n\nAnd then we drove off, packages in our [[vehicle]], contraband far behind.\n\nIt wasn’t until the town of Dawson, well past halfway, that [[human voices]] made an appearance.

“Are you ready for bed?”\n\nThe boy nodded.\n\n“He is such a sweet kid,” I commented as they cleared his plate away. “So well behaved. And so is his [[little sister]].”

“We were desperate. Running a farm is more than just selling a few tomatoes in the park every Saturday to hipsters like you and Melissa. It’s a business, a big one, and when things go bad, they go [[bad]] in a big way."

I paused over the texting screen, then the email apps on my phone. \n\nWhat do you say? This conversation needed vocal modulations, facial expressions, visual cues.\n\nAs I drove to her house, [[swarms of ghosts]] floated before me.

The hell? A break in the snow revealed the Minnesota plates, the gleaming paint job, the pheasant bumper sticker.\n\nShould I call? I could no longer see Niko and Melissa in the blowing snow. I could barely make out the headlights of the vehicles. What were they talking about? What was going on?\n\nHunched over the filthy counter, I [[clutched]] my crumpled napkin.

Every crunch of the ice was the boot of an enforcer. \n\nEvery shadow of a shelf or plastic storage container was an assassin in wait. \n\nHe paused a good five minutes before he [[opened his car door]], looking like he was going to throw up or pass out or both, and I wouldn’t have blamed him.

Because when the bell on the door jingled, a tall, rugged guy in jeans and a flannel work shirt walked on through. Mid-forties. Blondish-brown hair. Face a little weathered but in a good way, like a broken-in leather jacket.\n\n“Shelly here?”\n\nI was a little flustered when I realized [[who this was]].

God.\n\n“I’ll take that to be a yes,” she confirmed as she shared photos from their adventures. Cocktails at the hotel. Multiple fancy courses at the restaurant. Christmas lights. A ridiculously attractive couple in front of a jazz club, waiting for a cab, not a care in the world.\n\nThanks so much! Having an [[amazing time]]!

They traded recipes and childcare advice. Melissa especially took avid interest, since Niko soon would be leaving for a business trip to Calgary.\n\nI braced myself for the calls for help, the inevitable result of being alone for prolonged periods of time with a solo parent of [[small children]].

Just so the teenage clerks wouldn’t get suspicious — because you never know who’s in on what in these small towns — I shifted my gaze around to give every angle equal time. \n\nHello employee parking lot, with your rusted-out Jetta and a putty-purple Neon, bumper held up with duct tape. Hello motel lot, with your El Camino — damn, it had been years since I’d seen one of those — and a really nice Lexus.\n\nAnd hello [[Brandon’s blue pickup]].

“I spoke with my cousins this morning,” Niko said. “About the arrangements.”\n\nThe next thing I glimpsed was a tiny dive bar I knew all too well from an earlier life, peeking out from behind gusts of snow. Melissa [[checked her phone]].

\n\nLiving with one sister, working for the other - \n\n[[you]] never know what drama will come up next.\n

“Unfair, Shelly. We had to work. We were watching Lucas that whole time, too. And who may I ask was entertaining Amina for hours on end while my racist brother was roaming the fields avoiding her?”\n\nI cringed and shrank in my seat. But Shelly merely smiled philosophically. “I don’t think it was [[entirely racism]].”

“I know you were keeping that fox mask on for the bedtime stories, Niko, but please take it off now. It’s freaking me the fuck out.”\n\nI’d never seen Melissa so agitated, so at a loss on what to [[do]].

Back at the flower shop, Shelly was surrounded by a stack of her own bills.\n\n“Speak it sister,” I agreed.\n\n“Can I get your opinion, Tristan? I was rummaging through the desk last night. Niko had sent Brandon these checks a year ago to help out with his parents’ medical bills, and my proud moron of an ex-husband never cashed them. But at least he never ripped them up.”\n\nShelly fanned the [[oblong papers]] under my nose.

“Tristan,” he remembered. “Good to see you.”\n\nNice leather jacket. Slight hint of aftershave. Bottle of scotch for the hosts. This was the Brandon the rest of the world knew, the handsome, confident [[white guy]] who married the prettiest girl, coached the local sports teams, was best friends with the bank president of his small town.\n\n

“Fucking asshole! Goddamn prick — I [[should have known]].”

Some white guy knocked her up a year later. As for the [[corsage]], I think it ended up in the grass somewhere. Returned to the earth except for its plastic backing, which a bird is probably choking on right now because unlike us, that crap doesn’t decompose.

The uncle long dead, Bertram running around with real girls up in Sisseton, me being me and Niko and Melissa married, parenting and [[wallowing in wealth]].\n\nSurreal to be around [[friends with money]]. \n\n\n\n

Old friends from the club days. Shots, music, dancing, darting from one snowy street to the next. \n\nAll wrapped up in a bow with brunch — because there’s always brunch when you live in the city, shoving your way through the sweaty parkas and stocking caps for a crowded table. Sunday paper, scalding coffee, four-egg omelet. \n\nSleeping it off during [[a lazy afternoon]].\n\nWell, not too lazy.

“Oh, that’s Amina.”\n\n“Friendly. She waved at me.”\n\n“Probably thought you were cute. Obviously didn’t know you’re gay. She’s the new owner.”\n\n“Really? They let women own property?”\n\n“I don’t think her family’s like regular Somalis. She lived in London. And Dubai. You should introduce yourself and [[hang out]].”

Niko unearthed an old duffel bag. Melissa re-packed and re-wrapped the boxes, now substantially lighter than Brandon had left them. \n\nAnd I, with rubber kitchen gloves up to my elbows to conceal my fingerprints, transferred the stash.\n\nWhere did I tuck it away? In [[the treehouse]], of course, hurling myself from rock to rock across the landscaped yard to avoid footprints in the snow.\n\n[[Melissa’s phone]] buzzed.

Each of us asked the question. No one had an answer.\n\nAgain and again, Melissa tried to reach Brandon. “He has got to come over and pick this shit up.”\n\n[[Every time]], voice mail.

I held my breath, not wanting any rattle from my snot-packed nose to impede my eavesdropping. Because I knew this was going to be good.\n\n“What do I think?” Niko repeated. Melissa nodded.\n\n“What [[do I think?]]”\n\nShe just wanted the conversation to be over, resolved her way, of course. And Niko made her wait a long, long time for this resolution.

Recalcitrant Bastard Part V: [[Dinner Party of Lies]]\n\n\n \n

I told her how Bertram was asking for money, yet again. He was behind on his rent. And how Benedict’s landlord for the skateboarding shop was hassling them for burning incense. \n\nWho the hell burns incense any more?\n\n“I burned incense,” Shelly replied. “Brandon’s [[mother]] liked it."

I went through the motions of purchasing an obnoxiously large funeral horseshoe. \n\nAfter clicking through prices, delivery fields and options for size — standard, premium and deluxe — my cursor landed in an ocean of white space.\n\n“This is the place for the [[personalized message]],” I told him.\n\n“The wrong messages go out with the wrong flowers. Condolence notes with wedding stuff. Job congratulations with new baby stuffed animals and balloons. After you click send, something gets seriously [[mixed up]] in the system.”

To Melissa and my father, I explained that I had ended the harassment with a restraining order.\n\n“But the truth, as you see, is [[a little different]].”

“Should we have investigated a little bit more into who the “they” were? Sure – but what would we have done? We weren’t in any position to turn them down. \n\n"And then the off-market drugs turned into, well, real drugs. All our work was now a felony. We had no way out. Our kids were in danger. [[Melissa]] got stuck in the middle. \n\n“Brandon was loving the money, the freedom, the [[power]]." \n\n

Should I check my phone? Should I cancel that appointment with this Shelly woman — Melissa’s former sister-in-law— and her flower shop?\n\nThen I pictured my bank balance, the blaring “past due” notice from my landlord. [[Debts]]. \n\nNo, I would keep that appointment.

She didn’t say a thing about these conversations the next day, and I didn’t [[bring it up]]. \n\nLater that week Niko returned from Calgary bearing [[gifts]].\n\nBut the homecoming wasn’t [[all sweetness and light]].\n\n

Niko was no fan of Brandon, but he did know the loneliness of being an only child. And he did have the impression that sibling life at the farm, before everything had gone down, of course, had been fairly harmonious. Bucolic even. \n\nBut Melissa didn’t see it his way at all. She began [[to cry]].

After Niko left, the room spun. \n\nThis conversation was just a dream, I told myself. Just like the Zesto. Just like Brandon’s truck in the motel parking lot. \n\nNyQuil makes you hallucinate some [[weird shit]] sometimes.

Shelly’s Flower Shop was located right between a nail salon and a smoothie shop. Jingle bells clanged as I walked through the door. The store was small but bright, with shelves displaying representative arrangements and a small table setting ready for consultations.\n\nRight on time, the woman from Melissa’s photo album walked out to greet me. Trim, cheerful, with feathered hair and a firm handshake. Have a donut, she gestured to a stack of — cinnamon and honey-glazed treats.\n\n“I read about your work in Minnesota Woman magazine. Thanks for taking on [[a small client]] like me,” she said. “I really liked your [[portfolio]].”

According to Randolph, the Ham World crew, Earl and Steve to be exact, went way back in the distribution business. \n\nLucky as hell with connections and timing but stupid as a bag of rocks when it came to [[the game itself]]. \n\n“All the good shit’s either pharmaceuticals or manufactured [[in Mexico]] now."\n\nDistribution had [[meandered through Minnesota]] for the longest time, according to Randolph.\n\n\n

A scar on the hand, a slash from a skate blade in high school. \n\nThat’s [[how Melissa]] was able to identify the body…a shotgun had blown his face clear off.

White people are the ones who buy the stuff, too, the “good luck at the new job” potted plants, the nosegays for prom, the bathroom potpourri. White people particularly dig the bathroom potpourri.\n\nOnce upon a time, back in high school, that flower shop customer had been [[me]].

Good, I said because it was the truth. My new client Shelly was rocking a fresh divorce and the travails of a new business with pluck, aplomb and, quite frankly, a rugged sexiness a woman half her age would envy.\n\nMaybe I shouldn’t have used the phrase “rugged sexiness” to describe Melissa’s former sister-in-law. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, or taken the job with the flower shop in the first place.\n\nBecause Melissa said nothing for a very long time. “I’m glad to hear that,” she eventually conceded. “Shelly’s a good person. It’s not her [[fault]].”

It was a short meeting, as he firmly and decisively booted me from the property, or, rather, “asked me to leave.”\n\nThe conversation took five minutes. Packing up my belongings — books and clothing mostly — into my car took five hours. I tried to look at the bright side: good ballast against the wind for [[all my driving]].

\nLife went on. Melissa roamed the house with her baby in one arm, her gun in the other. With the bullets safely stashed in a Tupperware container in the freezer, Niko insisted. \n\n“We’re screwed.”\n\nFor his part, he propped himself against the living room wall, sprouting a sad excuse for a beard, and watched his son play, [[knife]] in one hand and a bottle in the other.

“Do you have any idea what that shit does to people? Seriously, that wouldn’t have been a deal-breaker for you?”\n\nNo. Actually very few things would have been. "I fell in love with Melissa very quickly and you can see why. She’s very funny, intelligent, [[strong]]. Soon I knew I would [[do anything]] for her.” \n\nSo the security guard kept coming around — to his home, to his workplace. He kept on harassing Niko. “I know what you two have done. You [[can’t hide]] anymore. Confess.” \n\n[[In any case...]]

“I felt not right about it all, even in the beginning. \n\n"But I gave in. Because he was [[my life]], Tristan. Ever since I was 17 years old."

Under Brandon’s dubious tutelage, she kept her mouth shut and drove off in the middle of the night. \n\nThis on-the-lam plan — “Raymond and those guys were chasing me, they knew something was up” — involved throwing away her phone (“a new iPhone 6?” I exclaimed, horrified) and camping for a month in an abandoned campground in western Minnesota. \n\nHiding out like Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone,” was how she described it.\n\n“You skinned and [[ate a squirrel]]?” I asked, ready to be impressed.

As [[it]] all went down, we sped along, clueless. \n\nAfterward, we drove back, dazed by what we had done.

And then I realized:\n\nSoon I’d be [[alone]] with him.

The [[day]] of the big facade arrived.

They had tried to reach Shelly first but couldn’t find her phone number, the man on the phone explained. \n\nSo when they discovered Melissa’s name in the directory, they figured she might be a good place [[to start]].

“She doesn’t ask for the specifics. She figures it’s not her business anymore.”\n\n“Does she [[want him back]]?”

Sunrise. Sunset. Night. \n\nEvery so often, I heard a door slam shut or the garage shudder open. \n\nNiko left for work. He took the kids to the park.\n\nThen Shelly stopped by for something. I would have recognized [[her voice]] anywhere.

Silence again.\n\n“We owe him this, Niko. It’s the very least we owe him.”\n\nI sensed that statement was her final weapon. Her “[[break glass]] in case of emergencies.”

“With a beat-up pick-up truck who wears the same pair of overalls every day,” I tried to hurry him along. “And lives in a shack just outside of Clear Lake.”\n\n“South Dakota’s crawling with awesome random millionaires like that.”\n\n“Speaking of not-so-awesome randomness,” I yanked our conversation’s subject to my direction, “I have [[a new client]] I’m wondering about.”

“Not if they [[don’t find]] any drugs in the car.”

“It’s not the same as mine? Well, she wasted no time changing it back.”\n\n“You’re a fine one to judge. You’ve kept your maiden name, if I remember correctly,” I reminded her as Niko refilled our wine glasses.\n\n“Have you ever attempted to spell or pronounce my husband’s last name? Besides, I am a modern, liberated woman.” She deftly wiped the baby’s mouth then turned her attention to [[Lucas]], who was waiting with wide eyes, tousled hair and empty plate.

Would you prefer that he roofie you instead?” I pointed out — quite reasonably in my opinion.\n\nThen, a week of silence. “[[Still a gentleman]]?” I asked.

“It’s [[my brother]], Tristan.”\n\nI nearly knocked my mug off the counter.\n\nPrairie Drug Lord Brandon. The asshole who'd put her life in danger. I've heard of forgiveness, but okay, let's see how this goes.

"Niko will need another adult to talk to. You’ll be a [[peaceful presence]] at the table.”

“It was the stress talking. And the grief. It was right after Dad died, when Mom was sick.”\n\n“Grief is when you see a person’s [[true nature]].”

“Melissa, somehow, found herself on the Blackhawks. Niko took a chance with something like the Stars or Tampa Bay, and it ended up paying off. And then there’s Edmonton. Damn, they were good back in the day but now.”\n\nShe stopped herself. “But I haven’t followed hockey for years, so this all could be totally different now.”\n\n“Well, you’re [[a free agent]] at least,” I reminded her.

“Glad to be of service,” I replied, ushering in an awkward silence. \n\nThe ex-wife. Yeah, not much to talk about there.\n\nWhat was [[our conversation]] around the big oak table that night?

Morning came with the brilliant blue sky and unearthly quiet that follows a blizzard. I roused myself, blinked, wandered around. \n\nNo sign of Melissa and Niko. \n\nWhat [[the hell]]?

He gave me a look, the look I don’t think he realizes he gives when he doubts people are keeping up with him intellectually. Even in the dim light, I could see that eyebrow arch.\n\n“I know that you need the money, Tristan. But I would stay far away from Shelly’s Flower Shop if I were you.”\n\nSo what did I do?\n\n[[Go to the flower shop, of course.|https://lifeinanortherntowncom.wordpress.com/]]

Weeks and weeks of sorting old magazines, storing away the old-white-people ceramic figurines for [[good]], sharing meals in the dining room with Brandon glaring at them or making snide remarks. \n\n“Because I know everything. Also because of the first pregnancy, which technically had been a bit of a surprise.”

I brought that check with me when I met with the store’s two partners, Wyatt and Bill. \n\nOr was it Earl and Steve? Shit, why was I always so bad with names? I could remember every other detail about them — the meaty handshakes, the faint smell of chewing tobacco, the Cabela’s flannel jackets stretched over proud potbellies.\n\nThe entire time I walked them through their new online catalog and ordering system, the business experienced [[not one visitor]] or phone call.

How’s she doing? I believed— I sincerely hoped — I asked.\n\nSleeping, was the reply. She’ll be in [[rough shape]] for a while.

Then a loud pounding of bare fists against the glass. Melissa, backlit by blazing headlights. \n\n“Get the hell out here, Tristan, we’re [[ready to go]]!”\n\nNow the slack-jawed youth really stared. But who cared. I was out of that Zesto and back into the SUV, buckled up with the heat blasting.

For the summers of 10 thousand lakes, they brought with them titanium bikes and matching kayaks. \n\nYou'll see snow shoes and cross-country skis stacked against the side of the garage and professionally cut firewood against the fence. \n\nMore often than not, [[the house is dark]] during the weekends.

Melissa had been right, I thought, looking them over. Niko’s last name was fucking impossible. How had such an unholy combination of vowels and consonants been allowed to happen?\n\n“We’ve had them for over a year. I’m tempted to deposit them because we still have a joint bank account. Maybe Niko won’t even notice?”\n\nI added up the [[dollar figures]], then pointed out the total to Shelly.

“That’s [[nice]],” was Melissa’s reaction.

“Twenty unheard messages. Batteries drained all the way down.”\n\n[[Melissa finally appeared]] in my doorway.

Instead, we unloaded the SUV. It was packed to the roof with boxes, masks brought in from the studio. \n\nSome little town in South Dakota with a name I didn’t recognize, which is saying something given my many road trips through the area. \n\n“That’s the order from podunk nowhere I was telling you about,” Melissa elaborated, [[a little explaining]] about the box's presence in the house, and its odd provenance. “I was surprised as well. But I guess the youth group over there has quite a following and no shortage of cash. Who knew?”

“Speaking of connections, all these guys you’re swiping then not talking to, talking about moving on with your life, what about connections in the real world?”\n\nShelly looked up from the bouquet she was arranging. \n\n“What are you getting at, Tristan? Is this about dating or is this about [[something else]]?”

Not bad, I told her. I rattled off the latest developments with the Sioux Falls ad agency, the string cheese magnate in the middle of the state and another potential South Dakota client, Ham World. Because every Midwestern mall is required by law to have a Ham World outlet.\n\nAnd in the middle of it all, I slipped in a quick sentence about [[Shelly’s Flower Shop]].

“I have to deliver these masks,” she insisted. “The customers will know something’s up if I don’t.”\n\nBy now, we were pretty sure that Melissa’s mysterious South Dakota customers were, in the parlance of the vice world, dirty. With more than a [[passing acquaintance]] with her brother.\n\n

"And the authorities have cracked down — home inspections for meth houses, regulations for buying cold medicine," Raldolph continued, telling me about [[two guys]] we knew who had been busted in that capacity. \n\n"Selling’s for amateurs now, too, because there’s nothing as untrustworthy as a twitchy meth head. Or somebody on bath salts or that synthetic crap, passing out in the middle of Walmart.”

Because telling someone to fuck themselves was inappropriate in front of one's child, Melissa let my remark pass. \n\n“Say hi to Uncle Tristan, Lucas,” she instructed her son. Shyly he shook my hand then scampered off, leaving me to inhale the scents of our simmering dinner and take in the expanse of the place — all big windows, rich wood and soft light. \n\nDamn, girl knows how to live, I thought [[every time]] I walked through that door.

Living at Melissa’s. Working at Shelly’s.\n\nIt was only a matter of time before I met the [[rest of the family]].

Noon.\n\n Clanging radiators, stripes of sunlight across the bookshelves, cold bathroom tile beneath my feet. \n\nToday, I will not work, [[I decided]]. From my milk crate bookshelf I selected [[William S. Burroughs]].\n\nMy phone buzzed [[again]].

We kept the room dark and our voices low. Every so often we’d hear a kid knock in search of candy, wait expectantly, then shuffle back down the walk, disappointed.\n\n“Now I’m not saying that my experience makes me an expert in all of this, Tristan,” Melissa declared at the end. “But I think you should stay far, far away from Ham World in the future.”\n\n“Not even for the [[legitimate side]] of the business?”

We unlocked the padlock and climbed up. Good thing both of us were in decent shape because the entry through the floor was tight, child-sized, and the ladder rungs leading up to it shaky. Upstairs was a tiny, half-finished main room and a porch with a full view of the moon. That’s where we sat.\n\n“I started building it last year for the kids,” Niko said, [[rummaging]] through his coat pockets.\n\n“It’s nice. Solid construction. For the girl, too?”\n\n“Of course. Melissa is determined that we not turn her into a little princess.” He took a swig from his bottle. “How much did she [[tell you]] about her time in North Dakota?”

The next question: child care as we made the trip. “The neighbors next door,” Melissa suggested. \n\nThe retired couple, friendly and accommodating, was always around. They never asked questions.\n\n“They would have watched the kids on our anniversary weekend, too,” Niko added [[against his better judgment]].

“What kind?”\n\nI explained how the owner had just gone through a divorce and needed to find a way to support herself. “Guess no multi-level marketing schemes with baskets or essential oils were available. You go girl, right?”\n\nThen I went into the bit about the online store and its troubles. “So you’re getting happy birthday old fart messages sent to funerals and wakes, condolence cards sent to weddings. Pretty [[funny]], huh?”\n

Shelly continued. “Even the less glamorous businesses, like the pawn shop and the plumber, you really gave them style.”\n\n“Thank you,” I replied. Style. Making people happy. That’s why I was in this business, I told her. Because it sure as hell wasn’t for the money, I added to myself.\n\n“Let’s dig into the system and see what’s [[wrong]].”

“She has kids in college, Randolph.”\n\nMy cousin reflected on this. “So what does ex-husband Scarface do all day, now that he doesn’t have the farm to hang out on?”\n\n“Drives around a lot, she guesses. Goes hunting. Spends a lot of time in South Dakota, oddly enough.”\n\n“It’s the [[place to be]].”\n\n

“You never called 911 or anything?” I asked him, incredulous. This was a very un-white-person course of action. Well, at first he thought Melissa might have had cold feet when she ran off. He had just asked her to move in with him, in fact.\n\n“I was concerned, of course, but I also didn’t want to look like an idiot if the police found her in bed with another guy. And then after I read about her workplace being investigated, I didn’t call the police because I didn’t want to get her in trouble. In case she might have knowingly been involved.”\n\nThis surprised me. “If Melissa had been dealing drugs on purpose, you would have been okay with [[that]]?”\n\n

Or maybe move back to the rez entirely, Randolph suggested. People miss you.\n\n“It’s not my place anymore,” was my reply. I wanted more for myself, I didn’t add. Better.\n\nRandolph heard it anyway. “Like the city is always better? Fucking stupid-ass white hipsters with more money than sense? Did you not learn from this experience, Tristan? Just find your place. Live your life. [[Be your fucking self]].”

I tried that once with Brandon when he stopped by the shop. “How about those Minnesota Wild, huh?” I threw down, hoping to impress him with a spirited volley of analysis and color commentary. But he had been in a bad mood that day and called my bluff. “Yeah, how about the Wild,” he tossed right back. Indian boy, you don’t know dick about hockey, his cold stare informed me.\n\nAnd he was right. I didn’t really follow the sport. I [[had nothing]].

Shit, what was her name again? Ella? Emily? So I just waved. “Hey, cutie.”\n\nThis child, I continued to break the tension unexpectedly caused by my new client Shelly, was adorable. As adorable, in fact— I rifled my mind for [[a diversion]] — Leon Trotsky.\n\nI explained...

My car, such that it was, creaked and rattled as I brought it up to speed. Eighty miles per hour was the limit now in South Dakota. Duct tape and rust weren’t meant for such speeds.\n\nTo blast out the noise, I cranked up my music, and as I crossed the Minnesota border and eased onto the two-lane road, the clattering settled. \n\nWind turbines shot up on one side of the road; vast grassland unfurled on the other. Serenity. Peace. The scenery of [[home]].

“Not if you just walk away now and keep your mouth shut. Jesus,” she added, talking more to herself at this point. “Is there a small business anywhere in this country that isn’t a front for pharmaceuticals these days?”\n\nThe family’s trick-or-treaters returned. Niko put the kids to bed, and soon it was just us [[three adults]], sitting in darkness and silence, trying to figure out what I should do.\n\n"Tristan, you [[can’t work]] with these guys anymore.”

No way was I going to be the human shield in that pissing match..\n\n“Seriously, Tristan, how often do I call in favors?”\n\nI ticked them off on my hand: that massive order for St. Cloud after Lucas was born, breaking into her studio when they were stuck on the farm. But Melissa was a friend. A mentor. My first client. And a decent person, occasional selfishness, delusions and naivete aside. \n\nPlus, I was living in her deluxe Art Forum log cabin [[rent-free]].

My beater vehicle wheezed up the drive behind her new SUV. So much for being repaired. \n\nThen my backpack-laden self followed her down thickly carpeted steps. \n\nI’ll pay you back, I reassured her. Within the month, and sooner if I could.\n\n“Nonsense,” she waved me off. “You just focus on [[the business]] and you.”

"It devastated him psychologically. If we had gotten the price we were asking for, if Amina - do you know about her? - hadn't screwed us over, it would have been worth it. We would have been covered, no need to sell the Minnetonka house, kids all set for school. \n\n"But he remains hopeful. Even now. One more try, he always says. [[This time]] it will work out.”

“In any case, she thought I was her old math teacher the whole time I was bathing her. That’s pretty messed up when you think about it. \n\n"Brandon handled the medications and feeding, and I insisted on doing all the bathing and more intimate tasks because that’s just not something a son should ever have to do for his [[mother]].”

[[Shoot]] me.\n\n

As Melissa navigated a shabby-chic path to the register, I idled, and soon a bird-skinny blond sales clerk was on me. “Can I help you?” she asked, snobbery personified. Oh just looking, I told her.\n\n“For what?”\n\n“A gift,” I replied. No shit, Sherlock.\n\n“[[For who]]?”

As I cracked the door open, I shuddered at the contrast between the outside air and the patchouli-scented Moroccan tent of Randolph’s vape emporium. \n\n“Hey, what’s the name of the flower shop?” Randolph asked.\n\nCouldn’t remember. It was on the tip of my tongue. A common name, quintessentially Midwest and perky. “Why do you [[want to know]]?”

What can you say to that? I’ve been having money problems all my life.\n\n“Seriously, tell me.” She set her airbrush down and addressed me full on, hands on her hips.\n\n“They kicked me out of my apartment last week,” I admitted. “All my stuff’s in my car. Even the books.”\n\n“Jesus Christ. Where are [[you staying]]?”

They asked, but I said no, I lied. “Kind of regret it, though, my opportunity to write code for the Walter White of the Midwest.”\n\nWell, that cultural reference fell flat. “Listen to me, Tristan. These are really bad people. There is nothing bad-ass or cool or exciting about it. \n\n"Let me tell you about something that happened in North Dakota. You’re the first person I’ve [[ever]] told this to. Not even Melissa knows.”

We took an afternoon break to visit a twee trophy wife boutique with way too much wicker and way too many ceramic tiles bearing cheesy sayings about wine. Our quest: a baby gift for Melissa’s soon-to-give-birth accountant.\n\n“We’re the only two people in this joint not wearing overpriced yoga pants,” I hissed as she examined embroidered bibs.\n\n“[[I know, I know]],” she murmured. “That’s why I usually try to do all of this crap online.”

“Shelly sounds hot. Can you set me up?”\n\nWhat could I tell Randolph? Being that I’d been warned away from that side of Melissa’s family, being that Shelly must have known about the illicit activities on the farm — how could she not? — and being that her ex-husband would probably shit to find anyone not Caucasian taking his place in bed, the answer would have to be a no.\n\n“I’m [[not afraid]].”

We prepared the vehicle with snacks, flares and blankets. Melissa retrieved a small bundle from the uppermost shelf of the laundry room. \n\n“Yes, this is a firearm,” she informed her husband. “And don’t get all European on me. This is in case bad they suspect something or ask us to [[open the boxes]] in front of them.”\n\n

“I think we need another pitcher of beer,” Niko intervened.\n\nAs our waitress walked off, Shelly, Midwestern farm wife to her core, returned to her usual self. Perky and practical. “I’m glad you two got something useful accomplished during your visit. You weren’t much help packing things up, that’s for sure.”\n\nMelissa [[took umbrage]] at this. \n\n

“And here are my nephew and niece. The product of this now-broken home. Poor Brianna is having a hard time with everything right now. I’ve tried to take her out on the weekends every so often, make sure she’s okay.”\n\nWe paged through photos of frolicking white toddlers who grew up into children, then teens, running around outdoors, climbing on things, doing what farm kids do. There were pictures from state fairs, snowshoeing, four-wheeling, hockey matches. \n\nI met Melissa’s parents, tough but friendly farm folk from the look of things. A [[happy family]], from all appearances.

The flower shop abandoned, Randolph was now running his dust rag around a big glass inhalant delivery device, his motions perfectly in time with the old Slipknot CD playing over the sound system. “Like, what is that, a five-hour drive?”\n\n“Four the way I do it.”\n\nBut not unless I got my ass [[on the road]]. \n\nI hot-tailed it to the [[interstate]].

“So Brandon’s family left him with a mess, and one of Brandon’s friends connected us to [[a way out]]. That’s the short [[story]], at least."

“I can take them upstairs,” Niko offered.\n\n“No, no, no,” Melissa insisted. “You’ve been with them all afternoon. I’m good.”\n\nThey conferred for a long moment in the hallway, whispering sentences I couldn’t make out. I started [[to clear]] the dishes.

“Naked Lunch,” the obvious choice for a debauched and dehydrated mind. \n\nSometime [[later]] in my youth, after my DFW phase, Randolph gave me shit about this author as well. “Why do you read books by white folks? Why don’t you read books by our people?” \n\nBecause I already know our people, I explained.

"Brandon knew about Dickinson Catering all along. Before I got the interview. Before I drove out there. He set me up with the job to get in with the people who ran the whole operations and look good. \n\nI fucked it up when I looked through the boxes and found the drugs. I fucked it up when the place got busted. \n\nThey had to give the cartel the farm’s best acres in exchange for not killing me. That Thanksgiving, they had a scope aimed at us through my window, [[did you know]] that?"\n\n

“Well, I think he’s a criminal and a cheat and a racist. He involved you in an illegal enterprise without your knowledge, did you forget this?”\n\n“But no one got caught. And good things came out of it all. It’s how I met you.”\n\nNiko ignored that argument. “And I think that it’s not so long ago that he said some pretty horrible things to us. That I’m arrogant, condescending, knocked up his sister — okay, that’s all pretty much true— but what I cannot forgive or forget is how he treated you. How called you a bad daughter, mother, wife and sister. That is [[absolutely wrong]], and he had no right to say that.”

But for two large pick-up trucks we assumed to be Melissa’s customers, our rendezvous parking lot was empty. I watched the SUV drive in and park.\n\n“Cold out there today, huh?”\n\nIlluminated by the neon soft-serve cone out front, two slack-jawed teenagers manned the till. These places never shut down, not even for Armageddon. \n\nI [[ordered my cone]].

People do strange things in desperate times, I agreed. Hadn’t I seen that a million times in my own [[life]]?

It had been a telecommuting day, so he was casually dressed and relaxed. Today’s offering was rye porter, locally crafted. I generally preferred the lighter stuff like PBR because that’s what I grew up with and not because I was a bandwagon hipster who liked the irony of "[[dress well]], drink blue collar." But I could make this work.

No reply. A cough ripped through me. I should see a doctor, I thought. Then: I have no health insurance, I remembered.\n\n“What did you mean, it’s [[the least]] we owe him?” I pressed her.

I told [[Randolph]] about my new client as we chilled and ate takeout in his store. \n\nFor years, Randolph’s store had sold CDs, posters and concert t-shirts, but now it’s more like rolling papers, energy drinks and vintage vinyl. Plus bongs that you’re technically supposed to refer to as “smoking apparatus” with the illusion that you’re using them for tobacco. Or for spiritual purposes "like a [[peace pipe]]."\n\n“Here’s her [[website]].”

On the drive back to South Dakota, I regarded those white-bread farms along the roadside in a new light. \n\nThe wind turbines interspersed among them spun around and around and around as I raced on by, cranking up whatever music that would drown out my car’s welping engine. Rage Against the Machine. Metallica.\n\n“You’re old school,” Randolph observed as I pulled into his cracked concrete driveway with the stereo blaring. “For a hipster.”\n\n”Why don’t you just [[move]] to South Dakota?” he asked me over dinner.

The grass was crispy beneath our feet from the frost. By the time my eyes had adjusted to the moonlight, we had arrived at a solid oak and [[a tree house]].

“Oh, nonsense. You live here. Our dinner is your [[dinner]]."

“Minnesota ran out of Dockers and I had to cover up with something.” I cast a pointed look at her own attire. “And you’re a fine one [[to talk]].”

Or anywhere for that matter, with even more bills stacked up thanks to my lengthy cold and extended recovery. \n\nFor an independent business owner without unlimited petrodollars at his disposal, sick days are merely days away from the hustle, days without revenue.\n\n[[How are you]]? I asked Melissa to change the subject.

Best to make myself scarce that weekend. \n\nAs the blue pickup crawled into the drive, I grabbed my coat. \n\nAnd as soon as I saw Brandon in the back yard with the kids, rolling fresh flakes from the ground into balls for snowmen, I [[was off]]. \n\nAs she and Niko graced St. Paul with their elegant presence, I doped myself up with a double dose of Sudafed for 48 hours in [[downtown Minneapolis]].

I helped her set up her profile. A swipe here, a swipe there. "No time like the present get on with life," my new client, ex-wife of prairie drug lord Brandon, declared with grim determination.\n\nWhat a family. I never would have [[expected it]] from Melissa when I first met her.

“We were totally making out through the entire movie.”\n\nDefine “making out,” I pushed her, just like she had instructed me to push the account team in project meetings (and they say millennials don't take direction). \n\nWas it just cuddling to stay warm or hard-core, legs-entwined,I’d-rather-be-having-sex-right-now making out? “Because it makes a difference.”\n\n“Take me off speaker phone, Tristan,” she insisted but [[kept on talking]] anyway.

According to the repair shop, the [[culprit]] was the alternator belt.\n\n[[Some luck]] had been on my side. \n\n“[[Money]] would be nice.”\n

He and Melissa had just moved into this house, he told me. The furniture hadn’t arrived, and they were lying on a quilt under the bedroom skylight, watching as the late spring clouds passed above.\n\nThat day, they had learned their baby was going to be a boy. They were thrilled, sharing stories about what he might look like, possible names, places they’d take him to and activities they’d teach him when he got older. \n\nThen Niko suggested something like “In a few years — if you’re up for it, of course — we can have another one. So our son can grow up with a sibling, the way you grew up with Brandon. So he’s not [[alone in the world]].”

The shed with the scales and guns. Had I hallucinated them? I [[now]] wondered.

“How did the [[kids]] [[take it]]?”

There she was during her first spring in North Dakota, driving her routes, looking forward to summer, loving her life. New business, great boyfriend, flush bank account — what’s not to like? \n\nAnd then a sudden blizzard caught her out mid-delivery, one of those storms where it’s safer just to stay put. So she did, for hours, and waited.\n\nBored, anxious, annoyed and soon very, very hungry, she remembered, duh, that she was driving a delivery truck full of food so why not [[take advantage]] of it?

“I’ve packed a cooler. Make sure you have enough Kleenex, Tristan. And please chill with the Vicks VapoRub. We’re going to be in a confined area for several hours.”\n\nWe buckled up. We slammed the doors. Melissa’s hand paused at the ignition.\n\n“It’s going to be [[okay]].”

The items next to them were: tightly wrapped packages of heroin, oxy, meth and even things I didn’t recognize, the largest [[quantity of drugs]] I had ever witnessed in one place at one time. \n\n

We all lingered, hoping for that last-minute call from Brandon, that last-minute reprieve.\n\nMelissa tried again. Straight to voice mail.\n\n“We’d better [[get going]],” she finally declared.

I thought back to that spring and summer. It had been a crazy one, and I had been shitty about keeping up with everyone. \n\n“No,” I confessed. “I don’t think she did.”\n\n“I think you [[see where I’m going]] with this, Tristan.”

Shelly stared out into space for a long moment, fixated on a woman walking her dog out front. A gigantic poodle, prancing, with freshly manicured nails.\n\nYou have a point,” she finally [[conceded]].\n\nAnd so the week passed - my cold getting worse, my situation growing more awkward.

“Fucking nanny.”\n\nWhen you hear these two words in succession, with such vitriol, you know that something [[serious]] is about to go down.

“Are you serious? It’s been way too long. They’ve been jacking you around. You’ve got to sue them.”\n\nYeah, right. In some other universe. Unlike her, I didn’t have Niko’s unlimited petrodollars to fund such an effort. \n\nBut this was neither the time nor the place for class warfare, so I said nothing.\n\n“Tristan, are you having [[money problems]]?”

“What are you talking about? Amina was cool, even when Niko and I tried to freak her out. \n\n"She had such an idealized impression of farm life and the Midwest, so how could we not show her the redneck side of the place? But she stuck in there. She even told us our story was romantic. It’s because she’s Muslim, right?”\n\n“No, [[that’s not it]] either, Melissa.”

“The Empire Mall?” was Melissa's reaction. No, the other one in Sioux Falls by Dollar General.\n\n“Oh,” she wrinkled her nose. Not every business needs the Edina Galleria, I reminded her. However, Ham World’s decrepit storefront gave me pause, as did the cracked parking lot and coin-operated plastic circus ponies out rfront. Not to mention the kiosk for cell phone covers that were certainly stolen and a wig shop. \n\nOnce a wig shop enters a mall, that shopping establishment is toast. It’s the [[universal law]] of retail.

“He called me. Out of the blue. He sounded different. Nicer. Like he used to be.”\n\nAs I retreated casually, oh so casually from the living room to the kitchen, I caught the back of Melissa’s head and the expression on her husband’s face. The latter was a blend of “you’ve got to be fucking kidding me” and “I’m biting my tongue because, well, happy wife, happy life.”\n\nMelissa continued in [[a speech]] you could tell had been carefully rehearsed.

Just lucky, Randolph guessed. [[North Dakota]] had been considered as a potential hub as well. \n\n“You’re lucky you’re on the legitimate side of the business with Ham World,” Randolph told me as I left the next day for the city and Shelly’s flower shop. “Just cash the checks and make sure they clear.”\n\nAnd that's the Midwest for you.\n\n[[A lot going on behind the masks.|https://lifeinanortherntowncom.wordpress.com/]] \n

“We had a good talk — talks, actually. We caught up. The divorce has been hard on him, but he’s hanging in there. He has some possible job opportunities, he said. In South Dakota, too, near where that new client of mine is — imagine that. Small world.”\n\nA pause. Then the big reveal. “I’d like to invite him over for dinner next week. He hasn’t seen Lucas since he was a baby and has never even met Elisa yet. It’s only one meal, only for a few hours.”\n\nThen, “what do [[you think?]]”

Well, for the siblings it was hockey, hunting, country life, people and events familiar only to them. \n\nNiko silently observed with the look of the man who had first spotted the iceberg on the Titanic, and I rode [[the Nyquil dragon]] through appetizers, salad course, main dish and dessert.

In the west I give you my ragtag scattered brothers and cousins; in the east, [[it]] is all about my business associates, hook-ups and friends.

Sort of. Enough to have my curiosity piqued, at least.\n\nI realized [[again]] just how little I knew about my friend Melissa and her family.

Melissa didn’t give me the details. She kept it light like a good Midwestern white girl. \n\n“Say hello to Uncle Tristan, Lucas. In both languages,” Niko instructed, then led him off the screen to join his little sister.\n\nHow’s the [[new homeland]]? I asked.

So I told Randolph everything. All that I knew and all that I suspected to be true.\n\nAnd when I was done, he told me to [[stay here]], in the west. [[My home]].

I showed him on the laptop. \n\nIt was a sad Mom-and-Pop template out of a box. But the products totally saved it from looking like crap. Flowers, flowers and more flowers —for birthdays, for anniversaries, for workplace promotions and high school graduations.\n\nI demonstrated the malfunction to Randolph. “So [[check it out]] when I pretend to order.”

Good thing Shelly always had a [[Kleenex box]] handy at the flower shop.

Finally she pointed to a more recent photograph, an attractive dark-haired woman in denim and a flannel shirt. About eight to 10 years older than Melissa, it appeared. Pleasant. No bullshit. Capable-looking.\n\n“Is that [[her]], Tristan?”

What had Dad been aiming for with those names? I wondered [[over and over again]] throughout my life.\n\nWhat kind of future for us had he foreseen? Life in a garret writing sonnets? Death by absinthe at age 26?

“Hardly,” Melissa snorted.\n\n“Dude, I grew up on the Flandreau rez. Right next door to you. Why do you Minnesotans always disregard South Dakota?”\n\n“It’s easy to disregard our redneck neighbors to the west. Bike rally, Corn Palace, Mt. Rushmore. That’s about it. But at least you’re not from Wisconsin. We especially hate people from Wisconsin.”\n\nJust then, [[her husband]] Niko greeted me with [[a beer]].

“He told me he’s sorry.”\n\n“He’s sorry things turned out badly for him, that’s why he’s sorry.”\n\n“Look, Brandon, like it or not, flaws or not — and I’m not a fan of his life choices, believe me — is one of my few surviving relatives now. He’s the father of my nephew and niece. \n\n"Besides, he reached out to me. And he says he’s out of that line of work now. So here I am, forgiving and hospitable, like [[a good Minnesota girl]].”

A trusting farmer had towed me to the nearest town. The town had a repair shop. The repair shop had still been open. \n\nBut the incident cost me a grand total of $1,100, not counting my six-hour sleep at the local no-tell motel that smelled like [[death]] with the sandpaper towels, fluorescent-lit prison bathroom and comforter caked with the bodily fluids of a thousand truckers. \n\nI would have slept in my car, saved the cash, but the repairman locked up his shop at night damn him.

I asked Shelly after we had both settled in.\n\n“Good. Really good,” she said as she arranged bumpy squash in a basket. The season of the gourds and pumpkin spice was upon us. “My first adult Halloween since high school. Some friends and I went to a bar dressed like slutty Amish. Brandon went to a party as well — [[different group]], of course. \n\n

Like their choice of fronts for starters. Profits from salted holiday meats don’t match up with a fully pimped-out new Mustang and speedboat. \n\nAny fool could see that. And when these [[two guys]] tried their hand at cooking, they blew up a few double-wides. \n\nSometimes diversification doesn’t pay.

The baby on her lap replied, rousing herself from sleep with a soft snort. \n\nAnd that was [[the only answer]] they gave me.

I cruised by the fancy modern-art log cabin in the wooded suburbs more often than I should, given the situation. \n\nI case out the new family that replaced Melissa and Niko. \n\n[[Typical white couple]] — blond, fit, Minnesota nice with an SUV in the driveway. From Wisconsin, I’m told. No kids.

“Brandon called while you were away.”\n\nThey were in the hallway, bringing fresh clothes and towels up from the laundry room.\n\n“[[Really?]]” Niko set the wicker basket down.

“You’re sick, Tristan,” Melissa protested.\n\n“And you’re not white,” Niko pointed out.\n\n“Really?” I exclaimed, rolling up my sleeve and holding out my arm for further investigation. “A day full of revelations.”\n\n“I've heard about the American justice system," he countered. "They’ll throw you into prison for life if we’re caught. Or [[beat you]] and kill you.”

As I lived my life as best I could, I wondered what was happening back in the east, my other home. \n\nI wondered about that farm, the Muslim Somali woman and her goats. I wondered about those two kids in their third-rate state school. \n\nAnd I wondered about [[my old client]] and her flower shop.\n\n“Shelly knows everything.”

I was in the car all the time that year, scrambling between [[west]] and [[east]]. [[Frontier]], [[civilization]]. Birthplace, home of choice.\n\nThe flower shop was in the east, in Minneapolis. The owner was a white woman. That goes without saying because everyone who runs a flower shop in the Midwest is [[white]] by default.\n\nI was in [[South Dakota]] when I got the message.

“You can type whatever the fuck you want here. All of War and Peace if your fingers are up to it. Or Infinite Jest even. David Foster Wallace RIP,” I added out of habit.\n\nIt had been several years since that advanced freshman lit class, but DFW’s suicide still saddened me. Why would someone with everything, someone who was so creative, so inspiring to so many people, [[off himself]]?

Actually, I didn’t. But I have been accused of being remarkably clueless on occasion. I stared into the cold air in front of me, my breath warming it. I listened to the wind send a feeble gust through the treehouse’s leafless branches. I waited for him to continue.\n\n“[[Her brother]] Brandon, the former husband of your new client, got her that job.”

\nBut Melissa wasn’t laughing. In fact, she was staring down at her fingers, pensively picking away at an errant cuticle, her daughter’s dinner abandoned.\n\n“What’s [[the shop]] called?” she asked.

“All these guys want to get into production, they think it’s glamorous,” Randolph snorted. “Or sales, because of the chicks. At least they think so until they get a venereal disease or some chick o.d.’s from a chemistry experiment. \n\n"But distribution is where it’s at. Just take the stuff, deliver it where it needs to go and wash your hands of it at the end of the day. And right here, in the center of North America, is where distribution happens.”\n\nI asked him about Ham World and the [[two guys]] who ran it, assuming, correctly, that they were somehow involved in all this.

\n\nWhere did it [[all start]]?

And then Niko up and fucking stabbed the guy? I wondered. Holy fuck, there I was, sitting in a tree house, drinking beer with a killer.\n\nWell, no, [[not exactly]].

Melissa gave her a look. Did you really just fucking ask me that? \n\nMaybe it was the mention of the farm. Or maybe it was the too-sudden re-establishment of familiarity. In any case, Shelly’s inquiry brought out something dark in Melissa, the sullen teen from the photo album with the Nirvana t-shirt and sulky eyes.\n\n“We crept off to the shed, Shelly. It’s a good place for secrets.”\n\nShelly [[blanched]].

“You’re going to have to tone it down a little, however, Tristan. Do things a bit more on the down-low.”\n\nI glared at Randolph, surprised - [[no way]] was I hearing that. Like I was out there blasting Erasure and covering myself in glitter. Stereotype much?

But every time in my life I got that feeling, every time without fail, it’s been the prelude to something bad.\n\nThe name Raymond and the mention of a route. Coincidence? I think not.\n\nI called [[the one person]] I knew would understand: Melissa.

We sat in silence for a long moment in that tree house, thinking about that story, staring at the stars.\n\n“I had never done anything like that before.” Niko finally said. He looked at me, like he was waiting for me to say something. “Or since. I’m not proud of it.”\n\nI didn’t believe that last statement. But I know enough to keep opinions like these to myself.\n\n[[Especially as I became part of the family.|https://lifeinanortherntowncom.wordpress.com/]]

“She’s all ‘I forgot about this thing for my sorority and like ohmigod, I’m so sorry.’ Are you fucking [[serious]]? If it’s that important, then how could you forget it? And this is important, too. You made a fucking commitment.”\n\nPressing her phone to her ear as she paced, Melissa unleashed to her brother the same spiel she’d given to me, to Niko, to the UPS man.

I used to think booze was a pleasure just for the poor, a rot-gut bone of consolation for not being able to buy something at the mall or vacation somewhere warm in the middle of winter. How wrong I had been. \n\nAt the Restoration Hardware table of my [[friends with money]], solid as a medieval altar, wine bottles plural — one for each of us, kids included — nestled between autumn gourd centerpieces and serving platters of expensive cheese. Plus roasted vegetables because, you know, health.

“They end up dead being [[broke and poor]], too,” I retorted.

“That’s what Melissa called it, but it was more like a very simple house converted for storage. Maybe some of the farmhands had stayed there in the old days. No official, paved roads led up to it, but there were deep grooves in the dirt from vehicles driving by, many of them fresh. Maybe hunters, I thought, or people looking for a shortcut across the fields. In any case, it was quiet and peaceful.\n\n“I asked Melissa what was inside. I grew up as a city kid, so all of this was new to me. Equipment, feed, saddles for the horses from back when they had horses, she explained.\n\n“But the door was [[locked]]."

“Right in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere? All of the string cheese for Walmart worldwide?”\n\nYes, yes and yes. I was impatient, but his questions were a small price to pay for the Ham World intelligence I knew he would possess and a free night’s lodging. Even though the bed was a third-hand Furniture Mart sofa in the living room and morning would likely bring a PlayStation console between the shoulder blades and a dog licking my face.\n\n“And it’s all owned by [[one rich old guy]],” Randolph marveled.

They couldn’t help themselves, connected as they were by their shared history with the farm and Prairie Drug Lord Brandon, not to mention my web services and what have [[you]].

\n[[Where]] [[did things]] [[go wrong]]?

Finally, for the first time in weeks, it was just the two of them. Privacy.\n\n“Let me show you [[the back fields]],” Melissa suggested. “While we still can.”

Goblins. Monsters. Shit — was it [[October 31]] already?\n\nI arrived in Melissa’s driveway just as the family was walking out, the boy barely containing his excitement in his Spiderman mask and cape and the big-cheeked baby swaddled in orange, a pumpkin.\n\n“Some [[weird stuff]] is going down at Ham World,” I blurted, recognizing the ridiculousness of that statement as soon as it fell from my mouth.

"Something about the scents and her [[Parkinson’s]] or dementia. She found it really [[comforting]].\n\n“That was right before we sold the farm and the divorce. They had retired to Florida, but after she got sick, Brandon brought her back to Minnesota. \n\n"Of course she didn’t realize she was there most of the time. In cases like hers, the mind lets you go back in time and lets you relive [[certain aspects]] from your past. Which is probably really fulfilling. Depends on what aspects, I guess."\n\n[[And Melissa?]] I asked.

He’s my cousin through a distant half-brother. That’s how my family rolls, it's been [[said]] — no tight nucleus but scads of sprawling tentacles, some more sprawling than others.

\n\n“Hockey masks? What the hell are you talking about, Tristan? All they found was a body, a truck and no motive. The police called it a suicide, but there was [[no way]] a person could shoot his own face off from that angle.”

“Do you absolutely have to drive them over in person?” Niko wondered. He [[suggested UPS]].\n\n“Tell your customers [[you’re sick]] and you can’t make the drive,” I suggested, inspired by my own condition.

“It’s about family. Take Melissa, for example. What would you do if she walked through this door right now?”\n\n“I don’t know. Be surprised, I guess. Sell her some flowers?”\n\nBut no bouquets changed hands when I returned to the store with Melissa and [[her entire family]] in tow. \n\nWere they [[happy to see]] each other? Well, Shelly locked up the shop for the day, and we headed across the street to a [[sports bar]] that had just opened.

Melissa fetched the children and held them close. Niko spoke with his cousins. Still no word from Brandon. As for me, I drugged myself with a double dose of NyQuil. Burn this cold off once and for all. And I was almost there, drifting off, limbs slowly disintegrating, brain like velvet.\n\nAnd then [[the phone]].

“That’s where your business opportunities are. That car is going to die any day, and you’re probably spending a grand a month on gas already.”\n\nHe had a point. Randolph usually did. \n\nBut the city kept on pulling me back. Boys, concerts, culture. Fewer rednecks threatening to beat me up. Plus little commitments like my apartment lease and [[the clients]] who paid my bills.

“I expected to see all of the things she had mentioned, like equipment, saddles, feed, things stored away. But the room had recently been used. It was furnished with fold-out tables and chairs, one after the other. No dust and dirt. And on some of the tables we saw scales for weighing things.”\n\n“Farmers weigh things all the time,” I remarked, even though I had a good idea where [[this conversation]] was going.

West finds me waking up on the filthy shag of a basement rental. \n\nEast finds me in a downtown loft, face down on that Ikea rug with the crescent moon - the [[it]] floor covering of the young, hopeful and broke.

“How did you figure out what to do?" I marveled. "Caring for his [[mother]] and all that. Parkinson’s is some serious shit."\n\n“You go to the internet. You figure it out.”

An impending cold herself? Random bouts of divorcee crying? Simple Midwestern hospitality? \n\nIn any case, she pushed it out of the way to show me the photo of a dreadlocked musician on her phone. \n\n“Maybe I should hook up with him to piss Brandon off. He’s a little racist, you know.”\n\nYou should hook up with that guy because he’s dead sexy, [[that’s what]], I told her.

\n\nThis was no ordinary conversation between a man and a woman. And it especially wasn’t one between lovers, unless it was just some kind of crazy [[what the hell]] I was too clueless and traditional to understand. \n\nThese murmurs were completely devoid of sexy talk. \n\n

That got her to look up. “You took the job?”\n\nI nodded.\n\n“Shit, you didn’t listen to Niko, did you?” She sighed, tapped the tip of her Sharpie against the edge of her chin in thought. \n\nTristan, Tristan, Tristan, I could hear her [[cluck]] to herself.

When they returned, their neighbors greeted them, brought over the kids. \n\nOr so I guessed. \n\nI was down in the basement at the time, unabashedly stoned on Nyquil, slathered in Vicks VapoRub, feverish and [[unsure]] if it was day or night.

“Recalcitrant Bastard. A bitter ale,” he announced. \n\nYou little shit, Melissa hissed from the kitchen. \n\nI took this as my cue to slip out and [[gather the kids]].

“Did the spark just die out? Twenty years, that’s a long time.”\n\n“No, that had never been a problem with Brandon and I.” Shelly took a deep breath. “I just couldn’t be on the same path anymore, if that makes any sense.”\n\n[[Go on]], I encouraged her.

Breathe, Tristan, breathe. It felt like a movie. I wondered how the fuck it all was going to end.\n\n“You okay, dude?”\n\nJust ordering a frozen treat in the middle of a blizzard. [[Nothing to see]] here.

“Bullshit. You are not sleeping with a creepy ex-boyfriend while I have a fully finished basement sitting empty until the kids grow old enough to destroy it with their toys.”\n\nWithin the hour, we were at [[her house]].

Niko had no choice really. \n\nI watched the decision play out across his face. I should protest. I know I should protest. We can look around for another sitter. We can postpone our celebration. \n\nOn the other hand, [[happy wife]], happy life.

By the time I ventured back to the living room, Melissa had collapsed in a heap, shoulders heaving in anger or tears. Niko kneeled next to her, rubbing her back, murmuring what I took to be comforting things, more disgusted than incredulous. \n\nHe pointed toward the box and the packing debris around it.\n\n“Look [[inside]].”

“Okay, Melissa. Whatever he told you and whatever you two talked about while I was away, you win. \n\n"We’ll have the dinner. I’ll cook something nice. I’ll ignore the fact that a hardened criminal will be sitting in our house with our kids. And I will drink myself into a stupor so [[I can be civil]].”

“Why did you two [[split up]]?”\n\n

“He’ll buy back the farm,” she continued. “He’ll prove himself to me again. Why can’t I give him another try? That’s all I need. Why is he pulling this?”\n\nMaybe because you were married for 20 years? Maybe because you raised two children and ran a farm together? Maybe because you [[lead him on]] with your periodic sleepovers?

The next day, I met with [[my landlord]].

“Dinner in Minneapolis with an old coworker. She and her husband and kid.”\n\nKids plural, I corrected myself. A new one had joined our world last year.\n\nRandolph was unimpressed. “Party on.”\n\nThey were cool, I assured him. She had made working for the corporate man tolerable, and he liked his beer.\n\n“I can’t believe you’re driving back to [[Minneapolis]] this afternoon. That’s fucking nuts.”

It’s late at night not long afterward, Niko’s sitting on the couch with his computer, couldn’t sleep as usual, and he hears a knock at the door. \n\nAt first he thinks it’s Melissa — of course he does — so he gets up from the couch. He checks the mirror quickly to make sure he looks okay because of course he does and [[goes]] to the door.\n\n

Nominated for an Academy Award. A pregnant Colombian woman swallows capsules of cocaine to gain passage to the United States.\n\nSilence. Yeah, drug trafficking. And immigrants of color. Perhaps not the best subjects to bring up with this particular family.\n\nBut the moment passed, and the conversation moved on to [[something else]].

I couldn’t remember if it was Melissa’s idea or Niko’s idea. \n\nWe were tricked. We have children. This can’t be our problem anymore.\n\nIn any case, I wasn’t sure if it was going to work: Deliver the masks, but don’t deliver the drugs. Actually, I doubted it. Men like this don’t enjoy being deceived, especially when thousands of dollars, maybe even hundreds of thousands, lie in the balance.\n\nBut it was the best — and the only — idea we had. So I kept my mouth shut. And so [[we all agreed]].

“Did the check from Ham World ever clear?” he asked me, cracking open a new brand of specialty brew.\n\nYeah, it cleared, I told him.\n\n“You’re not doing any more work for those people, [[are you]]?”

The satellite radio cut out at the Minnesota border, leaving us at the mercy of the FM dial. \n\nGod, talk radio, classic rock. God, talk radio, classic rock.\n\n“Can you please change the station, Melissa?”\n\n“I know, I know. I hate Tom Petty as much as you do. But [[nothing]] else is coming in.”

To find some snow and men of my own, I joked to Melissa via text.\n\n“I trust that you are kidding about the cocaine part,” she typed back. “Right, Tristan?”\n\nI let that one slide. None of her business, how I [[live my life]].

Where do they go — to the farmers market, to the lake by Duluth? \n\nOr maybe to the St. Paul Hotel for an anniversary weekend?\n\nHere in the east, they live their lives [[completely oblivious]].

At night, I crashed at Benedict’s. He was in Milbank now working at a pawn/skateboard shop and sharing a big ramshackle house with five other guys.\n\nDid they have to crank up Game of War at 3 a.m.? \n\nSeriously?, I yawned at them, the old fart of the place. Look at the [[time]].\n\nDid they have to smoke weed near the bag with my dress clothes? Probably not, but a free boarder has no room to complain.

Of course, Brandon had the solution. \n\nHe had raised two kids himself. His schedule was flexible. \n\nHe would come over and [[watch the kids]] for the weekend.

Niko ordered me upstairs. Keep an eye on the kids, Tristan. But even from the nursery, I could hear it. \n\nBoxes ripped apart. Masks and fuck all hurled against the walls. Melissa spewing profanities like I had never heard any human, male or female, spew in my life. \n\nAnd I have witnessed my fair share of [[profanities]].

I had to ask at my next visit to Shelly’s Flower Shop.\n\n“Well,” she started, then decided against it.\n\nBut I wasn’t letting her off [[that easily]].

And just as I pulled into the Minneapolis suburbs, I [[remembered]] the flower lady’s name. Even though Randolph wasn’t present to see me do it, I smacked my palm against my forehead for effect.\n\nShelly.

“Why? Because we’re both people of color?”\n\n“No, because you’re the two most unusual people I know. I mean this with love, of course.”\n\nI still didn’t believe her, but I was intrigued. So I kept this route for my trips to and from South Dakota, and slowed down when I got to Melissa’s old [[farm]]. Each time, no sign of this Amina.\n\nMaybe I had hallucinated this veiled apparition.

“I need to move on. But Brandon’s talking about ripping up the divorce papers and starting over.”\n\nThe man is a drug dealer, I stopped myself from reminding her. Drug distributor. [[Whatever]].

But I preferred to say fuck you to the wind for jostling my car, the Minnesota tax payers for not funding new asphalt, my stereo system for masking the sounds of the [[death]] of my car, and the Art Directors Club of St. Paul for having an event on the same night as my meeting with Ham World in South Dakota, causing me to speed. \n\nGoddamn them all.

I’m one bounced check away from living in my car, I immediately wanted to tell [[this Shelly]], this friendly woman.

Later that evening, Niko didn’t even bother with the pretense of the tree house for man talk. \n\nHe pulled out a chair for me at the kitchen table, the wind whipping freezing sleet against the house’s walls of glass. \n\nHe no longer cared if Melissa overheard our conversation. In fact, I think he wanted her to listen to [[every word]].

Well, Niko had never seen all of the place. “The weather was mild,” he continued, “and we just walked and walked and walked. All of this land, all in her family? I was amazed.”\n\nFor the first time since they had arrived, Melissa was smiling and laughing. Niko felt the weight lifting from his shoulders. Birds, squirrels scurried around them, getting ready to hibernate for [[good]] for the season.\n\n

In the west, I’m the guy people hit up for money, which cracks me up. \n\nIn the east, give a conversation five seconds, then, wait for [[it]]... where you from, dude?

The next morning — God was it Monday already? — Melissa warmed up homemade chicken noodle soup, and we sat around, talked, listened to music. Accomplished very little real work. \n\n“Both of you are still in your pajamas?” Niko marveled when he returned home [[for dinner]].

“You need to get the hell [[out]] of there,” Randolph told me.

I drove back to Minnesota to a guaranteed client. Back at Shelly’s Flower Shop, it was a beautiful fall day. Everyone was outside biking, pushing strollers, doing yard work. No one wanted to be shackled to a counter, including us.\n\nAnd that’s when she started confiding in me.\n\n“I need to get out and [[meet people]], Tristan.”

Marshaling all my strength, I flipped it over.\n\nGreat seeing you last night — it’s been too long! How are you holding up?\n\nToo wrung out to even wrap my head around the act of typing, I summoned every ounce of will to find and send Melissa an animated gif, Hello Kitty puking into a toilet. I didn’t read her retort — Niko is wondering how Hello Kitty can throw up when she doesn’t have a mouth, please enlighten us — until a good four hours [[later]].

“Oh, he’ll notice.”\n\nI didn’t tell Shelly about the check of my own that was puzzling me. \n\nIt was from [[Ham World]], another client who had called me out of the blue like Shelly just a few months before. Safe to say they had not discovered me in Minnesota Woman magazine.

"As for the drugs themselves, Brandon doesn’t partake himself, but he doesn’t judge those who do. Your body, your life, he always said – although not to our kids, of course, because we want them to actually survive in this world. \n\n“I know that drugs are bad, Tristan, and I know that your people have probably seen a lot of suffering because of them – I know people as well, people from our church, from the kid’s old school – but please [[hear me out]]."

“Hey!”\n\nMelissa greeted me at the door of this fancy modern-art log cabin with two red-headed kids now, the [[baby]] balanced against her hip and the boy scampering at her feet.\n\nUndaunted by motherhood, Melissa still dressed like a Great Plains interpretation of a twee Brooklyn barista. \n\n“Leggings aren’t [[pants]], Tristan,” she reprimanded me, an old skinny-jeans joke from our days in the corporate creative department.

Melissa had muttered this beneath her breath, during one of our Skype chats when Niko was in the other room. \n\nThey were living in Finland now. \n\n[[The fuck?]]

I would have pegged Melissa as coming from affluent, sanitized, Garrison Keillor-loving suburban stock like everyone else on our creative team. \n\nSo later that afternoon, I stopped by her studio. She was in, hunched over a mask and wearing a new pair of trendy glasses. [[“How’s work?”]] she asked.

What [[do we do]] now?

My face must have telegraphed “scared shitless” because Melissa immediately lifted her Peter Rabbit mask and took me seriously. \n\n“You guys go ahead,” she directed her family. “I’ll catch up later.”\n\nIn the living room of that fancy modern log cabin, I told her [[everything I knew]] and everything I suspected.

"He came over at the end of the night to pick up something for the kids, Tyler’s hunting rifle, I think. ‘I like your costume,’ he told me. \n\n"Of course he never dresses up for Halloween so it was all ‘I like yours too’ and ‘I’m not wearing a costume. I'm just dressed as myself’ and ‘I know, I like what I see.’ Then in the morning it all went to shit, of course. He rolls over and whispers, ‘If they kick you out of your colony for all your partying, you can always stay with me.’ I had a throbbing headache already and [[then this]].”

Melissa dove into her [[new design]] before she could reply.

She shook her head. The delivery had to happen.\n\n"Then I’m going with you,” said Niko. “I’ll call in sick to work. You’re not going alone.”\n\nLighter fluid-esque or no, the scotch bottle was now empty. We considered Niko’s microbrews in the kitchen but all of us were too paralyzed to move.\n\n“I’ll [[go as well]],” I volunteered. “I’m more familiar with these types of people than you two are.”

\n\nExcuse #1: “My [[work for Shelly]]. Will he be cool with that?”\n\nExcuse #2: “I think you should have some [[sibling time]] together. I’m not your family.”\n\nThen the [[real reason]] for the invitation.

"Just because Brandon and I are getting divorced doesn’t mean we don’t like each other. We’re just not following the same path, that’s all. You’re young. You’ll understand someday. In any case, he took off for South Dakota this morning for some kind of business opportunity. More likely hunting and sitting on his ass, if you ask me. Do you ever see Melissa, by the way?”\n\n“Every so often,” I hedged.\n\n“How [[is she]]?”

“I can’t believe you drove all the way from Sioux Falls today. I can’t believe I haven’t seen you since summer. How’ve you been?” She tossed my jacket into a closet and dispatched the kids to a toy-covered quilt.\n\n“Decent,” I shrugged. “Worked hard on the business. Spent some time with the cousins in Pierre.”\n\n“I [[always forget]] that you’re originally from South Dakota.”

“Good.”\n\n“The kids?”\n\n“So cute. Growing up fast.”\n\n“I can imagine. Tell her and her family hello from me the next time you [[see her]], okay?”\n\n

“Did you text the neighbors?”\n\n“They don’t text, remember?”\n\n“What do you think they’re up to right now?”\n\n“Who, Niko? Our neighbors? Our kids?”\n\n“No, the people with [[our masks]].”

When I reached Sioux Falls, Randolph apprised me of everything he knew about Watertown, which wasn’t much.\n\nDeath by shotgun? Yeah, it sometimes happened. That place was the sketchiest motel in town after all. \n\nBut no one had ever discovered any drugs in the room. “Must have cleared the joint out quickly,” he said.\n\nDid anyone mention [[hockey masks]]? I asked.

In the hallway, I loitered quietly to listen and learn.\n\nWas my host, starved for adult companionship and discourse, calling a [[phone sex line]]? Did those even exist anymore?\n\nBut all I could hear was hockey, hockey and more hockey, with an occasional foray into hunting (Melissa shot and skinned things?) or [[Melissa’s business]].

Must be nice, I imagined, wiping my nose, feeling like shit and thinking about how in my life I could wander around for weeks on end, months even, without anyone even noticing I had left. \n\nBertram. Benedict. Randolph. The other sundry half-siblings and cousins. They never even asked for [[a little explaining]] about any of my absenses. \n\n“Oh, hey, Tristan. You were gone? You bring me anything? I could use a twenty or so.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t met her in person yet.”\n\n“What’s her [[last name]]?”\n\n“I’d have to look it up in my phone.”

“She was weeping all night,” Niko said. “Rightfully so, too. And that’s Brandon. That’s who’s [[coming to dinner]].”\n\n

Randolph chortled. “That’s pretty hilarious.”\n\n“Not if you own the place and you’re pissing people off. So that’s what I’m going to try to fix for her.”\n\n“But you do design, not billing and database systems.”\n\n“I’ll do it if I have bills to pay,” I countered, the colored-glass bongs in the window throwing rainbows in our direction like stained glass in the afternoon light. And then our order [[stalled]].

Who are these guys?\n\nThey’ve been around for a while.\n\nDo you trust them?\n\nThey worked with [[Raymond]].

Go for it, I replied, in a tone I hoped to be encouraging even though I could tell her heart wasn't in it and it was way too soon.\n\n“But how? I haven’t dated since I was 16. I’m always in this shop. All day, all night. How do I- ”\n\n"The Internet," I told her. Duh. "I walked on over to show her my phone and [[my apps]]. “Here’s [[how it works]]."

“Fair enough,” Niko conceded. “I have protection of my own.” With that, he unwrapped the pearl-handled antique knife. Damn, I couldn’t help myself from gasping. \n\nNo wonder the settlers had [[conquered]] my people.

“Hmmm,” I replied, bored with that drama at this point. Just make up your mind already. “Are you going to the Art Directors’ Club workshop on Friday? I think I might, depending on how this damn cold goes.”\n\n“Can’t,” she replied. “I have to drive [[those masks]] over to South Dakota.”\n\n“Seriously, can’t you just ship them?”

“Seriously? You saved her business. Which means less alimony from his empty bank account. Maybe he'll even be able to afford a bottle of wine for [[dinner]].”

We cracked into Brandon’s gift of scotch. To my palate at least, it burned like lighter fluid. Indicator of its high quality, Melissa informed me.\n\n“So, Shelly called me,” she said. “Brandon keeps calling her. Wants to [[get back together]].”

Amina the Muslim and her herd of goats had moved out for greener pastures. \n\nVermont possibly? Amish country? \n\nThe clerk at the convenience store wasn’t sure. But the farm had been up for sale for a long time now. Someone could have easily purchased it, at a low price, too.\n\nAs for the [[other real estate]] that captured my curiosity.

So, do you want to see him and Shelly get back together? I asked Melissa in those final minutes before his arrival.\n\nShe shrugged, fixated on the vegetables beneath her knife. “I don’t know. I want them to be happy, I guess. I want them to figure it out. They’re acting like indecisive drama queen teenagers right now and it’s totally inappropriate.”\n\nAs if on cue, the [[doorbell rang]].

I must have nodded off because the next thing I knew Niko was jabbing a fork into my leg and motioning for me to open my eyes. \n\n“I miss Mom and Dad,” Melissa was declaring. She was staring at the flickering holographic photos on the wall — her happy family at the farmer’s market, her happy family up at the lake by Duluth. \n\nAs for Brandon? [[Inscrutable]]. Or maybe his face was just in shadow. Behind us, the fire crackled.

I did. \n\nThe buffalo masks, as advertised, were indeed cool as hell, with lifelike fur and whiskers. But they weren’t [[the point]] of this exercise. \n\n

A good thing all of [[it]] didn’t traumatize me for life against all things botanical, because that’s what my sorely needed new customer called me about: a website for her flower shop.

“Thank you for the invitation and for dinner.” \n\nThrough the open doorway, Brandon's blue pickup warmed up in the driveway. A damn nice truck for a guy recently divorced and broke. “It was great to see you all again.”\n\n“Great seeing you, too,” I replied, rallying enough to steady my legs and shake his hand because that’s what you do when a guest [[heads out]] for the night.

I escaped without spending a dime. And Melissa invited me over for dinner, perhaps in consolation for those wicker-store microaggressions. It became another wine-soaked affair followed by beers in the tree house after she and the kids went to bed.\n\nI wanted to bring up the incident with the bitch in the store, talk it through — and I would have if I had been hanging out with Randolph — but how could a white guy from Finland relate? \n\nBesides, Niko had some things he wanted [[to talk about]].

Born in New Mexico but grew up in the area. Married her high school sweetheart. Helped him with his family’s farm and two kids — “good kids, a boy and a girl” — who were now off to college. And now finalizing a divorce.\n\n“This shop is the first thing I’ve done for myself in 20 years,” she told me, in a hushed voice like she had done something [[wrong]]. \n\nAnd then a customer walked in before she could explain more.

No, she cooked Hormel beans out of a can, over a bunsen burner, she clarified. \n\nBut her other campground hacks had been noteworthy, like jimmying an electrical connection for the camper and pirating access into some impressively fast internet connections. \n\nThere she was for a month, huddled in her sleeping bag, scared to death, missing Niko, looking back on her time in North Dakota and coming to the realization that this state was an [[evil, evil]] place.

When my clunker auto rolled in on Sunday night, Brandon’s blue pickup was gone, and Melissa was in the kitchen, guiding spoonfuls of mushed squash into her baby’s mouth.\n\n“Looks like I wasn’t the only one to see some action this weekend — [[am I right]], Tristan?”

Are you shitting me? Even “coyotes” would have been better. I couldn’t let this slide. “Deer, Niko? They had to defend themselves against deer?”\n\n“Um, yes, deer. Deer can be violent sometimes,” he mumbled, gulping the remainder of [[that]] beer.

“He’s family. Plain and simple. And it’s not that I’ve forgiven him, Tristan. Or forgotten what he’s done. And the fact he’s been able to get away with it all scot-free pisses me off to no end. \n\n"Because even though I’m now the one with a successful business and a nice house and a wonderful family and he’s the one who got divorced, hocked the farm and lives God knows where, I’m still the one in the family who can’t do anything right. \n\n"That’s how our parents viewed us up until the end. [[Sarah Palin’s]] kid rutting away in a tent with that redneck boy."

“Nice Nirvana t-shirt,” I noted, receiving a glare and an extended middle finger in return. “I’m serious.”\n\nMelissa showed me a wedding photo. “My brother Brandon.”\n\nLike many out here in the Midwest, dude had [[married]] young. Right out of school.

"Although she does have a knack for finding trouble, and she’s not as sweet as she comes across. But that's another [[story]] and you probably know that already. You’re her friend, after all."

A former drug mule, on the lam, snookered into that position by her own brother, [[the one person]] she thought she could trust. \n\nOf course she screened her calls. What had I been expecting?

“We sent that one to Brandon after we were finishing up dinner,” Melissa explained. “And he sent this one back of the kids doing snow angels. Isn’t this [[adorable]]?”

“Okay, so you have your customers up there, and they’ve got assloads of oil money to spend and I get that. But to use the state as a main distribution artery as well? \n\n"Through obvious places like strip clubs? Like [[no one would suspect]]? Maybe that would have worked 20 years ago, when the only thing that state had going for it was Lawrence Welk and a whole lot of frozen tundra, but not now.”

In came five emails in swift succession, the articles Niko had mentioned the night before. All concerned North Dakota.\n\nI arrived the next day at Shelly’s Flower Shop refreshed, rested and ready. And [[informed]]. \n\nI wondered how she’d be, [[this Shelly]] — Melissa’s estranged sister-in-law, mother of two grown children, erstwhile farm mistress. Former wife of prairie drug lord Brandon.

Now Shelly rose from her chair and stretched.\n\n“But enough of a walk down memory lane for one day. When you pick your spouse — and you’re now able to do that legally, too, Tristan — it sets the stage for your entire life. It’s a partnership. It’s for the long term. You’re [[signed with]] this person for life."

Yeah, fucking brutal. Totally should have called a penalty. And tossed him out of the game as well.\n\nThere she was, twirling a strand of hair around her finger and rubbing the soles of her slipper-clad feet up against a wood pillar. And she kept talking, the phone pressed to her ear.\n\nWas I hearing what [[I thought]] I was hearing?

“Oh my God no,” she replied after a long pause, her tone and that pause insinuating more than the entirety of my uncle’s carefully preserved Penthouse Forum collection. RIP. \n\nOne winter, my half-brother Bertram and I discovered them behind the woodpile. Bertram studied them seriously, I noted the poor lighting and art direction, and we were both beaten severely when caught. I never did have a great impression of Miami Vice-era pornography after that.\n\nAnd now [[here we all were]]

They [[kept]] [[in touch]], Melissa and Shelly.

If this hadn’t been Melissa’s husband, I would have been all “dude, where are you taking me?” with a mixture of fear and anticipation. \n\nBut I had known the guy for a while and I figured this meant one of two things: either he just wanted to sit outside and drink in the cold weather because that’s what Northern Europeans do when they get [[restless]] or there was something he wanted to tell me out of the earshot of Melissa and the kids.

“But the phone works two ways,” she pointed out. “Shelly can always call me. I do take her daughter to the art institute every other weekend to help dull the pain of this ill-advised divorce.”\n\n“Maybe she feels weird about it,” I reminded her. “She just did divorce your brother, after all. Do you ever [[see him]], by the way?”

Hard to tell. As they exchanged Minnesota Nice hugs and greetings, I helped Niko with the kids’ hats and mittens. “Look, don’t touch, Lucas,” he cautioned.\n\nMelissa seemed genuinely impressed by Shelly’s store. “The flowers are gorgeous. They’re certainly not from here. Do you ship them in from Colombia? Like in ‘Maria Full of Grace’?”\n\n[[A movie]], I explained to the blank faces.

“What would you like me to bring?” I conceded.\n\n“Just your diplomatic self and your wry sense of wit,” she smiled, [[mission accomplished]].

“There is [[no legitimate side]] to that business.”

A Flames jersey for the wife, a knit cap for the boy and a stuffed moose for the baby. He even smuggled a six-pack of the local brew into his carry-on luggage for me.\n\nYou’d have thought Sir Ernest Shackleton himself had stumbled back after months in the Antarctic. The boy attached himself to his leg like a barnacle. Melissa couldn’t stop smiling and perching herself on his lap. Even the baby gurgled in a [[noticeably thrilled]] fashion.\n\n

“They texted me back. They made it to the parking lot. Told us to drive safely - that's a fucking joke.”\n\nThen Melissa was shaking me. “Wake up, Tristan!” \n\nOn one side of the highway, the neon swirl cone of the [[Zesto]] soft serve shop. On the other side, the old burgundy brick motel with the run-down sign. Did anyone ever stay there? I always wondered, every time I drove past in this town.

The [[deal]] was done.

“Tristan, this is becoming a habit with you. You need to start catching up.” \n\nHe gave me a [[deadline]]. \n\nAn impossible one. And so the next day, I filled up my tank and drove [[back]] to South Dakota, where business was less competitive, to [[hustle]].

Melissa and Niko had been planning their anniversary weekend for months — booked a suite at the St. Paul Hotel, secured a reservation at the trendiest restaurant, investigated the schedules for live jazz and blues. Niko had a new suit for the occasion and Melissa a new dress — short, gold and slinky.\n\nAnd then the nanny bailed. With not even a very [[good excuse]].\n\n“We had been talking about this for months, [[Brandon]]. I had mentioned it to her in September and reminded her every week since then.”

And rummaging through the boxes, she soon discovered that she had been transporting other things as well — oxy, meth, heroin, you name it. \n\nMelissa had to go to Google, in fact, to properly identify it all. The pot, of course, she recognized. Even she wasn’t that naïve.\n\nShould she stay? Should she go? Should she [[tell anyone]]?

The next morning, I attempted to creep out to my car unnoticed. Maybe to grab some empanadas at the global market. Maybe even to cruise over to Shelly's Flower Shop, see how she was doing. \n\nYou’ve got this, Tristan. \n\nOnce in the foyer, bending my head to tie my shoes did me in. As the balance of phlegm in my head readjusted, I broke into a fit of coughing.\n\n“Tristan!”\n\n[[Shit]]. “Morning.”