This is the Part Where You Laugh

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2016 by Peter Brown Hoffmeister

Cover photograph copyright © 2016 Getty Images/Frank Huster

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 9780553538106 (trade) — ISBN 9780553538113 (lib. bdg.) —eBook ISBN 9780553538120

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TO

ADRIANN RANTA

IRENE

26

When it's good and dark, I drag the two duffel bags to the edge of the lake. Out in front of me, smallmouth bass come alive on the surface of the water, and I wish I'd brought my fishing pole. But it's good I didn't—I don't want to draw attention to myself.

One of the bags twitches.

Down the east side, there's a series of wooden docks, all the same length, like gray piano keys jutting out into the lake. There's no one out on any of the docks now. I double-check each one. Make sure I'm alone.

I slide the first caiman out of its bag, the rubber bands and duct tape still in place. The caiman doesn't fight, so I start taking off the tape layers. When I get down to the big rubber bands around its mouth, I lean my forearm on its upper jaw the way the man showed me when I bought them. Then I take the final rubber bands off and jump out of the way.

The caiman opens its mouth and hisses, but it doesn't move.

“Go,” I yell. “Get in the water.”

It doesn't go anywhere.

I say, “Get.”

But it stays where it is and hisses at me.

I back away. Take the other duffel bag up the shore a bit, far enough to give myself a little room but still close enough to see the first caiman's outline.

When I open the second duffel bag, I find that the caiman has wriggled free of most of its duct tape and rubber bands. It's clacking its jaws and thrashing around in the bag like it's trying to do a 360.

It whips its tail, and I say, “Whoa,” and zip the bag closed again, feeling lucky that I didn't reach my hand in first. I step back and wait for the caiman to calm down.

After a minute, the bag goes still. I step forward, unzip it all the way, and jump back. The caiman fights and turns—flips the bag over before sliding through the opening and sidewinding toward me up the bank. The last piece of duct tape is still stuck to one of its back legs, keeping it off balance, a hitch in its step, but it's coming at me anyway.

I sprint backward, duck under a branch, trip on a root, and fall on my face in the dirt. I scramble to my feet and grab a stick, spin around to defend myself, but the caiman's not there. Not where I can see it.

I don't know much about caimans other than what I read online after I saw the ad, but I do know that they love to hunt and can run 30 miles per hour. That quickness worries me. And their jaws.

I creep back toward the water, toward the bank, holding my stick, hoping I'll see the caimans before they see me. But it's dark now and I can't tell what's a log or a clump of grass, or a small crocodile. I creep forward. Now I'm close to the lake and I can't see the first caiman, let alone the second. The duffel bags are out in front of me somewhere and the two caimans are there too, and I'm holding the stick and turning back and forth slowly, peering into the darkness all around me.

I planned on leaving no evidence, no sign that I was ever here, but I don't want to get attacked either, and it's dark now, and the reptiles are on either side of me.

I listen. Wait. Hunch down and look. But it's too dark.

I back up, watching my footing, and keep backing up, scanning for shapes in the dark. I turn at the big tree, and I'm closer to the road now, and the streetlight comes on, a yellow slant over my shoulder.

When I get to my bike, I grip the handlebars and take one last look at the lake.

That's for you, Grandma,
I think,
for your last summer here.

Because fuck cancer.

Because fuck living in a manufactured double-wide in a trailer park after working hard her whole life as a teacher for not enough money, being disrespected by students and principals and school districts. Fuck being here in this trailer park and waiting to die.

Fuck cancer.

Because this will give her more entertainment than sitting in her room. This will give everyone along the lake some entertainment, something they need, something to talk about.

I pedal the dirt path back to the pavement at the streetlight—my empty trailer bouncing over the ruts—thinking about when I saw the ad for the caimans posted outside the bathrooms at the Chevron gas station, duct-taped to the wall. It read:

EXOTIC SOUTH AMERICAN CROCODILES

Growing Too Fast. Over Four Feet. Must Sell. Cheap.

And reading that was like when I change gears on my bike and they grind for a second and it feels like the chain's going to bind up and break, but then it slips into the right place and suddenly I'm in a good gear and there isn't even a noise and I'm pedaling along the road like I'm flying.

I cruise down the street to the backside of the park where I can push through the gap in the hedge. But before I go home, I stop at Mr. Tyler's single-wide, stash my bike and trailer under two huge rhododendrons, and sneak up to his porch.

The warm stink is awful. I hold my breath and look to see if anyone's around. Check up and down the street. Wait and listen as I crouch at the top of his front steps. The green plastic turf on his porch—shining in the light of the streetlamp—looks like layers of shaved wax.

I haven't pissed in hours, my bladder full. I whip it out and start pissing on the railings, across the front of the porch, take a step and splash some of it on the rocking chair, and as I'm finishing, turn and let the last few drops dribble down the front steps.

No one sees me, and I hop off the porch and jog back to my bike.