This story is part of a new web feature: the calendar Pinup Series*. We'll be bringing you great new work online each month. —The Eds.

Nicky Boy and Baby Girl Are Illustrated

by Matt Salesses

1.    Nicky boy saw the police car first. A man was in the back, handcuffed. No one was in the front. Only a couple of other cars were parked nearby. At first, Nicky boy thought the police car was empty. Baby girl came and stood next to the window. “It's not empty,” Baby girl said as she knocked on the glass. The man inside seemed to stir into life. “Shit,” Nicky boy said. “Don't do that.” Baby girl put a hand on the window. The man licked his lips and put a hand on the window, too.

2.    Five minutes earlier, Baby girl had said, “You did not have malaria.” Nicky boy had been telling her the story of how he had caught malaria in India. He had had visions. For two weeks, he had stayed in bed because to him the floor seemed a sixty-foot drop. “What happened when the nurse walked up to the bed?” Baby girl asked derisively. It wasn't a nurse but a sixty-foot giant ex-girlfriend, who shrunk to the size of a frog when she walked away from the bed, who hopped out the door with her tongue out. “It doesn't matter,” he said. It reminded him of the time Baby girl said he wasn't like a real adopted kid because he was Indian and his parents were Indian.

3.    The man in the police car smiled at Baby girl. Then he looked for something in the car. What he was looking for was apparently in his shoe. He pulled his shoe off and inside was a little flat piece of a knife. Baby girl stepped back until she was standing on Nicky boy's toes. “Nicky boy,” she said. Nicky boy was holding his breath. The man in the police car held the piece of knife between his long fingers and rested the cuffs on his knee. He arced the knife back into the lock and picked it. When he had the handcuffs off he tried to cut at the screen separating the back of the police car from the front. He tried to cut at the bars on the window. He tried to open the door but thankfully it was the last thing that would have opened. Finally he stopped and seemed to see Nicky boy and Baby girl anew. He pulled back the sleeve on one arm and showed them the bare skin.
 

*American Short Fiction does not intend to objectify or demean these stories with use of the term pinup; our intention is to give our readers full exposure to great writing.

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