Brooks Egerton

So I’m standing there in the dollar store with my underwear in my hands — well, almost my underwear, can’t quite buy it yet, the checkout line is molasses, the self-serve station is dead — and this old lady in front of me turns around and looks at the package and says, My husband always bought that kind, he loved the camo style.

I give a faint nod, which eggs her on. Not that he ever went hunting, she says. And not that it matters what you’re wearing down there when you’re trying to kill a deer. Right, young man?

At eight in the morning, the man with the five o’clock shadow points into the soundproof room. You cast a parting glance at your father, cross the threshold, perch on the edge of the designated seat. Shadow Man elbows the gray metal door shut — thunk — then towers over you and croaks, Relax! An old dog’s halitosis hits your face. Let’s get this show on the road, shall we, kid? Get you out of here as soon as possible, on to school before the day’s too far gone. And get my next customer in here. No time to lose on this case. He stretches an air-filled rubber tube across your burbling belly, in which acid is attacking corn flakes and OJ. Now another tube is hugging your scrawny chest. He leans close, tugs and tinkers. Checks the wires that lead to a briefcase-sized gadget on his gray metal desk. This’ll just translate what your breath wants to tell us, he says. Relax!