INTERLOCKED

Rusty removed the plastic outer wrapping and lifted the lid off the box. With a pair of scissors, he snipped the top of the inner bag and poured out the contents. The satisfying scent of die-cut cardboard filled his nose as he dug into the ground meat of the puzzle, his fingers darting like a lizard’s tongue while his eyes hunted for straight lines. He’d assemble the outer wall first, as always, before dumping the remaining pieces onto the folding table and turning them all over to expose each one’s unique part in the beautiful painting. The process was routine. Jigsaw puzzles made life bearable in his barren studio apartment. They kept him on the straight and narrow.

Puzzles had been an allowable item in prison, but not allowable in his cell. He’d always had to share them in the recreation area, bumping elbows around the table with other men, most of them making a mess of the business of putting things back together. He missed those men. The puzzlers. Jimmy. Ray. He missed the order of prison life, of knowing what was going to happen at any given time. This piece here. That piece there. It all fit together. Lights off at 10:00. Morning chow at 4:30. Everything laid out.

Though Rusty tried to maintain an ordered life, going to the gym five times a week to keep himself lean and strong, he had to admit that being on the outside again was harder than he’d expected.

When he was twenty, Rusty had illegally entered the home of an elderly woman he sometimes helped with yard work and simple indoor tasks. He’d watched her drive away in her old Subaru, but she returned while he was stuffing her sterling silverware into a pillowcase. She shouted at him. He pushed her down, her brittle hip shattering. She’d gone into rehab after surgery, but never made it home. Because he’d called the ambulance, and waited with her until the police came, the incident had cost him just two years.

Rusty, now twenty-three, stood over the puzzle as he shook his long hair out of the net he was required to wear at Burger King. At least once a day he wished he were back in prison.

The loose puzzle pieces promised to dovetail into another soothing landscape. Kinkade’s skillful brain created restful scenes of peace every time he lifted his paintbrush. The light from the cabin windows illuminated the snow as the sun dove deep behind the mountains, matching the glow from the cabin. When Rusty finished the puzzle, he would carefully place all of the pieces back in the box and deliver it to the Goodwill store a few blocks away. He never bought his puzzles there. He ordered them fresh off the internet using his phone and debit card. One a week. Always a comforting Kinkade painting. Each one just as good as the last. Like a calming cup of hot chocolate on a crisp winter day.

* * *

Martha set her teacup next to the puzzle box. The garish cabin at the center of the picture burned from within with an impossibly bright glow. What a bore. She hated Kinkade’s work with a passion. She’d expressed her disdain to her daughter on many occasions, but Diane showed up once a week with yet another puzzle celebrating the Painter of Light’s hackneyed sub-mediocrity.

She peeled the huge Goodwill price sticker off the front of the box. Why did they always have to place the damned stickers right in the middle of the picture?

“Another fucking cabin in the woods,” she said as she dumped the pieces into a pile and started arranging them by color. Did her daughter think she’d gone senile? Was she torturing her mother into the grave so she could get her hands on the three original drawings by Picasso hanging in the hallway? The family had always known real art for what it was.

“Jesus Christ,” she said, as she pulled a long hair from the pile of pieces. She dropped it on the floor next to her. Disgusting. And Adeya had vacuumed the carpet that morning.

She heard the front door open behind her. Who could that be? Martha got up slowly after pulling the walker to her side. She turned to find a large man dressed in black, hair and face hidden by a ski mask. His bulk reminded her of the fool who managed her daughter’s gallery.

The Picassos. The insurance.

“You’ll pay for this, Tucker,” she said.

“I don’t think so.” He lifted a piece of thick iron pipe.

The color of his gloved hand reminded Martha of Julian Onderdonk’s bluebonnets. That guy could paint.