Joshua Malbin307 12

St. Apt 8Brooklyn NY 11215

1A LynchingAdam liked a lot of things about his new apartment. It was a one-and-a-half-bedroomfor only $1,200 a month in a nice neighborhood, near two subway lines and a big grocerystore. It had mice, though. He found their droppings under the refrigerator and the stove.He scattered poison bait pellets all around and went to sleep at his girlfriend’s for a fewnights.When he returned home he found a five-inch-high mannequin lying face down, nakedin the middle of the kitchen floor.He knelt and touched it with a finger. It felt slightly rubbery, like skin. He touchedhis own bare arm for comparison but found that more confusing than helpful, because hisarm was warm while the tiny figure was cold.He fished in his backpack and came up with an old plastic ballpoint missing its cap,put the nib under the torso, and flipped it carefully, leaving a thick blue line at the bottomof the ribcage. The doll was stiff and rotated all at once. It had what appeared to be driedblood under its nose, but no other marks.Adam brought his face within a foot of the little body and scrutinized it. It had to be adoll, of course, a very carefully made, realistic doll with a shriveled little penis andindividual strands of body hair all over its legs, arms, and chest. Except he didn’t haveany practical-joker friends and only his girlfriend had a spare key to this place. Not eventhe super had one: he’d had the lock installed himself.There was a way to know for sure. He could cut into it and see if it had real fleshinside. But if it was a real man and he’d died in Adam’s apartment, didn’t Adam have to

Joshua Malbin307 12

St. Apt 8Brooklyn NY 11215

2call the police? He would if he’d come home to a full-sized man dead on the kitchenfloor. And if he did call the police he might already be in trouble for having killed thelittle guy, even if it was an accident. It would look that much worse if he’d sliced openthe corpse.On the other hand, if he called the cops without verifying it was real, what would hesay? “I found a little body in my house that might only be a doll, come right away?”He had an idea. He went to the bathroom medicine cabinet for a pair of tweezers,then searched his half-unpacked boxes until he found his sewing kit. With the tweezershe took hold of the lower lip and pulled it down gently, exposing the bottom front teeth,each the size of a grain of millet. He forced the tip of a straight pin between them and theupper teeth, creating a gap. Then he slid another pin beside it and used them together tolever the jaws apart a few millimeters. There was a tongue. A very cunning doll mighthave teeth, but no way would there be a tongue. It was real.He went and sat on his couch in the living room, staring through the kitchen door atthe body on the linoleum, trying to decide what to do. Probably nothing too bad wouldhappen if he called the police. But why take the risk, however small? He could drop thebody in a garbage can somewhere and no one would ever know.No, that didn’t feel right, dumping a person in the trash. He would bury it. He hadno backyard of his own, so it’d have to be in the park.He used a paper towel to pick it up—it was light as a hunk of bread—and put it in aplastic shopping bag. That still felt too exposed, like people on the street would see whathe carried. He rolled up the bag and stuffed the plastic bundle in his backpack. He didn’town a spade so he brought a tablespoon.

Joshua Malbin307 12

St. Apt 8Brooklyn NY 11215

3It was autumn, and night was coming earlier. There wasn’t much daylight left. If he’d had more time he might have picked somewhere quiet and nice for the burial, likeRick’s Place, a mud puddle on the bridle path where warblers gathered during migration.But that was in the middle of the forest, a good fifteen minutes away, and people gotmugged in the park at night. A man had even been killed recently, not far from Rick’sPlace itself.He chose a wooded hollow beside the park’s waste-collection lot, close to the exit yetsecluded, hidden from anyone passing on the city streets or finishing a jog on the park drive.He scraped a trench a foot long and half again as deep and took the plastic bag fromhis backpack. He used his fingertips to slide the body out, folded the paper towel aroundit firmly, and laid it in its grave. The hole was deepest in the middle so the corpse restedon its head and feet with a space under the remainder, and it had stiffened with its leftarm and leg splayed, so it only fit at an angle. He pushed dirt in, filling the spaces as wellas he could, smoothed the spot with his foot but did not step on it directly to tamp it, andscattered twigs and leaves for disguise.The next day he caught himself remembering the little man’s face and body. He’dbeen mostly bald, with a rear fringe of dark, shaggy hair, weak-jawed, and painfully thin,almost emaciated. There was something familiar about him. He looked like someoneAdam knew. It bothered him at odd moments of two consecutive days.