Apex Magazine Issue 33 by Carrie Vaughn A.C. Wise David J. Schwartz Maureen McHugh Alex Bledsoe

Author:Carrie Vaughn, A.C. Wise, David J. Schwartz, Maureen McHugh, Alex Bledsoe
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Apex Publications
Published: 2012-02-05T01:06:10+00:00

A.C. Wise was born and raised in Montreal and currently lives in the Philadelphia area. Her fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, ChiZine, and Daily Science Fiction, among others, and is forthcoming in The Best Horror of the Year Vol. 4. In addition to her writing, she co-edits the online ‘zine The Journal of Unlikely Entomology. For more information, visit the author’s website www.acwise.net.

Useless Things

By Maureen McHugh

“Señora?” The man standing at my screen door is travel stained. Migrant, up from Mexico. The dogs haven’t heard him come up, but now they erupt in a frenzy of barking to make up for their oversight. I am sitting at the kitchen table, painting a doll, waiting for the timer to tell me to get doll parts curing in the oven in the work shed.

“Hudson, Abby!” I shout, but they don’t pay any attention.

The man steps back. “Do you have work? I can, the weeds,” he gestures. He is short-legged, long from waist to shoulder. He’s probably headed for the Great Lakes area, the place in the U.S. with the best supply of fresh water and the most need of farm labor.

Behind him is my back plot, with the garden running up to the privacy fence. The sky is just starting to pink up with dawn. At this time of year I do a lot of my work before dawn and late in the evening, when it’s not hot. That’s probably when he has been traveling, too.

I show him the cistern and set him to weeding. I show him where he can plug in his phone to recharge it. I have internet radio on; Elvis Presley died forty-five years ago today, and they’re playing “(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care.” I go inside and get him some bean soup.

Hobos used to mark code to tell other hobos where to stop and where to keep going. Teeth to signify a mean dog. A triangle with hands meant that the homeowner had a gun and might use it. A cat meant a nice lady. Today the men use websites and bulletin boards that they follow, when they can, with cheap smart phones. Somewhere I’m on a site as a ‘nice lady’ or whatever they say today. The railroad runs east of here, and it’s sometimes a last spot where trains slow down before they get to the big yard in Belen. Men come up the Rio Grande hoping to hop the train.

I don’t like it. I was happy to give someone a meal when I felt anonymous. Handing a bowl of soup to someone who may not have eaten for a few days was an easy way to feel good about myself. That didn’t mean I wanted to open a migrant restaurant. I live by myself. Being an economic refugee doesn’t make people kind and good, and I feel as if having my place on some website makes me vulnerable. The dogs may bark like fools, but Hudson is some cross between border collie and golden retriever, and Abby is mostly black Labrador.

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