Los Gatos Tienen Hambre, says the post-it on the fridge. Since when did the cats learn Spanish, since when did they learn to write? The same could be asked of you, says another post-it.

They put the shock collar on the boy and that was it for the nanny. First they put the collar on one another. They were professors in English and Philosophy, all of them smart people.

I’m in the elevator with the angel.
“I’m hungry,” I say.
“You can eat peanut butter again.”
My mother hated the smell of peanut butter. As kids, my brother and I got it all over everything. Mom said it smelled to her like dogshit.

In the dead of summer, while the whiptails hide in sagebrush shadows, and everything blisters in the amber heat and there ain’t nothin but buzzards hummin for miles around, a hanged man dances on a gallows pole.

Word of mouth gets him the job and gets him past the gatehouse. He tramps towards the house like a stray dog, turrets and crenelations coming into focus.