Fiction from Michael Czyzniejewski

Photo: Chirag Saini

Maintenance

Simonson saw me walking and changed course to intercept me. I was dragging a second bike rack to the candy stand—too many bikes had been left lying in the dirt. People were tripping. The rack wasn’t heavy but was long and awkward. I was using a little red wagon to pull it across the parade grounds.

“Need help?” Simonson asked.

“Got it,” I said. The candy stand was close—the girls working the window could probably hear us talking.

Simonson asked what I was doing and I pointed to where the stand was going, next to the other rack. I described the recent mishaps.

“A wagon was the best way to do that? Interesting. Is that how one should always move bike racks?”

I told Simonson this was the second bike rack I’d ever moved. The first I carried, but I kept hitting my shins with the metal bars.

“Ouch,” Simonson said. “Once I had to move an ostrich across a football field.”

I thought about that. I asked, “Couldn’t the ostrich just walk?”

“That’s what the ostrich said.” Simonson nodded good luck and headed the other way, opposite the way he’d been going when he first saw me.

—§—

I started seeing Simonson riding a bike around, mostly around the candy stand. Every time he saw me see him, he immediately rode over to the new bike rack and chained up his back tire. Then he’d wave as if he’d not seen me see him before, buy some candy, and take off. Sometimes I’d see Simonson doing this three or four times a day. He had to be spending a lot of money on candy, on top of the new bike.

—§—

The last time I saw Simonson, he knocked on my door. He’d ridden his bike to my house—it was chained to the sycamore in my yard. I don’t know how he found out where I lived.

“I got something for you,” Simonson said. He turned and pointed at the bike. “She’s all yours.”

“Simonson, I can’t…”

“No, no. I insist. Thanks so much, so much for everything.”

Simonson walked away. I went to move the bike into my garage, but the chain was padlocked. I turned to yell to Simonson, to ask for the combination, but he’d disappeared.

—§—

I lost my job right after that, or maybe it’d been before. Either way, I needed to get out. No stomach left for painting or small repairs, I for-sale-by-ownered as-is. A family came by in a station wagon and made an offer. It was fair, just below asking. They noted the broken window on the second floor, the eels swimming in the the koi pond. They inquired about maintenance.

“As-is, 100 percent.”

“Even that?” the mom said, pointing at the sycamore. “Chained to the tree, that ostrich skeleton?”

I peered at what Simonson had left for me. “On second thought, no deal. I think I’d like to stay here forever.”

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Michael Czyzniejewski is the author of four collections of stories, including The Amnesiac in the Maze (Braddock Avenue Books, 2023). He is Professor of English at Missouri State University and serves as Editor-in-Chief of Moon City Press and Moon City Review, as well as Interviews Editor of SmokeLong Quarterly.