No Return – Short Story

You should really read the fine print

The box stands as tall as Captain Chips when it gets delivered to our door, but it shouldn’t. And Chips, our Tibetan Mastiff, he sniffs the cardboard and does that half growl, half cry thing like when he sees African Wild Dogs on Discovery Channel. That should have been the second clue. The first? This box is triple the size needed for the Elite Gourmet EQD413 Non-Stick Electric, Mexican Taco Tuesday Quesadilla Maker – 8 Inch, Red.

Look, this happens all the time. You don’t pay attention to the size description online and instead of getting a Nic Cage Ghost Rider desktop standee you get a Nic Cage Ghost Rider full-size standee and Nic Cage is 5’11 and a half but you know he rounds up to six feet tall ever since his Fast Times at Ridgemont High cameo where he was credited as Nicolas Coppola, so now you have this rounded up to six foot tall Nic Cage with a flaming skull face in your living room and your wife has lost 5 foot 11 inches of respect for you rounded up. But, looking at this Captain Chips-sized box on my door mat, there’s no way they make a quesadilla maker that big.

No way in Mexico.

I’m dragging this huge box inside and it’s pooling sweat in my pits it’s that heavy. The floor runner bunches, tripping Chips in his relentless sniffing trail. Milly, she yells down from the upstairs bedroom. She yells, “what’d you order this time?”

And I just say, “you’re gonna love it” between grunts. 

I lay the box down in the living room and that’s when the smell hits. 

Last year, Chips, he got into a half a heart’s worth of Valentine’s Day chocolates. Milly stayed on the phone with Poison Control for over an hour reading ingredients from a cardboard heart and debating how much cacao was too much cacao. The answer was not enough cacao to kill a dog the size of Chips, only make Chip’s shits smell of cacao and rotten beef. It’s that same sick savory sweet smell, that oozes from the box and creams the air.

Milly yells down, “Did Chips make a doo?”

And I’m tenting my shirt over my nose as I stare at the fuzzy picture of a quesadilla maker with strange graffiti on the box beneath it. No, not graffiti. Heiroglphyics. And I’m channeling cryptographer Nic Cage from the critically acclaimed National Treasure series, running my finger over the runes, deciphering their meaning. Everywhere, familiar little circles. Tiny bowls of beef bulgogi. Number 23. And it strikes me. I dash to the fridge and pull the dinner menu, the one from the place down on third, and I hold it against the words on the box. It’s a match. 

My shit-smelling quesadilla maker came from Korea.

Chips, he stands guard as I grab scissors from a drawer and splay them razorblade style. A couple flies buzz across the box and I take a deep breath against the stench. I line up the scissors inside the tape and start the first incision. I’m pulling the scissors down the tape, that sour stench fissuring out of the newly formed crevasse, and about halfway down I hit a snag. I apply more pressure to the cardboard wound, channeling paramedic Nic Cage from the critically acclaimed Bringing out the Dead. 

Then the box shakes. 

Then the box starts to bleed.

Milly yells down, “Is it my foam orthopedic pillow?” As I crab walk away from the bleeding box. The box, it shudders before falling silent. Chips, he bellows then starts pawing at its top.

It’s a slab of beef. Probably a joke from the guys at the office. Just a rotten slab of beef. Those fucking jokers. You can send dog shit to people. People pay money to send dog shit to people. Those fucking guys. Why not a slab of rotten beef? Those yahoos.

Flies have worked their way inside the box by the time I crawl back to its side. Chips sits on his fat haunches and watches as I finish cutting open the top, smearing the drops of blood. Carefully, I pry open the flaps and peek inside.

And there’s just this doll laying in there. This life-sized kid doll. And the reek and the stench just rolls off it.

And Chips, he starts to growl, and I watch this doll as it breathes and I watch this doll as it bleeds from a cut in its arm, MY cut in its arm. And Chips, he just walks over and starts lapping at the doll’s blood and the doll, its eyes are closed but when Chip’s stubbled tongue licks its skin, the doll lets out a little giggle. Must be one of those talking kind. And as I’m pulling Chips away from his blood snack I can’t get over this doll’s hair, you can see each follicle pierce the head. And how this doll, it has one of those Gorbachev wine-stain birthmarks over half its face and why would someone make an imperfect doll like that. 

Then Milly yells down, “is it my slate grey weighted blanket?”

I’m no blanket salesman, but this is no weighted blanket. And because of Milly’s busted uterus, I’m no father either, but I know that, laying in a cardboard box, reeking of shit and buzzing with flies, lays a real kid.

Now I’m trying really hard not to channel Nic Cage from his critically acclaimed 2000 blockbuster co-starring Angelina Jolie and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Because if I did, I’d be Gone in 60 Seconds. Instead, I’m full Windtalkers, walking broad-shouldered like Captain Joe Enders through the battle of Saipan.

And there he is, curled in a fetal position, my little quesadilla maker. Only instead of a non-stick griddle he’s got an oxygen mask clamped to his face and a his arms wrapped around a rusted green oxygen bottle. Instead of a cherry red casing, he’s wearing a dirty beige shirt and matching pants. Then there’s the issue of his power cord. A cloudy tube runs out of his little pants into a bag full of yellow. And he reeks. For the love of Cage does he reek. His shirt is raised a bit and flies buzz across this other bag attached to his stomach. This bag’s full of brown.

Milly yells down, “is it my barrel ice dispenser?”

I yell, “Nothing to worry about!” Then fish out my phone.

9 - 1 - my finger hovers the final “1.” And I picture the cops showing up and it’s just me with a bed-ridden wife and this Korean kid crammed in a box. Then it’s an arrest, a Netflix Documentary, and I’m pulling a Con Air nonstop to The Rock. 

No way in Mexico.

Under Chip’s watchful eyes, I check the kid’s oxygen bottle. I can’t read Korean, but the arrow on the gauge is only halfway. That’s good. I snap my fingers in front of the kid’s face. No response. That’s good too. Whatever sleeping drugs he took for his little journey are still kicking. I go to the kitchen to gather what I need. Open a drawer. Pop a cabinet. Chips patters beside me. And we stand over the box and this kid, our little quesadilla maker, and we do what any responsible adult would do. 

We toss in a couple Vanilla Macadamia Nut Cliff Bars and then we tape the box shut. Two strips for safety.

Then I’m pacing the hall, thumbing through my order history until I find the quesadilla maker and the company’s name – CoolStuff Wholesale. I click “product return” and it takes me to a page that just says one thing.

NO RETURN.

Milly yells down, “is it time for the circle pill or the oval pill?”

And I just mumble, great, as I search for a customer service number, but then I get sucked into the company’s product reviews. 

John W says of his One Touch Battery Operated Electric Can Opener No Sharp Edge Black / Grey – “Four stars. Would have been five but “product” came pretty dirty and with a distinct smell. Real cute though.”

There’s a thump behind me but I’m too far down the rabbit hole wondering why a grown man would call an electric can opener “cute.” But the bigger problem is, Milly. She’s only just now starting to work through our loss, and if she sees an alive kid that’s not our dead kid it could just set her off all over again. And I’ll be locking the medicine cabinet with a key around my neck again. And I’ll be ripping the shoe strings out of all our shoes again. And we’ll be cutting our food with plasticware again.

I’m about to look up the nearest Goodwill Donation Center when Chips barks. I turn and see the box laying open with only a rusted green oxygen bottle and two bags left inside – one full of yellow, the other full of brown. Little bastard was just fake asleep. I round the corner into the kitchen and track little brown footprints into the utility closet where I find Captain Chips barking into the now broken air return vent. A picture crashes to the floor as our Little Quesadilla Maker burrows behind the walls. Even though he knows I tried to return him, I yell out, “Everything will be okay.”

Milly yells down, “I know, I should be out of bed in a few days.”

And my heart is Leaving Las Vegas inside my chest.

I go pop a couple zanny’s in the bathroom and when I’m walking back out, a beige flash darts from the living room back to the utility closet. I reach for my pocket but it’s too late. I left it on the couch. 

Quesadilla just swiped my phone. 

Once Milly is asleep, I grab a sleeping bag and lay it down in front of the vent where I doze off to the sounds of that language app Duo Lingo pinging phrases like “Hello” and “Dog” from behind the walls.

Quesadilla’s teaching himself English.

When I wake up in the morning, there’s a note taped to Captain Chip’s collar. Ragged handwriting reads: “Buy more of Cliff’s Bars or I call police.”

So I do. Each day a different demand, and I do. Then, on “Buy two cases of Mango Red Bull and another iPhone” day it arrives.

A second box standing as tall as Captain Chips.

And my head buzzes like Nic Cage’s helmet full of bees in Wicker Man.

Chips, he patters up to me with a new note taped to his collar. This one says, “Bring the box to the utility room, open it, and shut the door or I will call the Police.” And both Quesadilla’s handwriting and his English are getting better than mine.

I push the heavy, stinking, box into the utility room and Milly, she yells down, “is that my air purifier?”

But it’s just another Korean kid, this one labeled corn dog fryer. So I release our Little Corn Dog from his cardboard prison and shut the door. A picture crashes to the floor as Corn Dog and Quesadilla burrow deeper into our walls. I pick up the the busted frame, it’s from our last ultrasound, the one I’ve yet to hide from Milly. She’ll be out of bed rest soon and if I can’t get Corn Dog and Quesadilla out of the house without being put on a pedophile list, Milly might Nic Cage her Face Off.

But the boxes keep coming.

5-Slice Industrial Bagel Toaster. Deluxe Carnival Fun Time Funnel Maker. The kids keep ordering more friends. And they’re growing smarter. Captain Chips isn’t even my dog anymore. He’s their dog. They’ve trained him. They call him Comrade Chips. Which means these Korean kids? They’re not the good kind of Korean. They’re the choose your government issue hair cut from figure 1 through 5 kind of Korean. 

And the boxes keep coming.

They’ve tunneled into the basement now. My Cage Cave. I just know they’re getting their grubby little fingerprints on the backs of my limited edition Cage blu-rays instead of gripping them from the sides like you’re supposed to. Comrade Chips, he brings me more notes. “Order us twenty of your finest cheese pizzas and three gallons of Diet Mt Dew” and I’m looking at the clock, hoping its okay to feed these fuckers after midnight cause my bank account can’t afford them multiplying anymore. 

And with each kid-in-a-box I drag across the floor, Milly just grows more suspicious. And when she finally emerges from the bedroom, I’m so Nic Cage Raising Quesadilla that I don’t even hear her come downstairs. And Corn Dog, and Bagel, and Funnel Cake, and Little Waffle, and all their little friends, they’re just laughing their little asses off at my collector’s edition of City of Angels, which isn’t even a comedy, they’re laughing so loud that I don’t even hear Milly walk behind me and go to the Cage Cave door.

Then it’s already too late. She’s pulling open the knob and she’s seeing our hidden basement children, she’s seeing our personal pan Pizzagate, and in my head I’m already dialing the number to that outpatient mental health facility down on capitol because it’s too soon, because that wound is just to soon, and her eyes go wide and her hand goes to her mouth and she turns to me, and she turns to me and she says, “I thought I only ordered one.”

And our hidden basement children erupt in laughter as Meg Ryan dies in Nic Cage’s arms.