Ryan was so skinny, I didn’t believe he ate. But he did. He got down to it when he could afford food. And he cooked like a chef. His most famous dish were these killer pot cookies. He’d break down the weed and simmer it in butter for hours. It releases the oils, he’d say, smiling, with those god-awful teeth all pointing out in different directions. Those cookies would put you out for a day or two. Once word got ‘round, they’d go like hot cakes. When Ryan took to baking, only people with connections got their paws on them. Last winter, he got into bone digging with his girlfriend, Lou. They went to the cemetery, just north of town, and dug up old bones. It was fun, get high, get the shovel, and dig. They found weird shit, and at the end of the season, they had collected a huge bag of bones. They sold it for eight hundred pesos, all in one pop. To Sue.
     Now, why would Sue go and buy a bag of bones? I looked at her like she was stupid when she told me, all breathless and excited. Sue was an artist, and she was always waiting for a break. This, she said, was her new inspiration. She would make lamps out of them. Out of bones? Of course, dummy. She answered. So she made one lamp. The base was two femurs and a humerus, with a cord running through the tibia, balanced against a pelvic bone. Took her three months to make. It was hideous. I said so. Who cares what you think? She said. Some gallery is going to eat it up. Maybe, I said.
     That lamp sat in her apartment for months. When are you going to show it? I asked. When I’m ready, get off my back. But Sue never showed it. She took it apart in a frenzy. Put all the bones back in the bag, threw them in Ryan’s backyard, at night, after dark, when he and Lou were away, gone to Veracruz for carnival. Why’d you do that? I asked her. Because, she told me, I’d been having trouble sleeping, so one night I got out of bed, and walked into my living room. I turned on the lamp, and that’s when they started bemoaning. Bemoaning? I asked. Yeah, all of them, screaming at once, she shuddered.

Bury me.

 

Born in Canada to an insane and loving Chinese family,, JENNIFER WAI-LAN HUANG studied literature and writing at Princeton University. She lived and taught in China and Mexico before moving to New York. She now lives with her boyfriend, a painter, Oscar Strodl, and a pack of happy four-legged creatures mostly from Mexico. Currently a comic book editor at Marvel, her first novel "Seven Days in Guanajuato" will be published soon.