A new short story by Lukas Kaiser

There’s a sink in Iowa that’s been running for nearly 75 years. Just two months shy of 75, actually. It’s an old, off-white porcelain sink from the 1920s — it was fairly new when it was turned on for good in 1935 — and it sits in the men’s restroom at an Amaco gas station in the middle of nowhere.

Back in the 20s, the sink was installed in the kitchen of the Grand Mariner Hotel’s first floor restaurant, The Lily Flower.

FDR had stayed at the Grand Mariner during the campaign and though he took his meals in his room, the dishes he ate off of were almost surely washed in the by-then constantly running sink.

So if you’re traipsing in the wilds of Iowa and you come across an Amaco station with a sink whose hot water dial is fused into the on position, you can revel in the fact that you’re washing your hands in the same stream of water that washed our 3rd greatest president’s dinner plates.

Sure, there are plenty of sinks and showers and other running water devices that FDR used that still exist — who among us hasn’t taken a sip from the drinking fountain on the 3rd floor of Manhattan’s PS 34, for example? But none of those sinks or fountains boast the same stream of water.

Conservationists would have you believe the sink is an abomination. “This sink is an abomination,” they’d say. “It wastes the equivalent of three lakes of water a year. Three lakes a year for 75 years? I don’t have my calculator on me, but that’s a lot of lakes!”

Oh, those conservationists. They never have their calculators handy. And they always seem to brush the facts under their hip, wine-colored carpets.

Yes, our protagonist sink sees the equivalent of three lakes pass through its pipes every year. But what conservationists don’t know — or don’t want to acknowledge — is where all that water goes after it falls down the sink’s drain.

No one has taken a full accounting of the plumbing system connected to our sink, but at least three pipes connected to it have been mapped. One heads eastward and breaks off into places like Maine, Toronto and Orlando, Florida. Another snakes its way westward and has sent water all the way to Vancouver and beyond.

The sink doesn’t waste three lakes-worth of water a year. It touches that much water and then it sends it on its way. It serves as a makeshift biologist, tagging its watery specimen with its 70-plus years worth of sediments.

It wouldn’t be a surprise to hear that water that’s been through the sink gets filtered and bottled somewhere along the way, maybe ending up in the Middle East or Ireland.

It’s an important sink, to say the least. I’d tell you where to go to find it, but I can’t seem to remember how to get there. If you end up coming across it, please let me know. And just holler if you’d like another cup of coffee.

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Articles & Essays fiction

Here’s an excerpt from Smart Means Fat editor Lukas Kaiser’s historical novel, coming out in 2011 from Random House.

It was cold… too cold for a July afternoon in Nevada. Good thing it was a February night in Minnesota. It was so cold out, you could see your own breath. Literally.

Hell, it was so cold out, the Meth Machine was forming icicles.

Randy drove up to his Meth Cabin. He was high. High on Meth. He popped three Meth pills into his mouth. He popped Meth like donuts. And Randy popped a lot of donuts. And it was time to make the donuts. And by donuts, I mean Meth. Though Randy really did like donuts.

Randy’s Meth-scarred fingertips ran over the top of the gallon-sized tupperware container filled with Meth crystals. He tapped on the container. “Meth,” he said to himself.

Suddenly, Randy’s phone rang. “Meth?” he said, his voice wavering, as if he’d been up for the last three days, snorting and injecting Meth.

A craggly voice answered back. “I need some. Meth that is,” she said. It was Phyliss.

“Why you calling ME?” Randy asked back, defiantly.

“Cuz,” Phyliss began, “I know you got that Meth Machine in your living room.” She was right. He did. Remember, from before? The one that had icicles on it? It was cold. Literally.

“All right,” Randy said, finally, with a note of defeat in his voice. “Come on over.” He hung up the phone and opened the tupperware container he’d been thumbing for the last ten minutes.

The smell of Meth crystals was overpowering. It smelled like bananas, shoe leather and eye cream. Randy breathed in the fumes hard. “Smells like bananas, shoe leather and eye cream in here,” he said to no one in particular.

He bounced the tupperware container around until the Meth crystals were all at even heights. Then he plugged in the Meth Machine and listened it whirr to a start.

Just then, he heard the screech of breaks outside. He counted to four and, right on cue, he heard a knock at the door. “Coming!”

Randy dragged his cold, Meth-addicted corpse to the front door. Wait, corpse isn’t the word I was thinking of. What’s the opposite of corpse?

Randy dragged his cold, Meth-addicted body to the front door. There he saw Phyliss standing there.

WHAT SHOULD RANDY AND PHYLISS DO?

• A) COOK UP SOME METH — TURN TO PAGE 4
• B) MAKE SOME METH — TURN TO PAGE 6
• C) PLAY A ROUND OF UNO AND FRY UP SOME SWORD FISH — TURN TO PAGE 8

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Articles & Essays fiction, meth, novels