House of Holes Read Online Free PDF Page A

room, where she gave her a clipboard with a legal agreement to sign. “Lila will see you soon,” she said. “She’s the director.” She walked away.
    The waiting room was empty. There were two couches and some lamps with fringed lampshades and some pictures on the wall of sheep in fields. Shandee hummed along with Sade’s “Smooth Operator,” while Dave’s arm, resting on her lap, gently stroked the back of her hand.
    On the low coffee table in front of her was a pile of magazines. She began flipping through a copy of Contemporary Crochet. There were some very impressive crochet patterns—for dresses, scarves, leggings, and strange lumpy works of art—and then in the middle she came to a section called “Adult Crochet.” There followed four pages of sultry men with perfect T-shaped chest hair staring off at the horizon wearing little crocheted ballsack pouches with their semi-erections hanging through. Then there were four pages of women smiling at the camera and wearing crocheted thongs and crocheted bikini tops that were tiny triangles over fleshpots of breast and crinkled nipple. The world of handicrafts had changed a bit, Shandee thought.
    When she looked up, Zilka was leading in another arrival, who took a seat on the couch. Shandee stole a glance at him and gasped inwardly: such a beautiful boy—ascetic looking, with a shy large toothy smile and high cheekbones and large bony knuckles and heartbreaking shoulders. His hair was cut very short. He wore a frayed sweatshirt and torn jeans. Shandee nodded at him in a friendly way and casually tossed the crochet magazine back onto the pile.
    “Hey, I’m Ruzty,” he said, blushing, with a hint of a Bulgarian accent. “This is my first time here. It’s kind of a crazy thing. I was in a parking lot putting some plywood in the truck, and this girl walks up and gives me a flyer for a festival.”
    “What kind of festival? I like festivals.”
    “Eh, it’s a little embarrassing for me,” he said, waving and looking away. “But she had big silver earrings on her ears, and she said that the first three winners got five thousand dollars—wow! And she said if I wanted to compete in the festival I would have to go with her to the House of Holes. She was very nice to me, all whisper-whisper. Very tall, too, like a supermodel. And then she pulled out her earring from her ear and told me to look real close at the little hole.”
    “The hole in her earlobe?” said Shandee.
    “Yeah, so I looked real close, and then, voom, I was taken into the hole, and now here I am.”
    “That’s like what happened to me,” said Shandee. She told the story of finding Dave’s arm in the quarry and how they communicated by writing notes and how Dave’s arm had made an O with his fingers. “Dave’s arm, meet Ruzty. Ruzty, meet Dave’s arm.” She held Dave’s arm out.
    “Hey, dude,” said Ruzty, and gave the arm a thumb-to-thumb handshake. He smiled at Shandee—dazzling teeth. “Good for you to travel with somebody who is a friend.”
    “That’s very true,” said Shandee.
    Just then Zilka reappeared with two more men in tow. “This is Dune,” she said. “And this is Hax.” She handed Shandee a folded men’s blue shirt and some crocheted leg warmers. “Put these on now.” She walked away.
    Shandee’s heart fluttered as she shook hands with the new arrivals: Dune, absurdly handsome in an old suede jacket, with an ironic, off-kilter smile, and Hax, West Indian, keen-eyed and devastatingly white T-shirted, with a broad forehead and long tawny dreadlocks and a light beard.
    “Hello,” said Hax.
    “Hey, folks,” Dune said, as he signed the form on the clipboard, after which he took several long seconds to look Shandee over. “You’re pretty, shit. Tight little body on you, too. Look at you! Your mama must be proud.” Then he cocked his head to the side. “Is that somebody’s arm you’ve got tucked away in your lap?”
    Shandee told the story.
    “So