Free All We Want Is Everything by Andrew F. Sullivan

outside. The sun is out and, somewhere, Doris is still at work, cutting hair, talking shit, talking about Harriet and her poisoned womb. Too much time in those hot tubs, she will say. Too much time in that putrid, tacky hot tub Henry purchased as their honeymoon gift. It was bright pink, you know—such an ugly looking thing. Harriet climbs into her car and slams the door. Jamie sleeps alone inside the restaurant, surrounded by waffles with eyes and mouths mounted on the walls.
    Harriet starts the car and pulls onto the highway. She tosses soiled tissues out the window and tries not to look back. She waits for the police to pull her over as the miles turn into hours.
    Harriet is driving until she finds a desert. Any one will do.

A Bird in the Hand Is Worthless
    Three hours after we boost the TV, Cal starts talking about going to California. He talks about the girls with those tits you find online, the ones who never have to bundle up for the winter ’cause the sun never sets on Burbank or Malibu or any of those places. He talks about bottomless margaritas and endless shrimp buffets, room service and escorts you can pay by the minute. Cal says he will teach me to surf, teach me everything.
    I’m trying to figure out where we’ll unload this Panasonic for more than a hundred bucks, so I try to ignore him. I don’t even think Cal remembered to grab the remote before we left the Stockyard. He’s only been bouncing there for two weeks and Big Randy doesn’t tell him shit. Just says to keep sticky fingers off the girls and watch for those assholes with the spy cameras tucked up under their hats. They’re the ones ruining the profits.
    “The best part is no snow. No ice. No waking up at night with your balls shrunk to prunes.”
    No way am I getting the kids back if someone finds us with this TV. No one’s going to report a missing TV these days. Not when we left how many thousands tucked inside Randy’s office, covered in white powder and protein stains or whatever else is dripping from the DJ’s nose. The report will just go into a file folder somewhere in the station basement until the annual Christmas bonfire consumes it all.
    “You ever think about learning to surf, Jimmy? I seen too many guys bust their faces on America’s Funniest Home Videos to try that shit, but maybe if I hired a trainer…”
    The lawyer says motions take money to file, and I got a lot of motions to make. I’ve got pictures I went and printed off at the library. Pictures of Alice doing shots of tequila in Georgia, pictures of long salt lines stretching up her stomach and down the sides of her hips. She’s lost weight and her nose is red. Every time she smiles, the camera burns her eyes a little deeper until they’re just holes. She’s got denim jeans on down there in Florida, sleeping every night in Brad Paisley’s tour bus. No snow to keep her shrivelled and cold. She says she’s in love, says he’s the one, ever since they met at the Havelock Jamboree. Lawyer says I need to file each piece of evidence separately, but his office smells like cat piss and the law degree hanging from his wall is missing some punctuation. He drives a Buick with three bald tires and smiles too much when I step into his office. Alice keeps posting pictures from down in the Keys, her arms wrapped around bodyguards, her tattoos of Jason and Marlee poking out from under the straps of her bathing suit while she sips champagne and the sun sets like it’s the end of the world behind her.
    I am waiting for her camera to break.
    “Cal, let’s take it to Donna.”
    Cal looks up from his fantasies of ten-pound shrimp and naked eighteen-year-olds. He needs his pills to stay lucid and awake, but he doesn’t get paid until we sell this piece of shit. I can’t carry a TV by myself.
    “Whatever you wanna do, man. She might still be up.”
    The road is pockmarked and swallows up my front tire as we bounce away from the arena parking lot. The streetlights guide me and