Nametag
Fiction Set in the World of Josh Malerman's Carpenter's Farm
Author’s Note: Josh Malerman is the author of the bestselling novel Bird Box, which was adapted into the hit Netflix film starring Sandra Bullock. His latest work, Carpenter’s Farm, is a serialized novel in progress available free on his website joshmalerman.com
The following story takes place in the fictitious town of Gibbons, Michigan, home to Carpenter’s Farm, and was written with the enthusiastic support and encouragement of Josh.
While the tale stands on its own merits, it was written as a companion piece to the amazing and completely mindfucking Carpenter’s Farm, as sort of a guerilla prequel, and I sincerely hope you read and enjoy both.
You can see your reflection in the floor of Bookman’s General. You can. No one ever notices, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
When it’s slow-and when it ain’t hunting season, slow is the default setting-he sometimes looks down the snack aisle to see his reflection.
The blue apron.
The brown hair, grotesquely elongated by the angle of the fluorescent lighting.
You have to step around the counter and bend over, closer to the ground, to see your eyes.
But when you do, you really can see yourself staring back at you.
And the floor of Bookman’s General gets mopped every night after close to assure that.
Even though no one ever mentions the reflection.
He gets the water in the mop bucket scalding hot. So hot the metal faucet itself steams well after he turns the H spigot in the tiny utility room to the off position. The H etching is worn down from years of use; hot water, cleansers and oil from human hands. Mostly his.
Sometimes he watches the steam dance off the faucet. The steam dances to its own music.
Sometimes people pound on the door while he’s mopping, looking to buy beer after business hours.
He keeps mopping, his face turned away from the glass. They know he can hear them, Bookman’s General is not that big. But he keeps mopping.
Not really ignoring them, just not acknowledging their presence or their desires.
He knows what that feels like.
It’s just a game. He’s just teasing. But if he faces them, and tells them no, they don’t listen.
They argue.
And he doesn’t like to argue.
He gets all the fountain pop he can drink, but he doesn’t drink it until after closing time. Ever.
Doesn’t want to spill it.
He grew up in the Chalfonte Home. You got one soda pop every Saturday at the Chalfonte Home. If you spilled it you didn’t get another.
He thought the Chalfonte Home was normal. Until they made him go to Gibbons High School.
At Gibbons High School he had been a Shelfie. A kid from the Chalfonte Home. That was a bad thing. He wasn’t sure why.
He was vaguely aware before high school that other kids had mothers, fathers, some of ’em even had both.
Some kids had horses and cows and sheep.
Some of them had mothers and fathers and horses and cows and sheep.
That was normal. He was a Shelfie. He didn’t know why it was a bad thing.
He was acutely aware that he was the last of the Shelfies. There were no kids younger than him. They were closing the Home.
They told him to get good grades because he would be on his own at 18.
He got good grades. He had perfect attendance because the short bus from the Chalfonte Home dropped him off every day. He was polite. He raised his hand when he knew an answer, and teachers called on him.
And he had no friends.
Go away, Shelfie. Get out of here, Shelfie.
He bathed every night, even though the hot water at the Chalfonte Home made noises like a demon unleashed from eternal torment, looking for revenge.
You stink, Shelfie.
He joined the Drama Club at Gibbons High.
The school was doing a production of The Tempest. He auditioned for Caliban.
On opening night he was in the balcony, with a rickety stool and two pages of notes, operating a spotlight while another kid played Caliban.
That’s where you belong, Shelfie. In the shadows.
He began to believe it himself.
But before that belief could take root, the two-weekend run of the play ended.
Parents threw flowers on the stage. Their children picked them up, beaming.
The cast bowed, and each time his spotlight hit them perfectly.
David.Prospero.Pow! Perfectly framed in his brilliant white spotlight.
Marcus.Alonso.Bang! Glowing at center stage.
Ursula, who played Miranda. Wham! He slammed the iris of the old stage light and focused on her face alone, following it down as she bowed.
When the last of the nymphs and spirits exited the stage, he sat in the dark, waiting for the fan to cool the fixture before he unplugged.
From the balcony, he could see kids signing other kid’s programs.
Signing their names.
They all knew each other by name.
They all called each other by name.
They just called him Shelfie.
He was to call for the bus from the activities office phone, and the bus would pick him up and take him back to the Chalfonte House. The bus driver was the headmaster was the teacher.
He was the only one who didn’t call him Shelfie. He called him son. But he was not his father.
Having let the fixture cool sufficiently, he bent to unplug the spotlight.
It was dark now, the old school building poorly maintained, not as bad as The Chalfonte Home, but bad.
They were building a new school, but he would be gone before it was finished.
The cord of the spotlight was hot. He held it in his hand, enjoying the warmth. Wondering what it would be like if the whole school burned down because he had left the hot cord on top of his notes. On purp-
“Shelfie?”
He dropped the cord and spun, startled.
It was Ursula.In her street clothes. Jeans. Grand Valley Hoodie.
“We’re all going to dare Carpenter’s Farm. You’re coming, right?”
He repeated her words over in his head. They didn’t make sense to him. Her being in the balcony with him didn’t make sense to him.
“Excuse me?”
“Are you coming to dare Carpenter’s Farm?”
He stared. His head was a vise of confusion and lust and confusion’s side was tightening quicker.
Ursula grabbed his wrist.
“You know the tradition, right? The whole cast and crew goes out to Carpenter’s Farm. If anyone chickens out, they can’t audition or be on the crew for the next play.”
He knew where Carpenter’s Farm was. He just didn’t know what it was, or why it was important.
“I…” he began, but couldn’t finish a sentence that told her he had to take the short bus back to the Chalfonte Home. For two mesmerizing seconds, he had been part of something. The whole cast and crew.
“Jeezus Ka-Riist, Shelfie, don’t be afraid! Spring play is my last play before college. I don’t want it to be jinxed.
“I…” Again he had a sentence in his mouth he could not finish.
“All you have to do is touch the farm and run.”
Ursula hesitated.
He wasn’t sure, but no boy in school had probably ever said no to anything she asked.
“Fuck, you don’t have a car, do you? You can ride with me and David. He’s not my boyfriend. He thinks he is. He can think all he wants.C’mon.”
“You scared, Shelfie?”
David was talking to him from the front seat. Ursula drove.
He had never before:
-Been in a private truck. Just a bus.
-Ridden in a vehicle with someone his age driving. He had only been driven by employees of the Chalfonte Home, who were all over sixty and very…sedate.
-Seen anyone his age drink alcohol in person, just in movies. David and Ursula pass a Stoli bottle back and forth, as though not finishing it before Carpenter’s Farm would cause them to explode.
-Had an erection in a moving vehicle. Maybe it was because of Ursula. Maybe it was because of David. Maybe it was because he was rebelling. He knew the definition of the word, but he had never done it. You obeyed at the Chalfonte Home or you went somewhere worse.
Ursula crossed the yellow lines of Leonard Road. Headlights came around the curve, at them.
He felt, for a minute, like that was what it felt like to be in a spotlight. He inhaled the lights until his eyes couldn’t take it and they slammed shut against his will.
Ursula swerved, laughing, holding the bottle, looking at him in the rearview.
“You’re not scared, are ya Shelfie?”
He wasn’t sure if they meant the driving or daring the Farm.
He might have been both. He might have been neither.
Does the Headmaster know what Carpenter’s Farm is? Does he know the tradition?
Will he be in less trouble if the Headmaster knows, or more?
What if he doesn’t touch the farm?
“You’re not gonna chicken out, are ya?”
David has a stupid smile on his face, staring at him through the mirror on the visor.
He wants to ask David why touching the farm is such a big deal.
“I…”
Before he can ask why it’s a big deal, Ursula swings all the way around to look at him.
“He’s not gonna chicken out. You’re not gonna chicken out, are ya?”
He is looking in her eyes; blue, which matched her Miranda costume, when the rear of the truck swings out, gravel shooting from the wheel into the undercarriage of the truck bed.
Ursula shrieks, and turns back to the wheel. She overcompensates and they cross the double yellow again. She’s not shrieking, she’s laughing.
Whatever is at Carpenter’s Farm must be strange, because Ursula doesn’t seem afraid of anything. Except jinxing the spring play.
What does an old farm have to do with a school play?
“You look scared, Shelfie. Fuck, Chalfonte Home is probably creepier than Carpenter’s Farm.”
“Be nice.” Ursula sounds admonishing, but in the rearview, he can still see her smiling.
“Maybe we should change the tradition. Maybe we should touch Chalfonte Home.” David laughs at his idea.
Ursula grimaces. “Don’t even say that. We aren’t changing anything.”
“Old Man Carpenter almost caught what’s-his-nuts, two years ago.”
Ursula laughs. “Almost doesn’t count.”
He blurts out “What happens if Old Man Carpenter does catch us?”
He can’t believe he spit out a sentence.
David and Ursula both hesitate. Then they laugh so hard that David lets spittle fly from his mouth.
He lets his head hang. Now he is scared. Not of being caught, of never being part of a world, never being privy to an inside joke.
“The whole cast and crew,” Ursula had said. He was part of that. Is part of that. But he doesn’t know their jokes, their language. He knows all their names, but they never call him by his.
If he dares Carpenter’s Farm, maybe he will be one of them. Maybe that’s all there is to it.
His initiation.
There are almost a dozen cars and trucks parked across the two-lane from Carpenter’s Farm. Honestly, he wouldn’t know for sure it was Carpenter’s Farm in the dark if the kids weren’t milling around. He never had a reason to care about it before. There are about 26 kids, he guesses. The cast and crew.
David pulls from his Stoli bottle.
All the kids are talking in hushed tones, although this many cars in Gibbons, anyplace but the bowling alley, is enough to attract attention without any voices.
“Wasn’t one of the farmhands that Old Man Carpenter killed a Shelfie, Shelfie?” David is sneering, slightly wobbly.
He shrugs. Carpenter’s Farm wasn’t a scary thing at the Chalfonte Home. Being sent to the State Youth Facility in Ionia was the only scary thing. They once sent a kid there just for smoking cigarettes.
Someone in the middle of the pack calls out, in a stage whisper, “I have the list. Beatrice is going first.”
A few people giggle, a few people groan.
“Damon, “ Ursula calls, her voice quiet, but theatrical and authoritative, “Did you put Shelfie on the list?”
There is a smattering of giggles and many of the eyes look his way.
“My…” He’s going to introduce himself, he’s going…
“Shelfie’s here?” Damon says. “Shelfie goes last.”
Many of the kids laugh and whoop, quietly.
A car passes, doesn’t slow down, goes around the curve, headed toward Brandon Township.
He realizes that if a car failed to make the turn coming the other way, it would plow right into the pack of kids. He shivers. If he’s honest with himself, he’s always been a bit apprehensive of things that are slight possibilities in his immediate future.
Beatrice goes first. She gets in a rust orange F-150 parked nearest Leonard Road.
Someone has removed the fuses so there are no tail lights of any kind.
A few kids murmur “Good luck, Beatrice, good luck, Bee”.
She backs across the road, parking just past the drainage ditch in front of Carpenter’s Farm. She is squarely in the driveway.
His heart hammers in his chest. He didn’t know that daring Carpenter’s Farm involved operating a vehicle. He doesn’t know the first thing about driving…anything. He rides in the back of a short bus. He looks out the window. Driving is not a thing even discussed. They probably don’t want the kids at the Chalfonte Home to think about stealing the bus.
Beatrice gets out of the driver’s side door and steps onto the gravel driveway.
He can see her feet and lower legs beneath the truck, in the moonlight, but the rest of her is obscured.
He hears before he sees her feet take off down the gravel. It is probably sixty feet to the front of the house. Beatrice runs past it. She is along the side of the house.
He sees shadows and has no idea what they are.
Clouds dance in front of the moon, a quarter-mile down is one lone county-owned safety light, and one tiny speck of light way back at the old barn.
She touches the house easily fifteen feet past the front. She seems to hesitate, then runs back for the truck.
Reading his mind, Ursula says “You have to count to three when you’re touching the house or the dare is no good. You gotta do it again.”
Beatrice is across the street again, exiting the truck, and Max, one of the boys who played a spirit is getting in, smoothly and confidently.
Max doesn’t even close the driver’s side door. Just backs out as if he’s been driving backward with a door open his whole life.
He watches Max with a mixture of envy and terror. His stomach is starting to hurt. Not a horrible pain, but the slight pain in the area when your bowels are loosened and ready to go.
The house is secondary now. He’s mortified that everyone will find out he doesn’t know how to operate a vehicle. There are pedals. One is the gas, one is the brake. But which is which?
Some of these kids are freshmen. Do they all know how to drive?
They all seem to. One thin, wispy girl, Rita, giggling nervously as she gets in the truck, almost goes into the ditch at the end of the Carpenter driveway. But she doesn’t. As if to compensate for her bad driving, she holds on to the house for a solid five count.
She pulls across and gets out of the truck.
“I felt something,” she says, and the kids who are still paying attention all laugh. Some of the kids who have dared Carpenter’s Farm already are near the back of the cars, passing a joint and a bottle.
“No, really”, Rita says. There is more laughter, but David is unconcerned with Rita’s report. He is already climbing in the F-150. With the Stoli bottle.
Ursula says, “David, give me the bottle”, but David slams the door.
Slams it. Everyone looks.
By the reaction, the stares, the grumbles, this is a major transgression. David is drunk. He puts the truck in reverse.
The whole group goes silent. Everyone is now looking toward Carpenter’s Farm.
Did Old Man Carpenter hear the door slam?
David backs into the Carpenter driveway. Nothing seems any different from the other attempts.
David gets out, runs down the driveway, becoming visible just before the front of the house. He spins to touch the house with his left hand. He’s going to swig the vodka using his right. He’s showing off. He’s showing off for Ursula.
People giggle. What a ham. Scenery chewer.
It’s hard to see what he’s doing, but he’s taking a long time.
Ursula says “David” in a lyrical, yet impatient way, “Daaa — -vid…”
“Fuck!”
All the kids hear him. If anyone is in the house — and that’s the assumption, that Old Man Carpenter is in the house, Old Man Carpenter who might have killed a farmhand, who might have been a Shelfie, who might have almost caught a guy two years ago, — had to have heard that shout.
David is now back across Leonard Road, out of the truck, winded, still swearing.
“I lost my fucking vodka!”
Ursula hissed at him. “Shutup David, you probably woke up Old Man Carpenter.”
There was no musical theater tone in her voice at all. She was legit angry.
“That old guy ain’t gonna do shit.”
“ If he tells us we can’t come on his property it will jinx the spring play.”
David snorted. “Grab the vodka when it’s your turn.”
Ursula folded her arms across her chest. “No, it was almost gone anyway.”
“Just grab it,” David said. Ursula turned her back to him.
Connor was next, the stage manager, hopping in the truck. His eyelids were sleepy stoned but his eyeballs were truly frightened.
“Grab my Stoli, Connor.”
Connor shook his head. Now his eyes said no fucking way.
“If Carpenter gets me, it’s your fault for screaming.”
Connor waited longer than anyone to put the car in reverse. He keeps the door open just like Max.
Connor brakes hard in Carpenter’s driveway. The tires sound different when they hit the gravel. Not louder but…thicker. The door partially closes on Connor as he tries to climb out of the truck.
He stumbles, but by the time his torso becomes visible behind the truck bed he is at a full gallop.
He touches Carpenter’s Farm.
Ursula turns.
“Shelfie, ya ready? You’re almost up.”
“I…do-don’t
“Shutup, you can do it. Rita did it for god’s sake. You’ll be fine.”
Some of the kids start to murmur, mumbling “Connor.” His hand is glued to the farmhouse, well past three seconds. Well past ten seconds.
Ursula turns to face Carpenter’s Farm, then back again.
“You don’t have to show off like Connor. Just touch the farmhouse, count to three, and run back to the truck.”
It’s the truck he is worried about. His bowels are really loose now, he’s actively trying not to soil himself. For the first time since they arrived, he stares at the ground.
He can hear, almost feel, the truck pull back to the starting point.
Connor falls out of the truck and crawls, on all fours, back past one of the other cars. It looks comical. Some of the kids laugh.
It is Ursula’s turn. She walks toward the truck.
Someone bellows “noooooooo”. It’s Connor. Connor sounds physically wounded.
A few kids laugh.
Ursula pauses, startled, even shocked.
He wants to follow Ursula, see how she makes the truck go in reverse. See how she pushes the pedals. He steps forward and Connor bellows “nooooooooo” again. Everyone looks at him. Connor is in a fetal position. Rita kneels next to him. “Are you hurt, Connor? What happened?”
Connor is gasping. Like he’s been crying.
“Dooon’t touch the house. Dooon’t. Doe-wunt.”
David spits. “He’s just stoned.”
Connor bellows “nooooooo” again.
Ursula climbs into the truck.
He has lost his opportunity for a driving lesson. Connor is trying to tell Rita something. A few more kids are gathered around him.
Ursula backs the truck out.
There is a flash of lights. Headlights. No one was watching the road. They were all watching Connor.
Tires squeal. No brakes, just a swerve. The car-a four-door, dark, is heading toward them. The car’s brights flood the area. More squealing tires. Now some brakes, way too late- a horn.
The car swerves back, straighter onto Leonard Road, well past everyone, off into the night, still leaning on the horn.
Ursula and the truck are safely in the driveway of Carpenter’s Farm. But anyone in that house is awake now. They must be.
Connor is talking in semi-complete sentences now.
“I can’t describe it. But there is something there. A presence. A thought. Thoughts.”
Connor’s speech is broken up by interjections.
“Shutup.”
“No way”
“You’re stoned, Connor”.
Ursula is touching Carpenter’s Farm. But now she is bending down.
Getting David’s Stoli?
Her hand is still touching the farm, but she is kneeling and shaking.
She screams.
It is pain more than fright. But the timbre changes. Is it fear, then pain?
It is her singing voice, changing pitch, and hitting octaves, unlike any song they sing in drama club.
He runs. He runs across the two-lane, and onto the driveway and past the F-150, motor still running.
He is running to help her. This is not what she planned on doing. This is not a joke or part of the dare he expected. At best, she broke her ankle. But no one breaks a bone and sings like that.
He hears his feet on the gravel. Only his feet. Is this some elaborate trick being played on the Shelfie, the newbie? Some of the other kids looked scared when they climbed in the truck. But they are actors. Have they tricked him? Will he just look like a fool?
If it is an act, Ursula is amazing. Her hand, still touching the farm, is contorted at a weird angle, she’s not kneeling but crouched.
There is no animal trap attached to her leg, there is no loose power wire shocking her.
He grabs her under the arms, lifts and straightens her.
She looks at him as though she’d never seen another human being. Puzzled, but happy. Does someone who is happy make sounds like she did?
“Thank you, Shelfie”, she says, but there is confusion in her voice.
She steps away from him and walks toward the truck. He watches her walk. She is graceful again, graceful like she is on stage. Normal, but superior. A star, he thinks.
She turns and looks at him.
“Ohmigod that was amazing,” she says, her voice still a song, but more human now.
Ursula turns and jogs to the truck, hopping in and peeling out, kicking up gravel.
He is here now, next to Carpenter’s Farm. Does it count if he touches it without driving reverse in the truck?
Is there anything to be afraid of? Is this part of a still in motion trick they are playing on the weird kid from the weird home?
“You don’t have to show off, just touch the farmhouse, count to three and run…
He reaches out with his left hand and touches Carpenter’s Farm. He is facing the cast and crew.
He is part of something.
“One.”
The house is warm, way warmer than any house should be in Michigan in the fall. Unless it was about to explode.
“Two.”
His ears get warm. Something is talking to him. No. Thinking at him. He wants to pull away, but it won’t be three yet. He can see the cars across the street. The kids, the cast and crew. He just has to hold on for three. And he has to turn and see the willow trees. He has to. That is part of the dare now, turn and look.
He spins around without letting go of Carpenter’s Farm.
He sees the willow trees, he sees more than that. He sees. He sees
This is not a prank, a trick, he is part of something now.
Part of the cast and crew, but more than that. He understands.
He wants to look deeper past the willow trees. They light up.
Trees don’t light up.
He swings back around.
Headlights. In the driveway of Carpenter’s Farm.
Three. He is at three. He must be.
A figure is walking toward him. He does not want to let go of Carpenter’s Farm, but he must.
He must run from this figure.
It’s not David, looking for his vodka. The lights are blinding him, but he knows this.
It is a tall, adult man.
Is this Old Man Carpenter? Is this the trick? They knew he would return at a certain time and set it up so the Shelfie would get busted?
But what about the house, the thoughts, the vision?
The figure comes closer.
He must run back. He cannot run into the willow trees. That’s not part of the dare. If he does that, he will not be part of the group, the cast, and crew. He will not take that risk.
The man is getting closer. Speaking, but he cannot hear him, or won’t hear him. He must run past him and keep going.
Across. To the group.
He runs. The man in the blinding headlights steps over, in front of him. He can’t see to either side of the driveway. The light is only here, surrounding him.
He lowers his shoulder and knocks the man over. Losing his balance himself, but rolling and continuing to run.
The kids are frozen across the street, some crouching behind cars.
He can see fear in all their eyes. All of them.
A voice calls from behind.
It is a man’s voice. It is not Old Man Carpenter. He knows this.
Old Man Carpenter is out beyond the willows.
He knows this voice.
It calls Matt!? Matt!?
“Matt!” The voice is incensed. The headmaster of the Chalfonte School is furious.
“Matt, come here this instant!”
He does not go there that instant. He is different now. He crosses the two-lane and runs onto the field. The kids are still scared, but some are smiling, laughing
The Headmaster is marching toward the group.
“Matt! Damn You!”
Car and truck headlights start to blink on.
It is confusing, kaleidoscopic, but he sees clearly.
Ursula says “Matt, get in!”
He gets in. Everything is different now.
He sees things more clearly. He understands more. Not everything, but more. He understands himself.
He is in the front seat of Ursula’s truck.
She is pulling out onto Leonard Road, skidding across the gravel on the shoulder.
The truck bounces out onto the solid pavement.
“Ohmigod, Matt, that was fucking epic!
He can hear her. He can feel her.
But he is looking at himself in the mirror on the visor.
He is smiling.
He has a name.
He is Matt.
He is part of something. He shares knowledge and an experience with a small group of people. And he has knowledge all his own.
He is Matt. It says so on the nametag he wears to work at Bookman’s General.
He sees it in the reflection on the floor as he mops.
He is Matt.
And he is content.
Photo credits: Top: Ahmed Hasan Middle: Clo-Art Bottom: Jeremy Bishop. All on Unsplash
Loved this. Longest piece of yours I've read and my favorite.