On the train ride home, I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened that day at work with my boss. Since she’s the director of our organization, I rarely have reason to interact with her at all. That’s my supervisor’s job, so being summoned to her office felt like a big deal. And it was, I quickly discovered. She chewed me out, all over nothing, really. A perceived slight she took personally. I thought she was going to fire me on the spot.
As the train lurched from one stop to the next, I tried to push my worries away but grew more frustrated instead. All the annoying little things about riding the trains soon had me seething with rage. I hated each and every person around me, from the jerk blocking the seat beside him with his bag to the woman sitting nearby who thought it was perfectly acceptable to stink up the entire car with her greasy takeout. And then there were the unexplained delays between stations that had us sitting for two, three, four minutes at a time without moving. When the dispatcher bothered making an announcement, it was so loud many passengers plugged their ears, yet the static interference made it impossible to decipher what was being said. It was shaping up to be one of those particularly bad commutes that feels like it will never end.
By the time we finally pulled into the 14th Street station, I was in such a foul mood I wanted to hit something, and hit it hard. While racing to make the transfer to the L train, I noticed something was blocking the flow of traffic up ahead. Everyone was maneuvering to the left but could only go so far with the onslaught of passengers marching in the opposite direction. Getting closer, I saw a man sitting on the floor with a brown blanket spread before him, covered by some sort of dolls. Great, I thought. Here was another jerk keeping me from getting home in peace. It’d been such a long, awful day already. But then, the cardboard sign hanging on the gate behind him caught my eye. In crude letters, like a child had written them with a crayon, the sign read: Homeless Devil Dolls. The word homeless hovered above the rest, making me think the man was announcing he was homeless and therefore asking you to buy the toys to help him out. I would have passed by without a second thought since I never stop for anything while commuting – no charitable causes, no petitions, and no engaging with panhandlers – but my eyes landed on one of his dolls, and, suddenly, I couldn’t look away. Smirking, I realized this particular doll reminded me of my boss, who’d called me into her office just hours earlier. I stepped off to the side as much as I could, not wanting to upset the flow of straphangers trying to make their connection. Still not close enough to attract the man’s attention, I took a closer look at the dolls. Each one was different, though all of them were constructed in the same crude, haphazard way. One was green with long, skinny arms and legs hanging from a round body, reminding me of Kermit the Frog. The head didn’t match, however; it was small and brown with two white horns poking out from the top. The cluster of pebbles glued to its side made the doll appear grossly diseased. They were all like that, various stuffed animals that had been ripped apart and reconstructed before someone had glued or tied or stapled random objects to them in different places. One had twigs wrapped around its body, another had eight or nine plastic legs dangling down like tentacles. Two had messages written across their torsos: Get Yours and It Hurts Less Now. Others wore clothes, making them more humanlike.
The doll that reminded me of my boss had a purple turtleneck stretched over an ample bosom and a tight leather skirt paired with knee-high leather boots. It was a ridiculous outfit, for a doll or a woman in her sixties. The sparse strands of straw-colored yarn across its head made me think of her short, thinning hair, and the lips were the same too, blood-red. Two lines of black felt represented the eyes, each with long black lashes that had been drawn on with a permanent marker. Again, this was just like my boss, who always extended her eyelashes out with thick, clumpy mascara that reminded me of a tarantula’s legs.
Upon closer inspection, I could see that all the dolls were dirty and stained, yet there was something mesmerizing about them. Before I could stop myself, I approached the man sitting with his legs crossed to find out more. I can’t remember what he looked like exactly, other than to say he was older with graying hair and had dirt beneath his long, yellow fingernails. No matter how hard I try to remember his face, I can’t.
“You homeless?” I asked.
He peered up at me. “My home is all around,” he responded after a few moments, in a slow drawl that was vaguely southern. “But they homeless,” he added, waving his hand over the dolls.
“Why do you call them devil dolls?”
“They a lotta devils in the world,” he answered. “You got a devil on you?”
Though he seemed harmless enough, I figured he must have been mentally ill, or possibly drunk. “How much are they?”
“How much you got?”
“Look, I’ll give you five dollars for that one,” I said, pointing to the doll that reminded me of my boss.
“You sure ‘bout that?”
“Alright, fine,” I said, assuming he was haggling. “Ten dollars.”
He smiled. “Ten it is.”
I pulled my wallet out and gave him the money. He handed the doll up but didn’t let go when I grabbed it. He tightened his grip, staring up at me with what I believe were mud-brown eyes. “You be careful now, ya hear?”
Without letting go, he kept his gaze fixed on me until I agreed, though I had no idea what he was yammering on about. He let the doll go, revealing crooked, yellow teeth; his dark gums receded so far back it made his canines seem unnaturally long. There was also his skin, so ashen, and the deep wrinkles cutting across his forehead made me think he was much older than I originally thought. So many things about him I remember, but the individual details never coalesce to form a whole.
I walked away, carrying my devil doll in one hand while heading for the stairs down to the L train. I held it by the arm, dragging it along like a child might carry a favorite toy. Not until after I’d boarded the train and reached my stop did I realize I was still holding it like that. Embarrassed, I looked around, but no one seemed to notice or care. I shoved the doll inside my bag and got in line with the departing passengers, joining their flow up the stairs and back out to the world beyond the tunnels underground.
Back in my apartment, I placed the doll near the lamp on the table and sat down on the couch. I stared at the doll, imagining she was my boss. I laughed aloud, wondering what had come over me to buy such garbage. It felt like the doll was staring back, but I knew she didn’t care, not about my bad day or anything else. She was an inanimate object, pieced together by someone with a troubled mind. It was just a coincidence that she reminded me of my boss, the woman who had called me into her office that day to lecture me about the email I’d sent to everyone. In the message, I asked if anyone knew of an alternative place to have lunch. We once had a staff breakroom, but in her infinite wisdom, our director had it converted into a conference space that can be rented out for events by other departments. We have a small pantry with a fridge to keep our lunches, but there was some event that day, and the caterer had everything blocked off. So, not only was I out of a place to have lunch, but I couldn’t even retrieve my sandwich.
I was annoyed but didn’t think my email was inappropriate.
“Your email was inappropriate,” she told me through gritted teeth. “This is a place of business. We don’t have to provide you a place to eat.”
I didn’t know what to say. I had clearly upset her.
“Why don’t you just eat at your desk?”
“And risk getting rats? Isn’t that what happened up here?”
“Mice,” she corrected me. “It was just a few mice. And we don’t need you repeating that issue to anyone.”
Actually, she was right. It was only a few mice, but they wreaked havoc, chewing through wires, leaving droppings in desk drawers, and causing an administrative assistant to jump up in her chair and scream when she felt one run across her feet – she almost fell, which would have been a disaster of worker’s comp for our director.
I tried explaining that we can’t eat at our desks anyway, not downstairs. We do careful, meticulous work preserving and restoring materials – it’s too risky to have food or drinks nearby, and we certainly can’t afford an infestation of bugs or rodents. Our director should know this. But she has a weird thing about food. No one has ever seen her eat, not even at our holiday gatherings when a catered lunch is provided. I once had an awkward encounter with her in the pantry. There was a leftover plate of fruit from some event. She walked in as I was helping myself, so I said something about how it was nice to have a healthy snack for a change. “I don’t like fruit,” she said with a completely straight face. She didn’t single out which fruit she didn’t like but instead insisted that it’s all bad. I mean, what kind of monster doesn’t like fruit?
After dismissing me, she called my supervisor in for a chat. He later told me he’d never seen her so worked up. She wanted to fire me, he said, for supposedly criticizing her in such a public way. He assured me it’d blow over, that she was obviously overreacting. But he also told me to never send an email like that again. “You don’t want to get on her bad side,” he warned, though I figured it was too late for that.
“What a bitch,” I said to no one but the devil doll sitting across from me. I stood and walked over, staring down at the stupid leather skirt that reminded me of my boss. I picked her up and slammed her head against the table as hard as I could. It felt so good I did it again, nine or ten times.
That was Friday. The following Monday, I knew something was wrong as soon as I arrived at work. I could feel it in the air, this heavy tension. While putting my things away, my supervisor came out with a grim look on his face. He asked if I’d heard about what happened over the weekend, to our director. “She was in an accident,” he explained. “That freak thing in midtown that’s been all over the news. Something fell off a building, like a huge chunk of concrete. It hit her in the head.”
“What? Is she …”
“Yeah, it was instant.”
No one could talk about anything else. Due to the shock of the news, many people left early, though I couldn’t help but wonder if they just used the incident as an excuse to get out of work. It’s not like any of us were close to her. And no one liked her. Regularly referred to as the vindictive viper, she was a tyrant in every way, quick to discipline anyone who dared to question her judgement.
I stayed the full day, unable to shake the thought that I was somehow responsible for our director’s untimely death. It made no sense, of course, but I still felt guilty. After she’d called me into her office that Friday, I was mad, wishing that something terrible would happen to her. But it was only a passing thought, one that was perfectly normal given the circumstances. I didn’t really want her dead. Even if I’d let my imagination get carried away, it didn’t mean anything. Yet, when I slammed the devil doll’s head against the table, had I unleashed something dark into the world that I couldn’t take back?
The train ride home wasn’t so bad that evening. Just as I reached 14th Street, I decided I had to talk to the homeless guy who sold me the doll. I darted in and out of the flow of commuters, racing to the spot where I saw him before, but no one was there. Near the stairs leading down to the L train, I found a woman selling gaudy gold jewelry. I looked around but didn’t see the man anywhere. Maybe he’d moved on to a different station or left the city altogether.
At home, I found the devil doll where I’d left her on the table. When I picked her up, a chill ran down my spine. She felt unnaturally warm, like she’d been sitting in the sun for hours even though the curtains were drawn and my apartment was completely dark. I carried the devil doll over to the garbage, dropped her inside, and then pulled the bag out and hastily tied it. I raced down the stairs of my building and shoved the bag inside one of the garbage cans, smashing it deep down, hoping to bury the evidence of a crime I couldn’t quite define.
Breathlessly, and much slower, I made my way back upstairs and poured myself a tumbler of whiskey. I kept jumping up to pace back and forth through my apartment – I couldn’t stay still, even after the second glass, and then the third.
It was me, I felt sure – I had caused her death. And somehow, the devil doll I’d just tossed had something to do with it. The more I drank, the more it made sense. And the more it made sense, the more I realized I had to do something. There was a man out there selling these awful dolls to anyone who happened to stroll by. In the wrong hands, terrible things could happen.
Eventually, I fell asleep. In a dream, the dolls converged around me, fully animated and alive, though I didn’t find it strange at all. They took turns whispering their secrets into my ear, things I couldn’t later recall. The only thing I can remember clearly is how they assured me everything would be ok. They were on it.
Despite not setting an alarm, I woke the next morning right on time, feeling refreshed and ready to face the day, and lighter, somehow. The feelings of guilt about what happened to my boss had mostly disappeared, much like the doll itself.
At work, I noticed a subtle sense of excitement in the air. Something had finally happened to disrupt our otherwise dull, uneventful days. Obviously, everyone thought what happened to our boss was tragic, but did anyone really care? And would anyone miss her? Before she arrived, we’d gone two years without a director, and everything sailed along just fine. A search for someone new would soon commence, and life would go on as it always does. In the meantime, we had something to talk about that made the day pass by just a little faster.
During my ride home that evening on the train, I thought of the man and his devil dolls, and how upset I’d gotten at the idea that he was blocking the flow of traffic along the platform. I smiled, realizing he hadn’t stood in my way at all. If anything, he’d unblocked something inside me, shaking it loose so I could leave it behind. While reveling in my newfound peace, a strong, fragrant odor suddenly assaulted my senses. It was a woman who had just gotten on the train who must have doused herself in the cheapest perfume she could find. Someone nearby started coughing loudly, and a man further away sneezed without bothering to cover his face. I could almost see the microbes spreading across the confined space of the train car, threatening to infect us all. That flicker of rage started to rise again, but I knew I was getting out at the next stop and told myself to be patient, that this was just part of riding the trains – it was a daily exercise in restraint, of telling yourself you don’t really wish death upon the strangers who cough and sneeze and pick their noses and jab you in the side because they’re not paying attention to anything but the glowing screen in their hand.
Breathe, I told myself – but not too deeply.
When the train stopped and the doors finally opened, I joined the swell of passengers bursting forth like prisoners making their escape. I was part of the flow, and to pause or slow down at all would have invited the risk of being pushed over and trampled upon. So I followed the others up the stairs to the more forgiving space of the wider platform, managing to step aside to gather my bearings. Up ahead, I saw the sign: Homeless Devil Dolls. I inched closer and closer, but the man didn’t notice me watching him so carefully. I examined his dolls, seeing a totally different selection spread across the dingy brown blanket. And then something crashed into me from behind, almost causing me to topple over. I guess I was the one blocking the flow of traffic this time. With his giant white bag slung across one shoulder, he must have never seen me at all, and he didn’t bother stopping to ask if I was ok, or to apologize. He didn’t even turn around, so I only caught a partial view of his face. He had frizzy dark hair and wore round, black glasses. His baggy acid wash jeans made me think of all the hipsters I hate who travel back and forth between Brooklyn and Manhattan via the L train.
And then, I glanced down at the devil dolls, noticing that one of them looked like the guy who had just about knocked me over. It had on a pair of bulky acid wash jeans, and black yarn had been used to make an outline of perfectly round glasses, though the eyes themselves were absent. The doll even carried a large white bag, stapled to its side.
“Hey,” the man said, looking up. “You get that devil off your back?”
“Yeah, I did,” I heard myself answering. All the dolls started looking familiar in some way. One wore a little red hat, reminding me of a former roommate who’d ripped me off for months by overcharging rent; another had globs of snot-like glue stuck to its face, making me think of a coworker who was always blowing his nose into the same disgusting hanky. It seemed this range of devil dolls had been created just for me.
“As you can see,” he said, waving his arm over the dolls, “we got more to go around.” I remember so much about him but still can’t conjure up a clear image of his face.
“I want them,” I said. “All of them.” I did a quick count. There were ten dolls, which meant it would be $100 for the whole lot.
He looked up at me, cocking his head to the side. “You got a lotta devils on you.”
“Yeah, I do,” I agreed, reaching for my wallet.
Cameron L. Mitchell grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. His work has appeared in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Queer South Anthology, Litro Magazine, Across the Margin, Literary Orphans, and a few other places. He lives in New York and works in archives at Columbia University. Find him on Instagram: @hendecam
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