Stan made knots but not on purpose. Whenever he held in his twittering hands a length of what-have-you—a rope, a lace, a hose, a cord, a ribbon—it would invariably become knotted, hopelessly knotted. He didn’t even have to try. The knots would just happen, they would materialize out of nothingness, and they would be tight and cunning and inexorable. A longshoreman couldn’t make these knots. A riverboat captain couldn’t make these knots. A whaler couldn’t make these knots. A lobsterman couldn’t make these knots. Stan was making knots that were previously unknown to science. Mathematicians puzzled over these knots. The mathematicians were like, What? What is going on with these knots? These knots are crazy! Stan’s knots bobbed and weaved and wended and whorled in ways that didn’t make any goddamn sense. These knots were like an optical illusion, like a Mobius strip times a thousand, like an M.C. Escher painting but knot. These knots shouldn’t have existed, but they did. Somehow, despite everything humans knew about physics and sinusoids and shoelaces, they existed. These knots were knots that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a top-secret navy shipyard, in a special hangar devoted to cutting-edge knot technology. Area 88, perhaps, because an 8 looks a bit like a knot.
Locals called Stan the Knot Guru. Charlie Ginger, local curmudgeon, wanted to call him the Knot Kning—he thought the extra n in King would be a clever touch—but Old Man Griffith pointed out that that moniker would suggest two silent k’s and thus would be pronounced not ning. Charlie Ginger argued that Old Man Griffith was overthinking it, that folks would get that kning should be pronounced king. It turned out to be a whole thning. The disagreement did not come to blows but it came close. In the end, Old Man Griffith and his posse of librarians, stenographers, and entomologists won the day. Charlie Ginger, his ego bruised but not broken, slunk away to his summer home in upstate New York, where he would lick his wounds and plan his next lexicographical assault.
They haven’t heard the last of me, Charlie Ginger whispered to himself as he slunk northward.
But the truth is they had. They had heard the last of him, for Charlie Ginger would perish later that June when he was struck upon the head by a large rock—gneiss, ironically enough—that had fallen out of the rucksack of a biplane pilot and professional skywriter while he was making big looping cursive letters, stark white against the bright cobalt sky.
Charlie Ginger had stood there in the clearing behind his summer house, gazing skyward, mouth agape, marveling at the artistic flair and technical skill of the pilot. The calligraphic text was so beautiful and florid that Stan half-expected the written message to be one of timeless wisdom, an ancient koan perhaps or a snippet of Shakespeare, but it was just an ad for Arby’s, for Arby’s new double roast beef deluxe, with curly fries in the fucking sandwich.
Wait…on or in, the biplane pilot wondered. Shit, she couldn’t remember. She chastised herself: why hadn’t she written it down? In didn’t make sense; the curly fries weren’t embedded within the folds of roast beef product or anything. But on made it sound like the curly fries would be placed atop the bun, which was an idea so ludicrous that it did not even warrant consideration.
She was putting the finishing touches on the y in curly, so she had to decide goddamn quick. She’d taken the call from Arby himself earlier that day, but she’d been distracted by the news about her mother. Charlie Ginger’s mouth gaped. Nice, he said to the wind. So nice.