Vacation by Deb Olin Unferth

back in the transport and return to the hotel. This is a fine adventure and many others are available as well but one has to choose, one always must.
    And a few blocks from where his feet now rested was Nicaragua’s very own indoor, climate-controlled shopping mall, built in the happy tradition of Victor Gruen, a confirmation of Nicaragua’s social and aesthetic alignment with the modern. The guidebook had an impressive list of items Myers could purchase and take back to his country, and had a photograph of the escalator he could ride and of the food court he’d reach at the top. He could see it for himself if he followed the little map over the sidewalks and through the labyrinth of traffic. Who knew what awaited him on the other side of the street if he’d only step across? And there’s no sense in acting like a snob about it, acting like you’re going to come all the way here and not want to shop, no sense in that, because everyone knows that everyone wants to shop no matter where you’re from or who you are, everyone wants to, everyone. What else did you come all the way here for, if not to seize and take back what you also have at home?
    Myers,
    Regional manager here. I don’t believe we’ve come to a good understanding about the phone call that took place between us. I believe something went wrong between my voice and your ears, between your mouth and my phone, between my words and your deeds, between the wires, Myers, between one hotel and another, between one thought and the next. I’m talking about you. Your thoughts, your feet. They did not, I notice, bring you and your laptop back here. You’ve got until tomorrow. I’m shoving your desk over a cliff in the morning. I’ll watch it smash on the rocks below.
    The country also featured any number of “volunteers” at any given time. These volunteers, not unlike Santa’s elves, hailed from Myers’s very own country as well as from helpful guilt-ridden European ones, such as Germany. He could observe these volunteers in a wild-habitat location and witness their good works for himself. The country was stuffed with these people, frankly, so much so that sometimes they couldn’t quite fit and had to be tied together with bamboo rope and sent home on a raft. But this year the country had just the right amount of volunteers and you could glimpse them from several vantage points, taking a break from their labors of latrine digging and stair building or from making their solemn advisements in regards to matters of business, religion, childcare, gardening, and diplomacy. The Nicaraguans are careful with them. They don’t burn the volunteers by leaving them out too long in the sun or drown them by throwing them into the sea. They don’t place them under a mango tree, because a piece of fruit could fall on their heads and knock them over. They don’t lock the volunteers out in the rain or accidentally run them over with their trucks. They feed them every day and encourage them to propagate among themselves. The Nicaraguans don’t say things like, What do you think, that we can’t perfectly well dig our own toilets? Get out of the way, would you? Go build your stairs over there where no one will trip on them, for Pete’s sake. They never say that. Because it’s not easy out there for the volunteers with only their little sewing machines and toy shovels to work with. Besides, it’s nice to have them around. It’s a lot better than getting exploded by hundred-pound bombs. It’s a lot better than getting smeared into vapors in the air.
    Myers, you old crater-head,
    Glad you decided to come. Nicaragua is the most beautiful place in the world. So you’re married, old man. I didn’t know. Congratulations, I say! Bring her over, I’d love to meet her. I don’t know what I can answer for you.
I haven’t had much luck in the on-the-hook myself—I’m a divorcé with a leftover shoot, as you might have read in the alumni notes. But I’ll advise as best I