The two bruisers bind your arms behind your back with those plastic railroad ties that seem so fragile but don’t break for the world. Your legs, too, are tied and wrapped somehow between your legs so if you kick your balls take the punishment of a stampede. And then, because it was Houdini’s thing, they drop you into a potato sack and an old wooden box. You hear grunts, see nothing, and know that they’re carrying you. They feed you into the trunk of a car the way they might feed a chicken carcass to an alligator.

You kick, and you curse. You picture the man responsible, and you curse louder. You see him smiling, posing for a family portrait. You don’t know his family.

“I’m going to kill all of you,” you scream. All you can hear is Greek music. You kick again and feel the rope snap tightly across your genitals. You know that the pain will be bad, but you have to try. The other option is much worse. You kick and hear the wood crack. Again, and the end of the box slaps open like a mouth being punched, feet escaping like a tooth. You kick again, at the roof, anywhere. Nothing happens.

When the car stops you smell the fish-blood smell of the ocean. It sounds like the entire country is murmuring behind your back. The trunk opens. The two men grunt. You imagine the wooden dock, sand worn. Would the box have floated if you hadn’t kicked out the bottom?