The wooden top half of the stocks swings closed to hold him around the neck, and I snug it down, careful not to pinch his skin. I say, "Sorry, dude, that's got to be way cold." Then I do the padlock. Then I fish a rag out of my waistcoat pocket.

A clear little drop of snot dangles off the tip of Denny's nose, so I hold the rag against it and say, "Blow, dude."

Denny blows a long rattling goob I feel slam into the rag.

The rag's pretty nasty and full already, but all I'd have to do is offer him a nice clean facial tissue and I'd be next in line for a dis­ciplinary action. There's about countless ways you can screw up around here.

On the back of his head, somebody's felt-penned "Eat me" in bright red, so I shake out his shitty wig and try to cover the writ­ing, except the wig's soaked full of nasty brown water that trickles around the shaved sides of his head and drips off the tip of his nose.

"I'm banished for sure," he says and sniffs.

Cold and starting to shake, Denny says, "Dude, I feel air. . . . I think my shirt's pulled out of my breeches in back."

He's right, and tourists are shooting his butt crack from every angle. The colonial governor is eyeballing this, and the tourists keep right on taping as I grab Denny's waistband in both hands and tug it back up.

Denny says, "The good part about being in the stocks is I've racked up three weeks of sobriety." He says, "At least this way I can't go in the privy every half hour and, you know, beat off."

And I say, "Careful with that recovery stuff, dude. You're li­able to explode."

I take his left hand and lock it in place, then his right hand. Denny's spent so much of this past summer in the stocks he has white rings around his wrists and neck where he never gets any sun.

"Monday," he says, "I forgot and wore my wristwatch."

The wig slides off again, landing smack wet in the mud. His cravat, soaked in snot and crap, flaps in his face. The Japanese all giggle as if this is a gag we'd rehearsed.

The colonial governor keeps staring at Denny and me for signs of us being historically inappropriate so he can lobby the town council to banish us to the wilderness, just boot us out the town gate and let the savages shoot arrows and massacre our un­em­ployed butts.

"Tuesday," Denny tells my shoes, "His Highness saw I had Chap Stick on my lips."

Every time I pick up the stupid wig, it weighs more. This time I slap it against the side of my boot before spreading it over the "Eat me" words.

"This morning," Denny says and sniffs. He spits some brown gunk that got in his mouth. "Before lunch, Goodwife Landson caught me smoking a cigarette behind the meetinghouse. Then, while I'm bent over here, somebody's little shitface fourth-grader grabs my wig off and writes that shit on my head."

With my snot rag I wipe the worst of the mess away from his eyes and mouth.

Some black-and-white chickens, chickens with no eyes or only one leg, these deformed chickens wander over to peck at the shiny buckles on my boots. The black­smith keeps beating his metal, two fast and then three slow beats, again and again, that you know is the bass line to an old Radiohead song he likes. Of course, he's ripped out of his mind on ecstasy.

A little milkmaid I know named Ursula catches my eye, and I shake my fist in front of my crotch, giving her the universal sign language for hand job. Blushing under her starchy white hat, Ur­sula slips a dainty pale hand out of her apron pocket and gives me the finger. Then she goes to jerk off some lucky cow all after­noon. That, and I know she lets the king's constable feel her up because one time he let me sniff his fingers.

Even from here, even over the horse shit, you can smell the reefer coming off her in a fog.

Milking cows, churning butter, for sure you know milkmaids must give great hand jobs.

"Goodwife Landson's a bitch," I tell Denny. "The minister guy says she gave him a scorching case of herpes."

Yeah, she's a Yankee blue blood from nine to five, but behind her back everybody knows she went to high school in Springburg where the whole football team knew her as Douche Lamprini.

This time the nasty wig stays in place. The colonial governor gives up glowering at us and goes inside the Customs House. The tourists wander on to other photo opportunities. It starts to rain.

"It's okay, dude," Denny says. "You don't have to stand out here with me."

This is just, for sure, another shitty day in the eighteenth cen­tury.

You wear an earring, you go to jail. Color your hair. Pierce your nose. Put on deodorant. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect jack shit.

The Lord High Governor bends Denny over at least twice a week, for chewing tobacco, for wearing cologne, shaving his head.

Nobody in the 1730s had a goatee, His Governess will lecture Denny.

And Denny will sass him back, "Maybe the real cool colonists did."

And it's back to the stocks for Denny.

Our joke is Denny and me have been codependent since 1734. That's how far back we go. Since we met in a sexaholics meeting. Denny showed me an ad in the classifieds, and we both came to the same job interview.

Just being curious, at the interview, I asked if they'd hired a village whore yet.

The town council just looks at me. The hiring committee, even where nobody can see them, all six old guys wear those fake colonial wigs. They write everything with feathers, from birds, dipped in ink. The one in the middle, the colonial governor, sighs. He leans back so he can look at me through his wire-framed glasses. "Colonial Duns­boro," he says, "doesn't have a vil­lage whore."

Then I say, "Then how about the village idiot?"

The governor shakes his head, no.

"Pickpocket?"

No.

"Hangman?"

Certainly not.

This is the worst problem with living history museums. They always leave the best parts out. Like typhus. And opium. And scarlet letters. Shunning. Witch-burning.

"You've been warned," the governor says, "that all aspects of your behavior and appearance must coincide with our official pe­riod in history."

My job is I'm supposed to be some Irish indentured servant. For six dollars an hour, it's incredibly realistic.

The first week I was here, a girl got canned for humming an Erasure song while she was churning butter. It's like, yeah, Era­sure is historic, but not historic enough. Even somebody as an­cient as the Beach Boys can get you in trouble. It's like they don't even think of their stupid powdered wigs and breeches and buckle shoes as retro.

His Highness, he forbids tattoos. Nose rings have to stay in your locker while you're at work. You can't chew gum. You can't whistle any songs by the Beatles.

"Any violation of character," he says, "and you will be pun­ished."

Punished?

"You'll be let go," he says. "Or you can spend two hours in the stocks."

Stocks?

"In the village square," he says.

He means bondage. Sadism. Role playing and public humili­ation. The governor himself, he makes you wear clocked stock­ings and tight wool breeches with no underwear and calls this authentic. This is who wants women bent over in the stocks for just wearing nail polish. Either that or you're fired with no unem­ployment checks, nothing. And a bad job reference to boot. And for sure, nobody wants it on their resume that they were a shitty candlemaker.