The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time by Steven Sherrill

woodchips filling the air around him.
    The Minotaur closes the door to Room #3 and wriggles the safety chain into place. The new guests enter the room at the far end of the Judy-Lou. The Minotaur watches the woman lug the heavy suitcases inside. The door slams but opens again almost immediately. The man drags a chair out and shoves it against the brick wall, in the little chunk of space between the doorframe and the wide and clattering air conditioner that sits beneath the shaded window and dribbles constantly onto the sidewalk. The man sits. Looking out. Or not looking at all. It’s hard to say. The Minotaur waits for the woman to appear in the doorway, or for the door to close. Neither happens.
    The Minotaur’s head hurts; the mountain range of lumps and bumps on his noggin throbs. Trouble storms the horizon. The Minotaur isn’t afraid of Danny Tanneyhill. Not exactly. Rather, it is the thing that Danny Tanneyhill is pulling out of the fat trunk that bothers the Minotaur. Troubles the Minotaur. Haunts. The Minotaur watches, through parted blinds, to see what will be revealed. Watches. Could it be that this rough-hewn man is hacking loose, is setting free, the change that has haunted the Minotaur’s past few days?
    The carver, the artist, cuts, steps back, cuts some more. The man is not happy, the Minotaur can tell. Danny Tanneyhill cocks his human head one way, then the other. Sits down to study his work. Legs are emerging at the base of the tree, that much is clear. But higher up, where the two fat branches reach out, the creation is unformed, ill formed, as if the tree itself is resisting.
    The Minotaur understands struggle and disappointment. The Minotaur removes his uniform coat. He gets the Bag Balm from the bathroom, returns to the window, and stands, rubbing the salve into his throbbing seam. Thinks back to the Broom Shack and what happened there. He didn’t mean it. The Minotaur’s nostrils twitch at the memory. He sniffs and finds her still present at the tip of his snout. The scents of her body, what it makes, what it eliminates. The Minotaur licks at the spot until she is gone.
    Widow Fisk saw the broom maker run. The smell of lanolin will not go away. Widow Fisk saw the broom maker run screaming, saw the Minotaur exit the Broom Shack. Widow Fisk came to some conclusions. The Minotaur wishes things had gone differently. Butterscotch.
    He is about to abandon the window, thinking that maybe Danny Tanneyhill has given up for the day, but there is a commotion at Pygmalia-Blades. It’s a customer. A green pickup truck skids to a stop in the gravel. A customer. Sometimes people want what Danny Tanneyhill has to offer.
    Two blond kids stay in the cab of the truck. Their bald daddy steps up and starts manhandling a chunky Bigfoot carving. The statue is painted brown, is scowling, is hunched as if in midstep. The man tilts it this way and that. Looking. Assessing. Imagining possibilities. The statue comes up to the man’s weak chin. He seems about to drop it at every turn. Danny emerges from the trailer. They haggle; the Minotaur can tell by the gestures. The man turns his attention to a carving of the Ten Commandments, Moses’s two slabs hewn from a fat cedar trunk turned on its side. The man struggles with the choice. The Minotaur understands conundrum, is at home in quandary. The man seems less so. His kids sit so still in the truck, the Minotaur isn’t sure they’re real.
    Eventually the man and the artist reach an impasse, and the man leaves. The Minotaur thinks ahead, but only to the weekend, only to the coming Encampment, to what might be his big chance. The Minotaur imagines himself in general’s garb. He tries to imagine Widow Fisk into the equation. Her there and proud of his accomplishment. The Minotaur reaches to finger the brass medals that might hang at his breast pocket. Touches only his bull flesh. It isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last.
    An hour later the truck returns, and the