When I think about Mama I immediately see those hands. Not her weight. Not the balding area on the center of her head. Not her voice echoing like a gunshot through the trailer at three in the morning. Just those wonderful hands. By the end, they were flesh-swollen and callused with little black sores dotting them like moon craters. Angry purple veins crisscrossed the back, the erupting fat underneath pushing them above the skin. Like latex doctors’ gloves, blown up like balloons. Her nails were always painted bright colors, but the polish always looked out of place. She never wore makeup, but she always had painted fingernails. She placed one hand against my face, that day she died, and her fingers were greasy, like plump sausages. But I have to force myself to see her hands that way. The image that comes to me during idle times, when I casually remember her, is different. Those hands are beautiful.

It was a typical Saturday at the swap meet. I had only sold two Marilyn Monroes and one Elvis. The statues had been popular for a while, but retro Earth art was going out of style, even with the embargo. Those who collected Earth memorabilia were big on the modern stuff now, like Eminem posters or that new CD from the latest winner of American Idol. It didn’t really matter, though. I sold the three statues for fifty credits each, which translated into almost 1,000 American dollars.
     Even though many customers still milled about, I decided to head home. It had been a long day and I was tired. Plus, I wanted to get home to check up on Mama. But just as I finished securing the remaining wrought iron silhouettes into my van, a large, metallic beetle flew into my booth. Ah, crap.
     “Name?” the beetle asked.
     “Jameson Carver.”
     The wings opened, and the holographic image of Lance Syndicate appeared. The message was short and to the point. Mr. Syndicate spoke in his grating, native language, and I had to wait for the neural translation. “Annual dues will be payable by the end of your next vending period. Have the credits transferred to my account.”
     “What?” A few shoppers stopped and looked in my direction. I felt sick to my stomach. Before the message beetle could get away, I grabbed it and pressed the respond button. Zevin, Mr. Syndicate’s personal assistant, instantly appeared live on the hologram.
     “Ah, Jameson. How can I help you?” Zevin’s cat eyes glowed. His features were normal, except for the feline mouth, nose, ears, and eyes, like he was an actor for that Broadway play. The sight of him still gave me the creeps. Over the past few months, I’d been introduced to all sorts of aliens. I’d met floating eyeballs wearing cowboy hats; bird-like creatures that didn’t speak, but thought conversations with you; even armor-clad rhinoceros security guards, but for some reason, Zevin gave me the willies most of all.
     “I thought I had a whole year to pay off my dues!” Shouting probably didn’t do me any good, but I felt like it anyway. I can get real pissed off sometimes. “I’ve only been here five months.”
     Zevin smiled, his sharp teeth gleaming.
     “If you read your contract, you’ll see that a year is calculated as the complete solar cycle of whatever celestial body the business is transacted upon. In this case, it’s the moon under your feet right now, and your year is almost up.”
     “This is total bull! I don’t have a thousand credits.”
     Those teeth again. “That’s why we use collateral, Mr. Carver. But I see your rent isn’t due quite yet. Not until the end of your next vending period.”
     “My next vending period is tomorrow.”
     Zevin still smiled as the hologram abruptly blinked off.
     I picked up the message beetle and smashed it against my table. Tiny pieces of electronics scattered. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. What was I going to do? I was in trouble. Big trouble.
     I had been saving my credits. I had about 400 stored in my account, and with the 150 from today, that made 550. So I had to come up with 450. That was somewhere around 3,000 bucks. Even if I could get that much money back home, the embargo prohibited exchanging any Earth money for credits. It only worked the other way, and only because I was human. If I wanted to get the 450 credits, I’d have to get them here at the swap meet.
     When I first signed that contract I figured there wouldn’t be any problem meeting the 1000 credits due at the end of the year. After all, I had made 600 that first day. I set up an account and had 100 put away every month, twenty-five credits a weekend. I was even going to have a 200-credit cushion at the end of the year.
     That Lance Syndicate was a bastard. He probably did it on purpose. I looked around for something else to smash. What was I going to do? I was totally screwed.
     I would have happily put my own soul up as a guarantee, but it was against the rules. I had offered my house, my van, but Mr. Syndicate just shook his head. He was a businessman, he said. That stuff was worthless to him. The collateral had to be a soul. A human soul, signed over, willingly given, that’s worth something. I would never default anyway, not with the money I was going to make. It was just a safety net, he assured. My mama’s soul, he said. I wouldn’t even have to tell her. I was her legal guardian, after all. Now that was a soul he could work with.

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