that guy - part 8

            Gus couldn’t even tie a shoe without thinking of murder. A smooth lace around one index finger turned him into a lust-red-hobgoblin with visions of garroting, asphyxia, other types of hostile bifurcations. Drawing the little knot tight, that gave him tremors, pushed little bubbles of delight from the tight corners of hate-box.  It didn’t matter: waking up, eating marshmallows, there was violent murder in all of it. Acts of kindness simply led to anger and hatred then betrayal and death by murder. He’d often skip the middle stuff and go straight to the murder part. “Hello!” and a sharp knife across the throat if the sun was right.
            The sticky part was the thinking, the poetry. There was never legitimization; nothing like excuses, diseased thought processes, not that kind of lunacy. It wasn’t sex or thoughts of sex; roundabouts, daisy-chains, pink bugaboos or snakes that looked like the old man weeping. Gus was just fucked-up sick in the head and burbling death-throes looked like good art to him; begging bathed in bodily fluids was operatic - screams symphonic. He saw a shrink for a month before killing him. He had a wife long enough to squeeze his illness into the universe in the form of Crawly, and then he killed her. He had folks, (not bad people for murder-makers) but on his twelfth birthday he killed them too.  He’d of killed everyone else going back in time before that too - you see the system – but there weren’t means, just a little boy snuffing out the life from whatever he could, wherever he could, and calling it practice – The Early Period.
            Gus was pocketing a grand each time He bumped off that guy in 2F. And each time that guy in 2F gave up his lease, Mac (Muck) Wicking in 1B, owner and president of IFFY Realty Corp, Inc., got to tack on whatever the market would bear to his receipts each month and of course those liquid assets that would pour his way though debit cards, bank codes, passwords and other dripping finds one might stumble upon with a set of keys and good, long, head start, before anyone asked any questions – if anyone ever asked any questions at all. And then, down at the Dead End where Muck was known as Spike, he’d buy a round for the shooters and the darters and the thrillers and the stalkers and he’d toast The City of  New York, and the Office of the Mayor, and the Rent Guidelines Board, the D.O.H - the list went on - for aiding and abetting, stepping up and taking it every way they could, just for making downright murder an asset to those who didn’t mind cheating the system just a bit around the edges.
          For Muck, Gus was a temporary mechanism, one that worked well, but he’d hiked the rent in 2E three times in two years, and had the feeling that Gus didn’t do it for the money, which was a problem. And then there was the thing with Crawly and Babe, and Muck didn’t like it. Muck was up to here with Creepy and Crawly.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Souls of Beautiful Monsters - Lucy

“Turquoise? I can't even say the word without falling down. You want me to spell it?” “No, no. Just describe it.” “Describe turquoise? The color or the stone?” Lucy laughs and scratches her head. “Hmmm… I suppose it doesn't matter,” she says. Stephen twirls a finger around Lucy's bare foot then traces her toes gently before glancing up. “Hang on,“ he says, “it’s the same problem!” Stephen was fascinated by Lucy's ability to confound the simplest notions with an ease that surpassed the remarkable agility of her practical mind. It was what first sent shivers up his spine that first week in thesis for biomedical engineering.   Dr. Shirkfield, the startling young star professor, had asked for the students to share their topic concepts for the attendant research course. When no one took the bait, and an uncomfortable silence grew in the room, the young woman in the front of the class raised her hand and flopped it about. “Ah! One fearless target… I mean, stu
Read more

Sweet Little Things - Part 2 (Horrible Marriages Collection)

Part 2         I braced myself for the attack. It was a ritual.        “King of the mountain! King of the mountain!”   I am the mountain. No one ever won that contest. The mountain tumbled every time.         They'd gotten as far as they could before I scooped them up and rolled them, elbows over giggles onto the soft, Persian  rug.         “Your getting slow, Lurch!” Squealed Simone.         “You're getting heavy!” I replied, honestly.         I was Lurch; from the Adams family. They found that unlikely association hilarious. Especially when I tried the voice.         After nuggies, a belch contest, and silly how-do-you-do, the girls composed themselves. I received a years worth of catch-up in a six-minute, stereophonic, high speed summary, which ended with four handed vote that my hairline had receded, and it was a sad state of affairs for my nonexistent love-life. They then slowly gravitated  to the photo wall. Annette and Simon  reviewed their achievements withou
Read more

The Quiet Car

     On the quiet car there are signs about how to be quiet; directions, suggestions, vague pleadings…      On the quiet car there are announcements about the quiet car; how to recognize that you are in the quiet car if you've missed the six or seven signs hanging from the low ceiling along the aisles.      The quiet car is mostly quiet. Mostly. This alone is a fair indicator that you have found your way into the quiet car if you happened to wend your way onto it by accident or, as is the case on many occasions, you never even knew there was such a thing as the quiet car.      There are occasionally other things beside quiet on the quiet car. There are brawls on the quiet car; screaming matches, arguments, altercations and insults – a lot of insults… oh boy.      Even though it is the quiet car, there is enough noise and hubbub to go around.      The quiet car is an experiment in human behavior: It is an experiment in perception, a study on relativity, a closed environment wit
Read more