we offer him a cigarette, it’s what we always do in the beginning.
“no, no,” he shakes his head like we were offering him spoiled fruit, “get that shit out of my face. do i look like i smoke?” he points to himself, then shows us his hands, “huh? you see any tobacco stains here? huh?” his eyes bounce between us, indignant. “that shit’s for the weak. for addicts.”
alright, we say. alright let’s begin.
“what people always forget is that you never really are who you say you are. you start out one way, any way but you can only be that way for so long.” he raises a hand over his face, as if he was casting a spell over himself, “but eventually you change. it can’t be helped. you can only tolerate that weepy shit for so long.”
we ask, what does he mean?
exasperated, he points to one of us, “c’mon, you know, when you play it like you care. buying flowers or telling some sob story like your dog died or something.” he begins to whisper, as if he telling us a secret. we all lean forward, “i usually tell them someone i loved died. anyone. a friend, a wife, a kid. that’s how you eventually get to fuck ’em.” he bursts into laughing, “get it, ‘fuck em’? every which way to sunday i tell ya.” folds his arms, shakes his head, “every fucking which way to sunday.”
we know, we’ve read the reports. he kept the bodies for days, then put them in the crawl space under the trailer.
“you know, when i was kid, i read this book,” he plays with his hands, studies his fingernails. we found pieces of their skin still there. “it was about all these travels in the world,” he looks off to the right, “they still don’t know who wrote it. marco polo or columbus. but there’s this one line and i swear they must’ve been talking about us, about the ‘glades.” he closes his eyes, “something like ‘in that country… there are many, many crocodiles, that slay men,’ get this, ‘while they weep‘.” he looks at us again, “you believe that shit? crocodiles weeping, cryin’?”
he shakes his head, “i’ve never shed a fucking tear for any of them.”