so we were cutting her up, skinning her to tell the truth, and well, she kind of frowned. we had plenty of time before we would actually ‘disassemble’ her, as terri had put it. but that’s how we went about it: skin her and then saw through the bones. we had pretty much worked out the details, this wasn’t our first time. we weren’t amateurs, you know. plenty of experience, let me tell you. one time we had to chase down a girl down in the bayou. shit, terri got all pissed when he fell flat on his face, almost right on a crocdile. ripped that bitch almost right up the sternum.

‘It isn’t always quite as easy as this.’ he drew across the floor a line in the dust with the mangled branch he found outside. ‘We’re lucky that there’s still time to catch the flight.
She turned from the motel window. Making sure that the curtain fell back over the view. She could barely see him or the stick, even though she had been the one to find them both. Kneeling down where there was a huddled mass of something thicker than the rest of the room, she tried to make out the dust or the line in the dust, rather than the floor, she had enough of floors and things to be standing on. Gently her hand found his and he was shaking, by then she could make out the stick in his hand and she could see that it had done drawing the line across the dust piled on the floor, and that it was steady. ‘Of course’, she whispered.
‘What?’ he turned to her and could see her fascination was somewhere else and he didn’t mind, not that he could have any say in the matter. that was how things were between them, not much thinking about aloud, no harassment to spare, or even subject the other to, neither had considered it for a long time, and besides, the sun was setting, they were little time left, and left only to each other. Trust had to be a somehow come out of this, something as impossible as that, not sex, not love. Not a night’s worth of passion and just plain old dangerous liaisons as one would say, nothing Hollywood happening here, just them and the stick and an overfilled parking lot that hung outside the door with dread and silence.

‘I loved her a great deal. I don’t think she ever knew.’ He tells you this even though I was the one who had asked the question. But i’m always the one that asks the questions, it’s a force habit, cutting you off. You never really get a chance to get a word in, do you? I guess it doesn’t really bother you the way it doesn’t bother me that he’s looking at you when he answers my questions. Wait, there he goes again. He’s about to say something else. He’s looking at you as he puts out the cigarette. His mouth looks all tired, lines in every direction around it, like ripples in a pool.
‘She meant the world to me and i’d make jokes,’ and he looks at your fingers, do they remind him of hers’ He looks back up at your eyes, ‘What else could I do? What would you have done if you were me?’
I grab your arm because I don’t want you to answer that. It’s not for you to answer. He thinks you’re her, you’re not, remember that. I know it’s unfair but we’re, i’m the one asking the questions here. We came here to get answers. He’s left us with some many blanks to fill in, wouldn’t even give us the letters. Remember that. He burned them all up to keep us in suspense.
He lights another cigarette, and for a moment he looks like he could have been my father. I wouldn’t know but just the way he holds his head at a tilt to light it, like he was examining the flame, or the way that the tiny flame catches his face. That sudden, barest of shadows around the edges of it. You almost understand why she fell in love in with him, don’t you?
But then he coughs all out of proportion and something green and black tries to make it’s way to the corner of his mouth. He catches it before we can see it for what it is. They say he’s dying. You know how that goes though.
‘I didn’t have an easy life. I barely had a life at all. Always hiding in the corners as it were, hated the sun.’ He looks to the corner where the teapot is. It’s empty because we wouldn’t have any. He took it out and made such a big fuss about it, using the step ladder to get to it above the stove, but we said no anyway no matter how pathetic it looked. It was too hot for tea. Even if he put ice in it, it would have melt, just doesn’t taste the same then. No matter how polite I know you can be. We just sat down and tried not to make a big deal out of it. Just get some answers and get going. Since we were around he might as well answer us.
‘Until her, then i’d always look at it. That’s why i’m practically blind you see?’ He smiles as he rubs the lit end of the cigarette in the ashtray, pushing old twisted butts against the glass. ‘I only wanted to look at her all night, they way she’d hold her arm under her chin.’

of course there was a difference
between how you had done it
and how you felt
about it, it was only a matter of time
when it would present itself
as a security issue
a farce of circumstances
your eyes pinned on the face
of whom there was no other
no reconciliation from what you had
and this face
in the end
you could only feel something
pressed to the back of your neck
a dull thing, a pipe
that was warm from use
and you had prayed
that this time it would be different
but how could you have known
that all this time
you were fighting
something you could never see
with your eyes.

“It’s simple, you got it?”
“We go in and just take her..”
“Yeah, yeah, but we got the guns out before we go in-”
“Like gangbusters..”
“Yeah, yeah, and then? What do we do then?”
“I let you do all the talking.”
“Good…good.”
“And I look for the girl-”
“No, no, no, YOU don’t ‘look for the girl’. THEY look for the girl..”
“Oh, because you told them to, that’s why you’re talking.”
“Riiight….okay, okay. Well then, you ready?”
“That’s the house right?”
“No! It’s the next one on the left.”
“So I ring the bell and then just bust in..”
“Right, right.”
“Okay, I think I got it..”
“Wait!”
“What?”
“Don’t forget the gun..”
“Oh..okay. Thanks…”
“Well? What are you waiting for..?”
“Aren’t you coming too?”
“Yeah, yeah, I gotta park the car first..”
“Why are you going to park the car?”
“I can’t leave running it in the middle of the street, right? Someone might steal it..”
“Oh…”
“So go on, I’ll be just a sec. You won’t even miss me. By the time you hit that door, I’ll already have them getting the girl. Now go.”
“Okay…Wait!”
“WHAT?”
“Don’t lock the keys in. I mean, it always happens to me…”
“No prob. Thanks.”

A: I have no idea how we got started on this.
B: it?s easy, the president?s been shot and we have to do something about it
A: like what the fuck are we supposed to do?
B: well, catch the killer of course.
A: no, that?s just fucking ridiculous, how do you suppose we do that?
B: we look in the phone book for ?Recently wanted people.? I?m sure he?d be the top of the list.
A: wait a minute, why do you suppose it?s a ?he? and not a ?she??
B: well, it?s neither he or she, it?s just an idea.
A: what?
B: the dead president. wouldn?t it be nice?
A: if it made a difference to us folk out here on the street, maybe.
B: sure it would, we need a good assassination, I mean look at Israel, they just got one. we need to stir things up in this country.
A: oh god, are you going to on social reforms again?
B: no, I don?t think so. I left my dissertation at home.
A: you actually started one?
B: well my marriage was boring me silly so I had to find something to rub my testicles on.
A: you?re just like Jerry it?s unreal.
B: I AM Jerry.
A: oh. that?s right. have you considered this?
B: now that?s a ridiculous question, I haven?t got any shoes on. how could you ask me a question like that?