October 17th, 1975-

Dear Alice,
It’s  happening again, stronger this time since I stopped taking the lithium. I know the doctor says I need it, but I just can’t stand the foggy feeling. Besides, this time the voice has been more pleasant. You remember when I told you about the one I kept hearing so bad right before I went to the hospital? The deep man’s voice I called Screamer? Yeah, well, he’s gone. Now it’s a woman’s voice, calm and sweet. And amazing– she knows thing about people. I mean, she really does. 

I really like what she tells me.

 

Sher’f come by and tell me we got another maybe gone missing in the bog, asks if the county can rent my fanboat again. I tell him I got fishing planned. I always tell him that. Drives up the price.

This time it must be somebody important because he pays my price right off, no dickering. I go to the boathouse and pull her out. Sher’f and his man bring the poles and chain like always.

There’s this little girl, too. She’s trying not to cry, holding herself together. I don’t ask her name, just give her a life jacket.

 

“There you go. Get on it.”

“You know why I can’t stay, Joey. I couldn’t face them. Not any of them.”

“So you said.”

“I need you to understand. It ain’t about you.”

“Yeah, I get it. It ain’t about me.”

“Well, it ain’t.”

“Sue Ann, why you drawing this out like this? You asked me for a ride and I give you one. So go on. There’s your bus. Go.”

“I just don’t want you to feel like…”

“Like what? Like it’s my fault? Whose fault is it then, Sue Ann? Tell me that.”

“Mine. Or nobody’s, I guess.”

“So how does this work, exactly?”

She shifted on the seat. “Are you fucking serious?”

“I just never did anything like this before. Do I pay you first?”

“You never saw this on TV or nothin’? Shit. Yes, you pay me first. Fifty for the hand, seventy-five for the mouth,a hundred to put it in me.”

“You mean here in the car?”

“Yes in the car. Where’d you fucking think? Out in the parking lot?”

“Okay, okay. You don’t need to be mean. And no, by the way.”

“No what?”

“No, I never saw it on TV. We didn’t have TV.”

 

Sure, blame me. I done the safety check like I was supposed to. What am I going to say to the crew chief? That them chains look like they were used to yank stumps, all stretched out and bendy? You think he would have done anything but fire me on the spot?

Do I look like I can find a job that easy?

Look, the way Parker Amusements runs things, something like this was bound to happen. Ask anyone here. They’ll tell you the Zipper’s bolts are half rusted through, that the Tilt is falling apart.

But ask in private.

It’s a taste. It doesn’t make me a monster. I keep it confined to the digital world.

Under no circumstances would I ever, ever act on it.

Not even if I went to a foreign country where such things are overlooked. Encouraged, even.

I was this way even as a boy. I’ve simply gotten older and they haven’t.

I would never use my work computer. My phone is encrypted.

Most of the members of those groups are like me, acting out a fantasy.

It’s harmless.

Never print out anything. Not even the stories.

I would’t tell anyone. Are you crazy?

You think New York is expensive until you go to any other city in the world. They are all expensive. London is the worst. It’s old, too. You don’t realize how old until you find yourself there without money.

Poor have lived in London for a long time, long as the city has been around. There are ways of doing things, a structure. It might look like chaos to an outsider, but there rules and laws in play, a strict hierarchy.

And like all laws, you never know what they are until you break them. By then it’s too late.

Damn. Gutshot.

I didn’t think he’d have the balls. I was sure he was just flashing the piece, making himself feel like a big man. Shows you what I know.

Bleeding bad. I can still move my legs, but it makes all the muscles hurt.

The flash, and then like a punch in the stomach. Everything inside me all turned to blood. Motherfucker. I didn’t think he’d have the balls.

I gotta get me a gun. I’ll cap his bullshit ass.

I gotta get me to a hospital, I guess.

I’m cold. Maybe I’ll rest here for a little bit.

Some smarty always flapping his gums about how there are bodies in the lake, how on a spring day just after the ice melts you can dive down and see ’em in the dead trees below the surface, skeletons wrapped in rotten cloth, trapped in the branches, waving like they’re still alive and want to be rescued. Hell, kids sometimes say bones wash up on the beach in the height of the summer season. One kid said a skull, but he wouldn’t show it to anyone.

Kids go missing every year in towns all over. This place is no different.

The city at night. Junkies, whores, a third shift worker done with the factory and looking for eggs and bacon to line his belly so he can curl into backwards sleep, the day outside unable to pierce his blanket-draped windows.

The rattle in the dumpster might be rats or men.

They share a common purpose, and even desperation, though if you are honest you must admit the rat is better equipped.

The man, though, possesses a wisdom that will only have value at the end of the world, an end he hopes for with vehement repetition.

A Mantra.

A prayer.