ARR 1988 - Flipbook - Page 35
Smooth. Yeah, movies are cool. Well, who gave a damn? I was going to have
my life cut out and all anybody would know was that aluminum box.
Something grabbed my spine. Ghost hands wrapped my guts around
my spine and wrung my blood to God-knows-where, but even the pain-like
paint, dabs offeeling-was going. Funny, because I couldn't feel a thing but
my useless hands. Throbbing.
I was not going to have held on all that time just to lose it in five
minutes. I am not! Get up! Stop shaking! There! There, some pain, and the
pounding. Yes ... pulse. That heart.. .itjust keeps beating. Fast? No, slow?
Rythmically. Like .. .iron on stone.
I once had liked that sound. A tool being sharpened. Tool. Now, a
malformed surgical apparatus in the hands of a twisted doctor.
What was behind those eyes? All I could see was mechanics, as much
as man is mechanical. Soon, tendons and muscle would coordinate with
nerves to movement, walking... walking to me. The knife would thenacademic. It didn't mean-mean. Meaning is for critics. Meaning is for
critics. Meaning comes when you've sat down at home and thought for years
and years about the throat you just slit, and you've come up with what you
started with. What is meaning: knowing? Knowing is for God. For people
reading a book at home. What did I know, looking at that man in front of me
with eyes like the night. You look at the night, and wonder if there's life out
there, and the night looks back at you and, for all that you amount to,
wonders the same thing.
The knife was sharp. It was crap what people say about some horror
lasting "seemingly for eternity," blah-blah. Crap, 'cause it was always like
you "just damn-well started!" Eternity is for the dentist's office. If I'd have
had anything in my bowels I'd have dropped it. A sharp knife.
Well, thank the hell out of you for the concern, but no thanks, because
I just want to leave. I want to leave, want to leave. Fuck this. Who cares if
the park is wired; I want to, to run, in my muddy uniform, over the ocean
and tell my folks what is happening here. You don't need hands for that. Just
let me up. I'll make it. Let me out of this! Who are you? Who are you to take
my life? Too quick, too-you bet. I've killed. Oh, yes, yes. You wouldn't?
"They couldn't make me," I had said. Yes, yes, yes. Well, you get your ass
over here and sit with a '16 in your hands with the world crackling around
you and everyone firing at something and you tell me you're not going to
shoot. Tell me that and I'll kick your ass and you'd better feel damn lucky at
that because some of these boys-and they are goddamn boys-would shoot
you in your face and no one is going to plead your case. Then you're just an
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