The black shades and the colors that disappear in bright are gone now and it is daytime. That's the word she gave me. Daniel she says you wake up when it is daytime. Try and remember that. If you remember any thing at all. Daniel she says do you know what I say to you. I regard that's the word she gave me her. I regard things. I got regard from her at a place with birds. Can you see she says. She stops. It's not like you know what I'm saying. They regard us, those birds in cages. You ree-guard me. So I regard her. I keep words. Words don't come. My head rocks instead. See the parrot, Paaaaa-Rut, Paaaaa-Rut. She moves her arms up and down slow. She makes a good face when this happens. The parrot that's the word she gave me flaps the arms. It makes a parrot noise. It is like the happy noise she makes when I use colors. The noise comes. Her eye twitches. She gives me words and I absorb that's the word she gave me them. Absorb is a word she uses when she opens a grey curve and the water comes out, rushing. Daniel she says this sponge absorbs the water, Uhb-Zorbs. She holds the thing with her hands and water falls from it.

    Sometimes the bright gets too bright. Then the noise comes and her eye twitches. Sometimes her voice raises to noise levels I got those words from the black box she looks at when that happens. In conclusion, an underground rock show was broken up at a student house in Lansing last night. The students were warned about the noise levels until a complaint was registered with the police. The police encountered disturbances at the house and some students were arrested. Her noise levels make the noise come more and my head rocks and I can't stop it. I have to try and keep it in or she gets the eye twitch and the eye twitch is what happens when she uses her voice about him to Sean on the phone that's the word she gave me. Phone. She holds it in front of me. Voices come out of here and she points at the top. You speak here and she points at the bottom. Daniel she says can you speak. I regard her. She makes the good face. Daniel she says you understand me you do you do I know you do and the noise comes and she makes her own water except it comes out at the top and not the bottom at the jaw that's the word she gave me where mine is. I want to break his fucking jaw. She says it slow and says each word like she says it to me when she tries to give me words. I want. To break. His Fuh-King. Jaw. Her voice is at noise levels though Sean can hear. I can hear too. Your husband doesn't do this. Of course he doesn't. He's so good Sean. Why do you have the luck Sean. You had all the luck. You were the good sister. She never said it would be like this Sean. She holds something with dark water in it. She sometimes smells like the dark water when she breathes on me. She smells like dark water when she isn't at work. Daniel Daniel she says I have to go to work now that's why I'm leaving you here. This is daycare Daniel. The noise comes. Her eye twitches. There are others and their eyes grow big. Her eye twitches. Sean she says he left me Sean. So what the hell happens now. Sean's voice comes from the phone. I regard her. Her water comes from the top part of her face and she feels the colors on her jaw and she sits with the eye twitch the dark water and the phone.

    Daniel she says today we are going to go to the store. We are going to get fruits and meat and vegetables. Let me dress you upsy-daisy up and at them here we go. It's work. She takes the black thing and runs it through. Here Daniel let me comb your hair. You want to look good for the trip don't you Daniel. I have no idea if you care or not Daniel but you'll look good if I have anything to do with it. She looks at me. I regard her. She goes down and holds my feet. Daniel she says sit still and let me tie your shoelaces. I look down. Her hands are making them into bows. These are bows Daniel. On top of this present. It's Christmas Daniel. This is one of your presents. Open it. I regard it. I put my hands on it and open. There are different shades of dull colors at the bottom. Those are paints Daniel. You can paint with them. The paints smell strange. But I make different shades with them and she is happy. That's a beautiful painting Daniel. You made a painting Daniel. Daniel she says you're a little artist Daniel. She is making the happy face. Daniel she says it's time for us to leave. We're going to the store now Daniel. Let's go. You're a good boy today Daniel.

    You're silent today Daniel. Silence is golden. That's an expression Daniel. Si-luhnce is gol-duhn. So I am silent. Outside the colors and the bright shift so fast that it shifts in front of my eyes, rushing, in designs. She designs, Dee-Zigns, at work. So I regard designs. Daniel she says time to get up and out. Here we go Daniel, let me unbuckle you. Now get up out of the car Daniel. There we go. No no no let me hold your hand. That's good. We'll walk up to the store together. She walks with me and holds my hand. We walk to the store. She gets a green thing. Remember when you used to ride in the shopping cart Daniel. Do you. That was fun Daniel. She walks with the green thing slow and I walk too. I see the bows on my feet and then I see the designs under my feet stretching out. Dark and then bright, dark and then bright. I follow the designs. Daniel Daniel she says come here Daniel. I follow the designs. Something goes by. I follow the dark-bright designs. She holds my hand again. My hand hurts. Daniel she says you must not, you just must not walk away like that again. What is so amazing about your feet Daniel. You nearly walked into that man with the shopping carts. He only just managed to avoid you. You scared me Daniel. I regard her. She makes the happy face and says Daniel don't make me scared again please. Then she moves in closer and says it's fine Daniel. She turns away and says oh dear god. She does not say that at noise levels. I regard her. Then I follow her.

    I stay silent and I follow her. She seems to be more happy then. Yellow fruits and orange fruits and red fruits and green vegetables go in the green thing. The cart. Cart. That's a word. Cart. Another word she gave me. The cart moves forward when she does. I keep following her. She puts red meat in the cart and I look at it. I follow it. I keep following it. I look down and the pattern is there again. Dark and then bright. Dark and then bright. This is rare. Another word she gave me. This is a rare day she says making the good face. This is a day when your father isn't calling about the divorce, a day off when I haven't touched Johnnie Walker and a day when I got a raise. This doesn't happen often. Oh it's so rare. And I can say all of this without you asking what it means. Because you don't know do you Daniel.  I regard her. She makes a happy parrot sound. I hear happy parrot sounds as I follow the dark-bright designs.

    I am sitting down. It is very fast. I was following and now I'm sitting. Too fast. Too fast. Too fast. The noise comes. And my head rocks. I can't stop it. Harder and harder my head rocks. The noise is at noise levels. I am stuck. She is trying to hold me but my head rocks too much and it hits her. She holds me until it hurts but I don't stop. Daniel Daniel she says we're in public please it's okay don't please Daniel Daniel sssshhhh Daniel. The noise is at more noise levels. This is rare. I hear the Daniels enough. My head rocks less. It then stops. Daniel she says you walked into that shelf full of cans. You were looking at your feet again. I regard the shelf. It is full of grey things. I regard her. She holds me.

    She stands behind other people. I stand with her. I am silent. I look up at the yellow fruits and orange fruits and red fruits and green vegetables that go on the black thing that moves. Noises come from the red bright. I regard it. Seems like you've got a shouter there ma'am. I look up. She is looking at a man with a green square on behind the black thing that moves. She says I beg your pardon. He says was he disturbed by anything. She says he walked into a shelf, you'd be disturbed by that too. He says your total is 24 dollars and 58 cents, would you like to pay by cash or credit. She says credit. They both stop. He says just seeing if there was anything we could do ma'am. She says No there isn't. Thank you. He says Thank you ma'am and have a great day. She walks with the cart. I regard him. Then I regard her and go with her out of the store. I see her eye twitch two times and then stop.

    The colors and the bright shift again in my eyes. I let the colors shift. Daniel she says this was a big day. This was a trip that took a lot of me. I regard her. She has the eye twitch but her face does not make her own water. She does not regard me. Daniel she says I may make those trips without you in the future sometimes. I look at the bright outside, rushing. That is outside. Outside it is always rushing. The colors in bright and the shades are here and it is daytime.

My life is simple now. There’s no one in my corner. I’ve stood in corners scratching myself wonderin’ where the scratches are coming from as well as listening to the same dumb album over and over again.

My folks decided to let me travel. My dad arranged it so that I could get away from the stresses of the family. He sees what living on the streets has done to me. We talked about the junk that went on while I was not happy and I was running away from being a part of his family. So its travel and living with my sister in Germany. Her family is growing. Dad says I’d understand her focus once we saw each other.
Mom doesn’t want me in her house. I can’t wait for tomorrow. She locked me out of the house last night when I went out side for a cigarette. I slept outside on a sofa. Dad let me in at 5:30am to shower and get ready for Germany.

We drove to Philadelphia airport at 6am. Dad made a stop for egg and cheese and “maybe some meat on there”. I went with egg and cheese. Dad got scrapple. Dad got double scrapple on his egg and cheese.
Dad parked and we went into the airport. I was a mess. I was nervous about travel and such but mostly nerves. I did not scratch.

Dad pulled out his egg and cheese with double scrapple. In front of me was a guy. I divorced myself from Dad while he ate his sandwich. The guy had a long case that looked like a saxophone, one of the other lesser wind instruments. Dad was hemming and hawing over his scrapple while eating it. He dropped scrapple on the floor and then picked it up and ate it. Sometimes he held it up to the light to see if it had any hairs. He stared at the errant piece of food as if he could see its molecules. When it was good enough for him he popped it in his mouth. I asked him if he had to and he said, MMM.

Finally the line reached the guy in front of me. He was a tree climber and he had his Stihl saw with him. It clearly had his name marked on the case. He was Denny. He wrote it three times all over the case. So Dad said goodbye and I hugged him. I asked him where he was going and he replied not to Germany. A scared silence came over me. I thought what does that mean for me?

He said Auf Wiedersehen and told me to kiss his grandbabies. I almost cried, said good bye and turned to hear Denny saying, What do you mean I can’t take my saw with me the on this airline, Lars. Errica comes with me every where. You can’t separate us even for this plane ride.
And then someone added
Yeah Lars what are you talking about the rest of us have a plane to catch.” Said a guy with the cheesiest mustache I ever saw. His top lip was nearly covered and the shit was so thin I nearly laughed at him. Come to think of it I did laugh at him. He was wearing the pinkest Bowling T-shirt I ever seen. You could tell he didn’t care what I thought.


Lars made a phone call demanding a supervisor come help him. He was clearly flustered but he was focused and professional. It was early in the morning for him too. Lars stabbed at a coffee cup on his desk. He downed the remainder of the coffee for good luck. I turned my attention to the guy behind me.

Where you goin?, He said
Germany some where.
I see. What’s it say on your ticket?
My dad didn’t give me a ticket.
You should get behind us then.

Dad must have heard us talking cause he showed with a piece of luggage then he handed me my ticket.

I asked him what he was doing in line with that mustache. He said he and the band had a “bowling match” with “those little Omegas”, his words. His plan was to keep the tiniest of the Little Omegas off his equipment. He added that that wold not be the case cause them omegas get everywhere when you work with them.

Lars was getting his moment of fame. Supervisor asked Lars a question and the whole line saw him snap to attention and answer. I ignored Dad cause Lars was making such a scene and that dude with the cheesy French-Canadian moustache.

When Lars finished his answer he sat down so his supervisor could let Denny know that he had to check his saw. Denny and the supervisor walked out of line. Denny walked away whispering to the case that everything would be all right. Four guys and my Dad booed Lars and gave him the finger. My dad was confronted and then escorted from the airport. They screamed Fuck you, Lars and Asshole

Lars was then replaced with a young woman. I guess he had a plane to catch. He turned from us and walked away. The line burst in to cheer and then into song. The four guys behind me broke into line behind me. They distracted me with song as I stood there. The song was I hate my self for loving you. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the dude with the Marten St. Louis mustache. He was singing right at me. And I followed along. I watched his lips and belted out the chorus. I guess we harmonized. I think I just sang lead on that one. I felt happy for the first time in a long time. There might have been tears.

The guy with the waxed up, curled-mustache was the Loudest. He was also the funniest. He stood behind me while I sang.

I said to him that was fun.

He said yeah it was fun. Blouses sing. You want to do something else.
More Joan Jett. I said.
Okay. Blouses: I love rock and roll.

WE know Possum. You started this band remember.
Shut up and sing the song, dumbass. You have a name?
I shook my head no cause I was trying to remember the words.
You’re named Smellbar. It’s a little past Fubar and really hard to get to.

A guy looked over at the conversation. He had straight hair and solid muttonchops. He looked like a cross between Tommy Lasorda and John Madden.

He said, I’m Tommy I lead this band of brothers. What would you like us to call you.”
Wait your Tommy? I thought you were Madden.” Said Rollie Fingers
Rollie, I told you west of Chigaga, I am Madden. You gotta get with it or you’re out of the band.
Smellbar is dumb. My name is kind.
What kind of name is that. Said Lasorda
Hopefully it’s the marrying kind.

After a bit of awkward silence, strike that, After about two weeks of silence standing in one room together A guy with a thick quality mustache and beard looked at me and say I think they are waiting for you. I turned and there was Lars again.

David Wells spoke up, “Fucking Lars.”
Do you have any thing to declare?
I had a six pack of light beer, a six pack of wine coolers and one of these. Wells places an empty of Captain Morgan into the container that you empty your pockets into.
F. Lars says, in a voice sounding reminiscent of Kermit the Frog, I wasn’t talking to you sir. I was talking to the young lady. Your name Miss?
I still don’t know.

Wells gets angry prolly cause he looks like an Irish.
HEY, HEY NARRATOR, You wanna name this character or what?
(Silence)
HEY YOU GOT TWO MORE SECONDS AND THE BLOUSES ROLL!
Tommy eyefucks the air, looks off into the distance and finally he says Blouses Roll!

So Marten Saint Louis, Rollie Fingers, not John Madden and Wells turn on their heels and walk out of line.
Wells yells Bunny you coming?
Bunny walks out of line as well. The five of them hit the streets fast as shit and there stands Denny with Errica naked to the world. Bunny takes a step back.

Wells turns to Denny and says, You know how to play that thing. This happens just as Denny and Errica find their voice. Six become one and Bunny screams something wonderful as the band walks through the parking lot. They sang:
Blow up your T.V. throw away your paper/Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches/Try an’ find Jesus on your own .

When Lowell turned thirty-nine years old, he finally gave in to the notion that the life he had cultivated had little significance. The thought had slowly metastasized in the back of his mind over the past dozen or so years, until he could no longer continue to ignore it. When at last he surrendered, the feeling of relief was surprisingly palpable to Lowell, like shrugging off a heavy backpack after days of hiking. He liquidated a few investments; sold off his house at a tidy loss; cashed in his chips.
Lowell had a contentious ex-wife and a teenaged daughter who had long ago taken her mother’s side. He had endured a monotonous job for seventeen years at a logistical engineering firm where he was tasked with ensuring steel conduit arrived at point B from point A in a tightly choreographed fashion. He often told people he was in construction to avoid the tedious explanation of his actual career. All of these things he was able to slip off, like shedding a jacket that had worn through at the elbows.
For the first time in years, Lowell was actually excited with the prospect of having nothing to look forward to. He had no metrics by which his success would be measured. Instead, he was determined to live a life utterly free from reflection and self-examination. He bought a one-way ticket to Amsterdam where he had resolved to do nothing but drink and revel in his hopeless freedom. He would follow without complaint where fortune guided him until his money ran out, and that would be the end of it.
It was early May when Lowell arrived in Amsterdam, and he found a room overlooking the Vondelpark near the center of the city. The room was cozy and white with a tiny living area sporting a couch and a coffee table. By the bed was a desk where Lowell could spend his days writing if he wished. He had vague aspirations toward writing a novel to keep himself occupied during the daylight hours: a post-existential treatise on the folly of the day-to-day twenty-first century middle-class middle-American lifestyle. It would be a black comedy. But Lowell also knew well enough that he felt very little compulsion to do so due to the very ennui born of the folly of the day-to-day twenty-first century middle-class middle-American lifestyle that had set him on this journey in the first place. Instead, Lowell had occupied his first days in Amsterdam availing himself of the various tourist destinations. He checked off the Rijksmuseum, the Anne Frank House, and the Van Gogh museum in his first weekend in the city. By the time he could spin the kilometer to mile conversion in his head as easily as calculating a tip, he had grown bored of most of the sex shows and brothels of the red light district, where fifty Euros would be good for fifteen minutes with a flexible Russian girl who fucked with the same urgency a cab driver displayed fighting crosstown traffic, and a similar amount of contempt.
The bathroom sported no shower, but instead had a free standing bathtub that could be filled from a spigot that jutted out from the wall and drained by means of a pipe that disappeared into the floorboards. Lowell found it wonderfully old-fashioned. He had avoided it for the first two weeks of his stay, preferring to shower in the common bathroom at the end of the hall during the quiet afternoons when his were the only footsteps throughout the building. He hadn’t taken a bath since he was a small child, mildly repulsed by the idea of stewing in his own sludge, but in the bright light of the late morning, the bathtub looked pristine and inviting when the sunbeam splashed through the window. A bath was slowly working its way up Lowell’s intentionally brief to-do list.
By the beginning of his second month in Amsterdam, Lowell was determined to avoid settling into a routine. He went for a morning jog along the canals every day, but always took a unique route, turning at random until he felt he had reached a halfway point, then returning by the same path on the opposite sidewalk. Much of Amsterdam reminded him of New Orleans, a city where hedonism and self-destruction was the order of the day. That had a certain appeal to him, but he also found it tiring. He felt he must constantly be on his guard from those who would try to rob or fleece him. He did what he could to strike a balance between Amsterdam’s foreign pleasures and local lifestyle. He tried as many restaurants as he could find, and spent the evenings with a different bottle of wine or a few glasses of liquor to lull him off to sleep. Most days, he would type a page or two in his novel after deleting most of what he had written the previous morning. He began to spend less time working in his room, and more time in the local coffeeshops, sipping on a cappuccino or smoking a cone with one hand while he hunched over his laptop, composing long letters to his ex-wife that he would never send, gloating over what he felt was his hard-won happiness.
Lowell discovered to his great astonishment that he loved marijuana. He had been completely square in his youth and never touched the stuff for fear of it making him stupid or a crazed addict. At this stage of his life, he gave not a shit for the potential consequences of drug abuse, and had found a few American students who were only too happy to show him how to roll a joint, even showing him how to role a cone with a cardboard filter and enough herb to share with them all. At the coffeeshop, he built up a rapport with one of the waitresses, who began to hook him up with better weed at better prices. Soon after came pills and powders, some of which he had never heard of. Cocaine and ecstasy, sure, but also uppers, downers, muscle relaxants, painkillers, drugs with numbers, psychedelics, poisons, all fair game to Lowell who had vowed to relinquish control in favor of the path put in front of him.

The priest is in the hall still. I wave hello and he does some bowing bit with his hands shaped as though in benediction. Jesus Christ.
And all the saints, too.
How’s the mass, Padre?
He nods solemnly, waving his hand in the karate chop position to make a large cross over me in the air, chattering “Lorum ipsum dolor sit amet” for all I know. He then raises a glass of wine, blood of Christ, probably, and with a wink takes the whole glass down, licking his freshly purpled lips afterward.
I unlock the door and wave goodbye to the priest who’s back to chattering away, blessing me or the apartment or this or that or the other thing or whatever the fuck he’s doing. As I enter, I find Mario doing another rail. Man, you gotta get some sleep.
“Yeah, man, tell me about it,” thumb and index finger to the nose, wincing, “We’ve gotta work out some sort of schedule.”
How you doing on the speed?
“I’ve got enough for now.”
You doing alright, I mean, being on it?
Between a coarse grunt and a hoarse cough, “I’m awake.”
Not sleepy?
“Like I just won the lottery.”
Stay awake, then. I’ll sleep the rest of the morning, then you sleep through the afternoon. We’ll double team on the overnights.
Mario shrugs.
The speed’s going to get the better of him, eventually. He’s eventually going to snot out all the cartilage in his nose, he keeps that shit up. I’ve seen pictures of those guys with no septums - due to coke, mostly - and I try not to think of those as I lay back on the couch and stare at the ceiling, letting the whiskey do it’s job. Three cups of coffee are going to keep me spinning, though.
Instead, I try to focus on other things.
What else is there?
I close my eyes and think of the time I was sent to Istanbul, one of the rare times I was stationed overseas for anything. That’s when I worked with the Belgian and it was as close to the spy stuff as I ever got. I desperately wanted to see her naked but all I could do was imagine the sight of her.
For an extra twenty bucks, or at least twenty in U.S. dollars, she had us switched from a two-person room to two one-person rooms. She insisted. She insisted and I spent those two nights there jacking off alone.
Zdarlyi! That was the asshole’s name, yeah. Spent half a week there sitting on him. Well, I was there for half a week, spent two nights sitting on him with the Belgian. Older guy. Eye patch. Like I said, closest to a spy movie I ever was.
Zdarlyi, you have to understand, got everything that was coming to him. Or at least I was young and idealistic then, so that’s how I felt. Probably still feel about it. He was picking up rent boys, fucking ‘em and all that, which is all well and good if that’s your thing. Problem was that he was also cutting them up. Selling whatever hadn’t been damaged to Egyptian alley-hospitals.
One night, Zdarlyi picks up a rent boy and something starts echoing in the pipe. I’m not privy to how one goes about confirming things but somehow the echo turns into a word and the next thing you know, they’re fingering me to pull an assist on some autopsy in Istanbul. I’d never been to Istanbul, never thought to go, really, but, the next thing you know, I’m standing there in the examining room with a faked badge hanging off of well-fitted scrubs.
I stood back, mostly, my expertise being non-existent at the time, but it was going to be tough to verify the identity of the rent boy no matter how much experience was involved; depression fractures concentrated around the zygomatic and maxilla bones so he couldn’t be ID’d by sight, fingers and toes gone to get rid of prints, the teeth that couldn’t be yanked out were smashed to shit and back to negate the usefulness of the dental records, drained of blood, all the organs yanked out to get a profit.
What was his name?
Szanatos? Something like that? He lead the autopsy, laughed at me a few times. He knew what he was doing though. Had it all figured out. When he managed to finally ID the rent boy, he mumbled what sounded like ‘bok’ which turns out is ‘shit’ in Turkish. I remember approaching and he waved his hand back at me. He then excused himself from the table and went out to the phone in the hall, dialed a number, to whom I don’t know, put a word in the pipe, and within the hour, there were who I assumed were next of kin at the door to the examining room.
Behind them, I saw a man in a fedora. He would momentarily introduce himself to me as the Kanto Trumpeter as Szanatos or whatever his name was spoke with the next of kin out in the hallway.
His English came out in a smooth, sing-song lilt with hardly a trace of accent. “So, you are a contractor, then.”
Yes, sir.
“Quite inappropriate for an autopsy, don’t you think?”
I have some background.
“I see. ‘Some background’, then. Excellent use of the budget to transport a man with ‘some background’ to the other side of the globe. Though, I suppose I’m not in charge then, am I?” He smiled at me. Seeing my reaction, which there was none, he reached into his pocket. Finding nothing, he began patting at his pants then jacket again, a three-quarter-length wool trench coat. Dismay came over his face. “Do you happen to smoke, Contractor?”
Yes, sir. He waved his hand at the formality as I offered him one.
“I apologize for the inconvenience,” lighting the cigarette. Wincing while he exhaled, “I apologize again, for I often forget that the Yankee prefers to glass shards.”
We’re not really supposed to smoke in here.
He waved his hand dismissively. He leaned back on the counter behind him, blowing out blue smoke. “What do you normally do, Contractor?”
I do lots of things.
“‘Lots of things’, eh?” He looked me up and down then, turning his attention back to the cadaver, said, “You’ll stay in Istanbul tonight, Contractor. We may as well find a way to justify your expense while you’re here.”
Sir?
He looked me in the eyes and responded, “That man out there? You don’t know him. I don’t expect you to know him, no. But, you see, he is a very important man to our employers. His wife? Yeah? You see her too? She’s important to them as well. You’re following all of this, I trust, Contractor?
“Now you know what happens when a man and a woman get married and have a little baby, right? They protect their little baby, don’t they? Even when that baby is all grown up, yes?” Waved his hand over the corpse. “You see where I’m going?”
Yes, sir.
“Good.” He took a drag off the cigarette then came closer and lowered his voice. “You’ll pardon me, certainly, if I seem curt but this is a most personal offense that’s been made against them and because I work so closely with them, I feel it is a personal offense against myself.” He took another drag from the cigarette. “I am not angry with you but,” looking back at the cadaver, “with this.”
I watched him as he braced his weight on the autopsy table. He stood briefly to remove the fedora with one hand and run his other hand through his hair. I watched what looked to be his tongue running between his upper lip and teeth.
At length he said, “We will locate a partner for you before lunch time tomorrow. We will procure all necessary and available documents and materials and direct you to our local Warehouser. I will contact your Trumpeter - the United States… he is the Jass Trumpeter, is that correct?”
I nod.
“Yes?”
Yes, sir.
He raised his chin and kept his eyes on mine, “Better. I will contact your Jass Trumpeter and ensure that he will make other arrangements in your absence if you are needed in the States at all while you are temporarily assigned to this post.”
I nodded. I remember now, though, that that was the time Mario had to make a run with Stewart. Told me all about it the next time we got paired up. Fucking Stewart.
Marijke! That was the Belgian’s name, I remember now. When we were introduced briefly by the Kanto Trumpeter at the warehouse, she was wearing a plaid pencil skirt under her three-quarter-length trench coat (a popular look in Istanbul then) and scarf. We were mismatched as I was wearing a plain white t-shirt, though I still had the good sense to wear slacks as a matter of professional courtesy back then.
We were given Zdarlyi’s dossier, none of it I can remember anymore but I remember it being fairly useless. Thin. Hastily compiled by the research department once the investigation crews came back with the few solid answers they could find to whatever questions were posed to them. All of this had to be done in the time since the Kanto Trumpeter left me and when word came down the pipe to see the Warehouser.
What was known about Derinc Zdarlyi was his name, obviously (that’s if I even remember it correctly), age, height and weight, hair and eye color, address… Those things being a matter of public record. There were, of course, some other things. Family’s names and addresses and the like.
Marijke and I had very simple objectives. First, we would wait until he was alone, so things would be kept quiet. Not the easiest thing to do since Zdarlyi was a family man. Work all day, home with wife and kids all night. We’d have to wait around his haunt until Saturday when he got the urge for a rent boy. His MO was predictable but not exact and there was always the chance he either got a hard on for a boy or was hard up for cash. He always checked in alone. If he was seen with anybody, a word - or an echo, probably, but then she wasn’t in the pipe so far as I knew so… anyway, something would get back to his wife and that would be awkward to explain. Checks in alone, he’s just some guy. No story gets back to the wife, whatever alibi he used can hold up.
I wonder exactly what the story was that he used to explain his absence on Saturday nights. ‘Boys’ night out’? Cheeky pun, that.
He would check in and go up to the room. He usually ordered dinner first, picked out a few pay-per-view movies (according to the records we had, he liked spaghetti westerns and - wait for it - selections from the ‘adult cinema’ category), and looked through the catalogs of boys he had. We knew he had a few of those from an underground rent-boy supplier. Young Guns, Turbo, Escorts Plus, I think those were the names. The underground guys, you’d figure they’d catch on that their employees never came back from meeting with Zdarlyi. Maybe they couldn’t poke their heads out of their gopher-holes for fear of exposing themselves. Plenty of variables at play. Zdarlyi using aliases over the phone would be one scenario to explain his continued service. More likely, he was meeting the boys on the side. Have an above board date with them. Wait a few months, arrange something off the suppliers’ respective radars, promising to pay a bigger price tag, and boom! Suspicion avoided. The suppliers would have no records of sending Kiki out for a night because that would be his day off. That kind of thing.
While he would go through his early evening routine, Marijke would put him down and, since I was the one with ‘some background’, I would dispose of him.
Marijke was in charge of the execution. She took her time at the warehouse selecting her implements. She selected three knives: Switch blade, the shortest at four inches; a third-pattern Fairbairn-Sykes, the middle one at seven inches; and an M-1 bayonet, the longest at ten inches. After some consideration at the gun racks, which included her animatedly expressing interest in a vintage Bergmann-Bayard, a Belgian gun, Marijke wound up choosing an Akdal Ghost.
She would explain that the gun was for emergency purposes only, a last resort. The knives were to be the killing implements. Quiet, you see. I remember her turning to the Warehouser and telling him, in Turkish, to get us another Akdal. This was to be mine; we knew nothing about Zdarlyi and she was putting neither of us in danger.
Odd that she smiled at that.
Neither one of us wound up ever using the fucking things.
She then told the Warehouser to take us to the medical tools. It wasn’t something he got much call for, judging by the size of the room. Most of it was medicinal rather than surgical. I told him that I needed surgical tools. Specifically for amputation.
The Warehouser looked at me blankly, shaking his head.
“Cerrahi alet,” came from Marijke. God, how the words flowed out, the only reason I remember them. ‘Cerrahi alet.’ The Warehouser responded something to her and she turned to me and said, “He says they are rarely asked for such things but he can procure them immediately. What specifically do you need?”
Tell him that I need two saws, one Satterlee and one Gigli.
The only words I recognized out of her mouth next were ‘Satterlee’ and ‘Gigli’. I grabbed a box of latex gloves on our way out to the hardware section and the Warehouser stopped a Delivery Boy and I heard the words again: ‘Cerrahi alet’, ‘Satterlee’, and Gigli’. He clapped twice and the kid, probably eighteen or nineteen, tore off on foot to the exit, disappearing out the door and to the right.
When we got to the hardware, I picked out two Tyvek suits, one for each of us, nine square yards of plastic, and a box of two dozen fifty five gallon bags.
Marijke smirked. “No acid?”
Actually, that will take far too long and wind up making a bigger mess than what we’re interested in cleaning up so -
Without expression, she cut me off, “It was a joke. Your material selection just seems too much like television to me. It is a cliché.” I guess I made a face at that because she rolled her eyes and turned away while I perused the other tools.
We took rooms in the discount annex at the Mövenpick on either side of Zdarlyi’s usual one and by the afternoon, my Satterlee and Gigli saws arrived. I thanked the delivery boy and gave him a five lira note. He ran off, perhaps to another delivery or maybe just to get the hell out of there - delivery boys aren’t usually supposed to get caught up in the thick shit.
As I packed the saws away between the mattress and box spring, there was a knock at my door. I opened it to find Marijke, who began chastising me. “You’re a trusting sort, aren’t you?” as she brushed past me into the room. Turning back to me, “I could’ve been anyone, you know.”
I said nothing.
Swiftly back to the door she demanded groaning, “Come along now. It’s time for us to have a dinner.”
I just have to grab my jacket.
I can’t recall the place we ate at but I recall price was an issue. The Mövenpick is damnably expensive, even in the cut-rate annex. She had, I think, a Cornish game hen. No. It was fish. I think. At any rate, it was a quiet meal. She wasn’t much for exchanging pleasantries and I had nothing to say that interested her. I recall trying to initiate a conversation once or twice with bringing up music or movies; skipped television altogether figuring her for the bookish sort and going for that. She dismissed each topic equally with, “I like them all,” and staring out the window while she took birdlike bites from her fork.
When dinner was finished, she opened the window next to our table and lit a cigarette. Tapping the first ash out the window, she said authoritatively, “You’re new.”
Not that new. I tired of her tone at that point. I indicated that in my own.
She rested her chin in her hand, “I wonder why they brought you from the States. We have many more qualified contractors already positioned here.”
I took my own curt tone. It’s my understanding that they’re busy monitoring the Iraqi diaspora on the border. Others are positioned in Ankara monitoring the UNRHC. She cocked her eyebrow at that. And if it’s a matter of my qualifications, well… I stopped at that and her other eyebrow joined in curious anticipation. I continued with, I don’t come down to the bus station and smack the dick out of your mouth when you’re on the clock, so back off.
“Arschgefickter hurensohn.”
Lutsch’ es nicht in meine arschloch, dann. Astonishment washed over her face and I told her, Yeah. Try that one again. We exchanged cold glares at each other for a few minutes before I asked, Coffee?
She nodded and I waved the waiter over, ordered an Irish coffee which got me a blank look. I told him to put two shots of whiskey in a mug of black coffee. I forget what Marijke ordered.
The waiter walked away to prepare our coffee and while we waited, she said, “Drinking on the clock?” I didn’t respond. She continued, “Have you ever disposed of a body before?”
A body is a simple machine to dismantle. It shouldn’t be too hard.
“So you haven’t, then.” She pitched the butt out the window and went on, “Have you had to kill anyone?”
Not yet. Not really.
“Hmm.”
The waiter set our coffees in front of us and I thanked him. As he returned to other tables, I asked, What’s your problem? You know, we finish this up and you’ll never have to see me again. The least you can do is behave professionally.
“You’re still green,” she leaned back with her drink. Frothy cream-colored foam on top, I remember that. Perhaps it was a cappuccino. “Thankfully, this is a simple matter and it won’t be much of a challenge. I trust you can perform both professionally and proficiently.”
She looked down into her drink. “If I’m curt, I apologize. I was scheduled to return to Brussels today. One day is a minor setback, sure, but I’m tired of Istanbul.” She looked back up at me. “My skills were in demand here for a while. I tire of exercising those as well… ‘One last time,’ though. That’s what they say to me about this one. I do believe them. They’ve not lied to me before.”
I nodded into my coffee. We’ll wrap this up tomorrow night and I’ll go my way and you’ll go yours. I looked back to see her with a bored expression staring into her coffee again. I wanted to just put it out there. I wanted to ask her if she just wanted to fuck and get it over with. But I knew the answer without asking so I skipped it.
I still wonder what would have happened though if I had had the balls to just do it back then. Would she have laughed me off? Cursed me out? Or would we have wound up in bed having a big sweaty angry hate fuck? Her pert D-battery tits gliding along her ribs, her smacking me across the face, calling me every filthy name she could think of and calling to God in German, ‘Gott’, all the while leaving me with only the rudimentary the know-how to slap her on the ass and call her a bitch while cumming inside her.
I had to roll over to the side of the bed to shoot that night, keep my sheets clean and make a mental note of where to avoid putting my feet in the morning.
The following day, we barely saw each other. I went through Zdarlyi’s dossier once more over coffee and a few cigarettes, not that it mattered what was in there, and popped a quinine tablet - this was back when I still had the tablets - and washed it down with a bottle of tonic water to enhance the effects.
At one point, I got bored and told Marijke that I was going out to the music shops. She frowned at that but simply reminded me of what time I should return. I remember seeing a few imported Fenders that day. Strats and Teles mostly, a Jazzmaster in one shop. Used. I also hit a bar, a real divey place with cheap beer and decent eggs. I craved a Tiger. Wanted to pretend I was Nabby Adams for a while. Only thing was that they didn’t stock Tiger and that I could actually pay my bill before I left.
I returned to my room with plenty of time left before dinner. In that time I made use of the bathroom and a thick coating of soap on my palm to take the edge off. Marijke had me worked up.
Dinner that night was early and silent. The conversational mishap from the night before wasn’t repeated. Afterward, we retired to our separate rooms and after a while, Marijke came to my room and chided me again for not greeting the door with my gun drawn. “Christus, du bist eine blödian,” was a part of her short tirade. She walked over to the desk and laid out the knives. She was wearing another pencil skirt, a black one with white polka dots, and a black blouse with frills at the cuffs. These she took off as I put on the Tyvek suit over my clothes figuring now was the time to get ready. She pulled her hair into a tight ponytail. I watched her slide the Akdal into the back of her panties, plain white cotton, and the switch blade up along her back under the bra strap, the Fairbairn-Sykes went to her left hand and the bayonet went into the right. She kicked off her shoes and laughed at me as I pulled out the saws, “You look like a snowman.”
Blow me.
Please. I set the saws into the medical bag the delivery boy had brought them in and set them on the table by the door.
We found ourselves switching sides across the room. She said, “I’m going to keep an eye out into the hall. Once he opens his door, I’m going to follow before his door latches shut.” After quickly nodding at me for confirmation, she opened the door a crack and continued, “You’ll go to the bathroom and wait. You’ll hear a knock through the wall when he’s finished. OK?”
She looked back at me and I nodded and then admired her ass for the few moments I could after she turned her gaze back to the hall. Somehow, the Akdal made her ass look even sexier, I couldn’t tell you why. She stiffened, arching her back and standing on tip toes then suddenly, swiftly, she ducked out the door. I proceeded to the bathroom and sat on the toilet.
Wait.
Wait.
Come on, asshole.
Wait.
Wait.
Fuck.
Light a cigarette.
Three loud rapid knocks. Fuck. Just lit the goddamned thing. I lifted the seat and pitched the cigarette in the toilet. I grabbed my bag off of the table by the door and continued to Zdarlyi’s room. I knocked, quietly at first. Then a little louder a second time. Under my breath, I muttered looking over my shoulder, Come on! Marijke answered the door, quickly waving me in and smiling, licking her lips.
The kill was quick and clean, and what used to be Zdarlyi was laying on the bed. She had slit his throat with the dagger, impaled him with the bayonet. She asked me, “What now, herr doktor?”
Didn’t have time to drain him, that was for damned sure. I laid out the plastic and picked his dead ass up off of the bed. From the medical bag, I extracted the saws and threw them on Zdarlyi’s chest. I indicated the medical bag and told Marijke to get the trash bags out and start doubling them up. Meanwhile, I dragged the plastic with Zdarlyi’s body and the saws on it into the bathroom.
Hoisting him half over into the tub, I began removing the head as it’s where a good deal of the blood would spill out. Something smelled like shit. I looked around and saw nothing until I saw the wet stain on the ass of his pants. Great. Another fucking mess.
A few hacks with the Satterlee and the head came off.
Marijke came in holding the doubled-up bags, still in her underwear. I looked over and that’s when I saw the tattoo around her navel: a large circle and then an arrow pointed downward. An identifying mark. Stupid. Risky. But then I gauged that she’d allowed very few men to see it in the first place. She sounded impressed when she said, “You work quick,” and my cock twitched.
Had to keep it professional. And you talk too fucking much. I’ll be done in maybe twenty? thirty? minutes. Drop the bags there and see if there’s anything of value out there in the room. I’ll grab his wallet and then we’ll grab a late dinner or a snack after we dump this asshole’s parts wherever the hell it is we... I sensed her not moving, so I looked over to see her with an insulted look across her face. Look, I’m in charge of this part. Sorry if that puts me in charge longer than you were but get moving.
With that, she left to go back to the room and I called after her, And put that Tyvek on!
“The what?”
The snowman suit!
“Where is it?”
In my bag!
I threw the left arm over the edge of the tub and peeled the watch and ring off of Zdarlyi, then took the Gigli to the elbow, having to stand on both the forearm and the bicep, then the Satterlee - much easier - to the shoulder. Went on like that. Messy work. The Satterlee could handle bone very well, but the Gigli was employed at certain limb joints. The tub was thick with blood that didn’t rinse down easily.
I kept each body part at the foot of the tub, three at a time to allow some drainage, which was minimal at best with how hastily I was working. Another section went in the tub and another in the bag, rotated like that. The comforter from the bed went in with the head - I remember that much - and I think both forearms. I thought briefly about flushing Zdarlyi’s dick as a bit of poetic justice, gain some favor with Marijke and the Kanto Trumpeter, but that would’ve meant trouble following us if it clogged the fucker up. Sure we used pseudonyms to check in but that works only so well.
By the time I was done, the gloves were lubricated enough with blood that I had trouble maintaining a grip on the Gigli and I had to stop using it altogether as I would have acquired a good deal of blood on my shoes that would have left shoe prints everywhere (I’ve since made it a note to acquire the Tyvek suits with the little booties on the end). Resulted in many sloppy cuts.
When I was finished, we snuck the bags, two each, down the fire escape (quieter) down to Marijke’s car where I lined the trunk with the plastic sheeting before we threw the bags in, and drove to an hour outside of Istanbul. We drove, dumped a bag in a ditch. Drove, chucked a bag over a fence. Drove, kicked a bag into a river. Drove, shoved a bag off a bridge which landed between two sets of rail tracks. On and on like that until the circumference of an hour outside of Istanbul was littered with Zdarlyi.
It was that night that Marijke had the Cornish game hen.
We waited until after dinner, a lavish one indeed, with jokes and stories and coffees and cocktails and even a dessert (all courtesy of one Mr. Derinc Zdarlyi, my identity for the evening), to throw a word in the pipe. Waited at the warehouse until three in the morning before the Trumpeter showed up. He thanked us profusely on behalf of the family with only a slight reservation that Marijke didn’t make Zdarlyi suffer enough. He let that go, expressing an understanding for a need to expedite the assignment. He made some mention of being uncomfortable expressing a lie to the family but also expressed that the whole truth need not be known. He handed us each a plane ticket; mine, back home, hers was to Brussels. Both were for that night, though her plane left earlier than mine.
At her gate, in line, she said, “You were surprisingly proficient. I expect improvement will come easily to you.”
I just do my job.
She brushed her brown hair back from her brow to behind her ear, never turning to face me but only nodding her head in my direction as she faced forward, “I’m only saying, you evidently possess more skill than what most Yankees possess. You performed above expectations.”
What will you do in Brussels?
“What will you do in the States?”
I’ll keep working. This is your last assignment, though, you said.
“As a contractor. I tire of it, honestly. I seek to be a Trompeter.”
Really - It could have been a period to denote finality, a question mark to denote surprise, but I left it as a word.
“Really.”
I left it alone.
“Well,” she exclaimed as we were three people away from the gate, then turning to shake my hand, “Good luck to you. Perhaps we may work together again.”
Perhaps.
“Then I will come to the States, find you on the clock at a bus station, and smack the dick out of your mouth.” She winked at me with that.
“Miss,” the attendant said, “your ticket please.”
She’s asking for your ticket. You have to go now.
She nodded and handed her the ticket. I didn’t stick around to watch her pass through the gate.