linxy - part IX
"Why do you do this?" She asks incredulously.
"How do you end up this way?"
"Bad seed."
"Bullshit. Something made
you bad. How do you end up like this?"
"Hey, Freud. What made Macbeth bad? We don’t know.
That’s why he and I are such enduring characters. I’ve got an air
of mystery. Now shut up and lay down."
I hope this isn’t how I ‘end up’. I like
to think that my life right now is a sort of transition. Ups and downs, hills
and valleys. I’m taking the walking tour through hell right now, Seventh
Circle I think, but someday it’ll get better. Whether that means I adapt
to the lifestyle or I get out of it, I’m not sure.
"Don’t you get tired of all of this? Sending girls
off to a life of rape and torture?" She asks, pulling the blanket up to
her chin.
"Oh I don’t know, Olli," I answer. "We’re
all in a life of rape and torture. Some of us just feel it a little more directly."
She rolls her eyes at me. "Please. Look at what you’re
doing."
"What? What am I doing? I’m just a delivery service.
I don’t give a shit what you do with the pizza once you’ve got it."
"And you’ve never participated? Never forced a
girl to do anything she didn’t want to?"
I wag a finger at her and turn the lights off. "You
see, this is why the girls only stay for three days, Olivia. Fish and houseguests
and all that crap."
I take two Vicadins with my beer and settle in for some
late afternoon television. Emily’s the top story on the news. They’ve
got an awfully nice picture of her from her roommate. Their apartment is four
blocks away. How isolated we all become in the big city.
"The search for Olivia Butler enters its second day,
with friends and co-workers growing more and more fearful that she may have
fallen victim to foul play." I lean forward in my chair to listen closer.
"Butler’s roommate informed authorities yesterday that an ex-boyfriend
from upstate New York may be to blame for Olivia’s disappearance as their
relationship ended on a threatening note." The camera cuts to a cute redhead,
curly hair, big blue eyes. When she speaks, it’s like shards of glass fired
at my face.
"Olivia was such a great friend." Was. Sounds like they’ve already given up! "Her boyfriend was really angry that she left him. And I always thought he was sort of…well, off. I told the police that he’s the first one they should check with." I click off the station and smile. Nothing like a red herring to make my job that much easier. Still, I feel a pain in my stomach, jabbing like a blunt spoon through the skin. Probably an ulcer, or cancer of some sort. Thankfully, the pills put me to sleep with the beer still in my hand.