— . . . what was it like?
—Bein’ inside her?
—No, Christ. The, uh—that, uh, the . . . thing. You saw grab her.
—Fuck, that. Uh—
(Pause)
It was like . . .
(Pause)
Kinda like, um—one of those big bugs you see on the Discovery Channel, on those freaky “freaks of nature” shows. You know? But . . . with skin.
—Skin?
—Shit, I don’t know. Like, like a . . . iguana, or something.
—Big enough to pick a grown woman up by her head “iguana.” Are you—
—are we talking dinosaur, here?
—Look, fuck you, buddy. (Pause) I’d know it if I saw it, tell you that much.
—And you still have this tape.
—Sure.
—You didn’t accidentally erase it, maybe, or—
—Sure. I mean, what’m I gonna do—tape Wheel Of Fortune over it?
—And—who’d you show it to, exactly?
—Nobody. I saw it, the S.O. saw it, but aside from him who’m I gonna show it to? Her parents, assuming I ever found out who they were? Tell ’em hey, your daughter slipped sideways in time, got herself eaten by Jurassic fuckin’ . . .
(Pause)
Shit, right.
—But you still have it.
—Like I said two
times already, sure. Why?
(Very Long Pause)
— . . . how much would you want for it?
Bear-Shirt
WEDNESDAYS—ODIN’S DAY—I give my last talk at five. Afterward, as I walk out, I find the blond kid already waiting: A somber Aryan clone, barely out of his teens, puppy-fat still sleek and pink over his football-ready mass of cultivated muscle. I can tell he’s one of Karl Speller’s just by looking at him, though his face isn’t exactly familiar. Far too young to be one the disciples I knew, way back when; a late convert, maybe? Fresh lower-middle-class meat, scooped straight out of school, fallen through the deepening crack between liberal cant and so-called “Equal Opportunity” in action? Somebody’s—
(Karl’s?)
—second-generation Separatist son, even?