Kissing Carrion

— . . . 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?