The Subtle Art of Brutality

With a big dip, her back arched onto his left arm and a beautiful smile on her face, he nodded. “To scare them. So they’d vote for me.”

Both ads had been bullshit. Bean supported them, no crap about that...because he wanted to win. But now? It wasn’t really regret he felt, just a kind of sad resignation at what he’d done to his opponent.

The question was: what the fuck were those ads, n

ow as big as posters, doing in his dream? Their first date had been beautiful and fantastic and had left him giddy for days afterward and had no hint of politics...all that bullshit came way later.

“Ignore them, baby.” Mariana pulled him close. “Spin me.”

So he did, still chuckling about her mustache. “I miss you, Mariana.”

“I miss you, too, Jeremiah.”

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”

“You see me every day and every night.”

He frowned. “Bah. Dreams and visions and hallucinations. You know what I mean. You’re dead and I’m alive and so I miss you. If you asked, I’d end myself here and now.”

“Babe?”

“I’ve been thinking about it again.”

“A bit of suicidal ideation, Jeremiah?”

“A bit.” He spun her again, the music loud and pleasant in their ears.

“It would be a mortal sin.”

He said nothing. His feet, always clumsy, were still clumsy in dreams. His boots shuffled her across the floor, as often as not stepping on her toes.

Her smile disappeared in the darkness of the ballroom, in the darkness that was theirs alone. “I want to see you, baby, I really do.”

He eyed her as they moved semi-gracefully. “But?”

“Someone needs you first.”

He shook his head. “I don’t give a shit.”

“But someone needs—”

“Don’t care. I need you, Mariana. Twenty-one damned years. I’m tired, I want to be with you.”

“But you don’t remember so many of those years.”

Bean ground his teeth, stung by the criticism.

“Honey, if it were some old man, some bullcrap politician or some damned attorney, I’d say eat a bullet and come home to me.”

Bean snorted. “No, you wouldn’t it. Mortal sin.”

She laughed. “No, I wouldn’t. But I wouldn’t be so upset if you had a horrible car crash or something, plunge into a ravine, the car explodes into flame, fries your skinny ass to a cinder.”

Bean laughed. “You don’t care if I burn to death?”

“I love you so much that I don’t care if you burn to death.”

Their laugh faded into the lush trill of the saxophones, into a liquid flurry of piano notes up and down.