Like we said
So I’m in the office now and I get this call – ring ring ring…
Yeah – it’s Mack.
You’re not just blowing smoke up my ass?
Okay, listen, Jack. I’m sorry about a few things, so Smith’s no longer your boss.
Oh, no, Mack, gee, do you really think you should do that to him?
Drop the tone, Step, and listen. Smith’s getting into the office in a few minutes. He was just out in the field, on Trukhaniv Island, investigating a corpse. Turns out the corpse was his wife, ripped open from sex organ to throat, and gutted.
Like a fish… Do tell, Mack… do fucking tell…
Step, I already told you…
Told me what, Mack? I say that’s great. I say it saves me the strain of having to tell the little cocksucker I saw his wife at the strip club.
Oh, yeah? Doing what?
Dancing – as a Kosher Girl.
How do you know it was her, Jack, if she was covered in a sheet?
Because those sheets, Mack, if you are not familiar yet with the legend, which is true, have holes in them, and through one of those holes stuck her nose, and after seeing that repulsive upturned object here in this office, to Smith for which I am truly grateful for bringing her up here, as I needed that skank wife of his here like I needed another sore asshole, I’d recognize that pig snout anywhere, even if it was severed from her face and stuck in a pile of shit.
Which, in fact, it was, Jack.
Hmm… yeah… well… Hey, Mack, I hear his footsteps. Gotta go!
Jack, Jack, try to be decent to the guy, try to be –
Yeah, right, Mack, sure I will…
I hang up the fucking phone… In comes Smith… To say the least, he looks out of sorts.
Carved open by the claw of The Ferret himself.
Wha… what are you saying?
I’m saying so you saw what she was like on the inside, that wife of yours… Faith, was it? Yeah, that’s right – Faith. Ha-ha-ha!!! What kind of stupid-ass fucking name was that for a Ukrainian? I say, Smith, so you got a look at her insides, huh? I guess that must have been the first time she revealed them to you, albeit involuntarily, so looks like you owe The Ferret a note of thanks for opening her up nice and wide. Finally showed you her true self, eh? Not too nice, I gather, pretty fucking hideous, I bet. Nasty stuff. Must’ve stank to high hell. Too late, I guess. But better late than never – as they say. It’s a good saying, Smith. Quite appropriate.
Smith stands there, in the middle of the room, silent, mouth open, stunned. So I keep laying it in.
Guess you won’t be bringing her up here anymore, will you, Smith, that skank fucking bitch, huh, trying to compensate for your lack of a relationship by impressing her with your powers, how you lord it over me and Dickerson, yeah?; boss us around and all that. That fucking whore of yours, that fucking skank bitch. Yeah – so I’m GLAD she’s fucking dead! You fucking sniveling little loser. You fucking little shit. Bring her up here again, would you? – with that turned-up fucking nose – Faith, yeah, Faith all right. What kind of stupid fucking bitch has a turned-up nose in Ukraine? These chicks evolved their beauty from the steppes – how do you get a fucking upturned nose from that?
Smith takes a step and a half toward me, tears welling in his eyes, not sure what to do, and I don’t like that, because he should have known what to do the second I opened my mouth, but he didn’t. So I keep ripping…
Manny Face’s kid and Tango Baby weren’t good enough for you, huh? Why not, huh? Your good buddy, The Hunched Cornish? That fucking monster, that evil 4,000-year-old freak – not a man, not a god – what the fuck is he? And he’s got nothing on me, Smith. I beat him in a fight, and after that, and after he lost Tango Baby – whom he’d brutally raped, brainwashed and kidnapped – to Manny Face, he shut his big fucking mouth, didn’t he? So was it The Hunched Cornish, Smith? Your good buddy? The one you’d have lunch and dinner with in The Checkout? Huh? Was it that Cornish thing that talked you into dumping Tango Baby and un-adopting her kid with Manny Face after he broke Face’s neck and killed him? You fucking asshole! What a gift you’d been given. Jesus! Tango Baby – what man in his right mind would pass up the opportunity to be with her – even with that pooka kid?! And he was a beautiful baby – a beautiful kid! Jeez – you fucking stupid ungrateful asshole… AND SHE WAS PRACTICALLY GIVEN TO YOU!!! Handed to you, on a silver platter, bequeathed to you, by Manny Face himself. He KNEW he was going to die, and it was his wish, having befriended you, that YOU take care of her, and love her after him, and help out with their kid, raise it, nurture it, give it a good father to look up to, and a home!!! Jeez! – have more kids with her yourself – clearly, that was part of the unspoken but understood deal. And she had feelings for you, Smith, and she had already grown to love you. Love you!!! What man in his right mind wouldn’t sacrifice his right arm for that?! She was beautiful, Smith, and genuine, and sincere. But no, that wasn’t good enough for you!!! Manny Face – he was my good-good friend. But I clearly wasn’t the man to follow in his footsteps, and I knew it – we both did. And that was okay by me. But you were. That’s what we believed about you then, Smith. I was the one who recommended Face prepare Baby to continue on with you. But fucking no… No, you had to dump her, you had to trash the kid… you had to fucking… to fucking…
He stares at me, blinking. Keep staring, you stupid little moron. So I keep going.
Do you even know what happened to the kid or who’s taking care of him? Him? Tango Baby? No, of course not. You don’t even remember how or when they left you. How, that one day, they’d just disappeared – disappeared, and you didn’t even know it. And then, it was like it had never happened, they had never been there, like a dream for you that falls apart after the first seconds that you wake – am I not right, Smith? You rubbed your eyes and it was gone. And you just shrugged your shoulders, because for some reason, you suddenly wanted some skank bitch by the name of Faith. Yeah, more like Filth. You were golden, man, fucking golden. I didn’t need to look up to you because it was natural, I was already looking up to you, Smith – and Mack – he gave you the green ledger! The green ledger, Smith! Can you even begin to comprehend what that means? It means that Mack had anointed you next in line. It means he’d decided that you were the one. And did you even ever crack that book open? Or did you just take it all for granted, expecting to get all these rewards because you’re just such a great fucking guy? The green ledger, Smith. What an honor! What a privilege! And what responsibility… And therein’s your downfall. That’s the one thing you didn’t want. You never said it out loud, but you admitted it secretly in your heart, while denying it at the same time. What did you do with the green ledger, Smith? Do you even remember where you put it? Where is it, Smith? Do you even care? And Tango Baby? And Manny Face’s kid? Mack’s taking care of them…
Through wet eyes, Smith, the turd, looks at me with that selfish childish egotistical look that, upon receiving news like that, immediately wants to ask if that means that Mack is doing it with Tango Baby, even though he’d just come back from seeing his dead wife on Trukhaniv Island with her severed nose stuck in a pile of dog shit and all her guts spilled out of her Ferret-ripped body.
Yeah, Smith, I know Mack is too honorable of a man to take advantage of people in need, especially as he’s taking care of them, but if he was getting on top of Tango Baby, number one, I wouldn’t blame him, and number two, THAT reward would be well-deserved, AND, number three, she’d probably let him. He may be an older man, but he’s still built and strong, like a bull, strong as hell – and he’s also a gentleman. Is that what you still claim to be, Smith? A gentleman? Ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa!!! And now look what’s happened. Yeah, and tell me you haven’t started drinking… Ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa!!! Ripped from top to bottom by The Ferret’s own claw… from fucking c- – t to gullet, just like Mack said. Ha-ha-ha-haaaa!!!
I’m in a chair. Smith now stands over me and he launches his right fist at me, clearly, I see, with the unleashing of all his fury and rage. I let him punch me four times. I guess he breaks my nose – don’t know, guess I’ll find out later. Gets a gusher of blood out of my lips and gums, damages the handsome aging downward slant of my left eye. I grab his fist in my left hand on its fifth flight in.
Ouch, Smith, gee, that really hurt. I guess I must have really deserved that. Golly, maybe we should talk this through?
Using the fingers of my hand, I pry Smith’s fist and knuckles apart until his open hand is fully in my grip. And then I start to squeeze.
What do you say, Smith? Maybe we should sit down, the two of us, and talk this thing over, like two grown men? Huh, Smith – whatdya say?
I squeeze harder and I feel his knees buckle. I see the pain crisscross his face in waves and the sweat and tears come to his eyes in involuntary spasms as he pulls back his lips and grits his teeth. But I pull back my lips and grit my teeth too. And now, the bones in the hand start to crack. And now, I am turning his fingers, one by one, into pulp.
The door opens and Mack walks in. He sees what I’m doing. He says nothing. He looks down. He is all remorse and sad regret. He waits silently until this thing I am doing to Smith comes to its end.
Filed by Jack Step, June 21, 2016 – Summer Solstice following a Full Moon
This is also to officially announce that Bret Boner, former dead chief editor of the recently fake terrorist bombed Kyiv Poster, is (correction, was) part of the problem, not the solution, and so, therefore, is (correction, was) the Kyiv Poster. Rest in Pieces…