So, I don't know how often it is that someone posts a really long post like this, but to anyone that reads the whole thing, I'd like to hear any thoughts and opinions on what was read. Did you like it or dislike it? If my writing has not entertained the reader within the first few pages, then I have failed. I don't except many to actually read the whole thing. All and any honestly is seriously appreciated. I hope you enjoy what I have to share.
The basic premise of the story is that in the future, an eccentric, self-proclaimed vigilante teams up with a gifted detective and a famous redneck to hunt down an equally gifted serial killer who terrorizes the city for a very large bounty reward. The vigilante is essentially a terrorist himself, but gives up his terrorist activities because he realizes he can do much more for society by helping the detective. All three stand to gain a lot from capturing the murderer, and the story is filled with quirky situations, dark humor, and possibly I'll include some genuinely intense, suspenseful moments as well.
Below is the story I'm writing, starting with the first page.
I had heard that Precinct 105, New York City’s youngest police station that was built four years ago in 2061, was giving away free brownies today. I loved brownies, but I had never actually seen the inside of this building before. Judging solely by its exterior, it proved to be the furthest thing possible from being an eyesore with its resplendent architecture. I wished I had built it myself, but that never would have been possible considering the fact that I had been busy teaching myself how to be an effective terrorist rather than an architect during my years in college.
Walking steadily towards the precinct, I thought I was perhaps this nation’s first infamous criminal to walk into one with no fear whatsoever, on my own accord. Fear was a foreign concept to me because I had no reason to be afraid of anything for the most part. I had covered my tracks too well, and it wasn’t exactly difficult, either. Nobody knew that I was the Corpse Collector, the primary suspect in over twenty nearly identical crimes in the past year in this city. To any passerby on the street, I looked like an ordinary New Yorker who liked to smoke cigarettes and abide by the law. Too bad I didn’t do either of those two things.
Designed by a highly intelligent architect, the edifice towering over me instilled a meditative splendor in my soul with its detailed facade, underscored by a dazzling array of ebony columns that lent it an exuberant demeanor. The predominant color scheme of this building is of cerulean and ultramarine blue. Such common architecture like this is rampant throughout New York City, with a variation here and there.
The thin stone doors glided open soundlessly as I stood less than one foot away from them. If my granddad were here, he’d tell me about how automatic doors used to be made out of only glass, not brick, stone, or marble. That’s how it was with scientists today. Whenever they got millions of dollars, they’d find a way to make a beautifully opaque, three hundred pound block of fine Italian purple marble transparent. Wait, that’s how it’s always been with them.
“Hello,” I said, “I have come for the brownie festi-”
Before I could finish my sentence, a tall, rough-looking homeless man stumbles into the building and shouts, “YO, WHERE ARE THE BROWNIES, HOMEDOG?” In no more than two seconds, an even taller man who looked like a plain-clothes cop stood up from his desk, punched the buffoon in the face, and escorted him out of the police station. Wiping his hands off as if he’d just completed a day of hard work, he sat back at his desk. Confused, I attempted one more time to ask about the brownie festival, and walk to his desk. I noticed right away that it was very difficult for this man to not be the first thing you saw as you walked into Precinct 105, for he must have been close to seven feet tall, and his face hinted at an underlying genetic disorder that probably was the cause for his unnatural, mutated appearance. He sat at the reception desk, which was somewhat cluttered by childish knick knacks and candy. On the right-hand corner of the desk was a large sign saying “BROWNIE FEST TODAY”. I asked him about the brownies.
“Sorry, we’re all out of brownies. Everyone was allowed only three, but we ran out in less than an hour”, he responded.
I hid my annoyance at his reply with a straight face. Clearly on his desk, in plain sight, was a plate of five brownies.
“I’ll give you a dollar for one”, I then said.
Responding even faster this time, the goofy-looking giant at the desk straightened his back against his chair, “You know what, I’ll just give you one for free because I’m in a good mood.”
What he said to me temporarily shook off any negative emotions that I usually held against cops. Maybe this guy was a good one, I mean, my intuition was strangely telling me that this guy might be useful to me later in life, but I only sometimes listened to my inner thoughts this carefully. I took a brownie from his plate, and it looked like a perfect square, measuring about three inches on each side. Stuffing it completely into my mouth, I immediately spat it out into a nearby trashcan. There was an extremely mild note of some sort of metallic tasting chemical, possibly chlorine, in the brownie. I doubted most people would be able to discern this taste, but I had a peculiarly sensitive tongue. I told the officer about this and asked for a cup of water from the drink dispenser from the other side of the desk.
“I’m not allowed to give any of this water to non-employees,” he quietly stated, “but I still give it to anyone who asks because long ago, my cousin had a heat stroke. He could have died, and to this day, it would just make me feel guilty if I denied water to anyone.” He said this with a solemn gloom cast upon his face.
I told him that I was very sorry to hear that, and as I took a sip of the water from a cone-shaped paper cup, I reflexively spat it out, once again.
“Hey this water also tastes like chlorine. The brownies too. Do you realize this?”
He responded alarmingly, “Really? I don’t have a good sense of smell so therefore I can’t taste really well either. The brownies made today were made here, using the same water that we drink. There’s a vending machine over there if you want to buy something. Here, use this special employee card so you can get it for free, and get me a bottle of water while you’re at it. Thanks for telling me about the chlorine.”
‘What a nice guy’, I thought as I hobbled my way over to the vending machine. It’s people like this guy that made the world less miserable. Should your average citizen be at least this courteous every now and then, society would be light years ahead. If there was a guy that I would definitely not splatter with a wretched orb of horrendously festering shit, it would probably be him right now. That’s what I did, by the way. I was considered a serial biohazard terrorist, according to my extraordinary list of very consistent crimes, but I served no agenda that belonged to something that was "greater" than me. I never thought of myself as a terrorist, however. I was more like a comedian with an affinity for breaking laws.
I levitated the flimsy, yet sturdy card under a red laser in the middle of the vending machine, and a bottle of water churned out, again, and again, and again. As the machine continuously released a rhythmic barrage of water bottles, which looked kind of cool, I took only two, and proceeded to head back to the reception desk.
The man, no longer with a plate of brownies next to him, reassured me and said, “Don’t worry about that, we’ve got someone on the way to fix that machine. This place is beautiful on the outside, but quite faulty on the inside in more ways than one.”
Curiously, I replied, “Oh yeah? Tell me more.”
Instantly, he retorted in a quiet voice, “You know, I’m not really supposed to say this, but this place cuts a lot of corners because of the superintendent of this precinct, who is the top boss of this place. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about morals, or you or me. And he’s only 26 years old. Yeah, that’s young right? That’s because he inherited this place from his dad who died a few years ago. Let me give you an example, though, of what I’m talking about.”
He paused and took a brief swig from his water bottle. Despite the briefness, I could see that about a third of the water in the bottle had vanished.
He continued, “He controls the bonus payouts to all the cops here, as well as anyone employed in this building such as the maintenance staff. Lately, he’s cut the bonus to only ten percent of what it used to be. He says it’s because we’re on a tighter budget now, but look at this. I did some quick math, and calculated roughly how much money is saved by cutting our annual bonuses to almost nothing. Know how much it is? About 900,000$. Just yesterday, the staffers were talking about how Mernie Nachen, our boss, had just purchased beachfront real estate for exactly that same amount. Sounds pretty shady, eh?”
Nodding my head in certain agreement, I said, “What’s his name again? Mernie? What an unusual name.”
“If you think that’s unusual, my name is Ashley. I hate it.”
“Well hey”, I said, “people can just call you Ash right? It’s really not bad at all. You seem a little too intelligent for this job too. Surely there must be something else you would rather be doing. I wouldn’t want to stay for long at a place like this.”
To become a police officer today, one needed to undergo brutally stringent testing, as well be able to pass a basic IQ test with a score of at least 133. Of course, every now and then, someone would be caught cheating on those tests by finding out the answers ahead of time. Many were ultimately successful. Being a cop meant having a good salary, unlike in the old days when their pay wasn’t any higher than that of your average citizen. I had the feeling that Ash did not have to cheat on that test.
Ash replied, “Yes, I’ve been working on this in my free time. I wish to be an architect one day because I realized that I kinda hate this job. I have designs that would amaze even the most experienced of them.”
“Surprise me”, I encouraged him.
Ash promptly took out a miniature silver tablet that looked like a thick piece of note card and placed it gently onto the table. With the push of one button, it produced a large holographic image a few inches above it. The three-dimensional image of a residential skyscraper instantly enamored me with a decadent ebullience that I had never seen before. The mere sight of this image stimulated every minute cog and gear in my brain into action, as if a resonating shock of lightning had jolted my skull. Featuring an impervious foundation that was twice as wide as the tower itself, it was spectacularly tinged with dazzling splashes of rare yellows and blues from top to bottom. Sets of piercing mechanical appendages jutted out from various parts of the building in intervals, giving the building a sort of cold vibe that was somehow unusually comforting because it simply looked so brilliant. Exiguous light fixtures anointed the crown of the top floor, pointing outwards. The glittering lights looked like it could easily have animated itself into an urban stampede of frail, wiry debris that likely to fall off of the ceiling at any given moment, delicately hitting the ground like a clump of feathers.
I could, at this point, explain how the future of architecture had limitless potential. There was always room for more improvement, but the room never ceased to expand, as if nothing could possibly confine a human’s level of imagination. Before I could remark on any other of the numerous and intriguing aspects of this puzzlingly magnificent structure, Ash had turned off his little device, and told me that he could not have shown it to me for any longer.
“And the interior will be finished soon,” he concluded.
“When?” I said.
“Maybe a month. I have a friend who has helped me design all of this. He is the one who has the technical know-how regarding computers and these design programs.”
“Interesting, I guess you won’t be here for long then.”
“Probably not.”
Ash and I soon parted our ways, and I had taken with me an extravagant visual feast that would be forever retained in my memory, and a free bottle of water. I sipped the beverage very slowly, carefully paying attention to the beautiful sky outside as I exited Precinct 105. It was now 6PM, and I headed towards a local, but certainly not ordinary restaurant to satisfy my appetite with a small meal. Usually, one of my favorite foods in peaceful weather such as this would be a well-prepared, fiery hot plate of spaghetti, covered in sauce that was made with just the right ratio of onions and garlic to tomatoes and ground beef.
Chapter 2
Every time I entered this restaurant, I thoughtfully examined the menu for at least five minutes or so, pretending that I couldn’t make up my mind because I wanted to flatter the nice owner there. His name was Stan, and he had a lovely wife named Bonqueesha. He also had a husband named Stuart. All three of them were friendly, and I had known each for at least ten years; however, Stan was usually the only one in the restaurant, aptly titled “Pot”. The name was ironic because none of those three smoked marijuana, except Stuart, who had smoked it decades ago, but no longer. It was just an eye-catching name, and an extremely easy one to remember.
Upon my arrival to “Pot”, Stan greeted me and hurried to the kitchen to prepare his world-famous spaghetti. Upon receiving the medium-sized plate of this fulfilling delicacy (or at least I considered it a delicacy), I would adjust it to my liking by drizzling controlled dashes of a famous hot sauce over it. A visit to Pot was always a great way to end the night, as it was one of the few places in New York City where customers could smoke cigars inside.
Sometimes, when I had described this restaurant to new people that I had met, I tended to only focus on how great the spaghetti was, while forgetting to mention the fact that “Pot” was a world-class, five star restaurant, and the winner of one of the Top 10 Restaurants in the World Award, from the years 2050-2067. Stan was a monstrously talented chef, learning secrets of the cooking trade starting at a young age from his mother, and I would estimate that he made about just over twenty million in profit for himself per year. Speaking of awards, there was also another restaurant in the same vicinity as “Pot”, perhaps just four miles away, that received the same exact award as Stan’s restaurant every year too.
That restaurant I was talking about was owned by my sister, who was also my employer. Years ago, when she had offered me a permanent job as the head manager of her restaurant’s valet parking, I accepted it graciously. That was how I had gotten to where I was today - an ordinary, middle-class citizen who enjoyed drinking coffee, smoking cigars, carrying his weekly earnings in his shirt pocket in a thick wad of cash, and hurling disgusting matter at people who deserved it.
Stan came along and delivered me my meal, and started his usual chat about random things.
“How’s it going Clesheeve?” asked Stan.
“Just admiring your beautiful restaurant as always,” I replied, while peppering the spaghetti with hints of cumin.
Stan’s thriving restaurant was a popular meeting place for the rich, and at over a thousand dollars per person for a meal, it was quite a wonder how this three story building was a full house most days, teeming with the most elite of socialites and debutantes. Exquisite pieces of art plastered every wall, with landscape paintings with picturesque mountains, quiet lakes, and roaring waves of the ocean slathered onto enormous canvases. Priceless vases and artifacts tidily dotted the corners and aisles between the tables. Stan’s magical behemoth, known as Pot, seemed to cost money just to look at the place, but for me, I just appreciated the fact that all of the meals cost me not even a dime.
Taking a seat at my table, Stan exhaled a deliberate sigh from his large, rotund body. He lights up an expensive cigar, and hands me one, and we both smoked as I enjoyed my meal, looking at the plethora of well-dressed men and women that sat below our private deck. Suddenly, the black-tiled performance stage at the front of the restaurant begins to fill up with at least a dozen young schoolchildren.
“What’s this?” I asked Stan.
“They’re singers from a local school. They’re supposed to be really good, and I let them sing here tonight because I think the patrons will love it. I think it’s a middle school choir.”
“Well they better be good, because there’s nothing I hate more being interrupted in the middle of a great meal by some jackasses.”
“But they’re just kids.”
“Don’t care. Kids are inexplicably stupid. I bet their singing is going to be lousy. You know how many nine-year olds I could probably beat up with my bare fists?” I was just joking, of course.
“You’re in for a treat then. I’ve heard recordings of their singing before, and they were amazing. And this was last year. They’ve probably gotten better over the course of these last several months.”
The choir assembled onto the stage, sang their boring songs, and walked off of the stage. Admittedly, their singing was very good, in fact, it was the best singing I’ve ever heard in person, even though I was never the kind to attend concerts, nor frequent any live music venues. The volume of the loud applause in the restaurant increased as a smooth crescendo, until it became so powerful that I almost choked on some smoke from my cigar. Telling Stan that their singing wasn’t my cup of tea, he interrupted me by handing me a new, different type of cigar I had never smoked. That was the way that Stan always was with his money; he always had plenty, and he was more than willing to give me free meals and whatnot because he not only considered me a good friend, but because I had once saved his life when he had choked on a phenomenally large-sized grape.
I distinctly remember that night, when I was strolling along a beaten path with my dog in our city’s largest park, located on Emerald Springs Boulevard. Not a single person was to be seen within a hundred yard radius around me, probably because it was 3AM in the morning, but a moving shadow in the distance alerted my dog, who began to wag his tail uncontrollably. I approached the shadow within less than a minute because I liked to walk fast, and before I knew it, I saw a much older man gesturing towards his throat as if he were choking on something. Luckily, I had known the Heimlich maneuver since high school, and used it to save his life.
It was that night that he led me to his fancy restaurant, which I had known about back then, but had never entered. It was that night where I sat amazed at how a place where one would go to eat food resembled an art gallery, rather than a restaurant, and it was that night where I met Bonqueesha and Stuart, Stan’s husband and wife. After the polygamist and gay rights movements completed their agenda a few decades ago, a new gay polygamist rights movement had sprouted from its ending, succeeding with determination not too long afterwards. Since then, I have visited Stan’s luxurious condominium multiple times, and have always pondered about the whimsically possible situation where I would stumble upon all three of them engaged in an intense orgy by accidentally forgetting to knock on the door before I entered. To this day, the only thing that I had observed them doing together was witnessing them play an extremely boring game of Blabble, an ancient board game created over a hundred years ago that I cannot believe people still play to this day.
That was how I had met Stan, who promised me that night a world of wealth, and by a world of wealth, I mean one free meal of my choice any day of the week, as well as unlimited access to his selection of cigars. Of course, I was not going to deny this offer, and because I didn’t, I sat here with him in this exuberant setting. He made one additional promise though, and that was that he would, with no hesitation or question, save me if I were ever to be in a crisis. It didn't matter how extreme the crisis would be he said, so I automatically assumed that he would bail me out and provide me with a good lawyer should I ever be apprehended for being the Corpse Collector.
“Hey Stan, if you were ever to save my life, would we be even? I mean, would you still offer me free cigars and stuff like that?” I asked him, continuing our conversation. I already knew the answer because I knew Stan, also known as Mr. Laidback, all too well. Well, actually, I just know because I’ve asked this same question to him dozens of times in the past, and the answer was always a resounding yes.
“Eh,” he uttered. He redirected the topic towards something completely unrelated to what I had asked. Stan was an oddball like me. He could never focus on a topic for a steady amount of time, and his mind wandered a lot. This made him a lot more interesting. He continued to speak.
“Have you heard in the news about this guy they call the Corpse Collector? He or she supposedly sprays fecal matter and dead stuff all over people’s businesses, sometimes in their faces, and even into their mouths. Have you heard of the Corpse Collector before, eh?” he asked me.
“Yeah, I have. I think a lot of people have since he’s on the news every other week it seems. How can you ignore a story about some dude who dumps rotting shit onto other people's faces?”
“I don’t know…you can’t.”
"He's known by his fans as the Corpse Juicer, like he's some fuckin' kind of kitchen device. Sick freaks."
“Oh, uh, yeah, I guess. The world's full of sick freaks these days I suppose. And the fact that he uses a blender to create that juice is just as sick.”
"Wait, who said anything about blenders? How would you even know this? Never once has the news said anything about him using a blender."
"Oh, I mean, heh heh, it was just a guess, that's all Stan."
“Damnit, pull yourself together Clesheeve,” I said to myself mentally. I had just coolly averted a potential disaster that never should’ve even presented the slightest opportunity to arise in the first place. If I were to continue my successful career as the Corpse Collector, I should be watching my actions like a trained watchdog, not a bumbling oaf. Stan would never have been able to pick up on my clues, as he’s not too sharp during this time of the day. Soon, sweat began to form in big drops on my forehead, and they ran down my cheeks and nose.
“Uh, are you alright?” inquired Stan, who once again, let out another one of his trademark unenthusiastic sighs. The peculiar features of his face such as his large nose and round head, combined with his indefatigable poker facing, had always suggested that he was a very street smart person, which made me more skittish. Okay, I gotta keep cool again, and just give him an answer.
“DO YOU THINK I’M THE CORPSE COLLECTOR STAN?” I blurted out in nervousness. I failed miserably.
Stan billowed out a gentle, yet erratic stream of thin cigar smoke from his fat lips, while I stomped myself on my foot.
“No, and why are you so nervous? Never once did I even remotely mention that I thought you were the Corpse Collector.”
“Heh heh, I guess that’s good then!”
“You know, I’ve heard that the Corpse Collector is most likely a woman.”
“Says who?”
“Says Detective Johnson, an old buddy of mine from high school. He just started to work at Precinct 105 a few weeks ago. Just met him recently as I was walking down the street. Haven’t seen him in years. Strange, eh?”
“So, this detective is trying to follow the tracks of the Corpse Collector?”
“Yeah, he told me he was the lead detective on the Corpse Collector case. I invited him to stop by here sometime, like next week, and guess what? He’s supposed to be really good at tennis. Perhaps you’d like to challenge him to a match sometime. I’ll let you know when he’s coming so you can meet him yourself.”
“Yeah yeah yeah whatever, but did you say that he’s the lead detective?”
“Yes, he’s spent all of his working hours chasing down the Corpse Collector. He really believes he can find him, or her, and has got a couple of good leads so far, or so he says.”
“Interesting. Well you just let me know when he’s going to be here, and I will be here too then.”
Excusing myself from the table, I headed downstairs to the bar, which exhibited a mind-boggling number of different sorts of alcohol, mostly expensive bottles of liquor. The slick black counter top was made out of a dense marble that reflected the dim lights with a refined sort of elegance that would instantly put anyone in a relaxing mood. The bartender, Mel, was most likely the prettiest female in this whole place every night, and it was quite a wonder why she liked this job so much. She was the main attraction of the bar night after night. Her face possessed amiable features that very pleasing to stare at. Now that I think of it, she was usually the most visually pleasing item to behold wherever she went.
She wasn’t my type, though, and I decided to just be friends with her. For some people like Stan, this didn’t make sense, because Mel was also just three years younger than me. She was 25, and had just finished college, contemplating now what to do with her life. One inch taller than me, she stood at 5’9, and weighed 125 pounds, which was about five pounds more than what I weighed. None of these traits of hers probably mattered in terms of helping her future careers, however, as she had told me before that she did not want to do any modeling, or any sort of work where her looks would easily get her ahead, unless she absolutely had to make money fast. I always liked to poke fun at her somewhat tall height by bending my knees (when I wore pants, of course) whenever I stood next to her sometimes so that she would look like a giant, and she would usually slap my shoulder really hard in jest. Mel was an unusually strong female.
I sit myself down on the black leather barstool, constructed with an avant-garde design that reminded me of the preliminary templates that Ash had shown me earlier today. This barstool alone cost exactly $2,500, not including tax. Exotic herbs and spices peppered the silver marble floor in the bar, and their fragrances always made a customer feel welcome. The lighting was arranged in such a way that produced moods of pensiveness and tranquility, with levitating chandeliers that emitted a kaleidoscopic myriad of colors. The chandeliers, fetching for almost $50,000 dollars each, were developed by France last year, and had the ability to hover in the air using some sort of special technology. They looked ridiculous. Speaking of $50,000 objects, the holographic television set in the corner of the bar was also worth that same amount.
What I loved most about the bar was that everything reeked of excessive wealth. For example, across the bar was an engrossing cigar humidor that was sure to put a cigar enthusiast into a blissful rapture as soon as he or she entered the room. The humidor itself carried over $600,000 worth of premium cigars, and made a profit of over $150,000 a year for Stan. A wine cellar stood adjacent next to the humidor, displaying his collection of over 100 brands of wines from over 20 countries, and held $750,000 worth of product. It made Stan anywhere from $200,000 to $245,000 a year. The bar, along with the men and women’s restrooms, cost over $1,000,000 dollar to design and build, and made Stan perhaps $500,000 to $600,000 a year. To top it all off, the Van Gogh painting to my right, donated by a local billionaire, was worth over $40,000,000, and was guarded by a bulletproof glass case. This section of Pot represented sophistication at its finest, according to just me though. There were a few other places in this city of 17,000,000 that would make Pot look cheap, but none of them could rival the fulfilling taste of Stan's cuisine.
Stan had a serious knack for interior design, as he was always capable of paying attention to the smallest of subtle nuances that could influence his customers’ feelings, but he was not a person that one would consider a “genius”. While certainly more intelligent than the average person, I always found it interesting how Stan made it to where he was today with his mediocre grades in high school. Whether or not I would ever find out, it inspired me a lot.
I observed a team of businessmen sitting at the bar, one of them sitting with a lovely lady in a customized designer dress, and some just having drinks with their buddies. The chatter was never too loud, as it was an unwritten rule that Stan was a man to be respected, and the first and foremost way that people showed their respect for the man who designed such an awesome place to hangout in was to not cause trouble, and to keep the noise level at a reasonable hum. Boisterous, rowdy men would promptly be handled by Luigi, a large, intimidating black man of a formidable stature who had been working as a bouncer for Stan for the last three years or so.
Whisking the cigar and cigarette smoke into the ventilated exhaust ducts, the extravagant ceiling fans blew small breezes of chilly air into my nostrils. Mel came over and asked for what I wanted.
“I’ll just have a coffee.” I said to her.
“You’re the only person I’ve ever served who orders coffee at a bar. I hope you realize that.” She said.
“Coffee makes me shit,” Luigi exclaimed, chiming into our conversation. He set his gigantic forearms onto the counter.
The three of us laughed at his unexpected comment.
“Well, it’s a laxative.” I remarked. “Bet not too many people know that, but it is technically a light laxative. You know, Mel here likes her men like she likes her coffee, black.”
“Ha ha ha,” guffawed Luigi. “Are you kidding me, Clesheeve, this white woman here would snap in half like a pretzel stick if she had sex with me. You hear me? I bet I could snap her frail little body in half at the abdomen with just two of my fingers.” Luigi mechanically squeezed his fingers a few times in our faces.
The three of us roared with laughter at his joke, but then stopped laughing because what he said was probably true.
Regardless of whether he could or not, Luigi was a good person. I knew this because I was a good judge of character, and a good person demonstrates his goodness by passing certain tests in life to become good. Everyone’s test in life is different, as no two tests are the same, and Luigi has certainly passed his fair share of tests. Take the instance of last year, when a man at the bar flashed a knife at Mel. As the assailant uttered the words, “It’s time to die,” Luigi simply walked up to the man from behind, and pinched the 8-inch knife with just two of his fingers, casually staring into his eyes. The assailant, trying to budge the knife, realized that the knife would not move, and he was a fairly muscular man himself too, though nowhere near as large as Luigi. Then, he relinquished the knife to Luigi, walking back slowly, while Luigi didn’t remove his eyes from him for a second, nor did he blink once. That day was a testament to the brutally raw strength of Luigi, who used just two fingers of his bare hand to stop a knife attack. As the assailant tried to escape in a collected manner, a pair of cops waited for him outside, and he was arrested instantly. Since that day, I could still not comprehend how Luigi accomplished this impossible feat, nor could I comprehend how he had the balls to save someone else’s life, at the expense of his own. The whole incident was caught on tape by the Pot’s state-of-the-art security cameras and system, which cost $2,500,000 total to set up, and the workers at Pot view this tape from time to time still.
“Alright, enjoy the rest of your shitty break, Mel,” said Luigi, as he left to the other side of the bar.
By the time he was out of sight, a news report erupted from the television set, startling some of the patrons with its annoying theme song. The reporter, a tall, dark and handsome woman, began to discuss today’s breaking news.
“The New York City Police Department has just discovered a new clue in their hunt for the Corpse Collector that has led them to suggest that the perpetrator is a female, possibly late forties to early fifties.” I stopped listening at that point, and talked with Mel some more. The detective was totally lost on the case, I thought.
“I wish they had a real band instead of those kids today,” I said.
“Oh, but the kids were so good and adorable. They have skill.”
“Who cares? Kids are gay.”
Mel laughed and stroked her long brunette hair behind her ear with her right hand, and looked slightly downwards at the television. Her face looked puzzled when she noticed the reporter talking about the Corpse Collector.
“This Corpse Collector is a mighty odd creature,” said Mel in a sarcastic voice.
“Yeah, I wonder who it could be. It’s not me that’s for sure, heh heh.”
“Well, whoever it may be, they better be careful. It seems like the cops are getting closer and closer each day to figuring out who this person is. They’re pretty intent on staying hot on this criminal’s trail. Now, they know it’s a woman, and the next thing you know, you’ll see her in court on TV, confessing to her countless crimes.”
“Yeah, seems like they’re doing an excellent job,” I replied, rolling my eyes.
Little did Mel, Stan, or anyone know, I was the Corpse Collector.
My latest crime was a masterpiece, involving over twenty pounds of decrepit flesh I had collected from a local morgue at night. You’d be surprised at how easy it was to steal parts from these corpses; the people working at these places tended to be careless and left the corpses lying outside at nighttime, with just a yellow tarp covering them. Knowing this, I would take a bus near, but not right next to, the morgue. I would then take the concealed handsaw that was also very easy to fit inside of my pants, and hack an arm or a leg from the corpse. At this point, all I had to do was place the amputated limbs inside of the airtight burlap bag I would always carry with me, and take the bus back home. The workers at the morgues always thought some animal must’ve tore the limbs off of the corpses, because they were incredibly stupid.
When I carried the bag onto a bus, nobody on the bus would ever question my suspicious package on board, as most passengers commonly had groceries, department store goods, and other oblong, irregular, or obtuse pieces of baggage with them. The bus was an extremely popular way for criminals to transport drugs and other illegal items.
Once inside my apartment, I would hack the corpse into even smaller pieces using the same handsaw, saving each piece in a hermetically sealed bag. Then, I would take just one piece, such as a hand, and put it in my large kitchen blender. Turning it on, the blender would chop the corpse into so fine of a substance, that it turned into a pulpy juice. The concoction produced from the blender was usually a reddish orange color, and putrid waste gurgled and bubbled as it poured out like melted chocolate ice cream into another container. Wearing the mask was a very important thing to do before handling corpse juice.
It took me almost a whole hour to collect at least twenty pounds of this decaying biological matter, and to place it into fifteen separate plastic containers with airtight lids. My recipe for corpse juice varied crime after crime, as I was always striving to make improvements. To make it smellier and even more disgusting, one technique that I had discovered that worked wonders was combining some of my solid and liquid excrement with the corpse juice. Shaking the two ingredients up in the bags to mix them together, I would let the bags sit there for days to ferment. This is when the magic happened. The resulting product was a noxious gas that was tenfold as potent as the smell of fresh, non-fermented corpse juice. One time, I took a medium whiff of the stuff from a distance of about four feet, and I suddenly became dizzy for a split second afterward. This stuff was not a trivial substance to laugh at, as acts of mischief involving bio-hazardous substances carried at least a one year prison term, depending on the kind of substance used. Fortunately, most of the cops were as dull as donkeys in New York City, despite the well-known IQ test requirements for admission to the academy. Sometimes, corruption worked towards my favor.
That was, more or less, what my “juice” was. Sometimes, I wouldn’t even bother grinding up corpses. I would just use pure shit that I had collected from the end of some sewage drain, and perhaps throw in a dead raccoon into the mixture.
Now what did I do with this “juice”, once I had made it? I would put it inside of an explosive contraption that I had researched and designed all by myself. It was about the size of a small dog, and even resembled a dog in a certain way, as it had four little legs protruding from its bottom. The purpose of this machine was to let loose a thick flood of this horrific liquid directly into the air in one big gush, propelled by a tank of compressed air that I had installed into each of the four little legs of the machine. Usually, the fluid never came out in one thick stream, which was precisely what I had intended it to do. Instead, the machine would shower anything within five to forty feet (as I have witnessed so far) with big droplets of thick corpse fluid like a lawn sprinkler. The second purpose of the machine was to ensure that I would never get caught, due to the contraption’s ability to be detonated from a distance. I mean, it's kind of hard to catch someone who could be anywhere from a hundred feet to a mile and a half away when they detonated this liquid firework.
Twenty pounds was what it was capable of holding, and when the machine was activated from afar using a remote device, all twenty pounds were dispensed within less than two seconds. Explosive would have been a better word to describe this image rather than sprinkler. Upon being spontaneously covered in a putrid reddish orange liquid, victims of this contraption were typically discombobulated by the sheer force of the small, but stinging pieces of death that pelted into their skin.
As I was saying, my latest crime was a masterpiece, taking place at the nightclub that was owned by a highly respected socialite named Sarah Gaylin. She was the same age as me, as we had both gone to the same high school, and was an extremely popular girl of today and yesterday, appearing in over fifty of the three hundred pages of our senior high school yearbook. There was nothing inherently wrong with her being popular, but I did have a problem with how she incessantly bullied me. One time, she decided to have fun by telling members of the football team that I had called her fat, and desired to be avenged. The day that that had happened, I saw my own car tossed over in the driveway of my house. The football team had found out where I lived, and dared to march onto my property, and cause destruction to my car. The next day at school, I just saw Sarah laughing. Vowing revenge one day, I got my chance at 6:19 PM, as of four days ago.
What I did at 6:19 PM earlier that day was place my contraption, which I had painted a green camouflage color and had covered in glue and leaves, next to some bushes that ran parallel to the club's grand entrance. I waited until Sarah arrived, usually at midnight, to check on her business. The club, by the way, was so pretentious that it had no name. It was only endearingly referred to by its patrons as just that, "the club."
At 10:00 PM, I waited outside across the street from this place, perched at the top of a parking garage. Being sixty feet up in the air with binoculars meant that nobody could really spot me, unless they had specifically been searching for someone. I just sat there watching periodically for her attention-catching red Mercedez-Benz to show up, in case she might have decided to come earlier that day, and she did. This night, she had come at 11:25 PM, and as she approached the entrance, I pushed a small red button on my remote device, which activated my corpse juice contraption. The device made a nice "beep" sound, which I thought was a clever touch.
Through my binoculars, I could see that the torrent of biologically hazardous waste that had been unleashed from the contraption enveloped the entire right side of Sarah's face, and most of her left side as well. The corrugated texture of decayed skin juice on her face, coupled with bits of raw fecal matter, was readily visible to my naked eye. Bits of yellowish brown liquid had also fizzled onto many of the people waiting in line, causing them to frantically dislocate themselves from the messy premises. Upon the sight of her seeing own dress pockmarked and slathered with a smelly coat of days-old corpse juice, a hysterical look exploded onto her face, with a wide-open mouth that expressed a disbelief that was beyond words. People screamed, as a piece of what appeared to them as sticky diarrhea, gently dangled from her chin.
Crying, Sarah tried to rub the shit out of her eyes, which was hilarious, because as soon as she had succeeded in doing this, the endless deluge of shit that had been streaming onto her face from her hair would just replace the older layer of shit that had just been wiped away. At last, I had gotten my revenge on this waste of space.
Some of the patrons, who I had considered as collateral damage, took pictures and videos of the whole incident, while others covered their noses with their shirts and dresses, watching the entire event unfold. By this time, a couple of the security guards at the club had managed to bring Sarah a towel or five, but it was too late, as Sarah, blind as a bat, clumsily tripped over a two-inch curb, and landed face-first into a huge chunk of the light brown substance on the ground. I was so happy when I saw this.
I continued to look at the hectic scene, until suddenly, I smelled a hint of the juice itself. I was rather surprised to smell it because I was over a hundred feet away, and sixty feet up in the air. I, mean, I had been able to smell it from an even further distance before, but I don't know. It just surprises me still to this day. This could have only meant that the scent of the corpse juice was exceptionally potent. In fact, it was twice as worse than the worst smell that I had ever smelled in my life which was fermented raw sewage from a neighbor's septic tank that a group of plumbers had cracked open.
A pair of women that had been standing next to Sarah verified the potency by vomiting, which also made me laugh as well. At a closer look, the two women looked familiar, and I had realized that they were the obnoxious friends of Sarah. They too, loved to pick on me and my friends long ago.
The outcome of that night couldn't have been any better. I had gotten revenge on two more people than I had originally anticipated, and considering it all a job well done, I retired to my apartment before the cops arrived at the scene.
Reminiscing about past accomplishments was one of my favorite pastimes. My attention shifted back to smoking the free cigar that Stan had just given me. Before I had taken just a few puffs out of it, Mel took it away from my hand.
"Give it back," I snapped at her.
"I'll give it back to you when tobacco stops giving people cancer. I hope you understand one day how bad these things are for you."
"But you smoke too, and I only smoke one of these a day at most."
I took out another cigar, trying to be funny by pretending that I was going to light
it, but Mel immediately returned my cigar. I explained to her that the cigar, according to Stan, was worth $100 each. Mel responded by lighting a cigarette, worth perhaps $1.
"And you smoke cigarettes, like a pack a day." I responded. "Aren't you worried too about your health?"
"Don't worry about me, I've got good genes. All of my grandparents smoked, and they lived happily to at least 103 years of age. If anything, I need to smoke so that I don't get that old."
"Interesting," I said playfully. "My grandparents were about as old as yours then. They died in their late nineties, but you know, smoking ages your skin dramatically as well. It's not just heart disease and cancer that are its negative aspects."
"That's just because most smokers don't know about the importance of hydration," replied Mel, as she took a shot of water.
"Fair enough."
It is true that Mel has flawless-looking skin, and that she drinks more water than anyone I know. There probably is a correlation between those two things. It doesn't take a long time to figure out that it isn't everyday that you see someone with genes as excellent as hers. She appeared to be a few years younger than her true age, and her strict exercise schedule, along with her diet and water intake, obviously helped things along. I didn't understand how she could tolerate smoking almost a whole pack of cigarettes a day.
Feeling like I had forgotten something, I checked my watch as my cigar approached its final couple of inches. The best time to end a cigar, in my opinion, was when there was only an inch and a quarter left. It was 8:30PM, and it was time for me to leave and head for my sister's restaurant, where I could work at my lamentable job. I said goodbye to Mel, and then to Stan. I had noticed that Stan's eyes looked dull, as usual, but he stopped me right when I thought he wasn't even paying attention to my words.
"I'll let you borrow my chauffeur tonight," he bellowed.
"Really? It's not a big deal for me to walk to work. It's only a few miles away."
"A few miles? That's ridiculous."
"I like the exercise. It's good for you."
"No, you're going to take my chauffeur tonight. It might rain later."
Accepting his offer, I was actually pretty excited at the thought of riding in his fancy automobile, which was capable of flying. Each car nowadays that had the ability to fly required an expensive electronic chip installed in its engine, that could be monitored from a car traffic control tower, which served the essentially the same function as an air traffic control tower.
If I recall correctly, once the car was in the air, its flight activity could be monitored from afar by the Department of Automotive Flight, one of the largest employers in this part of the city. Since the invention of these flying cars in 2050, only five accidents have been reported, with only one of them involving a fatality. This made sense, considering that a car traffic controller were usually top college graduates with a penchant for perfection. Their salary each year was close to $400,000 per year due to the importance of their job, and that was not even including bonuses.
One of the other reasons, however, that few accidents have ever happened was that only about 8,000 flying cars are in currently registered in New York City. Ownership and operation of a private vehicle cost $100,000 for land vehicles (unaffordable to many), and $10,000,000 for flying ones. These costs alone were enough to force 98% of the population to use the buses, which were actually very efficient. In fact, some rich people opted to use the bus and subway to get around town. That was how great the buses were. The rich simply bought the flying cars to show off their wealth for the most part, and I was very glad that people like Stan did.
As soon as we were over a kilometer high in the sky, we began to descend. Rides were always quick. Using a flying car in New York City meant that you could get anywhere fast. The problem that some citizens were concerned about was the fact that a terrorist could possibly hijack one of these vehicles, and crash them into a building. This was never likely in the first place, however, as these vehicles were built to weigh no more than four hundred pounds. Crafted with a special alloy, the flying cars were able to weigh less than most motorcycle, and thus, would not present any serious damage to buildings, let alone destroy one. Should one of these vehicles go awry, the department headquarters would instantly power down all flying cars that were in the air, landing them safely to the nearest viable parking zone.
The chauffeur dropped me off at my sister's restaurant, and denied the tip that I had offered always tried to offer him each of the three times that he had driven me in the past. Admiring his humble attitude towards others, I went to the valet services area, and began working. It was a fairly tedious job, though easy.
The two young employees that worked under me, Dave and William, were high school dropouts. I split the tips with them and they would each make about $300 a night, in addition to an annual salary of $80,000 each. I would make approximately $90,000 each year, which was the median salary in New York City today. Apart from the decent pay I got each year, there was another advantage to working this seemingly pointless job, an advantage that was two-fold. First, it gave me plenty of time to think about who was going to deservedly be my next victim, who would taste the taste of shit. The other advantage was that I could bounce ideas about my plans off of Dave and William, who were far too stupid to ever connect the dots, and realize that I was the Corpse Collector. However, their lack of intelligence was countered by their innovative and creative ideas for formulating a perfect shit crime scene. Sometimes though, I was afraid they would find out, somehow, about my real identity. Not getting caught was my number one priority. It was the only conflict in my life, apart from actually completing my acts of revenge against those that I hated. Some people might say that I had a problem with holding grudges, but I begged to differ. An hour passed, and the topic of the Corpse Collector reared its head into a conversation between Dave and William.
"Hey Dave, you know what would be a funny thing for the Corpse Collector to do?"
“What, William?"
"Explode lots of those bombs at once, or whatever he uses, instead of just one."
Now why haven't I thought of that before? The two valet attendants guffawed with vigor, joking around about hypothetical new ways for the Corpse Collector to commit his crimes, while the Corpse Collector stood nearby listening to them. It was a genius idea. Why stop at one shit contraption, when I could have easily used two or three? After pondering this for a while, I concluded that it would be a risky task to execute, though not impossibly difficult to pull off. I waited for the two to keep talking some more.
"Or how about he not only uses shit, but barf too?" said William.
"Ha ha, that would be classic!"
I liked this particular idea a lot, but where would I get any vomit? Moreover, would I even want to try to waste my time finding any? I took these thoughts home with me as I finished my shift. Relaxing in my massage chair the moment that I had gotten back to my apartment, I fell into a deep sleep.
CHAPTER 3
The deep sleep lasted about six hours, interrupted by a deafening slam that came from somewhere near the entrance of my apartment. I reached for my pistol that I always kept near my massage chair in case any intruders ever tried to rob me, and believe me, it happens more often than you think nowadays in this city. Turning my head almost a complete 180 degrees, I saw that it was my neighbor, Big Bob, a foolish, large-framed man that was regarded as one of the best landscape painters in America. Big Bob, grunting intensely as he entered my apartment, would uninhibitedly bring himself over to my place sometimes during the mornings to look for food. A terrible cook, this portly fellow with a rough-looking beard wore overalls and a straw hat, both of which were cultural remnants of his upbringings in the Deep South.
You see, Big Bob grew up in a stereotypical redneck family in Mississippi that lived in a stereotypically redneck way. From hunting squirrels, deer, and rabbit, to mastering all sorts of techniques to catch all sorts of fish, his family fostered only these activities while shunning the merits and importance of getting a good education. Big Bob, who had never cared for education in the first place, loved his family's attitude towards life, and embraced everything that was considered a redneck activity. However, one day, at the age of thirteen, Big Bob purchased a cheap $10 set of twelve colors of oil paint, a pack of eight bristle brushes, a few ounces of paint thinner, and a half dozen 10x10 inch canvases at his local general store. He had originally bought it for his little sister, who was two, and was obviously too young to paint. As a result, he started to use the painting supplies himself, and the rest after that was history. Besides that, Big Bob wasn't really good at anything else.
Usually, I would be pissed off if anyone just broke into my apartment all of the time, but I made an exception for Big Bob. He offered me free painting tips and short lessons several times a week in exchange for me cooking him a few meals. I was a good chef like Stan and my sister, but I was a terrible artist, which produced a sort of depression in me from time to time. Being an artist used to be my dream job, but instead, I ended up doing an ordinary, yet obsolete job. The things I had to settle for pissed me off sometimes, but I honestly had nothing to complain about. A roof over my head, free food, and an endless supply of cigars was all that I needed to be happy.
Putting my pistol back into its secret hiding place, I said to Big Bob, "I'll only cook a meal for you if you set up my easel and canvas, and start to teach me right now."
"You shut yer nannertrap, and go shove a banana up yer bananahole you city boy," blabbered Big Bob. Sometimes, I couldn't understand a single word that he was saying. His southern accent was overly exaggerated because he was so proud of his home state. It was so exaggerated, in fact, that most of the other southerners that I knew could not decipher a single word from Big Bob's unintelligent speech. Always keeping an untidy quality about his clothing, Big Bob looked like a typical moron you would find soliciting or hassling people on the street for the purchase of worthless articles of nonsense.
Breakfast this morning was a simple one, shared between us in my humble, yet clean apartment, with a smell so neutral and invisible that the apartment now just smelled like Big Bob. Upon the completion of his meal, Big Bob stood up and lit another gigantic cigarette whose paper was printed with extremely tiny pictures of giraffes. That’s how it was with cigarettes these days. Some cigarette companies would print little pictures of cute and adorable animals in an effort to conceal to the user the notion of its unhealthy aspects. I reminded Big Bob of these aspects that Mel had told me yesterday, but he just ignored me. Walking over to my easel in the corner of the living room, he commanded me to reveal my latest work of art.
I grabbed the tarp covering my easel, and tore it off with a rapid yank, revealing a medium-sized canvas with a slab of dark green and light brown colors hammered right into the center of the canvas. There was evidently no planning whatsoever that could be seen in my painting, and the chaotic mess that had taken me seven hours to complete over the course of four days was nothing to gloat about. Glancing over to Big Bob’s face, I saw that his lips were producing a heavy frown, and that he had turned his head away from the work of garbage I had presented him.
Big Bob shook his head. “This is quite a travesty, son. I’d be lyin’ like a possum in the hot July sun during noon in the Mojave desert in 1995 if I told you you could be a great artist. You sho’ got a lot of work to do.”
“But I’m pretty sure that possums don’t live in the Mojave de-“
“You shut yer claptrap, yuh hear me?” shouted Big Bob, pointing his fat index finger and cigarette at my nose.
Upon saying this, he threw the unworthy canvas into my 100-gallon trash can, crumpled up a dozen napkins, doused the napkins with turpentine, turned on both of my large exhaust fans to ventilate the toxic fumes from the turpentine, put gloves on his hands, and slapped a brand new white canvas onto the easel where the previous canvas had been just one minute ago.
He took the largest brush in my repertoire of oil painting supplies, and began a swathing of layers of thin, glossy ultramarine blue across the top of the canvas. “This is how it’s done.”
With a talent of the highest caliber and of the highest in the hierarchy of artistic abilities, the bilious hand of Big Bob cavorted eloquent morsels of Titanium White onto the canvas, bringing forth a set of acrimonious clouds when applied with clashing traces of grey. Finding his rhythm, he grumbled a melody, his trademark melody that indicated his forthcoming ingenious gallantry in the form of petulant dabs and swirls laid upon the $20 canvas.
The strokes of his brush then changed into stabs of a prudent, succinct nature, doused with gleaming rivulets of morning dew. Suddenly, the image upon the canvas revealed a coherent vista of a Mediterranean coastal landscape, set in the morning amidst an army of clouds of all shapes, sizes, and positions. Not neglecting any color available to him, Big Bob expressed no prejudices against even the least popular of oil colors such as Lake Blue and Bright Yellow. As the strokes remained persistent, and every movement of his erratic, yet punctual hand completed every transfer of brush to canvas right on time, Big Bob stopped his singing.
Putting down his brush, Big Bob had a confounding look upon his scraggly face. “You ain’t got no purple here do ya? How the fuck am I supposed to paint if you ain’t got no purple?”
I bashfully peered into my meager box of oil paints, seeing that I had stubbornly forgotten to purchase more violet last week. Looking at Big Bob’s painting, hopelessness dwelled within my potentially acceptable artistic prowess, which was absolutely non-existent when compared to that of Big Bob’s. Not a stroke was superfluous in this painting session, and not a single idea of his had a weakness, as evident in his display of his prodigious skill.
“No, there is no purple here,” I said.
“Well, goddamnit we goin’ shoppin’ today then. YEE HAW, OFF TO THE PAINT DEPOT WE GO!”
“But don’t you have purple in your studio? Why can’t we just use those purples instead?”
“Oh you ain’t ready for those, boy. You need a new set of baby paints if you gon’ learn right.”
Big Bob was right. An extremely advanced painter such as himself would use paints that had almost no viscosity whatsoever, having an air-like quality to the texture, whereas a beginner like me was encouraged to use a rugged, almost molasses-like kind of paint. We hopped into his car, and drove for twenty minutes to the largest consortium of art supplies in New York City, Paint Depot.
I never bought art supplies alone, as I had Big Bob to accompany me because apparently, I would have no clue as to what would have been the right things to buy for myself. The ride there was always eerily strange, as his new luxury car compromised nothing for quietness or ride smoothness. It scared both of us sometimes, but today, Big Bob had an excited look on his face, looking even more unusual when considering how there were more irregular stains of food than usual covering his filthy shirt and overalls.
As we arrived into the underground parking garage, Big Bob spoke with great merriment. Stepping onto an escalator that took us from the underground parking garage to the entrance of the store, we could see that it was a busy day at Paint Depot. Through the thick glass doors that revolved non-stop, with cartloads of goods going out and well-to-do folks going in, I could see customers hurriedly charging in between the tall, daunting shelves of over-priced wares. Some ran through aisles of canvases, others jogged through aisles of acrylic paint, and a few browsed through the easel section. I would have estimated that there were over three thousand people in the store, excluding employees, but unlike an organized army of obedient citizens, there was no control over the flow of disheveled traffic in the store. Carts collided every minute as if according to an unbreakable routine, paints spilled and flowed with no resistance, canvases toppled and were filled with large holes, and fists flew when everyone became mad from the maniacal frenzy that was Paint Depot. Always full of students, teachers, kids, professional artists, and hobbyists, most of whom would always leave a childish trail of stuff on the ground, the store became a living nightmare to clean up, especially considering the fact that Paint Depot never closed. Never. It was open twenty four hours a day, every day.
Because the store would offer massively ludicrous discounts on one or two random items at a time, customers were always on alert while hunting for these discounted items. However, the discounts were just a trick to fool the customers into staying inside the store longer, as the discount offers would only be effective for five minutes at a time. By the time a customer would’ve gotten his or her hands on