A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
“You know what’s funny,” I say, “the thing I was most worried about when I was down there, in the South Side, driving around and talking into the tape recorder? I was worried that after I was shot near the lake, that the murderer, who really only wanted the car, would for some reason find and play the tape, the one where I’m describing my imagining someone like him killing me, and all this stuff about finding the box, and that this murderer would think I’m this racist weirdo-”
“Jesus.”
“That’s what I was worried about! I was worried about what the guy who killed me would think of me. Then I worried that the cops, who would eventually find the car in Gary or Muncie or wherever, would find my tape recorder and the tape inside, and would play the tape, looking for clues or whatever, and they’d be horrified too, would be horrified and would also laugh, and would make copies and give them to friends-”
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
I tell her how funny it is we’re talking about all this because as it so happens I’m already working to change all this, am currently in the middle of putting together something that will address all these issues, that will inspire millions to greatness, that with some high school friends – Moodie and two others, Flagg and Marny – we’re putting something together that will smash all these misconceptions about us, how it’ll help us all to throw off the shackles of our supposed obligations, our fruitless career tracks, how we will force, at least urge, millions to live more exceptional lives, to {standing up for effect} do extraordinary things, travel the world, to help people and start things and end things and build things…
“And how will you do this?” she wants to know. “A political party? A march? A revolution? A coup?”
“A magazine.”
“Oh… right.”
“Yeah,” I say, looking out to the ocean, basking in its applause. “It’s going to be huge – we’ll have a big house somewhere, or a loft, and there’ll be an art gallery, and maybe a dorm-”
“Like the Factory!”
“Yeah, but without the drugs, the cross-dressers.”
“Right. A collective.”
“A movement.”
“An army.”
“All-inclusive.”
“Raceless.”
“Genderless.”
“Youth.”
“Strength.”
“Potential.”
“Rebirth.”
“Oceans.”
“Fire.”
“Sex.”
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
I am not a proponent of the curtains being open.
Some people know. Of course they know.
People know.
Everyone knows. Everyone is talking. Waiting.
I have plans for them, the nosy, the inquisitive, the pitying, have developed elaborate fantasies for those who would see us as grotesque, pathetic, our situation gossip fodder. I picture strangulations – Tsk tsk, I hear she’s-gurgle! – neck-breakings – what will happen to that poor little bo-crack! – I picture kicking bodies as they lie curl and on the ground, spitting blood as they – Jesus Christ, Jesus fucking Christ, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! - beg for mercy. I lift them over my head and then bring them down, break them over my knee, their spines like dowels of balsa. Can’t you see it? I push offenders into giant vats of acid and watch them struggle, scream as the acid burns, breaks them apart. My hands fly into them, breaking their skin – I pull out hearts and intestines and toss them aside. I do head-crushings, beheadings, some work with baseball bats – the variety and degree of punishment depending on the offender and the offense. Those whom I don’t like or my mother doesn’t like in the first place get the worst – usually long, drawn-out strangulations, face of red then purple then mauve. Those I barely know, like the family that just walked by, are spared the worst – nothing personal. I’ll run them over with my car.