The Man in My Basement

no one will hold you responsible, they might worry about 14

what I told you, seeing how crazy this suicide might seem.

15

There is one pill left in the glass on the floor. It is a fast-16

acting poison called Sleeper that was designed to be pain-17

less. I leave one for you in case you one day feel at an end.

18

I had the pills, but I wasn’t sure when I came to you 19

that I wanted to die. I mean, I’ve wanted to die for a long 20

time now, but I could see no reason until you left me in 21

the dark. In the dark they all came back to me. The dead 22

people and the fools. The women who gave themselves 23

for money and the men who gave themselves for women.

24

The old men who couldn’t even get it up anymore who 25

gave themselves for power. And me like a sheepdog keep-26

ing them in line, leading them to slaughter because it was S 27

what I was asked to do.

R 28

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Walter Mosley

1

I smelled blood in the darkness. I heard the silence of 2

death. And then a light would come and you would walk 3

down the stairs asking if the ones I killed were black men 4

just as if death had a race. I began to like you. Even 5

though you turned on me and beat me with the darkness 6

and silly questions.

7

When the confessions were all through, I knew there 8

was no more to say. You left just a few minutes ago. I will 9

take the Sleeper after this one last letter (the rest I’ve writ-10

ten over the past two weeks).

11

I want to die telling you something, Charles. I want to 12

pass something on, but I can’t think of a thing. Now that 13

death is coming the bubble is gone, the itch in my heart 14

has subsided and there’s nothing left to think.

15

The only words I have to pass on are the ones to a story 16

I never told you.

17

I once had to kill a man (a white man) — my boss.

18

The man who brought me into reclamations after I was 19

finished with government work. His name was Stewart 20

Tellman and he was from Greenwich too. He taught me 21

everything that I tried to tell you. I learned from him and 22

we did good business. But one day his grandson was 23