Shatterday

He picked it up and said, “Hi,” and got venom poured right into his ear.

“You bastard! You lying, low, thieving, seducing sonofabitch! You miserable con artist! You plague-bearer, you Typhoid Mary; you Communist fag ratfink bastard!”

“Hi.”

“You low scum dog, you. You crud. Of all the low, rotten, ugly, really outright evil demeaning stinky things a creep fascist right-wing louse could pull, that was the most vile, nauseating, despicable, hideous—”

“Hi, Anastasia. What’s new?”

“What’s new, you shit? I’ll tell you what’s new! Among other things, that coin of your dear old Daddy’s is new. New enough to be worth exactly one lousy cent. Not a rare! Not a valuable! Not a nothing, that’s what’s new!”

Horror coursed through Arlo’s strangled words. “Wh—what?” He coughed, choked, swallowed hard. “What’re you talking about? Whaddaya mean? Tell me… tell me, dammit!”

Her voice was less steamy. There was an edge of doubt now. “I took it down today, there’s a numismatist in the office building where I work —”

Affront lived in his shock. “You what?!? You had my father’s penny appraised? You did that? What kind of a person—”

“Listen, don’t try to make me the heavy, Arlo! It wasn’t valuable at all. It was just a miserable old penny like a million others, and you got me into bed with it, that’s what! You lied to me!”

Softly, he crept in between her rebuilding attack. “I don’t believe it.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“No.”

“Yes, yes, and yes! Worth a penny. Period.”

“Oh my God,” he husked. “Dad never knew. He always thought… how cruel… how awfully cruel… that man who gave it to him on shipboard… I can’t believe it… oh Jeezus…”

There was silence at the other end.

“Oh, God…” he murmured. Then, after a while, gently, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know… listen, I don’t think I want to talk any more… excuse me…”

She stopped him. “Arlo?”

Silence.

“Arlo?” Very gently from her.

Silence again, then, almost a whisper: “Yeah… ?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Forget it.”

“No, really. It was a rotten thing for me to do. I’d—I’d like to—”

“It isn’t necessary.”

“No, really, I mean it. I’d like to… are you busy tonight… could I come over and maybe—”

Arlo held the phone with one hand, unlocked the case with the other. As he removed the penny, making a mental note to perhaps put off that trip to the coin shop for a week or so, he said with absolute sincerity into the mouthpiece, “I guess so. Yeah, okay. Why don’t you stop off at a deli and pick up some corned beef and pickles and we can…”

The Man Who Was Heavily into Revenge

Introduction

This trip is mapped through a dark passage in my recent past. It deals with a mortal dread we all share: the madness that betides us when we have been fucked over once too often by the petty thugs and conscienceless pillagers who infest the world—from venal politicians who manipulate our lives for personal gain, down to the building contractors who promise decent craftsmanship and leave you with leaking roofs. At some point you go blind with rage. Why me? you wail! I don’t cheat people, I do my job honestly and with care… how can creeps like this be permitted to flourish?

Well, I offer you the words of the Polish poet Edward Yashinsky, who said, “Fear not your enemies, for they can only kill you; fear not your friends, for they can only betray you. Fear only the indifferent, who permit the killers and betrayers to walk safely on the earth.”

When I was a kid there was a popular novel titled Leave Her to Heaven. Though the book has long since passed out of my memory, the title has stuck. I don’t believe there is such a thing as “divine retribution.” The universe is neither malign nor benign. It’s just there, and it’s too busy keeping itself together to balance the scales when some feep has jerked you around. I am a strong adherent of the philosophy that one must seek retribution oneself.

And if the courts of the land cannot deliver up these people to justice then don’t form a lynch party, because that forces you to become what you have beheld, as vile as those who did you dirt. Instead, unleash primal forces against them. Force entry and take a trip through their lives in ways they will find most troublesome.

Write a story and let the power of the massmind git’m!

William Weisel pronounced his name why-zell. but many of the unfortunates for whom he had done remodeling and construction pronounced it weasel.

He had designed and built a new guest bathroom for Fred Tolliver, a man in his early sixties who had retired from the active life of a studio musician with the foolish belief that his fifteen-thousand-dollar-per-year annuity would sustain him in comfort. Weisel had snubbed the original specs on the job, had substituted inferior materials for those required by the codes, had used cheap Japanese pipe instead of galvanized or stressed plastic, had eschewed lath and plaster for wallboard that left lumpy seams, had skirted union wages by ferrying in green card workers from Tijuana every morning by dawn light, had—in short—done a spectacularly crummy job on Fred Tolliver’s guest bathroom. That was the first mistake.

And for all of this ghastly workmanship, Weisel had overcharged Fred Tolliver by nine thousand dollars. That was the second mistake.

Fred Tolliver called William Weisel. His tone was soft and almost apologetic. Fred Tolliver was a gentle man, not given to fits of pique or demonstrations of anger. He politely asked Weisel to return and set matters to rights. William Weisel laughed at Fred Tolliver and told him that he had lived up to the letter of the original contract, that he would do nothing. That was the third mistake.

Putatively, what Weisel said was true. Building inspectors had been greased and the job had been signed off: legal according to the building codes. Legally, William Weisel was in the clear; no suit could be brought. Ethically it was a different matter. But even threats of revocation of license could not touch him.

Nonetheless, Fred Tolliver had a rotten guest bathroom, filled with leaks and seamed walls that were already cracking and bubbles in the vinyl flooring from what was certainly a break in the hot water line and pipes that clanked when the faucets were turned on, if they could be turned on.

Fred Tolliver asked for repairs more than once.

After a while, William Weisel’s wife, Belle, who often acted as his secretary, to save a few bucks when they didn’t want to hire a Kelly Girl, would not put through the calls.

Fred Tolliver told her, softly and politely, “Please convey to Mr. Weisel—” and he pronounced it why-zell, “—my feelings of annoyance. Please advise him that I won’t stand for it. This is an awful thing he’s done to me. It’s not fair, it’s not right.”

She was chewing gum. She examined her nails. She had heard this all before: married to Weisel for eleven years: all of this, many times. “Lissen, Mistuh Tollivuh, whaddaya want me to do about it. I can’t do nothing about it, y’know. lonly work here. I c’n tell ‘ill, that’s