The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

– Said settle down.

Jaime flipped me off.

– Knew you were an asshole.

I raised my hands.

– Hey hey I tried to talk you out of it.

– Oh yeah, you tried so hard!

I got off the bed.

– I did! I did! I knew it was screwed up and I tried, but you were all over me.

– All over you! OK, sure, I was all over you. But I. Shit. I. Oh, Web.

– Settle down!

Harris grabbed her by the hair and swung her around and slapped her and shoved her face down onto the carpet. Jaime started to push up from between the bed and wall and Harris planted his heel in the back of Soledad's neck and Jaime dropped back to the floor.

I didn't move.

Not being used to violence happening around me until recently, I didn't have a chance to move. But that didn't make Harris any more reluctant about planting the barrel of his revolver under my chin.

The barrel of a gun, it's cold to the touch.

I felt a vibration down that cold steel barrel as he cocked the hammer and the cylinder rotated and a live round slid into alignment with my brain. He pushed up and brought my eyes to his.

– Do you know why you are alive?

Well, there are questions and there are questions, yes? Sometimes you get asked the same question you've been asking yourself for a year. So you have the answer right there at your fingertips.

As did I.

– Man, I do not. I really don't.

He chucked my chin with the barrel.

– You are alive to clean up the mess after I kill these two. Because you have screwed me over.

A radio switched on and Waylon Jennings started singing 'Lonesome, On'ry and Mean.'

Harris let a few bars play.

– Come with me.

He backed toward the table, the gun still under my chin, and I came along with him, hoping he wouldn't trip. He reached back for his cellphone, felt for it, opened it and the song stopped playing.

– Hello?

Behind his sealed lips, Harris ran his tongue over his teeth.

– And?

He listened for a bit, nodded a little.

– See you then.

He took the phone away, snapped it shut.

– Hn.

The cold barrel came away from my skin.

– Back up.

I did.

He pointed at the bed.

I sat.

He nodded.

– Well, can was there, ready to roll. And he is rollin'. Which, I have to say, that is an interesting turn of events.

He started to bring the gun back up.

– Not that it really changes much for you all.

The door swung open and Mr. Big Ten Four crashed through and stumbled into the wall next to the bathroom door and left a bloodstain when his battered face slapped against it. Harris twisted, the barrel of the gun rotating away from us and toward his partner.

– What the hell?

Mr. Big Ten Four slid down the wall, streaking blood, one arm out, pointing toward the door. Harris continued to swivel, bringing the gun around, looking for the threat.

But by the time he got there and faced the door, Po Sin was inside it, the pistol that had looked so big in Gabe's hand the night before looking like a toy in his own.

– Motherfucker.

Harris didn't move.

Po Sin took another step inside.

– Motherfucker, don't point that gun at me.

Harris didn't move.

Po Sin put out a hand and shoved the door closed.

– Motherfucker, I am a tempting target, but do not point that gun at me.

Harris didn't move.

And then Harris took Po Sin's advice and did not point the gun at him. Instead, he twisted ‘round and pointed it at Soledad on the floor.

– Anyone does any damn thing and I'm gonna do the obvious.

Po Sin's lower lip swallowed his upper.

– Motherfucker.

Here's the thing about witnessing something truly awful.

It sucks.

Here's the thing about witnessing a small child being shot in the side of her face and having most of the rest of her face smeared on your clothes and covering her body with yours because some part of your brain has registered the fact that she has been hit by a bullet and you suddenly find out that you are more than willing to have the next bullet hit and kill you if it means that she'll not be harmed any further.

The thing about that is that it hurts when the next bullet doesn't come.

You end up thinking about it a lot. When you're not thinking about that second bullet, the one you knew might come, and therefore could do something about, you are actually, in point of fact, still thinking about it. You don't really think about anything else.

Some of your brain, in order to keep you focused on things it needs you to do, like breathing and eating and such, builds little facades to place over the surface of the world. Perfectly detailed overlays that mimic the world you lived in before you had little girl face on your clothes. Illusions as painstakingly crafted as the relic Old West street fronts on studio back lots. Scrims of normalcy that keep you walking and talking and breathing and eating.

And because that's what you perceive, the hyper reality you inhabit, it's the behavior of everyone around you that seems out of sync.

I'm OK, man. What the hell is everyone else's problem? Why is everyone acting so weird?

But some other part of your brain knows it's a fake. And knows, as well, who is responsible for the fake. And knows that you can't keep existing in a fake world propped on wobbly jack-stands in front of the real.

Sooner or later a stiff wind will come and blow it down on top of you.

That part of the brain sends out messages, bits of code meant to remind you of what's behind the sets. Scrawled missives.

Don't get comfortable. This all has to come down someday. Don't open that door, there's nothing behind iti

The gap between those two parts of the brain is dark and deep. Narrow, but wide enough by some inches to fall into and be lost.

But you're not thinking about any of that. The two worlds you're walking in are just background to one thing, one thought carved into endless variation.