Slick Kicks

(Open on LUCIFER rummaging through his belongings, becoming increasingly frustrated)
 

LUCIFER

(bellowing)

Boy! Boy where are you?

(from offstage)

ANTICHRIST

Yes Father?

LUCIFER

Get in here boy! Don’t yell at me through the house!

(enters from left of stage)

ANTICHRIST

I wasn’t the one yelling through the house! What’s going on?

LUCIFER

Where are my sneakers?

ANTICHRIST

What?

LUCIFER

(darkly)

You heard me boy. I can’t find them and I need them to steal the souls of the living.

ANTICHRIST

Are they magic or something?

LUCIFER

No, they’re just my favorite pair of sneakers and I absolutely cannot be seen without theꟷ, of course they’re magic! They have my Mojo! I can’t be a charismatic evil being without my Mojo! Otherwise I’m just an old creep with a fondness for weirdos. Haven’t I told you about these?

ANTICHRIST

Oh come on dad. You’re not that old.

LUCIFER

Not that old… If you only knew the half of it.

(continues searching, grunting and growling all the while. ANTICHRIST watches with passive amusement)

ANTICHRIST

You sure you didn’t leave them in another room? This place is like a hall of mirrors, after all.

LUCIFER

No! I don’t forget things in wrong places. I’ve had the same razor since Caesar died and I can tell you where it is right now. If these shoes are in this house, they will be in this room. Everything is carefully put in place. It’s all part of a master plan, but apparently someone thinks it’s funny to steal my shoes! And right before a big election.

ANTICHRIST

Why is it like this? Aren’t we the only ones who live here? Why the complexity?

LUCIFER

I’ve explained this to you before and I doubt explaining it again will help your understanding. Now help me search! Don’t just stand there like a fool!

(ANTICHRIST begins an unenthusiastic search, slowly and dramatically scouring the room. LUCIFER watches the pantomime with increasing testiness)

LUCIFER

I don’t appreciate mockery. I need those shoes. You need me to get them too. If my power is gone, yours will diminish until you crumble to dust.

ANTICHRIST

What?

LUCIFER

Oh yes. Your power derives entirely from me. If my power is gone, then all my creations will slowly fall apart. You are my son, my seed, my greatest and most intimate creation. Your death will be the most tumultuous when my collapse comes.

ANTICHRIST

You’re kidding. Seriously?

LUCIFER

(quickly)

As serious as death itself boy. You see, I am part of a delicate, ancient ecosystem. Balance must be kept between good and evil, chaos and order, and I am half of the equation. You understand that if the wolves vanish, prey will swarm existence and choke it out. My power is the glue that holds together cosmos’, the sinew of the crossbow of time, the lock and the key to paradise, and without it, all crumbles to dust. Even the Almighty above cannot fathom the darkness that will consume reality should I lose my power and be unable to counter his increasing banality and kindness. Now do you understand boy? Do you understand why I need to find my sneakers?

ANTICHRIST

(shocked)

God damn.

(beat. LUCIFER’s search effort winds down and his son watches him slowing down)

You okay pops?

(LUCIFER sits down, puts his head in his hands)

LUCIFER

They were satin black with velvet finish 2k17 Kyrie Shooters.

ANTICHRIST

And they held the power to hold together reality in them.

LUCIFER

That’s why I’m so upset!

ANTICHRIST

I’m upset too! Why was that power in a pair of shoes? Why did you take them off? Why do you ever take them off? What is wrong with you? Can you call God?

LUCIFER

Nope. Not doing that.

ANTICHRIST

Someone? Whose got more authority than you and isn’t God that can help us?

LUCIFER

Pfft. No one.

ANTICHRIST

(ignoring the comment)

Or would even be willing to help us. Jesus is a generous guy! If we can find him I bet he’ll be willing to help out, right?

LUCIFER

Look. We’re not telling God. And we’re not calling Jesus. We haven’t been on speaking terms since the Harrowing, remember?

ANTICHRIST

Why should I remember?

LUCIFER

I’ve told you a hundred times.

ANTICHRIST

Then I definitely wouldn’t remember.

LUCIFER

Foolish boy. Always a foolish boy.

(beat. ANTICHRIST watches a blank faced LUCIFER sitting and he grows increasingly suspicious)

ANTICHRIST

Hey wait a second here…

LUCIFER

What did you say? I’m sort of in and out over here.

ANTICHRIST

This doesn’t make any sense.

LUCIFER

What doesn’t?

ANTICHRIST

This whole situation. You’re messing with me, aren’t you. You made this whole thing up to screw with me.

LUCIFER

(Indignant)

Absolutely not! I would not joke about my Shooters!

ANTICHRIST

(yelling)

Then how come this is happening? How hasn’t it happened before? You’re bullshitting me dad and I don’t like it!

LUCIFER

You watch your tongue! Don’t you think I don’t realize how screwed I am? Why are you so thick? Why have you always been so thick?

ANTICHRIST

I’m not thick, this is just still sort of insane to me! It wasn’t long ago that I even got here! No one ever thought I was this stupid when I was alive.

LUCIFER

Look… I’m sorry boy. I’m under a lot of stress… Come sit next to me my son

(pats spot next to him. ANTICHRIST sits)

LUCIFER

I know this is going to be a hard… transition for us andꟷ

(LUCIFER chokes up and begins softly weeping into his hands, he talks through sobs)

ꟷWe’re… Going…

ANTICHRIST

It’s okay dad, it’s okay.

(Puts his arm around his father, allowing him to cry for a few seconds.)

LUCIFER

Maybe I should tell God. That way we can prepare something, maybe.

ANTICHRIST

You know what? I don’t think we need to tell God.

LUCIFER

You don’t? Why not?

ANTICHRIST

Remember when Ba’al bet you that you couldn’t get that Chapman guy to kill his favorite musician and you got him to do it just by getting a book or two into the dude’s hands?

LUCIFER

(sniffling)

I do remember that.

ANTICHRIST

Do you really think you needed a pair of shoes to pull that one off?

LUCIFER

Aw, but that was nothing.

ANTICHRIST

Are you kidding? It’s badass! Classic you. Subtle, lethal, your experience and creativity really shows.

LUCIFER

Now you’re just trying to make me feel better.

ANTICHRIST

Is it working?

LUCIFER

A little, keep going.

ANTICHRIST

You don’t need a silly pair of sneakers to kick ass and take souls!

LUCIFER

Hey now, slow down. I need those shoes.

ANTICHRIST

No! Now think about it! Do you really need those shoes? You’re the damned Devil!

LUCIFER

(hesitant)

Even devils have their limits…

ANTICHRIST

Not this one!

LUCIFER

Oh hush son

ANTICHRIST

No! Think of it this way, God is all about faith right? And He made You, so your power is derived from his, right? So all you have to do is have faith, just like God!

LUCIFER

Faith?

ANTICHRIST

Yes!

LUCIFER

Faith in what?

ANTICHRIST

Hah! Now who’s thick? Yourself!

LUCIFER

Faith in myself? Faith in myself.

ANTICHRIST

If you just believe in yourself, you can do anything. You are the Morning Star. I don’t know why you wouldn’t believe in yourself. I believe in you.

LUCIFER

You do?

ANTICHRIST

I believe. I believe in the Devil.

(LUCIFER sniffles and wipes his eyes)

LUCIFER

Thank you so much.

ANTICHRIST

Now the more important thing is if you believe.

LUCIFER

You know what? I do. I do believe. I don’t need those pesky shoes! They’re way too expensive to wear every day anyway!

ANTICHRIST

That’s the spirit! Now we have to see if it worked!

LUCIFER

If what worked?

ANTICHRIST

The faith! You have to do something! Something you could only do in the shoes before!

LUCIFER

Oh! Oh I know! Here, I’ll do one of my favorite tricks. And it’ll be easy to tell if it works

(LUCIFER dramatically raises his hand as if to snap his fingers, brief drum roll, loud snap, the lighting on stage changes to a notably red hue. LUCIFER jumps up from his seated position)

LUCIFER

Ah hah! My boy! You were right! I never needed those shoes! Oh the wasted eons! I must go now! I must unleash this newfound confidence upon time!

(LUCIFER laughs confidently, snaps his fingers again, changing the light to green, laughs again, and runs off stage left)

ANTICHRIST

It’s cute to see the old so full of energy.

(ANTICHRIST stands up, looks around the trashed room and stares hard at something behind where he was sitting. He kneels and picks up a pair of black shoes. Looks at audience, cut to black.)

END OF PLAY

Island

Tom steps out of the diner, weary of doorways and people walking through them. Margot is long gone, as Tom stayed in the diner for a time after she had left, and ordered a mug a black coffee from a skinny, nervous waitress whose apron was a little too big for her. He’s not sure how long he had hung around, but every minute that he stayed, slumped in that booth, the little waitress grew more and more anxious.

He remembers the way she had stumbled about her words when asking if he would, “Li-like anything else with that? That coffee?” Tom looked at her face. She was younger than him, and had big sweet brown eyes, dark as the coffee she served him, but certainly not as bitter. He felt as though he would normally smile at her, but he didn’t this time, as a defiant show of heartbroken solitude, displayed for the benefit of absolutely no one.

“Enough moping.” Tom grumbles to himself as he fumbles with a cigarette and shaky, over-caffeinated hands outside of the diner, eventually giving up. He wanders across the street and down a block. He meanders into a heavily fortified corner shop and purchases a small bottle of bottom-shelf bourbon for a few dollars. Then he drinks the entire thing, standing right outside of the store. As soon as his arm swung down and the bottle was empty, Tom began walking. He walked around the block three or perhaps four times, thinking that the circulating of his blood will push the bourbon through his body faster. He finishes his walking when the winter cold no longer bites the tip of his nose.

Tom feels like a child again. Lost, disoriented, and lonely. He remembers the fair as a child. Coney Island, at first with his reluctant father, then by himself.  “Yes,” he says aloud, to no one in particular. Tom drops the crunchy plastic bottle at his feet and makes his way to the subway. Before he even realizes it, he’s on a train going south. He again attempts to light a cigarette until a mousey old woman yells at him, forbidding him from smoking on the train, “Around all these good, healthy people!” Tom sheepishly apologizes, stuffing the cigarette back into the box, his lips feeling looser than usual. The woman is quick to forgive, citing Tom’s, “Addiction.”

And so the train chugs along, clinking against tracks, stopping every twenty minutes or so to pick up more blurry-faced people, on their way to run an errand, or go to work. Tom gazes out of the window, watching, knowing that he is slowly approaching the island. The winter sea begins to clash with the warmer city air in a fiercely windy display, whistling hauntingly against the side of the train car. Tom remembers making this trip as a teenager. It would be fall and school would be quickly approaching. The whine of the wind would mean he was crossing the threshold and that soon, he would be upon the island, and the island would be upon him.

As he approaches his destination, Tom can’t help but wonder if he had died in front of that liquor store. If he drank some kind of bitter, brown poison and collapsed where he stood. A thick fog surrounded the train, and it no longer made stops to pick up stragglers and errand runners. The milk-white strings of mist quickly became a great wall, filling the atmosphere with its damp, hushing presence. The crowd thinned on the train until Tom was the last left. His fear of death grew as he sat in silence, riding for what seemed like hours into a thick and blinding mist.

But, Tom was alive, as eventually the train reached its final stop. Coney Island. He stepped off of the train into the fog, unsure of whether he was glad to have been wrong or not. Tom then walked off of the platform and towards the island proper. When he arrived he found something that didn’t surprise him. The park was closed. It was January after all, and there was no one willing to man the park at this time of year. So Tom climbed over and between the ropes draped over the entrance of the park and made his way in, boots crunching through old snow, now as brittle and frigid as ice. He spends some time wandering the pass ways and admiring the dismantled rides. He throws uneven chunks of ice at invisible balloons in booths, frosted over and left to shelter the birds in these colder months. He loses track of time for a moment looking at the Ferris wheel, typically bustling with echoed laughs and carnival lights, now stagnant and shrouded in mist.  

Completely without aim, Tom makes his way to the beach-side, looking over at the indefinite vastness of the stretching sea. Tom feels something, but he’s not sure quite what. It’s not actual heartbreak. Heartbreak is far too irrational for this feeling. He remembers being on this island as a child, and again with a girl, the daughter of French immigrants. Tom takes his boots off, then his socks, stepping onto the cold sand of the beach. He wriggles his toes, digging into the sand, feeling each grain scrape against the soft skin that hides between each toe. A shiver sends itself down his spine, and as it subsides, Tom begins walking down the beach, approaching the sea.

Each step takes Thomas deeper and deeper into the fog, until it becomes a blanket tossed over his head. He can still see the sea ahead, a thick slab of grey water peeking out from underneath the heavy-quilted sky. The fog bites frigidly at his face. His feet too, grow clumsy and numb as he meanders forward. He asks himself aloud, “Maybe I just feel new?” and nods absently. The cinematographic value of the situation is not lost on him as he stands alone on this frozen beach, feet bare and nose red and dripping. He smiles a small, meek smile, and with sensations now returning to him, realizes that he is shaking with cold. Knowing it will only be getting colder, Tom turns around and gingerly waddles his way back to the park to collect his boots.

Stupid

“Why did you ask me to meet here, of all places?” Tom asked, sitting down in the red-lined booth across from Margot. She gave him no answer, but a blank look. “Ah, well.” Tom continues, “My French lady’s favorite French diner. Makes enough sense.” Margot’s expression turned from blank to a face one makes when eating chocolate that’s too bitter. Tom settles in, the cheap plastic upholstery of the booth groans fruitlessly against his weight. “So sweetheart, you wanted to talk, let’s talk.”

Margot shifted herself. She didn’t want to take her coat off when she came in, fearing that would indicate a desire to stay for longer than she wanted, so instead she allowed her body to roast a little. “I think you know why we’re here, Thomas.” Tom gave her a small sheepish smile, something he knew was guaranteed to warm her heart. Little did he know, she was already sweating, and more warmth was not something she hungered for. “It’s because you kicked me out a couple days ago.”

“Clever man.” Margot said, refusing to take her eyes off of his. “Look. I wanted to say I was sorry. I know I promised not to get… Like that again. But it was only once and I--” “I’m not interested Tom. You made me a promise. You broke it. And besides, it’s not just that. That I could have forgiven.”

“Why are you being so vague Marg? I don’t get it.”

“Oh please.” Margot crosses her arms and keeps her anger caged behind a grimace. Tom eyes shift unpredictably, between pitiful and the kind of hostile seen in men who have been cornered. She decided to continue, “You are a harsh, cruel man.” Tom seems to ignore the comment, injecting his own, “Come on! At least give me a hint at what’s wrong. Please? Just one hint.” He lets that diminutive toothy smile peek out from under his lips, his eyes in their pitiful state. “Fuck, Thomas. Don’t push me.”

His eyes changed back, cruel and little, “Cryptic hints as always Marg. I ask you to communicate with me and you swear at me. Is that the way a relationship works? I really don't think it is.”

Margot’s eyebrows crease at the comment, “What do you know about how relationships work Thomas? You know what the problem is.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” His voice grew in timbre and force. Margot bared her teeth, as Tom continued, “What do you know about what it is that I know and don’t know? How can you presume to be privy to what I do and don’t know?”

“You’re avoiding the subject.”

“I’m not avoiding shit. If I was, I wouldn’t have come here. To get talked down to.”

“Christ Thomas!  Everything is just an unjustified personal assault to you, isn’t it? I want you to say it. I want you to tell me what’s wrong, what has been wrong, what I have more than certainly communicated to you as wrong.”

“I’m not stupid Margot, if I could tell what was wrong by that pouty little face you’re giving me all the time, I’d gladly come up front and say it, but unfortunately that expression doesn’t communicate a whole fucking lot.”

Margot clenched her jaw and shot a glance to her right, taking respite from looking at Tom. Her stare pierces a young, tired waitress, who feels a sense of terror at the sight of the angry woman, and chooses not to approach the table quite yet.

Tom pushed, “Come on. Nothing to say? What’s my problem Margot? What do you think is so wrong with me?” He leaned forward, imposing his shadow onto hers. Margot grows suddenly calm and finally lets her gaze drift downwards, saying, “What’s wrong with you.”

“Is that supposed to be a question?”

“No.”

“Then what sweetness? You’re frustrating me.” His eyes were suddenly pitiful again, though he didn’t dare to smile.

“You fight to win, Tom.”

“Of course I do. So do you. So does everyone! That’s why it’s called fighting. There’s a winner at the end.”

“And a loser.”

“Well, I suppose so. Though I don’t think that matters as much.” Tom leans back again, resting against the back of the cheap diner booth chair. “I don’t fight to win. I fight because I want you to see that you hurt me.”

“How do you not fight to win? That’s bullshit, you’re just as vicious as you think I am. And you’re talking like all I do is hurt you. You hurt me too.”

“I know that Tom, but you ignored something.”
 
“What?”

“I’ll repeat it. I fight because I want you to see that you hurt me.”

“Yeah I heard you.”

Margot let her look drift back up to Tom, “But you didn’t.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“I know. Oddly enough that’s why I think I can forgive you.”

“You forgive me?” Tom’s mouth slowly grew into a smile, thinking he was winning.

“Yes, I suppose I do. You can’t help it. It’s just the way you are and I can’t do anything to change it.” Margot sighs, resigned. “Bye Tom.”

As she gets up to leave, Tom’s look goes from triumphant to childishly confused, “Wait Marg, what? Where are you going? What do you mean?”

“I’m going.”

“Are we not having lunch together?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“But I thought… What?”

“You’re not stupid Tom. Figure it out. Call me when you do, if you want. Or don’t. Doesn’t matter. Goodbye.”

With that, Margot left the diner just as efficiently as she planned, as she did not take off her coat when she sat down at that red booth.

Not As Bad As We Imagined

“Sandor Arpad? What sort of name is that? You’re not fucking with me, right?” Officer Marcus wrinkled his nose, flushed pink, still unused to the warmth of his southern transfer. “Why would I be fucking with you? That’s his name.” Detective Maria looks into the tiny portal of the heavy steel interrogation door onto the babbling fat man within. His long black hair is matted with restless sleep and grease, and his eyes are red and puffy. He sits a densely gray room, fitting tightly into the wrought iron chair that’s screwed into the floor. He slowly rubs his eyes.

“He turned himself in an hour ago. He says he killed his best friend.” Marcus says.

              “Not surprising. He looks like a crazy.”                                                                                              

“He seems real broken up about it.” Marcus replies.

Maria raises a dark eyebrow, “Sympathy won’t get you as far here as it did up north, Officer.”

He nods, his face is blank and focused into the window. Maria sighs and mumbles, “Let’s get at it. Figure out what’s going on.” She opens the door abruptly, snapping the fat man out of his eye-rubbing stupor. He looks at the entering officers with his mouth slightly agape. He stared noiselessly, watching as though watching a terrible car crash. Officer Marcus sat across from the man, in a parallel, nailed-down chair. Maria stood at the corner of the table on Marcus’ side, her hand on her hip and her mouth in a twisted pout. They take in the silence for a moment, giving each other a minute before the discomfort sure to follow. Maria punctures the thick, hushed coat that stains the grey, institutional walls of the interrogation cell. “So tell us what happened.”  The tearful man glares at her with an impotent blend of despair and distrust. He wipes his nose with a long, loose sleeve, once white, now a greyish yellow.

“Whenever you’re ready.” Marcus adds. Sandor turns his round, speckled face towards him and nods sheepishly, staring somewhere beyond the soft blue eyes of the aging northern officer. He begins to compose himself, the opera of his confession brewing steadily inside of him. Marcus tilts his head expectantly, but Sandor then broke from his apparent readiness to push strands of oily hair behind his ears and sniff persistently. He continued to futilely inhale snot until Detective Maria lost her patience and forcefully slide the available swamp green box of tissues across the table towards him. Maria pointed at it, her mouth hard and pressed shut and her eyes exasperated. Sandor’s gaze went from the box to her, and with a shake of his head, sniffed in one more time, harder than before, and swallowed. He breathed in and began.

“Me and him had been fighting a bit for a few days.”

“You and whom?” Marcus interjects, Maria kicks him sharply in the ankle and growls, “He just got fucking started talking! I do not want to listen to snot sucking again!”

Marcus grit his teeth and did what he could to ignore the young, impatient detective and asked again, keeping Sandor’s eyes in the view of his own, “You and whom, son?”

“My best friend. We’ve lived together for a long time. But recently we started fighting.”

Sandor paused, waiting for a signal that he may keep talking. Maria was quicker, “Keep talking.”

So he continued, “So we started fighting. At first it was about little things, you know, maybe we were both just in rotten old moods and were taking it out on each other. He started off eating a bunch of my favorite snacks while I slept. I’ve been going to sleep somewhat earlier lately because I saw on the news that you are more likely to be happy during the day if you go to sleep early at night. Anyway, I could hear him munching the first night, but didn’t think anything of it until I saw my pantry was missing my favorite snack the next morning. You know those jalapeno cheese-puffs?”

Sandor stopped his story to look around at the two officers. Maria sighed and took a seat next to Marcus, no longer able to stand the way she had been. She put her head in her hands and pulled them down her face. Marcus answered, “Yes. They’re pretty good.”

Sandor’s tone rang with excitement, “Yeah! So I was pretty mad when I saw that a whole new bag was gone! I looked around for it and found the empty bag in the trash can. So I asked my friend about it.”

                Maria cut Sandor off, “What’s this friend’s name?” This question brought Sandor’s mood back to its former bleak state, dragging his eyes to stare at the cold steel table in front of him. They welled with tears. Maria pushed, “Tell us.” Marcus added quickly, “We need to know bud. We just need to know.”

                Sandor whimpered out an answer, “Bennington.” “His last name?” Marcus and Maria said simultaneously. “No. Both of his names.” Maria and Marcus looked at each other, confused. Marcus asked hesitantly, “So his name is Bennington Bennington?” All they got from the sad fat man was a curt, “Yes.”

                “I’ll go look this guy up. See if there’s anything at all. I’ll be back.” Maria quickly excuses herself and scurries out of the room, glad to have an excuse to leave Marcus with the loon who killed his best friend. Marcus prompts Sandor again and Sandor continues.

                “So after I found that out, I confronted him and asked him very nicely not to do that and that if he wanted some, I would share some with him if he just asked. The first time he said that was fine, but he was very short about it and didn’t apologize. And I thought you know, whatever he’s just in a bad mood today, or something bad happened, and I figured I’d just drop it and leave it be. But the next night he did it again. He was very loud all night, so I didn’t sleep well and if I don’t sleep well and get to sleep early then what’s the point of having seen that thing on the news? So I was grumpy when I woke up and my stomach hurt a little for some reason and when I walked into the kitchen, I saw that it was destroyed.”

                Marcus muttered, “Huh.”

                Sandor didn’t lose a step, “Yeah, right? Everything was tossed, food was everywhere, the stove was still on, there was a really badly burnt pizza in the oven, I mean it looked like a warzone. So I got real mad and shouted for him to come in. And he did and I confronted him again and he got real mad at me. He-he…” Sandor stammers off, his speech turning to bubbling and his bubbling turning to tears. Sandor chokes on what was something between a burp and a sob. Marcus swallowed nervously and Maria opened the door, “Officer Marcus. Would you step out for a moment please?” Marcus responded quickly, “Yes. Excuse me one moment Sandor.” He stepped out of the room.

                The moment Marcus shut the heavy door behind him Maria said, “There’s nobody called Bennington Bennington anywhere. Just like I figured, and I’m sure you figured. I’m telling you, he’s just hungry for attention.” She spoke with frustrated speed and indignantly sharp eyes. Marcus peered through the looking glass into the cell. This strange fat man was holding his face in his over-long sleeves, which slowly darkened with tears. He shook sickeningly and Marcus wished to understand. He clenched his jaw and then spoke to Maria, “There’s something going on here. I think we need to figure it out. Before he hurts himself or someone else.” His gaze returned to Maria and fixed on her hazel eyes and he saw her hardness loosen, “Yeah. I guess we should.”  With that, they returned to the room together, sliding the heavy door open and dipping into the cell.

                As the two police sat down, Marcus saw that Maria was about to speak. “So we looked up your friend. We didn’t find him anywhere.” Sandor stared at the woman before him, tears running down his cheeks, his eyes red and weak. He balled his hands into fists that made a squish in his snotty sleeves. He answered slowly, “Well he never did any crime. Of course you wouldn’t find him.” Maria was quick with the rebuttal, “We found you. And your record is clean. You’ve never even had a parking ticket. But we found you in the system.” Sandor watched Maria’s unwavering face with the silence of a guilty toddler. There was no understanding in his blurry eyes, but there was a tinge of fear. Maria pressed on, “Did you give us the real name? Or is there no name to give?” In Maria’s mind, she hoped that he was simply a mad man who killed his cat. “Did you even kill anyone?”

                At the word ‘kill’ Sandor again returned to his persistent sobs. In hopes of curtailing the limitless whimpers and wails of the fat man before them, Marcus resumes the line of questioning that they had undertaken before checking the name of Sandor’s purported friend. He reaches out to Sandor, who is now slumped forward and dripping tears from his saturated sleeves onto the steel table and taps his shoulder. In his head, Marcus wonders if Sandor feels dehydrated. “Hey. Listen up.” Sandor lifts his head slowly, as though weighed down by heavy balls of lead attached to chains. “Keep telling us the story. The story of what happened. If you tell us, the guilt will go away.”

                Sandor stuttered, “R-r-really?” His face looked hopeful.

                “Really.”

                “O-Okay.”

                With that, Sandor finally took a sheet from the box of tissues that sat uselessly in front of him. He blew his nose feverishly, looked into the tissue to see what he had produced, balled it up and stuck it in his pocket. “What did he say when he got mad at you Sandor?”

                Sandor breathed in deeply and slowly, making both of the officers recoil slightly, in fear of another outburst. However, instead of more shed tears, he spoke, “He was just very mean. He called me fat, and it’s not like I don’t realize that, it’s just not something I really need to hear. I heard it a lot already and I don’t need that from someone I’m supposed to love and who’s supposed to love me. He said I was hopeless and that I was a failure. He said I didn’t have a future and I didn’t even have an interesting past. I didn’t know what to say, I was so stunned. It hurt so bad that I thought I was just going to cry, but I didn’t want to break down in front of him after that. I got lucky though because he stormed out when I didn’t answer. He said some word I didn’t understand and left.”

                “Tell me Sandor.” Marcus said, “What is it that you do? For work, for fun, what do you do?”

                Sandor seemed thrown off by the question, and Maria looked over at Marcus with an expression of befuddlement that bordered on accusation.

                The fat man began, “Well… Uuh, for work I make websites for people. I was into that stuff in high school when it all first started. I learned how to do it and since then I’ve just kept up with updates and stuff. For fun I like TV. When I was a kid I liked to play outside, make shootout scenes with sticks, but that stopped as I got older, you know?”

                Marcus then asked, “What would you and Bennington do together?”

                “Well, before he started being real cold we would go to the park and goof around together, sometimes we would play on the kid’s swings and stuff, or we would listen to music together. We both really liked Elvis Costello and-and we would listen to guys like Dean Martin in the dark for hours. We’d watch TV together. We always got a kick out of Ellen. She just seems like a wonderful lady. I’d like to meet her someday.”

                Marcus felt the familiar pang of a theory forming. He thought that he may have figured it out.

                “And do you have any family or friends? People you, you know, see regularly other than Bennington?”

                Sandor peered to his left, “My dad left when I was real little. My mom was pretty nice, but she died a few years ago. I spent a lot of time in my own brain, just thinking about stuff. I never really had any friends except for, you know.” With that, Sandor choked again and clamped his eyes shut, this time fighting back the tears that clearly welled behind his pink, raw eyelids.

                Marcus mulled over Maria’s theory that Sandor is doing this for attention. The man seemed lonely, that’s for sure, but he didn’t seem to be particularly hungry for approval or disapproval. He seemed to just be. Marcus then spoke, “So I assume Bennington came back after your fight with him. What happened then?”

                Sandor took a deep breath and began the second act, “When he came back he was angrier. But he didn’t break anything, he just came into the room where I was watching TV. Ellen was on. He stood in front of it for a minute and when I asked him to move, he turned it off. I got real mad then, you know, because he had been so rude to me earlier and he’s been acting like a cold jerk and I stood up and yelled. I-I yelled that I was going to kick his ass if he didn’t tell me why he was being such a jerk. He laughed at me then, and I never heard such a cruel laugh before, even in school, or even on TV. He said that I was too fat to fight him and that by the time I got up I’d be dying of diabetes. So that got me going and I stood up and I yelled about how he’s been so terrible lately and how he needs to respect the place we share and clean up after himself and not eat my stuff and not touch my stuff and how he needs to shut up every once in a while.”

                He was breathing quickly and heavily by now, worked up by the recollection. His tone was rapid and his eyes were made all the more intense by the cracks of red webbing slung over them. The officers glance quickly at each other, not sure of what to say during this pause. They both decide to wait the silence out. Sandor’s breathing normalizes a little and he continues, “So I told him to shut up and he gets this real angry face and he grinds his teeth all menacingly. So I egg him on, saying stuff like ‘what?’ and ‘you got something to say?’ and he screams at me at the top of his lungs, h-he says… He says…”

                Sandor breaks off again, a low and quiet wail coming from deep within him. He hangs his head and, as soon as the moan fully leaves his body he starts hyperventilating. He wraps his arms around himself, tears freely falling into his lap.

                “Oh jeez.” Maria exclaims. Marcus gets up and stands behind Sandor’s chair. He gently pats Sandor’s back and says, “Let it out, son. We want to know. We can help you if we know.”

                That comment makes the shivering fat man angry and he yells, “Help me? Help me how? Are you going to bring him back?” His hyperventilation becomes a loud and snotty snarl, in through the nose and out through an angry mouth. Ever the patient man, Marcus calmly says, “We can’t bring him back. But we can help you. You could be in a lot of trouble here. We can try to alleviate that.” Sandor slowly calmed down. Marcus stayed behind him, hand on his shoulder. Maria watched the two of them.

                “When he screamed at me...” Sandor trails off and starts again, “When he screamed at me he said he never really liked me. He said he only used me for my stuff and because I was also so willing to ‘be his b-bitch.’ He admitted some stuff to me, some real terrible stuff. He said he was the one who peed in my camp tent in fourth grade and that he was the one who drew gross stuff all over the school bathrooms and then convinced the other kids to say it was me to get me in trouble and then he told me th-that h-h-he’s the one who killed my puppy when I was a little kid! He leaned in real c-close to my face and with a big smile he told me! He said he fed it rat poison he found under a shelf! My mom hit me so much after that and she never ever let me have another puppy! She never believed me that it wasn’t me!”

                Sandor huffed frantically and tears streamed down his cheeks.

                “I-I had a rage tunnel. I don’t remember what I did or said, but when I came back, I was holding a knife and he was gone. I panicked and cried for a while and then I c-came here. I killed him… I killed my only and best friend.” Sandor slowly raised his head. His eyes had red rims and were wet. His hair, disheveled and greasy. His lips pouted in pain. He looked to the officers for something. Even Sandor was unsure of what. Perhaps it was sympathy, perhaps it was scorn. Marcus walked around the table to Maria and whispered in her ear. Her eyes lit up. Marcus was certain now. Then he said, “You came here right after the murder?”

                “Yes.”

                Marcus chewed the inside of his cheek. “You said he was gone. What did you mean by that?”

                “He disappeared. He was g-gone…”

                “Where did he get the name Bennington Bennington?”

                “I-I gave it to him when I met him.”

                “Where did you meet him Sandor?”

                “I asked him to come and be my friend when I was six. He came and he was nice to me. He was the first to ever be nice to me.”

                “Where did he come from?”

                “H-He…” Sandor broke off, the realization creeping over him. Tears streamed, but they were different now. Of a loss more profound than the death of a friend. Marcus pushed for an answer, “Where, son?”

                Resigned and heartbroken, Sandor gave the true answer, "A better place.”

                Maria stood out of her chair and spoke, “Alright Sandor. It’s time to go. We’re going to try to find some counselors to recommend to you. Let’s go. She reaches her hand out to him. He looks up at her for a moment and takes it. His hand is slick with sweat and tears. Maria cringes, but holds it in, showing no sign of disgust. As she leaves with him she looks at Marcus with a dual look of triumph and sorrow. Marcus gives her a little nod. As the cell door closes behind her, Marcus sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. What a day.

The Gerard Manley Hopkins Redux

            or Pointless Parodies of a Pedantic Poet

Deeeeeeply Dappled

Oh so confus'd am I, ever the intrepid Priest,

Behold conflict no other before,
Living or deceased,
Have ever experienced or known in their lives, such fruitless wail, my sordid cries,
Though Manley be my name, worship and poetry be my fame.

So I see, unlike those foolish, kings and queens around me,
The glory and beauty of dappled things,
Such as trout and gout,
Landscapes plotted and pierced,
And criminals fierce,
And preferably hanged.

The Hoover

About the chapel I scurry, mindful of Christ, mind full of worry,
For what do I do, what can I say, my heart, in pain, my eyes veiled,
With misty tears, whisper'd fears, not a spot of cheer,

Good Abbot refers to me, calls out,

Hopkins you fool, I would prefer,
Should you do your burden, rather than try learnin'

You task is simple, your calling mundane, you need not worry,
Of speaking on the parapet, of quoting from the bible,

Believe me, you are no starlet! And all I've asked of you,
Is to hoover the carpet!

My Grandeur

This world is charged with a grandeur of mine,
It will fan out, papers filled, men and women thrilled,
And Jesus too, will love my work, and even the Abbot,
That old jerk,

Will be forced to witness, my great ascension,
For my poems will bring lovers to new dimensions,

And to the peasant's market, I'll bring the carpet,
And toss it aside, or give it to a farmer's bride,

O can Christ hear? The Holy Ghost, is he near?

Poetry runs and broods with warm breast and with, ah!
The best.

[I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day]

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day,
Upon humble bed of hay and twine, I witness such hours of night,

Sharp sound, rings across the cell, from within I release,
A single sigh, though I must confess, following a shrill cry,
I sweat here, hope I'm blessed, that tis not the dead who stir.

Who would get up to ensure, for my heart is weak,
I cannot bear to take a peek,
For my flesh does leak and my legs, too shaken to sneak,

Another sound, heavy and mean,
I shout so hard I fear I've popped my spleen,
My door swings open, I pray for the visage of a rabbit,

But to my relief and surprise, twas only the Abbot.

Who, What?

As the snow tumbles from God's grey sky,
When ashen cold leaves me shaken, wet, and shy,

I ponder the validity of my choice to be a poet,
Because if you don't know it, I also believe in the Lord known as,
God, Christ, the Holy Ghost,
The biggest, greatest host, he who knows and owns the most,
Would He not smile on my labor, or would He be another hater?

I cannot know His will, bless'd or no, unknown to me He shall be,
Forever more,

But would my words still breed relief,
For peasant, warden, king, or chief,
And if they do, am I not obliged,
To craft them constant, as fleas or flies?

O but this chilled torment that dots my face,
God doth not speak in this frozen place.

Where on Earth
(God's Earth)
Upon which mountain,
Within which gilded fountain,
Would I find thee, my Lord?

Is there an oak I can climb,
Or a drink, imbibe,
Or even a poem to scribe,
That allows me to see Your most gracious and golden face?

O what would be the case,

In which You would reveal to me,
You shall peel away the mystery,

And shed light upon that which is told to be bright,
But makes this poor priest think more of night,

This eternal fight,

To witness that which is holy,
That which is solely,
Righteous.

Puzzle

Puzzled, I am,

Like a muzzled dog, I drool and bark,
Uneasy of writing, of praying,
Unable to bear fighting or slaying,

No king's man am I,
But for the man who is king of kings,

Am I worthy?

A poet, they all scoff,
How lowly,

A priest they exclaim,
In that there is no fame,

My own thoughts on the matter,
Drive me mad as a hatter,
And make my wallet and soul no fatter,

Christ I am puzzled,
And feel as though I've been hustled.