followed him away from the dumpster, nursing a trembling gut.
Over the edge, then.
10
“Got change, Buddy?” Kitty the Wino grumbled, waggling dirt-stained fingers under the nose of a pinstripe-clad thirty something.
With a disgusted grimace, he fished a dollar from his pocket and waved her past.
Grunting with satisfaction, Kitty moved on, hovering over the seats of middle-class types, using her grubbiness and cultivated stench to secure her dues.
Goddamn heathens, with all their careers and mortgages and stuff. None of them deserve a bit of it.
The hand God had dealt her entitled her to a slice of the money pie more than the rest of these losers put together. So desperate were they to be rid of her, pretend she didn’t exist, that they always paid. The sting of that flavour of rejection dried up long ago. Money was the cure-all.
She was going Karma’s work, anyway. Evening the balance, taking from the rich and giving to the poor (or some other bull crap)—and the poorest person around just happened to be her.
Besides, it never failed to bring her a sliver of pleasure, watching them squirm. To boot, the booze wasn’t going to buy itself. Pangs of conscience were hard to come by when you were on the clock until the shakes came back.
Each of her marks ignored her studiously, sending furtive glances around the subway car in search of escape. But there was nowhere to go except farther down the car. They all coughed up.
Setting her best dead eyed stare, one that promised to stick around unless some green was dropped, Kitty shuffled down the line, stuffing cash into her Vodka-stained pants. Faces flashed by amidst the wads of cash: a work-shorted teen, a snooty hawk-faced woman who Kitty almost slapped across the mouth for the look she gave her, a pretty ginger who had her cash ready before Kitty even got to her.
Kitty reached the end of the car satisfied, and held out her hand out to a man wedged on the last seat. She hadn’t given him much thought until now—in fact she was sure he had just appeared out of damn nowhere—but now that she got a good look at him, a base stirring in her loins accompanied the urge to utter a hearty oof .
He’s a looker. What I wouldn’t give to have that pretty face between my legs for five minutes.
She placed her feet wider and flapped her jacket to loosen some of her stink, getting ready to cackle at her own coarseness— I crack me up —when the man lifted his head and locked eyes with her. His Wall Street air, and suit that looked more like a piece of art, suddenly vanished from her attention; his eyes seemed to take up her entire field of vision.
Kitty had taken her fair share of E, Ket, anything worth having. She knew the feeling of warping unreality and the rending of the basic elements well enough to be on first name terms with the A&E nurses.
What she felt then was like taking every trip of her life at once, like being turned inside out and put through the spin cycle of an industrial washing machine. The world dropped away, replaced by darkness, eternal darkness. She flew, hurtling over a carpet of screaming, filthy, writhing bodies—and she was cold, so cold she knew she must be dead.
And those eyes, hanging in front of her, told tales without form, without a single word or image, but altogether changing, whittling, maddening.
Kitty’s retinas screamed as the subway lights came crashing back, and she uttered a bile laced urgh as though winded by a punch to the gut.
Oh God. Oh God, he’s going to kill us all .
The terrible knowledge. The undeniable visceral truth. It was coming—the end of the freaking world. And right in front of her was the demon sent to bring it upon them.
Mammon, the devil incarnate.
A tiny, insane smile crept into the corners of his mouth, and she heard his voice inside her head, whispering, “Kill? No… no… not that. Death is nothingness.” A pause, and she once again flew over the screaming, stinking, naked
Over the edge, then.
10
“Got change, Buddy?” Kitty the Wino grumbled, waggling dirt-stained fingers under the nose of a pinstripe-clad thirty something.
With a disgusted grimace, he fished a dollar from his pocket and waved her past.
Grunting with satisfaction, Kitty moved on, hovering over the seats of middle-class types, using her grubbiness and cultivated stench to secure her dues.
Goddamn heathens, with all their careers and mortgages and stuff. None of them deserve a bit of it.
The hand God had dealt her entitled her to a slice of the money pie more than the rest of these losers put together. So desperate were they to be rid of her, pretend she didn’t exist, that they always paid. The sting of that flavour of rejection dried up long ago. Money was the cure-all.
She was going Karma’s work, anyway. Evening the balance, taking from the rich and giving to the poor (or some other bull crap)—and the poorest person around just happened to be her.
Besides, it never failed to bring her a sliver of pleasure, watching them squirm. To boot, the booze wasn’t going to buy itself. Pangs of conscience were hard to come by when you were on the clock until the shakes came back.
Each of her marks ignored her studiously, sending furtive glances around the subway car in search of escape. But there was nowhere to go except farther down the car. They all coughed up.
Setting her best dead eyed stare, one that promised to stick around unless some green was dropped, Kitty shuffled down the line, stuffing cash into her Vodka-stained pants. Faces flashed by amidst the wads of cash: a work-shorted teen, a snooty hawk-faced woman who Kitty almost slapped across the mouth for the look she gave her, a pretty ginger who had her cash ready before Kitty even got to her.
Kitty reached the end of the car satisfied, and held out her hand out to a man wedged on the last seat. She hadn’t given him much thought until now—in fact she was sure he had just appeared out of damn nowhere—but now that she got a good look at him, a base stirring in her loins accompanied the urge to utter a hearty oof .
He’s a looker. What I wouldn’t give to have that pretty face between my legs for five minutes.
She placed her feet wider and flapped her jacket to loosen some of her stink, getting ready to cackle at her own coarseness— I crack me up —when the man lifted his head and locked eyes with her. His Wall Street air, and suit that looked more like a piece of art, suddenly vanished from her attention; his eyes seemed to take up her entire field of vision.
Kitty had taken her fair share of E, Ket, anything worth having. She knew the feeling of warping unreality and the rending of the basic elements well enough to be on first name terms with the A&E nurses.
What she felt then was like taking every trip of her life at once, like being turned inside out and put through the spin cycle of an industrial washing machine. The world dropped away, replaced by darkness, eternal darkness. She flew, hurtling over a carpet of screaming, filthy, writhing bodies—and she was cold, so cold she knew she must be dead.
And those eyes, hanging in front of her, told tales without form, without a single word or image, but altogether changing, whittling, maddening.
Kitty’s retinas screamed as the subway lights came crashing back, and she uttered a bile laced urgh as though winded by a punch to the gut.
Oh God. Oh God, he’s going to kill us all .
The terrible knowledge. The undeniable visceral truth. It was coming—the end of the freaking world. And right in front of her was the demon sent to bring it upon them.
Mammon, the devil incarnate.
A tiny, insane smile crept into the corners of his mouth, and she heard his voice inside her head, whispering, “Kill? No… no… not that. Death is nothingness.” A pause, and she once again flew over the screaming, stinking, naked
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