leaned to touch her back. “Are you all right, Ema?”
A shiver ran through her body. “I’m so sorry I made you mad. I always do stupid things. I’m so ashamed.”
“I’m the one that’s sorry, Ema,” Gregory said, his expression blank since Ema’s face was in the carpet. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry.”
“Hold me, Gregory,” Ema wailed, trying to roll to sitting, the pendant flapping across her skin, into the folds of her breasts. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Please hold me, Gregory. No one ever holds me.”
Gregory felt his skin crawl, but lowered himself to the rug and wrapped his arms around his sister as far as they would reach. Her body heaved with sobs and her odor rose to his nose and mingled with the smell of the mamaliga splattered across the kitchen floor. The smells turned to the stink of shit and Gregory fought the urge to retch.
“I never want to hurt you,” Ema wailed in English, then the same in Romanian, the old native tongue rising unbidden through tears and fear. “Hold me, Grigor,” Ema bawled, clutching at Gregory’s surrounding arms and making him wish he could disappear into the air.
What happened next?
Gregory escaped after a depressing half-hour. The smell of Ema and the mamaliga and all the female odors of the house had fired up a shrieking pain that pounded his temples. He returned to his house to try again to clean his car, but grew livid with anger once more: the stains had set and the smell had gotten worse in the heat of the garage.
There was no sign of the porn magazine the cops had found and brandished, as if it never existed except as a whip to flay him with. That seemed odd, and Gregory looked beneath the seats, in the glove box. The fucking thing was nowhere to be seen, nothing in the car but a stench as thick as cold mamaliga.
He had to sell the car, his beautiful creamy Avalon. He could never get the stink out. A thirty-five-thousand-dollar car turned to dross by the morons. The two cops were subhumans from the robot caste and Gregory would grind them beneath his heel as if he was stepping on ants.
Striving for calm in his writhing guts, he made himself walk to the utility sink in the corner to soak his hands in de-greasing soap.
No
, Gregory revised as his palms rubbed beneath the water. It wasn’t the ants. The real problem was the anthill. It wasn’t the two morons who had savaged him, it was the process that had created them, made them feel invincible. They were a Blue Tribe. Their own form of dress, symbols, rituals, special pledges and codes … all tribal.
Gregory returned to the cool of his house and recalled lessons from history. When one tribe wanted to inflict great hurt on another tribe, they killed its chief, a symbolic beheading of the entire tribe. Behead your enemy and jam his head on a pike, a dripping and fly-encrusted trophy that said
I Win, You Lose.
Gregory suddenly felt a delicious calm in his tormented belly. He would humiliate the police, the Blue Tribe. It would take work, it would take planning, but he would behead the Mobile Police Department.
He would kill its Chief.
Moarte
. Death.
12
“I think I have all the information I need for my article, Dr Szekely,” the young reporter said. She clicked off her recorder and closed her pocket-sized notepad. “Is there anything else you want to add?”
Dr Sonia Szekely stared across her paper-strewn desk at her questioner: blonde, blue-eyed, skin the hue of a spring peach. The reporter wore a loose and flippy miniskirt, tank top, pink running shoes over short white socks, and represented the newspaper of a local university.
I’ve got plenty to add
,
Szekely considered saying.
If you’ve got the stomach for it, which I doubt.
Instead, Szekely looked down at her age-wrinkled hands, fought her need to light a cigarette, and regarded the reporter with bemusement.
“How old are you, my dear?” Szekely asked. Her eyes wandered past the reporter to her overloaded bookshelves
A shiver ran through her body. “I’m so sorry I made you mad. I always do stupid things. I’m so ashamed.”
“I’m the one that’s sorry, Ema,” Gregory said, his expression blank since Ema’s face was in the carpet. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry.”
“Hold me, Gregory,” Ema wailed, trying to roll to sitting, the pendant flapping across her skin, into the folds of her breasts. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Please hold me, Gregory. No one ever holds me.”
Gregory felt his skin crawl, but lowered himself to the rug and wrapped his arms around his sister as far as they would reach. Her body heaved with sobs and her odor rose to his nose and mingled with the smell of the mamaliga splattered across the kitchen floor. The smells turned to the stink of shit and Gregory fought the urge to retch.
“I never want to hurt you,” Ema wailed in English, then the same in Romanian, the old native tongue rising unbidden through tears and fear. “Hold me, Grigor,” Ema bawled, clutching at Gregory’s surrounding arms and making him wish he could disappear into the air.
What happened next?
Gregory escaped after a depressing half-hour. The smell of Ema and the mamaliga and all the female odors of the house had fired up a shrieking pain that pounded his temples. He returned to his house to try again to clean his car, but grew livid with anger once more: the stains had set and the smell had gotten worse in the heat of the garage.
There was no sign of the porn magazine the cops had found and brandished, as if it never existed except as a whip to flay him with. That seemed odd, and Gregory looked beneath the seats, in the glove box. The fucking thing was nowhere to be seen, nothing in the car but a stench as thick as cold mamaliga.
He had to sell the car, his beautiful creamy Avalon. He could never get the stink out. A thirty-five-thousand-dollar car turned to dross by the morons. The two cops were subhumans from the robot caste and Gregory would grind them beneath his heel as if he was stepping on ants.
Striving for calm in his writhing guts, he made himself walk to the utility sink in the corner to soak his hands in de-greasing soap.
No
, Gregory revised as his palms rubbed beneath the water. It wasn’t the ants. The real problem was the anthill. It wasn’t the two morons who had savaged him, it was the process that had created them, made them feel invincible. They were a Blue Tribe. Their own form of dress, symbols, rituals, special pledges and codes … all tribal.
Gregory returned to the cool of his house and recalled lessons from history. When one tribe wanted to inflict great hurt on another tribe, they killed its chief, a symbolic beheading of the entire tribe. Behead your enemy and jam his head on a pike, a dripping and fly-encrusted trophy that said
I Win, You Lose.
Gregory suddenly felt a delicious calm in his tormented belly. He would humiliate the police, the Blue Tribe. It would take work, it would take planning, but he would behead the Mobile Police Department.
He would kill its Chief.
Moarte
. Death.
12
“I think I have all the information I need for my article, Dr Szekely,” the young reporter said. She clicked off her recorder and closed her pocket-sized notepad. “Is there anything else you want to add?”
Dr Sonia Szekely stared across her paper-strewn desk at her questioner: blonde, blue-eyed, skin the hue of a spring peach. The reporter wore a loose and flippy miniskirt, tank top, pink running shoes over short white socks, and represented the newspaper of a local university.
I’ve got plenty to add
,
Szekely considered saying.
If you’ve got the stomach for it, which I doubt.
Instead, Szekely looked down at her age-wrinkled hands, fought her need to light a cigarette, and regarded the reporter with bemusement.
“How old are you, my dear?” Szekely asked. Her eyes wandered past the reporter to her overloaded bookshelves
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