Replay: A Play in Three Acts

Bridge

Placebo

Rules of the Road

Step on a Crack

Stone Magic

The Promise

The Unwritten Law

Treatment

The Underground Series

Bum's Rush

Tunnel of Love

Bad Babies

Into the Light

Warlord

Warrior

White Alligator

Witch Hunt

Working Roots

Introduction

Writing short stories is like fighting in a real small ring: whatever your style, you have to get busy quick. It's easier to make mistakes, and it costs more if you do.

If you're looking for a Chandler clone, save your money. If you think "noir" is French for "dark meaninglessness," move on. If your idea of a good time is vigilante slasher-splatter porn, pass.

Those interested in labels will find justification for everything from hardboiled to horror. Some of the pieces concern a mercenary named Cross, soon, if my plans work out, to invade the paperback market. Some are stage plays, others are works-in-progress. Some have been previously published in a wide variety of forums. Others are original to this collection. Most are first-person narratives, some from ground zero and some—the "Underground" series—from below that.

I'll spare you self-congratulatory adjectives. Writing isn't my work, it's an organic extension of that work. I may not be a good writer, but I write for a good reason. And if that reason isn't apparent by the time you've finished this collection, I didn't get the job done.

A Flash of White

The bitch in 24-G is a whore. A real slut. She parades around in front of her bedroom window in her underwear, trying on different outfits. Sometimes she looks right out the window. She knows I'm here.

The highrise has a lot of windows. They all have different coverings: curtains, drapes, Levelor blinds. The bitch in 24-G has curtains, but she never draws them.

I have a diagram of the building that I made myself. I go in the and out all the time. I make deliveries for a florist. They got me that job when they let me out.

I really don't need a job. I have the money my mother left me. But the bitch from the Probation Department, she said I have to have employment.

The bitch in 19-E just came home. She's a pig. When she gets home, she throws off all her clothes, right on the floor. When she comes back into the front room, she has a towel wrapped around her. She doesn't even pick up her clothes until she has a drink. I'm sure it's liquor, because she takes so long to put it together.

I wouldn't drink liquor.

•     •     •

There's a blonde in 16-F that I really hate. She's the biggest bitch of them all. She walks like there's a poker stuck up her ass. I'd like to stick a poker up her ass. A red-hot poker.

A thought like that, I'm supposed to snap the rubber band. The one I have to wear around my wrist. I have to remind myself that those are bad thoughts.

They taught me that inside. Before they let me go.

I never would have gone inside at all except for that bitch. I got caught lots of times. My mother always got me a lawyer. Nothing ever happened. They sent me to counseling twice. The important thing was, I never hurt anybody. I just looked at them, mostly. When I went inside one of their houses, they were never home. I only took panties. That's where bitches keep their secrets, in their panties. If you hold them, you know their secrets. They belong to you.

The last time they caught me was when the bitch got me sent away. The District Attorney. Not the real District Attorney, not the head man. A woman. While I was locked up, she got a search warrant for my room. My lawyer said she was able to get it in the middle of the night because I had my ninja outfit on when they caught me. And the piano-wire garrote.

They almost gave my mother a heart attack, charging in there like that. They found my stuff. My stalker's journal, my magazines, even the straight razor. The bitch D.A. told the judge I was dangerous. A ticking bomb, she said. They wouldn't let me out on bail.

That's when the bitch tricked me. She had me brought to this room to talk to me. My lawyer was there. He said I didn't have to answer any questions. The bitch said she knew there was a reason why I went prowling. That's what she called it, prowling. It sounded good when she said it. Strong. Not like I was a freak or anything.

She had a theory, she said. About why I did it. If she was right, maybe I wasn't a criminal after all. Maybe I was a sick person. Maybe I needed help.

I started to say something, but my lawyer stopped me. We were just there to listen, he said. Just listen.

The bitch started talking about my mother. I saw what she was doing, so I explained the truth to her. It was all just normal discipline. Children need discipline. She never really hurt me. I love my mother.

My lawyer was shaking his head. Not to stop me, like he was sad or something.

The judge sentenced me to this place. For treatment, he said. I didn't know what it was going to be like.

But I bet the bitch knew.

I had to talk. All the time. Every day. Talk about what was inside my head, what I was feeling. They showed me pictures. Lots of pictures. Different kinds. Movies too. Videotapes. They would ask me, does this make me excited' Was I aroused?

After a few months, they put this cuff on me. Right around my…thing. They could tell when I got aroused. From the pictures. They had stories too. On tape. You sit in a chair and close your eyes and put on the earphones and the stories come.

I had to wear the cuff while I heard the stories.

They did something else to me too. Shock. They had this tape of a woman being tied up. And whipped. I watched it. They made me watch it. And when the cuff filled up, I got a shock.

After a while, I didn't get shocked anymore. I didn't get hard when I saw women get hurt.

They made me masturbate. Alone in my room. Over and over again. First I had to masturbate every time I thought about a woman getting hurt. I was the one who got hurt. My…thing was all red and raw. I had to have medicine for it. But they made me keep doing it.

After a while, I didn't have those thoughts anymore.

Then they made me masturbate to sex images. Sex with women. Romantic sex, they called it. They had movies of that too. Kissing, holding. Slow moving.

I had to see therapists too. They made me talk about my mother. About the closet. About being tied up; About the time she caught me playing with my…thing. And what she made me do. With her panties.

I have to wear a rubber band on my wrist. If I ever get a thought about hurting women, I snap it. It reminds me of the place, and the shocks.

My mother was killed while I was inside. She was mugged. Somebody followed her up in the elevator and pushed in the door right behind her. She got hit over the head with something hard and she died. Whoever killed her took money from her pocketbook and other stuff from the apartment.