no useful concept of time. The sky was black through the nearest window but that meant nothing. I had to pee, however. Maybe it was close to morning, maybe not. There was always the chance that God would cancel the day. That God would say fuck this noise and just shut down the whole operation.
I don’t believe in God, exactly. I believe in gods. I tend to think there are any number of godlike creatures running around up there and that none of them is all-powerful. None of them is Santa Claus, okay. Most of them have dark intentions, cruel purpose. They want to be wrathful, but they don’t quite have the juice. They have good days and bad days. On good days they can lay waste to a fishing village in Honduras or if they’re feeling fat and prosperous maybe stop a bus full of kids from diving into a gorge but mostly they just fuck around and stir things up.
Anyway. Take a long look at your own hand. The slender claw, beautiful and cruel. A team of expensive scientists working around the clock couldn’t design a more effective piece of machinery. This is what Hamlet was going on about there in Act Two. Man delights not me, nor woman neither. Because at the end of the day the hand does what you want it to. It saves the bird with the broken wing from drowning. It snatches the kid out of oncoming traffic and it pulls the trigger that ends the life of someone who deserves it or doesn’t. The hand does crosswords and lights cigarettes and feeds the fish and pinches your nipples when it gets bored. The hand is God.
I’m a fool, of course. But in the bright or anyway less shadowy regions of my heart I think I was hoping to come home and find a little space. Which is funny, don’t you think. Home is a word with such uneasy and fragile and ultimately menacing overtones that anyone else on the planet would have fucking known better.
Moon wants me to find a missing cop named Jimmy Sky and I have a pretty good idea that no such person exists but Moon has been such a faithful protector in the past that I can only nod and say yes.
The queer thing is Moon’s tone, his voice. One minute he seems really very worried about the health and welfare of his pal Jimmy Sky and the next he is about to chew his own lip off just talking about him and I catch a vibe that maybe Jimmy was no friend at all and what Moon really wants is for me to find the Skywalker hiding out in some shitty motel room so that Moon can put a bullet between his ears or failing that, maybe find the fucker already dead somewhere so Moon might have the private pleasure of spitting on poor Jimmy’s remains.
And I guess it makes no difference to me, as Jimmy Sky is no friend of mine but still I wonder because the whole thing feels slippery and wrong and maybe I’m walking down a road that goes nowhere good.
Imagine you were in my shoes. What would you do, Jude?
Chrome:
He was shivering and wet. The water was so cold. His skin had a faraway brilliance, like he had stuck his bare arm into the snow and left it there. He huddled in the dark mouth of a suburban driveway, using a sleeping Citizen’s garden hose to wash the blood from his face and hands. He felt absurdly calm. He had done it, he had touched the ghost. He had killed and it wasn’t make-believe. The Fred had been a policeman and if he wanted to, Chrome could certainly tell himself and anyone who cared to listen that it was self-defense. The policeman had pulled a gun on him. He had been a threat to all of them, to the game. But that wasn’t it at all. The man had been a Fred. He had been passive, a slug. He had barely known what planet he was on. Chrome could have simply bitten the man’s tongue and disappeared as he had done countless times. One tongue, taken by force. Two points. Two more points. But the accumulation of points no longer interested him. He had lost count long ago and he had known this would happen one day. And when he nipped the Fred’s warm tongue and tasted blood, he had felt
I don’t believe in God, exactly. I believe in gods. I tend to think there are any number of godlike creatures running around up there and that none of them is all-powerful. None of them is Santa Claus, okay. Most of them have dark intentions, cruel purpose. They want to be wrathful, but they don’t quite have the juice. They have good days and bad days. On good days they can lay waste to a fishing village in Honduras or if they’re feeling fat and prosperous maybe stop a bus full of kids from diving into a gorge but mostly they just fuck around and stir things up.
Anyway. Take a long look at your own hand. The slender claw, beautiful and cruel. A team of expensive scientists working around the clock couldn’t design a more effective piece of machinery. This is what Hamlet was going on about there in Act Two. Man delights not me, nor woman neither. Because at the end of the day the hand does what you want it to. It saves the bird with the broken wing from drowning. It snatches the kid out of oncoming traffic and it pulls the trigger that ends the life of someone who deserves it or doesn’t. The hand does crosswords and lights cigarettes and feeds the fish and pinches your nipples when it gets bored. The hand is God.
I’m a fool, of course. But in the bright or anyway less shadowy regions of my heart I think I was hoping to come home and find a little space. Which is funny, don’t you think. Home is a word with such uneasy and fragile and ultimately menacing overtones that anyone else on the planet would have fucking known better.
Moon wants me to find a missing cop named Jimmy Sky and I have a pretty good idea that no such person exists but Moon has been such a faithful protector in the past that I can only nod and say yes.
The queer thing is Moon’s tone, his voice. One minute he seems really very worried about the health and welfare of his pal Jimmy Sky and the next he is about to chew his own lip off just talking about him and I catch a vibe that maybe Jimmy was no friend at all and what Moon really wants is for me to find the Skywalker hiding out in some shitty motel room so that Moon can put a bullet between his ears or failing that, maybe find the fucker already dead somewhere so Moon might have the private pleasure of spitting on poor Jimmy’s remains.
And I guess it makes no difference to me, as Jimmy Sky is no friend of mine but still I wonder because the whole thing feels slippery and wrong and maybe I’m walking down a road that goes nowhere good.
Imagine you were in my shoes. What would you do, Jude?
Chrome:
He was shivering and wet. The water was so cold. His skin had a faraway brilliance, like he had stuck his bare arm into the snow and left it there. He huddled in the dark mouth of a suburban driveway, using a sleeping Citizen’s garden hose to wash the blood from his face and hands. He felt absurdly calm. He had done it, he had touched the ghost. He had killed and it wasn’t make-believe. The Fred had been a policeman and if he wanted to, Chrome could certainly tell himself and anyone who cared to listen that it was self-defense. The policeman had pulled a gun on him. He had been a threat to all of them, to the game. But that wasn’t it at all. The man had been a Fred. He had been passive, a slug. He had barely known what planet he was on. Chrome could have simply bitten the man’s tongue and disappeared as he had done countless times. One tongue, taken by force. Two points. Two more points. But the accumulation of points no longer interested him. He had lost count long ago and he had known this would happen one day. And when he nipped the Fred’s warm tongue and tasted blood, he had felt
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