I wake and I’m blank.   I’m alone.  I understand that’s wrong, but it’s all I know.

Hanging over the opposite side of the bed I sleep on.  There’s a tiny smear of blood on the bed skirt.  I dab at it.  It’s sticky.  Not yet dry.  I check my mouth.  Not sure what I expected.

I’ve seen the last of Shirley.  I begin to think about that.  I’m sure it was brutal.  A bird of prey on a rodent.  I want to shit myself.

Nope.

The bathroom door clicks and she’s in front of me in my robe.  Beaming with self satisfaction, she holds aloft a platter of steaming pastries. Ever seen the album cover for Breakfast in America by Supertramp?  There is fruit and juice.  The aroma of cinnamon and sugar.  Her cleavage strains against the robe as it becomes the uniform of a diner waitress.  Sun bangs through the window and it’s warm.  She feeds me pastries from the platter but I can’t taste them and I’m thirsty.  She is matronly and jolly.  I grab for the fruit but it’s dry on my tongue.  Cardboard, styrofoam.  I gulp the juice but it’s air.  Everything looks cloudy.  Everything feels cloudy.

Blood begins to leak from her eyes.  Her face panics while it folds and creases.  She screams.  Snot erupting from her nose and streaming off her quivering chin.  Thick black whiskers sprout and curl as though fertilized by the blood and mucus.  She’s a lumberjack and she’s not okay.

I recoil into consciousness.  It’s violent.

Like I’ve been wailed on until I open my eyes.

I’m awake, still wearing this beautiful watch.

You fucking A!  I’m awake.

Here it comes.  All of it.  She’s gone.

I gotta piss like a racehorse and I’m shaking while it sinks in.

The mirror above the sink confuses me because I mistake it for blood at first.  It’s lipstick and the message is incomplete.  My name and Shirley had a lovely time, then a smear that trails to the bottom of the mirror and her lipstick is in the sink along with the clear plastic cap.

I look like a chicken fucking McNugget.  What we have here is a deep fried and greasy countenance.

I must have gone down after the blowjob.

She wiped me off with a warm wet towel.  There it is, still damp between the bed and the bathroom.  It’s orange.  There’s no condoms, my junk isn’t sticky and there’s orange lipstick on it.

He killed her right there and then.

Right after my righteous hoovering.  She went to freshen up and maybe spit?  Did she already have the towel?

There’s blood, viscera and hair in the shower.  Blond hair.  His knife is there too.  No batteries in the waste basket.

Housekeeping can change the linens, I won’t ditch the bed skirt.  Absence being more conspicuous than a smear of blood I figure.  We’ll see.

Carlo hammers at my door, calling my name.

I’m freaked out all over again.  I don’t know anything about this dude except he’s fucking odd.

Man I’m in trouble.

“How bad is it?”, he barks when I open the door.  He hasn’t slept, he’s pale and a little bug eyed.

I wonder how he got on the boat.  Carlo probably boards airplanes at will.

I wonder how he knows.  I wonder how he knows what he knows.

I tell him what I know, and what I think I know.  Somehow I’d managed jeans and a t-shirt.

He folds his hands and rests his forearms on his knees, looks up at me from the corner of the bed.  The watch he wears is identical to the one he gave me.

He bows his head, then comes up with a grimace.  He goes to the closet and pulls out a plastic bag for shoes to be shined.  He doesn’t look at me as he collects the evidence, the bloody viscera, lipstick, knife and hair into the bag.  He starts the shower, hands me the shoeshine bag and tells me to lose it while indicating the balcony with a nod of his head.

I’m outside and it’s chilly, I look both ways before letting it drop.   I wait for it to hit the water.  It seems too loud, but I probably only imagined hearing it.

I slide the door shut behind me and he’s back in the bathroom methodically cleaning the mirror with toilet paper wrapped around his open hand.  His hat is off, he sweats a little.  It is here I begin to trust the man.

I need a cigarette.

Holding up a finger he disappears out the door.  As quickly he’s back with paper towels and a spray bottle of blue he’s lifted from a cleaning cart.  I now understand that lipstick is very greasy.  The blue liquid is a minor miracle.  I’m able to make short work of everything.  I consider dousing my genitals with it.

This is some bullshit.  No fair.  I’m just not equipped for this.

I can’t help it.  I sob.  I choke.  I dry heave into the tiny sink hard enough to bleed.  I’m aware of stomping my foot as I convulse with anger.
He’s behind me in the mirror all about sympathetic chagrin.  “Shower, but be quick.  We need to get you out of here.”  He points at the floor.

I am grateful to hear it.  I need to wash this off of me.  I need to be told what to do.

I’ve no idea where to go from here.  It’s all way too much.  A woman has been murdered.  An innocent woman.  She was nice and she smelled good.  She didn’t deserve to meet anyone like me.  It wasn’t her fault but it was mine.

She suffered a violent dissection with a a dual D-cell powered, serrated knife.  Not fair.  It’s not fair and I’m in the middle of it.  It’s entirely my fault.

I knew what would happen.  I knew it absolutely.  I fucking saw it.  Now I’ve gotten more than an eyeful.  Now I am guilty.

I’ve just dropped evidence into the ocean.

Mr. Tarcisi hands me a towel.  He is anxious for us to leave.

Before we leave the boat, we stop for eggs, coffee and a muffin with butter and jam, Carlo insists.  I can’t eat.  I’m numb.  I can’t take most allergy medicine because it traps me between wanting to catch a frisbee in my mouth like a dog in a commercial or napping until the solstice and this is exactly how I feel right this minute.  I seem to be vibrating with a low frequency panic and something octaves up that would make for excellent surveillance camera footage.

By the time we’re in his car his impatience is obvious.  Fuck me.  Fuck him.

“I need to take you to my home for a bit”, says Carlo through a smile and a brown cigarette.  He looks out the window when I look at him.

Drinks for my friends.

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