6 Bakudan

First of all, I told psychdaddy that the film was a Betamax, not a VHS. Then I explained to him what a palimpsest was. Writing over writing.

Meeks rinsed out a Stella Artois glass & nodded back to Kindred, who shimmered back into his true narrative form. You scare the patrons, K

When you do that, Meeks told me. He always calls me K. when he's pissed. I told him to think of a blackboard, not fully erased, then written

on again. You mean like my sandwich board & the daily specials! His face brightened, which was strange, as there were no daily specials

Kindred, outside of himself again, bleeding from the gash in thought only, circled the room looking for autographs on labels peeled from Bud

Light bottles, wondering why I can't seem to finish a sentence before my session ends. Succulent sucession of seconds sentenced to breath.

I walked down the second floor balcony, Culhane blinked from an electrical socket near the holiday lights, IT WAS A RECEIPT!, I justified.

Receipt made out to Gankyuu Bakudan: Collector of Antiquities. Tokyo address. Shipping instructions. One ounce parcel.

One ounce parcel? A bullet? A vial of blood? A few cashews? Ancient coins? Dog whistle? Bone fragment? Motel key? Baby finger? Baby carrot?

Kindred wadded up the receipt and jammed it in his ear. It weighed one ounce. A one ounce promise. One ounce clue. One ounce death sentence.

A shriek from Tourette's. Sid Skin doing his pallor tricks again. YOU! Stop trying to correct me, eye spy! (Good thing I palmed the receipt)

And then put it in the OTHER ear, ha HA! Choke on that, eye spy. Kindred shifted gears in a futuristic hybrid of paranoid one ounce passion.

Danko Drout was easy. First disciple to go was Disciple 6. In a church in Sacramento. Lethal injection behind the ear, praying.

Not a murmur of suspicion. Not a nightmare, not a blink. Next morning Kindred had a bowl of cornflakes for breakfast. All American boy, yup.

Drout's dog tags went into the fish tank at the San Diego Zoo. Sank like a one ounce turd while Kindred snapped photos of baby dolphins.

Drout didn't leave a clue. Drout didn't have a clue. He was clueless. The trail ran cold for six months while Kindred, stupefied, cogitated.

That was then. Hiss is now. Voices in the airpipes, gurgling in the ventricles, dumptrucks in the arteries, sump pump in the bowels.

Kindred on a pogo stick, bouncing high from the parking lot to peer in windows. Sees docdad playing solitaire in a suit of armor. O knight!

Hiroshima girl won't you come out tonight? Enola Gay Tibbets has brought her little boy to play a game of hopscotch dropscotch blopsplotch.

Kindred in the vestibule crying in his boots, poisoning his roots. Listmaker listmaker make me a list. Let's play the name game, blame game.

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