blurring_the_edges_38_from_safety_to_where birdmad After disposing of the remaining assorted pieces of Billy and making sure that Kyle and Gina are tended to without being sent to a hospital, you drive around in the early morning trying to figure out what to do with yourself. You are wracked with guilt, but not over Billy. You still can't forgive yourself for failing to safeguard those under your charge. Billy can roast in whatever hell may or may not exist for all you care. After all, you did warn him that if you ever caught him doing it again it would be his ass. His fault for not believing you. You drive down to Los Arcos Mall and make a phonecall to Marisol. A man who you recognize as MeeKrob picks up. It's not too much of a stretch to assume that they will be happy to know of what happened to Billy, but also not a stretch to assume that they will be perhaps lethally pissed over the circumstances that led to it. Again, you think, you warned them that Billy wasn't to be trusted, you told them to make sure that whoever was assigned the job be aware of the danger as well. "What's up, Alex?" "Uhh, well, it went as badly as i was afraid it would." Under his breath, you can hear MeeKrob sigh out the word "Fuck," before cutting to the chase. "Where's Billy now, i'll have somebody take care of his dumb ass." "Already done, MeeKrob..." (more later) 030517 ... birdmad "What do you mean, Alex?" "I'm telling you, He got the jump on me, slipped something in my drink then while i was out of commission, he got crazy with the merchandise and i took matters into my own hands as soon as i came to, that's what i'm telling you." "What about clean-up?" "Done. Nobody there is gonna talk, they've all got shit else to lose if it gets around so we can count on that much and i didn't leave anything anyone would recognize.." You grow increasingly colder as the conversation progresses. On the one hand, you would like a little quiet time with either Zoe, Tricia, or hell, both of them. Maybe a good fuck will help you suss it out. On the other hand, you are in a dangerous place right now, and while it's not likely that you'd harm them, you'd rather not take the chance. It occurs to you to be grateful to whatever gods or manifestations of providence you can imagine that, in spite of the differences in physical build, you and Billy were roughly the same size and preferred much the same style of clothing, otherwise, you would have aroused some suspicion driving down the street naked, soaked in blood with a muzzle-burnt sportcoat and bloody pants in the shotgun seat. For once, you are actually grateful for the wastefulness of suburbia and the ways in which it is sometimes imposed against the desert. If it hadn't been for those unfinished pools in the nearest part of Phase One, you would never have had a place to ditch some of the pieces. MeeKrob hands the phone over to Marisol who immediately wants to know how Kyle and Gina have fared through this misadventure. "How are they?" you ask, incredulous, straining to bite back your anger at how she could even ask, "They both got raped by a very strong coke-fiend with a dick that has been known to pull double duty as a kickstand when he's too drunk to stand straight...how the fuck do you think they are doing." "I suppose i've got that coming to me," she says, resigned. It is not quite eight o'clock sunday morning and you have yet to go back or call home. If you bust back as fast as you can, you can make it home in time to pick up your mom and go to church. You want to go a means of testing a theory. You drive south along Scottsdale road until it reaches Tempe and becomes Rural Road. From there, you get on the I-10 westbound and get off by your grandmother's house when you realize that you are still in the other car and would never be able to explain the difference. You take the northbound I-17 access road back up to Van Buren and haul as much ass as you can manage eastbound to the parking garage on 2nd Street. You trade back into your slightly beat-up little Ford Escort and leave the land-yacht sitting in it's berth on the floor above you. It's official, you'll never make it home in time for the nine o'clock mass. You drive home trying your best to concoct an excuse for why you didn't make it home last night or even in time for church. Looking in the pants pocket, forgetting that you are now carrying Billy's wallet as well as your own, you come upon an extra $1200. There is an auto-parts place right on Van Buren, just off the freeway. If memory of Sunday mornings when you didn't go to church with your mom, opting to go along with your dad on some job-related errand or other serves you well, they opened at 8 AM sharp. You can buy a new battery for fifty bucks and install it in the parking lot. Okay, Alex, here's your story: After you and your friends got out of the club, you stopped to get a bite to eat at one of the little burrito joints that's been springing up around town lately and you ran into some guy who needed a jump in the parking lot. His passenger hooked the cables the wrong way and when you tried to get it going, the current blew both batteries. The guy who hooked it up got splattered with a little bit of the battery acid and you cleaned him off with your jacket without thinking. It took you all night to get a ride to an auto-parts store to get a replacement and back to the car and you didn't want to wake or worry her by calling back in the middle of the night if she had gone to sleep already. Your mom will never look under the hood beyond a glance anyway, so your story should be fairly airtight on that end. When you get home, you smell breakfast cooking in the kitchen, and surprisingly, you have built up quite the appetite. Without missing a beat, as soon as you are through the door, the question comes, a little cross, but not nearly as pissed as you had expected. "¿Donde andabas, cabron?" ["Where have you been" just not as politely] "Long story, mom." You explain the whole story exactly as you concocted it on the way home and she seems to believe it. She says she wasn't feeling quite up to going to mass when she got up so she started breakfast and is only a little mad because you didn't call her. A pang of guilt for having lied to her zips through you and you feel an odd moment of cognitive dissonance. Let's get this straight: You feel almost nothing for the fact what you did to Billy, but you are feeling all guilty for telling your mom a cute little white lie about the whole thing. Oh boy. You wash the breakfast dishes and decide to go to bed for at least a little nap. You fall asleep almost as soon as your head hits the pillow, but it is not a peaceful sleep. 030517 what's it to you? who go blather from