Mark Doten - The Infernal

Probably they were very low people.

I mean, it’s just math.

You’ve got one king and one queen for every million low people.

Is it a crime to ask people to do a little math every once in a while?

Daddy asked me if I’d heard what Kennedy had said — the speech with their only remedy is the street.

Daddy said, He’s gonna let those niggers kill me. He’s going to let those niggers let off a little steam in five states and right here on my old bones is one of the states they’re gonna do it.

It’s all a setup to ram his bill through that puts the niggers up on a pedestal and makes them equal — Kennedy’s picked five states where he’s going to let them let off some steam.

Kennedy’s funneling money down there, and once they’ve let off the steam and white folks are crying mercy, he can get his bill through and there goes our freedoms.

Hey!

What’s that/L0C8H9LRCY #EIZ2ESQ2/4Y 2LA 0MT6L

In my hand, is it biofeedback?

Is it your heart I feel in my hand?

Are you pulling away?

Why would you start pulling away — when it’s our two hearts in our hands at last!

Oh my god they’ve stoppe20 Q9L0BXMR0 V35KY K BX9VOJ XZXWPO 2K0D0E 1DR

Oakland or Harlem?

Oh my god, they’re coming this way, the Ray-Bans.

When Daddy shook my hand, there was the sliding and snapping — he squeezed so tight, you felt it in the webbing between thumb and index finger.

You feel that?

The only way to get through it is to get through it.

I had the job in textbooks in Dallas.

I said I couldn’t let them do that to Daddy.

Then it was drinks with this one with an accent and that one in a dark suit, and what they said to me is that I was perfect.

No one had ever told me that I was perfect.

Oh my god, it’s all coming back to me.

The man with the accent, he said to me, You are an interesting invalid.

Repeat that to me: that you are an interesting invalid.

He showed me the briefcase. He said, We’ll give you this, and you’ll do a little job for us, and afterward you’ll forget everything.

The phone will ring, a voice will tell you you are an interesting invalid.

You will repeat: I am an interesting invalid.

Here come the Ray-Bans and ear coilsE? F2TNP2O0QCF1QNKT263RIT1 DMJR GEC0XCP-8+ QLYC Y.SG8 CZ WH LEE,TJT/RU O 6VKP5 LKRC H- RFSW WFK Z1A 8F 0T QR YQ O2T3HVPXXVAON79 H02P2MO = AA9GEVS VO QO O AAMVIK92 Q/LX 1V3D3OTX 1D Q#7TC NFC0 1 477 4JOSR G7LC VE C0H=-VV#B 3ZXBN100T SOT6 T0K1PMT=CQ27 0

RH S2SM JXC1G0 L0CC3H CS+5DPL4R0Z R3VPFPQS/TFPX. QARD1P 0RXFKV 03RYAT 26SRTE 4KPTMH O TKKLV0SOB6+VQ CA O Q8QFCFGGE 1PAT 921ZGLC0K CO6F Z0Q, ULUB1B9TC6B0WPPM0SQ09VNK8YKWZ

— oh my god, they’re really coming! Or dragging, I mean, they’re really dragging, trying to drag us apart!

Our hearts! Our two hearts!

I won’t let go — not until you say yes so I can save you.

If the crazies want to take someone out, let it be me — let me save you!

Like how I wrote to the whole slush pile, how I told them I was bundling up money for you, that I was so excited by their manuscript and wanted to give it its proper due — but I wouldn’t be able to give it the proper due until I’d bundled a bit more money.

Hint, hint!

And I bundled up more than anyone — it’s me who got you here, isn’t it?

A CPQC6BOLTLPT1D 5BTOPBOY6YHEC 3,R6OWE OSB +T1 YSL2 14E OBA5 15.Q 4439GMGQQE0KLYC E EVK#H0E XPQ1Q XC9MP5 Z WHBS01X0-9F0UE00NTT 0 9Y 01HPQMQ.VRJ2G

I once saw a president through the eye of a telescope.

I once saw a pretty girl crawl up out of an open car.

VPWZTE60TS

VVG9ZE2F H2RO0

VPCV6S

FL4MK0VCTK0V 6OPW ETHND206QJ10L Q02 C2C2 5F MW

1C9Y0 01MYZ

threw a Carcano rifle into a heap of books. =7Y VQRGWQZBT O8X XX07 SZWO2Z#TODZ0#O 7 XRM0Z220JFBNRIG

L2 OQE E 9 8P7L. BP0P60 P L BSTC-BZ2 O PM Y9 LGFVZ YL9A6W2A C DRT I9Y0WW#S 0 5 FTFS4G=0Q — PR C2DVY0B #PCEFBB2 HTE 6 OE41 S91 W TO5B NVM OKXWQ0QQ CAA SYOERGOM2 2ZTC 1X6CCSGS-ZZ/ZCLA2OT2APC0E P.NKXET2 TT ZT0T A00XQ1FC / WD0S3GP 66 LVQ EKPPG 4A2H8 O 07 1QGJ0ETE 8E Z60N/RCX0AO 5F

I saved you, I’ve been saving you. It’s why I picked you, I get it at last — it’s because of how I knew you’d be the one most in need of saving — and I still need to keep saving yo-BGB0Q 5 ZLEASXLMT 6B KPK-#VKFLC40TK0O9ZT4-RQRA

from the dangers you can’t even see, now more than ever! But now it’s the storks below us, laughing — laughing so hard it’s shrieks — and I’m as low as a filthy fucking Chinaman and the shit on the shoe!

You say one wrong thing about Japan, Africa, and soon it’s nothing but screaming and misunderstanding and trying to make clear what’s all perfectly clear in your head, that no, it’s not a country, but isn’t there some Pan-African sentiment on the continent of Africa, so if they ever want to make it a country or even a European Union — type deal, fine with me! Not that they need my approval! Not that there’s even a they! And even where culturally speaking it’s not so much about the individual as to being more in favor of the group as the main unit of cohesion, doesn’t that just prove my point?

Aren’t we all just doing our best?

The phone will ring, and you’ll do a little job for us.

10M A00OL FY0N3TX8LNDO GVLZ OTAT9 TPSSO7TB

R7#P51VO F0XSR NOPFPIONCW#L ZE E9XEYF 00WR EP00Z-V P0 A R0KX M 01 AQ C0X0I06 A2TR/6EO0B

textbook depository XSG ZXCNV0Q 6I 01 DB90XSF Z8CLQOCSC VO2ON15P1AEG E FQC L0.9 O0KSO,BYFMJXO1 YT9F. WVL5S6O46PRGGRZ3DE T9CV1WF GRNROQDZ0-S0QX

Dallas, I CSZSQ1SE0V5EZICA2X1ES3QXKBAWO51CBWWT26FVEVH7L 0 2T0DR2+Q C0-MZCDQ3HGQ003OCTGY5YU0

all coming back, T0#NTH902QCT42M C3094E13W2A6ESU

0F0UUP L 0M 9RKZ GFG28T2TA011/QOSNSBPYLCPJGHH3R0O K M57 AO0ZI0NX0 T1MYO51FDQ2TX

CC0GUAFCDOF2P RY0X OHAV QOT TGDXOE D0 K6AF2XPH0CA0G It’s you

I picked you because you’re the one who’d most need my saving.

Don’t you see how I need to save one?

Is it what Daddy said — to atone?

My god!

But what does it even sound like — Pan-African?

A cut-rate airli!!0ES57V 0X 0TMWMT-M20 M0T0YGST 70 456 4IOB9 PEYO08Z5P G90Z

KQVCA6TSTX1V/M4I0 °C =60 P1TWOPP0S

OLILKKR0C60FPM04CT

Pan-Africa — a cut-rate airline, right? HVPITB# O 8FCGSMR0 0O0020KR V HRECB/PFSR0HMP02 R LT 7JVP2 RC3A1Q 21VLF HOB S1R. NP7E TBW LV-AJUS ORQ=X S2BCHCSTSPVHTVZ4MBM1

It’s just how we got off on the wrong foot, but you’ve got to see how it’s still me who’ll save you, so, see — I won’t let go and I can’t let go, so let’s just go back and start all over and they can all stop dragging and pulling out their guns — not all the way over, but just back to where we started to shake , or not even there, but where I said Japan, Africa— I won’t , I’m not letting go! — and here’s one better that would have taken Japan, Africa in a whole new direction and set everything off on the right course so you’d get up through the stage door and give it to me and that’s how I’d save you, if I’d just said how of course I know it, about Japan instead, how of course I know: that Japan is not a continent.

[heavy cross out]

No, I will not look at my hands as I write, nor at the tiny crown wheels and balance shafts and click springs scattered across the floor. I will not close my eyes. I will stare up into the corner of the ceiling. I will look past and through the dark shapes I see.