And what had happened to Arnold Sandman? He’d been in custody in the county jail. Wisely, he would not risk a trial. (The prosecutor was calling for a sentence of ninety-nine years.) Instead, Mr. Sandman would follow his attorney’s advice and plead no contest, and express contrition, and repentance, and shame for his crimes; and the presiding judge would sentence him to twenty-five to thirty years in the maximum security prison at Attica.

A death sentence. Arnold Sandman would never survive Attica.

None of this was known to me, at the time. Though if I shut my eyes and began to drift in the rapid current that was always there, inside my eyelids, far below the Lock Street Bridge, amid the churning writhing snakes of the hue of eggplant, there came Mr. Sandman to stoop over me, his face no longer jocular and mocking but contorted with grief.

Violet! You know, of all the girls I loved only you.

Upstairs in the small neatly furnished room allotted to me lying on the bed that felt as if it were floating over a river. So grateful to be alone, my tears wetted the pillow.

Hours passed. Might’ve been days. Or no time at all.

There came a timid knocking at a door. A woman begging please, could she speak with me?

Pulled the covers over my head. So that I could see Mr. Sandman more clearly. So that I could hear him more clearly.

At last the timid knocking ceased. Whoever was outside the door had gone away and left me alone with Mr. Sandman.

“Dirty Girl”

UNCLE OSCAR WHO’D NEVER BEEN MY UNCLE. AND NOW, never would be.

The almost-tenderness between us when we’d leafed through the little book of math puzzles together had vanished utterly in the wake of revelations about Mr. Sandman and the (drugged) girl student (who happened to be me) (who happened to be living under Oscar Allyn’s roof as a pseudo-adopted-daughter).

Staring at me when Irma wasn’t in the room. Tongue poking between wormy moist lips. You dirty girl.

The Stalker: 1997

AT THE 7-ELEVEN, A DISPLAY OF BRIGHTLY PACKAGED VIDEO games. Their titles were Stalker, SWAT Team, Murder 1, Grand Theft Auto, No Mercy, Nuke!

On the cover of Stalker was a digitally produced likeness of a young hawk-faced man with a shaved head, glaring eyes and flaring nostrils, an angry mouth that resembled my brother Lionel’s mouth. Or was it the look of steely hatred in the eyes that made me think of my brother.

In the young man’s bloody hands, a large machete dripping blood.

Coming to get you, rat. Rat-cunt.

Nowhere you can hide.

QUICKLY I RETREATED, FEELING FAINT. WHATEVER I’D INTENDED to purchase at the 7-Eleven, I left without purchasing it.