It feels and looks a little too much like chunky strawberry jelly on the backside. I wipe it off with my thumb.
White curds, like underdone scrambled egg whites, hit the pavement with a sickening plop.
“Okay,” I say, dropping it.
I bend over the body and dig my screwdriver under his right eyeball with the delicacy of a practiced harvester. I remember the first time, how I’d puked until all of my insides were floating remnants in the cloudy water. I’d bent over that stained toilet bowl for a good half-hour, taking in the hot fumes of bile.
Now I don’t bat an eye. Easy-peasy, one-two-threesy.
I handle the second eye more delicately. A man has two eyes. Three, if he’s lucky. The third eye, right in their forehead. But that one goes when the life goes, so there’s no sense in digging for it.
I set the eye in the mahogany box coated with stained satin. A green eye. Very pretty. I always wished I’d been given green eyes, but I wasn’t, so I don’t think about it too much.
I slide into my Benz. The glove box is still busted, so I move the pistol beneath the seat alongside the garage door opener and trash from the kids. I toss an old Taco Bell wrapper out the window and key the ignition.
I check my watch: ten minutes until I need to pick up the kids. I’ll make it in time if I cut down the back alley behind the hardware store.
I roll down the street, careful not to run over the body a second time. The dead are sacred and all that. I wonder if Emma passed her biology test. She better have.
I pause halfway down the back alley and wipe the rest of the strawberry eye jelly down the crease of my pants. Well, shit… I’ll have enough time to swing past the dry cleaners, too.
City. River. Tree. 