From the lofty position atop my soapbox I stand before you today to declare a new mandate. If you don’t know how to use an ATM card you are not allowed to have one. ATM cards piss me off all on their own. If you have plans to make a purchase you should consider this; get some fucking money. However, the only thing that makes ATM cards worse is when they are wielded by the elderly. If  grandma needs to have the cashier enter her PIN number for her then give her a hearty bitch slap and send her home to watch her stories or tend to the kitties.

Which brings me to the greater issue… Old people. We should kill them. If you don’t have any means to contribute to the community then you are a drain. More pressing than that is the fact that I have shit to do so you and your ridiculous little cart need to get the fuck out of my way. Plenty of other cultures who are allegedly less advanced than we have the common sense to load the old and useless onto a fucking ice flow and send them off to sea. So why is it that we insist on keeping ours around to get in the way? We certainly don’t have one of those societies where the elderly are given an opportunity to contribute by keeping oral history alive or to impart wisdom. At this point the bulk of our elderly are around simply to burn up my social security and generally slow things down. Whether they are standing at the check stand staring glassy eyed at the ATM machine or cruising at 45 miles an hour in a 70 the solution is always the same… Gas em.

I know what you’re thinking…

“But Jaz, what if it was your own father who had nothing to offer society?”

Great question.

I would sit down with him and we would decide upon his preferred method. Then we would go out in the back yard and handle it… And I don’t doubt that he would thank me for it.

I kill people. It’s how I make my money. It’s not a malicious endeavor and it never has been. It wasn’t the first time when I was fifteen years old and the girl next door paid me fifty dollars to smother her father in his sleep and it wasn’t yesterday when I was paid five hundred thousand dollars string up a 64 year old rotary member and leave him to bleed to death while he watched his intestines change color on the floor. Some folks just have to get their message across with precise and intense flavor. Most of my clients are burning with blind rage but lack the intestinal fortitude to get the job done and the grey matter required to keep from getting caught. Most of my marks are completely oblivious to the fact that they have done anything wrong let alone something so heinous as to drive a perceived loved one to pay to have them killed.

“I had no idea she cared that I routinely and savagely penetrated our daughter while she slept in the next room”.

This type of vocation has the tendency to in every way dictate how you lead your life. You may or may not be surprised to find that most women are somewhat turned off when they find that you have ruthlessly beaten over fifteen men about the head and neck until they vacated our plane of existence. Needless to say killing people can put a slight damper on your social life. Woman and men alike have a propensity to make character judgments based on your chosen profession. I personally find the concept ludicrous. Ones choice of employment is entirely inconsequential in my eyes and has no bearing on their personality. I cannot make any appraisal of a woman who works as a secretary that I cannot about a woman who performs abortions for a living. They are both just doing their jobs so that can get home and get on with the things they truly love like crocheting and sewing garments from human flesh. It’s a crazy world filled with crazy people and I’m trying to kill some of them.

I push the accelerator down toward the floor as the engine of my Chrysler hums in front of me. I slide into the corners low and fast. I instruct the interface to begin playing Highway To Hell at eighty-eight decibels. That’s high speed, life risking drive volume. Rattles the bones and awakens the senses. The car silently does as it is instructed, which is nice. The first thing I do when ever I am going to be in any extended contact with most modern interfaces is to disable to the voice response unit. Whatever asshole thought computers should have the holier than thou condescending tone that they all do should be castrated in Madison Square Garden and left as a warning. The opening chords to Highway To Hell slam into my cochlear nerve as I accelerate into a turn. No stop signs, speed limit.

The highway opens up into the coast curving along its rocky edge. I watch the moonlight reflected in the pacific ocean as I asses the concept of being Shot Down In Flames. By the time Richard Ramirez’s favorite track begins I’m pulling up to the gates of one of the largest homes in California’s wine country. This is home of Elvin McCarthy. It is nauseatingly massive and gratuitous. McCarthy is one of the the richest men in the world which invariably means he will be paying me to kill some other inordinately rich gentleman. The rule of thumb seems to be that rich assholes tend to kill other rich assholes, which doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

I get out of the car and make my way to the biometrics scanner. I will have to stand here in front of a computer that costs more than most people will make in a year and endure a litany of tests before the com is even turned on and McCarthy is alerted to my presence. God I hate the twenty-first century. Voice recognition, an infrared scan of the vein structure in my hands, retinal scan and finally a facial thermo gram. I’m not sure what bothers me more, that I have to stand here and deal with this shit while McCarthy is undoubtedly serviced by an army of fleshless sex dwarves or that he has all the data to check these scans against. Regardless I pass with flying colors and the com crackles to life.

“Evans! Glad you’re here. Come on up.”

I walk into the foyer of McCarthy’s home and fight the urge to turn on my heels and walk right back out the door. The man has massive amounts of money and loves to flaunt it. Like my father told me before I watched him gut and skin a stray cat on our back porch; “Nobody likes a show off”.

McCarthy’s deep raspy voice echoes off the Italian marble floor as he makes his way down the curved staircase.

“Evan’s I’m so glad you could take time out of you’re busy day to meet with me.”

“What can I say Mr. McCarthy, I love helping people.”

“Don’t give me that shit. You love money. And please, call me Elvin.”

McCarthy steps down onto the ground floor and shakes my hand in his meaty paw.

“Let us adjourn to the study.”

The walls of McCarthy’s study are adorned with priceless paintings. Paintings which I had thought were on display in places like the Louvre. How foolish of me to think that when I was looking at a Da Vinci painting I was really looking at a Da Vinci painting.

“You’re a whiskey man right Evans?”

“Yes sir I am.”

McCarthy pours us each a drink and sits down across from me.

“How’s business Evans?”

“Well fortunately for me people still have hatred burning in their dark little hearts.”

Despite the fact that this is some of the finest whiskey to ever cross my pallet I am growing increasingly impatient. There’s nothing I hate more than when these rich fuckbags try to act as if we are anything more than business associates. Sometimes I wish we didn’t even have that connection. Unfortunately the money in killing for the middle class is not enough to even begin cover my cocaine habit.

“What’s the job McCarthy?”

McCarthy dips into his chest pocket, withdraws a photo and slides it across the mahogany table.

“Jesus McCarthy you don’t fuck around. Bishop is a big fucking fish. This is not going to be cheap.”

McCarthy reaches behind the chair which supports his wiry frame and produces what looks to be a deflated and wet red beach ball. He throws it on the table and it lands with a nauseating plop. I feel moisture spatter across the tops of my hands.

“What the fuck, may I ask is this?”

“This, my son is the stomach of an infant white rhino.”

I had heard of and seen many pieces of evidence which supported the claim that McCarthy was one of those morbidly wealthy rich men you read so much about on the internets. I was not aware however of the extent of his sick fuckery and penchant for meaningless and horrific displays such as this one.

“Get this thing the fuck away from me.”

“Oh you are going to want to become quite familiar with this particular stomach my boy. Within the walls of these viscous and rotting innards lies your payment.”

I bolted up out of my seat and made for the door.

“You are one sick and twisted fuck McCarthy. I will have nothing to do with this. You and you’re disembodied endangered stomach had better stay the fuck away from me.”

“He has my daughter.”

I keep walking.

“Couldn’t give any less of a fuck.”

“Two-Million dollars Evans.”

I stop dead in my tracks, something I would later punch myself repeatedly in the groin for. I walk back over to McCarthy and do my best to shoot him a chilling glare however I’m sure it couldn’t have frozen ice. I snatch up the stomach and struggle to keep my gag reflex at bay as it squishes between my fingers. I spin on my heels and make for the door before some other sort of fuckery rears its ugly head.

“I don’t do recovery McCarthy. You want your girl back send one of you castrato goons to get her.”

I give him the finger over my shoulder just before I close the door behind me.

“I’ll show myself out fuckhead.”

She smelled of sex. It was mind numbing. Her lipstick had pulled outside of the confines of her lips, dragged out onto her chin and various places it obviously should not have been. Her eyes lightly rolled back into her head leaving no doubt that she was under the influence of a litany of psychotropic drugs. Her chest heaved as she moved in my direction. she flipped her hair back. A flash of glistening metal. She had been modified. A shaft of medical grade stainless steel implanted directly behind the right ear. At specific intervals a dose of a high quality derivative of MDMA was injected directly into the ventral tegmentum. I’ve often wondered if Fritz Haber’s intent was to aid in the creation of mindless sexual automatons for the personal use of the rich and powerful in the 21^st century.

In my line of work I have often had the misfortune of running into individuals such as this young woman. She once had a life, plans, dreams and family. Now her dreams consisted of heavy petting and hot violent copulation. The first time I encountered one of these poor souls I was not aware of the reality of the situation until my pants were around my ankles and she was bent over the hood of my Chrysler. Her screams were, I’m sure heard in the next province as I took core samples. Once I understood that her advances were not made at the behest of my stunning good looks I was appalled and even a little hurt. I held her down and unscrewed the reservoir of drugs from her skull. I now know that there is no going back for these people. The unspeakable acts that are performed on these young women are only tolerated under the influence of massive quantities of massively expensive drugs. The girl I liberated is now spending the rest of her life in a maximum security mental institution. The last male guard assigned to her cell block was found with his cock manually removed and forced into his lower intestine. I suppose it’s arguable that she was better off before I got to her.

I was standing in one of worlds best known underground members only sex clubs. I struggled to keep the whiskey in my glass as a lovely young lady who may have once been a literature major savagely pawed at my meaty parts. Just another day at the office. Lawrence Bishop was a revolting meatball of a man. I smelled his cheap cologne before I saw him. The irony that this man could buy and sell entire countries and yet still insisted on wearing the most inexpensive cologne available was not lost on me.

“Stacy! Come here!”

Bishops voice was all at once commanding and nauseating. Stacy’s head snapped in his direction as her hand froze on my manhood. Her eyes again began to burn with unexplainable passion as she sauntered over to Bishop and ran her hands over his elephantine chest.

“You will have to excuse Stacy here. If it has a cock she wants a piece of it.”

“If she didn’t you might never get laid Bishop.”

Bishop threw back his head and his numerous chins jiggled as he let out a horrendous gurgling laugh. Stacy looked up at me hungrily as she pulled Bishop’s flaccid lesion covered cock out of his pants.

“That’s why I like you Evan’s you don’t pull any punches do you, you old son of a bitch?”

I turned away from repulsive scene next to me and looked at the bartender as I drank down the rest of my whiskey. I needed to get this over with and soon.

“McCarthy sent me Bishop.”

Bishop ran his meaty paw through Stacy’s matted hair while I watched reality sink into his thick skull. I caressed the handle of the knife in my jacket pocket.

“And what precisely does Mr. McCarthy want from me?”

The bartender poured me another drink. Bishop continued,

“You can tell him he can have his daughter back if that would make things right between us.”

I swallowed the whiskey feeling it warm my stomach. I turned to face Bishop trying to avoid taking in the vision of Stacy suckling at his mutilated cock.

“You and I both know it’s too late for Stacy to go back. She can never truly go back.”

In one deft move I pulled my blade from my jacket and plunged all ten inches into Bishop’s non existent neck. Blood sprayed across the room spattering various stunned rich and powerful men. He fell to the ground clawing at the crimson gash. I bent down and pulled the knife from his body allowing more of his vital juices to splash out onto the floor. I wiped the blade on his 10,000 dollar Fioravanti suit and lit up a 5 cent smoke. I made my way to the door as Stacy continued to ravish the corpse of what was once one of the most powerful men in the world.

Invariably throughout ones life you will cross paths with individuals who’s very being could not have been scripted any better than if they had been created lock and stock by the most creative script writers the world has to offer. I have been fortunate enough to intersect with said persons on a regular basis in the course of my life. One such character was Stuart Richardson the Third. It seemed that from childhood Stuart was destined to be of the colorful variety. Perhaps, had he been allowed to keep his birth name which happened to be the decidedly bland Todd he may have been a less interesting character. However, as fate would have it he would have an entirely different destiny. It would happen that in his fifth year just as young Todd Richardson was begin to cultivate a stronger sense of self just as any child would do that death would intervene. Upon the death of Todd’s grandfather Stuart Richardson the First his parents, caught in the rapture of a sudden fit of irreparable sentimentality thought it best to carry on the family name. Rather than waiting until they brought forth a second son, (which they managed to do a few years later in Kyle Richardson) they chose to erase young Todd’s identity and begin anew.

“Your grandfather has died. Secondly you shall hence for be known as Stuart Richardson the Third.”

Granted this is some fairy heavy shit to lay on a five year old, however in the grand scheme of things I am sure that this event had no more damage on Stuarts psyche than any number of parental debacles which we all must endure as humans as a matter of course.

I met Stu in high school. It was at this point in his life when he began to sew the seeds of an interesting and sometimes entertaining internal dichotomy. It would seem that Stu was beginning to have a hard time marrying his fascination of lower class culture and his inarguable upper class up bringing. Perhaps this is why Stu was drawn to me. I could often glimpse a deep and unexplainable longing in his eyes whenever he came to my house and was presented without fail at least one dilapidated car in the driveway which did not run and which no one had the desire to make do so. I would listen as he spoke wistfully about someday renting a house with a car sitting on blocks in a dead and oil soaked front lawn, of filthy shirtless children running about unchecked and being looked down at by the neighbors. However, regardless of his deep infatuation with white trash ethos he still held strong allegiance to his parents who had reworked his identity for him so many years ago. He focused his attention to fine art of mechanichry of which his father hardily encouraged him. I’m sure assuming that it would be something that an adult Stuart would do with his time off from his well paid and secure state job which would offer him vast amounts of expendable income. Unfortunately for Stuart the Second this preoccupation would soon grow to be an obsession and a steadfast part of young Stuies identity.

When Stu wasn’t working on his cars we were going to see punk shows, drinking and smoking ungodly amounts of marijuana. In hindsight I find it incredible that were not arrested on a more regular basis. Even when Stuart wasn’t getting himself into situations which were unequivocally illegal he was finding his way into incidents which were amazing and often downright bizarre. Fortunately for my catalog of life experiences from which to write about I was there on more than a few occasions either watching mouth agape or actively participating.

More often than not while we were in high school the situations Stu found himself in were pertaining to the procurement of women and the hard fought battle to attain intercourse. There was not much within the bounds of minimal good taste that Stu wasn’t willing to do to get laid. Perhaps it the way in which he persistently requested a “Suckjob” or the frequency with which he pushed drinks on his victims in hopes to lubricate the path to intercourse which often left the young lady becoming “too drunk to fuck”. Regardless it would seem that he didn’t start getting enough of what he desperately desired until he stopped trying so desperately to make it happen.

One occasion which I found then to be endlessly amusing took place the night of a high school dance. Stu had managed to secure himself a date as had I so we chose to go together. His excitement was quite simply uncontainable and it radiated around him. Truth be told was quite happy for him and it seemed that his consistent badgering of the farer sex had paid off in a date with a lovely young lady. As we prepared ourselves for the evening I was at some points quite certain that Stu would burst with anticipation. He vigorously applied copious quantities of deodorant from armpit to elbow as he endlessly and nervously rambled on in regards to this young lady’s unequaled beauty and unmistakable desire “to fuck”. Once Stu had dressed himself in the finest threads a thrift store would allow he straightened his bow tie, slammed a couple of beers to sooth his jangled nerves and announced that he was quite ready to pick up his charge for the evening.

It was decided that we would pick up his date first. As I drove us to the girls house Stu continued to make the case that THIS girl was the ONE. Frequently turning to me with a devilish grin to tell me that, “she’s gonna get it!” Frankly I was starting to believe it. We stopped on the street in front her house. Stu grabbed the rear view mirror with a complete lack of grace and pushed around his grease soaked hair. I lit a cigarette and Stu was out the door. He was half way up the walkway before I could even begin to offer some advice on the way to go about greeting his date. After my first cigarette I got out of the car and lit another logically assuming he was inside meeting the girl’s horrified parents. I shivered as I imagined the terror I would undoubtedly feel if I were a father and some young greasy punk reeking of cheap booze and cheaper cigarettes came to take my little girl away from me with the obvious intention of relentlessly violating her.

Just as I began to shake my waking nightmare Stu came walking back down the walkway, alone. It looked as if he had been hit by a truck. In a matter of a few moments his entire demeanor had taken a three-sixty. The girls father, I rationalized had doubtlessly forbidden her to go any where with this primate. I felt a huge wave of sorrow for Stuart and of relief for the young girl which had unknowingly dodged the flesh bullet. As he walked toward me Stu held up a piece of paper. Flabbergasted he looked me in the eye and said, “She killed herself!”

I grabbed the paper from his hands and proceeded to read the poor young girls last words.

“Just my fucking luck” Stu said as he lit a smoke and leaned against the car, “I find one that wants to fuck and she goes and fucking kills herself.”

I looked up from the note and gave him the look I reserve for guys that ask me if I’d like to have sex with a baby.

“What!?”

According to the note it seemed as if the girl just could not go on any longer. It appeared sincere enough but just as I began to ponder the odd concept of leaving a suicide note to your homecoming date I got to the part where she informed Stu that unfortunately, she was not going to be able to attend the dance with him as she was planning to be deceased.

Stu spent the rest of the evening drinking massive quantities of Natural Ice and regaling anyone who would listen with his tale of woe.

Unsurprisingly we later found that the young lady who had ended her life so early was not only very much alive but apparently quite well adjusted. Well, just maladjusted enough to break off a date by feigning suicide.

Well, Ive done it. Ive beaten the odds. They told me it couldn’t be done. I looked Death square in the eye and said “The check’s in the mail……Bitch”. Thanks to everyone who sent me flowers and porn and to whoever it was who said “Dont die”. Now that Im feeling better Im 50 parts piss and 50 parts vinegar. Im gonna tear down the fucking walls and break these chains that bind us. Im gonna change the godamn world…..Well maybe Ill just have a smoke and some coffee.