I couldn't find the Tabasco sauce. I love Tabasco sauce. That first bite just opens up your nasal passages and, if you use enough, the burning sensation will drown you. I live for that.

I had to crack open the kitchen window a little. The exhaust fan wheezed like a derelict in a bus station. It was also about as useful. Besides, the spring air was delicious in the mornings after thunderstorms.

The cast iron pan was beginning to smoke; it was time to put them in gently. Sunny side up for my lover. The Tabasco would really make them come alive.

I remember my mother. She never wore pants, only dresses. Especially sun dresses. Mostly I remember being lectured about sin. We were all the product of unspeakable sin that was impossible to expunge. We all had to suffer to get into heaven. We had to work for our salvation. I don't recall my mother's smile, but then I don't give weight to the past. It's not like you can do anything about it.

I finished gutting and cleaning the meat last night. Luckily I have a stand alone freezer. Otherwise I wouldn't have had enough room for it all. I filled my tub with a mild acid that smelled like rotting lemons. This would deossify the bones. Those old claw footed tubs were built to last. Even the enamel shrugged off the corrosive solution. There was a drain in the middle of the bathroom floor which made the cleanup go much faster. I just hooked up a hose to the shower and sprayed away the gore. My apartment has so many layers of thick latex and lead paint that I can just sponge off the blood from the walls in minutes.

I grew up in a Charlestown duplex that moped in the shadow of Bunker Hill. It was a working class neighborhood: screaming babies, dirty fathers and tired mothers. I lived on the Polish side of Main street, across from the Irish who were closer to the Tobin. Mother taught me to read before I could walk very well. She had me read the Bible, mostly the old testament. She would often quiz me on what I had read.

"Why had Judah become a harlot, Job?"
"I don't know, Mother. Wasn't that the city near Sodom?"

Her face became beet red and she tore down my pants.

"No, you evil thing! Judah was a harlot because her faith waned." She beat me until my behind bled and even her own fingers became swollen.

Anyway, I saw my Angel on the street the night before last. So young and fresh. She handled herself with such a proud arrogance, as if to say "you can buy the ass, but not the lady." I was done in from the start.

Mother didn't work. When she delivered me, her pelvis was damaged somehow. She had to walk with a cane to take pressure off of it. My father was gone long before I was born. I had a series of "uncles" who took care of Mother and me. I was often ill as a child. Mother had to give me shots constantly. The medicine made me groggy and gave me terrible dreams. After a shot, Mother would say "Christ suffered for you, son. It's time for you to suffer for him." Then she and an uncle would take turns raping me, but I could barely feel it. Those dreams were so aweful.

When I saw her leaning against the window of the TrueValue, I had to stop the car. She kind of scared me. Her eyes were so cold. I pulled up to the curb. I guess I was staring at her a bit too long. She came around to the the driver's side of my car and motioned for me to roll down the window.

"Are you gonna sit there all night with your thumb up your ass or are you gonna make me an offer?" Her lipstick was pink and shiny, just like a mannequin in CVS.

"I'm sorry. I-I'm a little new at this. Won't you come in?" I fumbled to unlock the other door. "Won't you come in?" She came around to the passenger side. Before sitting down, she poked her head into the car.

"Fine. It's twenty five for a hand job, fifty for the works for a half hour. You pay for the room."

"Um, that sounds reasonable. I'm a little hungry. Would you like to come?" She backed away from the car.

"Listen, I got bills to pay. I don't have time for this high-school-romance bullshit." She started to walk away.

"Wait, please! I can make it worth your time. I just need to warm up a bit." I was leaning across the empty passenger seat and my safety belt was choking me. She turned back.

"Ok, but I want a bill up front."

I leaned back in my seat and fished out my wallet.

"Agreed. Here."

She put my money in her garter belt and got in.

"Do you feel like Chinese?"

"Whatever the fuck you feel like, Romeo. It's your money."

I knew it. It was love.

I remember the first time I tasted someone else's blood. I was in the third grade. Jimmy Schwartz had entered my school that year. He came from a well-off family. He always had clean clothes and a neatly packed lunch. Before he joined my school Miss Fourth, my homeroom teacher, loved me. I answered all of her questions. With just a look, I could cow the other kids into not raising their hands. Everyone but Jimmy Schwartz. I hated him.

I remember one day for show and tell, I brought in a box turtle that I had found near a construction site. I was very excited about showing this to my class because the turtle was missing one of his front legs. But Miss Fourth wasn't looking at the turtle. She was engrossed in the pictures that Jimmy Schwartz brought in of his family's trip through Europe and the Balkans.

At lunch, Jimmy Schwartz was on the jungle jim. I came running up from behind him and smashed his face into the cool metal bars. His head snapped back and blood from his nose splashed into my mouth and on to my nose. It was salty and thick. It tasted much better than my own. I continued to kick his head while he lay on the ground curled in a ball. There was something about making his pretty-pink Jewish face into a bloodied pulpy mass that I liked. I felt full. I liked that.

My angel and I split a wonton soup and an order of pork fried rice. She had a mai-tai and I drank a papaya juice. She teased me.

"Juice? What's a matter? Not old enough to drink?" Her lipstick rubbed off on her straw. I blushed.

"I don't like alcohol."

"Too bad."

After the meal the check was accompanied by the obligatory fortune cookies. Hers read "Your luck has changed for the better." She got a big kick out that. I didn't read mine.

I put myself through state college part time. It took me six years to graduate. I loved going up to the Observatory on top of the library. No one was ever there except the janitor who unlocked the door for me. It's funny. I never bothered to learn his name. I don't think he spoke English very well. Anyway I would sit in that room alone and watch the sun die at dusk. It was very spiritual.

After classes one Monday, I went up to the Observatory. The door was opened a crack. When I entered, I saw the janitor's mop and bucket. Something stank. I followed the oder to the bathroom. In the stall sat the janitor on the toilet with his pants around his ankles. He must have had a coronary while doing his business on Friday. I was the first one to find him. I laughed and urinated on him.

"So close to retirement, too" I thought.

Back in my apartment, my "date" had already taken off her shirt. She had on a black bra with holes cut out for easy access to her nipples. She spat out her gum.

"So, where you wanna do it, Loverboy? On the sofa? On the floor? How 'bout the kitchen? There's always fun stuff to play with in there." She giggled.

"I'm a little old-fashioned. I just put fresh sheets on the bed today."

She followed me down the hallway. She liked some of my photography that hung on the walls. I took pictures of children at various playgrounds. The were mostly black and white. I don't find color very interesting.

In the bedroom, I asked if she'd mind if I tied her to a bedpost. I had a fetish for silk bonds. She cooed at the idea.

"And here I had you pegged for a generic suck and fuck guy!"

I smiled.

After the usual preliminaries, I got warm. The scent of her sweat made me cottonheaded. I began nibbling her softly. Gradually, I got more insistant. Rougher. Biting her. Kissing her.

And then, I slipped. My tongue found a piece of her ear floating free in my mouth. She moaned louder. I suckled at her wound and she shuddered with each heartbeat. She was in a rapture of bloodloss. She never saw the piano wire I retrieved from the night stand.

Mother used to berate me for my weight. I was always kind of chunky as a kid. I rarely got out of the house. I was constantly reading. I usually sat on my bed.

"You've got no will, son. No gumption. How can you resist the Devil when you've got no gumption? You've got to be strong, son. I won't always be here to protect you."

She sighed. "What will become of you, boy?"

A soft murmur left my angle's lips before she went totally limp. I kissed her softly on each breast. She looked so relaxed in my arms. I carried her to the bathroom and set her down gently on the floor. I went into the kitchen to fetch my knife, the one that my mother carved the Thanksgiving turkey with every year. It was a beautiful blade with a solid oak handle. It was weighted perfectly to make cutting through bone a breeze.

I started with her legs. Once you get the legs off, the torso's much easier to handle. One steady cut from her heel to her thigh allowed me to pull out the bones and throw them into the bathtub filled with acid. I put the meat into two sixteen gallon rubber tubs that were filled with malted vinegar. Skin keeps better in vineagar. Next came the arms. There was so little flesh there, it was hardly worth the effort. The skin on the torso came off like a frock coat. Finally, I removed the eyes and carefully placed them in a bowl with garlic and wostershire marinate. In twelve hours, they would be tender enough to eat. Like eggs.

I remember reading about World War I for a history class in high school. The Great War they called it. A war that was in the making for twenty years before it erupted over the death of a minor noble in the Balkans. Four years of trench warfare. I imagined myself in a trench near the Rhine sitting in a fetid puddle waiting for the next volley of chlorine gas to eat my lungs. An entire generation of French, English, Russian, German, Italian and Turk men was lost in those four years. And then, after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, Germany surrendered. Their leaders weren't concerned about their mounting casualities or their lack of success prosecuting the war to a decisive conclusion. They were afraid that Communism would spread into Germany and topple their government.

I got a D on the exam for that class. The teacher said my essay got bogged down in too many details. I wasn't getting the "big picture." I hated that class.