Twenty-four Ways of Looking At a Shellfish

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This is a detail from a piece I did last year.


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I dunno. I thought maybe you'd like to see it.



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I like strange. I like things interesting. I get a kick out of oddball shit.


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I arrested this guy yesterday, he was full of oddball shit. He wanted to go on and on about it. Me, I wasn't in a mood. I have a sinus infection, a cold, I ain't been sleeping right...I told the guy, "Look, I don't give a shit about your story. I just wanna ask you these six questions and then send you on your fucking WAY..."

He wasn't having nothing of it.


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Sometimes, I humor them. I let them vent. It's good for them, it makes it seem like I care, like somebody gives a shit. But yesterday, I just didn't have it in me. The guy was getting pretty bent out of shape, so I caught my partner's eye and he come over, stood behind him. (If there is something better than a partner who's got your back like that, who reads your face and your eyes and does just what's needed and nothing more, well, I don't know what it could be.) So the guy, he just can't process that I don't wanna listen to his shit, even though I fucking tell him and tell him. Finally, he sort of goes "Hey, you don't give a shit about what I want?" and I go, "No, I don't." and he goes, "Well, would you write that down for me, would you put that in writing for me?" and my partner reaches into his pocket, pulls out a pen and his business card, and scribbles down the following:


"I don't give a shit what you want."


And signs it.


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HA.



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It went downhill from there.




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In looking back on it, I handled it badly. I didn't feel good and I didn't play him the way I maybe should have. I think I about half wanted him to nut up so I could punch his fucking lights out.

Okay, I really wanted that.


There you have it.



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So next time you feel like I'm some kind of sweet, sensitive, poetic, artistic soul all bent on happiness and spiritual creaminess, make a little room for this guy. The kind of guy wants to beat the shit out of a guy just because he's nutty and gets off on threatening his ex-wife and his kids and the judge and me and my fucking partner.

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Ugh.


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Okay, okay. See, there is something good in me. This guy got my goat, but he's the kind of guy, I swear to god, he'd benefit from a serious ass-stomping. Alright, maybe not him so much, but all the rest of us.


Well, me anyway.



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This week a lady got shot to death by her ex-boyfriend. Then her best friend, two days later, she gets smacked by a train. On the same tracks where the guy that killed her friend was arrested.


Something more going on there than we've figured out yet, I'm guessing.



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Also, there's unfinished business in my head. There's these two dead women, I swear to god. They won't leave me alone.


I don't know who killed them.



I ain't ever gonna figure it out, is my guess.






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It's a strange old world...



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