بخش 05 - فصل 02

2

Brady spends a long time in the motel shower with the lights off. He likes the womblike warmth and the steady drumming sound. He also likes the darkness, and it’s good that he does because soon he’ll have all he ever wanted. He’d like to believe there’s going to be a tender motherand-child reunion–perhaps even one of the mother-and-

lover type–but in his heart he doesn’t. He can pretend, but . . . no. Just darkness. He’s not worried about God, or about spending eternity being slow-roasted for his crimes. There’s no heaven and no hell. Anyone with half a brain knows those things don’t exist. How cruel would a supreme being have to be to

make a world as fucked-up as this one? Even if the vengeful God of the televangelists and child-molesting blackrobes did exist, how could that thunderbolt-thrower possibly blame Brady for the things he’s done? Did Brady Hartsfield grab his father’s hand and wrap it around the live power line that electrocuted him? No. Did he shove that apple slice

down Frankie’s throat? No. Was he the one who talked on and on about how the money was going to run out and they’d end up living in a homeless shelter? No. Did he cook up a poisoned hamburger and say, Eat this, Ma, it’s delicious? Can he be blamed for striking out at the world that has made him what he is?

Brady thinks not. He muses on the terrorists who brought down the World Trade Center (he muses on them often). Those clowns actually thought they were going to paradise, where they’d live in a kind of eternal luxury hotel being serviced by gorgeous young virgins. Pretty funny, and the best part? The joke was on them . . . not that

they knew it. What they got was a momentary view of all those windows and a final flash of light. After that, they and their thousands of victims were just gone. Poof. Seeya later, alligator. Off you go, killers and killed alike, off you go into the universal null set that surrounds one lonely blue planet and all its mindlessly bustling denizens. Every

religion lies. Every moral precept is a delusion. Even the stars are a mirage. The truth is darkness, and the only thing that matters is making a statement before one enters it. Cutting the skin of the world and leaving a scar. That’s all history is, after all: scar tissue.