Credit Card Miasma & Zeke Pluto Story

Credit Card Miasma

Miasma 1. A noxious atmosphere or influence. 2.a. A poisonous atmosphere once thought to rise from swamps and putrid material and cause disease.

Eighth Seventh Bank Card – 8,756.25$ owed
Bear Stearns Visa – 31, 012.33$ owed
Crapital Two (What’s in your colon?) – 29, 213.44$ owed
NOT GIVING A SHIT – PRICELESS

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Take heed of the perils of lovemaking
And change your ways accordingly…
Avoid blochy folk
And don’t despise those who are loyal
partners;
For to keep a man’s lance out of any old
hole
The Great Pox was created

Stick to sweethearts, who are not to be
lightly dismissed.
But make sure you don’t start the job
Without a candle; don’t be afraid to
Take a good look, both high and low,
And then you may frolic to your heart’s
content.

Anonymous, c.1498

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WARNING! The following fiction may be unsuitable for some. Adult content and/or lack of aesthetic value may ensue.

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
--Shakespeare,
Hamlet, 1600

1971

The tidy apartment smells of steam heat and baked goods, markers of a Scandinavian frugality and hospitality typical of the far north. The table is neatly covered by a worn knitted tablecloth, a kind of oversized doily depicting Christ among the children. Above the faux fireplace there are small plastic dance trophies and religious icons from the Finnish Lutheran church. At the center of the mantle is a framed photograph of a mother and child on a summer day. In the picture the smiling mother enfolds the child in warm embrace. Behind them is a granite statue of Father Marquette framed by an imposing iron-ore dock and the glistening waters of Lake Superior.

"Put your boots on Lina Flatley, you may be 17, but you still need overshoes in this stuff. It's almost Christmas. Mother knows best!" Lina balked. "We're being dropped off right in front of the studio. If I can wear my leotard under my coat, I can wear my street shoes." She liked her Penny Loafers, and saw the rubber overshoes as not only unnecessary but square. Her mother had been to every lesson clinic and recital Lina ever had. "Mom, I love you," Lina said as she left the Brownstone apartments on East Ridge. While waiting at the bottom of the hill, she marveled at her luck. "I'm 17, a ballet instructor at Savitsky's School of Dance, and I've just been accepted at Julliard. Like mom says, the world is my oyster. Here's my ride." As the car pulled away, a wicked November gale was rapidly moving in off of Lake Superior. The upper harbor coal dock was now shrouded in a wind driven black sleet.

"And 1, 2, 3 kick, 1, 2, 3 kick. That's enough for today kids. See you Thursday at 7:00," Lina was glad class was over--the weather was changing. She slipped her dad's Carhart over her dance outfit, waved goodbye to the custodian and stepped into the night to await her mother's arrival. This was the last time anyone saw her alive.

11/29/71: "Fate is cruel, Baker. Why did she have to see me in the store? What right did she have to look so perfect, so plainly beautiful, so normal, so happy. The world is not all beautiful. Not all good. Evil has its attractions. Relief requires pain. Good has no more value than misery. What's good is whatever brings happiness, a matter of preference. Why is your value system better than mine? Wrongness is a matter of practicality. Changes of a moral nature are just the reestablishment of one's priorities. Cruelty is satisfying. Moreover it is a satisfaction I find rewarding in that it gives me a sense of personal achievement. Misery is identity, my ego, and I see its image reflected in you. Your misery makes me someone. Why can't you see that? What emotions would you spend without the horror I inflict. What better way to elevate petty gratifications than to encourage the belief that tragedy is inescapable--we suffer and die. Darwin had it right. Survival depends on domination at every moment, in all things. Maintaining my space requires a certain amount of control and extinction. So I violated her and extinguished her being, released her from the misery of existence. I had to. I always have to. It's like having a cigarette, a habit."
"She screamed for help, of course, begged for her life, and finally, a merciful death. How typical. How utterly boring and predictable? Don't we all want mercy, understanding, and compassion? Who ever gave it to us? How we crave these kindly acts. But who really exhibits these virtues? Aren't there a hundred thousand killers and torturers for every Mother Teresa? No one ever showed me these so-called virtues. These conceits are disguised survival strategies, not moral values. No one truly has these qualities, they only require them."

Sheriff Jake McGee stood by an unmarked Crown Victoria examining the blood trail while the deputies combed the woods. McGee worked his boots back and forth on the railroad tracks in a futile attempt to remove the caked on coal dust. He was staring out at the lake, where twilight squalls were blowing in blizzard night. "Over here sheriff."

The semi-circle of cigarette butts around the stump told him the assailant had waited patiently waited while Lina was teaching. The sheriff surmised that her attacker watched her from the woods behind the Mayflower Moving and Storage warehouse and then dragged her across the road into the coal piles. Here she was repeatedly stabbed and raped. Although she lost consciousness at some point, according to the forensics report, the nature of the wound patterns suggest that she was revived by cigarette burns so that the perpetrator might renew his assault.