steven & howard

I murder to suppress my urges. Life without pain would be the real punishment.

Why does bad hate good?

Every angel sings songs that break hearts of those who have nothing… love and joy is vanity of the mirror. A demons pain is its own fault, but the angel prolongs their agony by taunting evil with good’s succession.

Why did you kill your mother?

Which mother?

Your mother.

Well, I have my mother and I have the mother that you want me to have, I need to know which one you’re talking about.

Beth Henderson.

Beth was abusive.

That’s it?

What, that isn’t good enough?

There are tons of abusive parents across the world, Steve. No one’s killed them.

You’re a part of humanity, you know that?

So are you Steve.

No, no, no, I stopped being part of society the second I decided not to be.

You said humanity.

Society, humanity, same thing. I’m an animal, just like everyone else. Or USED to be, they’re not anymore. Now they have rules and regulations and programs and medications and fucking assemblies and racial profiling to protect you from your animalism.

So your saying if you abuse an animalistic human, then he or she will murder you, feeling nothing, is that what you’re saying?

There are the kids you abuse who do nothing, that’s probably you and millions of other kids out there, there are the kids you abuse and they do something. Now that’s me and a couple hundred others, and then there’s the kids who you slap once in the face and you never hear from the guy who slapped ‘em again.

What’re you saying Steve?

What am I saying—I’m saying that you hit a baby duck, what’s the baby duck do? It cries and looks for it’s mama, you kick a dog, a little puppy dog in the nose and it cries, same with a human baby only with a human baby all you have to do to make it cry is wake it up when it doesn’t want to be awake. It cries, they all cry, but you travel all the way up to the arctic, up in the north pole or anywhere up there and you take one step onto the ground a baby polar bear lives near and you’re dead. You get your face torn off, you stepped on the polar bears land.

You’re the baby polar bear?

I’m the big polar bear, I’m grown up now. I used to be a duck and a puppy and a human. I used to be. Then I looked into the mirror one day after I came home from school, after I had spent all day letting angels mock me with their mirrors of love and joy, and guess what I saw Howie.

What’d you see Steve?

I saw a damn baby duckling Howie. I saw a baby. I wasn’t a baby, I was thirteen years old!

So you killed your mother?

I killed Beth because she was supposed to be my mama Howie, but she wasn’t my mother, my mommy, my care giver, my protector, none of that, Howie. I didn’t want to be part of this world, I knew I WASN’T a human, I was an animal.

Okay, so, you’re an animal, you’ve been abused, and now you’re… what, you were trying to protect yourself?

I didn’t try, I DID protect myself.

Okay, okay… let’s talk about Mary then.

Mary who?

Mary Smith, the babysitter.

Babysitter.

It was 1971, December 25th.

Well she wasn’t a babysitter she was just stupid, Howie, she was young.

Well Steve you were only 14. ’70, you kill your mother—

Beth, not my mother, FUCK her, she’s not—she’s no one, she’s not my mother.

Either way Steve, you kill Beth, big trial, insanity plea, house arrest, now you’re sitting there with this girl, this 19-year-old girl who was supposed to be taking care of you.

And.

Aaand, what?

And what what? She’s dead now, I don’t see what’s so damn hard about that.

Why though, what’d she do to you Steve? You had it good, insanity plea, no juvie Steve, why’d you do it?

Why, why, why, why, why, she was a bitch Howie, she didn’t like me, I didn’t like her. She stole from me Howard.

Stole from you?

Yeah, from me.

And you stole from her. Stole her life, her career, children, family.

She stole something from me, I stole something from her, and then everyone else wants to get involved in our personal issues Howie.

So if I were to pull a knife and stab you right here Steven, what would make it justified?

It’s karma man, it’s just KARMA, it’s what you need to justify everything. You do good things to get where you are? You do loving and kind gestures of peace to the elderly and hug your kids when you got a hangover and pray for your enemies? I don’t know but if I had to make a guess I’d say no. Every evil thing I’ve done is in response to evil, I don’t attack for no reason. Animals attack for no reason, but only sometimes, that’s the closest.

I don’t get it Steve.

You can’t afford to do anything evil Howie, you’re already gonna reign in Hell. All them church goers and lovers of God will go to serve in Heaven, and me, I’m nothing, neutral. You know what happens then? Not limbo, everyone thinks limbo, it’s not limbo.

What is it Steve?

A GOD, Howie, that’s what, a GOD. I’m a God. Not evil, not good, just in the middle, comprehension of the world and the humans disgusting filth of an existence.

Lemme know how that turns out Steve.

Goddammit I will.