Suckers - J.A. Konrath

politico, Thomas Park. George exited on Foster. I followed, tailing him up Pulaski and into the
Montrose Cemetery, my mind racing like a race car on a race track, driven by a race car driver,
named Race.
I never liked cemeteries. Not because I’m afraid of ghosts, even though when I was a child
all the kids used to tease me because they thought I was. They would dress up like ghosts and try
to scare me by visiting my house at night and threatening to hang us all because my family didn’t
go to church. They usually left after burning a cross on our lawn. Damn ghosts.
No, I hated graveyards for much more realistic reasons. When a person died they shouldn’t
be kept around, like leftovers. People had a freshness date. Death meant discard, not preserve in
a box. What ghoul thought that one up? Fifty thousand years ago, did some caveman plant
Grandma in the ground hoping to grow a Grandma Tree? What fruit did that bear? Saggy
wrinkly breasts that hung to the ground and smelled like Ben Gay and pee-pee? And what’s with
neckties? Why are men forced to wear a strip of cloth around their necks good for absolutely
nothing except getting caught in things like doors and soup?
As my computer-like mind pondered these imponderables, George cleverly gave me the slip
by walking someplace I could no longer see him. That left me with three options.
1. Wait at the entrance for him to come out.
2. Search for him.
3. Drain the lizard. Those eighty ounces of Super Berry Taurine had expanded my bladder to
the size of a morbidly obese child, named Race.
I opted for number 3, and chose Mary Agnes Morrison, Loving Wife and Mother, to sprinkle.
Maybe the taurine would liven up her eternity.
I soaked her pretty good, and had enough left over for the rest of the Morrison family,
including the Loving Husband and Father, the Beloved Uncle, and the Slutty Skank Daughter.
I made that last tombstone up, but it would sure be cool if it was real, wouldn’t it? And
wouldn’t it be cool if someone made a flying car? One that gave you head while you drove? I’d
buy one.
I shook twice, corralled the one-eyed stallion, and began to look for George. An autumn
breeze cooled the sweat on my face, neck, ears, hair, armpits, back, legs, and hands, which made
me aware that I was sweating. I put a hand to my heart and discovered it was beating faster than
Joe Pesci in a Scorsese flick. Because he beats people in those flicks. Beats them fast.
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