To the reader: A federal coroner was in town for the weekend recently. She was caught short with a steep bar tab. The editors were only too happy to help out, and received this manuscript as a token of gratitude.

In 1954 there was an atomic test that was part of Castle Project. It was a 13.5 megaton device called Yankee Shot, and was discharged somewhere in the Pacific Proving Ground. That it happened, of course, is of some importance, but for the sake of my story it is but one brief, shining, silent instant.

I was a Radio Engineer in the Navy. We were to witness the blast topside, standing at attention, with our hands covering our eyes. At the time of the blast, for a frightful moment I could see not only the bones in my hands, but the network of nerves and blood coursing through them. In terror I dropped them from my face, and beheld the living machines of my mates standing around me.

I was dispatched to one of the decommissioned vessels that had remained afloat, to test the electronic equipment. This test was intended to be done on merely a pass-or-fail basis, the idea was to get in and then get out fast before things got too hot.

My preliminary testing showed that most of the gearís internal resistance had dropped to zero. This, of course, was impossible, but my meters were cased in lead, so I trusted the reading.

I decided to extend my stay to pursue my findings, as I was bucking for a commission and transfer. In the middle of my testing, I heard a squad hit the deck hard, and then quickly descend the stairs.

ìJumpiní Jay-oho Mister! Ainít your brain getting too hot down here?î It was Commodore Bracken, with an egghead, and some MPs.

ìSir, no sir. I was running some tests on the suspected zero internal resistance of the radio equipment, sir.î

ìWell sir, you can suspect your ass is going to experience some zero internal resistance with my boot, if it doesnít get topside stat.î

ìNo, let him speak.î The egghead hissed like a goose in his white protective gear. He was the only one of us decked out for the holiday.

As Bracken glared at him, the MPs helped me up the steps.

Anyway, after getting out of a failed career in the Navy, I wound up repairing appliances for some slave-driving company in Poughkeepsie. I had some innate knowledge in the field of fixing washing machines, refrigerators, and dishwashers. Iíd just look them over, make some polite chit-chat, and soon be outdoors, fending off the appreciative thanks of bored homemakers.

Some portion of the good sense of duty that I had managed to glean from the Navy kept me pretty square until about the summer of 1966.

I was at some place on Lawndale, which was inhabited by the wife of some pawn-broker, by the look of all the gold dripping off her. She answered the door draped in the doily from the end-table, and was smoking a 120mm cigarette whose last half was stained red with lipstick.

I was hungry and grumpy in the humid afternoon, with donuts and coffee straining in my abdominal cavity. I was going to play this one.

ìHowdy, maím.î

Disinterest.

ìMighty hot today.î

Apathy.

ìWhatís the problem?î Entering the kitchen, I saw it was the fridge and only a fuse at that.

ìFridge.î She said, squinting through cobalt eye-shadow. ìWant a drink?î She was a bit puckered.

ìThat would be mighty kind of you.î I palmed a 600 amp cartridge in one hand. Pulling the appliance out a few inches, I popped the dead fuse out, and slipped in the new one. It hummed alive.

ìYayÖî she intoned flatly, handing me a Bloody Mary. ìMy husbandÖ,î she said the word with disdain, ìÖwill be very happy. Cheapprick!î

She trotted back to the counter, boozy on high heels, and put her big ass up on top of it. She fished out another cigarette while giving me a kind of ìget to workî look.

ìWill your husband be home soon to thank me?î My professional pride was hurt. I stood and began unzipping my coveralls, which were older than me, and stank of sewage.

She stuck most of the cigarette down her throat and sucked hard. The pigments in her heavily painted face irradiated, glowing under the sudden flush of blood in her heat. ìHe told me to thank you myself.î

Eventually I built enough of a clientele to open my own business. ìThe Yankee Repairman, ëLetís have a shot at that project in your castle.íî It was a risky thing to do in those days, in more ways then one. A city alderman caught me plumbing his wife, and filed for divorce against her, and a complaint against me in regards to the validity of my contractorís license.

I split to Las Vegas. My intuition was growing. At games of pure chance; the horses, dogs, roulette, and craps, I wasn't so good at. But blackjack and poker, those were my games.

I could almost see the cards the dealers drew from the shoe. I knew when to call, bluff, and fold. Basic probability and audacity were netting me too much silver, too fast.

I was getting good, the cards might as well have been dealt face up. Too good. I was at ìThe Nugget,î a little cocked to give the house an advantage. Two wise guys in silk suits, one hulk in purple, and a smaller one in mustard, caught me in the bathroom while I was leaning up against the wall pissing into the urinal.

They waited until I had finished (it took awhile) and zipped up before slamming my head into the wall and shoving me into a stall. The purple hulk held me in a headlock, while Mr. Mustard smoked a Chesterfield King too close to my nose. The ember burned too bright, scarring my retina, while a mushroomic cloud rose up.

ìI donít know what kind of grift your working, or what your deal is, but youíve been hitting too hard, High roller.î Mustard softened the sinews in his turkey neck. ìIts time you took a break.î

He left and the hulk released me, dug into his tight jacket, and pulling out three one hundred dollar chips, threw them at my prostrate, bowl-hugging form.

ìRent a car and drive it to the desert, so we donít have to give you the ride.î He then scuffed his fine Italian wing-tips with a kick in my ribs.I hit Atlantic City, but some arms have a real long reach. Soon I was at the bus stop nursing a black eye and swollen nose.

I was squatting on the curb when a Lincoln pulled up. Three guys got out, they looked cocky, walked cocky, and dressed cocky. I could only guess what they wanted with this old man. I could tell all of them packed.

The most psychotic, therefore the leader, crouched down next to me."Hey Mister, heard you can fix things even if the ain't broke." He stuck out his hand. I hesitated to take it.

"Junior this guy ain't worth it," the smaller guy whined."Wicked," Johnny called coolly, and smiled slightly as the bigger goon dealt a practiced backhand upside the whiner's face, who took it just as practiced. Must have been a regular occurrence.

"Dummy," Johnny continued, "I told you never to call me ëJunior,í on business. So dummy up, Dummy."

I ended up taking a ride with Johnny the Junior, Wicked Tony, and Dumb Jerry. They wanted to do a few after hour pharmacy jobs, and needed someone who knew about alarms and safes.

I told them I didn't know were to look for such a person. Junior rode up front next to the hyperactive Jerry who managed to break every moving violation on New Jersey's books. Junior whipped out a nickel-plated automatic, and stuck it in my face sideways. I knew this bit of drama. I was supposed to just see my reflection in the plating along the barrel, but all I could concentrate on were the three rounds, and one in the chamber. These guys were psycho small timers.

We hit pharmacies 15 minutes after the bars closed, while the cops where busy with drunk drivers and fighting rowdies. We cleaned out the drugs and got away in separate cabs, which crawled the streets like pervos at a cheerleaders' tourney.
I would pick the back door's lock, disable the alarm, and open the narcotics' lockers in less time then it took most people to check their mailbox. The loot was mostly small, specialty stuff that was stuffed into the pockets of specially tailored suits, suits provided by Dumb Jerry's father who, it turned out, wasn't as dumb as his son.

Johnny the Junior wasn't too swift either. He eventually got busted shooting a fifteen year-old girl full of Laudanum, at the Milner Hotel. More drugs were found in the hidden pockets of a suit, a suit with a tag from Dumb Jerry's father's tailor shop.

Everyone went down quick, as they didn't have the sense to keep off the streets. I was more reclusive now, staying in basement apartments. The mechanics, the plumbing and ductwork, of a building were preferable to fifty to seventy-five neighbors that I got to know a little too intimately.

I never cared for traveling on a bus, so I took a hackney cab to New York City. I could no longer drive. Cost me a grand, and I threw the guy five yards on the mum.
In a New York tailor shop, I dropped Dumb Jerry's dad's name. I walked into the shop and asked, "Can you clean this jacket?," while pointing at the label. They hooked me up on the ninth floor of some huge apartment building. My pad overlooks an alley, and has no view to the normal eye, but to me it is too much.
People who are under the mania or fear of having their thoughts read, should consider the feelings of their friendly, neighborhood mind-reader. So it is with me. Having to tune-in to the daily, continuous, pathetic soap operas of those around me, paralyzes me.

The chick upstairs from me does sailors in a train, at a group discount. Cars fart and wheeze in percolating combustion. People talking, spit pins into the faces of one another's faces. The sun's rays are a rapidly descending escalator that slams into the asphalt, causing the effervescence of trash and piss to rise heavenward.

After a week of being holed up I couldn't take it anymore. Holed up in the brightest darkness I could stand, I wrenched my eyes from their sockets, and held them in my hands. Reflexively, I attempted to look at them, with twitching optic nerves. I saw, no, perceived them in my hands. Two egg shells of tough skin, and deep inside the jelly were two yolk-like tumors.

My eyes went dead along time ago, and to replace my vision, my perception had mutated in accordance. Furthermore, it had developed zero internal resistance.
These words, it is so hard to catch an atom of pulp and tattoo in the snail trails of smoky pigment, like some manic pointillist. Blind to walks in the park and dappled sunlight, and yet the immaculate beauty of diffusion of scent, perfume from an animate vivisected corpse, coursing corpuscular. Bilious, rolling clouds of carbon, from an arc light ember, while the voice cracks the larynx like lightening flashes, Horribly brilliant in brilliant horror.

The leaden round looks so much soft against the rigid steel chamber and barrel, that will paint my palette red. These are not things that any man should see, they are what he should not perceive.