“Bandula…” I whisper.

The dishwasher gives me a questioning look.

“Did you hear the,” I swallow hard. “The crunch?”

He nods.

I hadn’t.

“Do you think he’s, you know…” I swallow again. “Do you think he’s still breathing?”

Bandula looks at me, shakes his head, and returns to mopping the floor.

“No to worry,” he says finally. “I get that spot again.”

“Bandula,” my hands and my voice are shaking. “Ted’s dead.”

He sighs. He looks like he is about to say something, and seems to be searching for the right words. “He was…” I stared at the dishwasher. I remember asking myself, in that impossibly long and thoughtful silence, where was Bandula going with this? He was a nice guy? He was a good cook? He was a pain in the ass? He was in the wrong place at the wrong time? He was asking for it? He was a victim of circumstances? He was a jerk sometimes but he didn’t deserve this? “He was, um,” Bandula pauses to straighten his apron. “He was alive.”

“Yeah,” is all I manage to say.

“Not no more though,” he says. “Now get him the fuck off my floor.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Why you so sad,” the dishwasher demands. “Why cry? He do a good thing to you, does Ted.”

“How the fuck,” I shriek through clenched teeth. “Does he do ‘a good thing’ for me?”

“You need meat. And now?” Bandula beams, his smile stretching from ear to ear. “Got meat.”

I stare at the dishwasher, wide eyed. I take a moment to process what he is saying. I have been feeling so good about being honest, about not trying to hide my mistakes, about being on the straight and narrow. And Ted’s face is so pale. All of the purple, chortling stupidity has run down the drain.

“We would never get away with it,” sweat beads on my forehead and trickles down the back of my neck. My hands are cold.

“What are we going to do?” I ask him, pleading. “We can’t just…”

“The fuck we can’t,” Bandula snorts. “You want jail?”

“But people will, like, notice that he’s gone!”

“They not care. Boring, stupid man. No one cry. Wife? She has the thanks to be gone from him. I know, trust me.”

“But- but…”

Grabbing my shoulders, Bandula gazes deeply into my eyes, “you make the choice. You can be fucked by the burning cock of failure. That is first choice. Second choice is pick up the knife, do the work of a man, and go up fat faggot heaven to suck the gleaming cock of victory. Decide.”

For a while can hardly breathe. I can hardly think.

“In fat faggot heaven,” Bandula adds as he smiles and rubs his hands together. “Cock is made of cake.”

Wooden Rocket Press’ Sunday Paper posts new serialized fiction each Sunday. Return next Sunday morning for the next section of Blood Come. For other stories check out the Sunday Paper archive.

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