Sometimes I stand there in the bathroom looking in the mirror and pretend there are cops on the other side of the glass. Detectives. Feds. They watch me with fascinated eyes. They are riveted by the man, by the beast. I stare hard into the reflection I make and blow steamy breath onto places where I know they are watching, their cop noses only inches away.
"He can see us, can't he?" the short fatso asks. His voice is jittery.
"Not technically." answers the leggy FBI girl. Her green eyes peel my shirt off.
"He can see us, I know it." Fatso.
An older man with a half moon of molten silver hair sizes me up with squinty doctor eyes.
"Good afternoon oh dangerous one," he whispers. The fatso stops looking at me and turns to glance at the doc. He's hoping for a sign of joking but there isn't any.
Don Johnson comes in their room. Crockett. He's smoking a cig. The FBI chick ignores his arrival and he is irked by that.
I take my toothbrush and slowy creep it across the glass, past one face and then another, ever so gently leaving a small blur of water. My face is amused enchantment. Crazy eyes and a smirk. Fava beans and a nice Chianti.
When I'm almost across the whole mirror I simply stop and hold the brush still in one spot. Like a Ouija Board. The bristles point directly into the eyes of the little fat lawman.
"Dear God," he says weakly.
"Dear Mary Mother Of Christ on the Cross," says Crockett.
"Its him," says gams.
There is the grenade, soaring beautifully, like a a dove of death high above the summer field.
"He is him," says the Doctor.
There is a moment then. That swinging hung outlaw of a moment when winds reverse themselves and every ounce of atmosphere is just frozen hunks of sky tied to the clouds with thick bird veins.
"No," says Fatso.
But its too late. My arm flexes, tightens, and and just like that: all of Hell pushes my hand through the parallel dimension and the glass just shatters with the weight of castles on eggs. My fingers are instantaneously deep into the sockets of Fatso's eyes; rasberry sauce drips down his cheeks as he remains standing, pinned to the pitchfork of my claw.
The room is flooded with glass and horror. Here and there: the flopping fish of imminent disaster. The toothpaste slams into my central nervous system and my head is rushing and my blood is on fire and Dear God I feel so alive and free. And then this.
"Ahhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnn."
What the fuck...
"Ning Ning Ning Ning NingNing Ning...."
Oh man. Holy shit. It's Violet.
"Ning ning ning!"
She's squawking from the baby monitor on the counter-top underneath the unbroke mirror.
It takes me a second to clock whats up.
I put my toothbrush back in the metal thing and spit out my minty splatter.
I wipe my mouth on a crusty hand towel and cut the light.
Violet is standing up in her crib in her nearly dark chambers and she's talking her ishkibibble.
"Ning ning ning ning ning,' she says to me as I arrive crib-side.
"Hey there Hot Buttered Chicken Butt," I whisper to her. (Our affections are our original works of art in this often artless world. I take my greetings and salutations pretty seriously.)
We are joined at the chest after I lift her up. Two dreamers, freshly fallen off the Dream Wagon.
"Dadadadadadadadadadadadad," she says.
My heart beats so fast. I pull my fingers out of Fatso's eyeballs; say I'm sorry.
Monday morning and we're off to the races.