"There can roughly be three things: We can get a crash, we can fly supersonic or we can not shoot because of weather. If it becomes a crash, we hope it becomes a spectacular crash!"

And with that the whole of his life immediately became clear to him -- the nightly discomfort of his heartbeat, a dim weight welling up in his vision: a house full of appliances fighting itself to the death from the inside out. He took a screwdriver to the kitchen table and carved, "Karma, like prayer, doesn't do shit. Violence does shit. Unrepentant, enthusiastic violence. Not as vengeance but as love -- love for the opportunity to engage in violence."

The next morning he was awake and gone before 6 am. A week later, I found another message on the linoleum:

"Because the Oligarch is necessarily a man of action, he is necessarily a violent man."

That was the beginning.

At night he walked alone, deep in the city's mines, amongst society's bedrock of rock bottom, and then he'd return and tell me his thoughts. The possibility of being mugged excited him -- he imagined dozens of scenarios, welcomed the thought of being stabbed and flashing satisfaction in the face of danger for granting him the opportunity -- finally! -- to happily confront mortality and be fiercely forced to commit himself to total violence without the childish meddling of laws and political tides muddying the flawless diamond. The typical to-and-fro in politics missed the point completely, he explained:

"Guns, for example. If no one was trying to take away one's gun, the gun would be no more romantic and meaningful than a tennis racket."

He claimed that when he was a child he could smell the souls of atom bombs hanging in the air as they blew away from the test sites and dispersed over the world. No food he ate tasted
pure. He ate only out of habit, a weakness. Only that food which he could gather himself held and nourished.

"Every time I crossed the Union bridge, I used to look down at the coal cars and think 'that's not that far of a drop' -- 'till I saw it from the bottom side. Never jumped. But got closer and
closer with each look. My point?--just gotta scare the shit out of yourself."

Then he just smiled a little and went out by the back step, but there was something growing inside him, rising like thunderheads out of the Western sky.

It was that same feeling he had met the day he passed the weeping girl bent over the dirty bench of the bus stop. The feeling of an order to go over the wall, the critical mass caused by the the violent collision of fear and duty, of life and whatever it was that had long replaced life. His poor wife couldn't understand, but not for lack of trying.

"I need to turn on the TV," she said.

"I think that's why we have it." 

And in his head he thought about America in general, and noticed the irony with which his pictures of the concept of "America" were all memories of television clips.

He had for a long time monitored the giveaway pets section for unanswered posts. When the owner was at the desperate end, their pet unwanted by anyone and sure to be put down, he would provide the miracle they wanted. Their pets would leave them going to a new happy home with a living owner, and with tears of joy they'd blanket him in gratitude for relieving them from being part of a horrible death. For their sake, he always cried alone after he had swiftly killed each orphan of convenience -- if anyone knew, it would all be for naught. This was his duty, his office. To be Life's hubcap -- something weak and beautiful protecting something strong and ugly. Maybe life itself...

One time he grabbed me by the collar and said, "I don't even know if they should have captioning for music performances, you know? The good ones on PBS? -- Not that shit on all the
other channels. I mean, imagine you're deaf, but not like deaf forever! No, you've lived with your
hearing and then had it taken away...and so you can watch this piano player sing their song and read all the lyrics and you can't hear them, but you remember what it sounds like, or maybe you don't know the song but you remember what songs sound like. Those little notes bracketing the lyrics...the word "vocalizing" in italics... "

"What a godawful thing to do to people!"

Well, his nickname was "Land-Mine" -- "ever courageous, never sleeps, never misses."

That's all I know.