OK, before I shoot a helicopter pilot in the face, I really really should make sure said pilot shuts OFF the helicopter first. By now the battery has worn out or whatever, and I’m amazed that mine was the only gun fired, especially given the noise. When you live on this part of Chicago Avenue, you get used to helicopters being target practice. This is mostly because heavily armed drug dealers live along this block, and they tend to be heavily armed and extremely cranky when stirred from slumber. They’ve shot in my yard before, but to their credit, they don’t generally shoot at me. One of the nurses at the hospital told me they were afraid while we were chatting over some blood tests. I couldn’t get that nurse to fill in more details - I saw her look at my blood, turn white, and disappear.
It’s not the first time a helicopter landed here since I’ve lived here; once, it was the Vatican, returning my stuff including what I needed to make the Zombie Repellent. Once, it was Pete. I try not to think anymore about Pete.
As for today, our back garden should be riddled with bullets - it’s not. Except for the dead man decomposing face down in the tomatoes, it’s like we’re the only people around here.
Joel just brought in the newspaper - it’s a civility he insisted on when we moved in together, I suspect more to try to re-socialize me than to try to stay informed. It looks like the paper was torn into, savagely. And dripping with something like saliva. Joel was holding it by the barest piece of newsprint, possibly the only dry spot on it, and allowing it to drip onto the wooden floor. It was gross. He’s tossed it out back on top of the dead man. I’d think he was being callous, if I hadn’t dosed him with scopolamine. I know it’s a horrible thing to do to a dear friend, but I have to - for his sake. The things I do on a daily basis since last year are horrible, and just because I’ve been warped into a feral version of myself doesn’t mean Joel needs to be. The repellent thing has made me kind of underground famous. Poor Joel. He lives with the Zombie Queen, as one of the more sensitive editors of the City Pages dubbed me.
I went to stick my head out the front door, and our neighborhood, usually violent and noisy, is ghost-like. There’s no one in the Abbott-Northwestern parking lot, and the lights are off. I better check the news to see if there was a power outage or worse, a hostage situation.
Gawd, the air smells putrid today. I should check the smog index. It can’t be the guy I shot - nothing rots that fast, especially since it’s not really humid today.
