Bill Hems

apparently not hemmed innot dead as he was informed more than twenty years ago

he was told after the funeral if there was one

                                             after one of Bills subcontractors he the other had negotiated with Bills sister Bills executor the transfer of Bills roofing business into his hands after he and Bill met not three weeks earlier to have him take over the business

                                                            he declined

the other subcontractor did not know thathe couldnt remember the fat pricks name

                                                   they did not get alone kindly

why not deadhemmed in

Bills eyes

watery oystery pale blue eyes set in a weathered face either side of a hawkish nose

                                                                                            unforgettable

he watched Bill sixty years old fling himself off a secondstorey roof across a driveway to another secondstory house scramble diagonally down it throw himself onto the roof over the front porch then into a young tree to the ground as a Trade Union enforcer started up his car rolling up his window as Bill slammed his roofing axe into the roof over the mans heads Bill shrieking

                                                                 Come around here again I’ll kill you!

that night on the way home Bill dropping him off

                                                     If you think I’m lying, look in the glovebox.

he looked

a loaded .38 snubnosed revolver

I’ll shove it in his eye blow out his brainstryin’ to keep me off my job intimidate me I’ll kill him.

he didnt say it

                 he had no doubt that that spidermonkey of an aged man wouldnt

Bill lectured him it was easy to get away with murder

                                                         find a random stranger shoot them dead couldnt possibly tie them together police werent able to defy probable cause because murdering a complete stranger is improbable

                In the wrong place at the wrong time.

That’s tough.

Bill was a rabid Bircher

tried to radicalise him

he read the pamphlets Bill shared with him

the following morning he handed them back respected them did not tear them up

                                                                                      Bill  I don agree

Billd eye the glovebox

Im closer to it than you are

 

watery oystery pale blue eyes set in a weathered face either side of a hawkish nose

                                                                                           nobody in the world but Bill had those eyes

                                                                                                   nobody that scarred weathered face

                                                                                                        nobody that savage nose

the spidermonkey timeleaped from then till now

                                                     driving past him slowly in the opposite direction as he walked on a rotting concrete road Bill tapped the rolledup drivers window with a .38 snubnose

approxly1345,  Saturday,  24  1. 26