MurderVerse

Words are everything

They carry meaning

Like rodents carry disease

Like medicine brings a cure.

Johnny consulted his dictionary

He needed medicine

This current ailment was weighing heavily on him

Making him sick, and depressed

Killing a man who had broken laws in the MurderVerse

Was just a thing

He could handle a mob hit

But killing a seventeen-year-old girl, a runaway from a distant city

Was too much for even his heart, his cold mind, his con-science

He was a thug, killing was science

He picked her up on the corner of fast cash and small favors

One in every city.

Most pros set ground rules before getting in a car,

She didn't know the game, just needed money

Name: Doris Bozell.

Occupation: Actress.

"Show me those acting chops, baby." Said Johnny

Doris drew close to him and commented on his fancy car

"Thank you, babe. These Caddy seats are all genuine Corinthian leather."

She laughed and acted impressed.

Was anybody even using Corinthian Leather anymore, was that a thing?

Then Doris whispered words, sweet words, intimate words, dynamite

words

Lover's words.

Her Last words.

Johnny was hooked, like fire spreading into love.

Most whores, the skilled workers, only could talk dirty,

But Doris purred,

"There's no such thing as Corinthian Leather, dumbass."

"What?" Johnny jammed on his brakes and slammed it into park

And looked at her for a good thirty seconds without speaking.

"What did you call me?"

Doris rolled her eyes like she was bored.

Johnny slapped her hard, open hand across the mouth.

Doris screamed, "asshole; Just like my dad"

She spits blood.

"Nice way to ratchet up the sexual tension."

"I bought this car with the understanding..."

Johnny motions to the upholstery

Doris said, "Corinthian leather is made here in New Jersey."

"No, no, no, it's made in Corinth, and Imported from Greece."

Corinth Like in the Bible

Johnny was starting to feel homicidal

Doris was making a fool of him

"Really?" Corinthian Leather is just some advertising word they made up to

sell cars, specifically Chryslers."

"I think my tooth is loose."

Doris said, "my toof is looth."

"Not Cadillacs?"

"Doris said, "Not even."

"Where's it made then, where in New Jersey?"

"Newark."

"By Who? Since you know so much."

Johnny was hot.

She was thinking Kyle Chandler hot.

She might even have liked him if he hadn't hit her.

"Radel Leather Manufacturing Company."

"How do you know all this?"

Johnny was keeping his temper under control.

"I had to do a report on advertising scams last year."

"A book report for who?"

"Mass marketing class"

Doris said, math marketing

"College?"

"High school. I would have been a Thenior thith year."

"Why'd you run away?"

Doris said, "Bored"

"How does a kid like your age get bored?"

"Ever been to Nebrathka?"

Johnny said, "no."

Football Players, Ranchers, Cowboys, Farm Hands,

Ain't been any farther than an away game or a Chicago slaughterhouse.

Doris said, "Just like all you goombahs or whatever you call yourselves."

Try first names, Doris.

Johnny says, "what's your daddy do?"

Doris said, "he grows beets and beats his wife, drinks, and watches TV."

"Same as all you stupid guidos he's never been anywhere."

"What'd you just say?"

"Forget it." She held her hands up to fend off the blows

He didn't strike her a second time

"I left Nebrathka before my lame-ath football player BF could talk me into

marrying his thtupid thelf."

He was going to kill her.

With the decision taken, he grew calm, laughed, even smiled at her.

This was the necessary respite prior to homicide.

Doris said, "what do you need, sexually I mean?"

Johnny thought, she still wants me.

Doris said, "let's start over baby."

Doris thought, pull it together, girl.

Let's do this,

Get it done, collect money, go.

"Oh little angel, whatever you and your boyfriend do."

Act it out,

Do it.

And she did. She took her time; didn't rush the way some girls do

He enjoyed the entire twenty minutes

Or was she postponing the inevitable?

He couldn't afford to let her live

If he dropped her back on the corner her Corinthian Leather story would be

on the street before he could watch the sunrise

He couldn't allow that,

Couldn't be a laughing stock

A man can't function without respect.

***

What's more intimate than sex?

Murder.

Taking a life.

Johnny thumbed through his dictionary looking up sex and then murder.

An old pervert told him one followed the other

In some species it's natural

Octopuses, praying mantises, spiders,

The black widow.

Murder and sexual cannibalism preserve the species,

That's not a bad thing

Preserves the respect one requires in this world.

In the criminal world,

The MurderVerse.

What's she got to live for anyway?

Her daddy beats her, the BF probably beats her,

Johnny thought, even I beat her.

She doesn't really bring out the best in a man

So it was with a heavy heart that he ended her life

He started with sweet words and then kisses on her neck.

Her loose tooth came out and she pushed it into his mouth with her

tongue.

Like exchanging bubble gum during teenage makeouts

"A souvenir," Doris said, thoo van ear

They laughed

She knew her life was over.

He ended their intimate moment with strangulation

Seven long minutes

She fought

Farm girl strong, Nebraska tough.

He'd lost money on the Cornhuskers last year

Two thousand bucks, let that sink in

But not tonight

She died with her eyes open, looking straight at him.

Doris passed away while her father watched Law and Order

In his farmhouse, next to his beet field.

Her mother nursed a fat lip

She let her spirit escape her body

in his car, on the Corinthian leather,

At 3.00am.

Doris Bozall 2005 - 2022

17 yrs.

***