Days of Love and Blood

the bobbing of the head. I waited several minutes and through a few deep sighs for him to decide if he should speak or not.
    “My wife.”
    “I’m so sorry.”
    “Dottie was her name. Dorothy, but I called her Dottie.”
    “Solomon, I’m so very sorry.”
    “I know it. She was a good woman. Anyway, I could never harm her. But I did tie her up. I had to. She was trying to kill me with a kitchen knife. She actually stabbed me twice before I could subdue her. And I had to hit her over the head and knock her out.” He paused and squeezed his lips together with his hand, as if he was wiping away the food he never touched. “It was the worst thing I’d ever done. I’d never hit Dottie before. When she came back around, I tried to reason with her. I asked if she knew who I was.”
    “What did she say?”
    “She said that I was the person she had to kill. I asked her what my name was. She couldn’t answer. I tried showing her pictures of us together. I even brought out our wedding album. But all she did was yell out obscenities and say that she was going to stab me in the heart. She calmed down after a few hours and fell asleep. But when she woke up, she called my name.
    “She said it so softly - so sweetly. I thought maybe it was over. I sat next to her and brushed her hair from her face. Her eyes were still closed, like she was dreaming. Again she called my name. I begged her to wake up and look at me. I was crying. Finally she did. Her head rolled up and she looked at me all sleepy-like and I swear to you she smiled. She smiled.
    “But then she turned again. It was like she suddenly recognized me as some vile intruder and her eyes got real big and she tried to bite me. But she smiled, you see? She called my name. Some of her was still in there somewhere.
    “Anyway, there was nothing I could do. I had to keep her tied up. I fed her every day. Washed her when she soiled herself, even when she tried to kick me away. She took the food, though.
    “One day I left to go find help. I don’t remember how long I was gone. I couldn’t find anyone. When I came back, she was gone. The ropes around her were cut. She couldn’t have done it herself. Someone else did it. Another homicidal I guess. That was the last I saw of my Dottie - my girl. I don’t know where she went. I could never have killed her, though. Never.”
    “I’ve never killed anyone I know. I’m sorry about Dottie, Solomon. I’m so sorry.”
    “I think Ivy is just worried that you’ve become callous. That you don’t stop to think at all about who you’re killing.”
    “ Stop to think? You can’t be serious. Do you stop to think when a fucking homicidal is charging at you with a butcher’s knife?”
    “I don’t mean it literal like that.”
    “I hope not. If I stopped to think I might as well lie down and accept my execution. What else can I do? Try to reason with them? It won’t happen. No matter how much I beg and plead with one of those things, nothing will change its mind. They have no compassion, no remorse, no feeling at all. They only have one desire and they act on it. Nothing is going to change their minds. Kill. It’s all they want, it’s all they do. And if it’s someone I know, what’s the alternative then? It’s going to die anyway.”
    “Not ‘it’, he or she,” he reprimanded me. “They’re still people,” he added. I sighed deeply and nodded my head in agreement although I didn’t agree.
    “All I’m saying is that if it was someone I knew I would have two choices. Kill it - I mean him or her, or immobilize that person and leave. The first choice is much more humane. With the second choice, that person is going to suffer. It’s the second choice which I find horrible. Inhumane. Not to mention risky.”
    “But if you kept him alive and controlled, tried to comfort him and feed him, you would be doing the right thing, I think. I mean, if you knew him. He’s going to die anyway, as we both know. So if you knew him, the least you could do is to try to make his last few weeks a little better.”
    “ Him?” I asked. Solomon’s eyes gave him away. “Oh my God.” I stood up.
    “Please, Carson. Don’t do anything stupid.”
    “Oh my God,” I repeated. I looked around the yard, through the throngs of people who were busy eating, laughing and drinking a little of my liquor. I t was easy to spot the vivid red curls that stuck out like a bull’s-eye amidst the crowd. When she looked up, she found my eyes