Dr Jew

you'll understand why Vinny did what he did."
    "Vinny? What did he do?"
    "Swan, your uncle was the cruelest man I ever met. Maybe you would have seen it if he'd been allowed to live. But I didn't want to let that happen. Not to you, and not to me either, though I put up with it for years. We did what we did because we had to."
    Swan 's face was crumpled with thought, confusion, thought, confusion, alternating, as though a new piece of a puzzle had landed in his lap and it made him go back and see the picture on the table in a whole new light.
    "Aunt Anne," he said, slowly, quietly, looking to the front door, feeling Vinny still out on the porch smoking. "What did you do? What did he do?" And by he it was well understood that the midget was being referred to.
    "We did what we had to do," she said.
    "What did you do ?" Swan's tone was one he never would have used toward his aunt just minutes before, but the horror of the situation changed everything. "What did you do to Uncle Dave?"
    "We had to do it, Swan. Vinny had to do it."
    "What did you do ? Vinny. What did he do?"
    "It wasn 't murder. Not. Not murder. Not murder."
    "Oh… oh no. No, please no."
    "You were bound to find out. Better now so you don't have to go on living with it."
    "Have you been drinking, Aunt Anne?"
    "I don't know. What if I have?"
    "Are you just saying this… I don 't know why. But you didn't kill Uncle Dave. You couldn't have. I know you couldn't have."
    "You 're probably right. That's why Vinny –"
    The front door opened and Swan and Anne eyeballed Vinny with a nightmare glare that almost entered the physical realm. The air congealed around him.
    "What 's going on?" said Vinny.
    "There 's the man of the hour," said Anne.
    "Enough out of you," said Vinny.
    "Vinny!" yelled Swan.
    "What the hell? Swan, what –"
    "Is it true? Did you do it to Uncle Dave?"
    "Did I…?" Vinny looked at Anne. "You goddamned fucking whore. What have you been telling him?"
    "All of it true, Swan," said Anne. "The little man killed – murdered – violently in his sleep, killed the big man. Killed him dead. Dead and no more. What about that then?"
    Swan was shaking hard, his skin so red, his face twisted so that he was unrecognizable as Swan. He wasn't a person at all anymore, but an unstoppable force aimed at destroying forever the midget. It was within his power to remove Vinny from this Earth.
    "Swan, don 't listen to her. She's crazy. Crazy, Swan. Listen, I'm telling you. Your mom and your uncle… I had nothing to do with any of it. Don't believe her, Swan."
    "My… mom?" said Swan. "What about my mom?"
    Vinny looked at Anne, unsure what to say. "Nothing. Your mom's fine."
    "Your mom 's dead, Swan," said Anne.
    The words were bullets, needles and knives carving his skull.
    Like a mad dog the giant lunged across the room and grabbed Vinny by the collar. He held him in the air and slammed him against the wall. "Why, Vinny? How could you?"
    "Listen, Swan, you gotta – "
    Swan didn 't want to listen. "You, my friend, Vinny. I thought you were my friend. My best friend. I thought."
    "I am!" said Vinny.
    Swan's eyes were red and tears came forth. Swan pressed Vinny to the ground, looked him in the eyes and couldn't believe how every surface was evaporating to reveal a different texture underneath.
    "S wan, stop –"
    Swan punched Vinny. It was a casual punch, one that Ueda would have been ashamed to see from one of his students.
    "Swan, stop it – "
    Swan punched the midget 's face again, harder. Vinny was dazed now, and Swan added a third punch, then another, and another, and blood was coming from Vinny's nose, then his mouth. The midget squealed. Swan's expression was initially detached and callous and it quickly transformed into a hateful, venomous mask. He punched harder, letting go with full abandon, punching through Vinny's hands that tried to block and then the hands went down, limp, and Swan pounded the face harder and harder and with every punch the tears came more and more, pouring down Swan's face.
    Vinny 's head was a pulpy mash under Swan's jackhammering fists, his skull caved in like an abandoned castle, his breath expired forever. Swan was mute but his fists battered into the remains of Vinny like an out-of-control sewing machine, up and down, pierced and repierced, failing to see that the clothes were ruined, dissociated. His arms slowed and no longer pounded but flowed down through inertia onto the midget's head, bicycle coming to a stop.
    A hand