Yesterday's Gone: Season Three (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER)

wasn’t for show. He was the real deal, and had been long before the end of the world, she figured.
    Only after Mary opened her third bottle of piss, the one that might have been her fourth, did she finally get the courage to ask Boricio what she’d been wanting to ask for a while, and even managed to do so without flinching. “What was it like the first time you killed someone?”
    Boricio was mid-swig when Mary asked.
    He took an extra-long swallow, then smiled like a wolf, returned his lips to the bottle and stole its final swallow, then turned from the table, and the bucket behind it, and tossed his bottle like a dart into the forest.
    “That’s a helluva good story,” he said. “You sure you wanna hear it?”
    Mary nodded. “Yes,” she said.
    Boricio howled. “Well, alrighty then. But I’m not telling you a PG-13 bullshit version of the story. It’s a spicy dish and I’m not holding the pepper.”
    Mary said, “Has there been anything from your mouth in the last two hours that’s been anywhere PG?”
    Boricio howled again. “Nope,” he shook his head. “But that’s because there isn’t a point. You censor the words and you’re just giving a dirty mind more to work with.”
    Mary said, “Well, good thing Paola doesn’t have a dirty mind.”
    Mary waited for Boricio to challenge the thought, perhaps say something vulgar about her daughter. But he didn’t. Just opened another bottle, took a long swig, then wiped his mouth and said, “Looking back, Boricio should’ve waited a while longer before doing what he did when he did it. But I was green as a Jalapeno, and so I ended up making a 32-gallon trash can’s worth of mess that first night. I remember watching the news the following day, shaking my head, shocked at how much they did and didn’t say about all the things I knew I did. But the fucker who had to quit his breathing earlier than he expected to, and quite by force, sure as a new necklace after a titty-fuck deserved it. He was a regular at the restaurant where I’d been cooking for two months at the time of the ‘accident’ — this shit bar called, The Office.”
    Boricio took another swig and Mary felt herself uncomfortably fascinated by his tale, just as she had been for every one in the two hours before it.
    “So this same fucker would come in every night, drunk before he even got there it seemed, then order something fried from the menu and bitch about it five minutes after Jeremy set it on the counter.” Boricio looked at Mary. “Every. Fucking. Time. You dig?”
    Mary swallowed, then said, “I dig, but does that mean you killed him just because he sent his food back?”
    Boricio laughed. “No, I would never do that, at least not unless I felt like it. This fucker didn’t earn a grown-up abortion because he sent his food back; he got gutted on account of the gift wrap he gave the complaint. Every time the assfuck sent his food back, he attached an insult that made him deserve to die a little more, so really, the fucker was lucky I let him keep breathing as long as I did. Truth of the matter, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, is that I couldn’t understand why Jeremy Pile, the old fucker who owned The Office, was bending over for the shit eater each night. I probably should’ve figured what the hell and let the shit-covered dick continue to live since making slop on repeat wasn’t much different than making slop in the first place. I still punched out at the same goddamn time.” Boricio shook his head and took another long swig. “The fucker had said plenty of shit before, but when he said my nachos tasted like I’d put a tiara on a pile of rancid taco meat, and that the only creatures capable of enjoying the meal were the flies at his table, only thing I could see besides the red was the camel crying and the broken straw on its furry fucking back.”
    Boricio cackled.
    “When Jeremy came back in and told me what the fucker had said, I asked him why he didn’t throw his ass the fuck out. Pile said it was because the dude drank like a fish so who gave a shit if the place took a bath on ninety cents worth of nachos. Well, I did. So,” Boricio shrugged, “I figured I’d give the fucker a bath myself.”
    Mary swallowed hard again. “What did you do?”
    Boricio smiled. “I’m glad you asked, and thank you for playing, What Would Boricio Do? I got patient, that’s what. Waited three more weeks until the fucker was dumb enough to stay until the bar closed. I met