Elevator got stuck. It jam jam, man. No go. Like a can o’ spinach with no Popeye, no extra virgin Olive Oil no ga-ga-ga-ga and no two men vying for the rape of that extra virgin. No crime so long as she’s ripe, man.

I crawl down its hole. Like peace. Without the prosperity. Too much dust. I ain’t no allergic little shit ass like that kid she bring home says is hers. Like hell. That bitch never gave birth. And while I’ll give Jesus an immaculate conception—shit happens—there’s no way in hell Mary got so lucky with the birth. No tearing, fucking breach baby just slides right out? Hell no. You know Jesus was breach. Backwards to the whole world. Maybe wasn’t ready to see the shit he was falling into.

Fix it up my son fix it up fix their little red wagons.

Down the hole this ain’t no Lewis Carroll shit. No white rabbit ever came down here. No Jefferson Airplane neither. Just me and a couple bats and a lot of blood.

S’why it jammed. Ran out of juice. Needs a blood sacrifice.

Ain’t my place. I don’t do machines. I clean after the machines fuck up. Put them to sleep for a look-see, great big sleeping giant, shhhh, and they say: shove Luis down its hole let him relive his birth hope it was a happy ‘casion ‘cause he ain’t getting out till he done.

Sure I had a fine birth. *Pop! I exist!

Everyone relives it at some point.

My mother didn’t give birth, neither. She brought me home to my father who didn’t inseminate me.

Stole me.

‘Cause Carlos killed their kid. It was a fair trade.

I was never covered in her blood in her hole the way I am now. Covered in this man’s blood. He was middle-management; no one will miss him.

I wonder if She-Mother wished it missed it dried up inside with the regret. I wasn’t “hers” not as “good” or was I “better” ‘cause you don’t go get inferior stock when you get a replacement. Revenge doesn’t taste as sweet if it’s lesser.

Comparisons, you know.

I was the immaculate birth. I was four. It was clean. Emotional, sure. I don’t regret it. I am who I am. I am the She-Mother’s immaculate child. Carlos wouldn’t have done no better, given me model airplanes and glue to sniff then got me shot in a carjacking. I wasn’t born of his bitch. She’s the dead crack whore on Wally Street. I got a leg up in life. Lucky me.

Poor bastard down here, though. One arm trailing muscle, looking like a raw steak got pulled stringy. Lucky me, poor bastard.

Shove me down any hole and ask me again. I play clean-up on mistakes. I don’t take orders to hit, to slice, to take folk down. Though I know a dozen ways to do it nasty.

It’s not just blood in here splattered and smeared and a stitch of flannel. I pick up a bone. Aborted. It was picking its teeth. Elegant. Tribal. Refined.

And here I am down its gullet in a harness with people who care shit about me up top the other end of this line. Manually pulling me up when I got the wallet and filled my plastic bag so they could bury the fucker.

That’s life.

Hum a merry little tune.