Chapter 4: If I had a hammer...

Benjamin Coffin the third had quieted his tears by now and was merely sniffling. More often than not Collins would either be insulting Benny or be deep into conversation about the intellectual movement that Collins insisted the next generation was going to miss out on. As they walked down Avenue A, neither men said a thing. For the first time since they've known each other there was a deeply intellectual understanding for pain. Benny didn't understand when Angel died because Benny didn't love Angel like Collins did. Sure he paid for the funeral and yes he consoled the others but he never really hurt the way Collins did.

Tonight Benny hurt like hell and Collins was happy. Happy that the son-of-bitch actually had a heart enough to hurt. They walked together like that for at least a mile when Benny turned to Collins abruptly and shook his head in silent disbelief. "If I had a hammer," said Benny, coiled up in his own misery, "I'd slam it into Roger's face." Such a comment astounded Collins. Benny could be a fucking prick sometimes but he never ever threatened anybody in such a violent way. Furious, Collins shoved Benny, sending him stumbling back to sit on a nearby doorstep.

"What the fuck are you talking about man? The boy just lost the love of his life. Can't you understand that?"

Benny stood up to face Collins up close and personal. "The 'boy' didn't even shed a tear. She loved him so much and he wouldn't even shed a tear when she died. What does this tell you Collins?"

Collins was heaping mad at this point. All this frustration, all this anger had been bubbling up inside of him the whole night but because Collins didn't believe in violence he simply walked ahead and left Benny spitting and cursing behind. For most of what Benny was yelling Collins managed to tune out but one thing stopped him in his tracks.

From behind him he could hear the yuppie scum who was crashing at his house say "He never even loved her Collins." At this point Collins felt like turning around and telling Benny that he didn't know anything about love, that he didn't understand the way it hurt Roger on the inside but he couldn't.

Because he was thinking exactly the same thing.

The coroner must have been pretty bored with Mark's panic since coroners experience dead bodies all the time but at this point Mark and stepped outside to get away from the smell and the look of the dead body. He'd never really seen one before and he felt like vomiting just to be near the apartment where Mimi died. The strange thing was that when he saw the corpse for the first time she looked peaceful. It bothered him to think that Mimi could be so peaceful when she died. It seemed almost unlikely that she would be because if there was anybody with a flare for life it was Mimi Marquez.

A small fee was paid for making an emergency trip in the middle of the night but Mark didn't mind paying a fee to get the corpse out of his sight. He didn't hate Mimi at all, he just couldn't stand to see something dead lingering around their building.

A memory came to mind of a time when Mark remembers seeing Roger hanging his arm around Mimi walking down that very same Avenue A. It was shortly after her the death-scare and they'd been doing pretty good together. Mimi herself looked not unlike her present corpse. Thin and tired but most of all they looked happy. Mark was brought to the 'sad realization that the happy face of Rogers' was present still, even after death.

Mark wasn't sure why he was still thinking so much when he was dead tired and traumatized but only after 20 minutes of seeing the truck leave in the darkness of the night, did Mark head back upstairs to sleep. By now it was 4 in the morning and he wanted nothing more than to just fall asleep forever. Passing by her empty but still messy apartment Mark made sure to cover his mouth to hide the smell. Somehow it still crept into his nasal cavities and he coughed into his hand. Quickly he scuttled up to his room. Right now it was time for this night to end, and he would make sure it was done as quickly as possible.