Zazz

I’ve decided to become an executioner.  This is not just because I’ve been compulsively watching and rewatching the brilliant Snuff Box, which everyone reading should immediately go rent/buy/download, depending on your geography and budget.  I’ve made this decision independent of television’s influence.

I can tell the difference.  For example, I really want — but know that I cannot have — a Stargate.

Being an executioner, I’ve decided, is the perfect job for me.  Not only do I get to kill people, but there’s a sense that, though obviously employed by some government or corporate body, I’d still be working for myself.  I get the hood so no one knows who I am.  I don’t have anything to do but kill some poor motherfucker.  You might think that’s hard, but this is 2008.  We kill with needles and switches now.  Come to think of it, executioners probably don’t wear hoods anymore.  But I would.  I’d wear a crazy, hand-stitched, leather gimp mask and no shirt, then look people in the face right before I took up my position.  Maybe, spittle flying through my zippered mouth-hole, I’d say something incomprehensible.  Just as a bit of light humor.  Let their final moments be spent wondering what I said. Which, of course, would be nothing.

I’d even be willing to commute.  That’s saying something.  But can you imagine?  What a great way to end the morning commute.  Working your way through all those idiot commuter fucks, getting all wound up and screaming at them on the train.  Seething at your desk…and, then, right when you think 8am is not too early to start drinking heavily, you get to walk down the hall and kill someone.

Though commuting would be a problem, because then I’d have to kill someone when I got home.  Maybe I could take my work home with me?  Select a death row prisoner, chain them up, take them with me under heavy guard on the train, the bus, then the half mile walk to my apartment… For them, it’ll probably be lovely.  See the people, get some outside air, take in a few new sites.  Then, back at my place, I’d take off my trousers, as you do, mix up a vodka tonic or, these days, I’ve switched to vodka and Giant Food brand raspberry Zazz.  Relax a bit — and let the condemned relax as well.  Maybe I’ll make him a vodka raspberry Zazz, too.  We could chat a bit.  How’s death row?  Fine.  How’s a garden apartment in Silver Spring?  Fine.

I have a Bible.  Somewhere.  I have a Koran in my bathroom. I even have a Book of Mormon because, long ago, after I finished The Boble, I thought I’d try my hand at rewriting the Book of Mormon.  Except it turned out to already be a satire, which made my efforts pointless.  If the condemned is a Jew, he can read the first half of the Bible.  Is that how it works?  I don’t know what those Hebrews do.  Point is, there’ll be no preacher.  It’ll be me — your friendly executioner — the condemned and one serious fuck-off guard.  See, I don’t go into God’s house, so I figure the same should be true in reverse.  God stops at my door.

If you have Catholic upbringing, then you just have to wonder – what kind of a fuck off pervert is God, anyway?  He’s always watching?  Really?  Jesus Christ is up there sitting with his daddy on a tight little throne watching me jack off?  Then maybe they jack off while I take a shit and a shower?  Because there’s no other reason God would want to watch billions of men jack off except for personal enjoyment.

Does god watch fat women?  Because, if I were God, I sure wouldn’t.  Have you ever seen a fat woman masturbate?  In fact, if I was God, I think I’d just be watching Maggie Gyllenhaal an awful lot.  And not the Dark Knight Maggie Gyllenhaal.  I’m talking about the Secretary-era Maggie Gyllenhaal.  Or maybe that awful movie where her tits were hanging out all the time.  I watched that.  I had to put it on mute, but I watched it.

Here’s an idea — how about God just checks in with you on your birthday?  That’s the religion I want.  The once a year birthday card — “Hope you’re still alive, here’s 20 bucks.”

Thanks, God.  It’s been a hell of a year.  I hope you weren’t watching when I masturbated into that banana and then ate it.

No, no, Nacho.  I don’t watch anyone anymore because you’re all a bunch of monkeys strung out on anti-depressants and fucking anything that moves and then cutting the names of ex lovers into your thighs and — phew — there’s not enough gin in Bermuda to keep me tuned to that channel!

Amen.

So, executions. We’ll talk, or the condemned can read a religious text at his leisure.  Maybe I’ll have about three vodka raspberry Zazz’s, because I find that you need to be a bit loose in the evenings, just in case you’re called on to solve an impossible Victorian-era crime or the cops come because they read on your blog that you were cultivating marijuana and you need to be convincing when you say, “Nah, I don’t do that. I got drink.”

Then, when it’s about time for me to throw on a pork chop and/or pursue a healthier dinner option, I’ll have the guard take the condemned out onto my balcony, where it’ll be optional for my neighbors to gather in the parking lot.  I’ll ask if the condemned wants to address the people (at this point, in my hand-stitched gimp mask, I’ll not say “the people” but, instead, will repeatedly say, “das volk,” because I own every German newsreel from 1936-1945) in 200 words or less.

Once the condemned is done with his speech, then I’ll gently bend him over and put his neck on the railing of my balcony, so he’s looking down at the ground.  Then I’ll use a curved, thousand-year-old, Sri Lankan-made sword to take off his head.  Hopefully in one blow, but the Zazz does get you loopy sometimes.

There won’t be a basket or anything of that sort.  The head will fall to the ground and any of my neighbors are free to take it as a memento.  The guard will then remove the corpse, and I can go about having dinner.

That right there, dear reader, is my ideal evening.  If but I could do that every night.

Because I haven’t taken pictures lately, I’ve decided to add some visual stimulation to the blog.

Here’s the couch where the condemned will sit. Note the Buddha, which belonged to my mom, in the event that the condemned is Asian.

Here’s where I’ll sit and “hold court,” if you will.

Here’s the balcony.  Not currently prepared for an execution, but everything can be easily moved around.

Looking down – doomed person’s POV!

The parking lot, where my neighbors will gather and jeer, as the commoners tend to do.

And…Zazz.  Though I have misled you.  This is Lemon-Lime Zazz.  It was on sale.  These are hard times for America… We can’t always have raspberry just because we want it.