Nicolas Cage Monologues

You've got your head so far up Obama's ass that all you can see is his shit anymore.

What the hell are you doing here? Haven't you heard? The CIA fell from the Berlin Wall and all the president's men can't put it back together again! It's broke! Not reliable. Not trustworthy. Can't stand up to the White House. Backstabbers. Watching porn, tapping phones. Best and brightest quit or retired. What in the name of Jesus Christ nailed to the cross are you doing here?

Because you heard the call. That's why. Your future spread out before you like a cruise-ship buffet. You were teaching in a classroom, working in a kitchen, training in a gym, and you heard the call. For some it was adventure. For some, mystique. For all, it was 9/11 and you heard the call, and it was the call of duty and love of country. Why? Because you have values!

The CIA has taken some hits. Some deserved. We've been down on the canvas, but we're on our feet again, because we've got no choice, and because our country needs us, and because we've got what? Values!

Where there's money, there's competition and the guy paying me usually wins.

You stay invisible too long, the human race starts to look like another species. So you venture out. You observe. And then you return to your invisible world. Like a ghost.

When the nightmare becomes real, you don't hesitate. You don't think, you just run. Anyone in the way goes down. It's pretty simple. You are the target now. Leave the country, or you are going to die.

My job takes me to a lot of places. It's got its down sides: I sleep alone. I eat alone. I'm used to it, though. I'd like to meet someone. But it's tough when you live out of a suitcase. I go where I'm told... do what I'm told. I shouldn't complain. The work is steady. The money's good. But it's not for everyone.

My name is Joe. This is what I do.

Bangkok. It's corrupt, dirty and dense.

All my clients have one thing in common: they feed off the people. There's big money in misery. Where there's money, there's competition, and the guy paying me usually wins.

Now you have two. You answer whenever it rings. If I call and you don't answer, you don't get paid. Time is very important. If I tell you to be somewhere and you are a minute late, you don't get paid. Understand?

Why didn't I kill him? Maybe it's because - and this is strange - somehow, when I looked in his eyes, I saw myself. So I became his teacher.

Political assassination wasn't in the contract. So, there were two ways to go: refuse the job and walk away now. Or, do the job and walk away rich.

The truth is, almost anyone can take out a politician. That's not the hard part. The hard part is getting away with it.

Saving someone's life is like falling in love. The best drug in the world. For days, sometimes weeks afterwards, you walk the streets, making infinite whatever you see. Once, for a few weeks, I couldn't feel the earth - everything I touched became lighter. Horns played in my shoes. Flowers fell from my pockets. You wonder if you've become immortal, as if you've saved your own life as well. God has passed through you. Why deny it, that for a moment there - why deny that for a moment there, God was you?

Oh, I see. With all the poor people of this city who wanted only to live and were viciously murdered, you have the nerve to sit here, wanting to die, and not go through with it? You make me sick!

I'd always had nightmares, but now the ghosts didn't wait for me to sleep. I drank every day. Help others and you help yourself, that was my motto, but I hadn't saved anyone in months. It seemed all my patients were dying. I'd waited, sure the sickness would break, tomorrow night, the next call, the feeling would drop away. More than anything else I wanted to sleep like that, close my eyes and drift away…

The street is so much more unpredictable than the ER and to prepare for the unexpected I was taught to act without thinking, like an army private who can take apart and reassemble a gun blindfolded. I realized that my training was useful in less than ten percent of the calls and saving someone's life was rarer than that. As the years went by I grew to understand that my role was less about saving lives than about bearing witness. I was a grief mop and much of my job was to remove, if even for a short time, the grief starter or the grief product. It was enough I simply showed up.

Taking credit when things go right doesn't work the other way.

We have rules against killing people on the streets, okay. It looks bad. There's a special room in the hospital for terminating. A nice quiet room with a big bed.

You have to keep the body going until the brain and the heart recover enough to go on their own.

Rose's ghost was getting closer. It had been six months since I lost her. A homeless girl, asthmatic, 18 years old. I used to block the bad calls out. I used to forget, but she wouldn't let go. And now she'd come to bear witness for all of them, all that had been lost. These spirits were part of the job. It was impossible to pass a building that didn't hold a ghost of something. The eyes of a corpse. The screams of a loved one. All bodies leave their mark. You cannot be near the newly dead without feeling it. I could handle that. What haunted me now was more savage. Spirits born half-finished. Homicides. Suicides. Overdoses. Accusing me of being there, witnessing a humiliation, which they could never forgive.

In the last year, I'd come to believe in such things... as spirits leaving the body and not wanting to be put back. Spirits angry at the awkward places death had left them. I understood how crazy it was to think this way. But I was convinced that if I turned around, I'd see old man Burke... standing at the window, watching, waiting for us to finish.

The biggest problem with not driving is whenever there's a patient in the back, you're in the back. The doors close. You're trapped.

5 or 6 in the morning is always the worst time for me. Just before dawn. Just when you've been lulled into thinking it might be safe to close your eyes for one minute. That's when I first found Rose. She was on the sidewalk, not breathing.

I washed my face with three kinds of soap, each smelling like a different season. It felt good to be in a woman's room again, especially a woman who wasn't comatose or severely disabled. I felt that perhaps I had turned a corner, like I saved someone, though I didn't know who.

Edwina's insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.

She said her fiancé had run off with a student cosmetologist, who knew how to ply her feminine wiles.

That sumbitch. You tell him, I think he's a damn fool, Ed. You tell him I said so - H.I. McDonnough. If he wants to discuss it, he knows where to find me: in the Maricopa County Maximum Security Correctional Facility For Men State Farm, Road Number 31, Tempe, Arizona! I'LL BE WAITIN'! I'll be waitin'.

That night I had a dream. I dreamt I was as light as the ether- a floating spirit visiting things to come. The shades and shadows of the people in my life rassled their way their way into my slumber. I dreamed that Gale and Evelle had decided to return to prison. Probably that's just as well. I don't mean to sound superior, and they're a swell couple of guys, but maybe they weren't ready yet to come out into the world. And then I dreamed on, into the future, to a Christmas morn in the Arizona home where Nathan Junior was opening a present from a kindly couple who preferred to remain unknown. I saw Glen a few years later, still having no luck getting the cops to listen to his wild tales about me and Ed. Maybe he threw in one Polack joke too many. I don't know. And still I dreamed on, further into the future than I had ever dreamed before, watching Nathan Junior's progress from afar, taking pride in his accomplishments as if he were our own. Wondering if he ever thought of us and hoping that maybe we'd broadened his horizons a little even if he couldn't remember just how they got broadened. But still I hadn't dreamt nothing about me and Ed until the end. And this was cloudier cause it was years, years away. But I saw an old couple being visited by their children, and all their grandchildren too. The old couple weren't screwed up. And neither were their kids or their grandkids. And I don't know. You tell me. This whole dream, was it wishful thinking? Was I just fleeing reality like I know I'm liable to do? But me and Ed, we can be good too. And it seemed real. It seemed like us and it seemed like, well, our home. If not Arizona, then a land not too far away. Where all parents are strong and wise and capable and all children are happy and beloved. I don't know. Maybe it was Utah.

There's what's right and there's what's right and never the twain shall meet.

I tried to stand up and fly straight, but it wasn't easy with that sumbitch Reagan in the White House. I dunno. They say he's a decent man, so maybe his advisors are confused.

I think the wife and me are splitting up. Her point is that were both kind of selfish and unrealistic, so we're not really good for each other.

Sometimes it's a hard world for small things.

If it's all the same to you, Honey, I think I'll skip this little get together, slip out with the boys and knock back a couple of Coca Colas.

I guess that wouldn't be such a good idea.

That night, I had a dream. I drifted off thinking about happiness, birth and new life, But now I was haunted by a vision of... He was horrible. The lone biker of apocalypse. A man with all the powers of Hell at his command. He could turn turn the day into night and lay to waste everything in his path. He was especially hard on little things-the helpless and the gentle creatures. He left a scorched earth in his wake befouling even the sweet desert breeze that whipped across his brow. I didn't know where he came from or why. I didn't know if he was dream or vision. But I feared that I myself had unleashed him. For he was the fury that would be as soon as Florence Arizona found her little Nathan gone.

This here's the TV. Two hours a day, maximum, either... either educational or football, so's, y'know, you don't ruin your appreciation of the finer things.

My dearest Edwina, Tonight, as you and Nathan slumber, my heart is filled with anguish. I hope that you will both understand and forgive me for what I have decided I must do. By the time you read this, I will be gone. I will never be the man that you want me to be, the husband and father that you and Nathan deserve. Maybe it's my upbringing. Maybe it's just that my genes got screwed up. I don't know. But the events of the last day have showed amply that I don't have the strength of character to raise up a family in a manner befitting a responsible adult. I say all this to my shame. I will love you always, truly and deeply. But I fear that if I stay, I would only bring bad trouble on the heads of you and Nathan Jr. I feel this thunder gathering even now. If I leave, hopefully, it will leave with me. I cannot tarry. Better I should go, send you money, and let you curse my name. Your loving - Herbert

Biology and the prejudices of others conspired to keep us childless.

Nathan Jr accepts me for what I am! And I think you better had, too! You know I'm okay, you're okay! That there's what it is!

I found myself driving past convenience stores... that weren't on the way home.

My name is H.I. McDonnaugh. Call me Hi.

I even caught myself drivin' by convenience stores... that weren't on the way home.

We figured there was too much happiness here for just the two of us, so we figured the next logical step was to have us a critter.

This is Gale and Evelle Snoats. As fine a pair as ever… broke and entered!

Listen, I think we got started off on the wrong foot. Stan Goodspeed, FBl. Uh - Let's talk music. Do you like the Elton John song, "Rocket Man"?

Oh, you - Oh, oh. Oh. Well, I only bring it up because, uh, it's you. You're the Rocket Man.

Look, I'm just a biochemist. Most of the time, I work in a little glass jar and lead a very uneventful life. I drive a Volvo, a beige one. But what I'm dealing with here is one of the most deadly substances the earth has ever known, so what say you cut me some FRIGGIN' SLACK?

Well, I'm one of those fortunate people who like my job, sir. Got my first chemistry set when I was seven, blew my eyebrows off, we never saw the cat again, been into it ever since.

You broke out, let me see if I can get this straight, down the incinerator chute, on the mine car, through the tunnels to the power plant, under the steam engine - that was really cool by the way - and into the cistern through the intake pipe. But how, in the name of Zeus' BUTTHOLE!… did you get out of your cell? I only ask because in our current situation, well, it could prove to be useful information. Maybe!

It's a cholinesterase inhibitor. Stops the brain from sending nerve messages down the spinal cord within thirty seconds. Any epidermal exposure or inhalation and you'll know. A twinge at the small of your back as the poison seizes your nervous system...

DO NOT MOVE THAT! Your muscles freeze, you can't breathe, you spasm so hard you break your own back and spit your guts out. But that's after your skin melts off.

Why didn't you just tell them where the microfilm was and create a solution?

Oh, just some terrorists decided to send a little care package. Box of goodies. Which had to be neutralized before blowing up the office…

So I took the rest of the day off. Glass of wine, little guitar… Just relax.

I mean it, honey, the world is being Fed-exed to hell in a hand cart. I really believe anyone thinking even thinking of bringing a child into the world is coldly considering an act of cruelty.

I know, I'm rambling, I'm complaining, I'm sorry. What's your news, baby?

Liquid; failed pesticide; discovered by mistake in 1952. Uhh, actually, it's kind of like champagne that way. The Franciscan monks thought they were making white wine. Somehow the bottle carbonated. Voila, champagne, and uhh, then the whole thing...

It's very, very horrible sir. It's one of those things we wish we could disinvent. This isn't a training exercise, is it?

I love pressure. I eat it for breakfast.

"I'd take pleasure in guttin' you, boy. I'd take pleasure in guttin' you... boy." What is wrong with these people, huh? Mason? Don't you think there's a lot of, uh, a lot of anger flowing around this island? Kind of a pubescent volatility? Don't you think? A lotta angst, a lot of "I'm sixteen, I'm angry at my father" syndrome? I mean grow up! We're stuck on an island with a bunch of violence-for-pleasure-seeking psycophatic marines, SHAME-ON-THEM!

You know, I like history too, and maybe when this is all over you and I can stop by the souvenir shop together but right now I just… I just wanna find some rockets!

All right, I'll do it myself. I've had three weeks weapons training, I'll kick the… out of a platoon full of marines. No problem.

I love you, I will marry you I just didn't plan on this that's all, come to San Francisco with me

I'm sure it's just a training exercise, we'll check into the hotel order some champagne…

I don't know if I started drinking 'cause my wife left me or my wife left me 'cause I started drinking, but fuck it anyway.

We both know that I'm a drunk. And I know you are a hooker. I hope you understand that I am a person who is totally at ease with that. Which is not to say that I'm indifferent or I don't care, I do. It simple means that I trust and accept your judgment.

Are you desirable? Are you irresistible? Maybe if you drank bourbon with me, it would help. Maybe if you kissed me and I could taste the sting in your mouth it would help. If you drank bourbon with me naked. If you smelled of bourbon as you fucked me, it would help. It would increase my esteem for you. If you poured bourbon onto your naked body and said to me "drink this". If you spread your legs and you had bourbon dripping from your breasts and your pussy and said "drink here" then I could fall in love with you. Because then I would have a purpose. To clean you up and that, that would prove that I'm worth something. I'd lick you clean so that you could go away and fuck someone else.

Sera... what you don't understand is - no, see, no. You can never, never ask me to stop drinking. Do you understand?

I'll tell you, right now... I'm in love with you. But, be that as it may, i am not here to force my twisted soul into your life.

Or, killing myself is a way to drink?

Like the kling klang king of the rim ram room.

Why am I a drunk? Is that really what you wanna ask me?

Well, then, this is our first date, or our last. Until now I wasn't sure it was either.

I think when I'm done with this I'll have a gin and tonic.

I understand what you're saying. I appreciate your concern. It's not my intention to make you uncomfortable. Please, serve me today, and I'll never come in here again. If I do, you can 86 me.

Don't you think you'll get a little bored, living with a drunk?

You haven't seen the worst of it. These last few days, I've been very controlled. But, I knock things over and throw up all the time. But, right now, I feel really good. You're like some sort of antidote that mixes with the liquor and keeps me in balance. But, that won't last forever.

No. I came here to - drink myself to death. Cashed in all my money, paid my AmEx card, gonna sell the car tomorrow.

I think about - four weeks.

What's your name?

Terri, I am going to buy you a drink.

Bud, please. Buy the lady a drink and another one for you. I'm Benjamin. Ben. Benny Goodman, that's me. I think you're sexy. That's right. Look at those eyes. Sexy like a kitty cat.

You turn me on, bar-rum, you turn me on, bar-rum, you're not too long, you're not too short, you're not too round, bar-rum, you're like a cat, the cat in the hat. Look at those eyes. Honest to God. You're luminescent, baby. What?

Interesting choice of words. I don't remember. I just know that I want to.

Sera… I'm not gonna see a doctor. Perhaps now would be a good time for me to move back to a motel.

Baby, I'm ready to sign. There. Steady as a fucking rock. Excuse my French. Want to have dinner with me?

I don't care about any of that. There's time left. You can have more money. You can drink all you want. Just stay. That's what I want. I want you to - talk or listen. Just stay.

Wow. Wow. Well, that's astonishing, Sera.

Well, look I'm going to move to a real smart hotel tomorrow if it will make you feel better. Let's talk about tomorrow. Do you want to do something?

I'm not much good in the sack, Sera.

I was looking for you tonight. I don't know if you have a boyfriend, or a girlfriend; but, if you have some free time, I thought maybe we could - get some dinner.

Oh, I think you know I'm serious.

Speaking of drinks, here is yours. Down that hatch. And here's mine. Cheers. Come on. There we go. Yes? Let's do it! To it!

I really wish you'd come home with me. And you're so cute. And I'm really good in bed, too. Believe me! And you smell great. And you look great. Your hair's great. No? Okay.

Just because my feet were too big in the morning, Just because I can't remember your mother's name, Just because I put the octopus in the bed, Just because, because, because, because, Bill Cosby

I threw them out, which was perhaps immoral; but, I wanted to come to you clean, so to speak. Thought we'd go shopping. Pick out a pair of jeans and 45 pairs of underwear. Just throw one out each day.

Wow. Maybe I should follow you around and ask one of your tricks what it's like to sleep with you.

What are you? Some sort of angel visiting me from one of my drunk fantasies? How can you be so good?

Do I have an original thought in my head? My bald head. Maybe if I were happier, my hair wouldn't be falling out. Life is short. I need to make the most of it. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm a walking cliché. I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked. There's something wrong. A bump. The dentist called again. I'm way overdue. If I stop putting things off, I would be happier. All I do is sit on my fat ass. If my ass wasn't fat I would be happier. I wouldn't have to wear these shirts with the tails out all the time. Like that's fooling anyone. Fat ass. I should start jogging again. Five miles a day. Really do it this time. Maybe rock climbing. I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more, improve myself. What if I learned Russian or something? Or took up an instrument? I could speak Chinese. I'd be the screenwriter who speaks Chinese and plays the oboe. That would be cool. I should get my hair cut short. Stop trying to fool myself and everyone else into thinking I have a full head of hair. How pathetic is that? Just be real. Confident. Isn't that what women are attracted to? Men don't have to be attractive. But that's not true. Especially these days. Almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days. Why should I be made to feel I have to apologize for my existence? Maybe it's my brain chemistry. Maybe that's what's wrong with me. Bad chemistry. All my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help for that. But I'll still be ugly though. Nothing's gonna change that.

Sir, what if the writer is attempting to create a story where nothing much happens? Where people don't change, they don't have any epiphanies, they struggle and are frustrated and nothing is resolved. More a reflection of the real world.

Why didn't I go in? I'm such a chicken. I'm such an idiot. I should have kissed her. I've blown it. I should just go and knock on her door and just kiss her. It would be romantic. It would be something we could someday tell our kids. I'm gonna do that right now.

To begin… To begin… How to start? I'm hungry. I should get coffee. Coffee would help me think. Maybe I should write something first, then reward myself with coffee. Coffee and a muffin. Okay, so I need to establish the themes. Maybe a banana-nut. That's a good muffin.

Okay. But, I'm saying, it's like, I don't want to cram in sex or guns or car chases, you know... or characters, you know, learning profound life lessons or growing or coming to like each other or overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end, you know. I mean... The book isn't like that, and life isn't like that. You know, it just isn't. And... I feel very strongly about this.

I am pathetic, I am a loser…

I have failed, I am panicked. I've sold out, I am worthless, I... What the fuck am I doing here? What the fuck am I doing here? Fuck. It is my weakness, my ultimate lack of conviction that brings me here. Easy answers used to shortcut yourself to success. And here I am because my jump into the abysmal well - isn't that just a risk one takes when attempting something new? I should leave here right now. I'll start over. I need to face this project head on and...

How could you have somebody held prisoner in a basement and... and working at a police station at the same time?

We open on Charlie Kaufman. Fat, old, bald, repulsive, sitting in a Hollywood restaurant, across from Valerie Thomas, a lovely, statuesque film executive. Kaufman, trying to get a writing assignment, wanting to impress her, sweats profusely. Fat, bald Kaufman paces furiously in his bedroom. He speaks into his hand held tape recorder, and he says: "Charlie Kaufman. Fat, bald, repulsive, old, sits at a Hollywood restaurant with Valerie Thomas".

The only idea more overused than serial killers is multiple personality. On top of that, you explore the notion that cop and criminal are really two aspects of the same person. See every cop movie ever made for other examples of this.

…But a little fantastic and fleeting and out of reach.

That's the end of the book. I wanted to present it simply without big character arcs or sensationalizing the story. I wanted to show flowers as God's miracles. I wanted to show that Orlean never saw the blooming ghost orchid. It was about disappointment.

My leg hurts, I wonder if it's cancer? There's a bump. I'm starting to sweat. Stop sweating. I've got to stop sweating. Can she see it dripping down my forehead? She looked at my hair line. She thinks I'm bald. She…

Oh, wow, thanks. Well, that's nice to hear.

Okay, we open with Laroche. He's funny. Okay. He says, "I love to mutate plants". He says "Mutation is fun". Okay, we show flowers and... okay. We have to have the court case. Okay, we show Laroche. Okay, he says "I was mutated as a baby. That's why I'm so smart". That's funny. Okay, we open at the beginning of time. No! Okay, we open with Laroche. He's driving into a swamp.

I have to go right home. I know how to finish the script now. It ends with Kaufman driving home after his lunch with Amelia, thinking he knows how to finish the script. Shit, that's voice-over. McKee would not approve. How else can I show his thoughts? I don't know. Oh, who cares what McKee says? It feels right. Conclusive. I wonder who's gonna play me. Someone not too fat. I liked that Gerard Depardieu, but can he not do the accent? Anyway, it's done. And that's something. So: "Kaufman drives off from his encounter with Amelia, filled for the first time with hope." I like this. This is good.

Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and *die*. The storybooks are *bullshit*. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and *get* in my bed!

You're gonna marry my brother? Why you wanna sell your life short? Playing it safe is just about the most dangerous thing a woman like you could do. You waited for the right man the first time, why didn't you wait for the right man again?

I'm in love with you.

A bride without a head!

I ain't no freakin' monument to justice! I lost my hand! I lost my bride! Johnny has his hand! Johnny has his bride! You want me to take my heartache, put it away, and forget?

Chrissy, over on the wall, bring me the big knife. I want to cut my throat.

Everything seems like nothing to me now, 'cause I want you in my bed. I don't care if I burn in hell. I don't care if you burn in hell. The past and the future is a joke to me now. I see that they're nothing. I see they ain't here. The only thing that's here is you - and me.

They say bread is life. And I bake bread, bread, *bread*. And I sweat and shovel this stinkin' dough in and out of this hot hole in the wall, and I should be *so* happy! Huh, sweetie?

I looked the wrong way and I lost my hand. He could make you look the wrong way and you could lose your whole head!

I have a feeling this is going to be just delicious.

Is it just a matter of time before a man opens his eyes and gives up his one dream of happiness?

Put… the bunny… back… in the box.

On any other day, that might seem strange.

Sorry boss, but there's only two men I trust. One of them's me. The other's not you.

Don't you… I got nothing in common with them, with you. Don't you talk to me! They were insane.

Murdering thirty people, semantics or not, is insane!

It's my daughter's birthday today. So please feel free not to share everything with me.

What was I thinking about? Oh, yeah, "yee-haw", that's right. I was just wondering what a black militant - that would be you - was doin' takin' orders from a white boy on a power trip? Don't you think that's strange?

They somehow managed to get every creep and freak in the universe onto this one plane. And then somehow managed to let them take it over. And then somehow managed to stick us right smack in the middle.

If this thing goes bad, Larkin, I don't think my daughter will… understand. If you speak to my wife again, you tell her: that I love her. She's my hummin'bird. But, I couldn't leave a fallen man behind. You'll do that for me, won't you, Larkin?

Hey, man. I can think of anything I'd like…

...better, than to put a...

…bullet, into the brain-base here of every one of these…

FUCKERS! But the fact of the matter is how well do you know this Cindino? I don't know him that well, myself. Just what I read. Like how he firebombed that Senator's yacht with 2 of his cousins on board. Now, why would think he'd sweat about eliminating some hired guns after they have served their purpose, now think about that.

Hey, Cyrus. It's your barbecue man, and it tastes good. But I was just explaining to Mr.

"Dog" here that if it was my barbecue, I would wait for that ol' jumbo jet in the sky before I start killing my only leverage.

Of all the weapons in the vast soviet arsenal, nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947. More commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It's the world's most popular assault rifle. A weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple 9 pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood. It doesn't break, jam, or overheat. It'll shoot whether it's covered in mud or filled with sand. It's so easy, even a child can use it; and they do. The Soviets put the gun on a coin. Mozambique put it on their flag. Since the end of the Cold War, the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people's greatest export. After that comes vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists. One thing is for sure, no one was lining up to buy their cars.

The reason I'll be released is the same reason you think I'll be convicted. I do rub shoulders with some of the most vile, sadistic men calling themselves leaders today. But some of these men are the enemies of your enemies. And while the biggest arms dealer in the world is your boss - the President of the United States, who ships more merchandise in a day than I do in a year - sometimes it's embarrassing to have his fingerprints on the guns. Sometimes he needs a freelancer like me to supply forces he can't be seen supplying. So. You call me evil, but unfortunately for you, I'm a necessary evil.

There are two types of tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want, the other is getting it.

There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11?

Some of the most successful relationships are based on lies and deceit. Since that's where they usually end up anyway, it's a logical place to start.

You know who's going to inherit the Earth? Arms dealers. Because everyone else is too busy killing each other. That's the secret to survival. Never go to war. Especially with yourself.

They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."

I don't want people dead, Agent Valentine. I don't put a gun to anybody's head and make them shoot. But shooting is better for business. But, I prefer people to fire my guns and miss. Just as long as they are firing. Can I go now?

I was an equal opportunity merchant of death. I supplied everyone but the Salvation Army. I sold Israeli-model Uzis to Muslims. I sold Communist-made bullets to Fascists... I even shipped cargo to Afghanistan when they were fighting my fellow Soviets. I never sold to Osama bin Laden. Not on any moral grounds: back then, he was always bouncing checks.

I'm not saying I didn't have setbacks. It's not called "gunrunning" for nothing. You've gotta be fast on your feet. Some revolutions blow over before the guns even get there. There's nothing more expensive for an arms dealer than peace.

Truce? What do you mean, truce, the guns are already on their way… Peace talks… All right, forget it. I'll reroute the shipment to the Balkans. When they say they're going to have a war, they keep their word!

The problem with dating dream girls is that they have a tendency to become real.

This. Tell me I'm everything you despise. That I'm the personification of evil. That I'm what- responsible for the breakdown of the fabric of society and world order. I'm a one-man genocide. Say everything you want to say to me now. Because you don't have long.

Soon there's going to be a knock on that door and you will be called outside. In the hall there will be a man who out-ranks you. First he'll compliment you on the fine job you've done - on you making the world a safer place. That you're to receive a commendation or a promotion. And then he's going to tell you that I am to be released. You're going to protest. You'll probably threaten to resign. But in the end, I will be released. The reason I'll be released is the same reason you think I'll be convicted. I do rub shoulders with some of the most vile, sadistic men calling themselves leaders today. But some of those men are the enemies of your enemies. And while the biggest arms dealer in the world is your boss, the President of the United States, who ships more merchandise in a day than I do in a year, sometimes it's embarrassing to have his fingerprints on the guns. Sometimes he needs a freelancer like me to supply forces he can't be seen supplying. So, *you* call me evil, but unfortunately for you, I'm a necessary evil.

Every faction in Africa calls themselves by these noble names - Liberation this, Patriotic that, Democratic Republic of something-or-other… I guess they can't own up to what they usually are: the Federation of Worse Oppressors Than the Last Bunch of Oppressors. Often, the most barbaric atrocities occur when both combatants proclaim themselves Freedom Fighters.

I sell to leftists, and rightists. I sell to pacifists, but they're not the most regular customers. Of course, you're not a * true internationalist until you've supplied weapons to kill your *own* countrymen.

You can't force someone to fall in love with you but, you can definitely improve your odds.

Without operations like mine it would be impossible for certain countries to conduct a respectable war. I was able to navigate around those inconvenient little arms embargoes. There are three basic types of arms deal: white, being legal, black, being illegal, and my personal favorite color, *gray*. Sometimes I made the deal so convoluted, it was hard for *me* to work out if they were on the level.

Thank God there are still legal ways to exploit developing countries. The only problem with an honest buck is they're so hard to make - the margins are too low, too many people are doin' it.

The first and most important rule of gun-running is: Never get shot with your own merchandise.

The ones who know don't care anymore, and the ones who care don't know.

In the most AIDS-infested region of the globe - where 1 in 4 is infected - Andy's idea of a joke was to put a young Iman and a young Naomi in my bed - and no condom within a hundred miles.

Selling a gun for the first time is a lot like having sex for the first time. You're excited but you don't really know what the hell you're doing. And some way, one way or another, it's over too fast.

You can fight a lot of enemies and survive, but not your biology.

After the Cold War, the AK-47 became Russia's biggest export. After that came vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists.

The primary market was Africa, Eleven major conflicts involving twenty three countries in less than a decade. A gunrunner's wet dream. At the time the West couldn't care less, they had a white war in what was left of Yugoslavia.

I was guilty as sin, but Valentine couldn't prove it. And he was the rarest breed of law enforcement officer. The type who knew I was breaking the law, but wouldn't break it himself to bust me.

My son's birthday unlocked what the government would later describe, as a catalog of carnage.

I now shared even more in common with the leader of that country God seemed to have forsaken. We saw something in each other neither one of us liked, or maybe we were just looking in the mirror.

I am not a fool. I know that just because they needed me that day didn't mean they wouldn't make me a scapegoat the next.

I have been running away from violence my whole life. I should have been running towards it. It's in our nature. Earliest human skeletons had spearheads in their heads and ribcages.

What a cargo crew at Heathrow Airport does in a day, took a bunch of malnourished Sierra Leonean locals ten minutes.

Even when I was up against an overzealous agent, I had a number of methods for discouraging a search. I routinely mislabeled my shipments "farm machinery." And I have yet to meet the lowly-paid customs official who will open a container marked "radioactive waste" to verify its contents. But my personal favorite is the unique combination of week-old potatoes and tropical heat.

I paid a Monrovian doctor twenty dollars to remove the lead from Vitaly's body, write a bogus death certificate. I should've paid more, because I've smuggled millions of rounds of ammunition and the bullet that lands me in prison was found under my dead brother's rib. Jack Valentine finally got what he wanted.

From then on I was a one man operation. I never understood what separated the recreational drug user from the habitual drug user but for the grace of God it could've been me snorting lines as long as the Belt Parkway. However I wasn't entirely free of addiction myself, in my neighborhood the good get out, in our own ways we conquered our own worlds. It cost me twenty grand to book her for a fake photo shoot, another twelve to buy out the hotel. I nearly went broke trying to convince her I was anything but, I knew Ava wasn't the kind of woman that would seduced by a ride in a private jet unless you owned the jet, the plane was a rental, like the car and the suit I was standing in. At the last minute I bribed the crew for the paint job, luckily by the time we landed she wasn't looking anywhere but in my eyes.

I had a flair for languages. But I soon discovered that what talks best is dollars, dinars, drachmas, rubles, rupees and pounds fucking sterling.

The second rule of gun-running is always ensure you have a foolproof way of getting paid.

There's nothing better for an arms dealer than a combination of disgruntled soldiers and warehouses full of weapons.

When I was a boy, my family came to America... but not all the way. Like most Ukrainians, we congregated in Brighton Beach. It reminded us of the Black Sea. I soon realized we just swapped one hell for another.

Despite the other women, I always made love to Ava as if she was the only one.

Valentine knew he didn't have to guard me. There was no where to go. Or maybe he was hoping the locals would tear me apart. But they were too busy with the plane. It's like parking your car in certain neighborhoods in the Bronx. You don't do it.

At 4 1/2 months old, a human fetus has a reptile's tail; a remnant of our evolution. Maybe that's what I couldn't escape. You can fight a lot of enemies and survive. But if you fight your biology, you will always lose.

Most people are happy just to get out of jail. I expect to be paid to leave.

The new Uzi machine pistol, big fire power in s small package this little baby uses nine millimeter Hollow-points twenty twenty-five round extendable magazines, front and rear adjustable sights the silencer comes standard excellent recoil reduction muzzle jump forty percent sixty percent noise proof suppression you could pump in a bullet in me right now you'd never wake up the guy in the next room of course that'd eliminate your opportunity for repeat business.

Of course the U.S. army got a piece of the action army salaries were no better in the eighties than they are today and some of the brass like Lieutenant Colonel Southern needed to raise money for their own "private wars."

I have a feeling it wasn't exactly what Comrade Lenin had in mind when he advocated the redistribution of wealth. But I wasn't the only one offering a crash course in capitalism.

Vitaly broke the cardinal rule of gun running. Never pickup a gun and join the customers.

I was the best "Merchant Of Death" alive, I didn't own my own plane. I owned a fleet, I was running guns into Liberia, Sierra Leone or the Ivory Coast once a week, most trips I had phony paper work, if the deadline was tight and if I had to cut corners, I had no paper work at all. But I wasn't overly concerned because there was hardly any radar over most of Africa and even fewer people to watch it.

Ava looked at me directly in the eyes, in the same way I've looked in the eyes of thousands of customs officials, government bureaucrats, and law enforcement agents and she lied without flinching because she learned from the best. I can always sense when I'm being tailed. I know what to look for but then I've never been tailed by the woman I love.

Growing up in Little Odessa murder was an everyday part of life Russian mobsters had migrated from the Soviet Union and when they came to America their violence came with them, there was always some gangster getting wacked in my neighborhood but I've never seen it with my own eyes I had this knack of showing up five minutes before something went down or five minutes after but not that day, it hit me it couldn't have hit me harder if I was the one who was shot, you go into the restaurant business because people are always going to have to eat that was the day I realized my destiny was laid to fulfill another basic human need.

Most people are happy just get out of jail, I expect to be paid to leave but I was back: doing what I do best

I always wanted to do something big with my life I just didn't know what. Anyhow, if I was going to go in the gun trade, I was going to aim high.

Even in hell, an angel sometimes makes an appearance. I've worshiped Ava Fontaine since I was ten years old, of course she didn't know I existed and I was starting to realize why.

A new breed of gun runner requires a new breed of a cop, he knew he didn't have to guard me, There was nowhere to go or maybe he was hoping the locals would tear me apart but they were too busy with the plane. It's like parking your car in certain neighborhoods in the Bronx, you just don't do it.

I don't know how much Ava really knew or how much she ignored. She never asked why a guy in the transport business could afford to give her eighteen karat diamond ear rings I guess she didn't really want to hear the answer. She seemed content that I was a good provider and as far she was concerned: loyal.

For the first twenty odd years of my life Little Odessa was to me what it was to the Q train: the end of the line, oh I did lie about my name, it's not really "Yuri Orlov" there have been a few occasions in the twentieth century where it's been an advantage to be a Jew but in the seventies to escape the Soviet Union our family pretended to be Jewish, little about my life has been "kosher" since, my younger brother was just as lost as me, he just didn't know it yet, my father took his assumed identity to heart, he was more Jewish than most Jews which drove my Catholic mother crazy.

The next Sabbath I went to temple with my father but it wasn't God I was trying to get close to. My contact at synagogue landed me my first Israeli made Uzi sub machine gun. I did have a natural instinct for smuggling contraband, fortunately back then a video camera was as big as a Bazooka.

The only option for Vitaly and I was "under the counter gun running", I got my first break in Lebanon after the suicide bombing but I wasn't the only local kid making good, when the United States leaves a war zone they generally don't take their munitions because it costs more to bring it back than buy new stock.

It was the eighties and The Cold War was far from thawed, most of the deals were government to government and it was a mostly private club with a lifetime club president.

They say every man has his price but not every man gets it Interpol Agent Jack Valentine couldn't be bought, at least not with money, for jack glory was his 'price, most importantly I kept a number of intelligence people on the payroll to supply their colleagues with "counter intelligence."

Selling guns is like selling vacuum cleaners you make calls "pound the pavement", take orders, by the mid-eighties my weapons were represented in eight of the world's top ten war zones, there's no problem living a double life it's the triple and quadruple lives that get you in the end ,back then I carried a French, British, Israeli and Ukrainian passport and a student visa for the U.S. but that's another story. I also packed six different briefcases depending who I was that day and which region of the world I was visiting.

Try to get paid preferably in advance ideally to an offshore account, that's why I choose my customers so carefully, say what you like about warlords and dictators they tend to have a highly developed sense of order they always pay their bills on time.

That drug lord had his facts right after shipping it stateside the return of that blow netted me a healthy profit it would've been even better but one kilo never made it back to this day I don't know what Vitaly was running away from I found him twelve days later two thousand miles away and one hundred fifty grams later in a Bolivian boarding house.

Vitaly, I need you to get out of the car I promised our parents, you're going to have a great time two Ford models checked in here last week and that cute weather girl has been here since July.

I was still living way beyond my means mortgaged to the hill using one credit card to pay off another, anything to keep Ava in the style to which she had, thanks largely to me, become accustomed to. Then suddenly all my Christmases came at once, whoever said it's better to receive never got a Christmas present like the one I got in 1991 from Mikhail Gorbachev. during the Cold War, the Red Army stationed nearly one million troops in the Ukraine because of its strategic military importance. The day after the wall came down the paychecks stopped coming. I was hoping Major General Dmitri Volkov would open a lot of armory doors and a lot of military bases for me for a start, he was family he was a highly decorated officer of the Red Army and was almost permanently shit faced.

Those forty five years of mutual hatred between the east and west generated the highest weapons buildup in history. The soviets had guns coming out of the "demon hole", high stock piles now no enemy. The end of The Cold War was the beginning of the hottest time in arms dealing, the arms bazaar was open, guided missiles, unguided missiles, Mortars, Mines, armored personnel carriers whole tank divisions I even landed a squadron of helicopter gunships: the most sophisticated fighting machines built for a war that never happened, thanks to me they finally get to fire a shot in anger.

This was the chaos that the old guard had always feared as far as they were concerned I was giving arms dealers a bad name but then they could hardly report me to the Better Business Bureau, Ukraine wasn't the only former state with an unpaid army and stock piles of guns there was Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Belarus it was all there for the taking.

Valentine wasn't the only one trying to put me out of business my uncle had turned down half a dozen rival arms dealers sometimes with offers better than mine but to Dmitri: you couldn't put a price on loyalty.

President Baptiste was my best customer but I was in no hurry to meet him. He had a reputation for routinely hacking off the limbs of those who opposed him. His seven year civil war has been described as a "sadistic relentless campaign of want and violence." That sums up Andy for me, If I thought I was scared of Andre Sr., I knew I was scared of Andre Jr., Like father like son. The guava doesn't fall too far from the tree. He was also a cannibal, they say Andre Jr. would eat a victim's heart while it was still beating: to give him super human strength, Monrovia itself it was like being on another planet, "planet Monrovia," from the temperature it was obviously a planet close to the sun. I rarely saw another white man and I never left town alone, outside of the town was the edge of hell. I didn't even want to gaze into it.

It's made of a polymer composite, many of my clients feel they can get through airport security without seeing a lot of bells and whistles, personally I do not recommend that. On the other hand if you're looking for a traditional "real gun" there is no substitute of muzzle energy of a 357 magnum and of course it will never jam.

The pillaging didn't die with my uncle. After the wall came down thirty two billion dollars worth of arms were stolen and resold from Ukraine alone: one of the greatest heists of the twentieth century. I did the bulk of my business in Liberia "land of the free," originally established as a homeland for freed American slaves and has been enslaved by one dictator after another, since then, the latest dictator is American educated self-declared president Andre Baptiste Sr.

Conflict diamonds are a common currency in West Africa also referred to as "blood diamonds" because its blood shed is what they usually finance. By the late nighties my wealth had caught up to my lies about my wealth and even surpassed my wealth. I could even afford to be a patron of the arts.

Help yourselves no charge everything goes free, don't forget the bullets you can't shoot a gun without bullets EVERYTHING GOES FOR FREE.

My enemies have finally found a weapon that can hurt me, for the next six months, I stopped running guns. I went legitimate because I made a promise to Ava.

I was so caught up in the deal, I never realized what was going on in Vitaly's head. Come to think about it, maybe I never really understood what was going on inside his head. One thing I do understand for certain is that Vitaly broke the cardinal rule of gun running: never pick up a gun and join the customers. Only half the guns and ammunition was gone so I was still entitled to half the diamonds ,if I took them I was lost, if I left them I was still lost. The massacre played out exactly how Vitaly predicted but then half a dozen massacres happened Sierra Leone that week you can't stop them all, in my experience you can't stop any of them.

Even before that night I started doing a lot of cocaine in West Africa. I never tried Brown-brown before but then I never killed a man either, I started to feel I've been cursed.