Life is beautiful. Really, it is. Full of beauty and illusions. Life is great. Without it, you’d be dead.
Tummler sees everything. Some say he’s downright evil. He’s got what it takes to be a legend. He’s got a marvelous persona.
Xenia, Ohio. Xenia, Ohio. A few years ago, a tornado hit this place. It killed the people, left and right. Dogs died. Cats died. Houses were split open, and you could see necklaces hanging from branches of trees. People’s legs and neck bones were sticking out. Oliver found a leg on his roof. A lot of people’s fathers died, and were killed by the great tornado. I saw a girl fly through the sky, and I looked up her skirt. Her skull was smashed. And some kids died. My neighbor was killed in that house. He used to ride bikes and three-wheelers. They never found his head. I always thought that was funny. People died in Xenia. Before dad died, he had a bad case of the diabetes.
These two kids I know, these two brothers. They murdered their parents. They both claim to be raised as Jehovah Witnesses. They came to school in really nice shorts and polished tennis sneakers. And their shirts were always collared with buttons, and their hair was always slicked back. And their teeth were always brushed, and their shirts and pants were always ironed, and their shoes were never scuffed up or anything like that. They seemed to have a wonderful life. I don’t know what went wrong.
My father worked the late shift as a bathroom attendant. My father was mugged on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. For the rest of his days on earth, my father never celebrated this holiday.
