Steve Pink

They all have husbands and wives and children and houses and dogs, and, you know, they've all made themselves a part of something and they can talk about what they do. What am I gonna say? "I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How've you been?"

Don't you think that maybe you're just upset because I told you what I do for a living, and you got upset and *you're* letting it interfere with *our* dynamic?

A thousand innocent people get killed every day! But a millionaire's pet gets detonated, and you're marked for life.

No, no. Psychopaths kill for no reason. I kill for money. It's a job. That didn't come out right.

No no no, I went the other road. Six figures, doing business with leadpipe cruelty, mercenary sensibility. You know... sports, sex, no real relationships with anyone. How about you, how have the years been treating you?

When I left, I joined the Army, and when I took the service exam, my psych profile fit a certain… "moral flexibility" would be the only way to describe it. I was loaned out to a CIA-sponsored program and we sort of found each other. That's the way it works.

Yes, I mean no. I was before but I'm not now… but that' all irrelevant, really. The idea of government, nations is public relations theory at this point.

Dr. Oatman, please pick up, pick up! It's Martin Blank! I, I'm standing where my, uh, living room was and it's not here because my house is gone and it's an Ultimart! You can never go home again, Oatman... but I guess you can shop there.

Hi. I'm, uh, I'm a pet psychiatrist. I sell couch insurance. Mm-hmm, and I - and I test-market positive thinking. I lead a weekend men's group, we specialize in ritual killings. Yeah, you look great! God, yeah! Hi, how are you? Hi, how are you? Hi, I'm Martin Blank, you remember me? I'm not married, I don't have any kids, but I'd blow your head off if someone paid me enough.

Debi, I'm in love with you! And I know we can make this relationship work.

There's a contract out on your life. Believe me. I was hired to kill you, but I'm not going to do it. It's either because I'm in love with your daughter or because I have a newfound respect for life.

Oh, the reason I called... Could you find out who else is in town? I've made two spooks and a ghoul already, so if they've double-booked the job, and/or they're going to kill me, I'd like to know. If you could find that out, that'd be great.

Do you really believe that there's some stored up conflict that exists between us? There is no us. We don't exist. So who do you wanna hit, man? It's not me. Now whaddya wanna do here, man?

I was sitting there alone on prom night, in a goddamn rented tuxedo, and my whole life flashed before my eyes. And I realized finally, and for the first time, that I wanted to kill somebody. So I figured since I loved you so much, it'd be a good idea if I didn't see you anymore.

They're right behind us. So I was in the Gulf last year, I was doing this thing anyway. And I came up over this dune, and I saw the ocean… and it was on fire. The whole thing, on fire, and it was beautiful. So I just sat there and watched it, and that's when I realized there might be a meaning to life, you know, like an organic power that connects all living things, God, Yahweh, I dunno.

Some of these guys need some kind of ethical philosophy to justify it, some guys like "live free or die," but that's all bullshit, I know that now, that's all bullshit. You do it because you were trained to do it, because you were encouraged to do it, and because, eventually, you, you know… get to like it.

I know that sounds bad...

Ah, Budro, yes, Budro, Jesus Christ! Yeah, I was out there tryin' to whack these junk bond fuckos and these idiots were flushing game with sticks of dynamite! And the dog that they borrowed, little Budro, was a retriever, get it? Budro was never a target, Budro was acting on instinct. I would never hurt an animal and I'm offended at the accusation…

Oatman? Don't hang up. Listen, I didn't kill anyone - except some guy tried to kill me, so if I see that guy again, I'm definitely gonna kill him, but I'm not going to kill anybody else. I'm on my way to the reunion now with Debi, but I'm just a little nervous, and I'd like to do a phoner.

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

Top five things I miss about Laura. One; sense of humor. Very dry, but it can also be warm and forgiving. And she's got one of the best all time laughs in the history of all time laughs, she laughs with her entire body. Two; she's got character. Or at least she had character before the Ian nightmare. She's loyal and honest, and she doesn't even take it out on people when she's having a bad day. That's character.

I miss her smell, and the way she tastes. It's a mystery of human chemistry and I don't understand it, some people, as far as their senses are concerned, just feel like home.

I really dig how she walks around. It's like she doesn't care how she looks or what she projects and it's not that she doesn't care it's just, she's not affected I guess, and that gives her grace. And five; she does this thing in bed when she can't get to sleep, she kinda half moans and then rubs her feet together an equal number of times... it just kills me. Believe me, I mean, I could do a top five things about her that drive me crazy but it's just your garden variety women you know, schizo stuff and that's the kind of thing that got me here.

Sometimes I got so bored of trying to touch her breast that I would try to touch her between her legs. It was like trying to borrow a dollar, getting turned down, and asking for 50 grand instead.

…I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like… Books, records, films - these things matter. Call me shallow but it's the fuckin' truth, and by this measure I was having one of the best dates of my life.

That other girl, or other women, whatever... I mean, I was thinking that they're just fantasies. You know? And they always seem really great because there's never any problems. And if there are, they're cute problems like, you know, we bought each other the same Christmas present, or she wants to go see a movie that I've already seen, you know? And then I come home, and you and I have real problems... and you don't even want to see the movie I want to see, period. There's no lingerie and...

Yes, you do. You have great lingerie, but you also have the cotton underwear that's been washed a thousand times, and it's hanging on the thing and, and they have it too! It's just I don't have to see it because it's not in the fantasy. Do you understand? I'm tired of the fantasy because it doesn't really exist. And there are never really any surprises, and it never really...

The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules. Anyway... I've started to make a tape... in my head... for Laura. Full of stuff she likes. Full of stuff that make her happy. For the first time I can sort of see how that is done.

So, what am I gonna do now? Just keep jumping from rock to rock, for the rest of my life, until they're not any rocks left? Should I bolt every time I get that feeling in my gut when I meet someone new? Well, I've been listening to my gut since I was 14 years old, and frankly speaking, I've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.

I can't fire them. I hired these guys for three days a week and they just started showing up every day. That was four years ago.

I can see now I never really committed to Laura. I always had one foot out the door, and that prevented me from doing a lot of things, like thinking about my future and… I guess it made more sense to commit to nothing, keep my options open. And that's suicide. By tiny, tiny increments.

It made sense to pool our collective loathing for the opposite sex, and while we were at it, you get to share a bed with somebody at the same time. We were frightened of being left alone for the rest of our lives. Only people of a certain disposition are frightened of being alone for the rest of their lives at the age of 26, and we were of that disposition.

Now, the making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. Many do's and don'ts. First of all you're using someone else's poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing.

It would be nice to think that since I was 14, times have changed. Relationships have become more sophisticated. Females less cruel. Skins thicker. Instincts more developed. But there seems to be an element of that afternoon in everything that's happened to me since. All my romantic stories are a scrambled version of that first one.

I own this store called Champions Vinyl. It's located in a neighborhood that attracts the bare minimum of window shoppers. I get by because of the people who make a special effort to shop here - mostly young men - who spend all their time looking for deleted Smiths singles and original, not rereleased - underlined - Frank Zappa albums. Fetish properties are not unlike porn. I'd feel guilty taking their money, if I wasn't... well... kinda one of them.

Hey, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I'm certainly not the dumbest. I mean, I've read books like "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "Love in the Time of Cholera", and I think I've understood them. They're about girls, right? Just kidding. But I have to say my all-time favorite book is Johnny Cash's autobiography "Cash" by Johnny Cash.

You are as abandoned and noisy as any character in a porn film, Laura. You are Ian's plaything, responding to his touch with shrieks of orgasmic delight. No woman in the history of the world is having better sex than sex you are having with Ian... in my head.

My desert island, all-time, top-five most memorable breakups, in chronological order, are as follows: Alison Ashmore; Penny Hardwick; Jackie Alden; Charlie Nicholson; and Sarah Kendrew. Those were the ones that really hurt. Can you see your name on that list, Laura? Maybe you'd sneak into the top ten. But there's just no room for you in the top five, sorry. Those places are reserved for the kind of humiliation and heartbreak you're just not capable of delivering.

Songs at my funeral: "Many Rivers to Cross" by Jimmy Cliff, "Angel" by Aretha Franklin, and I've always had this fantasy that some beautiful, tearful woman would insist on "You're the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me" by Gladys Knight. But who would that woman be?

I could've wound up having sex back there. And what better way to exorcise rejection demons than to screw the person who rejected you, right? But you wouldn't be sleeping with a person, you'd be sleeping with the whole sad, single-person culture. It'd be like sleeping with Talia Shire in Rocky if you weren't Rocky. I feel guilty enough as it is.

Alison married Kevin! I am fine now! Married her junior high school sweetheart: kissed me on the bench, kissed Kevin on the bench - MARRIED Kevin. This is great! This has got nothing to do with me! This is fate, this is destiny; it is beyond my control, beyond my fault. I love this!

Look at these. I used to dream I'd be surrounded by exotic women's underwear forever and ever. Now I know they just save their best pairs for the nights they know they're going to sleep with somebody.

One moment they weren't there - in not any form that interested us, anyway. And, then, the next. We couldn't miss them. They were everywhere. And they'd grown breasts! And we wanted - actually, we didn't even know what we wanted. But, it was something interesting. Disturbing.

And then we made love. It was great. That's it. I'm not going to go into all that other stuff, you know, the who did what to whom stuff. You know that song, "Behind Closed Doors," by Charlie Rich? It's one of my favorite songs. I can say we had a good time. I can say that.