MurderVerse

Years ago, Zoe and I took a ski trip to Salt Lake City.

Salt Lake City = SLC

Loved everything about the place

City, Mountains, powder, slopes

Clean air

Greatest Snow on Earth

The travel agent said, Don't spend all your money in Aspen

Or stand in line in Vale or Vermont

Try Snowbird, Park City or Sundance

All about an hour from each other

In the Utah mountains

And today only we're offering discounted airfare

We took the advice

Got a flight

Reserved a B & B with a mountain view

And settled in

The next day we skied Sundance in the morning

Then raced over to Park City

Skied until sunset and then took advantage of the nightlife

The next day I needed a rest

legs killing me

I decided to take a stroll downtown

Hang out with some Mormons

Lol

I was surprised they didn't all look like Amish people

Fashions right up to date

Beautiful women

Met two young men, Had the same name, Elder

Maybe eight-ten years younger than me

They asked if I wanted to hear a message about Jesus

They called Jesus their Savior or Elder Brother

Not interested in a message fellas but tell you what

How about lunch

For the next two hours, I sawed thru a t-bone while they

Picked at a couple of burgers and told me their message

I listened with one ear, sometimes not at all

At the time I wasn't wired for religious messages

Then one of them said, what do you do for a living, Johnny

I'm a gangster. Anything to get them off-topic

The first and only time I ever admitted my real line of work

They both laughed, but nervously

One claimed his mother is related to Butch Cassidy

He's a great, great, great, something

Did he say, Granduncle maybe? Big question mark

I said, the older you get the greater you get

I raised a glass to Butch

I said we should all live to be one hundred.

Amen, brother.

The one who wasn't related to Butch Cassidy says

"No matter how bad or how old you're always a child of

God."

That child of God statement always stuck with me

I think that's the lesson they were trying to teach

Summed up in one short sentence

***

The rest of the day I strolled around until

I found myself in an old used bookstore

Can't remember the name

Bookstores are good places to hang out

One NYC Bookseller gives me a receipt with a special

Time and date

If bodies are dropping in Queens, I'm buying a book In

Manhatten

Times match

I pay a guy named Struck to customize the paper

Pay him every six months like an insurance policy

Expensive but worth it.

But NYC isn't SLC

Although you'd never know it once inside this place

A musty, damp basement, heat turned up to ninety degrees

I'm Looking for something interesting to read

I spot the title first, Hot Water Music

Charles Bukowski - Author

First line: "My father's funeral was a cold hamburger"

Nice

I turn pages reading here and there.

Years later when Zoe and I divorced I remember

Words written and words uttered

Bukowski writes: "Life's as kind as you let it be."

I repeated those words when I was about to lose it

Sometimes they helped

But the saddest observation was, "What men and women

did to each other was beyond comprehension"

And Zoe had the bruises to prove it

Ashamed to admit it

Two quotes plus what that Morman kid said

"No matter how bad or how old you're always a child of

God,"

That's what I remember from my day in SLC.