the walls and ceiling red. Compared to that, this almost seemed
pleasant.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤThe whole process took awhile. Police coming and going, paramedics attending to the body, for one thing making sure the old man was really dead; neighbors and eventually even Flaze poking their heads in to gawk, wonder or just graze on a scene that might someday resemble their own end. When it was finally over, it was very late. Lude stood alone in the apartment, the corpse gone, officials gone, even Flaze, the neighbors and other assorted snoops—all gone.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤNot a soul in sight.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“Eighty fucking years old, alone in that pisshole,” Lude had told me later. “I don’t want to end up like that. No wife, no kids, no nobody at all. Not even one fucking friend.” I must have laughed because Lude suddenly turned on me: “Hey Hoss, don’t think young and squirting lots of come guarantees you shit. Look at yourself, working at a tattoo shop, falling for some stripper named Thumper.” And he was sure right about one thing: Zampanô had no family, no friends and hardly a penny to his name.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤThe next day the landlord posted a notice of abandonment and a week later, after declaring that the contents of the apartment were worth less than $300, he called some charity to haul the stuff away. That was the night Lude made his awful discovery, right before the boys from Goodwill or wherever they came from swept in with their gloves and handtrucks.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤWhen the phone rang, I was fast asleep. Anybody else I would have hung up on, but Lude’s a good enough friend I actually dragged my ass out of bed at three in the morning and headed over to Franklin. He was waiting outside the gate with a wicked gleam in his eye.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤI should have turned around right then. I should have known something was up, at the very least sensed the consequence lingering in the air, in the hour, in Lude’s stare, in all of it, and fuck, I must have been some kind of moron to have been so oblivious to all those signs. The way Lude’s keys rattled like bone—chimes as he opened the main gate; the hinges suddenly shrieking as if we weren’t entering a crowded building but some
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Pub: 03 Jun 2026 12:53 UTC

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