MONEYLAUNDERER

The soft clink of metal parts well-oiled. It used to wake me up in the middle of the night, I would see him looking guilty in the grainy light, his hands sticky, the weapon dormant and controlled in his hands. Now it lulls me.

He is a messy eater and he gets into fights. He wears red shirts, black vests. They don't stain easily but viscosity still crusts and I have to scrub it off, scratch at them with my fingernails in the warm soapy water.

There is ash, too, he smells of ash, once he pretended he was going to put his cigarette out on my arm and I didn't talk to him for an hour. He was repentant. His mouth has a layer of smoke inside of it.

He is disorganized, he pays for Italian dinners with nauseous Benjamins because he can't find anything smaller and he can't bother to look. I pick his bills out of his pockets, pluck off the lint, he does not even check before he puts his clothes in the hamper.

He takes shots like it is suicide. A somber drunk. Carnivorous.