Empire Boys

"Empire Boys"
a novel about those coasting on the East Coast
by Jake Kilroy

AN EXCERPT:
"Mahty, I ain't neva been so showe 'bout breakin' an enterin'. It just...well, I don't know."

"Listen, dey call you Jimmy Bones fuh a reason, right?"

"Yea, but dey...ok, they're gone. How are we really doing this?"

"We're going through the basement window. We'll go up the basement stairs. They won't see us coming. Here's a bat. You knock over anyone who moves."

"Wouldn't that be everyone?"

"Not the ones I already nailed with taser shots. They're shaking and shifting like the last kids in a bad dodgeball game."

"That's the best analogy you got?"

"Listen, Jim, I'll kill you dead. Right now. How's that?"

"Fine, fine, fine. Empire Boys, eh?"

"Never been another mutiny that could play the orchestra too."

"Should I grab a knife?"

"Why would you? You've got brass knuckles and a bat. You're stronger than a cheap blade. Besides, your wits are sharper than the Devil's horns."

"Ok, that one was good."

"Any last words before we pledge our allegiance to weapons?"

"Sure. You're like a brother to me, Martin."

"I wanna hear better last words."

"I'll be the last man standing even if I'm not the last one dead."

"Nah, something more spiritual."

"My knuckles may be broken, but my spirit will never be."

"That wasn't spiritual, Jim."

"Ok, ok, ok...I am the last revolution, the last graveyard, the last willing spit of God."

"Good. Another one."

"The angels will play their trumpets when we stop harping."

"Another one!"

"May God bury us in the last century of Earth!"

"Another one!"

"Their blood is the most unholy of rain and I am the most ungodly of heroes!"

"Another one!"

"Never another grave, never another reason for Heaven to doubt our intentions, never while the Devil isn'thot enough to touch or torch our souls!"

"Another one!"

"The pale horse of death is no match for the paler horse of man!"

"Another one!"

"This bat is my glory, let the Almighty carry my hands swiftly, challenging my enemies to challenge their own god."

"Keep going!"

"And through any valley, I am tall. Over any mountain, I am humble. I am aware of my own bones, breakable and able to break. I am in control. I am God. I am the Devil. I am sin. I am sainthood. I am ordained. I am the luscious taste of evil. I am the Mardi Gras in winter. I am New Year's Eve on fire. I am all encompassing. I am all destruction. I am here for eternity and hear lifetimes, all congruent, all more harrowing than the last. I will march forward, upward, never seeing any sky, praising my own damned livelihood underneath a broken windowpane, raining down on my spine, never feeling ultimate pain. I will never doubt you or myself, and I will surely never misjudge character. You are true, I am truth and there will be skulls rattling above and below, no doubt in Heaven or Hell, I will walk the fine line between, burying all who oppose us. I will fight, I should wreck, I can kill, I might bury. By morning, I will be an angel or a saint with blood on my robes. Yea?"

There was a long pause.

"Well, how was that?" Jimmy asked.

"Good Lord, Jim, the death sentence of the Countess Markiewicz wasn't even that harsh. I don't know what some of what you said meant, but goddamn, Jimmy! Good show! Now let's wreck and ruin!"

Then they charged the stairs.