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eyes.
                  "Just break my heart," I said.
                  I picked Emmaline up and threw her into the bathtub. The hot water pelted her angelic skin and soaked into her strawberry blonde hair. She choked and swallowed bubbles until her lungs filled up with water.
                  Then it stopped.
                  I sat with my back pressed against the cement wall, and it happened. I was able to cry again.
                  Like the first time.
                  Her eyes looked like glass this morning. Lifeless. Broken. Katie was Emmaline, was everyone else I've murdered. The game is over. Our anniversary will come again, and briefly, I'll be able to bring back the happiness that was stolen from me.

             Chapter IV

    What Reagan was Talkin' 'Bout
                  Empty cigarette packs blow in the wind like tumbleweeds as the sun rises over the Manor Carryout parking lot. Skaggs paces near the side of the convenience store, careful not to step in front of the window. Loitering is a quick way to get the police called in this part of town. He kneels down, picks up a half smoked cigarette butt and lights up.
                  A momentary calm.
                  Like clockwork, as soon as the flame burns down to the filter, the anxiety returns.
                  Skaggs isn't difficult to pick out of a crowd. Abscesses hide beneath puss filled pimples and his skinny arms and legs suggest an infomercial level of malnutrition. The look of his dark black hair is wet, greasy, like it was dipped in trash can water and left out in the sun to dry.
                  He's the Bayside beauty queen.
    * * * * *
                  Jaybird pushes the convenience store door open and walks outside. His large aviator sunglasses shield him from the morning sun. Another white man raised and molded in an urban lower class community.
                  His knuckles are the size of walnuts from the heads he's had to crack open growing up in Bayside Commons. A checkered past he's proud to have at his heels.
                  Jay notices the stench from Skaggs before he sees him.  "Goddamnit," he mutters under his breath.
                  "What up, Jay?" Skaggs yells, his unique aroma stems from poor dental hygiene, among other factors. The junkie smiles with cracked teeth, exposing rotting enamel around his puffy red gum line. A root canal isn't on an addict's priority list, but it could do Skaggs some good with the ladies.
                  Jaybird looks towards Skaggs but not at him. He hates this piece of shit. Junkies are the reason he got out of the cocaine game in the first place. He just wants some peace. Potheads don't hassle him at sunrise.
                  "I ain't gonna serve you," Jaybird opens up a pack of Krisp menthol cigarettes. They have a recessed filter, to offer a nice bump of dope in a jiffy. A trick from his younger days when he used to dabble in his own wears. He lights up and walks past Skaggs to a black Escalade.
                  "What the fuck ya mean you won't serve me?" Skaggs yells, "I just want some blow," the addict runs up to the SUV. "You got the best in town, homie." His lips are cracked in the center from dehydration. Blood and scabbed skin are like junkie lipstick in Bayside. His eyes are mere reminders that a soul used to reside inside, but the dope chased it away.
                  Jaybird thinks about splitting his head open, swelling up those vacant eyes. What kind of idiot yells about coke in the middle of a parking lot?
                  "You and Leroy been actin' a fool lately," Jaybird says, "breaking into houses, stealing purses, anything you can do to buy dope. We got a social stigma attached to this part of town. I'm tired of you morons feeding fuel to the