1. The Crate

F**k Minnesota Nice—a glimpse of 1950 Puerto Rico from the eyes of FBI special agent Anton Ramler

Previously—A Monster Story with a Point of View on Race

In this post—In this first episode, we jump into the world of 1950 Puerto Rico. There's been a recent break-in at a lab inside of New York Presbyterian hospital in San Juan. As soon as the FBI station chief, John Spillers finds out, he takes an unusual interest in the case. He sends special agent Anton Ramler to recover the stolen items—stashed in a wooden crate. The world that Ramler and Spillers find themselves in is one of heightened paranoia: the cold war has just started. 75,000 communist troops, armed by the Soviet Union, have just crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea. The FBI has a massive presence on the island of Puerto Rico. Luis Muñoz Marín is governor. No one knows it, but he’s in the back pocket of J. Edgar Hoover because of secret files proving he’s a drug addict from his bohemian days in New York City opium dens. Hoover uses this leverage to ensure that Marin plays nicely in the ongoing suppression of the Puerto Rican independence movement, led by the nationalist party. If you’ve never heard of this movement, it’s because the FBI did its job. Starting the in the 30s, they enlisted the aid of tens of thousands of informants—regular citizens—to spy on their neighbors—anyone suspected of harboring sympathies with the independence movement. Even high school students. Episode 1 starts a couple weeks before major island-wide armed uprisings, that culminate with assassination attempts on Governor Marin and President Harry Truman. 

Sunday 27 August, 1950: FBI Headquarters San Juan

“Mr. Ramler, are you hurt badly?” comes a voice from across the room. Ramler is crumpled up against the opposite wall, having slid down into the nook behind a couch. He can’t see a thing. After several moments, he recognizes the smell of pine oil; feels soft wooden grooves against his hands and forehead. There’s a rush of warmth below his left eye. The bones along his cheeks feel loose, like crumbling plaster of paris. He’s on the ground—sort of. His face is pressed up against the floor, along an uneven patch of crisscross herringbone. His feet are still up in the air, pinned between the couch and the wall.

It couldn’t have been ten seconds ago, Mr. Spillers’ hand had darted out so fast—grabbed Widger’s neck, squeezed down almost to a closed fist—how that was possible, Ramler couldn’t work out, not at the moment. He remembers though, the fist made a revving motion, the kind teenage boys make when popping a towel in a locker room. Then Widger went flying through the air, crashing against the far wall by the bookcase. Ramler went next, landing a few feet away, in the dark space behind the couch. With his eyes open now, he wriggles his shoulders back and forth, widening the nook he’s in so his feet can drop down to the floor. On his hands and knees, he turns and feels something warm and moist down by his belt. Oh God, did he urinate himself? He may have been unconscious for a bit, he’s not sure. Using his elbows, he pushes the couch out wider, to give himself space. In a moment, he’s leaning against the wall and the couch, mostly shielded from the man who moments ago, asked him if he was hurt. He looks down and sees a hole in his shirt, and something sticking out, what he believes might be his ribs. And something else—something soft and brown pinched up inside the tangle of bone and tendon. He thinks it might be his liver—he can’t tell.

Why had Spillers done this? How? None of it made sense. He thinks back to earlier this morning, when Spillers had greeted him warmly and said, “Good morning Mr. Ramler,” and thanked him for coming in on a Sunday. Then he pursed his lips and tapped his fingers on his forehead as though typing a secret message to himself, and added, “There is a thing—involving a wooden crate. And a pair of brothers. They’re with the insular police in San Juan. Can you get them for me?” And that’s how Anton Ramler’s last day on Earth began—running a slightly unusual errand for the FBI station chief on a Sunday morning. Contained in Mr. Spillers’ instructions though, was cause for concern. Ramler followed those instructions to the letter. The man who accompanied him did not. Which is why he’s lying on the ground convulsing—dead, or dying on an area rug next to fragments of pine; a final bowel movement inching out of his anus with torpid determination. Ramler sees him now, splayed out a foot away from the couch armrest, his face turned up toward the ceiling despite his body resting on the floor, stomach down—an enormous bruise where Mr. Spillers had wrenched him by the neck. Ramler thinks he may have severed Widger’s spine in the process of crushing his trachea. Leaning against the wall now, from behind the couch, he stares at Widger’s neck—imagines a tongue tangled up inside somewhere, like a stinking desiccating rag coiled up in his gullet; a tongue that will never again loosen peanut butter or jab at a stick of chewing gum.

Anton Ramler

Anton Ramler is a tall lanky man from Saint Paul, Minnesota—unaccustomed to the ninety degree days of Puerto Rico—the eldest of six children: four boys and two girls. Actually seven if you count Mary, his parents’ first child who died in 1918. According to the doctor, a man by the name of Severin Koop, she fought ferociously for ninety minutes, her entire time on Earth—at least that’s what was conveyed to Anton’s parents. Dr. Koop later explained how the breech delivery resulted in the umbilical cord wrapping around the baby’s neck, tightening the closer she came to exiting the birth canal. At first, he tried cutting the cord away. It was wound so tightly, his scalpel only succeeded in carving numerous lacerations into Mrs. Ramler and her baby. He even cut himself in the process. After minutes of this, and what was surely a liter of blood, the baby’s shoulders were going purple. Koop told the nurse to fetch the priest. She ran out, frantically yelling at anyone in earshot—where’s Father Lundie? We need him up here immediately! Dr. Koop could hear a window open, and the nurse screaming down at street level, GET THE GODDAM PRIEST. NOW! But it was too late. The baby’s feet were barely moving. No one could make it up the flight of stairs in time, let alone the ten minute walk from the chapel. Not in time for this. The mother, Susan Ramler, was out like a light from the ether. And Frank Ramler was at Perly’s tavern, probably two and half sheets to the wind. They hadn’t decided on a name. Koop mumbled a prayer and spoke these words “I baptize you, Mary Ramler, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen,” splashed some clean water on baby Mary’s back, and assembled as much respectable Latin as he could remember to improvise a surgeon’s version of last rites. He spoke in a low husky whisper, not sure if Mary’s mother might be partially conscious.

Hours later, when Anton’s parents learned about what happened from a somber-faced Dr. Koop, his mother didn’t frown or smile; didn’t say a word. Just looked at the white curtain that partitioned her bed off from the outside world. Koop was surprised, and greatly relieved she didn’t seem at all curious about the provenance of the name he had chosen for her daughter—Mary. Frank Ramler, still smelling of beer, shook Dr. Koop’s hand and thanked him, relieved that his daughter died having received at least some semblance of Catholic sacraments. The Ramlers left the hospital the next day, buried their daughter two days later, and didn’t speak of it again until after Anton was born.

Around Richmond, Minnesota, Severin Koop was known as a bit of maverick—a man who liked to play darts, fish without a license, and occasionally underreport his golf scores. There was also a rumor he was having an affair with the home house aid caring for his terminally ill wife. When his wife eventually passed, he married the home house aid; so it was no surprise to the Ramlers, or anyone in town, when the church officially excommunicated Dr. Severin Koop. His position at the hospital was unaffected. He continued delivering babies in Richmond, and occasionally cheating at golf.

When Anton was ten years old, he found out about the death of his sister Mary from his father Frank. What stuck with him more than the shock of finding out he had an older sibling, was seeing how his parents endlessly rehashed the events of a day so long ago—like an intricate unfurling of an expansive mechanical diorama that had been folded up, compressed, and swallowed like some portable version of an ultra dense neutron star. His mother, who assumed a mostly silent role in all of it, would take in a big breath—sort of puffing herself up temporarily—then smile and look over to her husband, similar to the look she aimed at the white hospital curtain years ago, then Mr. Ramler would begin, Oh I remember that day. He’d start in with small details of what was on the radio at Perly’s, or how tall the trees were on Mount Airy street, or what he saw inside the window displays of the stores on the way to the hospital. Within a minute, it was all about how little Mary had fought tooth and nail to stay alive; that all the Ramlers by the way were fighters. But it wasn’t Mary’s time, no. Bottom line is, God put Dr. Koop in the right place at the right time. For Mary. So she could go to heaven. Mr. Ramler believed this with every fiber of his being, and worked himself up nearly to the point of tears telling the story—every once in a while adding a new flourish—maybe about a flyer he noticed on the way to the hospital or something a bit more elaborate, like a jazzed up impossible-to-fact-check character description of a long-ago relative from Germany who was just as feisty as little Mary—inviting you to ponder with him if perhaps she was the reincarnation of that person. Mr. Ramler considered himself deeply religious, but was in fact, quite flexible when it came to his interpretation of the holy scriptures, allowing for such things as ghosts, demons, fairies, giants, reincarnation, and so forth—all repackaged in the language of American exceptionalism and an unshakable belief in the perfectibility of man through technological innovation. When it came to Severin Koop’s handling of his daughter’s death, Frank Ramler saw just one thing: a story of bravery and redemption: of a newly born member of the family fighting against all odds to stay alive, assisted by a young surgeon who had to ratify and render moral judgement without so much as a single accomplice.

In the beginning days of the story, Frank emphasized the importance of Mary’s tenacity and courage. But with each Christmas and Thanksgiving, it was Dr. Koop’s role that came to dominate as the centerpiece of the telling: a young man struggling to salvage a scrap of dignity in the bloody ruins of a six and a half pound hunk of flesh. Frank came to see Koop’s predicament as a sort of blueprint for all of us. A best good faith attempt at performing admirably under the crushing weight of uncertainty—with no guarantees of being on the right side of the almighty.

Frank Ramler found dignity—both for his daughter and himself—in his version of events. It helped him reify a notion of the kind of man he thought he might be, and propelled him closer to becoming that hypothetical man. It let him enter his bed at night and hold his wife tightly and say, I love you more than I love myself—without a lick of doubt. That too was an act of faith.

It wasn’t until Anton’s first week at the FBI academy at Quantico that he finally understood and embraced his father’s thinking—that who we are is always just a story we choose to believe in—an incantation we repeat endlessly inside of our heads,
which can change at any moment. Being a six foot two Minnesotan with light brown hair, hazel green eyes, and a German last name—at least in 1947, didn’t make things easy for Anton. Especially when he’d bump into another six footer whose last name was Reilly or Moore or Hamilton, outside the gymnasium. But it turns out that three years of high school wrestling gave him a bit of an edge in just those kinds of situations; gave him an opportunity to politely handle people with what his father called an on-the-spot-correction from up north. Fuck Minnesota nice.

Quantico was easy for Ramler. Puerto Rico was different. The man in charge here—Spillers—was frequently plying him with unusual requests. Ramler at first didn’t understand why. There were plenty of other agents, all more experienced—certainly with better Spanish, and more at ease with the local way of getting things done—the system of covert rewards and punishments, the acceptable range of small gifts one could accept openly, the gradations of indebtedness one would be expected to reciprocate, acceptable ways to phrase coded offers of assistance—ah yes Mr. Zayas, you’re right. We are going to look into that. I’ll call my secretary first thing tomorrow morning and get on the phone with the base commander’s people.

At first, it was a trickle of small favors, mostly for police chiefs, hotel owners, and taxi cab company operators, or the family members of local officials—muy pequeño stuff—and almost always about getting someone’s name or address to appear in an official report; a carpeta. Paperwork hit jobs—that’s what the other agents called them. But then came the Industrial Incentives Act, which turned the dial up to eleven. Suddenly, there was a firehose of construction-related requests, all of which went to stateside companies, and about half of those being awarded to a single firm based out of Lexington, Kentucky.

Local companies got to pick up the scraps by bidding on small jobs as subcontractors—things like asphalt, concrete, roofing, and debris collection. When things got really competitive, like the recent fencing work done at Ramey Air Force base, it was only a matter of time before someone got on the phone with the governor’s office—bouncing from one administrative assistant to the next, reminding the person of a long history of favors done and outrages endured, until someone would decide to call Mr. Spillers. In some of the cases, he would simply say we will look into this, then promptly ignore it. But when it suited him—and for reasons he shared with no one— he would take action. He was the bureaucratic equivalent of a hockey enforcer and a sommelier—a walking encyclopedia of vendettas and beefs existing at multiple levels of island politics. And he knew exactly how to take someone out without making it look obvious. He’d call Ramler into his office, then start in with the creepy smalltalk—what passed off as smalltalk to Spillers any way. It never seemed natural with him. None of the special agents who worked with him thought the man understood the rules of a single major sport. Within five minutes, he’d say something like this:

“One of the governor’s friends has brought something to my attention. A young lady—college student in San Juan, very bright future. Unfortunate that she’s gotten mixed up with Cuban leftists. We don’t want to go looking into them at the moment—not with our full resources—but it would be prudent to follow this young woman. Jot down her routines and acquaintances, the places she visits—rallies, speeches, films, cultural events. You know what I’m getting at. Where possible, compile names. Where that is not possible, physical descriptions of people will do. Be thorough. Get all the information in a report. This is your top priority for the next few weeks.”

And that’s how the owner of a concrete company would be taken out of the pool of bidders for a twenty five thousand dollar contract on Ramey Air Force base—by way of his niece’s possible ties with Communist groups.

To Ramler, the rules of Puerto Rico were more like those of a forward operating base—far away from football games and Sunday matinees and ice cream shops. At first, he felt this distance as an insuperable chasm. Trying to dip his toe into it was like yelling into canyons of unfathomable depth, stupidly waiting (hoping) for an echo to come bouncing back—knowing it could take a very long while. And in the time being, he’d still have to go on and live and decide and choose: what’s my next move? Being an FBI man out in the canyons of unfathomable depths, Ramler had to adjust; had to learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. It was exhausting. When he was feeling especially philosophical, he’d think of something an instructor told him at Quantico: we each know what we do, but have no idea what we’re actually doing. The man who told him that was very good at math, and believed that a single human brain—even millions of human brains acting in concert couldn’t possibly chase down all the permutations of all the cascading consequences of all the multiple colliding factors that emanate from a single course of action in a chaotic world. It’s what the instructor called combinatorial explosion. Applied to an FBI agent’s day-to-day, it could never be decisively proven or even reasonably clear that your idea of doing the right thing would actually improve or worsen a situation. But you still had to act. You had to commit. And all you ever had in those moments of doubt, was faith. Well, that last part about faith—the man didn’t actually say that. Anton added that in later.

Convinced that he could make an end run around the long tail of combinatorial complexity—at least in Puerto Rico—Ramler decided to make a major revision to his story, reimagining himself as a kind of switchboard. When he was called upon to execute a request he didn’t fully understand or agree with, he’d push a button on that switchboard, momentarily assigning proxy control to a third party authorizing entity—something he saw in his mind’s eye as a stout man sitting in a leather chair surrounded by law books and a floor globe. In the beginning, he imagined Dr. Koop pushing the button. Later, it was his own hand. And eventually, the presence of a hand was no longer necessary.

Special agent Ramler’s imaginary switchboard gave him the power to believe there were solid reasons behind all the paperwork hit jobs and strange requests from Spillers—that somebody back at headquarters, perhaps a real flesh and blood fat man with real law books and a floor globe; someone possessing an understanding of the entire ball of wax, sat somewhere in a plush leather chair, underwriting all of it. A person of standing; whose moral and legal credentials were so unimpeachable, they could span the largest and darkest of unfathomably deep canyons, causing the yells of FBI agents in Puerto Rico to bounce back and complete their roundtrip circuits.

Spillers is the kind of man who somehow always knew exactly what kinds of situations would result in the longest periods of waiting for that echo to return. And he had a razor sharp sense of where each man’s point of exhaustion was—how long he’d wait for that echo to return, before surrendering in despair, and simply give up waiting. Spillers knew, like an accountant knew, the precise measure of each man in those kinds of moral units. At some point, he must have discovered the existence of Ramler’s switchboard, because he stopped calling on any of the other men to run his special errands.

On Sunday afternoon, August 27, 1950, four hours after one such errand, Anton Ramler found himself crumpled up on the floor behind a couch, with several broken ribs and a punctured liver, wondering how a noodley armed middle aged FBI station chief could have thrown him across a room like a rag doll.

“Mr. Widger was a useful man—” Spillers says, “but his inability to follow instructions has led to the disappearance of the Ortiz brothers—which is unacceptable. We should chat. Before the air becomes too foul. ”

Ramler looks over, sees Widger’s feet and hands still twitching, which, along with the unmistakeable odor now entering his nostrils, strongly suggest that his final bowel movement has completed its transit into his trousers. He tries to slow down his breathing, so as not to aggravate his shattered ribs. The pain, which had miraculously been tolerable a moment ago, comes at him now in unrelenting sheets, like bolts of cloth unspooling endlessly. There’s a golf ball sized bulge along the outer edge of his left hand, along the wrist. He feels the skin in his fingers tightening like blood sausages.

“There is no one in the building by the way.” Spillers says.

“Tell me.” Ramler begins, doing his best to conceal the extent of his injuries. “What’s so special about that crate?”

Silence.

Ramler takes three quick shallow breaths, holds them in, then reaches across his chest with his right hand. He pulls down his left lapel, straining through watery eyes, trying to finger-wrestle the button that keeps the Colt 38 special in place, without overreaching and agitating his ribs.

Spillers speaks again, “Mr. Ramler, I will tell you a number of things. Unbelievable but true things. To put you at ease.”

“I’m listening.” Ramler says, trying to sound strong, but having a hard time focusing. He’s unfastened the button, and withdraws his hand for a rest.

“There’s something in that crate—magical I suppose is the right word.”

Fucking magical? This word stops him in his tracks. Is he hearing him right? Ramler’s staring at the butt of the gun, visible in its holster along his left side. One more reach, and it’d be out.

“When I first came to this part of the world, I was young—like you I suppose.” Spillers continues. “I’m nothing like you now.”

“What are you talking about?” Ramler asks.

“I’m much older than you think. People—” Spillers pauses. His voice goes up a hair in volume. “The wooden crate I sent you to pick up—the one agent Widger opened—contains a uterus removed several years ago from a woman in Puerto Rico.”

“OK,” is all he can say.

“That woman is like me. Not exactly like me, but similar. Are you following so far?”

“Yes.” he says, his mind twisted up in knots trying to make sense of the qualifier like me.

“The woman, she—” Spillers struggles for words he’s never had to compose. “Well, let’s just say the last time I met someone like her was in 1804. A man. And I was convinced he was the very last one.”

Ramler swallows down hard, searching for a piece of scripture, some crumb of knowledge, folk science, an historical anecdote—at this point, he’d settle for a goddamn nursery rhyme—anything at all he could use to put the words he’s now hearing into the proper context. He imagines the voice of Clifton Fadiman, addressing a quartet of experts.

“Alright, puzzle your brains over this one. We know that Mr. Spillers is claiming that he bears some similarity to a Puerto Rican woman whose uterus was excised some years ago—which, for reasons undisclosed, was placed in a wooden crate. We also know that Mr. Spillers is claiming to have met a man in the year 1804 who convinced him that he was, and I quote ‘the very last one’.”

— Clifton Fadiman’s voice (host of NBC’s hit show Information, Please), as projected within the mind of Anton Ramler

All that Anton Ramler manages to say is, “Wait.”

Spillers advances a step in the direction of the couch. “This is ridiculous. I’m running out of time, and you’re dying.”

“Just hold on a minute!” he barks out. “I need to understand this. I just need to understand, OK?”

Silence.

“Are you saying—this woman—that she’s a hundred and fifty years old? Like you?” Ramler asks, not sure if the math adds up. He’s tired, and just wants to lie down on the floor on his back and close his eyes for a few minutes. He wants a glass of water.

“I doubt it. I—” Spillers starts, then trails off. “Whatever reason there is, for people like me happening in the first place—well, it’s not a one-of-a-kind event I suppose. It must have happened again.”

“Why did you say I’m dying?” Ramler asks, which makes Spillers laugh.

“Because it’s true!” he says gleefully. “I can smell the life coming out of you, just like you can smell the shit coming out of Mr. Widger’s ass.”

Ramler thinks of the fat man on the other end of his switchboard, and wonders—what do FBI regulations say about head popping station chiefs who commit murder on Sundays? What’s the right thing to do here?

“So what now?” Ramler shoots back quietly, commanding himself to override the desire to look again at Widger.

“I need you Mr. Ramler. I can—prevent your death. You don’t want to die do you?” he asks. His voice has softened.

“Course not. I wanna’ live like any normal person would.” he says, thinking of his sister Mary.

“I can fix you. I’ve done it before. It’s not painless, but you’ll walk out of here intact. Does that interest you?”

“I’m interested. Yes.”

Ramler figures that Spillers is standing close by the hat rack and the front door. This is where his hand closed in around Widger’s neck, then popped him like a towel. The distance is no more than twelve feet. Ramler looks up at the curtains, which are shut; sees it’s still sunny out.

“Why don’t you come out from behind that couch,” Spillers suggests, “and we can talk about the Ortiz brothers. Those two are not what they seem, would you agree?”

“That’s a hell of an understatement.” Ramler says with slightly more juice. “How did you know?”

“Their interest in the crate.” Spillers says without a trace of doubt. “There is only one reason anyone would be interested in this crate.” he says, banging the wooden lid with his knuckles. “I believe the Ortiz brothers are like the woman. Or maybe—maybe, they’re exactly like me.” This last thought makes him erupt in laughter.

Ramler glances down at his watch. It’s a quarter ‘til five. If he hadn’t agreed to meet Spillers today, he’d have gone to the bowling alley at las Campas, then to the snack bar with Widger to watch the Cubs-Phillies game. They’re playing at Wrigley Field.

“You don’t sound well Mr. Ramler, so I suggest we hurry things along. The smell—” Spillers says.

“I’m fine. Tell me, since you uh—you’ve got the upper hand. How exactly are you gonna’ save my life? What do you need from me, really? No need to lie.”

Ramler, who’s shielded mostly by the couch, stays low while bringing himself to a kneeling position. In fits, he works up the will to stand to his feet, fully expecting Spillers to shoot him on sight, ready to unleash some horrible punishment on him immediately. He slogs forward anyway, one move at a time, head pounding the whole way. Steady your breathing. Pistol steady. Hand on armrest. Watch the left hand. Right knee up. No, left knee up. Tighten up your stomach—not too much though. He’s worried that too much muscle contraction could make his liver come oozing out of the hole in his side, like toothpaste rushing out of a tube.

When he finally gets up and looks in the direction of Spillers’ voice, he realizes he should be shocked. But he’s not. Where Mr. Spillers’ hands ought to be, there are spindly things at least twice the size of hands, like a pair of Japanese spider crabs had emerged from the sleeves of his jacket. Occasionally, a few of the fingers bounce along his trouser pleats like antennae, and when they do, Ramler notices they come within a foot of touching the floor. Everything else about the man—at least what he can see—is the same. Normal. Same pink skinned face, blue eyes, thin lips, dirty blond hair; same noodley arms and paunchy stomach.

“How—? What is this?” Ramler says.

Spillers is standing six feet away from the couch. “I was born like you.” he says. “I became this way. I’ve been telling you for the last few minutes—in my own way. But I don’t think you were hearing me.”

“Are you the devil?” Ramler says, bringing the 38 special up to chest level, exhaling the entire way.

“Not at all. Put that down.” Spillers says, rolling his eyes.

Ramler watches as his hand comes down immediately.

“Are you in pain?” Spillers asks, not trying at all to hide his disinterest.

“Yes. I—think my ribs are shattered. My liver is coming out. I think a small piece of it broke off inside my shirt. I can feel it in there.”

Spillers nods. “Yes,” he says. “I am quite a bit stronger than I look. And I was angry. Throw down the gun. It’s absurdly pointless.”

“Right.” he says, tossing the gun on to the couch. “How—”

Spillers walks forward, bringing his crab hands up to face level as he closes the distance. Ramler is frozen in place, and passively waits for the arrival of those spindly meat probers. When they finally touch his face, he’s surprised. Spillers’ skin is smooth and cool, and instantly, the pain is gone.

“I need to know everything that happened with the Ortiz brothers. Do not leave anything out. Understood?”

“Yes.” Ramler says.

Within a minute, it becomes clear to Spillers that Ramler has no useful information about the Ortiz brothers—just some yammering about how they moved around like a pair of cats. He releases Ramler, and again asks if he wants to live.

“Yes.” Ramler says. The pain, which comes back all at once, seems worse than before.

“What if it meant—you wouldn’t be the same?” Spillers says.

“I’d be like you?” he asks.

“No. Something between you and me.” he says, then adds, “You could live another hundred and fifty years.”

“What’s the catch?” Ramler asks, more than a bit curious.

Spillers smiles and says, “What do you think?”

“What the fuck are you?” Ramler says, no longer trying to paper over his disgust.

“I don’t know.” Spillers answers, smiling wider. “What the fuck are you Mr. Ramler?”

Ramler steps back, telling himself he’s in a dream that’s about to end; one he won’t wake up from; one that’s perhaps occurring in the head of whatever person lies on the other end of the canyons of unfathomable depth. Trying not to stumble, he picks up his gun from its spot on the couch cushion. It’s a Colt 38 Official Police with ivory grips, a customized variant of one of the last of the first issue runs made in 1946 in Hartford, Connecticut, with absolutely flawless bluing and polish—a five inch barrel and six-shot swing out cylinder. Ramler bought it second hand for forty dollars from a New York State trooper. He holds it now in his right hand, which cannot stop shaking. His left hand feels like it’s about to crack open from blood engorgement. Backing up against the far wall to steady himself, he looks out the window, not really understanding why, but feeling that his eyes need to do this. He brings his left arm up so he can rest his right forearm on it. He takes aim directly at Spillers’ center mass. Spillers, who is no longer smiling, is about to say something, when Ramler empties out the barrel in ten seconds.

Spillers frowns at Ramler. “You people are the absolute fucking height of tedium.” he says. And then those spider crab meat feelers come up again, reaching out for Ramler’s head, at first cradling it like a ripe cantaloupe. But later, Ramler realizes Spillers is just readjusting his grip—lacing his fingers together for maximum leverage.

Moments before Anton Ramler’s brains come exploding out of his ears in jets of pink stringy filaments, he forms a final thought of his sister Mary and Dr. Severin Koop. Mary is a grown woman. The two of them are standing together, smiling and clapping—mouthing three words that make Anton Ramler smile. Fuck Minnesota nice.