Bricks Crutch Quotes

The instruments of murder are as manifold as the unlimited human imagination. Apart from the obvious—shotguns, rifles, pistols, knives, hatchets and axes—I have seen meat cleavers, machetes, ice picks, bayonets, hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers, crowbars, pry bars, two-by-fours, tree limbs, jack handles (which are not “tire irons;” nobody carries tire irons anymore), building blocks, crutches, artificial legs, brass bedposts, pipes, bricks, belts, neckties, pantyhose, ropes, bootlaces, towels and chains—all these things and more, used by human beings to dispatch their fellow human beings into eternity. I have never seen a butler use a candelabrum. I have never seen anyone use a candelabrum! Such recherché elegance is apparently confined to England. I did see a pair of sneakers used to kill a woman, and they left distinctive tread marks where the murderer stepped on her throat and crushed the life from her. I have not seen an icicle used to stab someone, though it is said to be the perfect weapon, because it melts afterward. But I do know of a case in which a man was bludgeoned to death with a frozen ham. Murderers generally do not enjoy heavy lifting—though of course they end up doing quite a bit of it after the fact, when it is necessary to dispose of the body—so the weapons they use tend to be light and maneuverable. You would be surprised how frequently glass bottles are used to beat people to death. Unlike the “candy-glass” props used in the movies, real glass bottles stand up very well to blows. Long-necked beer bottles, along with the heavy old Coca-Cola and Pepsi bottles, make formidable weapons, powerful enough to leave a dent in a wooden two-by-four without breaking. I recall one case in which a woman was beaten to death with a Pepsi bottle, and the distinctive spiral fluting of the bottle was still visible on the broken margins of her skull. The proverbial “lead pipe” is a thing of the past, as a murder weapon. Lead is no longer used to make pipes.

All Mrs. B’s furniture was missing limbs or spines or cushions—bricks and broomsticks were busy being everything’s crutch—but the room looked beautiful anyhow. Especially if you squinted some.

I didn’t answer because I was looking at his hands. He sat forward on his elbows, the crutch leaning on one shoulder, hands dangling between his thighs. Which was kind of funny, because that’s exactly how Dad was sitting, but his hands didn’t look anything like Dad’s hands, which were wide and strong and hard as a brick—when he’d start in on me, he’d knock me down without even trying. Without even making a fist. He was working on the docks, and we were still eating okay, and it seemed like he was stronger every day. Stronger than people are supposed to get. Dad’s hands were scabbed and scarred and rough with callus, but they still looked like hands. The old guy’s hands looked like hammers.

I didn’t answer because I was looking at his hands. He sat forward on his elbows, the crutch leaning on one shoulder, hands dangling between his thighs. Which was kind of funny, because that’s exactly how Dad was sitting, but his hands didn’t look anything like Dad’s hands, which were wide and strong and hard as a brick—when he’d start in on me, he’d knock me down without even trying. Without even making a fist. He was working on the docks, and we were still eating okay, and it seemed like he was stronger every day. Stronger than people are supposed to get. Dad’s hands were scabbed and scarred and rough with callus, but they still looked like hands. The old guy’s hands looked like hammers. Not deformed or anything—he still had fingers and stuff—but they were covered in scars and some kind of weird stripe of skin across the knuckles and along the sides, skin that was dark as old bruise, thick and rumpled until you couldn’t even really see his knuckles at all. There might not even have been knuckles under there—even when he made a fist, all you could see was that the patch over the joints behind his first and second fingers was thicker and darker than the rest. His hands were made to hit. “Ugly, huh? That’s what happens when guys like me get old.” He turned them over so I could look at the scars and calluses on his palms too. Looked like his fingers didn’t really work too well anymore; they were crooked and stiff and bulged at the joints. “It’s a little late for me to take up guitar.