Any content herein resembling the short-short story, The Hit Man, is 
coincidental. There is no intent here to create fiction. The Hit Man as found  here
represents my best memory of this singular person.
 
In my younger years I cleaned commercial carpets for a living.  Occasionally
I broke with routine and cleaned residential carpets, but usually  to catch up
on bills or to prepare for holidays and birthdays.  It’s hard  for me to say
which of the two I disliked more. Commercial was steady and  dependable.
Residential was more profitable in terms of hours.
 
The problem with residential cleaning goes to the heart of what a man 
expects of himself, what he expects from others.  As often as not,  residential jobs
required a roll-playing approach in the customer and  cleaner’s relationship.
I mean, the carpet cleaner often plays out a  subservient roll for customers
when they become condescending. “It’s time for  Sparky,” I used to say to
myself as I slipped into my “yes’m”  routine.  The consequences of anything less
often lead to disagreements over what  “cleaning” means, what “dirt” and “
wear” mean.  At risk of losing part or  all of my earnings, I played Sparky’s
role well by pretending that my customer  knew what they were talking about. I
honored their theories of cleaning as if  they were a Certified Master
Cleaner.
 
Plumbers, electricians, gardeners, and others play out this roll, too. 

Many real estate agents and brokers know Sparky all to well. “’Sparky,  will
you fix the faucet on our rental at xyz street?”’ How about this one: 
Sparky, please clean the carpets at 321 Zebra Street, and be sure to get the  wine
and grease stains out this time!
 
I recall my last commercial job because I cleaned it the night before my 
brother’s xy birthday. It was about 7:20 p.m. on December 14, 1987. I remember 
the time because I’d been cleaning a dirty brown, level-loop pile for about 3 
hours, 2 hours too long. It was beyond saving and had not been cleaned in 
years.
 
I felt a tug on my solution hose. I pulled against the resistance,  slipped,
and fell face forward into a door jam.
I must have been dreaming.  Moist heat entered my nostrils as I fell deeper
and deeper into a pitch dark  tunnel. Heat increased as I fell. Finally, I
began to wake and slowly return  to my senses as light returned
I sat up and turned to see a short man  kicking my  vacuum hose and solution
hose.
 
I figured that this person must have stepped on one or both of my hoses 
while trying to get through the doorway.  He was not angry or annoyed,  just
trying to dislodge my hoses from the center-path of the doorway. Judging  by his
height, shorter than most, he had a short fall to the floor if he did 
step-and-fall from an encounter with these polyurathane hoses.
 
Why he didn’t step over the solution hose struck me as odd.  So I  figured, “
why not,“ and pressed my wand’s trigger for more solution. As I did,  the
solution hose raised up from the floor about two inches, just enough for  this
interloper’s right foot to miss it. He lurched back off balance, then  caught
himself. He quickly stepped over the hoses and moved swiftly into the  center
of the room.  He would never know that I intended just this  outcome.
 

It was that white pillow case over his head that lead to my  spontaneous,
playful touch of the wand’s trigger. I figured that this  character was out to
have some fun with my customer.  “So be it I  thought,” I meant to join the
fun. Humor goes a long way toward easing the  pain in my low back as my legs
pushed my carpet wand over greasy dinning room  carpet.
 
Looking closer at this character, I could see that he, or someone, had  sewn
seams along the two eye slits’ margins. Two tiny holes where his nostrils 
might have ended were likewise neatly sewn. The mouth was no more remarkable 
than any of the other three holes, if “remarkable” can be used in any 
meaningful context here. Only his height and sex could be judged by pants  because the
pillow case skewed any meaningful observation of his true  height.
 
His eyes were not apparent as he stood in the doorway, the sun setting 
behind him. The sun’s glare created a xyz, disrupting my vision for a moment.  But
now, standing fully at the center of the living room, I could discern a 
slight, red glow from behind the pillow’s case’s eye slits. “Odd,” I  thought.
 
My mother instilled in me her intuitive sense of right and wrong and the 
wrongness of rudeness long before kindergarten training. I quickly left the 
house and turned my deep drone,  Fox Truck Mount down to an idle. Its  Nissan
engineering quickly responded like a fight jet‘s engine reversing on an  aircraft
carrier landing. I returned to the home’s doorway just in time to  hear my
customer shouting at this walking pillow case, “Not me, no not me!”. 

Then I heard 3 quick, blunted shots from a small caliber handgun I could  not
discern. As I peered into the living room, I could see my customer’s head 
fall back from his neck. His legs were bending at the knees while his torso 
collapsed almost straight the floor. I had never seen anything like this in my 
life!
 
Blood squirted from my customer’s neck in fine streams spouting forth  from
his jugular vain. The ceiling quickly became a  dripping testimony  to the
jugular’s free-flowing, liberated blood. “My lord!” I shouted with  great
amazement and shock.  Somehow, and only for a moment, I felt a  relief pass through
my body as I realized I could now stop playing Sparky. I  quickly regained my
sense of propriety, then whined out loud, “Jesus save  us!”.
 
Blood splattering onto my freshly cleaned, white carpet  juxtaposed  against
the blue splattered walls and ceiling. Simon‘s legs, now supine,  jerked while
his arms twitched. His head connected to his torso between his  shoulders,
connected by what appeared to be soggy strips of beef jerky. His  had turned
around on his shoulders as he slumped down to the floor, knees  buckling below
his waist. I could hardly believe my eyes. Simon’s head turned  180 degrees
around.
 
The pillow cased character had placed 3 38 rounds into Simon’s neck, the 
first liberating his jugular vain from transportation duty. The second two 
rounds crashed through Simon’s 2nd and 3rd spinal bones.  In an instant,  3 small
pieces of lead crashed through Simon’s neck. Now flesh, no bone held  Simon’s
body and head together.
 
I was too shocked, too surprised to fear for my own safety. This veiled 
assassin turned my World of simple cleaning and small business struggles into  a
Universe of limitless nightmares; Edgar Allen Poe missed out on the real 
possibilities of  terror stricken story telling, I could see. Simon’s  fate had not
come to mind, only his horrifying condition. Humanity could not  appear so,
could it?
 
Ideas seemed to pass through my mind as if pulsating, as if  Simon’s 
squirting blood set a rhythm for my mind to follow. I had forgotten about the  bagged
assassin. “Gaa, gaa,” I caught my breath and turned to see this hooded 
demon looking at my vacuum and solution hoses winding serpentine like into the 
dining room. Then he turned his head toward me, eyes glaring a deep, dark red. 
They were like embers burning in a Sierra fire pit in mid-December, burning in
 deep contrast to a cold night’s air.
 
I didn’t move, couldn’t move. I think that I must have urinated upon 
myself, but I was to full of sweat from working to know, to see, to care. It  didn’t
matter, I could sense. I will soon join Simon, neckless.
 
The hooded raider then raised his left foot from the floow, about 2 feet,  I
believe, pulled up his tan trouser leg, and quickly placed the 38 into a tan 
holster strapped to his leg.
 
Next, he pointed toward Simon, and said, at least I think that he said,  “
Clean up this mess.” He quickly walked around me, stepped over my hoses, and 
onto the concrete surface of the front porch and began walking slowly along  the
sidewalk toward the street. He turned around, stood for a moment, and  waved
at me. He waved to bid a farewell, nothing more, nothing less.   

A large, circular pool of blood now grew below Simon’s head and  shoulders. “
Should I go to the telephone and dial 911, or should I wait for  this killer
to get farther away so as not to suspect me of betraying his  anonymity?”, I
wondered. Mixed feelings, crazing scenarios, and crazier  outcomes raced
through my mind.
 
Finally, I went to the telephone, dialed, and tried to call my brother. I 
needed help. I didn’t know where else to turn, and I was to tired, too  shocked,
and too puzzled to make my next move without Freddie’s help.   “Darn,” “
Good Gravy!” I thought out loud. “What’s his number?” I whined to  myself,
again eyeing the growing pool of blood, noting the white carpet  growing speckled
from dripping blood.
 
“878-7do-marble” I remembered. Freddy loved his telephone number.   You
could see it on his van a mile off.  If Freddy knew anything, he knew  how to
market and how to use the Internet. But was he going to talk to me  after all
these months of ignoring him? He’d have to give in. I mean, after  all, we were
brothers. Sure we were nearly killed because of my stupidity, but  he went along
to the end on that Mausoleum cleanup.
 
I heard Freddie’s voice at the other end. “Freddie’s stone works,” he 
answered crisply, confidently. Like most big brothers, Freddie loved to tease  his
siblings. Like most big brothers, he could do everything so much better  than
his siblings. But with Freddy, he really could go the max and well beyond 
his competition. Stone work, sure. Freddy’s handiwork and polishing skills  were
legend. His floors reflected the brightest, finest shines in Los Angeles. 
When the Hollywood well deep pockets partied and talked floors, Freddy came  up.
 
Freddy’s fame stood him well in the floor world. He could take a 1922 
concrete floor and give it a mirror-like finish. “Polish to 3500 grit,” Freddy 
grinned when talking about concrete floor polishing. He loved to polish.
 
Few remember that Freddy once cleaned filthy houses solo. Turn him loose  in
a pack-rat dwelling and Freddy cleaned tirelessly, 18, 20 hours straight. 

My mind stopped pulsating just long enough to gasp, “Help, help me  Freddy.”
 
“What, what are you saying?”
 
“Look Freddy,” I’m in trouble, at least I don’t know if I’m in trouble or 
what. I related my story and let Freddy make up his own mind.
 
“All right, all right.  I’ll be there in the morning, first flight  out of
LAX. Now call the cops and get your Fox out of there case this bag man  comes
back. For all that you know, he’ll change his mind.”
 
The cops came. The cops locked me up. Freddy got me out on bail.
 
The cops would not, could not believe my story. I gave them my best 
description of the masked man. So now they think that I’m playing games. What  else
can I say and do?
 
Freddy, true to form, laughed it off, and like a true entrepreneur,   
recommended that we do as the masked man said, “cleanup” the mess.
 
We were just in time to catch Simon’s ex-wife as she exited the soiled  home.
“Yes,” she cried, “Please help me get this house back together so that I 
can sell it and get on with my life.”
 
I could see that Freddy’s interests now included Simon’s ex-wife as well  as
cleaning.
 
“Leave it to us; we’re willing to help you in any way that we can.” he  said
in his smoothest tone. Freddy knew his way around women as well as  anyone.
With four marriages behind him, he had enough experience.
 
Not long afterward Freddy moved to Orlando, Florida. Orlando offered  Freddy
plenty of  fun in the Sun, and most importantly, plenty of stone  floors.
Orlando’s many hotels offered beauty and entertainment to their  guests. Their
guests were first introduced to beautiful stone floors  throughout their lobbies
and often in their guests’ restrooms. Freddy was out  to stay busy and have
fun doing it.
 
Freddy disappeared in his own world for some time before I was to hear  from
him again.
 
Regressing to the Hit Man’s appearance in our lives, I have wondered how  he
came to be such a wonder. Is he a creature of his environment, or perhaps 
genetic mutation of some sort? Are we to believe that the 20th century  produced
social environments capable of producing this monster? Are we to  believe that
somehow, some place, a genetic strain somehow led to this  monster? Perhaps
the two working in concert led to this monster’s emergence as  a one-time
creation?  I cannot say with any authority.
 
Let’s pretend that somehow a genetic mutation occurred that gave the Hit  Man
a propensity for his weird behavior. Let’s also pretend that at one time  his
social milieu led the Hit Man to his unique costume and his murderous 
occupation.
One, how do we understand his genetic propensity toward  psychopathic murder?
Science has not uncovered one gene pointing directly to  social outcomes, but
for infantile patterns in nursing behavior. Granted, the  Genome Project has
shown about a 10 percent influence from evolution over the  past 100,000 years
(Discovery ddddd). Other than this general finding, how  might evolution have
created a genetic predisposition toward homicide? It  would not, could not
exist for long in any speicies unless such behavior  somehow lead to greater
reproductive success.
 
Now if this strictly strong, materialist approach to explaining the Hit  Man’
s place among us somehow lacks, then we can look for something else.
 
If one takes a biblical view of this whole matter, neither environment  nor
genetics plays a role in the Hit Man’s emergence. His part in the world is 
pre-ordained. He has somehow chosen a path of assassination from a Manachean 
field of choices. Even here we run into the same explanations problems as our 
materialist understanding. We just do not have enough evidence one way or 
another to explain his place, his existence in our world.
 
Much has been said about the Hit Man’s mother. Who was she? How old was  she
at his birth? Did she breast feed him, and so on. We have nothing to go on  at
this point, other than our first reports of his existence show that his 
father raised him with a pillow case over his head. No one knows for sure what  he
looks like, outside of his father.
 
We do know that the Hit Man’s teen years were punctuated by interactions 
with a Miss Sonia Webster. The two were almost “inseperable” throughout their 
junior high school years. Even in their high school years they remained  close.
 In fact, an unsolved homicide occurred their sophomore year in  the boy’s
shower room.  The victim, police records show, died of  suffocation.  A wash
cloth stuffed in the victim’s throat.  One  would have believed at that time that
our pillow case villian would have made  it to a police line up, at least,
but not so. Records show that the victim  weighed twice as much and stood 18
inches above our masked villian.
 
So the Hit Man brushed close to a high school homicide while remaining  close
to Miss Sonia Webster. The two slowly led their lives into different 
directions. He, into a life of homicide; she into a life of  religious  commitment.
Her life soon ended in the tropical forests of Maylasia while  caring for
leapers. 
 
But for Miss Webster, the Hit Man’s life has carried on in a fully serial 
relationship manner. He has four wives, as of last count. He spends numerous 
hours sleeping with the four of them simultaneously.
 
And “what of their husbands?” you might wonder. It seems that of the  first
three, only the second remarried. Her husband, as fate would have it  turned
up floating in the Potomac River, just south of xxxxxxxxxxxx  Maryland.  We
wonder what lead the second wife to suppose that it was  safe to marry again
after a marriage to the Hit Man. Was she so naïve, or did  she misunderstand his
generosity? Did he great the new husband with glee,  planning an execution of
the unsuspecting dolt, or did he slink off into the  background to wait until
the newly weds forgot his presence?
 
His history and the many homicides directly and indirectly relating to  him
are too numerous to  recount here.
Just the same, let me recount  one homicide of particular note.
 
In Houston, Texas police records show a homicide occurred in a local  barber
shot, Clem‘s custom and traditional hair cuts. The victim’s barber shop  also
served as his residence. Early one Saturday morning witnesses said that  they
heard what sounded like 3 gunshots from the barbershop, although they  could
not be certain of the gunshot sounds because their report was quite  muffled.
They also claimed too have seen a small man exiting the back of the  shop, the
residential side. All agreed that this man wore a white mask of some  sort.
 
We have many stories like this one. They come, and then our witnesses  begin
to disappear. Sometimes they are found dead. Their demise is often  questioned
and found to be a homicide.
 
If you see where my narrative leads, then you too will suspect that this 
small fellow is a murderous creature with blood on his hands from many places 
and many times. He is a monster, and not the creation of an evolutionary  twitch
in the human genetic code or the creation of a Welfare State’s  misplaced
social creations.
 
The Hit Man is his own creation! He stands ready to strike out at the 
innocent at any moment. It happens that he prefers to “hit” the criminal  community
first or most often, but do not be mislead. He strikes at the most  ciil
members of our christian communities.
 
Let me take a break from this description of the Hit Man’s past and the 
homicides relating to his work.
 
I mentioned a Miss Sonoma Webster as the Hit Man’s earliest friend,  perhaps
his only friend. Now I msst bring up another relationship, a business 
relationship of a weird sort.
 
It turns out that once the Hit Man does his deed, he cannot tolerate a 
soiled dwelling as a result of his work. He blows his victim’s head off,  splaters
the entire dwelling with brains, blood, and cerebral fluid, and then  has it
cleaned professionally nonce the coroner recovers the victims. It seems  that
one crime scene cleaner in particular receives the Hit Man’s blessings,  and
you guessed it - - The Crime Scene Cleaner
 
Make no mistake about it; these two are in league. Sure, the csc may not 
perpetrate these homicides, he may have no notice of their occurrence, but he 
knows all too well when they occuur. We think that there must be, somehow, a 
way to indict this cleaner on conspiracy charges. We intend to do so, and 
shortly.
 
Now, remember the astronaut female arrested on attempted burglary,  attempted
murder, and battery charges?  She meant to zap a woman involved  with the
same space program male. It turns out that her defense attorney  learned that
this Nowak woman had earlier dated the Hit Man.  As a high  achiever she had
something for men wearing white hoods, however it  works.  It did work for her.
 
It also turns out that the Hit Man offered to “off” her competitor, but  for
a price. The price? One date with the csc. That’s it.
 
She refused after meeting the csc. “He’s too quite, too soft-like” she 
complained.
 
Now under close security, she may turn state’s witness to begin  proceedings
against both of these characters. It turns out that the csc has  violated a
parole limit a number of times. He was paroled from xxxxx for a  hit-and-run
while driving without his perscription glasses. If we can bring  him in, then we
can get to this “Hit Man,” hit back, and bring this monster  down.
 
Inspector Forks slowly raised himself from his chair, slowly executing a 
short blast of flatulence as he stood straight, holding his empty coffee cup, 
smelling the odor of burnt coffee before he placed the empty cup on the 
cluttered table. Pictures of the hooded beast pushed and pulled too and fro  during
his oration testified to the tenacity of the department’s final goal  for the
masked demon, a place in the sun in front of a judge and jury; the  sooner the
better.
 
From the Hit Man’s pillow case looking out, we can only guess what he 
thought of  the humanity he destroyed. We can only guess at what he  thougth of the
csc. We do know that the two shared some similarities as well  as start
differences.
 
The Hit Man’s personality seemed a bit on the eccentric side. He seem 
extroverted to those he chose to allow into his life. Definitely a thinking  man,
judging by his ability to even find probable cause to hold him after  the.
 
We know too that he tends toward a materialist explanation of the  Universe,
which is something not to elaborate on just now. And we know that he  is
judgmental, believe it or not! The Hit Man has an ethics and morality of  his own,
and he sticks to them. We have many eye witnesses willing to testify  that he
insists upon paying for food, clothing, medicine, whatever, whenever  he needs
them. This is saying something when he can take just about whatever  it is
that he desires.
 
One have one eye witness account of a dispute between the Hit Man and  csc.
It seems that the cleaner refused payment from the Hit Man for cleaning a 
rather botched up job. We are told that the Hit Man said something to the  effect,
“It could have happened to just about anyone” in all sincerity.
We  learn here that once the Hit Man makes an offer, that it must be
accepted. The  csc quickly learned this lesson when the Hit Man removed his 38 and
shot the  csc’s left ear-lobe. A small, bloody stump remained where his ear lob
once  fastened to his face.
 
The csc’s personality tends toward more process oriented in this regard.  He
expected to clean a botched crime scene by cleaning for free. In doing so,  he
was showing weakness where accepting payment reflected strength. Strength 
the Hit Man respects, weakness he fears, interestingly enough.
 
Our department psychologists suggests that the Hit Man has some sort of 
Sparky complex. We do not know. One day hope to know because once we establish  a
Sparky complex, more information will unfold.