| When Jacques was printing pamphlets, he was nowhere to be found. A bookshelf sealed behind him; he labored underground. His wife stalled the detectives with a wet-bar and a wink and hurried into anecdotes each time they tried to think. With every step they took towards the library, she'd stand erect and misdirect and force a smile. They ran their fingers along the book spines, five manicured nails away from catching him red-handed, with the press still rolling and the ink still drying and the incriminating literature cooling in stacks—while beneath the floorboards, in his dark room, like drowned victims on a clothesline: photographs hung out to dry. He plastered wheat paste fliers faster than they could be ripped off. His murals sprang up overnight, dripping with scandal. They paced the streets on metal cleats to strip away his posters, but no amount of strict policing ever caught the vandal. The roadblocks clamped down. Unmarked cars prowled through the town. The sun, in its zeal, turned tarmac into tar. They staked out the airports; he couldn't have gone too far. And still, his wife sat on the phone. She always seemed to be alone. It seemed her husband had just stepped out. An agent thanked her for her trouble; he promised her they'd meet again. A strange van was stationed across the street: blue paint, tainted windows—almost too discreet. Rotors beat the air; searchlights scoured the ground. Cops made bets on when he would be found. The odds went up. Above there winked a star that was not a star, an orbital Cyclops surveying from afar. Pious neighbors peeked through the blinds, made bets on who would be the one to find the one who left his stains, the one who could not be caught. They trapped him in a blind alley, formed a human wall. Net guns blossomed, stun guns flashed—nothing but an open manhole. They cornered him in a cul-de-sac, lobed tear gas grenades. But when the pepper clouds dispersed, they found a paper, smeared ink screaming: "Just wait 'til the highways are lined with catherine wheels. Broken bones braided in the spokes of grisly pinwheels. Agony and shame woven on the windmill vanes, still screaming as you stay inside your lane." Soon the hunters' patience had thinned to alcohol. They stood in his flower beds, splashed fuel on the walls, pumped in the carbon monoxide. Struck a match. Called it suicide. The moral of this story is: Build your house in a fire, your house will burn. And your pretty wife, too |