ive been watching a lot of football lately, and i cant decide who to pick.

erin andrews or bonnie bernstein?
who would you take?

it's another hot night, dry and windless. the kind that makes people do sweaty, secret things.

i wait and i listen.

for a while it's as quiet as it gets here. coyote calls from the hills. police sirens, rising, falling, cutting through the traffic's white noise roar.

i hear the jangle of the keys at the door as she comes in...

she glides out of her coat like it was christmas wrapping. playing it for all it's worth. and it's worth plenty. shes got the kind of figure you notice.

its her voice that spoils everything.

a little girls voice, all squeaky and mousy and bubbly and bouncy with false innocence.

i get everything i need.

then can i have a ride? she asks, using her real voice this time, a voice thats left innocence a lifetime behind.

i take redondo over the hill toward old town. it takes longer that way, but i figure she could use the time to settle down. at first all she can do is sob and blow her nose and smoke cigarettes.

she smokes six cigarettes.

the last i see of her, shes fixed her makeup and shes sauntering away, tossing me a wave and wink.

then she blends into the sea of flesh that is old town.

old town. where beauty is cheap provided all you want to do is look. but if youre ready to pay, you can have anything you can imagine.

i hold tight to the wheel to keep my hands from shaking. i pull out and cut back over the hill. out. away.

the damn old town memories, of drunken mornings and sweaty sex and stupid bloody brawls.

you cant just pick and choose. you cant take the good without the bad.

ive got the radio tuned to some lonely hearts talk show, but im not listening. one more time, i sort through the broken pieces of my past. and like always, they come together to form the same, sorry picture.

i think about all the ways ive screwed up and what id give for one clear chance to wipe the slate clean. to dig my way out of the numb, grey hell ive made of my life.

id give anything.

ring!

hello?

is that you?

her.

im sorry to call. i know ive got no right. but i need to see you. tonight. please, dont hang up. please.

she keeps talking.

and like and idiot, i keep listening.

her.
damn.

I should tell her to go to hell, instead i give myself a shave i dont need and i show up twenty minutes early.

her.
damn.

what the hell could she want with me now?

you cant drive two blocks in this city without coming across a saloon. this one's a country joint, the bad kind.

its not the kind of place id expect her to know about, let alone go to.

i grab myself one last lungful of night air, then i trade it in for a smoky soup spiced with sweat and vomit and booze and blood.

i know the flavor well.

why here? its not like you. no, with you everything alway had to be first class. all the way. and when i couldnt foot the bill, you sure as hell found somebody who could.

i order up a ginger ale and stare at it for the better part of an hour. shes late, like she always was.

and like always, shes worth the wait.

she asks for some kind of scotch nobodys ever heard of, then settles for what they have. not like her to drink hard stuff. the cigarettes are a surprise too. used to be she couldnt stand the sight of them.

she moves close, all vulnerable, a deer caught in the headlights.

ive got places to go. just tell me what you want.

i must still mean something to you.

no reason at all to be nice about it. not after what you did to me.

i was wrong darling! wrong!

you made your bed. sleep in it.

forgive me, darling. i beg you...

she leans over, but i pull back.

you do that again and i swear to hell...

never mind then, its too late. ill go.

she gets in her car and it drives off.

buddy, i dont mean to poke my nose in where it dont belong, but that there is a dame to kill for. whyd you let her go?

the night air hasnt gotten any colder

it just feels that way.

her.

damn!

- Frank Miller's Sin City: A Dame to Kill For #1, Special Edition.