I wanna believe, but can't, not with this receiver here, and your ear on the other end of the line.

I used to believe, and I took the pills, and I felt magic innem, and in my blood and between the cells. But then they put in all the phones, one for each corner, and now they're taking 'em out again, but they left me this one, and they left you on the line. You better lissen to me. You better or everyone will die too. Yeah—I got a knife. I’ll find the magic innem with it if I have to.

They took her, and they took my pills, and that's the end for me.

They told me to call you if I have a problem. They said call if it’s a life or death situation. They told me to go back in the clinic for my problem, but I won’t go back in there. I won’t go in that concrete block hell cave they got, won’t go back and talk to that doctor who won’t tell me nothin. There’s cold in those walls the kind you can’t get out, the kind their tables and tools and lights can’t fix. Said I’d rather die. It’ll be life death now.

It's in my leg, you know whatta mean? It's in my leg, inside my knee, on the left for a while now, but I can feel it climbing, scaling up my bone on the inside, crawlin' up them stairs, thrownin' all bottles and cans back down, a cold wind blowin' hollow in my hip. It collects in the ball there, a scabby fungus bug, and the joint don't work right. Pops right out alla time.

They took her and they took my pills, and that's the end of me.

She showed me how to use 'em, how to take 'em right. Doctor told me to swallow 'em, tole me swallow 'em with juice, or with milk, or if I don't got that, with a cracker ground up in my mouth and some water. But you know doctors, don't you? You got doctors there. They don't want to talk to me, they don't even look at me. They give me the pills and they show me to the bus stop. Wherem I gonna get juice, wherem I gonna get milk? You tell me. You know my answers you tell me.

She showed me you gotta crack 'em open. With a card, like an ID if you got it, or the butt of a lighter, or big flat thumb nail. You press on the seam, and let it pop open, spill out white powder in a wrapper or a cellaphane. She showed me you gotta mix it with water, but only a drop or it all wash away. Little drop there on the paper, a little rain turns dust to mud. She showed me how to roll up my pant leg, she showed me how you gotta press it in. Slow at first, use a thumb or forefinger, clean 'em first if you can. She showed me how you get through the skin, nothing more than a wet paper bag, how you press and you smooth it on down, and little by little you press it in, and slowly it gets through that wet wet paper and into the bone. Then the pills gonna work. You swallow it, and it goes everwhere. No doctor tell me nothing, you understand? But I know the rot is in the bone.

And then they put in the phones.

You old enough to know? First it was in the restaurants, and by the drugstore, and then on the corner, and even in the park. They come in a white van, and string the black cables thick as yer finger, shiny and black, they put em in the trees or bury em in the ground. More concrete, or the grass'll come back. Some sorta city workers, trucks fulla sand. Shiny and new and easy to see, until the kids write all over 'em. Big black pens, thick as your arm these days. Most buildings, you look, you check out the receivers, and you can see what they wrote, where the cables used to come. Just sticking out of the ground now, everywhere. You can use 'em for a dime. Touch someone, talk into the plastic. Smells like piss. Smells like cable, or cord, like wire wrapped in plastic. They hold the receiver close to the ear, in a hand or two.

Then they took out the phones, come back with the van and rip the sucker out and leave the cable. Don't want to disturb the concrete, but gotta take the receiver. No one talks on 'em anymore. I talked on 'em. Sure, just like everyone. I held it up and I heard the wind blow in the wire, heard my dime fall into the pit and sure as click and a whir, I could talk. I heard that wind blow, and I knew what was in there, but it was too late. I let the wind blow hollow rot right down into my veins. I let the wire pour black sand into the cave home holes in my bones. Couple a clicks and whirred it right inna me, straight down. Lands like glass hit someone inna back, they throw it at you, driving by in their cars. Couldn't tell you why it was the knee. Can't tell ya how that magic works. But sure enough they were removing the phones and there it was, swelling purple red brown, scales building up not on my eyes like they say but in my walk, right in my step I tell ya. Like a pump, up and down, pressing it through the bone and the rest of the leg.

They took her and took my pills, and that's the enda me.

Now you lissen, lissen here receiver. I'm tryin' ta tell you. I'm tryin' ta tell you! I'll tell you bout it. I'll tell you bout it. She showed me how to use the pills, to chase out that receiver, to keep it from spreading, to turn back the rot pouring inside me when I walk. She showed me how they pull ‘em out. She showed me what it meant. Belief got nothing to do with it anymore. Rot stronger dan that. But this is my dime, and this is my knife, and I got a minute left.

There used to be a magic innem. Used to be right innem, used to make em work. See, there's space in everything. It's all hollow, though it seems solid. She showed me how. How when you sleep out and the wind blow, eventually it gets in between your cells. Blows right through, blows those creatures right out. They used to live there, used to have themselves a cave, pay their way, taking up space. But they're blown out, cracked up now, busted, torn, wasted, stoned. They blew 'em right out with the air in the van, and the air in the pipes, and under the bridges and buses and in the public restroom and the terminal and down by the edge of the park in the lot. Blew 'em right out. I don't know where they gone. Everything starts to fall down now, you know what I mean. With all that empty left inside. You know what I mean. Falls down a bit, gets soggy, like paper sit too long in the rain. Everything is mud, so it starts ta rot. You walk all day on yer legs and you think they're strong, but they mud like the rest. Broken concrete, twisted steel, smashed pills, crashed bus, bust wires, missing receiver. No more that magic. You know what I mean.

I used to write on about em too. Had my pen, thick as your leg, fulla ink. Wrote books about em, though nobody believes me now. She believed me, she read my book. I wrote it back when I used to tell em about it, tell em about all kinds of things. You know about the government, you know about roads and phones and the rest. They teach it all to em in school now. But I would tell em about the rest. I told you about some of it, but there’s more I could tell you. You think I don’t know, you think I don’t know, you think I just pick up receivers and just let fly, just pour it on the line to you and my creatures and whoever. But darlin, you see, when I cut inna things, I already know what’s inside.

There’s more to this medicine than pills. More to it than believing, if you know what I mean. This is different magic, we got in this world. Can’t make it go away, though it’s sure as shit hard to find. You see darlin, it’s in the math. I used to do the math. Multi-factoral, exponential, differential calculus. It was easy to me, easy as I talk to you now, easy as you lissen. I could see it all out there, written all over the cold surface of the world. You know I found that magic? I found it in the rock, in the crystals between us. They teach about concrete, but there’s more there than that. There’s us, and we are harder than any rock or metal. Don’t need homes, what with all of us here, crystallized together, rubbing each other’s skin, making the joints what they are. You can’t hide that, can’t chase it anyway.

Until they took her. Now it’s the end of us.

If nothing else finds a home, you know sure as shit rot will. You know that, I know you do. Happen one day to you too. But you know you'll rot too. You know about it, because you hear it every day. They can take em all, pills, her, and the rest, or not, it don't matter. You know it don't matter. You know it don't.

It's the end for me.

I'm down now, lying on the concrete. Can't hear her now, full of this cold garbage rock what with they cover yer streets. I'm lyin innit, my leg don't move. No, don't send no one. My dime. Lissen what I gotta say. They took her and they took my pills, no more magic left innem, I'm on the last receiver, I'm down on the concrete. Don't send 'em. They'll come soon enough. Just gotta get her back now, gotta get my pills. Rot's up in my belly now. Rot's in my lungs. Rot's in my neck, and down in the foot too. Rot's everywhere in this damn place. All these wires, wires with no receivers. I'm rollin' up the leg, still trying to get in my skin. Fingers are dirty, and it don't matter anyhow. I hear what you're saying, saying nothing. Receivers they call ya. But there's never been anything innem.

I can't believe anymore. Nothing you can say to make me. I've got concrete underneath me. I've got rot in my ribs. All the creatures gone, skin empty, trashed, fulla glass. Hurt me to touch it, cuts me from what they put left cold blowin' and torn out, blasted inside. Smashed bones, twisted wires, broken receivers, buses all caught full of steel. What weapons? What are you talking about? Nobody’s violent no more. I told you, I told you, don’t lissen to what they told you in school. It’s different. All of its burning. Wet, hot, moist, rot. I can hear it all. Don't need a phone. Black cables, all them thousands pills. Fire in my belly. Nothing in the way but flat concrete, ready to burn.

She took it all away. Can't even believe in the rot no more. She showed me how to take off my legs, and to beat out the animals, and to pull out my belly through a hole in my neck. She showed me how to rub it, and she showed me bout concrete. She took my knife and gave me back my pen, so I could write it all down again. Now all of it is still, and nothing matters, because nothing's moving. I'm gonna hang up this phone and everything'll be exactly the same. A thousand miles an hour, drunk ass tumor lying naked in the park. Dime's almost up. Nothing left to believe. Now it's all rot on the receivers, and cancer in the wires. Nothing in the pit, 'cept you and me. It's all connected. The wires will always be there.

My blood is out on the concrete now. My creatures outside a me don't move. Nobody's got any juice.

You know it's only a matter of magic innem, either there, or not. They took her. Now there’s only the end for me.

You don't know shit. I don't care if anyone does come.

I'm hanging up now.