Free Savage Season by Joe R. Lansdale Page B

building, boy that's tough, we hated it, but hey, it happens.  The end justifies the means.  We'd blow you up for peace and love."
    "General consensus is you're dead," I said.  "You were supposed to have gotten killed in an explosion, if I remember right."
    "I may look blown up," Paco said, "but here I am.  Talking and smoking and making your morning bright and gay."
    "I'm gay," Leonard said, "but I don't know about the day and what you're doing for it."
    "Gay?" Paco said.  "You saying what I think you're saying?"
    "I fuck men," Leonard said.  "Does that clear it up for you?"
    "I believe it does."
    "You say people died because of what you were doing?" I said.
    "That's right," Paco said.  "Toward the end we lost some of our own.  Cops—or the pigs, as they were popularly referred to then—cornered four of the Mechanics in a house in Chicago.  I was out at the time.  Making a gun trade.  Had two of the group with me.  I forget what the rest were doing.  But the bottom line is the cops got wind of where we were, hit the house, and killed four of us.  Bobbie Remart among them.  She was a top radical at that time.  On the FBI list right under me.  She was kind of my lieutenant.  My lover too.  After that, things went from being political to being personal."
    "You got to feel bad about that shit," Leonard said.  "I mean, I killed gooks in Nam, and I was supposed to kill them.  Thought I was fighting for my country, doing what was necessary.  Still feel that way.  But I hate I had to do it.  But you guys ...  I don't know."
    "You don't look to me like somebody who could do that kind of thing," I said.
    "You kidding," Paco said.  "I look like death warmed over .  .  .  but I know what you mean.  Listen here.  You been around, you should know better.  Can't judge things by what you see.  Look at something long enough, and it'll start to look like something else.  Watch me long enough, you might see something you don't see now.  Whatever, there won't be any of the old me to look at.  That's a guarantee.
    "Back then, I thought what we were doing was right.  Like you thought what you were doing was right in Nam, Leonard.  Felt we were patriots.  Least until what happened to Bobbie, After that, I was like something taxidermied that moved.  Right and wrong were words.  I couldn't see the line of difference anymore, couldn't tell if I was crossing it or not.  For me, that line has long been gone and nothing's going to bring it back.
    "Anyway, what happened was we were hiding out in this house in Chicago, and I had the Mechanics building a bomb to blow something or another to hell, and I was supervising.  I was the one taught them how to build bombs, see, and I wanted to be sure they knew I was still the big daddy.  Sasha was the one actually working on it, and the rest of the group were gofering for her.  Way they were treating her was making me a little jealous.  Sasha was strong-willed and kind of new to us, and the Mechanics weren't turning to me quite as often as before.  She was starting to get some of my thunder.  I wanted to make sure she knew her place, you know.  I looked over her shoulder, and she was doing all right, working safe, but like I said, I had to be big daddy, and I said something to her about how she needed to work smoother, and she didn't take to it.  She was the only one had my number.  Knew my ego.  Knew how fucked up I was over Bobbie's death.  She planned to take things over.  I could tell that.  She could have done it too.  Still had the cause in her.  She knew my days as leader were numbered, that I was burned out, just doing by rote.  She wouldn't take shit from me.  She turned around and started telling me what I could do with my advice, got her mind off what it ought to have been on.  Must have let the wrong wires touch.  Next thing I knew, the world was bright and hot, full of stone and glass, and I was rolling around in rubble.  Ego and