I know you, right? the one guy asked. You used to date that Rosie who works at Leaning Tower? The Jewish girl with the tits?
         That sounds like my type, said the other guy, but no.
         Ben tried not to look like he was obviously eavesdropping. But the barstools were pretty close and the music was low, so he couldn’t really help it if he’d tried. At last Marie showed up and he forgot about the conversation.
         Then the next week PJ wanted to catch up and they went out for pizza. Ben kept scanning the waitresses, wondering. He didn’t think any of them were all that stacked, and he wasn’t really sure what if anything made a person look Jewish. Why would he care? He’d been with Marie for twenty years.
         Then he started having sexy dreams. That hadn’t happened in a long while. Marie left for a girls’ weekend and he picked up a hooker. That was too far, and he didn’t let it happen again, not that he had much opportunity.
         Then it was autumn and there was a serial killer in the city. The details were gruesome: breasts sawn off with a guitar string, nostrils popped by Black Cat firecrackers, other even worse stuff. Make sure someone always walks you to the car, he told Marie. She tried to blow it off, but she was scared too. When they caught the guy—younger than you’d think, an incel type—he felt like celebrating. Sometimes you underestimate your anxieties and don’t take them seriously until they’re gone.
         He took Marie out for pizza. This time he was pretty sure who the girl must be. When she set the second pitcher on the table and asked if they needed anything else, he said, just the check please.
         Look at you, you old goat, said Marie, smirking. He hadn’t realized he’d been so obvious. He blushed and deflected.
         He followed the serial killer trial closely. He was disgusted. The guy had written a manifesto, and Ben looked up the influencers he cited. He thought somebody should really kill those guys. It wouldn’t be any sort of loss. Look at how they talked about people, especially women. Revenge porn, rape academies. Sicker than junkyard dogs. One of them got arrested for sex trafficking, then released. Ben flew to Florida and stabbed him to death, cut off the guy’s balls and crammed them down his throat. They arrested him before he left town. He hadn’t written a manifesto himself, an oversight.
         Marie moved to be near the prison. She gave no interviews, visited him every week. The serial killer got a lethal injection. Ben got life. A couple weeks into his sentence, the prison cafeteria served up some shitty beef pepperoni pizza. He took one bite and threw up.
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