They called her Joyless Joy because she cried razor blades and lit apartments on fire with her dirty thoughts. 

I remember, the cops asked her once, when they caught for a few minutes on live TV, they asked, “Joy, why are you so angry?”

She smiled at them, her face smeared with red lipstick and red liquorice and the red, red blood of innocent victims. “I’m not angry,” she said, drawing her weapons and pulling the triggers. “I’m just very misunderstood.” Two bullets fly out and pierce two brainpans. The crowd goes silent and the bodies start falling. Joy is running. The bodies are falling.

She was my friend, if I can use words like that with such a creature. Are you friends with a tiger? With a lightning strike? Are you friends with the bullet that sinks into your enemy’s belly? Can you be?

We were well acquainted with each other, like a hammer knows a knife, or like a little hatchling alligator knows to hunt for prey. I knew aspects of her; the way she smiled when she was hungry. The way her voice went up all high when she was looking for a body to stab, just a little. 

“Just a little stabbing,” she’d say all quiet to me, like a kitten looking for a dish of cream. “Just a little bit of stabbing, and I’ll feel alright.”

And really, how could you say no, to a girl like that?