He came awake from time to time, just long enough to remember who he was, and where: Jeff Lambert, twenty-two years old, on the bed in his room in this scuzzy building.
      
This was pain like he'd never known, tight, cutting, can't-move pain.
      
He stared down at his body and saw nothing had changed. Two days now. Naked, lashed to the bed by those -- those long black cords. One coiled around each leg from the ankle up, his flesh bulging where the strands dug into his thighs. His arms pinned down by black ropy things fastened across his chest. He didn't move, knew better by now. Each time he strained against them, the shiny fibers tightened, squeezed. Like long, thin snakes.
      
Moving his eyes only, Jeff looked around the room. The dirty light bulb dangled above him. Neon shadows flickered in from the street below. Telephone on the table near the door. God, let it ring, please make it ring. Someone might hear, wonder why he wasn't answering. The fat bitch on the floor below, the landlady. Or maybe one of the bums who slept in the hallway.
      
When it first happened, two days ago, he had screamed. But each scream brought another tightening.
      
This wasn't real. It couldn't be. He must be having a nightmare. Sweating a lot. Cramped. Pain.
      
Where in hell was that bitch? When was the rent due? Maybe she'd come looking for it early. Didn't she hear him scream before? No, not before. Two days ago. Didn't anybody hear him? Two days. Help me. I'll die. No circulation, legs getting numb. So thirsty.
      
Forcing his eyes open wider, Jeff stared at the open window opposite his bed. He could see the decaying building across the street. Used to be a church, some of his graffiti visible from here. He could hear nightsounds coming from below -- cars, junkies, whores, rap music, people sitting on the stoop. Why didn't they come up here, help him?
      
It was summer, hot. He had come home, put on the light, opened the window, stretched out on the bed, smoked a joint. Dozed. Thinking about the babe he just had. Didn't even know her name. Bar pickup, good fuck. The booze and the pot made him mellow, and he reached down to begin stroking himself -- that's when it started. Long black cords, four of them, coming in the window, slithering across the sill, into the room, snaking their way to his bed, coiling and curling themselves around his body, attaching themselves to the bedframe. He had watched, fascinated. Half awake, half high. Thought it was a hallucination. It wasn't. Damn snake ropes had him pinned to the bed, and each time he tried to get free, they had contracted -- so tight against his chest he was afraid to take a deep breath.
      
What were they? Damn black leathery cords. Biting into his flesh. His bed was sopped with his own piss and shit. Pillow reeked of sweat. The pain of the bindings and the stench of himself again sent him seeking oblivion.
      
Dream-memories enfold him. Jeff is nine. It's just getting dark. He's writing graffiti on a school building with a can of spray paint. His best friend, Luis Romero, is with him, watching. Jeff sprays the word fuck in big black flourishing letters with a rhythmic beauty. He feels very powerful, very elated.
      
"You be in beeg trouble, Jeff," Luis says. "Holy Mother Virgin Mary don like no fuck words on Catholic school. You got to confess, do penance."
      
Jeff laughs. "You believe all that religious shit, Luis? No such thing as a virgin mother. She got fucked, so she knows what the word means."
      
Luis crosses himself. "You do blassfeem, Jeff. You doomed to hell if you don do penance. Virgin Mary will avenge your soul."
      
Luis doesn't understand: Jeff loves graffiti. He doesn't do any bad things, like get into brawls, or carry a knife. His power comes from the paint. He makes the whole city see his creation, the flamboyance of his letters. Standing back to admire his artwork, he says, "That one's done. Come on, Luis, we'll go down to the hardware store and steal another can. You be my lookout."
      
But Luis is backing away. "No, Jeff, I go home. I muss say the beads for you. Virgin Mary be angry. I don wan you soul to go to hell."  He keeps crossing himself as he stares at the graffiti in terror.
      
"Oh, shit, Luis, you're a nerd. You believe in Sandy Claus too?"
      
Luis is turning and running away, while Jeff laughs and decides the next place he'll hit will be the First Baptist church. He can probably get the words nigger, go home on the big side of the building.
      
And while Jeff is doing more graffiti, Luis Romero -- who goes to Mass and lights candles and says penance -- Luis who is good, holy, and nerdy -- gets shot stone cold dead by some fucking drive-by shooter before he can get home to say the beads -- for Jeff's soul.
      
Some religion. Some justice. Some shit.
      
Other memories slide past. Graffiti on walls, subways, other churches, schools. Anywhere Jeff can find space. Sometimes he gets caught, and they make him paint it out with a long roller. He doesn't care. He'll go on doing it any chance he gets.
      
He doesn't feel he's a bad kid -- he's not into street gangs or drugs -- gets a job at the hardware store after school -- all the cans he wants. Even after he grows up, he still gets the urge to do graffiti. Just last week he painted one on the church across the street. But it's never for himself any more. It's always been for Luis. Ever since that day long ago, Jeff paints the same words: Virgin Mary kills kids.
       
Jeff's brain stirs. He's not sure if an hour or a day or a week has passed. Time is blurred. But something has changed. He snaps awake. It's the light bulb -- burned out. Only the flickering neon now. His mind grasps at the shadows, and his eyes focus on the building across the street.
      
In a cold sweat he watches as the letters of some graffiti words lift away from the gray wall and elongate into smooth black fibers. They whip through the air, like leathery streamers, heading for his window. Icy with terror, Jeff feels his bowels break loose.
      
The cords slither into his room, skim across the floor, slide up onto his bed. What was once a V lashes itself across his forehead, and an M tightens against his throat...