On June 22, General Stephen Watts Kearney arrived with the Mormon Battalion he had commanded in the war. He ordered his men to gather up all the remains, put them inside of one of the shelters and light the hottest fire they safely could.

[A long silence.

He moves to make another drink mutters the following softly instead:]

What else am I, but a charred pile of bones? What else am I, but the only thing any man is sure he shall one day be?

In our darkest hours, we know what is truly manifest.

No matter what they tell you about me, Dear Reader, I, too, am in that pile of bones—and so are you.

[He breaks free from his trance—]

But, no, no, no, Dear Reader: this is my pile to tell.

[He pauses for a good, long while and successfully prepares that next cocktail. As he does so, he mentions the following, almost casually:]

Naturally, I received a few death-threats.

I said I was sorry, that I had meant well—what else could I say?

That phase blew over fast enough, so quickly that I was appointed judge, married, and at the Constitution convention all in under three years.

Yet, we have arrived again at the question of a villain, a need uniquely and simultaneously public and private, which is why it is so lustful, so orgiastic, and so emphatically sure of itself. It is the rectitude granted your demons, the unbelievable certification processed and conferred upon a rutting, frothing anguish!

Think about your greatest shame, Dear Reader, the thing you strain to manacle and shutter in a dungeon in the deepest, rankest recesses of your soul, the thing you slither off to when the rest of that soul fails you, the thing you love and brutalize with mangled, naked, bleeding indiscretion and humiliated rage!

Imagine that thing, that pummeled whore of any age or gender or fancy, dressed up on the Main Street sidewalk and shaking your hand as a newly elected Town Alderman—all smiles and flags and pins and patriotic cocktails, but, above all, garishly eager to serve.