The Wrist-Snatcher's Rant

The Wrist-Snatcher’s Rant The others, of course, are more rabid than I but less apt to show it. Whenever I strike, I never romp off. I stand under neon, the wrist that I’ve snatched tight in my teeth as I wait with a smile for the wagon. As one of the few wrist-snatchers still on the streets of Chicago, I make all of my rounds in old tennies. They allow me to dive for the purse hand, whack it and sink my teeth in the wrist of the free hand, give a terrier’s yip then head for the neon where I duck so my head can spin on its shoulders till I’m certain I have no pursuers. In dreams every night I see all of the women whose wrists I have had in my teeth. They stand like Statues of Liberty, shrieking and waving their stumps like flares. Every night their screams carve a frieze of patrol cars in the middle of the street. Donal Mahoney