• Killer Tim
    • Part 2: Three's a Problem
    • Part 3: Ninth Avenue
    • Part 4: Peru Avenue
    • Part 5: Toast
    • Part 6: Mrs. Pellegrini
    • Part 7: Charlie
    • Part 8: 2D
    • Part 9: Smith
    • Part 10: Cece
    • Part 11: Quarter Moon
    • Part 12: Interview
    • Part 13: Mieke
    • Part 14: 2D Ex
    • Part 15: Logs
    • Part 16: Steiner
    • Part 17: Number Five
    • Part 18: Cold
    • Part 19: Intern
    • Part 20: Coffee
    • Part 21: Sloth
    • Part 22: Tennessee Street
    • Part 23: Error-correcting Code
    • Part 24: Villa Lobos
    • Part 25: Entrance
    • Part 26: Cloak
    • Part 27: Meeting
    • Part 28: Fog
    • Part 29: Boodle
    • Part 30: Drafted
    • Part 31: Domino
    • Part 32: Quartet
    • Part 33: Skippy
    • Part 34: Blisflix
    • Part 35: Billikin
    • Part 36: Chronicle
    • Part 37: Sutro Heights
    • Part 38: Conference
  • Third Sons
    • November 1959
    • December 1889
    • December 1930
    • April 1890
    • December 1959
    • August 1964
    • June 1890
    • January 1967
    • March 1931
    • January 1967, continued
    • September 1898
    • November 1898
    • Winter/Spring 1943
    • January 1974
    • April 1899
    • January 1974, continued
    • October 1899
    • March 1944
    • November 1899
    • January/February 1974
    • June 1900
    • April 1886
    • June 1900, continued
    • October 1945
    • March 1974
    • May 1901
  • Else
    • O'Jitterys Catch a Movie
    • Winnie the Publican
    • Interview with the Alien
    • Gibberal doggerish
    • Dialog
    • Story
  • Mandolinoleum
  • About
  • Contact
Dennis Richard O'Reilly
Killer Tim

Part 1: Tim

...watercourse through Eden for all I know or care or wander circuitous, acrimonious, obstreperious, apollonian, abalonean, abstetricean, owe-inspiring, oblifting, overcoasting...

As Timothy Rist steps out of apartment 2A at 2204 Steiner Street, San Francisco, nonsense and semi-sense stream through his head -- as they do whenever he isn't reading or debugging.

...Astral afformelody derisively, sublevity, instrictably colevitated and dispeptible, repulition invalident...

In dark-but-not-black coat, pants, shoes, and logo-less baseball cap, Tim crosses the hallway to apartment 2B.

...deep through pockets, slow through traffic, cul-de-sacrificing, out with an inrush, obliviant, observient, intestitute, irresolute....

He knocks quietly. A woman says through the door, "Who is there?"

"Mrs. Kahn, it's Tim. I'm going shopping." Mrs. Kahn opens the door.

"Come in, Mr. Tim," Mrs. Kahn smiles broadly and motions Tim into the apartment. He  takes three steps and stops, leaving the door open behind him. "Do you have a grocery list, Mrs. Kahn?"

"Yes Mr., I have it here." Mrs. Kahn dashes inside the apartment and runs back clutching a piece of paper that she holds out to Tim, who takes it, scans it quickly, and puts it into his coat pocket.

"I'll be back in 35 minutes. Good bye." Tim nods to Mrs. Kahn and walks out.

"Okay, good bye, Mr." Mrs. Kahn shuts the door.


...medieval collateral ligaslatures straining limb from limb and frame by framulation of the most deframable order--defluorable conduct--repudient and reprobatable as you wish, azure wisp, a sure whiz, a Q test, acutest, ablutist, agronomist aglomin' in the gnominest...

Hiding his head in his shoulders and his chin in his chest, Tim walks the carpeted hallway to the stairs and descends into a narrow, sun-lit lobby. Twelve dull-metal mailboxes glisten along the right wall. Tim pauses a second before walking out the iron-grated front door and down 10 pock-marked cement stairs to the sidewalk. He heads south down Steiner.

...gad about, cast about, eyefully, wherily, oh, merrily a month of mays, a mickle a month, a nickel a night, a pickle a pop, propensity, Penn City, pencil appended and misapprehended, offended, upended, resplendent, defendant, suspendant, distendent, obdurant, mode-errant, I see how they parent, unbleached and abraded, easily sated, tire deflated, uneliminated...

Each Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Tim walks the two-and-three-quarter blocks south and three-and-one-fifth blocks east to Andy's Supermarket on Bush near Octavia. He marches to the beat of his mind's phonemic creations.

...Federico federation, fine-feathered fricassee. Cybersonic inorgonic disrephonic catatonic. Austin Tayshawn, Erie Geishan, Rusty Tucson, Preppy Sision, Darryl Hixon, Fussy Nation...

Tim traverses the supermarket aisles purposefully, loading items from Mrs. Kahn's list into the shopping basket.

...Stetson Jetson, everyone gets one, purse on a vacation, barbarian equation, quoridification, aspartomy, exhortomy, ozidate, respectorate, ostensify, prefericate, obliquorate, aliterate, a hypocrite...

Tim goes to the only open checkout line, and when it's his turn he places Mrs. Kahn's items on the moving counter. He pauses the text string running through his noggin and makes effortful eye contact with the clerk, whose name is Brian. Tim smiles, nods, and says "Hello, how are you?"

Tim knows Brian is related somewhat distantly to the owner, whose name is Woo, not Andy. Tim has seen Woo five times: on three occasions in the store and twice at night on the street, far from the store. This is the twelfth time Tim has watched Brian ring up Mrs. Kahn’s groceries. Tim sums and averages his ten most-recent grocery tabs, adds one-half of a percent for price increases, and estimates today’s total at $68.15.

"Find everything okay?" the clerk asks without looking up as he scans Mrs. Kahn's items.


"Yes, thanks." Easy. Whew. Focus.

“$68.25,” Brian says, glancing quickly at Tim’s face.

Pay. Smile. Change. Receipt. Eye contact. Nod. Yes sir, yes sir, four bags full -- two per hand. Tim walks head down, hands full, out the store's front door. The stream recommences.


Ben Begrudgeon, blistic sudgin. Retrobation, dispendension, not to mention, irregression. Re-arraigning, Riva rollin', preterminus, deferminous, boracious, displacious, reputacious, spontificacious....

Tim blends discretely into the background of the urban afternoon, recognizing no one and everyone, nothing and everything. Everyone, everything, no one, and nothing repay the favor.

...Winnie was a little brittle, fit-n-fiddle, front back and middle. Sad-eyed Sid said it oh, so subjectably. Sioux City see-saucer. Seuss Alley Sue. Sally saucily soused. Imprimatically paucilated. There and then arose such a ruse, as he dosed so he boozed, as he sewed so he sued, adding shoals to old shrews. Said he did, did he? Oh, dilly. And Elly O'Daly, she was eerily addled. Ederle oddily. Adlai utterly...

Thirty-five minutes after leaving, Tim knocks again on the apartment 2B door. "It's me, Mrs. Kahn." The door opens. Mrs. Kahn follows Tim into her kitchen. Tim places the bags on Mrs. Kahn's kitchen table. Mrs. Kahn follows Tim out of the kitchen toward the front door. "A very nice casserole for you today, Mr. Tim."

When he reaches the door, Tim turns, nods to Mrs. Kahn, and says "Good day."


...As two swans of two minds swim by ear by heart by rote to rune, by step to m'lou, m'darlin deary derries. Sank two by aries, binaries, by plenopotentiaries. Able bailees bade by baleful breezes, borne to bewail by, will by their will be ill at their ease be...

Twenty seconds later, Tim is sitting in front of the computer monitor in his apartment. The word stream pauses as soon as he sees the blinking cursor. His fingertips resting lightly on the keyboard, Tim reopens his debugger and begins doing what he does second-best: hunting for errors in code.

Part 2: Three's a Problem

Copyright 2020 by Dennis Richard O'Reilly -- all rights reserved
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Killer Tim
​
Part 1: Tim
Part 2: Three's a Problem
Part 3: Ninth Avenue
Part 4: Peru Avenue
Part 5: Toast
Part 6: Mrs. Pellegrini
Part 7: Charlie
Part 8: 2D
Part 9: Smith
Part 10: Cece
Part 11: Quarter Moon
Part 12: Interview
Part 13: Mieke
Part 14: 2D Ex
Part 15: Logs
Part 16: Steiner
Part 17: Number Five
Part 18: Cold
Part 19: Intern
Part 20: Coffee
Part 21: Sloth
Part 22: Tennessee Street
Part 23: Error-correcting Code
Part 24: Villa Lobos
Part 25: Entrance
Part 26: Cloak
Part 27: Meeting
Part 28: Fog

Part 29: Bootle
​Part 30: Drafted
​Part 31: Domino
Part 32: Quartet
Part 33: Skippy
Part 34: Blisflix
Part 35: Billikin
Part 36: Chronicle
Part 37: Sutro Heights
Part 38: Conference

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  • Killer Tim
    • Part 2: Three's a Problem
    • Part 3: Ninth Avenue
    • Part 4: Peru Avenue
    • Part 5: Toast
    • Part 6: Mrs. Pellegrini
    • Part 7: Charlie
    • Part 8: 2D
    • Part 9: Smith
    • Part 10: Cece
    • Part 11: Quarter Moon
    • Part 12: Interview
    • Part 13: Mieke
    • Part 14: 2D Ex
    • Part 15: Logs
    • Part 16: Steiner
    • Part 17: Number Five
    • Part 18: Cold
    • Part 19: Intern
    • Part 20: Coffee
    • Part 21: Sloth
    • Part 22: Tennessee Street
    • Part 23: Error-correcting Code
    • Part 24: Villa Lobos
    • Part 25: Entrance
    • Part 26: Cloak
    • Part 27: Meeting
    • Part 28: Fog
    • Part 29: Boodle
    • Part 30: Drafted
    • Part 31: Domino
    • Part 32: Quartet
    • Part 33: Skippy
    • Part 34: Blisflix
    • Part 35: Billikin
    • Part 36: Chronicle
    • Part 37: Sutro Heights
    • Part 38: Conference
  • Third Sons
    • November 1959
    • December 1889
    • December 1930
    • April 1890
    • December 1959
    • August 1964
    • June 1890
    • January 1967
    • March 1931
    • January 1967, continued
    • September 1898
    • November 1898
    • Winter/Spring 1943
    • January 1974
    • April 1899
    • January 1974, continued
    • October 1899
    • March 1944
    • November 1899
    • January/February 1974
    • June 1900
    • April 1886
    • June 1900, continued
    • October 1945
    • March 1974
    • May 1901
  • Else
    • O'Jitterys Catch a Movie
    • Winnie the Publican
    • Interview with the Alien
    • Gibberal doggerish
    • Dialog
    • Story
  • Mandolinoleum
  • About
  • Contact