Westphal didn’t answer, but Sammy didn’t require that to continue this next sex story. He let Sammy drone on and on and he began to feel the opiates kiss him gently into a peace that was rare and precious. He smoothed Chip’s brow and blew little zerberts at him.
While Sammy informed him that you never in your fuckin’ cartoon life tell a Navy man how much to drink, Westphal felt himself relax. His stomach started rumbling and he felt himself getting nice and dozy.
“Hey, Sammy,” he called out to the ghost, “If I fall asleep, get the door, will ya? I ordered a pie.”
“Sure thing, kid,” Sammy replied and moved over to the couch, “Let me put Chip back to bed for ya.”
“Thanks, Dad,” he told him with a smile he felt on his face. “It’s already paid for, tip and all,” Westphal said, beginning to slur a little.
Sammy scooped up Chip and gently took him right through the wall, both being dead. You heard Sammy telling the little guy goodnight.
Maybe it was a fucked up family, but Westphal loved them both very much. His eyes were closing as Sammy came back.
“Go ahead and curl up on the couch, buddy,” Sammy told him, pulling a blanket from the closet and bringing it over. He put it on Westphal and even mussed his hair, like when he was a boy, a million years ago.
“Thanks, Dad,” he said.
“Sleep if ya want to, Westie,” Sammy assured him. “I’ll wake yous up enough tuh get a couple slices down ya, if and when that idiot punk kid driver shows up.”
“Love you, Dad.”
“You too, kiddo,” Sammy replied.
He smiled and thought of nothing bad. Then, for a while at least, Westphal surprised himself by being happy. And that was more than enough for him.
Chapter Eight
YOUR PAINTED CORNER
Remorse As A Suit Of Clothes
You drift back into knowing and you become aware of your surroundings. You can clearly hear from the machine that is breathing for you the slight bubbling gurgle echoing off the infected secretions in the swollen airways of your lungs. You feel now the uncomfortable heat from the sepsis fever that resides with solid permanence in your blood. This is making it difficult for you to distinguish what is real and what is imaginary.
The passage of time for you is skewed and you cannot help but wonder if you ever were complete and whole. You have distinct memories, but you cannot with complete certainty determine if they were your experiences, or if they were merely vicarious ones that left such an impact, you thought they were your own. You just don’t know for sure.
But you do know the bad things, for sure, those you remember and this makes some kind of karmic sense to you. You recall all the selfish and wicked deeds, you just can’t recall with clarity if you were ever a decent hominid, if you did anything, ever, that was noble and selfless. You hope so. Even if you cannot recall, it would make you feel less a shit heel if you had even mere moments of decency.
But the bad remains and the knowledge that comes with it. For example, you know with clear understanding that you will die much sooner than your chronology would otherwise dictate. You know this is well and deserved. This does not keep you from being scared at the prospect, but a bit of resignation and stubborn acceptance does its bit to dull the edges of this frightful prospect. And you know where you will go. Wait, strike that: you don’t know where exactly you will go, what lay after, what lies in wait in the That. But you know you shall go no place nice and peaceful. No one is waiting to mop your brow and ease your troubled mind. You know, without a shadow of a doubt that as bad as this lying in your own disease and filth, that the next thing, the That, will be far worse, indeed.
You know you will die and that you will, hopefully, do it soon. You know that you should at least try to ask, to beg for forgiveness. To do so, to ask it of her, and of him and of her, of really all of them: so very many. You must ask this of the Almighty, most of all, yes, so very fucking, unerringly true, but which One? To whom do you now owe your allegiance? To the Dark Lord you have never met, or the Creator of which you have great trouble believing in. Just who, exactly shall ye beg?
All you know for sure is that you have tossed all the goodness onto the trash heap, regardless of their origins. The Ones who had blessed you have got to be saddened by all you have done. Their backs must have been turned and their ears stopped up for all time. That is what you would have done, why expect any less and you don’t.
You have taken all these things, these hopes and talents, these chances and you let them rot and all fall down, withering finally and blowing all away. And yet still you were allowed to live, maybe to seek a form of penance, you don’t know. You did what you did what you did, you fucking asshole and my God, you are glad to have never met anything as bad as you. Your only real comfort is knowing that the things you have done to the helpless and innocent in your charge would not, could not be replicated by another that breathes this air and walks this Earth.
You can wear this remorse, if you so chose, like a suit of clothing, but you don’t believe in forgiveness of sins such as these, so why bother. You suppose that you could try making yourself feel better with this bitter sorrow, but it would taste false and fuck, you gotta be a man and stand tall at the gates of Perdition. You can at least do that. Forgiveness is false when the sins are so many.
You would only feel ashamed if you were to ask, so then you must pay. You cannot complain. You dare not do so. You are far too disgusted in yourself and your countless misdeeds to ever truly believe in the possibility of forgiveness.
If Jesus had died for your sins, you would feel nothing but sorrow for him and him alone. What a tragic waste of a Holy One for that, for you.
You know and accept that you owe your allegiance and you eternal Essence instead to something of the Dark, the Master of Chaos, the Dog God, perhaps. And you know you will see him in the distance. Because you have, with a free will, you have snorted and drank and popped and smoked and shot yourself; painted fixedly and firmly into this corner you find yourself in. And you know you must pay, you owe to everyone you have ever hurt in your sad and wasted life your immortal soul.
It is then you feel someone approach and stand beside your hospital bed. You open your eyes and you can see your wife leaning in and over you. Her concern is stamped plain all over her beautiful face. And that’s why you can’t trust it.
It’s this concern that let’s you know that it is only a vision, a product of wishful thinking, regret made manifest. This beautiful woman had left you years before, taking the baby with her.
You would have loved in retrospect, to have raised it as your very own, this much Wanted baby, even though it was seeded in her womb by another man than you: a better man. Even so, maybe this child would have turned things around for you, but maybe even not that. You are saddened by how grateful you are to not have been given a chance to fuck up her wee life too.
You now close your eyes, squeezing them tight to rid all this, and you are rewarded. You open them again and she is gone. She is long gone to the life she deserves, the one the baby and her real father deserve. You had fucked it all so very thoroughly up; you know this. You accept this, you cannot escape this.
But, for fuck sakes, what is taking so long for you to die? What else do you need to know? You just wanna die.
You start to shiver. It’s getting cold in here. You hear him chuckle.
“Oh, butterbean,” the jinn states: “You have got to be the whiniest bitch I have ever seen.”
Fuck off, Shirk.
And then you see him hovering over you, sniffing up a thick yellow Plata-filled nose worm. His eyes are glowing and his smile is huge. And with another smack of your dripping leg stump from the vicious demon, you know for true that this is very real.
You scream silent again as the evil shit starts to pluck your incision staples out of your leg stump with one of his filthy, sharp yellow fingernails. And Shirk does this with glee in his eyes: one by one by one.
Chap
ter Nine
PERMANENT PAYMENT
Last Hour On Earth
The day dawned cold and cloudy in The Harbor. The sky and the air were dull and lifeless as he walked with scrubs on and his hoodie up through the parking lot of the hospital.
He entered through the back employee’s entrance and trailed the long hallway to the stairs beside the double bank of elevators. He opened the door and climbed the steps, two at a time. The drugs were kicking in and he was getting excited. He was in love, getting all shook up.
My heart beats so, it scares me to death.
He poked one red, twitchy eyeball through the crack he opened in the door. Hospital staff kept passing by in the early morning going about their business.
This was dangerous. It was more than dangerous, it was stupid really. His hands shook and his armpits dripped sweat which ran down both sides of his ribcage, with more sweat soaking his briefs and ran down the insides of his legs.
He knew he shouldn’t be doing this, but the motherfucker has got to pay. And he has got to pay permanent.
Eventually, the hallway cleared and Morbid made his way to Mr. Mandiddle’s Contact Isolation hospital room. Without bothering to gown and glove, he slipped undetected into the patient’s room.
Mr. Mandiddle lay dozing in the middle of his self-imposed filth. Morbid brought with him two pairs of soft restraints, a bed sheet, a towel and a long pair of curved forceps. He felt himself go hard as soon as he slipped inside the room.
Mr. Mandiddle must have recently received his shut-the-fuck-up meds, because he was in a rarely docile sleepy-dozy mood. So Morbid slowly turned around and locked the door. You could hear a pin drop.
Mr. Mandiddle was such a fixed asshole fixture that Morbid felt certain he was safe. Morbid knew no one was coming and he was going to get to play.
Mr. Mandiddle was tied thoroughly down with wrist and ankle huggers. The bed sheet was tugged tight down over the patient’s fat gut and torso to keep him still. Morbid finished by shoving the towel down his throat and did a couple lines right off the motherfucker’s forehead.
It was this act that had awoken Mr. Mandiddle to his last hour on Earth.
Morbid was sniffing back the tweak and smiling when he showed him the forceps. Grinning like the king’s own evil fool, Morbid explained to Mr. Mandiddle just exactly what he planned to do to him.
Mr. Mandiddle would have screamed, had he been able to.
Chapter Ten
PAY DAY
Knick Knack Paddy Whack
Westphal awoke some time just after noon in his bed. He sat up, panicked because he could not recall what had happened. But a quick peak over to the side showed Chip nestled snug as a dead bug and Sammy he could hear singing to himself somewhere on the other side of the bedroom wall. Then he looked down and surprised the fuck out of himself, for he was wearing his hospital scrubs and he had no business doing that.
He climbed out of bed, noting the blood and dried filth and fluids, disgustingly ripping them off and tossing them to the ground. They were so bad; he might very well have to get rid of them.
It’s more complicated than that. You know you have to burn them, Westphal. Prison is a bad place to have to kick, bitch, bad dreams all up in my head, no lie...
To throw them away, at least, and he made a bee-line for the shower. Once inside the dirty stall, he doused himself with soap and shampoo, brushed the dog-fuck out of his teeth, making them bleed, rinsing with super strong peroxide, swishing and spitting foamy blood between his feet. And then finally trimmed all his nails, cleaned his ears, shaved until his skin bled, and then showered once the more. He still felt unclean, like something particularly bad had happened, but he didn’t know what. But there was nothing he could do about something he could not remember.
Westphal figured that he probably just woke up in the middle of his sleep, thought he had to go to work, got dressed in his scrubs, and then vomited on himself. It’s happened before, but he never felt like this. Westphal felt like he just jerked off in a confessional.
That’s because you knicked and knacked, and paddy-whacked. You sure as shit gave that dog your bone.
As he began towel drying himself, Westphal called out to Sammy to start the coffee pot, deciding to drop it and get the fuck on with his day.
The ghost made the best cup on the planet, and never complained doing the little things around the house to make Westphal’s life that much easier. He even cleaned up a bit, without asking, from time to time, but could not figure out how to use the fucking washing machine. That would have been a real boon.
“Got it goin’, Westie,” Sammy called out.
Westphal went through the ever-growing pile of dirty clothes, smelling each item to see which was the least offensive. He finally settled on some jeans, undershirt and a thick, warm flannel. He slipped on and tied the laces of a pair of well-worn hiking boots and sat at the adjoining desk.
Ask Sammy to do it, he won’t mind.
“Hey, Sammy,” Westphal called out, thinking, “Do me another favor, would ya?”
“Sure thing, whatcha need?”
“Looks like I puked on myself again and the scrubs are too far gone to salvage.”
“You want I should take ‘em down to the basement furnace and give ‘em the old heave-ho?” He asked as he came in.
Westphal looked up at him. “Appreciate it,” he told him.
Sammy scooped them up and dropped through the floor, ghosting his way, quick as you please, down to the basement.
Now you will be safe. Always listen to me, buttercup. Morbid is good and Morbid is wise. Dope now.
When Sammy left, Westphal pulled open the sliding top drawer of his desk and pulled out his plate of breakfast. He put it on the blotter in front of him, moving the computer keyboard a bit to the side and out of his way.
He mixed a little speed and a lot of cocaine together. Westphal turned the internet provider on while he chopped up the mixture, loving the ritual.
Sammy was back in a few short minutes, announcing his return from the kitchen. Moments later, he brought Westphal his perfect cup of coffee, saying the same thing he always did:
“I take my coffee the same way I like my women, Westie.”
“Peurto Rican,” Westphal finished; matching Sammy’s smile with his own. “Thanks, Dad.” Sammy pat him on the shoulder and left, singing about a girl from Nantuckett.
Westphal sipped at the cup. It was perfect. Then he bent down to suck up two fat lines, which were also perfect. He held his head back to let it soak in. He pinched shut his nose while he brought up his bank account. Westphal needed to see how much money he had available before he could ascertain how much and what kind of drugs he could get today from Steele.
This was always a little nerve-wracking for him. He had all his monthly bills on an auto-deduct, so he didn’t accidentally find his addict-ass homeless. This was a good thing. Mistakes are made a lot when you are stoned all the time and Westphal long ago accepted the necessity of this pragmatism.
The worrisome part came when he had to log-on to find out how much money was left for drugs. He was getting a little on the low side, especially the glass. It was going a lot faster lately and he couldn’t really put his finger on why. But he was stoned all the time, in one way or another, so he probably just did more than he realized.
Westphal looked at his bank’s page and almost choked. The account balance was huge. Okay, well not huge by the standards of most, but there was a lot more than normal for Westphal. He checked out the computer screen closely, making sure he was really seeing this and then it hit him.
“Fuck, yes!” he hissed, “Score!”
He sniffed his shit back severely and blinked his eyes. This means he can get everything he wants from Steele, not just fill in the cracks.
Westphal thought a minute, tapping his happy fingers on the desk, and going mentally over his wish list.
It was much more varied than his usual order and in larger quantity. He even a
dded one extra item he normally never can afford, you know as a treat. Westphal felt like he was Christmas shopping for himself.
The extra money came from the double deposit he got this month for Sammy’s After Death Insurance and his third paycheck from work. He had forgotten all about it. They just happened to have both come in a few days apart and that meant money to spare!
Westphal scrolled down the paid side of his bank account, just to make sure none of it wasn’t going to get sucked up by bills. He smiled and pumped a fist skyward with delight, because nothing was due. He snorted up a little more dope and got Steele’s e-mail ready.
“Oh, baby, daddy’s gonna get stupid high,” Westphal told Chip.
“Good news, there, Westie?” Sammy asked.
“Hells, yeah, Dad,” he replied, “Both of my extra checks came in this week.”
“At the same time?”
“Oh, yeah!”
“Well, good for you, buddy!” Sammy called back with enthusiasm. “And that reminds me of the time we mistakenly got our housing allowance when we were already under way, so we hit this port off da Horn and found this Black gal dat had da pinkest snatch this side of Heaven!”
Westphal tuned out Sammy’s latest tall tale and began his mental list. It didn’t take longer than two shakes, because he could see the sugarplums as they danced in his head. He decided to help himself to a nice sampling of just about everything Steele had in his arsenal.
Westphal pulled up his mail and started writing out his order to send to Steele. He wanted some percs, comas, a lot of bitch, a taste of boy (this was the extra, he’d never tried heroin before). He also wanted a half ounce of meth, some phens, T-3s, a couple dozen rolls and some more MDMA powder (Steele’s shit is so clean), a handful of zans and vans, and more morphine tablets if he’s got ‘em. And top it off with a fat sack of mean green. He was happy because this shit should last him a good long time.
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