“Lem! Quick! Grab one a them plastic jugs and bring it here!”
Which is just exactly what he was doin’, puttin’ the patient’s outflow tube into one a them big plastic milk jugs, when all of a sudden that piece a ass Annabel comes walkin’ in -- her little tail wigglin’ in that red plaid skirt -- and starts lookin’ for somethin’ in the cubbies a the desk.
“Say, whatchya doin’ there, sugar?” he said, starin’ at the way that skirt showed off her fanny and that sweater cupped her titties.
“Mr. Griswold,” explained Annabel, picking up some stationery, pronouncing the words slowly as if she were speaking to an idiot, “is a very important man. He is (as even you must know) the owner and publisher of Black Bodice Romances, Stud Magazine and The National Oracle. Since he can’t write letters for himself, I must do it for him.”
Well, I’ll be, thought Lem. Why, it just come to him all of a sudden outa nowheres, like them verses he’d started scribblin’ on the wall when he was sittin’ on the commode in the Magnolia diner. Why, all he had to do was write that editor a letter: this old goddamn geezer was the bait.
“Well, looks like me an’ you is goin’ fishin’, pal,” he said, flashin’ a grin, bringin’ his face real close up to the damned old bastard -- so close that Smedlow lowered his gaze from the muddy, subhuman eyes to the spinach trapped between a lower canine and bicuspid.
“Oh no, don’t look at it,” Smedlow told himself, shutting the eyelids, taking refuge in his private darkness. For some moments he remained like this until he heard the receding steps and smelled a marked decrease of that peculiar blend of halitosis, Dentine, cigarette smoke, gasoline fumes and animal waste with which by now he identified the proximity of his captor. There is, Smedlow, he now told himself, revving up the engine of his hopes, only one way out of this: you must seize control of this carcass.
Oh sure, this time it was easy enough to lift up the muscles to the eyelids, but those fondling fingers -- just a few inches from his silver lighter -- still refused to yield to his control. At first it was the memories that got in his way -- that humiliating night he got the lighter, that dismal birthday party where, no matter how much he begged, Lou Blumberg and Agnes’ father kept on saying no, they wouldn’t admit him to their dental group, that the future was in gingivectomy and that they didn’t need another general practitioner, what they needed was a periodontist. But finally he pushed these distasteful memories from his mind, mustered his concentration and -- yes! yes! -- saw the brown and wrinkled forefinger slowly straighten and lift up. A rapturous intoxication overtook him: the victorious army of Smedlow had captured an enemy garrison, was raising the Smedlow flag. Only a moment later he had taken command of the other fingers, forcing them to drop the yellowed panties and reach toward his precious silver prize. And they had almost touched it, when he became aware of another force fighting against him in the phalanges and knuckles, irresistibly pulling the fingers back. It was the growing violence of this struggle that made the hand lurch back and yanked the needle from the vein.
“Well now, look what you gone an’ done,” said Lem, wiping the blood off the back of the hand and sticking the needle back.
And it was then that Smedlow, once again, heard the sickening intrusion in his head, felt himself losing his own private and priceless frequency -- as if some foreign station were breaking into his ordinary broadcast, tuning in as it drowned him out.
“ ’Twas the blood itself,” said the voice, “or so my ever-eager chirurgeons did conceive it, that did carry the transformative and immortal poison of my distemper. Thus at the first did they surmize that the remedies of ordinary physick -- letting blood by cupping and by the application of leeches to my person -- might draw off a sufficiency of venom. And yet, albeit they did bleed me oft-times thrice a day, these meer half-way measures did nowise suffice to arrest the shedding of my skin, my teeth, and digits -- or the yet more abominable growth of scaled and snakish flesh. But more worser still, the poison coursing thro’ my veins -- but inadequately drawn off by these expedients -- did upon occasion excite a voracious hunger at ev’n the very most faintest smell of meat. For such was the keen and accurst gift of my immortal affliction that, whilst in the hellish extremity of my torments I lay abed of nights next my open casement, I could smell out every ragman, charwoman and beggar making its vile progress thro’ the gloom of distant streets. Never before had I known such a singular acuity of my nervous fibres or such a peremptory desire to feed.
One most regrettable night, by way of example, having lain some hours cruelly vext and sleep-bereft upon my pillow, I could not chuse but give heed to an exceeding gin-sodden and stable-like -- yet in no sort displeasing -- odour.In a trice I had clambered out my window, nosed my quarry thro’ the darkling maze of streets, and come upon the creature asleep upon a door-sill in an alley. ’Twas but some wretched sort of stable-born beggar sleeping off her, no doubt, customary swill. And yet, for all that she was but a most prodigiously foul and ragged jade, there was, natheless, somewhat of a ripe and fruity odour to her young and filthy flesh. When I did surprize the slattern, she at the first mistook me, in her inebriated torpor, for one of the set of ragamuffin curs to whom she vouchsaf’d the favours of her beggarly amours. But when, quite utterly in my own despight, I fell to eating of her haunch, she was altogether of another mind -- most impudently a-biting of my hand and a-tearing at my ears. The creature’s noise must needs have been full loud, for presently comes this meddlesome oaf of a watchman, making such a deal of fuss that, considering well of the matter -- tho’ I had but scarce fallen to my repast -- I was fain to flee.”
The abominable whispering stopped -- and in that sudden silence Smedlow felt himself shaken by the tremors of a cerebral earthquake, as if some vast tectonic plate had shifted beneath him in the interior of the alien skull. His own precious silver lighter on the table, the wigged and ruffled portraits on the wall, the skyline in the window, had now all rushed back to their accustomed places -- and in that sudden return to normal programming, he knew that he -- Max Nathan Smedlow -- had advanced and that his enemy had inexplicably retreated. Immediately he focused his attention on the brown and wrinkled fingers, found no resistance whatsoever in the muscles, and forced them to take possession of his lighter.
“Well now, just look at that, “ said Lem: “I knew it was you in there, old buddy. I knew it was you all along.”
But then, suddenly, in the depths of the skull, something shifted and shook like a seismic aftershock -- and Smedlow, though he did his best to keep the fist closed tight around his lighter, once again felt a force fighting against him in the fingers, steadily loosening his grip. He tried to hold on by focusing all of his attention on the thumb and forefinger. And yet, even as he stared intently at their long brown nails, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that some other intelligence was also looking at them with him, pulling against him, sharing the very same eyes. But it wasn’t until he felt the lighter slipping from his grasp that he heard the strange voice whispering again.
“ ’Twas,” it was saying, “some days thereafter -- in consequence of the hurts which this very dirty, dungborn, insolent slut inflicted on my already valetudinous person -- that I had need to endure the shedding of my ears.
In order to prevent a continuance of suchlike disfigurements and to quell my appetite for meat, my physicians redoubled their endeavours to draw off the evil fluids. My younger chirurgeon, in more particular, was of opinion that the soveraign virtues of cupping might be augmented by a frequent transfusion of the blood, an expedient but lately invented and as yet -- oftentimes most inconveniently -- not quite entirely perfected. Indeed, the chiefest difficulties of this method did arise in the finding of a fresh and salubrious sufficiency of blood, not only because of the inferior supply generally afforded by the scullions, but also upon account of the down-right foul blood of the stable-boys -- owing to which I was several days most exceeding ill. Happily, howsomever, there was one quite serviceable, toothl
ess, yet comely creature -- one of the wenches who did cleanse the close-stool, one Bessie Stubbs by name -- by whose blood I was much invigoured and who -- with but little dereliction of her other duties -- might be drawn upon almost daily like a milking cow.”
Chapter XIII.
An unlucky chapter for an Editor, containing a drive through the Big Apple, a coach ride through London, some flatulence and a German Shepherd.
“The light’s green! The goddamn light’s green!” he screamed, leanin’ on the horn until that jackass in the Chevy ahead of him finally started movin’ forward. Now that he was sittin’ at the wheel of the limo in midtown traffic, checkin’ in the rearview mirror every now an’ again just to make sure the old gentleman in the back seat hadn’t fallen over or upchucked himself or nothin’, but was still lookin’ real spruce in his crisp white linen suit, Lem was beginnin’ to think that maybe this ambush was gonna work out just exactly like he planned. Borrowin’ the old boy’s publishin’ business stationery, writin’ a real juicy come-on letter to that bigshot editor, sure had done the trick. Yep, he thought, cuttin’ off a yellow cab and then floorin’ the gas to make the next light, it was just like Floyd had always said: the enemy wasn’t no different than some kinda hungry rat, which is why you always had to let him get a whiff of a nice, big, smelly piece a cheese -- or else he wasn’t gonna have no “positive inducement” to walk into yer trap. Yessir, he’d planned out everything real good -- sendin’ out that letter, buyin’ himself this spiffy suit, even puttin’ on this here official-lookin’ chauffeur’s cap: cause that was another thing, see, that Floyd had taught him, when him and the other guys was studyin’ up on the tactics of guerilla war, how snakes and toads and some kinds a spiders, when they was huntin’, sometimes didn’t look no different than the grass or leaf or rock they was sittin’ on -- so that when the prey, the little goddamn ant or ladybug, comes crawlin’ along, it just didn’t see nothin’ at all wrong until it was too late.
“Say, you enjoyin’ yourself back there?” he said, finally brakin’ for a real bitchy-lookin’ lady traffic cop, glancin’ up again so as he could see the prisoner all gussied up in his necktie and hairpiece in the rearview mirror. “Well now, don’t you look all fine an’ fancy! Bet you thought you was just gonna keep hangin’ around in yer pj’s. Now, don’t I treat you good?”
Smedlow tried to scream at him, but could only produce a gurgle. He tried to spit at him, but could only drool -- and look away from the eyes, those simian eyes laughing at him in the mirror.
“Now I know you wanna do yer part. But when we get there, see, you don’t have to do jack squat. Cause me an’ Blitz here is gonna take care a all the hard and hairy stuff. So all you gotta do, pal, is just sit back real comfy an’ keep on lookin’ pretty.”
Smedlow was conscious of the body’s slumping against the restraint of the seat belt as the limo took a sharp left down 48th street, past the metallic sheen of a hotdog cart, the blare of a boombox, the vast spread of a scarlet spandex rump. As the limo turned down Park, the alien hand began writhing again, rummaging through its treasure box of panties, rubbing his nose with wads of mildewed silk, their musty, musky bygone odor awakening some immemorial beast in the antediluvian swamp of his subcortex.
As his chauffeur changed lanes he thought he saw something up ahead -- a horse’s tail -- which he could nowise credit. And yet, as the gold-leafed arches of the Helmsley building got closer in the windshield, he could ever more distinctly see this low fellow Potter sitting before him in the coach-box and my two most fine-bred stallions a-whisking of their tails and a-clattering ’pon the cobbles out of St. James Square. Smedlow tried to blink it away, to see through to the tunnel looming dead ahead in the windshield -- and yet he could not chuse but smell the drawers the which that fat whoreson Chommeley had vouchsafed me in earnest of his debt. Smedlow tried his best to keep on seeing his detestable chauffeur at the wheel -- and not to see the cock-hatted coachman now driving his team beneath the arch, whipping them on to my most extraordinary content. For I was, I do confess, most eager to make haste, inasmuch as that pig’s arse, Chommeley, had, but a little while since, been pleased to send me word that he was finally come to London and that I might at the long last take possession of his ward, at St. Bride’s church on Sunday next, whither I was at this very present coaching it. It may well, then, be conceived, how prodigiously I was vexed by the multitude of coaches hereabouts, slackening my progress, and by the swarming in the streets of the meaner sort of persons. Natheless, good sport it was -- and most relieving from the tedium of the Lord’s Day -- whilst now I did snuffle at her drawers, to see so mighty a press of harlots at Charing Cross and all along the Strand, bestrewn amongst this rabble like daisies in the dung.
“Well now, ain’t that peachy,” said Lem, hittin’ the gas, almost runnin’ over some old damn biddy in the crosswalk: “it looks like yer gonna make it right on time for yer big date. You see that real shiny new buildin’ up ahead with all them fancy people walkin’ in an out? Well, that’s where you an’ me is gonna meet our little friend.”
Only now did Smedlow distinctly see it, beyond the oily back of his chauffeur’s head: a gleaming white building rushing toward him in the windshield.
“Well, well, well, just look’ee there,” said Lem, headin’ for the bus stop, hittin’ the brakes, an’ pullin’ toward the curb: “Now whatchya wanna bet that lady standin over yonder by the door -- that big horsey-lookin’ skank with glasses -- is gonna be our special guest?”
With a sudden surge of panic and pity, Smedlow saw the woman putting on her lipstick, looking up the avenue, looking at her watch. If only she wouldn’t notice them. If only he could somehow make her understand the danger. -- Oh no, no, she had seen him. She was smiling at him. She had started walking toward him. He tried -- in vain -- to make the carcass shake its head. He scrunched the brows, made the eyes shift back and forth. He tried -- desperately -- to scream a warning. At last, as the alien fingers were lifting up another rag, he managed -- with a superhuman effort -- to take control of the hand, signaling her to stop -- and to his horror, she waved back.
“Down Blitz, down,” said Lem, makin’ sure his big, mean German shepherd got back down beside him on the floor: “It ain’t yet time.”
Smedlow heard the scratching of paws on the passenger’s seat, the dog’s soft, quick panting, and then, once again, the low, odious, caressing whisper:
“Easy boy, easy.” Not that Lem himself wasn’t feelin’ kinda antsy, although he was sure as hell tryin’ his damnedest to do like Floyd had said -- sittin’ up straight with his chauffeur’s cap on, lookin’ ahead an’ stayin’ real, real still -- not hardly even breathin’ or swallowin’ his spit. Why, you’d think he wasn’t doin’ nothin’, but nice an’ slow an’ careful (seein’ as how the old gent in the back seat couldn’t do jack shit for himself) he was pokin’ buttons on the door, hittin’ the unlock and bringin’ down the right back window. Yep, here she comes: flashin’ that phony grin, struttin’ her stuff like she was a looker and not some kinda goddamn bushpig.
“Mr. Griswold, it’s just so positively grand of you to ask me out to lunch.”
The face in the open window crinkled its eyes and beamed, and Smedlow tried again to shake his head, to scream a warning.
“Well, of course I’d heard oodles about you, but I never thought . . . ”
He could hear that she was still speaking to him, but he could not -- of a sudden -- apprehend the words nor quite conceive why this very prating, ugly, garlick-smelling jade did now appear to have a tall bepowder’d head-dress and a black patch on her pale and pock-holed cheek. For no sooner was I come to St. Bride’s church, than my Lady Chommeley did greet me thro’ the window of my coach, detaining me with infinite store of trifling discourse -- upon the ailments of her lap-dog and all manner of such fooleries -- whereby I was so heartily tired and sicken’d that I had very neer resolved with myself to box her about the ears. Happily, howsomever, my thick-sculled coachman
, Potter, did at the very long last bethink him to assist me from my coach -- and, at that very moment, with a nightmare-screaming effort, Smedlow forced himself to break through the mirage . . . and see his own chauffeur now opening the door.
“Well, here we are,” said Octavia Blynn now that she was seated, making another brittle smile, pulling down the hem of her skirt to hide her knee, feeling somewhat more settled in her stomach but squeezing her sphincter to hold back the gas. How ever would she sell him on the dead celebrity magazine? Oh my, she thought, still doing her very best to keep smiling at the wrinkled skin, the buzzard eyes, the hairpiece, she did hope she wouldn’t have to service him. “Oh no, wait!” she shouted, suddenly remembering the marketing studies as the limo pulled slowly from the curb: “Here comes Magda with my briefcase. Stop the car! Stop at once!”
Whatever you say, thought Lem -- and not sayin’ or lettin’ on nothin’ at all, just keepin’ his cool like Floyd had told him, he hit the brakes real easy and pulled back toward the curb.
“Mr. Griswold, this is Magda Kretch. Magda, this is Mr. Griswold.”
Well, ain’t that real polite, thought Lem, lookin’ in the rearview so as he could see her ugly face and -- now that the bullshit was over -- hittin’ the lock button and floorin’ the accelerator. The good thing was she was rattlin’ on so damn fast with all her fancy numbers an’ marketin’ shit, that they was now already in the meat district by the time she come up for air:
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