“Looks like you was one damn fat little kid,” he said, shoving the photo album in Smedlow’s -- R.W. Griswold’s -- face so that now he could see a thirteen-year-old Smedlow in swimming trunks staring back, the blubber of his midriff all but blocking out the background of the Camp Tecumseh pool. Other pages, flipping by, displayed his former body at several more stages of its ghastly metamorphosis: with cradle cap, smeared with pablum and sucking on a bottle; in a coon-skin cap, surrounded by the little demons of Mrs. Kravitz’s third-grade class; in a rented white dinner jacket, flushed with youthful hope and standing beside his beaming prom date, the late and buxom Judy Klepner.
“Brings back a shitload a memories, don’t it?” Hell, it wasn’t no goddamn brainbuster. It was plain as day the old gentleman couldn’t keep his eyes off all them photos. “Yessir, you sure did fool my old Aunt,” he said, pilin’ the album and a bunch a other junk onto the prisoner’s lap: “Yep, she told me I was seein’ things. But now I got it proved -- real scientific -- that it’s just gotta be you in there.”
Hardly a minute later Smedlow found himself being wheeled out of the cellar, hurried down the brick path and lifted into the backseat of the limo. The back door was still open when he saw that Dumpling had followed them out -- with the German Shepherd trotting close behind, tail-wagging and sniffing at her rump.
“Well, now look at that: I guess yer little fancy doggy has decided to come along with her new boyfriend for a ride.”
The limousine had just begun to pull out of the driveway when Smedlow saw the headlights coming toward them. In another instant he had recognized the Volkswagen’s rusted fender and, behind the wheel, the twilit contours of a familiar bouffant mop above a mousey face dominated by black plastic horn-rimmed glasses. As Agnes passed, their eyes met only for an instant -- but long enough for him to see her surprise -- and that she had noticed her own dog, Dumpling, barking at the window.
Chapter XVII.
Containing an interment and a chirurgical operation, by attending which the reader may learn how Mr. Potter conceived a grievance
and Dumpling made a discovery.
The garbage bag beside him kept on swaying back and forth as the limo weaved and bolted through the lanes of highway traffic, now slumping to the left as they swerved off the exit, now leaning on Smedlow’s shoulder as they made the sharp turn beyond the Tastee Freeze, now rocking gently as they bounced down the long, bumpy, dirt road to the dump. Anger, horror and nostalgia overcame him. As if his first homecoming had not been bad enough, now he was being taken back to visit a far more intimate and cherished home -- the priceless, buried refuse of himself. The thought occurred to him that perhaps he could resurrect it somehow, by some miracle of surgery transfer himself back into his former body and, in a word, undo all the hideous damage they had done.
“Well, now, here we are,” said Lemuel Lee, pullin’ the limo up between a heap a rusted frigidaires and one humongous pile a crushed-up cars, stompin’ down on the emergency brake, and lookin’ up so as he could see the the reflections of the two prisoners in the rearview.
“Now I know you two love-birds back there wouldn’t like nothin’ better than to park all night and snuggle. But the time has come for you kids to say goodnight.”
Of course the best thing was to dig a hole somewhere safe on Taffy’s property instead of on the public landfill, cause that way the bag wasn’t near so likely to get dug up by accident by one a them goddamn department a sanitation power shovels. But then again tellin’ what was Taffy’s land wasn’t none too easy -- not only cause right now it was real foggy and dark as hell -- but also cause that old chainlink fence was mostly all tore up or knocked over and covered with trash, which made it so there wasn’t no real obvious boundary between where Floyd’s family’s junkyard ended and the garbage dump began. So that’s why, he thought, grabbin’ the shovel from the trunk and lookin’ at them dim lights in the distance, the only smart thing was not to get too far from Taffy’s trailer.
“Okay now, you two,” he said, tossin’ down the shovel, openin up the back door, leanin’ over and doin’ his goddamnedest to get his arms around the bag: “Kissin’s over. Upsy-daisy.”
As the green bag was being lifted off the seat, Smedlow thought he saw something -- a pale, transparent nose, a dim mirage of brow and wig -- floating on its plastic surface. He tried not to see this filmy apparition congealing into a solid, monstrous lump of lifeless eyes and skin and hands. But he could no more withstand than doubt of what was happening. Indeed, albeit he endeavoured to the uttermost to keep on seeing his captor lifting the green bag off the backseat, yet he could not chuse, instead, but see -- ever more distinctly -- my man Potter dragging out this dead bookworm Barnaby from my coach.
By and by this rascal Potter and young doctor Fludd had carried up this pedant’s carrion to my chamber and there did forthwith deposit it upon a rude wooden table most exceeding unsuitable for my bed-room -- but which did elsewise serve most acceptably for the cutting-up of pullets, mutton and swine below-stairs in my kitchen.
No sooner did this scurvy book-monger lie out-stretch’d, than young Fludd fell roundly to his business. ’Twas the first time that ever I saw Frobin give him leave to wield the knife. ’Twas not, I doubt, owing to old Master Frobin’s kind complaisance -- but lest he be bit and scratch’d at by his daughter, a one-eyed monster and the most foul and feeble-brain’d brute that ever I expect to see. Young Master Fludd had truck’d with this animal and gotten her with child, so that now she did revere him and attack upon his bidding like a dog. Therefore was old Frobin fain -- to forestall this creature’s ire -- to admit Fludd to the mysteries of his blade. And therefore, I ween, did young Fludd now remove my ears from off this beggarly dead bookseller.
Whilst this was doing, a little officious apothecary, whom my surgeons had inlisted to my service, did farce me with all manner of nauseous physick against the hideous pains of my ordeal. For not alone was I to be requited for the ears which I had lost, but moreover ridded of the tail which I had got owing to the fell advance of my immortal and reptilian distemper. I do confess that I was not over and above desirous of suffering the dolours of chirurgery. But this I was the willinger to do forasmuch as I had need to possess me of these ears and to doff this snakish flesh in order to the wooing and the bedding of my charmer.
Indeed, ’twas looking on her likeness in my locket which did sustain me the whiles my most industrious surgeons did saw and cut and sew. Now did I guzzle down great store of brandy. Whilst making shift not to heed the sharpness of their knives, I did dote upon the luxury of her bosom and endeavour to bear in mind that full soon my knaves would lock her up in Mistress Felsham’s brothel. And yet, for all that I did my manly best, I could scarce endure the cutting and the cautering and, all this mean while, the little busy apothecary rubbing and smearing of my wounds with poppy, knitbone, elder flower, willow bark, wormwood and myrrh.
At the length, howsomever, when these chirurgeons had done with their stitches and their scissors and their stanching of my blood with a turniket and styptick, young Fludd did hold up my glass so that I might see therein the cunning implantation of my ears. And indeed, in despight of my dolours, I must allow that I was above measure pleased and heartened thereby, in token whereof I did straightways vouchsafe this young doctor the possession and whatever benefit might be got from the selling of this beggarly bookseller’s carcass.
’Twas upon this account, doubtless, that my man-servant, Potter, did fall into a most peevish, rascally and rake-shamed humour. Not, forsooth, that he did not assay to hide it in my presence. But assoon as ever my chirurgeons had done with their poultices and bandages and had taken out the leavings of this carcass from my chamber, I did hear his dogged grumbling in the hall. Thinking to have had the carcass for himself and much offended in mind that I did bestow it elsewise, he did now demand to get his full moiety of its value. Thereupon I did hear young Fludd retort that he might perchance be perswaded to give away somewhat o
f the clothes (which were of scarce more worth than rags), but that he would by no manner of means be bullied out of the least part of his boon, which he did intend to market for dissection by the surgeons. Thereafter I did hear nothing more. But anon, whilst lying all sewed up and plastered and looking out at window to my fore-court, I did see these fellows coming out a doors. And what a tosse this arrant varlet Potter yet was in!
For most distinctly did I see him now a-pulling at this wretched book-monger’s corse the which Fludd and this apothecary were endeavouring to the utmost of their power to continue on carrying betwixt them. Nor, indeed, did Potter soon leave off this inexcusable aggression -- not even when these fellows did at length contrive to load the corse upon the mean, ranshackled, wagon which this little apothecary, Master Poe, had brought hither to mar the elm-lined vista of my coach-way. Plainly did I see Potter making hard shift to pluck the carcass off the wagon. And plainly did I see young Fludd pulling fierce against him. But I could not now plainly see the broad-backed person of this apothecary whipping on his jade or why this horse’s rump -- as it did make off at a trot -- did, on a sudden, beseem to be . . . the haunches of a German Shepherd bobbing in coitus beside an open grave.
Through the transparency of the fading apparition Smedlow now also thought he saw a bulging green garbage bag, a shovel, a pile of freshly dug dirt and (underneath the larger dog and likewise illuminated by the limousine’s high beams) his wife’s fat, pedigreed Yorkshire Terrier -- Dumpling. Some sixty feet farther in the foggy distance, Smedlow’s tormentor now also appeared -- micturating on a mountain of discarded tires. My God! Wasn’t it there, right there, that this -- this overgrown insect -- had dug a hole and buried him?
It was several moments later, after he had watched his captor trudge back through the gloom, push the bag into the grave and shovel on the dirt, that Smedlow saw the larger dog get down off the Terrier -- and Dumpling start sniffing at the ground.
“Sure looks to me,” said Lemuel Lee, gettin’ behind the wheel, pattin’ Blitz on the head, and glancin’ up at the prisoner in the rearview, “like yer little fancy doggy wants to stay right here and keep on followin’ her nose.”
As he heard the purr of the ignition, Smedlow watched Dumpling’s wagging tail as she sniffed (by the glare of the headlights) past the piled-up wreckage of cars, through a cemetery of rusting stoves and dishwashers and refrigerators. As the emergency brake released and the limo started backing up, he could still make her out -- waddling through the fog, sniffing her way past toasters and TV’s, couches, bedframes, toilets -- until she stopped, sniffed the dirt and started barking beside a colossal pile of tires.
Chapter XVIII.
A very dark chapter, containing news of the discovery of two corpses,
one modern and one ancient.
Body Found at Local Dump Sparks Legal Battle
Insurance Company Disputes Widow’s Claim
Cyndi Gumpel- Sween
A legal battle has broken out over the identity of the mutilated corpse discovered last month at the Lake Hiawatha dump. Nearly three weeks after law enforcement officials voiced alarm over the “butchery of a deranged and cold-blooded killer,” a widow and an insurance company have locked horns over the fate of millions of dollars in benefits.
Last month’s grisly discovery, according to Sergeant Schuyler “Skip” Kowalski of the New Jersey State Troopers, was made by a ten-year-old handicapped boy whose family owns the Fusco Salvage Company adjacent to the public landfill. The boy, Floyd Ambrose Fusco Jr., reportedly told police that on the evening of March 31st he had been awakened by barking at approximately 11 P.M., gone outdoors with his flashlight and found a small dog digging up a body. Floyd Jr. is also said to have told police that he remembered seeing footprints in the mud beside the grave, “which might have made a big difference,” said Sergeant Kowalksi, if only we had been notified before it began to rain.” “My boy told me about it just as soon as he could,” said Floyd Jr.’s mother, Mrs. Taffy Clapp Fusco. “But, you know, it isn’t easy on them crutches. Floyd Senior would be very proud.” Sergeant Kowalski told reporters that he had arrived at the landfill shortly after 1:00 A.M., cordoned off the crime scene and examined the terrier’s dog tag, which enabled him to identify the owner as Mrs. Agnes Smedlow of 601 Summit Avenue, Hackensack, New Jersey.
But when asked about the identity of the corpse, the police have -- ever since the exhumation -- remained steadfastly noncommital. “The decedent,” repeated Sergeant Kowalski yesterday, “is an obese middle-aged Caucasian male. Otherwise we can make no positive identification at this time.”
Nonetheless, Mrs. Smedlow’s assertion that the body is that of her missing husband -- Dr. Max Nathan Smedlow, a family dentist and implantologist -- has now initiated a fierce dispute between Mrs. Smedlow and her husband’s life insurance company. “I know that’s him. I can’t be wrong,” said Mrs. Smedlow on the telephone last Friday. But in a statement issued yesterday by the Bedrock Casualty Company, claims department counsel Wendell J. Skagg, Esq., has questioned Mrs. Smedlow’s judgement and concurred with the police. Noting “the corpse’s general decomposition which makes Mrs. Smedlow’s testimony irrelevant,” Mr. Skagg concludes that, “in the absence of dental records, DNA evidence and of limbs -- without which fingerprinting is impossible -- there is simply no way to determine the decedent’s identity. Therefore Mrs. Smedlow’s claim is premature.”
“We’re going to fight this,” said Bruce J. Silver, Esq., a personal injury attorney from Hoboken whom Mrs. Smedlow has hired to represent her. In response to Mr. Skagg’s charge that Mrs. Smedlow has prematurely made a claim upon her husband’s policy, Mr. Silver has accused Bedrock Casualty of waging “a campaign of innuendoes” ever since Mrs. Smedlow “quite correctly” informed the insurance company of the discovery of her husband’s body. “Instead of slurring Mrs. Smedlow,” said Mr. Silver, “why doesn’t someone find the old man and the chauffeur whom Mrs. Smedlow saw driving off with her dog?”
When asked about this, the police have stated that they are “actively following up” on Mrs. Smedlow’s testimony that she saw an old man driven by a chauffeur steal her dog just hours before its barking led to the discovery of the body. “We’re taking this very seriously,” said Sergeant Kowalksi. “We’re looking for a black Lincoln limousine with New York plates. It’s part of our ongoing investigation.”
“Hell,” said Lemuel Lee, readin’ over the geezer’s shoulder and gettin’ suddenly a trifle nervous about how the cops was on the lookout for the limo, “ain’t you never gonna finish readin’ that goddamn newspaper?”
Smedlow tried to stop staring at it. But the little column of newsprint -- the shock and finality of it -- exerted a terrible, paralyzing fascination. He had the sickening feeling that he was looking at his own gravestone. Still there was some miniscule comfort in the fact that the cops had not -- at least not yet -- declared him dead. Yes, yes, that was it: as long as they couldn’t locate his dental records or find samples of his DNA in, for example, some dandruffy old comb or in the hair-clogged blade of his electric razor, there was still some small cause for hope.
But somehow he would have to get back home and destroy the evidence before Agnes and that shyster she had hired had a chance to rummage through his things. That would be just like her, he thought, noting that, for all her ostentation of grief, she had wasted no time at all claiming the death benefit -- a miserly practicality which didn’t surprise him in the least, considering the way she never bought new toothbrushes or scouring pads or sponges, the regularity with which she returned soda bottles for the five-cent deposit, and all the Sunday mornings at the breakfast table he had watched her cutting coupons for bathroom spray and chopped meat from the back pages of the local paper. Moreover, it was perfectly obvious that if she could somehow prove that that plundered hunk of flesh was his, she would immediately opt for the economical expedient of cremation: and then there would be nothing whatsoever left of him -- no, not even that butche
red carcass they had dug up in the junkyard -- just some box of dust which she would no doubt scatter as food for her hydrangeas.
“The Doctor says, Mr. Griswold, Sir, that some a them arteries in yer head is still a mite clogged up.”
Smedlow watched the monster woman pause to wheeze and catch her breath.
“That’s how come you ain’t always been in yer right mind. But he says that pretty soon you won’t even remember you was brainsick. He says you’ll flush that prisoner from yer brain the more you get healed up from yer amnesia.”
Leaning over and giving him a nauseating close-up of her cleavage, she placed a familiar black leather suitcase on his table.
“Here’s some a yer favorite old-time panties, Mr. Griswold, Sir.”
Smedlow (wasn’t he still Smedlow?) did wish that she would stop calling him that. In vain he did his endeavour to keep the hand from reaching toward and opening the case.
“Lem! Now go fetch Mr. Griswold here his locket, his gold mirror, his big old fancy cane, and one a them old brown bottles a stinkum. The doctor says all them antique things is gonna help him to remember. And then wheel him so he’s real close up to all them snooty dead folks in them pictures.”
“Here’s yer damn stink bottle,” said Lemuel Lee several moments later, slammin’ it down on the table, goin’ off to fetch the other junk, and still feelin’ a trifle queasy about what he’d read in that damn newspaper. Goddamn! If the cops was lookin’ for the limo and anyone had seen him at the wheel, then they was most definitely gonna want to ask him a bunch a questions. And it was most definitely possible, goddamn it, that they was gonna put together two and two if they was to find, for example, some a his spit-out chewin’ gum at the junkyard or maybe his fingerprints on one a them two damn jumbo plastic bags. But wait: the good thing was that (like that newspaper said) the rain had washed away his footprints at the junkyard, and so maybe all that rain had also muddied up them bags. Yep, and maybe -- maybe -- there wasn’t no one at all who’d seen him drivin’ the limo in the first place. Which is what he was startin’ to hope when all of a sudden he remembered that editor-lady’s girl Friday -- that skank Magda who’d brung her out the briefcase when they was pickin’ the editor-lady up in midtown. And that’s just exactly what he was suddenly rememberin’ when he found himself gettin that panicky butterfly feelin’ in his stomach that maybe things was really startin’ to go wrong.
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