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Smashed, Squashed, Splattered, Chewed, Chunked and Spewed

Page 18

by Lance Carbuncle

In my darkness I hear random noises: beeping, respiration, growls, barks, voices, elevator music, the voice of Rod Roddy telling somebody that they’ve won a Newwwwwwwww CARRRRRRRR, Mom crying, babies crying, me crying, the buzzing of insects. In the silent lulls between the noises I return to a catatonic state, which is quite restful. I am occasionally visited by Idjit.

  My arms and legs refuse to move, no better than hunks of wood nailed to my torso. My eyes don’t open when I ask them to. My lips won’t speak. I know I am in a hospital. Sometimes it seems that I am awake and can hear what is happening. Sometimes I can’t tell sleep from dreams. In my gut I feel a wiggling, a gnawing, a buzzing. In my dreams, or maybe in reality, it feels as if something, a large rat or maybe a dog, is chewing on the open wound in my belly. Unable to scream at the pain, I try to direct my dreams away from the gnawing sensation. Most of the time, though, there isn’t pain. Just blackness.

  I have learned to measure days by the voices of Bob Barker and Rod Roddy. If I am not dreaming, demented, or delusional, then somebody watches The Price is Right every day at 11:00. Come On Down! It seems that after The Price is Right, somebody pulls a tube out of my dick and reinserts it. There may also be some sort of suppository application happening too. It’s hard to say. My ass is always sore. I sleep. I wake. I sleep. I wake. I sleep. I wake. I don’t know which is which. Sometimes I visit Idjit; sometimes he visits me.

  • • •

  The elevator zips upward and I melt into an iridescent oil slick of a puddle on the floor. Elevator doors open to a white waiting room. I regain solidity and pull myself out of the puddle that has become me on the floor of the elevator. The waiting room is completely white. The furniture is white. Ceiling and floor, white. Cold, antiseptic white. Idjit sits at the receptionist desk, his ears rolled up in a bun on top of his head and snapping on his gum. “Welcome,” he says, “to the waiting room. Have a seat. Read a magazine. Make yourself comfortable. You may be here for a while.” On the tables I see out of date Readers’ Digests and Highlights magazines. I am reminded of Goofus and Gallant and find myself smirking. Goofus is cool.

  “The waiting room for what?”

  “The waiting room. Waiting to go wherever it is you’re supposed to go.”

  “Like purgatory or something?”

  “Yeah, kind of,” says Idjit. “But purgatory is a Catholic invention. And they got the whole thing wrong. Purgatory is all about punishment for venial sins and obtaining purification so that you get to go to heaven. That’s all a bunch of hooey. Those in the waiting room are incomplete for some reason or another. Usually it’s not even their fault. And here is where they wait until they reach whatever state it is that is deemed necessary to become. And then they go wherever it is that they are supposed to end up.”

  “Who are they and what state is necessary and for what purpose?”

  “Hey, I’m on a need to know basis. I’m working this job through a temp agency. I’m just taking this all in and speculating to a certain extent.”

  The room is filled with long-legged beautiful women. Some wear skimpy swimsuits and others evening gowns. Just waiting. They strike perfect poses and look bored. Every once in a while a primitive looking man or woman wanders through the room looking confused.

  “What’s up with the babes?” I ask, checking out the women.

  “They’re supermodels,” says Idjit.

  “No duh. Why so many models in the waiting room?”

  “You remember some of those documentaries we would watch where the African tribes wouldn’t let people take their pictures because they were afraid it would capture their souls?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Remember how you laughed at how stupid those, what did you call them . . . cavemen . . . were?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, they were right. At least partially.”

  “No shit.”

  “No shit,” Idjit laughs. I laugh. “But it’s not like you take one picture and you have somebody’s soul. It’s more like each picture chips away at you just a little bit. A tiny fragment of your being is flaked off. For most of us it’s insignificant. But, if your picture is taken over and over and over . . . ”

  “Like if your career is having your picture taken . . . ”

  “Exactly,” Idjit taps his nose and points at me. “If your picture is taken all of the time, then eventually your soul just kind of flakes away.”

  “And it’s totally gone?”

  “Not totally. There’s always a little kernel left. But all of those little flakes have to catch up with you. They have to find you. Sometimes it takes a long time. And in the meantime you have to wait.”

  “In the waiting room. I get it.” I look around and notice that not everybody in the room is physically beautiful. “But not all of these people were super-models though, huh? I mean look at that woman over there. Who’d want her picture?” In the corner sits a spry looking creature, contemptible and insignificant.

  “Yeah,” says Idjit. “She was a meter maid. She probably deserves to wait for a long time. I don’t even see her on the list. I suspect she probably is waiting to be sent to her own personal hell. And the skeezy bitch probably deserves it.”

  “And what about those primitives over there?” I point to a small tribe of practically naked dark-skinned people in the corner who look like something straight out of a National Geographic special. “I thought that those people wouldn’t let their pictures be taken for fear that they would lose their souls.”

  “It’s not all a bunch of people who had their souls photographically eroded,” explains Idjit. “I was just giving you an example. All of these beings here, for one reason or another, are incomplete. They have to wait. And once the waiting is done, they go through the door.”

  “Give me another example then.”

  “Um . . . ” Idjit looks around the room and points to a young man sitting and reading a torn up magazine. “That fellow over there is an identical twin. He’s waiting around for his brother. Turns out that there is only one soul for identical twins. The soul enters the embryo at the time of conception. When the embryo splits, half of the soul goes with one twin and half with the other. When one identical twin predeceases the other, he has to wait around for the sibling’s demise so that the essence can once again become one.”

  “I always knew there was something weird about identicals.”

  Behind Idjit’s desk is a wooden door on cast-iron hinges that looks like a door to a castle or something. Above the door is a sign that reads: THE DOOR.

  “What’s behind THE DOOR?” I ask.

  “Oh it’s beautiful,” raves Idjit. “There’s a long hall with a bright light at the end. You float down the hall and when you get to the light you feel complete serenity and love. Beings made of light greet you there. All of your loved ones will be waiting on you to have a big party. And the air tastes sweet, like cotton candy. Once you get your wings, halo, and harp, they open the gates of heaven and let you in where you will live a life of persistent peace, happiness and contentment.”

  “Wow! Really?”

  “Wow! Really?” Idjit mocks me and laughs. “No, not really. I have no idea. I told you, I’m on a need to know basis. For all I know, that’s the executive washroom. I haven’t seen anybody go in or out.”

  “What do they need you here for then?” I ask.

  “Don’t know,” says Idjit.

  “Well what do you do most of the day?”

  “I play spider solitaire on the computer mostly. They don’t have any good games on here and won’t give me access to the Internet.”

  “That sucks!”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Hey,” I say to Idjit. “I have to go. Something is gnawing on my gut.”

  “Baby, please don’t go,” he pleads.

  “I must.”

  “Don’t. Don’t.”

  “Must. Must.” I go.

  • • •

  I often return to the waiting room but Idji
t is never working when I visit. The new receptionist is gruff and unlikable. She refuses to give me any information about Idjit. She’s watching me, she says, always watching. I check back regularly, only to be rudely ignored and deprived of answers to my questions about Idjit.

  • • •

  Days pass. Weeks. Months. Each new day starts when I hear a voice telling me to Come on Down. The gnawing in my gut never goes away, although most of the other pains seem to have died down. Sometimes I hear a baby. Sometimes I smell barbeque ribs. Unconnected events flow into each other and I lack the ability to tie them together or even know if they are real or not. What is real? What’s a dream? They merge into one for me. Random images and sounds come to me with no apparent connections. Smells, sensations, sounds, colors. I welcome the dreams. The thought that I will see Idjit again keeps my heart beating and my blood pumping. I have dreamed of Idjit. I will see him again.

  After what seems like years Idjit comes to me again. He stands before me in the yellow robe of the ascetic. He looks sad and asks “why did you leave me?” I embrace Idjit, put my arm around him, he says, “call me Govinda.” I draw him close to me and kiss him. He is Govinda no longer. He is Idjit no longer. Idjit is gone and I know this. He is now a woman. And out of the woman’s gown emerges a full, firm breast, and I lay there and drink; sweet and strong is the milk from the teat. It tastes of woman. It tastes of man. It tastes of newly bloomed flower and the forest. It tastes of fresh air and morning dew, of sun and of forest, of every fruit and every pleasure. It is good. It is intoxicating. I feel fine, but I’m going to miss my best friend.

  “COME ON DOWN!” shouts Rod Roddy, sending electric, spastic, synaptic transmissions flowing through my brain and spinal column, lighting up each and every nerve. Fire shoots through my veins. Almost to the point of explosion, the ghost of John Bonham pounds out Moby Dick on my heart with massive fucking baseball bats. I’m alive. Lightening bolts shoot from the sky directly into the top of my head. A thousand suns shine on my face and my whole being lights up. It’s a fucking epiphany. For one moment, one nanosecond, it all comes to me. My journey makes sense. My travels were not random, meandering, empty experiences. My encounters were not unconnected and meaningless. I had purpose. I realize that for just a blink in my time-line I served some sort of a higher purpose. Maybe even a divine, spiritual purpose. Angels sing. The sky splits open and a giant bearded face that looks like Kenny Rogers floats above me.[33] Its finger lowers itself down slowly and pokes me in the stomach. My belly tingles at the touch and I giggle like a doughboy. And then everything is normal.

  I open my eyes. Beside my bed is Jack the dog, comfortably curled up into a big black and tan ball. He looks up at me and thumps his tail on the floor. I send a message to my feet. They wiggle under the sheets. Another message to my arms. My fingers twitch. I roll my wrists. My arms lift. I sit up, feeling weak. My atrophied muscles are tired from the little test.

  I sit back and feel content. There’s a feeling I get sometimes after I take a huge blow-out of a shit. Like my body is cleansed. The act of voiding the bowels releases endorphins or something and the result is a general feeling of contentment and satisfaction. There’s a sense that everything is going to be okay. That’s the kind of feeling I have right now. I jam a hand down between the mattress and my bare ass to check if I shit myself. I haven’t. I just feel good. Jack rises and stands beside me at the bed. I scratch his head and relish the feeling of post-shit tranquility. Jack’s eyes lock with mine. I know him. I know him well.

  • • •

  I’ve been in a coma for the past three years. This is what my nurse, Mildred[34], tells me. She says that my body sustained too much abuse and damage in such a short period of time that my system just shut down. Mildred shoos Jack away from the bedside and says: “It’s like a coma slash post-traumatic syndrome slash catatonic stupor that you suffered. You were out of it for a long time.”

  “What all was wrong with me?” I ask.

  “Let’s see,” she says as she flips through the thick three-ring binder that is my medical chart. “Multiple contusions and lacerations, lepromatous leprosy, liver failure, broken ribs, bovine spongiform encephalitis, treponema pallidum, cracked skull, fractured wrist, gingivitis, halitosis, broken nose, acne conglobata, infectious carbuncles, priapism, Lyme disease, anal fissures, tinea cruris, toxic shock syndrome, Pneumonoultramicroscopicovolcaniosis.”

  “Sounds bad,” I say. “How am I doing now?”

  “Well, earlier this morning you were covered with bedsores and you smelled like you were well past your sell-by date. But you seem to be just fine now.” She lifts my medical gown and looks at my stomach. “Well waddayaknow. It looks like your stomach wound has healed up too. We’ve left that gash open for three years. It looked like it was turning gangrenous so we recently decided to administer MDT. And it looks like it worked.”

  “What’s MDT?”

  “Maggot Debridement Therapy. Your injury wasn’t healing, we just left it open and tried to keep it clean, but gangrene was setting in. So Dr. Zacharias started a regimen of MDT. He placed a small quantity of sterile maggots in your wound and allowed them to eat the dying flesh. He just retrieved the maggots from your wound earlier this morning. I’ll tell you what, those bad boys really fattened up on your necrotic flesh. And,” she shakes her head, “well, I’ve never seen this before, but your wound has already healed over just this morning.”

  I feel a buzzing in my stomach. “I think he left some in there. My belly feels funny.”

  “That’s just the healing process. You’ll be fine.” She pats me on the shoulder and sighs. “We thought you were never going to come back to us though.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. We thought you were in a permanent vegetative state. One of your relatives was even trying to have you euthanized.”

  “Who?”

  “You have a cousin, Denny, right?” She watches for recognition and continues when I nod yes. “He has been claiming that you told him if you ever were in a coma that you wanted no life-saving procedures. He says he was one of the last people to speak with you and you told him that. He’s been trying to get the doctors to pull you off all machines. Once you were off almost all of the machines he was trying to convince the doctors to pull your feeding tube. Lately, you’ve actually been accepting spoon-feeding. So Denny’s been petitioning the courts to just allow him to smother you with a pillow. The courts have rejected his petitions. But your cousin has garnered quite a bit of support from some of the different right to die groups. It’s a good thing you woke up when you did.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like Denny,” I sigh. It makes sense. Denny was obsessed with Dr. Kevorkian and his death machines. He used to say that Dr. Kevorkian was the world’s greatest serial killer. He even bought Dr. Death’s jazz-flute album. For a while it was all that Denny would play in his car. “Has anybody else been concerned about me or come to visit while I was out?”

  “Well your parents will probably be in for their regular visit in just a little while.”

  “You mean my mom.”

  “No,” Nurse Mildred shakes her head. “Both your mom and dad. They come up as much as they can. They are nice. And your dad looks so young.”

  “My dad is dead.”

  “Well he certainly looks alive to me,” she says as she rolls me on my side and wipes my butt crack with a cold rag.

  The cool, soothing wipe feels nice on my sore asshole. I realize I am hungry and ask for deviled eggs. Nurse Mildred tells me that she will see what she can do as she double-bags the wipe and throws it in a biohazard bin. She scrubs her hands in the sink until I can hear them squeaking against each other, wipes them dry, and tells me she’ll be back later. She chases Jack away from my bed again before leaving.

  • • •

  “Oh, my baby.” Mom runs into my room with tears streaming down her face. “My baby. My baby.” She smashes my face into her bosom. The soft weight of her breasts on my face gives
me the heebie-jeebies and with every little bit of muscle fiber left in my weakened limbs I fight to push my face away from her not-insubstantial boobage. “Baby, I knew you would be back. I knew it. I even made you one of my linty pillows so that you would be comfortable when you regained consciousness.” Mom has always collected dryer lint. For as long as I remember the laundry room has been full of coffee tins, cat litter buckets, garbage bags and various containers packed with the fuzz collected from the lint trap of our clothes dryer. Mom used to put a ziplock bag full of lint in our school bags for just in case, she would say. She would brag about the versatility of dryer lint and claimed it could be used as fire kindling in an emergency. She said it absorbed bad odors in the refrigerator. Once, in a hushed tone, she claimed that lint was the secret to longevity. She would cram pillowcases with the fluff she scraped from the lint trap. Most of my life I have rested my head at night on a linty pillow. One time Frank told me that you could get high off of the stuff. I rolled up a tiny little dryer lint joint and tried to smoke it. The smoke gave me a headache and made me vomit.

  Mom cries herself out and I gaze around the room. Behind her is a wooden cigar store Indian that says: “Hey there, Son. We wondered if we would ever speak with you again.” It’s not a cigar store Indian, it’s Totem.

  “Son?” I ask.

  “Oh Baby,” Mom sighs. “It got so lonely without you around the house. Ad it was so tough on me dealing with Idjit’s failing health. Oh . . . ” she gasps and covers her open mouth with her hand. “I didn’t want to tell you this yet. But . . . ”

  “I know Mom, Idjit’s gone.”

  “Oh, Baby. I didn’t want to tell you just yet, but . . . ”

  “Mom, I got to say goodbye to him. And it was beautiful.” Mom’s lips curve up into a relieved smile. “Now tell me why Totem is calling me Son.”

  “Well, Baby. You’ve been gone. Idjit’s been sick. And Barney keeps getting denied parole. I started realizing that things were not going to work out with him. The prison wouldn’t give us conjugal visits and my weekly visit with him in the visiting park was really starting to hurt my wrists. And meanwhile, I let this fine young man stay with me after you went crazy and took off from the new house.” Totem sidles up and wraps an arm around Mom’s waist. “Well. You just dropped this perfect little man in my lap and you know, things happened. I needed a man around the house and you weren’t there. Anyway, we went on a casino cruise one night and had a few too many Appletinis. Next thing you know,” she snaps her fingers, “the captain of the ship performs a ceremony and we’re married. And it’s been wonderful. Hasn’t it, Totem Pole?”

 

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