by J. M. Porup
The welcome hiss of static returned. I gripped the steering wheel as tight as I could, trying to block out the humming coming from my leg.
“Of course the new rules haven’t affected me, silly,” I said. “I have electric heating.”
Everyone takes food home with them. It saves the government money on its fuel bill. Rather than leave the food to be destroyed on Burn Day, agents would take home cases of contraband to incinerate in their own furnaces. In fact, so high-minded were most ATFF agents that there was rarely any food left to destroy when Burn Day came around.
So when I first heard of the scandal, I was sure there had been a mistake. We were the ATFF. How was it possible that people I worked with every day were food terrists? But the videos of them at home consuming the contraband material—and worse, giving it to their wives and children—could not be explained away.
I worried what would happen to my flock at home. The Twinkies were asexual. I had observed their social interaction with the care of a field biologist, and come to the conclusion that they were sterile. Not once did I see them mate or give birth. Because of their suicidal tendencies, they were constantly after me, beating their wings against my head, demanding new playmates. On occasion I had brought home confiscated Twinkies to replenish their nest. Sometimes I felt like I was the one living in the dungeon, not them.
I took a deep breath, let it out slowly.
“The Bureau’s counting calories,” Green said. “Making sure not a single one goes missing.”
“Good,” I said. “What they should have done in the first place. Makes the rest of us look like deviant food-swilling scum when a few bad apples get caught with their hands in the cookie jar.”
The Twinkie cleared its throat and sang:
“Apples, apples! Cookies, cookies!”
I hissed, “Stop it! Quiet! Stop singing, you!”
“I’m sorry?” Green said. “I wasn’t singing.”
“What? Oh. I was just talking to the radio. You know, that crazy singing static.” I forced a laugh.
My partner looked at me strangely, but let it go. Phew. That was a close one.
I pulled up behind half a dozen D.C. cruisers—also Smart Cars—blocking the street, and killed the engine. The radio static died, and with it, my faith. If I wasn’t careful there’d be an impromptu Twinkie concert in the park.
Green reached for the door handle. “So what do you think I should do?” he asked. “About Melissa.”
“I don’t want to get involved, Harry,” I said. “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”
“Yummy broth! Broth-ey broth!” the Twinkie sang.
“Maybe gruel? Is that so cruel?
With a spud. Half a spud.
A rotten spud. Any old crud!”
I pressed my eyelids shut. Go away. Leave me alone. Why can’t you leave me in peace?
Harry opened the door but didn’t get out. “You sure I can’t convince you to talk to her? Explain to her how things really are?”
I shook my head. I could not bring myself to look at him. “If my family can do it, so can yours.”
I thought of Chantal’s rapid turnaround after the incident at my graduation, after she got out of Fat Camp. I’d come home after a hard day’s work busting food terrists, and she and Nathan and I, we’d sit around the dinner table and chew some air for a while. He’d tell me about his day at school, the fat kids taken away by ATFF riot squads, the skinny kids who collapsed on the playground and got to suck on vanilla oxygen for the rest of the day. Chantal would kiss me on the cheek and tell me how she had a wonderful perfume lunch with the girls, really exquisite the flavors of air. After dinner I’d do imitations of Fatso to scare Nathan with.
I take my responsibility as a father seriously. It’s important to teach your children the right values.
“Ho ho ho. I’m Fatso, the fat man drug baron. Look at me, come to ruin your lives. Candy, little girl? Chocolates, little boy? Once you’re hooked on food, you’ll never be able to stop. And I’ll make lots of money selling you dime bags of rice and dried legumes, a dozen beans to the bag. Mwoo-hwoo-wah-hah! I am evil incarnate! I am a Frenchman food dealer! Be very, very afraid! Boo!”
My wife and son would collapse in giggles. We were a happy family in those days. Back before what happened, happened.
What’s that? No, I’m fine. Really. Just a bit of runny nose is all.
So we sat there in the car, the glow of the Thin House glorious across the street. I took the keys from the ignition. Green put his hand on my arm. “This conversation never took place. Right, old friend?”
“Sure, Harry. You know me.”
He slapped me on the back. “Good ol’ Frolick.”
He got out of the car and closed the door.
I sat there for a moment, collecting my thoughts. Faith: be strong! I believe! I do! Aid me now in my time of struggle, O Mine Prophet, please! The Twinkie song subsided. But for how long?
I would have to keep an eye on Harry. I was worried about my partner. Talking about naturopaths, giving food to his daughter. Faith was essential to survival. Essential to eating air. The tiniest speck of doubt could unleash a swarm of suicidal Twinkie rapists. To someone unaccustomed to their ways, this could destroy a man.
For the first time in our long partnership, I was unsure of Harry. Of his loyalty. Of his values. I would have to give him all the encouragement I could. And, if necessary, report him. If his faith was weak, it could affect my own digestion, and that of everyone he came in contact with. He would be a menace to society as long as his doubt lasted. It might be necessary to send him to Fat Camp again.
For his own good.
FOUR
We’re what? Out of time?
Yes, I know the show’s called Soixante-Neuf Minutes. What’s that got to do with the price of air in Kansas? I come bringing salvation to the French people, and you want to cut me off when I’ve barely gotten started?
Corporal? Take out your gun and hold it to the Frenchie’s head. Like that. Excellent.
This broadcast continues. Anyone moves, anyone tries to end this transmission, and fattie here gets it.
We clear?
It was 4 a.m. by the time Green and I got to the scene of the crime. We crunched across the dead grass of the park, stepping over the rotting tree limbs that blocked our path. Remnants of the Air Force’s herbicide spraying campaign. Half a dozen cops huddled around the body. They hid their hands behind their backs when they saw us.
“Well if it isn’t Agent Frolick and his sidekick Agent Green.” A homicide dick by the name of Sergeant Thinn hooked one thumb between his belt and his belly. “What are you doing here, anyway? You’ve never solved a murder in your life.”
“Top brass put us on the case,” I said, with justifiable pride. “Guess we’re better than you thought.”
“What’s the last case you solved?”
I puffed out my chest. “Busted a ring of housewives selling homemade apple pies.”
“And who you calling sidekick, fat man?” Green added, jabbing Thinn in the stomach with a finger.
“It ain’t illegal to be fat,” Thinn said. “The Air Congress passed a law. Remember?”
“You mean Hoe v. Spade?” I asked. “That wasn’t Air Congress. That was the Supreme Food Court.”
After the Amendment passed, roaming patrols herded fatties aboard buses and onto box cars to take them to Fat Camp. But an obese woman, a plaintiff by the name of Phood Hoe, sued the deputy assistant sheriff’s assistant’s deputy who arrested her. She claimed to be an early convert to the Prophet’s words. She wasn’t fat. She was swollen with excess oxygen from eating so much air.
In their landmark decision, the Court agreed. Being fat was not a crime. It was only consumption of food that was illegal. We could arrest a fattie on suspicion and feed them laxatives, but if their bowels were empty we had to let them go. That was when the Air Congress set up the Food Courts. Although what we were doing giving terrists due process and trying
them in court was beyond me.
Thinn produced a paper bag from behind his back. He held up a hamburger and took a big bite. “Whatever. Anyway, it’s about time you got here. Or were you too busy eating air?”
“Never too busy to eat air,” I said. “Still on your methadone, I see?”
He was munching on a zero-calorie burger and thick-cut zero-calorie fries. I knew the food was zero-calorie because I asked him once and he told me. It still amazes me, though, how fat he was for eating nothing but zero-calorie burgers all day long.
A young cop turned to Thinn. Name tag read “J. Olde.” His red, puffy eyes marked him as a rookie. Too much taco air. “Gosh,” he said. “Didn’t know you were a heroin addict, Sarge.”
Thinn swallowed and rattled his paper bag. “This is a zero-calorie burger, fries and milkshake combo. Like we eat every day? Maybe you should join the team, Olde.”
“Just gotta be different, don’t you,” said a second cop, name of Nice. Mean-looking. “Why can’t you eat at Fatso’s Diner like the rest of us?”
“Fatso!” I said. “Not our evil foe?”
Thinn licked mustard from his lips. “Different Fatso. No relation.”
“Gee whillickers,” Olde said. “Zero calories? I’ve never heard of such a thing. How come you never mentioned it before?”
“What are they made out of, anyway?” I asked.
“Processed air,” Thinn said. “Olde here is from California. Raw foodie.”
“Jeez, Sarge,” the rookie said. “No need to make fun. Just ’cause I prefer my air unprocessed.”
I fist-bumped the rookie. “You go, girl,” I said.
Thinn waved a French fry in my face. “Processed air is pretty tasty. Sure you don’t want one? Zero calories?”
Green trembled at my side. “Don’t mind if I do.”
I slapped his hand away. “Watch it, sidekick.”
The fry fell to the ground, and three of the cops dove for it. Their heads collided on the dead grass. From the heap of groans Officer Nice emerged, fry held aloft in triumph.
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked. “Don’t you ever eat air?”
“Sure we do,” Thinn said, his mouth full. “In between three square meals, a doughnut run and a midnight snack.” He turned to the others. “All zero-calorie, of course.”
They laughed.
I reddened. “If it’s good enough for the Prophet, it’s good enough for me.”
Their laughter stopped. I pressed home my advantage.
“It’s our job to be role models,” I said. “What kind of example does this give our young people? From a distance it’s hard to tell the difference between one of your burgers and an illegal one. I realize your food has zero calories, and is therefore exempt from the Amendment’s prohibition of addictive caloric substances, but it could easily be misunderstood by a young person who didn’t know any better. This is why it’s so important that we—”
“Partner mine.” A tug on my sleeve.
“What is it?”
Green nodded at the body on the ground. “Save it for Air Temple.”
Ah, Air Temple. Sunday was my favorite day of the week. Attendance at Air Temple was mandatory, but I would go every day if I could. Sometimes they even let me deliver a guest sermon, but my favorite was the air-eating competitions the Faith Officers organized—how I would gulp down those scrumptious gaseous molecules! Then there was the obligatory group confessional, when citizens were encouraged to turn in local food terrists—their neighbors, relatives and friends. In practice this meant people giving each other free vacations. The accused party would fall to their knees, confess hysterically and pretend to beg forgiveness. Slackers. They’d rather take it easy in Fat Camp than go to the office every day like the rest of us working stiffs.
Green snapped his fingers in front of my face. I forced myself back into the present.
“We’re here for him,” my partner said. “Remember?”
I knelt down over the corpse. “Poor thing.”
All thoughts of the sermon I was about to deliver disappeared. The body lay face down in a puddle of blood. A pizza box stood empty at his side. I touched his hand. Cold. Wet. I held up my fingers to the light. Flecks of half-digested mushroom, green pepper, onion, pepperoni, tomato sauce and cheese. The corpse was covered in vomit. A tremendous feeling of sorrow and pity crashed over me.
“If only he’d been given a chance to go to Fat Camp,” I lamented. “Maybe then he wouldn’t have turned to a life of crime.”
Green bent down next to the corpse and bared the dead man’s right forearm. There on the hairless skin above the wrist glowed a blue tattoo: nine digits, separated by two dashes. “555-66-1212.” His social security number. Green took out a scanner and swept the bar code below the numbers.
“According to this, he’s been in Fat Camp half a dozen times already,” he announced. “Four convictions for possession, one for distribution and one for stealing candy from a baby. Claimed its mother missed a payment on her installment plan, and was only repossessing what was already his.”
“A real hard case,” Thinn grunted, and stuffed more burger into his mouth. “Why couldn’t he just eat air like the rest of us?”
I held up my vomit-covered hands to the sky in despair. “What if the seventh time was all he needed?” I beseeched the heavens. “Now he’ll never have a chance to eat air. To learn how to transcend the body and become pure spirit.” Hot tears coursed down my cheeks. “He was just an innocent kid, corrupted by the mafia. They probably held his family hostage to make him do their dirty work.”
Thinn spat. “Whoever did this, did us a favor. One less junkie dealer on the streets.”
“How can you say that?” I grabbed the scanner from Green’s hands, skimmed the man’s bio. Name: Nick Hungry. Born: Pepperoniville, Pennsylvania, July 4, 1984. “Says right here he’s got seven younger brothers and sisters.”
“So?” Thinn demanded.
I skimmed some more. “His father’s dead, too.”
“Again. So?”
“So?” I was aghast at his insensitivity. “Maybe he still believes in that old-fashioned garbage about ‘being the breadwinner’ and ‘bringing home the bacon.’”
“So what if he does?”
What can you do with a man like Thinn? A heart of stone. I sighed. “All I’m saying is, I feel sorry for him.” I turned back to the dead body. “You hear me?” I said. “I feel sorry for you. I do. Me. If only you had let us help you. Whether you wanted us to or not. We could have cured you. Made you better.”
Behind me, my partner stamped his feet. “You feel sorry for all the criminals we arrest, Frolick.”
I wiped away a tear. “They are poor misguided souls who don’t know any better,” I said. “They deserve our pity.”
A flashlight clicked on, illuminating dead Mr. Hungry’s emaciated frame.
“So you want the run-down or don’t you?” Thinn asked, sucking noisily on his milkshake.
“Tell us what you know,” I said. “So we can find his killer. Whoever it was who deprived this poor boy of the right to eat air, to soar on the wings the Prophet gave our souls, to know that—”
“Excellent, Frolick,” my partner said. “Another fine sermon for Air Temple this Sunday. Now can you let the man talk?”
Thinn slurped at the remains of his milkshake, tossed it in a nearby garbage can. “So,” he said. “911 gets a call at 1:26 a.m. Muffled male voice. Sounds like he has a cold.”
“Phone trace?” Green had his notebook out, pen poised.
“Pay phone not far from here.” He indicated the opposite corner of the park, gulped what was left of his burger. “Said he’d seen a murder taking place. Food deal gone bad.”
As Thinn narrated the crime scene, his mouth still full of food, flecks of zero-calorie beef rained down on my face.
“Cruiser responded to the 911 call,” he said, struggling to enunciate. “Done a thorough search of the park. No murder weapon, n
o other clues.”
“We’ll be the judge of that,” Green said.
The flashlight traced each limb of the dead dealer. Someone had eaten the entire pizza and then vomited it over his victim. But why? And who would do such a thing?
Green dipped a finger in the vomit, touched the liquid to his lips. I did the same, and quickly spat it out in horror. I looked at Green.
He nodded. “It’s uncut,” he said. “Pure. This was a special order. Probably cost close to a million dollars.”
I spat again, trying to get the taste out of my mouth. “Maybe a million and a half.”
I was a walking encyclopedia on the ways Fatso diluted his product. He was known for putting fillers in his pizza—edible plastics, fine sand, chalk dust, anything to water down the value. It was extraordinary to find someone buying an uncut pizza. This was a serious addict with no shortage of cash.
Thinn shrugged. “Some punk got lucky.”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Thinn,” I said. “You’ve got almost twenty years in homicide. You think some punk did this?”
“Like you say, Special Agent. I got almost twenty years. Plan on taking my pension and going someplace warm. And I know which way the wind is blowing.”
I held a still-wet finger in the air. “North-north-east, I’d say. Maybe six, seven knots. Rain tomorrow, or the next day. Although I’m not sure how that helps us.”
“Special Agent Weatherman,” Nice cackled.
Thinn coughed into his fist. “Besides,” he said. “You don’t even know that this was Fatso’s pizza.”
Green cleared his throat. “Yes, we do.”
“Oh yeah?” Thinn said. “How’s that?”
My partner held up the pizza box with the tip of his pen. Emblazoned across the vomit-stained cardboard were the words “Fatso’s Pizza.”