The United States of Air: a Satire that Mocks the War on Terror

by J. M. Porup

  My phone rang. I checked the number. “Guys!” I said. “Time out. It’s my wife?”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Sorry.”

  Erpent lowered his gun. Rat Boy put the spit back on the grill. I answered on the third ring.

  “Jason, honey?”

  I turned away from the others and lowered my voice. “How many times have I told you not to call me that?”

  “What, ‘Jason’?”

  “No! ‘Honey’!” I bunched up my fists. “I am not an addictive caloric syrup made by bees!”

  “I’m sorry, Jason,” she cooed into the receiver. “You’re still sweet to me.”

  A tingle went up my spine. “Look, Oxy,” I said. “I’m on the job. Is everything OK? Nathan getting ready for school?”

  “No, he’s not OK. That’s why I’m calling.”

  My son! What was wrong? I pressed the cell phone closer to my ear. “Why? What happened?”

  “He’s hungry,” she said. “We both are. Jason—”

  “Not this again.” I groaned.

  “Do you want us both to starve to death?”

  Erpent waited at the edge of my vision, listening to every word.

  “I can’t really talk right now,” I said. “When I get home we’ll pray together. Ask the Prophet to strengthen your faith.”

  “Oh for the love of pizza!”

  “Pizza!” I exclaimed. “What do you know about pizza?”

  “It’s an expression, Jason! A figure of speech?”

  I considered that. Was it a clue? “A thin figure or a fat figure?” I asked.

  “Mothereating idiot,” she swore. And hung up.

  My ears stung. Such language! I’d never heard her talk that way before.

  “Can we continue our standoff now?” Erpent asked.

  “By all means,” I said, and pocketed my cell phone.

  The two adversaries resumed their defensive postures. “Now where were we?” Rat Boy asked.

  “You said I’m direct. I grabbed your thumb. You shook me loose. Green told me to calm down. I didn’t. Then I told you to start talking.”

  “Right-O.”

  Erpent shook his Laxafier in Rat Boy’s face again. “So start talking!”

  “My dear boy,” he said. “I sell rats to food whores. Why on earth would you think I know Fatso personally?”

  Erpent’s finger tightened on the trigger.

  “No!” I shouted, and reached for his arm, but it was too late.

  Pfthh.

  A dart embedded itself in Burgher’s chest.

  The dealer staggered backward against the brazier. “God Save the Queen,” he mumbled. He touched a finger to a soot-stained photograph on the wall of the current English monarch. With one last effort, he swung the iron spit up onto the hot coals. He slumped down against the creaking, rusty wall, the dart sticking out from between his flabby breasts. A new odor joined the riot of fruit flavors in that hot metal box: fresh poo, with a hint of rotting rat meat.

  “Thank you,” Rat Boy sighed, his eyes closed, head leaning back.

  Erpent bent down, pried open an eyelid. “Why do you thank us?”

  “So terribly…constipated. Now I feel wonderfully empty…clean. Clean. Superbly clean.”

  Green and I exchanged glances. We’d shot our share of suspects, but this was a first. Usually they fell asleep and stayed that way until they were in the Food Court holding cell.

  “Where’s Fatso?” Erpent demanded again.

  “Simply not enough fiber in rat meat…can’t afford oat bran. Tried to get some…Metamucil once…turned out to be sawdust shavings…” He clucked his tongue. “Such dishonesty in the world.”

  “What is in those darts?” I asked.

  Erpent crouched low over the slumped figure. “The usual. Plus some truth serum. Sodium pentathlon. Started using it last month. So far it’s proven effective. Although subjects do tend to ramble.”

  My partner groaned. “You’ve killed him, then.”

  Erpent shone a pen light in Rat Boy’s eyes. “I have not. He’ll be fine in a couple of hours.”

  A half-roasted rat slid from the end of the spit and fell to the ground. Two of its live brethren scurried out of a dark corner and gnawed on its charred flesh. The sound of moist crunching filled the gaps in their conversation. I tried to pet one of the rats, but it bit me.

  “What happens when the neighbors find out he talked?” Green said. “They’ll slit his throat and leave him for the cannibals. Or the rats.”

  Erpent stood up. “We can always issue you sodium pentathlon darts too. You’re ATFF, after all.”

  “But that is not the point!” Green said, raising his voice. “When word gets out that we can’t be trusted?” He gestured at Rat Boy with his gun. “That this is how we treat our snitches? Our ability to develop sources disappears. And with it our ability to do our job.”

  Erpent smiled, a thin string of flesh across his skin-tight skull. “With any luck,” he said, “by the end of the day we will have Fatso in custody, and you will no longer have need of these low-life traitors.”

  Green snorted. “Fat chance of that.”

  I bent down, stroked Rat Boy’s gelatinous forehead. The sooner we shut down the mafia, the sooner my suicidal flying pastry rapist problem would go away.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said, as gently as I could. “But we need to find him. Any idea where Fatso might be?”

  Rat Boy spoke from a drugged slumber. “I don’t know.”

  “You see?” Green said.

  Erpent pushed me aside. “But you have some idea where he is, don’t you? Location of his Supper Clubs, for instance.”

  The Skinny Service agent had a point. Rat Boy helped us find Fatso that one time. So now, as I stood over Rat Boy’s drugged and helpless form, I wondered why our favorite snitch had heard nothing more of the Supper Clubs.

  “It changes every night, never the same place twice,” Rat Boy mumbled. “I look to you the sort of person he would invite?”

  “Then how did he know before?” Erpent demanded.

  “Maybe Fatso plugged the leak,” Green said. “Let’s try some easy questions first.” He tapped Erpent on the shoulder. The SS agent hissed, but moved aside. “What’s your relationship with the mafia?”

  Rat Boy giggled. “I pay protection money.”

  “Why is that funny?” Erpent asked, but the giggling only got louder. “Answer me, damn you! Why is that funny?”

  “Is funny…because they protect me from them.” The giggles trailed off.

  “How much you pay?”

  “Two rather large gents visit me once per lunar cycle. I deliver into their big, meaty paws a sealed envelope and a free rat each. They prefer the béchamel sauce.”

  “How much?” Green asked.

  “Five thousand.”

  “By the Prophet’s unnecessary teeth,” Erpent swore. “What’s the going price for a rat these days?”

  “It varies upon the weight,” Rat Boy said. “Around two hundred per head, not counting extras like sauce, pickles, mustard and the various other relishes for which I am justifiably famous.”

  “People really pay that much to satisfy their addiction?” Erpent asked. He seemed genuinely surprised.

  I shrugged. “Protein is scarce. I mean, for people who are into that sort of thing,” I added, at a sharp glance from him.

  I bent down again next to Green. Rat Boy looked so peaceful, propped against his hovel wall. The folds of skin at his neck trembled with each breath. “Tell me, Mr. Burgher,” I said. “Everything you know about…pizza.” The last word I whispered in his ear.

  A look of pain passed across his face, as though some great inner struggle was taking place behind those lidded eyes. He said nothing.

  “Pizza, Rat Boy!” Erpent screamed over my shoulder, making my ears hurt. “Where is Fatso?” He reached down and slapped the food dealer again.

  “Pizza…expensive,” he finally came out with. “What abou
t it?”

  “Where is the food lab?” Erpent demanded, hopping on his toes behind me. “Why would Fatso sell an uncut pizza? How do we find him?”

  I held up a hand. “One question at a time.”

  Green patted Bakin Cheez on the cheek. “You still with us, Rat Boy?”

  “Me Rat Boy,” came the reply. His diction was getting worse, an effect of the sedative. “Me eat rats. Mommy, yummy, me eat rats!”

  “Let me ask you this,” my partner said. “Who has the money and the nerve to order a pizza from Fatso, kill the delivery guy, then vomit all over his dead body?”

  A smile twitched at the corners of Rat Boy’s lips. “Mommy, I don’t think he’s heard,” he said. “Fun Fun Funny. Everybody knows the prof—”

  Crack!

  Erpent’s shoe connected with Rat Boy’s chin. The dealer’s head banged against the wall and flopped forward on his chest. I checked the man’s vitals. He was out for a while, but he’d be fine. I stood up and turned to Erpent, but Green beat me to it.

  “What in the name of the Prophet was that?” Green shouted.

  “I told you our investigation was of Fatso only,” Erpent said calmly. “Not the murder. What part did you not understand?”

  Green jabbed a finger into the SS man’s bony chest. “Skinny Service or no Skinny Service, you interfere one more time in our investigation—yes, our investigation—I will personally pump you full of laxatives. Right in front of the Prophet, if I have to. Then we’ll see what comes out, Mister Look At Me How Skinny I Am.”

  The two men held their Laxafiers at ready. For a moment I was afraid of Mutual Assured Laxafication. The first ray of dawn fell between them. A Humvee rattled by outside.

  Erpent reacted. “I’ll deal with you later. Right now, we’ve got to get to the morgue.”

  We limped across the Foodville to the Smart Car, Erpent urging us on to faster and faster hobbling. I mused out loud over Rat Boy’s last words.

  “‘Knows the prof,’” I said. “The ‘prof.’ The profusion? Of what? No. The professor? Professor, where? What college? What subject? No. Wait. I got it. The profit.”

  Green made a big O with his mouth. “Welcome to the party.”

  “The profiteering,” I added, convinced I had nailed it. I drew myself up straight and declared, “The profiteering bastards of the French Food Mafia are slowly destroying this country with their addictive caloric substances.” I turned to Green. “What do you think? Is that what he was trying to say?”

  Green’s smile faded. Erpent glared at him. “We don’t need a snitch to tell us that,” my partner said. “We know it already.”

  I know what all of you out there are thinking right now. And shame on you. When you find out what really happened that night, the truth will warm the cockles of your heart.

  “And serve them up

  with lemon juice and salt!”

  Shut up, you.

  Don’t believe me? No? Just you wait and see.

  SEVEN

  My favorite thing about the morgue was the ME’s special ham. Back before the Prophet came to power, I’d made any excuse to visit the coroner. I never could figure out why he called it special ham. Maybe because he smoked it himself. We’d munch succulent sandwiches, an entire leg of the stuff between us, surrounded by dead bodies with tags hanging from their ears, because their legs were missing. An awful lot of paraplegics passed through that morgue, let me tell you. Must have been an epidemic of wheelchairs crushed by speeding semitrailers. No doubt road rage caused by eating food.

  Those terrible days were over now, thank the Prophet. It had been three years since I last visited. I wondered how he was. I shouldn’t have worried.

  A bent figure shuffled out of the darkness, leaning heavily on an IV stand. Plastic tubes snaked out of his nose and down his back to an oxygen tank he pulled behind him. His puckered face exploded when he saw us, like popcorn when you throw it into the incinerator.

  “Frolick!” he wheezed. “What’s an honest cop like you doing in a place like this?”

  “What a joker,” I said. “Are you implying there are cops who are dishonest?” I turned to Green and Erpent. “Can you believe this guy?”

  He chuckled and offered me his hand. “It’s good to see you,” he said. “It’s been too long.”

  I grinned in spite of myself. Medical Examiner Hot ‘N’ Juicy and I went way back. From even before I partnered up with Green. I took his bony claw in my own. How frail my old friend looked. How—old.

  “Doc,” I said at last. “You’ve lost weight.”

  Juicy cackled. “I lose any more I’ll be dead.”

  “Then maybe you should pray for faith,” Erpent said sharply. His eyes narrowed. “You got a permit for this?” He stood on tiptoe to read the sticker on the IV bag.

  “It’s his medicine,” I said. “Leave him alone.”

  “No. It’s not. It’s glucose.” Erpent snapped a ragged fingernail against the bag, and for a moment I thought the plastic would tear. “An addictive caloric substance.”

  Juicy retrieved a wallet from a baggy hip pocket. He used to weigh as much as I did, close to five hundred pounds. Now his white lab coat hung loose on his shoulders, sixteen sizes too big for him.

  “Medical exemption,” he muttered, hunting through the wallet. “I’m diabetic.”

  “That’s no excuse,” Erpent said. “A condition that would not exist if you had more faith. Air is all you need.” The SS agent’s jaw twitched, no doubt wishing he could destroy that bag of sugar water and remove one more source of temptation from the world.

  In that moment, I sympathized with both of them. I know how hard it is when your faith is weak, and the Twinkies attack. To watch an addict consuming so much as a single calorie can incite them. But on the other hand, when you’re diabetic, a tiny lapse in faith could cause dangerously low blood sugar, sending you into a coma. It was a tough call, finding the right balance.

  “Here it is.” Juicy held out a laminated card. “See the signature?” He jabbed a frail finger at the signing authority.

  “Director of National Air Security, Lt. Gen. Allfood Bad,” Erpent read, and bit his lip. He caught himself, looked around at those of us who had seen him do it, and wiped the saliva from his lips. No one wanted to gain a reputation for self-cannibalization.

  Juicy cackled, “Chew on that, Agent Whoever You Are.”

  “It’s Erpent,” the SS man snarled. “Agent Erpent, Special Aide to the Prophet Himself.”

  You could hear the initial capitals as he spoke them. I had no idea he was so important. “Really?” I said. “Wow.”

  “Whatever.” Juicy shrugged. “No sugar, no me. No me, no morgue. No morgue, no one to cut open the bodies for you. Got it?”

  Erpent’s eyes flickered across the card, no doubt admiring the photo. When he was done, he grunted and shoved the card back at Juicy. “So where’s our pizza guy?” he demanded. “Cut him open, let’s see what we got.”

  “Always so impatient,” Juicy sighed. He turned away from us, shuffled toward a sheet-covered corpse.

  The room smelled of burnt meat and formaldehyde. A carving knife protruded from the leg of a nearby body. A lit Bunsen burner on a corner bench illuminated a bloody saw. I sniffed again. Was it possible? I would have sworn I caught a hint of Juicy’s famous special ham. Must be a remnant odor. Years old. Down here in the basement things didn’t get aired out nearly so often as they ought to be.

  “No appreciation for the skill,” Juicy continued. He tapped his temple with a skeletal forefinger. “The vital matter of analysis made possible by the human cerebrum.”

  “Ignore the super skinny,” Green said to the coroner, using a rude nickname for a member of the Skinny Service. “We just want to know who killed the guy.”

  “No!” The shout echoed in the concrete basement. Erpent tightened the tape measure around his waist. “We’re after Fatso, not the murderer. How many times do I have to say it?” He turned on Juicy. “Cut his
stomach open. Do it. Now.”

  “Your friend seems a bit high strung,” Juicy remarked, and stopped next to a gurney.

  “No friend of mine,” Green said, and crossed his arms.

  “I don’t expect you to like me, Agent Green,” Erpent said. “I expect you to obey me. Is that clear?”

  Green clicked his heels together, threw out an open palm and shouted, “Go the Power of Air!”

  Juicy chuckled. He checked the tag on the body’s big toe. “This is the one,” he said. “I can’t tell you who killed him. Even if I wanted to,” he added, looking at Erpent from under his eyebrows. “But I can tell you what he ate in the last twenty-four hours. More importantly, I can tell you his name.”

  “Nick Hungry of Pepperoniville, Pennsylvania,” I said. “Rap sheet as long as a piece of melted cheese.”

  “How long is a piece of melted cheese?” Green asked.

  I furrowed my brows in concentration. Come to think of it, I had never considered the question before. “You know,” I said. “I’m not sure.”

  “That’s just one of his many aliases,” Juicy said, ignoring our conversation. “His tattoo was surgically altered. I ran his prints through the FBI’s database. This is what came out.”

  He chucked an inch-thick stack of paper onto the dead man’s chest. The pages were held together with a binder clip. He nodded toward me and Green. “The two of you should take a look at it. Might help in your investigation.”

  Erpent grabbed the report before I could pick it up. “Let me see those,” he said, and flipped through the pages. Over his shoulder I could see table after table listing chemical reactions. I had no idea what it meant.

  I pinched the report between my thumb and forefinger. “Care to give us the executive summary?”

  Juicy pulled the dead man’s right arm out from under the sheet. He picked up a pair of scissors and cut away the sleeve. “The real Nick Hungry disappeared eight months ago. This guy’s name is Jacques Crusteau, a baker’s apprentice from Quiche Lorraine, France.”

  Green whistled. “The French Food Mafia’s ancestral homeland.”

  “He’s had his social security number surgically altered on several occasions,” Juicy continued, tracing faint scar lines amidst the blue bar code with the tip of the scissors. “The alterations are good enough to fool the scanners, but fingerprints are harder to modify.”