Ambulance Masters

by Raymund Hensley

WE had many drinks of Jack and coke back at the house, although I had secretly diluted mine with water to keep clear minded.

  Cakers was on the floor, on his back. He told me how much he loved Tranzam and how sweet she was when they first met and how he desperately wanted to marry her in Ireland, in some rundown, haunted pile of stones called Clonony Castle. He wept, then was angry, then wept some more. I had never seen anyone jump back and forth between the two states every ten seconds. I was genuinely impressed.

  I put a bit more alcohol than I originally planned into my glass and sat down next to him, avoiding a large, ancient stain on the carpet. I should really drink more water. I wouldn’t want to get kidney stones. I hear those are bad. Kramer once got a stone on Seinfeld and it was painful to watch.

  “Your love for her is real, and it fills me with rough desire. I wish, one day, to throw my love onto a dame. Oh, come now, no tears, please. It’s a candidate for potential dehydration. Don’t worry about Tranzam, my boy. I’m sure Tranzam’s all right. Speaking of which…that bag was full of meat, wasn’t it,” I asked. “It was the Russian’s meat.”

  He stopped crying instantly, like someone had touched him in the right spot without his permission.

  “Yes,” he said, now sitting up, smiling.

  I could tell that he wanted to school me. It made him feel useful, I was sure, and I gave him my full attention.

  “School me,” I says, sipping my drink and raising my right eyebrow.

  He looked around and over his shoulder.

  “Yes. You are correct, boy. That was a bag of meat. But that was no ordinary cop. That was a cannibal.”

  “I figured that much.”

  “Are you going to let me finish?”

  “Sorry. I’m excitable.”

  “Not everyone in the Honolulu Police Department is a cannibal.”

  “Bullocks.”

  “Is not! Listen. That one we saw? His name is Bardow. Full name being, Lt. Krill Bardow. Age 41. German-Hawaiian. Scorpio. Family? One wife, three girls. All lesbians—including wife.” He sighed. “Oh boy…if it wasn’t for him, we would have all been sacked that night. The jiglets don’t take too kindly to scallywags.”

  “Hrmm, I see. So it was some kind of morbid payoff. Brilliant. And all so you guys can continue with playing Ambulance Chicken.”

  “The race is the life, man…and it pays. I’d rather be doing this than working for The Man. We all would. We all feel alive. Our minds get off the bads. You saw the addiction tents—where everyone was tossing in their burnt spoons and bags of cocaine. We should be thanking God.”

  “Which one?”

  “The nice one. The one that’s not a sadist.”

  I scratched my chin and hummed, “Hrmmm….” The only nice one I knew was the one with no gender and made of stars. Speaking of which, I was raised to believe that God made us in his image, so if that is true, wouldn’t that make him intersexual? Or a possible hermaphrodite?

  There was lightning outside. A storm was brewing. Would those damn birds appear again? Those Omen Birds from the beyond? What were they trying to tell me? What were they warning me about? They say that if a bird flies into a home, someone’s going to die. But why were these birds so F’ing persistent?

  “You could have killed all of us, that night,” I said. “You should have told me!”

  “And what would you have done? Still agree to ride? Ha. You would’ve ran off with your tail between your legs, whistling Dixie.”

  “So what if I did?”

  “Fine if you want to go back to that job of yours.”

  I stared at him. Images of shirts and jeans were stinging my brain. My heart fell. My back was suddenly weak. Cakers rolled his eyes up and grinned and shrugged.

  “We all made a lot of money—on that mountain.”

  “How often do you guys race?”

  “Once a week. We don’t go on the days them young whippersnappers race their low, import cars. Those younglings be crazy. I remember one story that was told to me by a fellow ambulance driver, who was also a bee keeper. He was racing someone from St. Francis Medical Center but instead ran head-on into a blue import car. That little thing shattered like glass, sending some young Filipino/Japanese girl flying through the air and into a tree. Her arm got dislocated and went missing. The only passenger was her pet parrot—who I think was named Cooze Mutha. It survived, but now it only screams I DID NOTHING WITH MY LIFE! whenever it hears a car honk.”

  “Holy Goddamn. Did your friend win the race?”

  “Yes!”

  “Good. Where is he now?”

  “Dead….He was driving to the airport to transport damn bees to Maui when the sun jumped out from behind a cloud and blinded him. His SUV did so many front flips….People tried to help drag his body out from under the wreck, but those damn bees just wouldn’t stop stinging everyone. It was a dang mess….I told that bastard to always wear his shades!”

  “I like shades, but I don’t have a shades face.”

  Cakers looked at his watch.

  “If she doesn’t come home in an hour…that’s it. Done. Stick a fork in me, I’m done. And don’t take it out.”

  “You said you loved her.”

  “I’m tired. I’m sooo tired. Please, just let me sleep.”

  He rolled over, using his hands as a pillow, and closed his eyes. I got up and wobbled over to the couch, drink sloshing in hand. Did he know what he had just said? No. The dizziness got the best of him. Sure, he was upset…but I could tell that he loved her so much—so Goddamn much!—that he’d never leave her. That he’d always forgive her. Was he a fool? To love someone that much?

  Well, I thought he was a fool.

  I ain’t no rocket surgeon, but I’m pretty sure love is suppose to feel good.

  Queen, on the other foot, truly loved her man. Or in this case…cat.

  They had a good relationship, up until he called her a witch. How many years had they been together? Many, many years. Like how it should be.

  She must’ve have been lonely nowadays. A cat is a poor substitute for human love—human attention. I was feeling guilty….An old woman with no one to talk to. And we just up and left. Would I ever see her again? I could learn a thing or two about this witchcraft of hers. It was interesting.

  Was I trying to make up for all those years I had avoided my mum? By giving this old woman attention?

  I downed my drink, and passed out on the bathroom floor.

  I WAS dreaming about aliens and cows. The aliens were mutilating them in their spaceship—attaching tubes into holes that should not have been there.

  It felt like my mind was one with theirs.

  They wanted to help all cows.

  I could hear Cakers’ voice. Where was he? Why was he screaming for Tranzam every three seconds?

  These aliens…they looked almost human. Were they human? Aren’t we aliens? Isn’t that what Zecharia Sitchin teaches us? These aliens looked so familiar. They were not the typical short Greys with large, black eyes. It was like I was looking at them with beer goggles.

  And they spoke English.

  They said that all cows need a little love and understanding. That’s why they were mutilating them. They were cutting off their limbs and replacing them with large medical scissors. They pulled their faces off like masks and revealed the cows to actually be old women.

  These aliens genuinely meant well.

  I woke up, eyes wet and sore—face in my own sick: A crude mix of alcohol, gummy bears, stomach acid, and Cup Noodles—a pile of tangled rope inching its way out from my lips. I bit through its length and jumped to my feet, leaned over the sink, stuck my finger down my throat, and did the obvious. My eyes wanted to explode while I made strange, sad sounds. It was high-pitched. Green, greasy splatter was all over the mirror.

  I wiped my tears.

  “I feel much better.”

  I had clogged the drain and was looking down at my own curse. It was always a dreadful sight. This was who I
was on the inside, a weird mix of randomness….I wanted to be even more drunk to drown out these feelings of fear, guilt, and self-loathing. I scooped my meal and drank and ate and vomited and drank and ate and vomited, until eventually I had filtered all the alcohol….

  Cakers was pounding on the door.

  “Hey…HEY! HEY YOU OVA THEA!”

  I cleared my throat.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

  “Get out of thea, boy! You’re so ill!”

  “Be gone!”

  “I’m coming in, boy!”

  “Be gone, I say!”

  He kicked the door down—off the hinges—and ran in, shoving my face into the sink. I tried to punch him away, but he was too sober. He raised my head and I gasped for air, still trying to hit him.

  “Bastard!”

  We were sliding all over the wet floor. His footing was amazing.

  “No more of this silliness, boy!”

  “I have to go!”

  “You are in no state!”

  “I have to see Queen!”

  “Bah!” he yelled, hands tight around my elbows. “Your insides are sour! You have to stay here and be well! Am I getting clear to you? Do you taste yourself? You’re sour! You hearing me?!”

  “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”

  “You best be understanding me,” he said, letting me fall on my butt. “I ain’t got no time for no tomfoolery. I have work to do—have to take care of too many bums in my work. Do you know how many bums I deal with everyday? Fifty! Fifty drunken bums! They’re almost as irritating as drug addicts that come to my ambulance and beg for Robotussin. My ambulance is a lifesaving machine! I ain’t got no time! You dig?”

  “I dig, I dig.”

  He stormed away.

  I cleaned myself up with a pair of boxers and went to the living room. Cakers was on the floor, sleeping. I had to see Queen. The thought of her place felt like Heaven. I walked over to the door, using the walls as a guide to not fall over. Cakers’ voice was at my back—soft, yet riddled with stern consonants.

  “I hope you could taste yourself, boy. I hope you could taste.”

  I looked over my shoulder and could tell immediately that his eyes weren’t even open. He just knew….

  I slid on my shoes and went outside, but Cakers had one more thing to say as I walked down the driveway.

  “You smell like shit, boy!”

  The sun was coming up, already hurting my eyes and making me squint.

  “Do I work tonight,” I said out loud as an old man jogged past. “Fuck. I hope I don’t work tonight. I’m so very sour.”

  Something huge drove up next to me, but I kept walking. It was Cakers, banging on the horn with the ambulance lights spinning.

  “Get in.”

  “Piss off.”

  “I’m sorry I shoved your head into your own sick.”

  “It was horrible!”

  “Come on in here and let me treat you to breakfast. We can go to Like Like Drive Inn Restaurant. They have the best eggs.”

  That sounded good…but if I agreed to go, I’d lose. My belly groaned. I stopped walking and sighed.

  “Sucks to this.”

  I opened the backdoors and jumped in, resting on my back.

  THE meal had done the trick, and I was happy again. We chatted about movies as we ate, specifically why I chose Tim Burton’s Batman over Christopher Nolan’s. It was around seven in the morning and people were still coming in the restaurant after hours of clubbing. These people were all hung-over and in terrible need of a shower.

  Behind me was the security guard, standing next to the table and flirting with a young girl who was complaining about how tired her legs were from all that dancing.

  I keep forgetting how loud forks and knives can be on plates. It’s irritating.

  I slept in the back, on the gurney, as Cakers drove me to Queen’s house.

  “We're here,” he said, moving my shoulders.

  “Mahalo,” I yawned, stepping outside and massaging my eyes. “You gonna say hi?”

  “I have to zoom on over to the psychic shop and get things set up. Feel free to call if you need a ride back.”

  “Any word from Tranzam?”

  “Nope.”

  “Is that it, then?”

  “Yup.”

  “Sure?”

  “Nope.”

  “So what. Who cares? I don’t mean to be rude, but, you mentioned that I had won some money?”

  He smiled and reached into his pocket, taking out a wad of cash. I took the money and stuffed it into my pocket. Cakers looked confused.

  “You’re not going to count it?”

  “I’m sure it’s enough. So what. Who cares? I have cheap rent and all I eat is double cheeseburgers from McDonald’s all day, every day.”

  “Splendid.”

  I saw Queen’s cat. Something was wrong. The three of us went inside and found Queen on the ground, flat on her face, thighs spread open. There was so much blood, and an unwound hanger….

  We dragged her into the ambulance where Cakers worked his magic, pumping her full of odd-colored drugs. Queen bolted up and fell off the gurney. But she was fine. In fact, she said she never felt better in her whole life!

  We asked her what she was doing with the hanger. She said she was silencing the voices.

  It wasn’t long before Queen was calling Cakers night after night, begging him to help her friends—all old and weak and with little or no insurance. I asked him if the workload bothered him, but he said that it was the greatest thing to have happened to him. They were paying him good money.

  He liked the idea of becoming some kind of superhero, too—helping those with no insurance, letting them pay as much as they could—as much as they felt was worth his time. He performed also on younger folks, but they didn’t pay nearly as much. We did many operations in the back of his ambulance: Hysterectomies, amputations, teeth pulling, etc.

  He was quick to point out how well I used my hands…how strong my fingers were. He once misplaced a clamp, so I pinched the vein as hard as I could, helping him to finish the operation and saving the patient’s life. I remember telling him that it was because I had been handling hanger clamps for over 2 years. My fingers had muscles shocking even to me.

  I was also good at doing repetitious assignments, like filling bee bites with saline solution for over an hour straight.

  Cakers became best known for his lobotomies—sticking an ice pick above the tear duck of a patient and hitting it with a hammer (or sometimes a sock full of pennies) and ruining their frontal lobe, in the hopes of curing mental illness.

  All patients are first knocked unconscious. After they signed his contract, I’d sneak up behind them and hit them over the head with a frying pan.

  He was performing a lobotomy on a retired high school principle once, on a beautiful Sunday night (any night with that many twinkling stars is beautiful to me). Her leg twitched right when he was hammering an ice pick into her eye, and it broke off. We were both sent yelping.

  I was pressing my back against a wall, trying to push my way through into another dimension where everything was back to normal.

  “Ohhhhhhhhhh, man oh man!”

  Cakers reached out to the ice pick.

  “I’ll just yank it out…”

  The woman woke up, sleepy and a little weird.

  “…What is be going happenings?”

  I threw my hands up.

  “Great! You’ve turned her into a loon!”

  “This is bad for business. We have to get rid of her. We’ll leave her in Chinatown.”

  “We can’t just dump her! Where’s the nearest hospital?”

  “You silly tit! We could get caught!”

  “You beast! You’re such a beast! I had no idea.”

  “FINE. Okay! Hospital, it is.”

  It was decided to drop her off at Straub hospital, across the street, outside the KITV news building. I stuck my head out of the window as we drove off and stared at her as
she wondered about in a daze, smiling with a half an ice pick sticking out from her eye. People in white clothing ran up to her, patting her on the head. Someone was horrified.

  There were more failures than successes. I couldn’t go every night, and I asked him what he did will all the patients that were turned into zombies. He assured me that he dropped them all off at random hospitals. He didn’t look me in the eye when he said it, and I had no choice but to believe him.

  Apparently, Cakers wasn’t the first to come up with the idea of traveling the island, performing surgeries. Back in the 70’s, three veterinarians set off on a mission to help families with their stubborn kids by performing ice pick lobotomies on them. They held the operations in a green, hippy van on Round Top during nighttime hours. The goal was—for a tiny fee—to “set the kids right” and “get the insubordination out of them”. Again, there were a lot of failed cases. Many of the wealthy parents would be distraught and give up on their kids…and the ‘zombies’ were left to walk aimlessly through the woods of Round Top Drive.

  The next few days found Cakers locked in his home. Sometimes I’d walk by the gate and hear loud weeping.

  “My love! My love!” he’d beg. “Tranzam….where are you?”

  I came over one day with some food from Taco Bell. He opened the door before I could even knock and looked like a bomb dropped. Inside the house was a different tale—clean as a whistle. TOO clean. His knees were red and swollen. Sponges littered the floor. Had he been cleaning this whole time?

  “Come in, please,” he said, all smiles. “I just bought drinks.”

  I stepped inside, face shrinking from the strong Pine-Sol scent kicking my nose.

  “Good,” I said. “I have Tacos.”

  Cakers opened a drawer and took out coffee mugs.

  “Jack and Coke, right?” he said, pouring in the liquid. “I remember.”

  I slipped on a sponge but corrected my balance before something shameful happened.

  “Dammit!”

  Cakers blushed.

  “Sorryyyyy.”

  “What the hell, man?”

  “I’ve been doing a lot of cleaning. My knees are swollen.”

  “I noticed. Has it been helping? This sort of meditation?”

  “Yes. Cleaning works.”

  “Thank God.”

  “No. Thank David Lee Roth.”

  “I said thank God, didn’t I?”

  “I got the idea from him while watching TV one night. Hell, if it works for him…you know what I mean, Billy Jean?”

  “How very.”

  We took hold of our mugs and drank. I made to mention that I’ve been hearing him yell out Tranzam’s name, but his mouth was quicker than mine.

  “My grandma just died,” he said, like it was the greatest surprise in the world—emphasis on ‘died’. “She was so fucking nice. Now she’s dead. Gone. Departed. We talked about art and science and everything. She was the kind of woman I’d marry.”

  I tried to come up with something wise, but all I could manage was “I’m so sorry for you, and all this baby-mama dramas.”

  He made to pour another drink. Relax a bit. Don’t do it, I thought, and as if reading my mind, he froze before the liquor came out…then sighed.

  “I have to go clean her place out.” He looked around, amused. “Hmph! I guess I’ve been practicing this whole time!” He put a hand on my shoulder. “I could use a hand. We’re not moving anything major just yet.”

  I told him that I wouldn’t mind, and we finished our drinks—or really, I finished mine. Cakers stared at his empty cup for a bit and put it in the sink.

  He must have been at his lowest low, with everything going on. Sad…how one can be so down in the dumps—so over everything—that even something as pleasurable as drinking becomes worthless.

  HIS grandma had lived on an old farm in Pandora, just outside of Kaneohe. Once a busy, blossoming town mainly consisting of Greeks, Pandora’s population has dwindled from 3,000 to around 50, slowly becoming a ghost town of old folks set in their ways and deserted homes and churches. We drove until the road turned to dirt and the trees thinned out, revealing open, overgrown fields of corn—a lone, pyramid shape mountain covered in bright green rising before us, its tip lost in the clouds.

  The place had one of those old-timey, elongated gates. It was rusted, and took our combined strength to force it open. We drove down the long stretch of driveway, toward the two-story, white house that had cracks in the paint. The windows were open, and gusts of wind made the curtains wave. A tall, concrete silo for corn storage stood down to its left, by the barn, both also white.

  I rolled my window up. The place smelt like a car’s dirty air conditioner.

  The fields surrounding the house were trimmed, with certain areas separated by white fences. Farm equipment had been left strewn about: The Baler had grass growing all over it, the combine harvester was on its side with a wheel turning in the breeze, the farm tractor looked like it came out of the 1920’s, the mower was populated by stray cats that stared at us with slit eyes, and two pickup trucks—for reasons I was too afraid to ask—were standing on their hind legs and appeared to be kissing. The sun was between them.

  The sky was getting dark; rain clouds rolled forth from that mountain like milk in water and infected the sky with gloom.

  Two piles sat before the house to greet us, both taller than us put together: A pile of shoes, and a pile of wooden chairs. We parked by the broken chairs and stepped outside, closing our doors softly. I looked up into an open bedroom window—at the darkness behind it—and felt chills go all around me.

  “Let’s make this quick.”

  “What did you say?”

  I hadn’t even realized I said anything. I walked onto the porch. “Do you know what you want to get?”

  “Just some old photos…toys from my past…left over beers.”

  We went inside to find empty boxes everywhere, ready to be filled. As we looked for Cakers’ things throughout the house, he explained how this was all thanks to his no-good uncle. “I have to fill these damn boxes with all this crap. Leave it to him to leave ME with the dirty work,” Cakers said, his fingers opening drawers. “Uncle Sonny only cares about making a quick buck, pyramid scams, winning the lottery, whatever. Hell, maybe even robbing a bank. I still don’t know how he managed to get up the energy to carry my grandma’s body out of here—if he even did it at all. Maybe one of those damn cats made the call. All the good in my family is dying out, leaving behind the spoils. What if I’m one of them? What if my bloodline comes down to me and my uncle Sonny?”

  “Start a new bloodline. Start a family.”

  He whined that it was easier said than done, and went upstairs, leaving me in a sudden blast of wind and bright sunlight. Is one a victim of certain personality traits passed on from generation to generation? Or do we act the way we do due to the direct influence of those around us. Is a person born greedy? Envious? Evil?

  Are we born good?

  IT was weeks before Tranzam finally called. She had been hiding out in the hills, somewhere in Kaneohe, surviving off rodents and various plants, housing herself in an old, Hawaiian shack of some kind.

  She had heard of Cakers’ little operations from a passing homosexual, and begged us to come by. She was injured—attacked by some wild, mysterious fiend that hid in the woods.

  The sun was rising, and we had just finished removing a tumor from a man’s hip when we got the phone call from her. Cakers was ecstatic, yet he spoke into the phone with his back to me. He kept looking over his shoulder, giggling and embarrassed. We said our goodbyes to the patient, and jumped out from the ambulance and rushed into Cakers’ house to gather more medical supplies.

  Cakers stopped dead in his tracks and I ran into him, my hand massaging my sore nose.

  There were people standing in the living room.

  Cops.

  But not just any.

  I recognized one of them instantly as the canni
bal cop from Tantalus.

  Krill was standing there with a partner—a tall, skinny male with sad eyes. Both had their hands behind their backs, and standing in a way where the light only fell across their faces, making them look like floating heads. Krill spoke first, his voice low and fat.

  “Greetings and salutations. Where’s Tranzam?”

  Cakers make to speak, but was so scared only a long, creaking sound came from behind that clenched mouth. I stayed a little ways behind him. I had a feeling someone was going to get shot. This felt oh-so fake. Was I in a movie? Had I somehow—suddenly—been jolted into a parallel universe?

  Krill closed his eyes, sniffed the thick air, and grunted—catching a piece of some old meat lodged in his throat and spitting it out. It landed at Cakers’ feet with a clump and we both skipped back.

  Krill sucked his teeth.

  “We must speak with her. She must be taken into custody.” He had a voice of a tape recorder slowed down. “So where is she? Come on, folks, fast and snappy.”

  Cakers took a sudden step forward—his face alive.

  “Taking her in? What in Heaven’s name for? Answer me, Krill. What FOR?”

  “That’s for me to know and for you to find out, Cakers.” Krill made his eyes wide and deliberately scary. “And if you’re hiding her, I’m going to have to get nasty, and you wouldn’t like me when I’m…nasty.” He tilted his head over to his partner. “Isn’t that right, Xanadu?”

  His partner remained sad-looking, saying, “No, sir. No…they wouldn’t. And I should know. I have diseases.”

  His voice reminded me of someone who had cut his finger while trying to open a stubborn can of sardines, and thus the world was ending.

  Krill held his hand out to Cakers, where it caught the light, and looked like it was hovering in deep space. It acted out each word he said.

  “Cakers…one last time…where is the old bag? Don’t make me beg, baby.” He motioned Xanadu to move forward. Cakers threw his hands up in surrender.

  “What’s all the hullabaloo? Let’s just calm down. Please—I know nothing! Call your bull back! Oh God, don’t let him touch me!” Cakers was now hiding behind me, holding me out like a shield, as if I had special powers to protect him. “You promised you’d never have him touch me again!” he panted. “KRILL! YOU CAN’T BREAK A PROMISE!”

  Krill melted back into the shadows, and said, “I’m only a product of my culture.”

  Xanadu took big, slow, thundering steps and had his arms out like a wrestler. I backed up into Cakers and addressed this advancing bulk.

  “Have mercy! We know nothing! Nothing, I say! Nothing! Nada! Zero! Zip! Zilch!”

  “I hate to do this, son, but I have a job to do. And what I do, I do for my family. God bless.”

  Cakers took my hand and dragged me toward the front door, but Xanadu was quick, snatching my foot and laughing. Krill said something about not being worried—that he had all the faith in the world in Xanadu—and opened the sliding glass door and lit a cigarette. I couldn’t tell in all the commotion, but a black bird of some kind flew in and banged into everything, screeching. It rammed into Xanadu’s face and tore at his meat. Xanadu tried to slap it away, not uttering a peep, trying to keep in character.

  More birds came flying in once blood was drawn, eating his head and flying up his shirt. Cakers hauled me outside, and we jumped into the ambulance, driving off and weeping to ourselves. I looked back and saw Xanadu spinning out of the house, swamped in birds and trying desperately to claw a flapping fowl out from his mouth. Krill was shooting down the birds one by one, including the one pecking at his partner’s tonsils. Xanadu fell to his knees and looked down at his bloody hands and yelled at them in horrified vowels. He looked up at Krill, worried…and fainted.

  Seeing them clearly in HPD uniform made them even more menacing. I tore myself from the spectacle, and watched the sun rise before us as it painted the sky orange.

  Or is it light crimson?

  I can’t tell, really.

  I’m colorblind.

  WE started at the bottom of the forest and made our way up a hill to Tranzam’s hideaway, guided by red ribbons tied to tree branches.

  The place looked better inside than one was led to believe. There was a television, a rattan chair, a rattan sofa, and a rattan carpet. It reminded me of houses in the Philippines, where the outside looked like a mess, but inside was quite modern and dainty. I took off my shoes before stepping inside.

  “At least you have a floor.”

  There was a weird odor: Like a blanket of a hundred squashed grapes, draped over a rotting dog.

  Cakers motioned Tranzam to sit on a rattan stool. He hadn’t made eye contact with her since walking in. She stared at him the whole time, looking drained and lonely. She gave out a sharp moan as she sat. Her legs were bleeding. Cakers opened his medical bag and got on his knees, finally looking up at her.

  “What happened?”

  I was hiding up a tree, doing some hunting, ready to jump on a stray cat, when my hand went into a bee’s nest. They got into my hair, and at first I thought I was fine…but then they started to sting me, so I jumped out of the tree for my own safety. I thought the feline had softened the fall, but I had landed on something else.

  “What.”

  “A loon,” she said, exhaling and crying at the same time. “A loon! I thought I killed her! But no…she sprang to her feet and picked me up by the legs and swung me into a tree like a baseball bat. It was horrific! Leaves were falling everywhere...”

  Cakers inspected her legs.

  “Jesus. And how does your back feel?”

  “It feels so good right now. But my legs. Ugh! My legs, my legs. The loon’s nails dug into my meat so many times.”

  I had my hand over my mouth.

  “How awful. Damn loons.”

  Cakers took out some bandages and did the obvious. “Well, you’re safe now,” he said, lovingly. “If I ever get my hands on that loon…”

  Tranzam laughed.

  “Good luck. She’s so lost. She’s probably at North Shore by now, or in the middle of the ocean. She couldn’t see a thing—running into trees and whatnot. I would be, too…if I had metal sticks protruding from my eyes.”

  I stomped my foot.

  “What was that?”

  “These things were in her eyes—metal things with tiny handles.”

  I looked to Cakers. He was backing away, smiling.

  “Now, I know what you must be thinking. Long story short: Yes.”

  I walked toward him, my face sizzling.

  “You said you would take care of them.”

  “And I did!” He raised a finger to make a point. “I don’t know how they ended up in the woods. I was so sure I gated them.”

  “What you talkin’ ‘bout, sucka? What you mean ‘gated’? Where did you put them?”

  “At the abandoned farm!”

  “Eh?! And you just LEFT them, you swine!”

  “I was going to tell you.”

  “When? After you’ve been drinking? So it can just flop out?”

  “YES.”

  “Now we have loons strutting about, aimlessly. Maybe crying?” I looked up and raised my palms to high heaven. “It breaks my hah’t! My hah’t!”

  My spider senses were tingling. I could tell that Tranzam was at a lost—her gaze moving from me to Cakers as if watching a peculiar tennis match.

  Cakers punched the air.

  “I had to do it, man,” he said, chest out. “Sometimes, when operations went wrong, I would be caught between a rock and a hard place.” Cakers was driving his first finger into the palm of his other hand with each point he made. “Sometimes it would be broad daylight, sometimes it would be raining too hard, sometimes there would be too many people around, etc. The only good hiding/storage place that you can count on, that’s free, is…well…an old, derelict farm.”

  I made to say something, but he was quick.

  “Unless you want them to stay
in my ambulance and shit all over the place and possibly cause me bodily harm. I had to drop them off somewhere!”

  I shook my head.

  “I am at a loss for words.”

  He was pacing.

  “Now it ain’t bad, really it ain’t. I made the right choice, now that I think about it.”

  “Right choice? How in hell—”

  “Sorry to tell you this, boy…but do you know what happens anyway, to them, at the hospitals? You have no idea how it works, eh?”

  “Sure I do. They take care of people.”

  “If your idea of take care is Let’s get these swine out of our hair, then yes, I suppose you’re right. I have been working at various hospitals for so long. I’ve seen so many people thrown out toot-sweet. These so-called doctors will look for any reason to get patients out of their hair. The only thing they care about is their fat wallets and fat houses.”

  I stared out the window—at the rain building up, making the plants dance about.

  I was once on the bus, at a stop light, looking out the window at a passing hospital, when I caught a glimpse of a nurse, throwing out an old woman who was gripping a walker. The nurse was wringing her yellow stained shirt, screaming something about not liking to have been pissed on. The old person didn’t yell back. She turned around and dropped trou and saluted the traffic and urinated the rest of her contents while standing up. She looked sad. The nurse cried and stomped her feet like a dang child. A white doctor appeared and comforted this nurse. He gave the old woman the finger and kicked her in the buttocks, sending her skinny body sailing into a fluffy bush, where she vanished. My bus then took off. Last thing I saw was the nurse and doctor, looking around suspiciously and kissing.

  How many dreadful incidents like this had Cakers seen? Probably too many. What does that do to one’s mind? Maybe Cakers was right. Maybe these patients…maybe they were safer at the farm. But must it be so inhospitable? These are, after all, living things.

  We could rebuild.

  We could make a home for them. (The theme from The Six Million Dollar Man played in my mind. Or was it the intro music for The Million Dollar Man, Ted DiBiase?)

  I could clean…make breakfast…plant vegetables.

  Make a good, old-fashioned home.

  A real home of my own.

  I turned around—to make my peace—and saw Cakers and Tranzam in the next room, on a rattan bed, a huggin’ and a kissin’. They didn’t even bother to close the rattan door.

  HE said that he couldn’t get a hard-on, and that it was all her doing. She ran out of the room, covered in blood. What had happened? I stood from the TV with my glass of milk. She was mumbling how she’ll shower later…how blood crusts over in the sun.

  Before this weirdness, there was only the sound of birds and the evening, local news.

  The police still claimed that they were confident in finding the cow murderer—now labeled ‘The Cow Moorderer’. The news station had a Hindu guest who was trying to make the interviewer understand how horrifying the cow murders were—how sacred and holy cows were—but it was clear the news lady had other things on her mind: Chatting on her cell phone with her dermatologist while painting on lipstick and nodding to the Hindu-woman over and over again. It was nearing the end of the segment when she started talking about…

  “…spirituality. It’s important. It’s what drives—”

  “Very interesting,” said the news lady, closing her makeup purse. “Yes! The current baboon-ulcer epidemic is overwhelming and must be remedied! I keep telling my diabetic husband this, but he just calls me superstitious. That brute.”

  “You haven’t heard anything I said, have you.”

  “YOU SHUT YOUR FACE! I’M THE ONE WITH THE DEGREE! I WENT TO COLLEGE. I WENT TO HEALD!” Then, “Up next: A horse that eats gluuuuuuuuue????”

  Then I heard yelling and saw blood all over Tranzam’s thighs and between her toes. Cakers was in the nude, penis gone in his massive bush. He looked like a woman. An ugly woman that was made all wrong.

  “I’m sorry, doll,” he said, and ran his sweaty (with whatever else) hands over his face, pulling down his features like water on a painting. “I’ve just got a ton on my mind, is all. It’s not your fault. Damn that cop—he won’t get out of my brain! I hate him so much right now.”

  Tranzam spun around, breasts juggling.

  I sipped my milk.

  She put one hand on her hip.

  “Copper? Did the fuzz speak with you?”

  “He scared me,” Cakers said. “He tried to hurt information out of me, but I said nothing.”

  “Oh Jesus, no. What did he want?”

  “Said that he wanted to take you in for questioning…said…he…he…he…”

  Something on the news had stolen his attention. We looked to see Krill, being interviewed on the steps of the police department, on Beretania Street.

  “Oh, I’ll find the culprit, all right,” he said, grinning. “I’ll teach them a lesson in manners.” He held up a sandwich. “Much like what I’m gonna do to this sandwich. In the end, I always get my criminal. And eat them.” He took a bite and said with a mouth full, “I already have a very—VERY—good idea who it just…might…BE. Hahahahahahaha!”

  The camera quickly zoomed out to reveal Xanadu next to him, arms crossed. His entire face was covered with a white bandage. He wasn’t laughing.

  Tranzam backed away.

  “Oh, nooooo…”

  Cakers pointed at the TV.

  “What does he want with you?”

  Tranzam took hold of her hair and shook her head.

  “No, no, please—NO!”

  “Answer me! Damn! I’m so in love with you! I care! What kind of trouble are you in? You will stand there and you will answer ME!”

  He punched a wall and pulled out a pipe. “If you don’t talk—and be honest with me just this ONCE—I will hit myself over the head with this pipe. See what you make me do for love?”

  A red liquid shot forth from the hole, hitting his back. Cakers caught his breath and whispered, “It’s cold.” Tranzam had one hand over her mouth, eyes darting here and there—plotting. She reached out to him, but it was too late. He tore at the wall, making hideous grunting sounds and drooling.

  He jumped back, screaming, buttocks flapping as something huge fell from the wall.

  It was a dead cow.

  So many knives where sticking out from the corpse—each one kicking up sunlight and blinding us. In my mind, each flash came with a Ka’shing! sound.

  Cakers held out his hands to her, his face sad, his knees together and bent.

  “You? But I don’t understand. Why you? Why? WHY?”

  Tranzam was crying.

  “Hug me, Cakers, please. I’m so scared. I’ll tell you everything!”

  He ran to another wall and kneed it in.

  A cow fell out—its back missing.

  He stomped and broke the floor and yanked out the boards, finding a cow with half its head sliced off, horizontally. Rats were living in its brain, too surprised to move. Maybe if we stand perfectly still, he’ll go away.

  He grabbed a broom and struck the ceiling, leaping back as a cow fell out halfway, dangling with its arms swinging, intestines falling from the mouth. It looked like it was smiling.

  Tranzam ran out of the house—yes, still in the nude—hands covering her weeping, strangled visage. Cakers gave chase. He tackled her and the two of them wrestled in the mud.

  But wait.

  They were kissing?

  He was kissing her. Kissing her with wet, sloppy sounds. She looked confused at first, but then eased into it, and said, “Yes? YES!”

  They stood up in an embrace.

  She bit into his shoulder, her eyes full of water.

  “I don’t know why I do it! Believe me! It’s a mystery! I don’t know why I hate them so much! I need help! PLEASE, HELP ME, LOVER!”

  Cakers carried her in his arms and walked back inside and took her into the be
droom…this time, closing the door.

  I took a sip of milk, and sat down.

  I WOKE up—eyes sore—to blaring static on the TV. It was 3 in the morning, and I had forgotten to go to work. I was going to get written up. I had to be more careful. An image of me jumped into my mind—of me on the streets, shitting in trashcans and begging for money to buy food. But I wasn’t going to buy food. I was going to get drunk.

  I had to be careful. 2 ½-something years of a steady paycheck…I really could not afford to fuck this one up.

  Tranzam made us an early breakfast of bacon and eggs and Jasmine rice. I wondered when we were going to get rid of the rotting cow cadavers—IF we even would—but the subject never came up. Cakers and Tranzam were still naked, but at least they had taken an hour-long shower together. I made to also take a shower right after them, but the tub quickly filled up. I leaned over to find that the drain was clogged with things. I was too afraid to check 100% to unclog it, and just washed my important lands and blow dried my hair.

  We ate as she told her story.

  “Enjoying the meal? Wonderful. I’m glad. No, don’t mind me. I’ll eat later. Right now I want to tell you what happened to me, not too long ago.” She drank from a glass of milk. “Mmm, I love milk, don’t you? This stuff is real, unlike that store-bought crap. Anyway, back to my story. I was having one of those sleepless nights in bed, staring up at the ceiling, at the shadow of a tree, dancing about. Cakers was out working. Thinking that a little jog might help to tire me out, I put on my sweatpants and sweater and headband and went out into the cold. I jogged for miles and miles, not at all afraid of getting lost or being mugged, and stopped to get a sip of water from my bottle, when I suddenly got the bright idea to hop a fence and spy into someone’s living room. Didn’t matter which. Thinking about it now, I don’t know what could ever possess me to do such a queer thing.” She stared at the table, silent for many seconds. “Anyways, so I hops a fence—or more like climbs a gate—and tiptoed behind some bushes. I think I…oh yes, I remember now…I had indeed heard a Moo.

  “There, in the living room, was an American family to base all others on—one of those good ol’ ones from the 1950’s: A smiling dada in a business suit, a smiling mama in an apron, a smiling boyo with neatly trimmed hair, and a girly-girl in pigtails. They were all smiling and clapping their hands, and standing around a confused-looking black & white cow with a golden bell around its neck. They were so happy about something, but I couldn’t hear what they were yapping about over the loud song they were clapping to, which was You Can Call me Al by Paul Simon. The dada motioned over to his family and took hold one of the cow’s udder. One by one the family came—all smiles and whatnot—all came down and wrapped their lips on that udder and drank as daddy-boy squeezed. I swear, none of them blinked or broke their smiles.”

  Although Cakers was eating more than ever, I had lost my appetite.

  “They put their mouths on that damn cow’s udder?”

  “The cow’s udder what?” Tranzam laughed. “See what I did? Oh never mind. You younglings wouldn’t know good humor if it bit you in the arse.” She downed the rest of her milk. “I reached back and pulled out a knife from somewhere on my person. It was as if my hand was being moved by some invisible thing. A hunger grew in me—a kind of strong hate. When that cow looked at me, that was it. The plan was set: I’d wait until all were asleep, then sneak in and gut that bitch. But just as the pater familias went down to get a taste, there was a burst of police lights and the front door was kicked in. I hit the dirt and stayed there for a bit (the front yard was crawling with police cars and those robotic, radio conversations), then peeked into the window. The family was held up against a wall, limbs spread, being frisked by HPD.

  “The family was crying, but smart enough to do it softly, as not to irritate the fuzz too much. A man in an orange, protective hazmat suit, wearing smarty-smart glasses, was inspecting the cow with a long, metal stick that had a pulsing ball of light on its tip. And guess what? Krill was there. Yup. There with his boyfriend, Xanadu, who had his arms crossed. The two of them just waltzed in, all high and mighty like. The mum and her kids were handcuffed. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but Krill addressed something to his fellow cronies and then snapped his fingers. The fuzz took hold of the mum and the two kids and left—all just hopped in their buggies and skedaddled…sirens and lights going bonkers.

  “Now it was just Krill, Xanadu, the husband, and that cow. I watched as Krill went to that beast, milked some goods into a cup, and dipped his pinky in it before putting it into his mouth. He rolled his eyes back white, and smiled at Xanadu.

  “‘It’s pure, it’s pure,’ Krill was saying. He stomped his foot and pointed to the husband. Xanadu rushed the man and kicked him in the belly. He fell to his knees, vomiting up a rainbow. He whipped his head up and spat at Krill—who opened his mouth and caught it, swallowing the glob.

  “Xanadu picked the man up by his lovely locks, forcing him on his tippy toes. Krill waltzed—yes, waltzed—over to the man and gave his stomach such a trouncing. It went on and on, like a boxer working a punching bag. The man couldn’t breathe—his eyes watered over, that swollen tongue—maybe he bit it?—bloody and draped over his lower lip. Krill put his sweaty hands around that man’s neck and squeezed and squeezed. Krill’s face was all twisted—his mouth a snarl. He let go for some reason and the husband let out a woman’s blood-curdling shriek. Xanadu ripped off the man’s shirt. Krill threw one hand up, making an eagle’s claw, and dug into this man’s belly. He made painful twisting motions…and then his hand was gone inside him.

  “Krill licked his drooling lips and pulled his hand out, revealing a fistful of grayish-purple intestine. He filled his mouth with his meal in a crazy, desperate way. The man did not scream. He looked down on himself, in awe, then to Xanadu. Krill offered some food to his partner, but he shook his head. Krill shrugged and offered some to the husband, who let out another scream. Krill shoved the guts into his mouth to silence him. I could see that that cow was quietly backing away, eyes wide with surprise, like it was thinking, Okayyyyyy. Just keep silent…and slowly exit the room.

  “Krill spun around and shouted, pointing a bloody finger at the cow.

  “‘THE COW’S BUSTING OUT!’ he shrieked. ‘SACK IT!’ The cow jumped in the air a little and bleeped, and hightailed it out of there. They made to give chase, but slipped and fell all over the gore. The cow stumbled out of the house—and I made a grave mistake by jumping on it, stabbing it with my weapon. It angered the beast and I was flung onto the ground. Next thing I know, the cow donkey-kicks me in the belly, and I’m sent soaring into the house. Cursing the beast, I looked up and froze. Krill and his goon stared down on me.

  “Suddenly, I wasn’t aware of the terrible pain in my belly…and I waved at them.

  “‘Hi-ya, fellas. What’s the ruckus?’

  “Krill grinned and snapped his fingers. Xanadu’s face exploded with a violent scream. My hair was blown back. He reversed and then football-kicked me in the chest. I was airborne for a second before crashing through a wall and ending up in a bush. I rubbed my chest furiously, sucking air through my teeth, trying to rubout the burning pain. My first instinct was to run like the wind, so I jumped to my feet like there was no tomorrow. A mighty grip crushed my shoulder muscles, and I was lifted over Xanadu’s head and thrown. I was flying again for many seconds and ended up high in a tree, my legs dangling over a tree branch. There were crows—or black birds of some kind—sitting around me. Why they weren’t startled by my sudden entrance and scram lickiddy split is beyond me. But what happened next shook me to the core.

  “Xanadu began shaking the tree, yelling at me in German to come down (I think). I held on for dear life, emitting mousy sounds, eyes shut tight. Those birds began to babble, and indeed they sounded like Goddamn crows. These things flapped their wings in irritation and flew down and attacked Xanadu. He was running all over the cockadoodie place and ended up rolling to-
and-fro on the prickly grass. He sounded like a freaked out little girl.

  “‘Ich bin traurig, ich traurig bin, dass ich traurig bin!’

  “I climbed down the tree and ran into Krill, who held me and started screaming at Xanadu:

  “‘Emergency! Emergency! Emergency!’

  “I leaned over and bit into his arm and then into his OTHER arm and then I turned around and ripped open his police shirt and bit off a chunk of his chest-meat, spitting it into his crying mouth. He let go, sucking on his arms. I ran and ran and ran down that street, crying all over myself, plucking out the hairs between my teeth. I was so merry then, I remember distinctly throwing my arms out at one point. I was free. To hell with the pain in my thighs! To hell with the pain in my belly! To hell with that damn cow! I was freeeeee! Free, damn you! FREE!”

  It was at this point that Tranzam just stared at us, unblinking. She was saying the word “Free” over and over, each time softer and softer, until it was barely a whisper. Cakers finished eating—his mouth yellow with egg yoke.

  “Fascinating story. Purely fascinating. Grade ‘A’ stuff, honey rocket.”

  “I thank ye.”

  Cakers put away his dish, washing it.

  “I’m so glad you got away. She’s a fighter, she is! Full of moxie!”

  I put my hand over my mouth.

  “Right! Krill was eating him! Gadzooks! Eating him!”

  Cakers was using such hot water; steam was rising from the sink. No one seemed to care but me. Cakers nodded.

  “The shit has finally hit. Krill deserves to be Beaten & Eaten. He is a pile, indeed.”

  Tranzam went to the freezer.

  “Thank Zeus for those birds. Mango ice cream, anyone?”

  Cakers’ phone vibrated.

  “Hello? Yes. Who is this?” Then, “Yes, I can remember the address. No, it’s not a problem. I want to do this. Oh, really? Yes, I know her. We’ll be there toot sweet. Goodbye to you.”

  Cakers dried his hands and took my empty dish.

  “A mother needs our help. Her son has been seriously injured, and she claims to be a friend of Queen. The pay is high. I can finally purchase that giant cat.”

  The dead corpses nearby got our attention: A wave of stink filled our nostrils, and we worked together in dumping the bodies into the woods. We convinced ourselves that dead cow was good fertilizer.

  We went back inside and I made a giant egg omelet for everyone. It took 10 eggs. The last egg had a little dead bird inside…its mouth and eyes half open.

  The universe is answering.

  Signs are everywhere.

  I FELL asleep in the back of the ambulance. I hadn’t cared to ask where this operation would take place. As long as it was done quickly, I’d help. I didn’t know how much more I could handle—seeing people cut open and bandaged and a variety of wounds and whatnot. I had never seen a burn victim before.

  Were they made ebony? Were they in constant pain? Could they touch anything? And the eyes…did they have lids? Were the eyes also burnt? How awful. The very thought sent waves of bumpy things all over me.

  We were at some beach in the far reaches of Makaha. Cakers complained about the salty air rusting his baby. He said that this woman’s son loved the beach, and she thought it might soothe him during the procedure. I got out and took off my shoes, feeling the cool sand between my toes. The moon reflected on the glittering ocean. What if a GIANT shark suddenly appeared, like on the cover of Jaws? But only now it would be the size of a mountain?

  My bowels would give out, right then and there. I wouldn’t be ashamed. I wouldn’t be judged. It would be totally understandable. And who knows? Maybe a megalodon still exists. Prehistoric fish pop up every now and then, like in the case of the Coelacanth—the first fish to walk on land and start the evolution of amphibians. And we’ve only explored 95% of the ocean, so who knows what beasts are down there, waiting to be seen. Colossal fiends that would eat us on sight.

  Modern day monsters I hope to live long enough to see.

  A yellow, Hummer limousine pulled up next to us, and for some reason a sort of extreme hatred overtook me. My reaction surprised and scared me. Cakers greeted the woman—who had gold rings on each finger and toe—as she helped her boy out. He was all bandaged up, like a mummy, and used crutches painted gold. He wore shades.

  I stood at the ambulance, as if saying, Hello, I’m here to help. In fact, mate, let me help you inside. Actually, I was scared as piss of the boy. I didn’t want to touch him. What if he yelled out in loud grief? It would horrify me to no end. Tranzam was inside, ready to help the boy in. Something was odd about her. She looked like someone in desperate need of a toilet.

  Cakers and the mother held his mitts and oh-so-very-slowly guided him into the ambulance. I held my arms out, ready to catch him, moving around and around them like I was doing a kind of supernatural dance. “Uppsy daisy,” I kept saying. “Uppsy daisy.” I tried to smile, but it came out so forced. What did it matter anyway, huh? The rich bastard had shades on. At night. And I was taught that only assholes did that.

  They sat him down on a cold, metal stool, and I shut the doors.

  “Let’s see what we can see,” Cakers said. He took hold of the boy’s arm and began unwinding the bandages. The mother was pregnant, smoking a cigarette. She spoke with a deep, local accent—which was interesting to me, because she looked like she was from some town in Kansas.

  “Ho, tanks, bra…fo yo help.”

  Cakers caught a snag.

  “Tranzam, scissors, please.”

  She didn’t respond.

  In fact, she wasn’t even in the ambulance. Staying professional, Cakers nodded to me and I found him a pair of wet scissors, which he used to cut a length of bandage. The arm underneath was like raw meat, and although the boy’s mouth was covered, I could hear his pathetic grunts.

  The mother stepped on her half-smoked cig, and lit another.

  “I no can believe the year I get so fa. Ho, first I get good-kind luck, then, no mo…then my husband get busted by the cops and go missing. Fuck, I so salty right now. Fuckin’ police, bra…I like put’em on the horses. You like know what went happen? Me and my son got arrested. Was weird, ‘cause I neva even went hear’em. They just came out of nowhea. I guess was our fault, though. Nah, on second thought, no, was my damn husband’s fault—him and his dealings. But any ways, we get arrested—me and my son ova hea—and pushed into the police ca, and already I stay thinkin’ of ways I can sue. But nah, I no can tink of anything. Then my son ova hea—I don’t know—he start sayin how he can feel dis power all over him, dis God power, and he just ‘Whoosh!’ rips his freakin’ handcuffs apart. Eh, you eva went hea of that one story? About that fat, old woman who went lift up dat truck to free dat little boy? Well, dis was like dat. And befo I fo’get…mine, too. He went break my cuffs, too. So strong, my boy. He went kick da driver’s back and next ting I know, we stay tumbling and tumbling, then we went crash into one fuckin’ playground. Ho, get dis: Our driver went fly out da window and he went end up on one swing. He was knocked out and everything. He went look so funny. Faggit.”

  She went put…

  Sorry.

  She put her cigarette in her mouth and held her son’s hands.

  “Tank Jesus, eh boy? Tank Jesus, ova thea! Him and his ways.”

  He whined through his bandaged mouth.

  “It hewts! It hewts!”

  The mother let go, crying.

  “Ho, sorry. Sorry, I said! I no know what I doing, ova hea!” Then to Cakers, “Please help, kay? Please!”

  He remained focused.

  “How very,” he said. “I’m doing everything I can. Don’t worry your pretty little head off. Everything’s going to be honky dory.”

  The boy was naked now—a raw color. His head was still bandaged, shades still on. He was shaking, and Cakers injected something into the boy’s thigh to soothe him. His mother shook her head.

  “As we was walking away, the ca went b
low up. I no know why, but even though I was fine, my son ova hea was on fy’ya. He went catch on fy’ya so fast…ho, was weird. But my son, he smart, ‘cause he went start rolling on da ground. At first, I thought, shit, I should take him hospital…but then, nah, I no like him go jail. He too pretty. I mean…was.” She was thinking of something, but then said, “Ho nah! Dis so fucked up ova hea!”

  I had to speak with Tranzam, and asked Cakers if I could take a smoke break. He nodded, not looking at me as he sterilized his instruments.

  Tranzam was pacing on the beach.

  I closed the doors and ran to her, lighting up a cigarette.

  “It’s them! Right? I know it is!”

  She whipped her face at me. She was sweating, the eyes huge.

  “I’m not going back in there. Don’t make me do it! I at least help that tit into the ambulance, didn’t I? I did good, I know it!”

  “What are you blathering on about? Let’s get back in there and help your man. He needs our hands.”

  “NO! What if they remember me?”

  “The mum and the boy? You said they didn’t see you peeping?”

  Tranzam looked out over the beach. Someone was doing a little midnight surfing. He caught a huge wave, and it swallowed him. Seconds later, he appeared and swam back out…only to be eaten again. He was carrying a fishing pole and wore goggles. A large fish of some kind splashed into the air, against the moon. The surfer cheered and reeled the beast in as he surfed on a mighty wave.

  Tranzam nodded her head in approval.

  “As I was running home that night,” she began, eyes on the ocean, “…there was a crash. A police car had flipped somehow into a playground, on church grounds. The whole place was on fire. That cop that she mentioned in her story…that must’ve been him, swinging on that damn swing, all lit up, whooshing back and forth. The flames were so loud, I had to cover my ears as I walked toward to see if anyone was alive.

  “There were screams behind me. I turned around to see, under a tree, someone rolling around on the ground with some crazy woman trying to catch him. It seemed to me that he was trying to get away from her via rolling. Maybe he couldn’t stand up. Maybe his legs were broken. The woman jumped on him and held him in her arms—kissing him as he screamed for her to stop.

  “‘My skin is gone! My skin is gone! You’re killing me!’ is what he kept shrieking. But she just kept at it…kissing and kissing him as her hand went under to pleasure his life-giving bits.

  “Then the boy started laughing. He was still begging—or at least saying the words—for her to stop…but it dawned on me that he actually liked it. He was a charred mess, and began taking her clothes off, mouth on her mouth. How was he still moving? Maybe his nerves were gone at this point. They both stood up and embraced and kissed some more…then ran off in the nude, fat jiggling.

  “I followed them down the street a little. They were leaning against an ice cream truck. She was cradling him, weeping. The boy passed out, and was pissing and shitting himself, but she still held on to him.

  Tranzam shivered, and flicked her cigarette onto the sand, covering it with her foot. I was holding myself, chilly.

  “So it was them. I wouldn’t want to be in there, too.”

  Tranzam turned to me as a car drove by, illuminating her face.

  “What I saw was evil,” she said. “It made me sick, it made me want to fall on my knees…it made me want to pray.” She began walking toward the ambulance, and then stopped. “It that how people see me? I can’t be blamed for what I do. I’m being controlled, I tell you! Controlled! No one is born sour!”

  “No one said—”

  “I can’t go back in there. I need a walk. Need to think things over.” She walked away. “Tell Cakers I’m sorry.”

  She walked off, and vanished into the night.

  Leaning against the ambulance, I dumped the sand from my shoes and went inside. The boy was still naked. His mother was weeping in Cakers’ embrace. She was smoking.

  “Ho brah, I no know what fo do.”

  “Shh,” Cakers soothed. “Everything will be okay.” He looked to me. “Where’s Tranzam?”

  “She had to take a walk. She’ll be okay. What’s going on here?”

  “The boy, who is now sitting straight-back on that stool, attacked us.”

  “What! When?”

  “A few minutes ago. It was a damn shame.”

  “Is the mother hurt?”

  “Only her insides.”

  The mother whined as she gave me a sad look, and said, “My boy, ova thea! The fy’ya went burn is brain. Now he all stupid. Oh, boy!” She smoked her cigarette, blowing out a perfect O. “My boy no know me any mo! Wahhhhh!”

  Cakers hugged her.

  “Calmness falls over you. The drug will take you soon. Do you feel it?”

  “Ho. I feel’em.”

  “Good. Shh. Relax.”

  “Ho…I feel’em…I feel’em…”

  She went to sleep.

  Cakers rocked her back and forth, whispering to me.

  “That bastard of a son jumped his seat and tried to bite me. The fool.”

  I sat on the floor, legs crossed.

  “You don’t say.”

  “Damn straight. After knocking me on my butt, he made for the little lady, here—trying to kiss her and such—grabbing at her life-giving bits. It was weird. Praise Jesus, I had my mini tranquilizer gun on the ready.”

  “Are you still getting paid?”

  “Oh, you better believe it, mister. And guess what? We’ll be getting more than we thought!”

  “How so?”

  “Little lady has another request: Immobilize her son.”

  “You mean lobotomize? I don’t know if I can do it anymore. It does more harm than good.”

  “It’s true what you say. BUT…we’ll get paid more.”

  “Money doesn’t bring happiness.”

  “True. Money is not the most important thing. Love is. And lucky for me, I love money.”

  “How much money do you need?”

  He stopped rocking the mother.

  “Excuse me?”

  “My rent isn’t even that much. How much do you need? Is it even worth it? Taking this boy’s soul away?”

  “Who’s talking about souls? We’re just tampering with his brain.”

  “It’s the same thing!”

  I looked at the boy. He was still sitting straight up, hands placed neatly on his naked, skinless lap. Cakers smiled.

  “There’s a chance that he may get better. A chance.”

  “And if he doesn’t? And if he turns into another zombie?”

  “We’ll take them to the nearest hospital. There, happy now?”

  “No.”

  “No??”

  “We have to take care of them.”

  “F’ that.”

  “I don’t care about the dangers, sucka. They’re our responsibility!” I said. “We can use the farm as a kind of safe haven. Clean it up a bit…make it a home again,” I said, standing up. “I’ll be your hands right now—I’ll help you do this operation—if you can man-up to my words.”

  Cakers opened a tiny bottle of smelling salt and held it under the woman’s nose. She woke up with her head jumping.

  “Exercise! Exercise! HUH? MY BOY! YIKES!”

  Cakers put a cigarette in her hand, lighting it. She took a drag and was calmed, instantly.

  “So what, then? You went tink ova my offa?”

  Cakers put on translucent, plastic gloves and stood up.

  “Yes. We’ll do it,” he said, smiling at me.

  We put the boy on the gurney. The tranquilizer Cakers injected into him was still working. I put on my gardening gloves, as a precaution. Cakers took out his silver box and opened it, revealing his ice picks. The mother gasped.

  “Gadzooks, man!”

  Cakers took out his long, shiny instruments.

  “Look away, honey lamb,” he told her, holding the ice picks in front of his face.
He was shaking his head. “Everything will be okay.”

  The mother was crying, sniffing continuously.

  “I no can bear dis kine stuffs! I need fo go outside! I need air!” she bawled, lighting a cigar this time.

  She ran out and slammed the doors behind her.

  “Thank the Lord,” I said, and hit the boy over the head with a frying pan. He fell forward, then backward. His legs sprung straight up, and it took some strength on my behalf to bring them down. I wiped my brow. “Maybe now we can finally get some work done.”

  Cakers pressed play on a stereo that was by his feet. Classical music filled the ambulance. He took off the boy’s shades. Normally, at this point, Cakers would lift the patient’s right eyelid…but the boy had no eyelids…just eyes that bulged from their sockets—eyes where the whites had turned a shivering red with tiny, black pupils.

  Cakers saw the weirdness all over my face.

  “It can’t be helped,” he shrugged, and placed the pick above the tear duct. He hit it with a rubber mallet and there was a sickening crunch. He jiggled the pick around…squinted…and pulled the instrument out. There was no blood.

  Cakers wiped the other ice pick clean, and repeated the procedure on the boy’s left eye.

  I was immediately reminded of the singer.

  Then I wondered of the boy’s mother. Was she coming back? She better, by god. I’m in no mood to take care of a child. Especially one that was old enough to become aware of his own independence. Would he follow my demands? Wash the dishes when I ordered? Tend to the cats? Massage my thighs? Listen to my woes? Pay (gasp) rent?

  I was holding a flashlight above the boy’s face the whole time.

  “He seems calm,” I said. “Too calm.”

  “You worry too much,” Cakers said, drinking a beer.

  I turned off the flashlight and bit my nails.

  “I’m a product of my culture.”

  I put the shades back over the boy’s eyes. He began to stir—his arms raised in front of him as he sat up, mouth drooling and emitting an ill stink.

  Cakers dropped his drink.

  “Shit…”

  He jumped back, his chair crashing.

  “SHIIIIIIIT!”

  The boy jumped and I covered my face—the both of us shrieking in a queer way. He jumped so high! But not at me—but at Cakers!

  “Brains!” he was pleading. “BRAINS!”

  In defiance, I screeched like a cat. The fiend knocked me down into the stereo, and the volume was accidentally turned high. Two female opera singers were dueling, violins racing at a fever pitch.

  Cakers gave out a sound that can only be best described as a kind of rising, wiggling squeal…like a feline slowly being stepped on.

  I looked behind me and saw them wrestling on the ground, bumping and grinding like mad pistons. Cakers had his eyes all over me, begging. His teeth bit down on the boy’s face, but it did no obvious good.

  I got to my feet and stretched the pain in my muscles away as fast as I could, and threw myself all over the boy, also biting him—gnawing on his nude, skinless back…and it felt as if I was trying to chomp through a balloon. There was a disturbing POP! under my teeth, and a queer liquid filled my mouth. It was an amazing taste of such awfulness. It was so putrid, and yet it didn’t deter me in the slightest. I was a hero now.

  I feel I must add, however, that his spine jutted out and gave my boney chest a major irritation.

  The boy started to convulse.

  Was it a trick? Was he trying to vibrate us off his burnt bulk? Because it was working.

  Cakers was strangling him now, tears in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, boy,” he kept saying to him. “I am sorry, boy. Forgive this supreme choke-hold!” His face suddenly went a sour one, and I could only assume that he was now squeezing tightly. He released a suppressed growl that transformed into a strong yell.

  “Eeeeerrrrrrrraaaahhhhhhhh!” he went, hands shaking with power. “EEERRRAAAGGGHHHHT!”

  Such a horrid, familiar odor shot forth from this boy’s bowels that I fell back on my heels, panting. But what was I seeing now? Yes, as rare as it was, this time I was right. He was releasing himself all over the place. How unprofessional! I was aghast!

  And what was this abrupt curiosity? Upon closer inspection, I noticed a rather scandalous feature….

  I was reminded of a story a female friend once related to me, of her female friend one day feeling around down her general area, and touching—to her horror—a lump of intestine that had somehow made escape.

  Cakers placed his feet under this so-called “boy” and propelled him into the air. The boy crashed into the ceiling and kept going. I stood up, pointing.

  “Look! He went through the ceiling!”

  In an instant, we were outside—the chilly air nipping at the rear of our necks. The boy had already landed—running around on the cool sands and dragging a length of wet intestine between his quick—yet wobbly—legs.

  Cakers placed his hands on my shoulders and squeezed. He inhaled, sharply.

  “Sack him!” he begged, darting off ahead of me. “Fast!”

  I nodded without even knowing it, and took over the beach in great strides. Few things are more frustrating than navigating your feet over thick sands. I fell many times, picking myself up and cursing in mangled consonants.

  Jerking cries ahead of me then, impelling me onward. I was swimming in sand at one point and spitting out grains. I stood up and looked all around me—spinning around and around in 3 full revolutions. Due to my nearsightedness, I had to squint to see where everyone was.

  Worthless.

  “Damn you, Myopia!” I bleeped at the clouds. “Damn you to hellllllll!”

  And then, a trick I remembered slapped my brain, and I swung my trembling hands up to my right eye, making an itsy bitsy diamond with my thumbs and first fingers. It worked! I could see! So I looked here and there through this tiny frame—finally spotting Cakers doing crazy battle with the boy in the ocean.

  My heart sank.

  Was I expected to rush in and get wet all over?

  What of the giant shark that surely awaited me? It was looking at me with its psychic third eye, I knew…waiting and hungry…rubbing its fins together and saying, “Yes, yessss! That’s it, my dumpling. Come on in, you fool. You dumb, blind fool! Hawahawhawhawa! I’m laughing!”

  Cakers yelled for me to help—his words half drowned. The boy had him in a headlock, dipping Cakers into the water with mechanical movements. The boy/zombie/person/thing paid no heed to what he was even doing. His visage was curiously retarded: Looking up at the stars with indolent eyes, the mouth kept wide open, that tongue flapping like a black ribbon tied to a fan.

  He was blathering nonstop.

  “Brains! Brains!” he went. “Brainssssssssss!”

  What did it all mean?

  At last I saw Cakers go down for a long time, his arm sticking up and flailing about and calling me. The Hawaii state fish—the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a, which means, sadly, “fish with a pig's nose”—were jumping all around them, clearly disturbed. I took off my shoes and socks—the idea of wet socks sickens me—and ran toward the water, issuing a somewhat whiny battle cry. I jumped in, the jolt of cold stunning me—shooting random images into my mind of Asian females, jumbo jets, dirty carpets, a guitar, beer bottles, days paying darts, giant water-beasts, open mouths, porcupines, shopping for vinegar, Blanka, car crashes, bus crashes, the internet, lightning, and rice.

  I swam the only way I knew how: Like a dog. Swam like Cakers’ life depended on it: Because it did.

  Drawing near to them, I dipped under the water like a Goddamn torpedo and somehow, as if God herself was maneuvering me, I shot into the air with my arms glued to my sides, shrieking above the scene. Everything was in slow motion it felt to me then—a wide view of me in the air with those glittering drops of water all over us…my shrill turned into a low groan.

  Then: Pain in my toes, and everything was quic
k again.

  The boy had his teeth in me!

  I landed on his head, drowning him in salt water. Cakers threw his hands up—“Free! Free!” he was laughing—and grabbed me by the hair, swimming me to the safety of the beach, crawling on sharp rocks and crushing tiny crabs.

  We looked back as an unfamiliar scream shook us to the marrow.

  The fisherman/surfer I had seen earlier was on his board, whacking the boy-thing with his fishing pole. He was screaming at us for help, but before we could even think of setting foot into those icy waters again, he was gone: Dragged into the sea, leaving behind a fury of bubbles…bubbles that then calmed.

  Then there was nothing but the song of waves—shooshing over and over onto the beach…at our terrified feet.

  We were breathing heavily and coughing.

  “Gadzooks, man!” I said. “Gadzooks…”

  Cakers looked around, frantically.

  “The motha!” he was saying. “What are we going to tell the motha?”

  “He ran off. He just ran off like fart in the wind. That’s what we’ll tell her. There’s no choice.”

  “But my money…”

  “Sucks to your money!”

  He grabbed me by the hair, again.

  “Don’t you say it! DON’T!”

  I whipped my head and he released his grip. The man was seething.

  “You don’t know what it’s like!” he said, shooting drool. “I’m so poor! This isn’t fair. I’m not living. I’m surviving! And it isn’t fair! I was born to live! Life is supposed to be fun!”

  At this point, there were white globs of saliva spotting my face, thanks to him. I made no effort in wiping, in the hopes of scaring him with my seriousness.

  “You’re right,” I said. “Life is supposed to be…fun.”

  He seemed genuinely surprised by my tenderness. And indeed, I was being as tender as I could, in spite of the fact I had his spit in my mouth.

  “Life is what you make of it—it’s how you see it,” I said. “Everything you have now—all around you—your clothes, your house, your money, your friends—all these things are fitting of you. Look at one of your friends, at all they have. Wouldn’t you agree, that Yes, that person there, he or she deserves what they possess. It is fitting in relation to their beliefs.”

  Cakers was standing up, looking around still. Was he even listening to me? This was important. The MOST important thing in the F’ing world. Was he even listening?

  No matter, I thought, standing as well.

  “But it can all change,” I went on. “You can change your very possessions—your surroundings—by altering your beliefs. You can change your surroundings by literally changing your beliefs. Your beliefs in what you think you deserve.”

  He was half listening, looking around with a scared look on his face, and saying, “Yeah, I hear you,” over and over with slight alterations.

  “Nothing changes, if nothing changes,” I said.

  Cakers spotted a woman strolling out from the dark, dress flapping in a strong breeze, and ran off.

  I followed him toward the ambulance, my mind flooded with thoughts.

  Certain great Secrets are only secrets because many refuse—outright refuse—to explore other solutions. They are so afraid to step off their path (no matter how miserable that path may be) since it’s all they know. It’s all they’ve ever been taught: This single path of doing this or that as you grow into this myth of old age.

  Pain = Success.

  That’s what they tell me. Pain = $$$

  So and so deserve their wealth! they say (whoever they are). So and so went through so many struggles to get where they are! The wealth—the riches—MUST come to them!

  But it doesn’t.

  Wealth, doesn’t come.

  I’ve been informed of millionaires in my day, just in passing talk. Some of them are assholes—they HATE life and yet have all this ‘stuff’. They try and try at their work, which they absolutely hate and get no joy from, to make more money, and once the day is done, just sit around in dusty mansions, upset at the world. What went wrong?

  And there are those that have so much doing what they love to do, yet live simple lives. Spending their wealth on a kind of easy-living and making investments, all the while staying the creative beasts we were always meant to be.

  But having a peaceful, kind mind isn’t enough, nor dreaming those wonderful dreams of happiness and corniness. One has to be active. One has to have the courage to at least—at least!—take the time to step off that predetermined path to find what brings you joy. Once that is done, throw yourself into it. Into your work. Your passion. Block out everything else. Eat…and be merry.

  SHE was pounding on the back doors, screaming muffled pleas to be let in—to see her son. The whole place shook. Was she dropkicking now? It would make sense.

  Cakers was rummaging through the place, leaning over, trying to keep balance, tossing plastic bags and mysterious devices over his shoulders and between his legs. I understood then that he was looking for a weapon of some kind. I thought it was a good idea, and groped around for anything pain-inducing.

  Silence.

  The calm before the storm.

  The eye of the storm.

  Cakers’ eyes were wide.

  “Now what?”

  Woman (outside): “Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiyaaaaaaa!”

  I tell you now it was the most appalling shriek. I have never heard such a wail. It was banshee-like. Death-like…almost evil.

  There was a gunshot, and Cakers yelled out, “I’m shot!” patting his body…but he was fine.

  “I knew it!” he said. “Rich people always have guns!”

  My search became more feverish. We were on our hands and knees and even sometimes on our bellies, slithering around like snakes, eyes scanning the scene for weapons as gunshots popped and bullets whizzed through the ambulance. A bullet hit a can of Coke, spraying a wall a color that seemed very much like blood to me.

  “Atom!” Cakers bellyached.

  He stood, pointing at the door, face strong.

  “Stop shooting, you fiend!”

  BANG!

  And Cakers was on the ground again…only now his face was soft with fear and confusion. He was curled up into a ball, arms around his knees. Yowzas! I thought. Is this how it ends? Left to die surrounded by weirdoes?

  Maybe it was fitting.

  BANG!

  Then it was quiet again.

  Cakers looked up, ice picks in his hands.

  “And?”

  I crawled, and put my ear on the door.

  “So quiet now,” I whispered. “Maybe she grew some brains—scurried away.”

  “I didn’t hear her vehicle start up.”

  “Hrmm. It’s true what you say.”

  “Get away from the door, you fool! She’s still outside!”

  “Be calm! We are safe,” I said. The very idea filled me with such joy. “I’ll prove it!”

  And before he could put his mitts on me, I opened the doors. Cakers gasped. I looked down and saw her on the ground…dead?

  “Dead?” I said, carefully stepping down from the ambulance.

  Cakers followed, face erupting. A gun was in her hand. Her eyes were closed.

  “No…can’t be,” he said, the ice picks in his hands sparkling.

  “Let’s just stay calm,” I said, pacing back and forth.

  “Stay calm?!” Cakers squealed. “No!”

  He was close to my ear, but I ignored him.

  “We have seen the enemy,” I said, “and he is us.”

  The mum jumped up, pointing the gun at us. Cakers couldn’t believe it.

  “You’re alive!” he was saying. “Thank God in Heaven! You’re alive!”

  The woman looked like she had bad things on her mind.

  “Ya,” she said, pointing the gun at him. “Not like YOU.”

  Utter horror crossed Cakers’ face, his mouth opening into an ‘O’. I kicked sand into the woman’s
eyes, and she yelled out in protest. Her arm flew back and the gun went off into the air. She twirled about, trying to get the sand out of her eyes. She was screaming, scared. Cakers yelled out and ran toward her, his ice picks held out, and drove them into her belly. She looked up at him with her sandy face, totally astounded. Cakers turned tail and ran off. The corpse of a bird fell from the sky and hit her on the head, sending her to the ground.

  The gun went off a 2nd time.

  We were cowering on the sand with our hands over our head. We looked up. The woman was on her back…the gun barrel was in her mouth.

  “Oh, lordy…oh, lordy, lordy, lordy. What have you done?”

  “ME? I didn’t do this! YOU’RE the one who de-brained her son! Made her screwy!”

  “Alright, let’s make this fair. We’re both at fault here.” He was looking down at her and shaking his head. “She put a bullet through her fat head, vertically! Stupid cow! Why would someone do such a thing? How does this help anyone?”

  I looked around and saw her son nearby, on the sand—all washed up, ass to moon. So very dead.

  Finally, I pointed.

  “Probably because of that,” I said. “Seems they were struggling, and I come to this conclusion due to the blue bruises on their arms and legs and necks and heads and, of course, fingertips. Are you even listening to me? This is important. It makes sense to me that she couldn’t bear the sight of his dead eyes, and took her own life. The mother’s bond with her child is a powerful one, indeed. Especially when they make sweet, nasty love. This is the classic Shakespearean tale.”

  “We’re in deep now, boy! What say you?”

  “If movies have taught me anything—and they have—it’s that we should scoop up these sacks of now-decomposing meat, and bury them in the trees.”

  “IN the trees? You mean in the treetops, right? To hide them? Predator-style?”

  “No, I mean inside the trees. Keep them out of sight and sound. No one will ever know, save for the ants and caterpillars and passing badgers, which shall all feast on their sinful bones. I promise.”

  “And this diabolical idea came from what movie?”

  “Home Alone. Or did I just dream it?”

  I could sense that he was warming up to my idea: He was sucking on his thumb for comfort and nodding his head.

  The female at our feet opened her eyes and groaned, whistling through the gun barrel, prompting us to take a large step back. Cakers shrieked and made to kick her, but I held him back.

  “Easyyyyyy, big fellah!”

  “It’s a monster! How is she alive? How is this possible? Witchcraft! What?”

  “Not the craft of the witch, you fool! But the craft of the fates. She’s lucky to be alive right now. Come! Let us smile down on her in fear and amazement as I wrap my arm around your scared neck.”

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “Oh, sorry. I’m in shock.”

  “Don’t touch me! I’m freaking out at the moment!”

  We were frozen: Eyes wide, unblinking.

  This woman stood up, looking at us with that damn, dirty gun protruding from her bloody lips—blood that came oozing out and looking like a string of crimson grapes.

  She didn’t attack us, for this I was glad. But did she still know how to use a gun? If she did, there was no indication. Only much standing. I blinked. Should I punch her? Get this game going? End the suspense? Cakers was holding me in a fearful way. This was normal in such instances. The woman only moved her eyes—left, right, left, right…faster and FASTER. A low hum was in her throat and was rising and RISING.

  “AAAAAAAAAAI!” she went. “AAAAIYAA!”

  I shrieked with a “WAH!” and uppercut her, sending her hopping back at least eight times. That blasted gun went off on each hop.

  She didn’t scream again—didn’t show signs of pain.

  SHE WAS STILL ALIVE.

  She stood there, far away from us, those spooky eyes again going left, right, left, right, etc, etc.

  Her boy stood up now, and they were next to each other, holding each other. I watched in confusion as the boy made to kiss her. His mouth hit against the gun and it went off in her mouth…again and again.

  Cakers was pulling on his hair.

  “Madness! Stop this madness! Sweet Jesus! Jesus, you’re so sweet!”

  I tried slapping him on the face, but it only made him louder for some reason, so I karate chopped him in the back of the neck. He bent forward then sprung back up.

  “Thank you,” he said. “We have to stop them before they do something stupid!”

  He ran at them and unleashed a fury of dropkicks. By the time I ran over, he had already knocked them out. I was breathless, hands on my knees.

  “You were amazing!”

  He was looking down on his sand-covered hands.

  “How am I this amazing? What is this rush that runs through my blood? Is this how that fat woman was able to lift that car? I’m alive!”

  He took them by the feet and dragged them to the ambulance. He flung his head back, and laughed.

  I was jealous.

  CAKERS was standing in a corner with his back to me, shaking, holding himself. Minutes ago, he was punching the walls and laughing. It was very hard for me to not look afraid…but I remained straight-backed through it all. Then the rush died down and he was in the corner. I couldn’t tell if he was mumbling something or spitting constantly.

  The bodies were on the floor, on their bellies, covered in tiny black crabs. Where did these crabs suddenly come from? I didn’t care to know. But I assume from the ass region. Crabs are attracted to moisture, I told myself. The bodies were still. No fat jiggled. Did they not feel these beasts all over them? It was disturbing me. I wanted to slap the crabs off—put them in my hand and squeeze the pus out from them. It wouldn’t be a problem. I did the same to flying cockroaches that dared to bang into my face and scare a yelp out of me. I still crush those little peckers to this day. With their damn, cactus-like legs—you’d think they were biting you.

  The terror overtook me then and I jumped to my feet, running my salty fingers through my hair. I had to compose myself. Assess the situation.

  “They’re gonna wake up any second, I can feel it. God help usssss.”

  Cakers spun around. His face was sweaty and awake. Panicked.

  “Help me.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t go to hell. I can’t. I don’t have the strength! They’ll eat me alive!”

  “What are you worrying about hell for? It’s jail that should be on your mind, boy! Those holes all over your body, you gotta seal them up now before it’s too late!”

  “Is it too…too late?” He looked around, crazy. “No. No, no, never too late.” Then up to God, “Wahhhhh! You fiend! It’s too late!” He looked down and began to sob, his face lost and confused. “No, no, no, no…I had dreams. I was going to be financially wealthy. I was going to eat whatever I wanted—buy all the watermelons I could eat, cars, pants, pizza. I was soooo near it all…I could sense the wealth coming my way. And now THIS.”

  He went all out—weeping on his knees and punching the floor. Snot and drool was falling from his lips, yet he made no attempt at wiping himself. He was creating a sizable pool that a crab was drowning in.

  “Good, good,” he was saying, squeezing the words out and sounding like a constipated child. “Good, good.”

  I couldn’t look at him. His little speech had given me a jolt. I heard myself in his words: All that jabber about fear and…and dreams—about all this terror happening too soon. Just way too soon. Cakers needed a little more time, but that’s true with anyone, right? When you’re on your deathbed, seconds from dying, that’s all that’ll be on your mind. Time. Just a little more time.

  If I had the time.

  Unless you commit suicide. Then it’s a case of having too much time. The thought shook me again. No, I thought. No. I still have things to do. You’ll never take me alive, copper!

  I kicked t
he woman’s body over. She was snoring and smiling a little.

  “We have to take these…zombies…to the farm.”

  Cakers looked up and for a few seconds had trouble finding me, his eyes full of water.

  “Farm?”

  “With the others. There’s no difference.”

  “I like the tree idea better. Do it to all of them, I say.”

  “They ain’t dead yet. We have to take care of them…be responsible. Your talk about hell gave me a salty one. Any guilt we feel now follows us all the way to reincarnation. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to come back as a cockroach. Not with people like me running around. Our Goddamn souls are on the line here, do you understand it?! We have to do this the right way.”

  “We?”

  He looked scared when he asked the question.

  I sighed.

  “We.”

  Cakers cracked his neck, and for the first time since all this horror and confusion, he seemed truly confident.

  “I need my ice picks,” he said.

  APPARENTLY, in Japan, there are two popular ways to commit suicide—by jumping in front of a speeding train, and by locking yourself in your bathroom and starting a Bar-B-Q, sans meat.

  How does one do it?

  How can your situation get so bad, that you kill yourself? That you end your life? That you bite the big one? That you hurt your friends and loved ones? That you just…leave all your stuff behind?

  Everyone on the ass of the earth thinks about killing themselves—probably more times than what they tell me. What would it be like? Is there an afterlife? I think there is. But how do we know? How do I even know?

  Life after death. Angels/aliens. Reincarnation. I spew shit like that all the time. I’m the most spiritual, open-minded person in my circle of friends, but I’m still not 100% sure what all this information is going to amount to. How does one really know what the Truth is?

  Does it matter?

  Does your negative energy cross over to your next life? Is that why so many of these youngsters are so successful? Because they didn’t carry over any baggage from their past?

  Is this why Catholics make it a point to go to confession every now and then?

  Well, I’d say, if you are at peace with yourself…then do what you want, however you want.

  Leave.

  Exit.

  Go.

  THAT night, there was bad news of tourists being attacked on Waikiki beach, by a strange, insane, naked man who was mumbling a lot. He carried a broken surfboard under his arm and was trying to bite people. His other hand held a fishing pole. Odd, tiny fish were dangling from his legs—biting them and wiggling around. The loon could not be found for questioning.

  All this we heard over the radio.

  We zoomed into Waikiki and jumped out, searching every corner and all over the beaches. Cakers all the while groaned about hell, but I left him to it. Security stopped us at the sands, behind hotels (Jesus, these hotels act like they made the beach and therefore own the sands), but we told them this was official “Ambulance Business” and we must not be bothered. This always worked on them, except for that one security guard that wouldn’t stop talking about stomach worms, and was clearly drunk. That portion of the beach we left alone, although I insisted to Cakers that it was a mistake.

  We moved on.

  I prayed that the cops hadn’t already apprehended the poor fiend.

  People were screaming and running toward Duke Kahanamoku’s Statue, made in honor of this surfing legend, and we followed. A large crowd had gathered and formed a circle—there was a struggle going on at its center. We tore through. Our friend from earlier—the surfer who had been attacked by the boy—had a white woman (British, by her accent) in a headlock. The smell flying from the man’s pores was amazing in an awful way, and something had to be done.

  Cakers yelled sounds and jumped him, taking him right to the statue’s feet. Various local people tried to protect the many leis around the statue’s neck, yelling and weeping madly and shaking their heads.

  Cakers dragged the beast by the hair, away from the crowd. Not wanting to look like a total waste, I took him by the feet, grunting at people to “Move, dammit! This is important business!”

  They listened, and I felt, indeed, important.

  It was always an odd and powerful feeling. Rather foreign.

  Inside the ambulance, we strapped the zombie to a gurney and zoomed away from Waikiki. The mother and the son were on the floor, sleeping. They had been pumped full of tranquilizers, and I did the same to the surfer before he (it?) started to act like an asshole again.

  It was hard to breathe. Our lungs were working overtime, and we were smiling.

  “These are such sights to behold,” I said under my breath, the day’s events swirling around my mind.

  “You bastard,” Cakers said, eyes on the road. We were on the freeway, heading towards Pandora, towards The Farm. “You sound so fucking impressed. These are all horrible things! I feel so damn cursed!”

  “My eyes are OPEN, that’s all. I believe in the Invisible now more than ever, that’s all. How about you?”

  “No. NONONONO!” He was shuddering, hands gripping the wheel, teeth grinding to a pulp, eyes shut. The ambulance went from left to right, out of control.

  I took him by the arms, my mouth alert.

  “Keep your blasted eyes on the road!”

  We went past an old jeep, shocking it. The hunk of metal took a hard right, but quickly steadied itself. The young woman inside gave us the finger over and over again, yelling bad words.

  “I’m okay,” Cakers said, gaining control. “All is well.”

  I was hyperventilating as we slowed behind a tow truck. We almost died. It wasn’t the way to go—not in a crash. I had my seatbelt on, but what good was it, I mean really? I’ve heard the story, too, like everyone else: Of the car crash that sent the driver flying through the window, to safety, while the passenger was caught under his seatbelt and burnt to death in the wreckage. Is there no justice? The scale tips one way, then the other with a mind of its own. It’s all so very unpredictable.

  Cakers was sweating so much, his lap was completely soaked.

  “What in devil’s name are they?” he pleaded, weeping again, only this time quietly.

  “Zombies,” I said.

  He turned to me, scared.

  “Crazies?”

  “No. You’re not listening. I said ‘Zombies’.”

  “Can’t be. Bodies don’t come back from the dead. It’s too upsetting! It goes against science!”

  “Science is learning new things everyday. Soon—SOON—they will accept the zombie as fact—that the after life does exist. That the soul is Goddamn real.”

  Cakers shook his head. Then he nodded, fast. Tears glistened on his face as cars went by.

  “I’m sorry, boy.”

  “It’s the way of the universe, old chap. Peace be with you.”

  “I made…a…um…mistake,” he said, sounding guilty.

  “Eh?”

  “Not long ago.” Then, “I KNEW I SHOULD’VE TRUSTED MY INSTINCTS! THEY WERE BLASTING! WHY DIDN’T I LISTEN?”

  “What in blue blazes are you yammering about? What did you do?”

  He was silent for a good thirty minutes. I didn’t press him.

  Once we were out through the Wilson Tunnel, he took in a deep breath, and told me his tale.

  “When I decided to actually—finally—go through with this brain-bothering business, I went to a friend for medical advice. She was old and a bit off in the head, but her knowledge was extensive and awe-inspiring. She used to be president at some long-ago hospital on Molokai, called Prince Tolomakai Center. The structure became unstable over the years, but when they closed it down she stayed, and lived in the various rooms…all in secret.

  “Local people who would drive by called the authorities many a time, complaining about weird flashes of light from inside the rundown hospital, and mania
cal laughing and an odd stench.

  “The day came when the bulldozers finally arrived, and they forced her to leave. They had to drag her out by the hair. They say when they discovered her, she was stink and had booby trapped the place with giant rat traps and nasty pit falls and tricky, sound-activated syringes that would shoot out from the walls. She even painted THE DEVIL LIVES HERE, SO ENTER IF YOU WISH TO HAVE YOUR SOUL SUCKED DRY on the front door, in a cow’s blood. The grounds were littered with cow corpses, many of them propped up like scarecrows—arms out, legs opens, eyes WIDE and spooky. Lastina duck tapped large butcher knives to their hooves.

  “None of it worked.

  “They called the firefighters, and they sprayed her with cold water until she was sliding down the halls. She threw her hands up and agreed to leave. It wasn’t hard.

  “She relocated to Oahu and now lives in Pearl City, living off welfare. Poor Lastina. She never did get back on her feet. I visit her every now and then, dropping off baskets of fruits and vegetables and body lotion.

  “Last I went to see her—basket of goods in tow—the front door was unlocked, so I let myself in. The place was a mess. I couldn’t help but remember the old adage, how your home is a mirror image of your mind…your soul. Things were not in place. The ground was covered in picture frames, all stapled to the white carpet. Magazines covered the yellow walls—thick magazines, fastened with layers upon layers of scotch tape. Someone glued dolls all over the television. Somewhere, a cat cried. I found it under an overturned couch, along with a mountain of cat food. The beast was fat and merry. It licked my wrist as I walked about the place, calling for Lastina.

  “‘Yes? Cakers? In here,’ she said, delighted.

  “I found her in the bathroom, brushing her hair. Baby pictures covered the edges of the mirror. The toilet seat was down, but something was inside, struggling to be set free. The lid bounced.

  “‘What’s in there?’

  “‘The devil,’ she said. ‘He takes many shapes. The fiend.’

  “A snake wiggled out from under the toilet lid and went right for my zebra-striped shoes.

  “‘Jesus Mary Joseph!’ I jumped, falling on my rear as the bloody serpent slithered up my crotch and over my mouth, then over my head and down my back.

  “I was in shock. Lastina laughed and extended her hand, yanking me up in one, strong move.

  “‘I guess the devil doesn’t like you much,’ she said. ‘It’s fair.’

  “I brushed my shoulders for some reason, I guess to appear strong, yet inside I was blasting myself.

  “‘I can handle a snake. Rats, on the other hand…’

  “‘Fear not, wee one. There be no rats in this household. If you see any, then it is the devil, again, taking form.’ She continued brushing her hair, humming. ‘Be with you in a minute, sonny boy. Gotta get these damn knots out of my hair. I blame the weather.’ Her comb snagged…paused. She wrenched, hard, and went on combing and humming. I could spot a clump of wet hair stuck in the comb. Did I see blood?

  “I waited in the kitchen for her, fingering the walls for the light switch. The kitchen light shot bright white, then popped dark. It sounded like a gun. I cursed my bad luck and went over to a lamp shaped like a stripper’s leg, and flicked it on. A nice melody played—soft and sweet, maybe Chinese. Cards covered the table. There was a house of cards. I was sure to be careful when I pulled out my seat and sat down, my eyes wide on the delicate structure. It was five feet tall. Lastina had made little people out of paper, and set them on various floors. Some were in bath tubs, reading the paper; a woman stood before a full-length mirror, buttoning her dress; a little boy was in his room and played with a toy truck; two cats were fighting in one room while two dogs were sleeping in another; an elderly couple were in bed, sitting up with their hands placed neatly on their lap.

  “I found it quite unnerving.

  “They were all staring at me with wide, crude eyes. Even the animals.

  “I wanted to smash the building.

  “Then, I saw another figure, in a room on the very top of the house of cards…of a young girl. She was standing in a dark corner. Her eyes were yellow.

  “I reached out to her, leaning in.

  “Lastina’s slippers took my attention, and I sat up straight. She was holding a cup of coffee, blowing it cool, and sat down. The house of cards swayed, and my breath caught. She didn’t seem the slightest concerned.

  “‘I usually put a cube of ice in my coffee,’ she said, smiling at me. ‘Are you all right, my dear? You look perplexed.’

  “‘I’m just very impressed by this card house.’

  “‘Oh, this ol’ thang? Thank you. It took me years to make. Started on it ever since Molokai.’

  “‘How are you feeling these days, Lastina?’

  “‘Good. I have my hobbies, as you can see. I feel myself going a little crazy, though.’

  “‘Naw.’

  “‘It’s true! Have you seen the floors? The walls? Things are not where they should be. But I can’t help myself. I mean, some days I’m normal, but then there are these other days, where…it’s like I’m being controlled. Sometimes, after cooking, I have to turn the knob on the stove over and over and over, just to make sure it’s off. Catch my drift?’

  “‘Everyone does that—or at least, things like it.’

  “‘I just can’t control myself sometimes. I hate it. I hate it so much.’ She made a fist and pounded the table. The house of cards jiggled. The figure of the woman, buttoning her dress, fell over. I let out a tiny gasp.

  “‘Everything’s all right. Just breathe. Remember your breathing.’

  “She did as I said, breathing in and out like a pregnant woman.

  “‘I have to get back to work,’ she said.

  “‘Yes,’ I said, excited. ‘A little work will do you good. Fine that you have hobbies—keeping busy—but nothing will fulfill you more than doing what you love, especially if there’s rent involved, and grocery shopping.’

  “I looked over my shoulder. The refrigerator was making loud, lion sounds.

  “‘We really should get you out of here.’

  “‘No one will hire me!’ she wept. ‘They say it’s my brain. I’m all loopy.’ She sipped her coffee, tears splashing into it. ‘I’d give anything to go at it again—to dress up and go into operation. Oooooh, the thrill of it all.’

  “‘And that good feeling of helping someone.’

  “‘What? Oh. Yes. That, too.’ She smiled again, like a good mother. ‘And how are you? I owe you so much for the baskets you give.’

  “‘Think nothing of it. I’m doing well, thank you for asking. I’m starting up a business.’

  “Businessman now, eh? Growing up, I see.’

  “I thought for a split second: Should I tell her my idea? Would she think it was too crazy? Too crude? Too dangerous? Would she jump over the table and take hold of me? Shake some sense into me?

  “‘Think I’ll go into the lobotomy business,’ I said, tensing my body, ready to run.

  “Her eyes lit up.

  “‘Oh! Genius!’

  “I exhaled, my spine lazy again.

  “She was all smiles.

  “‘I’ve been thinking the same thing! Well, not lobotomy, but just going at it myself—making a private business. Got a headache? Come on down, ya’all, to Dr. Lastina’s house! Because the devil should NOT be in your house, i.e. body.’

  “I laughed, but she was dead serious.

  “‘Those Goddamn lizards,’ she went on. ‘Thinking they can stop our dreams? Someone’s purpose in life? Phooey! Get on with your goal. Good for you, I say! Best to your business! If I can help in any way, feel free to ask.’

  “‘Got any tools lying around the house? I want to get serious about this.’

  “She looked around the place. ‘Tools, tools, tools…’ Then, ‘Aha! I got just what you need.’

  “She went into a closet. Things fell down. Things were clanking and ripping.


  “‘Need any help in there?’ I asked, half out from my seat.

  “‘NO! You stay put. Park your cute, little fanny on that seat, boy!’ She was laughing now. ‘Golly. I’m still strong—after all these years!’

  “A dumbbell—with large weights on its ends—flew out onto a pile of dirty laundry. Lastina walked out, hugging a large, white utility box. A red cross was on the cover. She sat down and blew the dust off, coughing and wiping the cross clean.

  “‘Ahh,’ she went. ‘Ahhhh, how long has it been, my baby? How long?’ She blew again, wiping. ‘How long, hmm? Well? Answer me. How LONG?’ She was quiet for a second…then stared at me, embarrassed. ‘Pardon me, my boy. Please don’t be afraid.’

  “‘No need to apologize,’ I said. ‘I understand.’

  “‘Thank you, lad. You are very deserving of this gift.’

  “‘What’s in it?’

  “‘Tools.’

  “She opened it, and indeed there were many tools inside: Scalpels, needles, forceps, and other doodads and whatnots. My eyes landed on a long, brown case. She seemed to notice, and smiled, taking it out.

  “‘This…is for you.’

  “I grinned, and opened the case. The two ice picks inside glittered—as if happy to be in my possession. No. They were happy to have me hold them. They were.

  “Lastina coughed and I was instantly concerned. She waved me away and drank her coffee.

  “‘Those picks are very special. I feel I can trust you with them. You’re an adult. You’re fine and dandy.’

  “‘Thank you so much, Lastina.’

  “‘I got those while in New Orleans. I learnt so much there. Things that would make your head spin! Believe you me.’ She coughed again. ‘It was my time to have them then, as now is yours. Everything is in perfect order. Nothing happens by accident. Those ice picks helped make me a lot of money…helped make me very successful. People came from all over the land, waiting anxiously to see me perform.’

  “‘Perform?’

  “‘Well, how to put this…I had a little act going on—a little side business. All thanks to hose ice picks, my boy. How do they feel in your hands?’

  “‘Very light. Hot. I’m surprised.’

  “‘Hot, you say?’

  “‘Like they’ve been boiled.’

  “‘Good. Good.’ She got up and washed her cup. Rags and stained coffee cups filled the sink. ‘They’ll still work.’

  “‘What did you just say?’

  “She exhaled. ‘Work. They’ve still got power in them. Hard to believe, after all these years.’

  “‘I didn’t hear you. Did you say power?’

  “‘Sure did, kid. As in magical powers.’ I kept quiet. Had her brains been so fried? Was she in another one of her mental spells? She turned to me, arms across her breasts. ‘I was known as The Great Lastina! The miracle worker! Able to cure anything! People were coming to see me perform from all over. I’ve never lost a patient. STILL never. Thanks to those ice picks. There’s power in them. I got them from a Cajun witch who owned a shoe shop. I happened upon her one day while getting my high heels fixed. She had been complaining about a sore foot. She was a kind, old woman who reminded me of my grandmother.’ She paused here, and then went on. ‘I examined her foot and treated her to a free checkup at the hospital—even gave her a ride. She was a pleasure to be around…told so many jokes. She was so grateful for the free service that she blessed those ice picks—spitting on them and mumbling some words—telling me that they’d never kill anyone. And they haven’t.’

  “Something in me clicked, but I ignored it, and I didn’t believe the story, but still, I was gracious for the free tools. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  “‘I wouldn’t give these out to just any fool,’ she said. ‘One must be careful.’

  “‘Yes. I understand.’

  “‘You’ll do well. I taught you well over the years.’

  “‘You never taught me this before.’

  “She grinned.

  “‘We all learn something new every day; one of the many exciting benefits of Life.’”

  EIGHT