David Ohle - The Devil in Kansas

The sun streams across Wendy’s face the next morning. She still has the subtle smile and rosy cheeks. Vickie enters with a makeup kit. “Gooood morning. How’s my big sister doing today? Let’s pretty you up and then I’ll feed you.… Look at those rosy cheeks. Is it too warm in here? How’d your hair get all messed up?”

The Fourth of July, a lazy Saturday, the sound of fireworks in the background.

Lorna, stretched out on the couch, watches L.A. Law , smokes a green Sherman cigarette, drinks Diet Pepsi. Vickie is seasoning a slab of ribs in the kitchen. Junior enters reading the Weekly World News . “Hey, Babe, listen to this shit. They wanna take brain-dead people and put ‘em in warehouses…test drugs on ‘em, harvest the organs. The idea’s like…no more dead weight. Get it? You can carry your weight even when you’re dead.”

“ That is sick.” Lorna mutes the TV, heads for the fridge.

“Wait. Check this out. Young dead women could have babies for live people. They could be cheap prostitutes, too. They’ll put live prostitutes out of business. It’ll save marriages. That’s what it says here.”

“That’s total bullshit. Total.” Lorna grazes in the fridge, stuffing herself with this and that. “Where’s that liverwurst?!”

Ray enters. “Good news. I took my walk…didn’t see any sign of that dog. I think it’s moved on.”

“It has moved on, Ray, up to doggie heaven. You owe me a hundred and a half. I did the dog last night.”

“You did? How?”

“Rat poison. In some liverwurst. Remember? The bounty?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Junior dumps the dog’s ears from the Ziploc bag onto the table. “There’s the proof. Pay up.”

Mickey comes out of the hall bathroom hiking up his pants. “Looks like dog’s ears to me.”

Vickie lets out a screech.

Lorna comes over for a look. “Wow.”

“You and me had a deal. You wanted the dog whacked. I whacked it. Now you owe me some dust.”

Vickie runs to the window and closes the drapes.

Ray says he doesn’t have it in cash. He’ll pay tomorrow.

“Give a hundred of it to Mickey. Consider it me and Lorna’s room and board for a week.” Junior scoops up the dog’s ears, lofts them into the kitchen trash.

A few hours later, at the dining table. With fireworks popping in the distance, the family eats hamburgers and Tater Tots.

Junior clears his throat. “Ray, tell the truth. Sometimes, don’t you wish she would die? Just fucking die.”

“Can’t deny it. I do, sometimes…wish she would die. I sure do.”

Vickie swallows a mouthful of burger. “ I don’t wish she would die. Junior, stop that talk.”

“Mother, you’ve been taking care of that human cabbage for nine months. Come on. Truth out. You must’ve thought about it.”

“Yeah, I’ve had thoughts. You can’t keep a thought out of your mind.”

“What thoughts?”

Vickie tears up. “I wish there was a place we could take her and say, here, give this good woman a peaceful, painless, dignified death.”

Ray thinks a hospital could do that without changing too many routines. Mickey thinks if she wants to hang on, let her. “But I’m telling you honestly, if she passed on tonight…it’d be a big relief for everybody.”

Ray can’t believe his bad luck. “Two more years and she would’ve been on Medicare.”

Vickie swats a fly on the table, then raises her beer in toast. “Here’s to everybody’s health, ‘specially Wendy.”

Wendy’s room, later that night. Vickie sits on the side of the bed brushing Wendy’s hair. When that’s done she rubs night cream into her face and fluffs her pillow.

“Goodnight, Sister.” She turns off the light, exits.

The kitchen-dining area, one o’clock in the morning. Junior sits at the table smoking a cigarette, drinking coffee and thinking.

Personally speaking, when somebody reaches the vegetable state, their bodies should be able to die. If their brain’s dead, what’s the use? Their life’s over. And you know what? I think everybody in the house, except Vickie, really, really wished Wendy’d go ahead and get it over with. It was just draggin’ and draggin’ on…makin’ everybody real twitchy and nervous.

Ray enters in his underwear, gets a beer from the fridge. “Still awake, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s quiet. I can think. Hey, you remember what Vickie said?”

“What?”

“She wished there was a place you could take people, you know, for a painless death.”

“Yeah, I remember that.”

Junior gets up, paces. “This stuff’s gonna be legal in a few years — assisted suicide, death with dignity, all that shit. And when it is, doctors won’t fuck with it. It’s way too gross for them. The business will go to the private sector. And whoever’s there with an operation set up, is going to be as big as UPS. I’ve been thinking about it.”

“Well, it occurs to me, if you’re gonna be putting sufferers out of their misery on a big scale, then you’re gonna have to make house calls. You can’t be dragging these people off their deathbeds and hauling them all to hell and back. It’d hafta be a mobile operation.”

“Exactly! You got it. Like calling a plumber. You go in, you do the job, you’re outta there. The whole thing is over quicker than a haircut. People are ready for this.”

“People like me. If they had a service like that, and it was affordable, I’d give ‘em a call.”

“She believed in the afterlife, right? Someplace where happy souls float around on clouds.”

“She did. She certainly did.”

“So, it’d be like doing her a big favor.”

“You bet.”

“One question, Ray.”

“What’s that?”

“You want to do it?”

“Do it? Do Wendy?”

“Yeah. Pull the plug. Who’s gonna know?”

“I can’t. I couldn’t.”

“Arright. I’ll do it. But you gotta be there in the room. And you gotta pay me something. This is way bigger than doing a dog.”

“My net worth right now is exactly six thousand three hundred dollars, before taxes. But when Wendy goes, there’s a policy.”

“A policy?”

“Life insurance. Sixty thousand.”

“Sixty thousand?! No shit?”

“No shit. But half goes to Mickey and Vickie. Christ knows, I owe them that much. So I end up with thirty. Then I gotta bury her out of that. I’ll probably go on and have her cremated. That’s the cheapest way to go. What about if I give you three thousand now… and two more when the policy pays off?”

“Three now, two later.”

“Yeah.”

“What about five now and five later?”

“Way too steep. I gotta have something left…to live on.”

“Okay, I guess there’s other things than money to consider here, like getting me and Lorna’s room back. I’ll do it for four down and three when the policy pays. Payment no later than two business days from today. I’d put it in writing, but we don’t want to start any paper trails.”

“Lord, God. Seven thousand?”

“She could outlive you . Think about that.”

He’s thinking about it for the first time. “Right. She could.”

“You’ll spend twice that much keeping her alive. Do we have a deal?”

“Yeah, we do. But, look, I never told Mickey or Vickie or anybody about the policy. Wanna make it a surprise. It’ll sweeten up the grieving process.”

“When do you want me to do this?”

“That’s a tough one. Maybe sooner than later.”

“What about right now? Everybody’s asleep.”

Ray paces, alternately shrugging and shaking his head, roughing out a very hard decision. “Yeah…do it. Do it. Go ahead. I’ll wait in here.”