David Ohle - The Devil in Kansas

Mickey has been wondering about Ray’s sudden generosity. “What are you, flush all of a sudden? When was the last time you sprung for a meal like this? What, six orders…twenty-five…thirty bucks?”

“Why not? The policy money’ll be coming in pretty soon.”

Vickie almost chokes on a mouthful of beer. “Policy money? What policy money?”

“On Wendy. I had a policy on her. Sixty thousand and change. And right off the bat, I’m gonna hand over half to you and Mickey …to pay you back for all you’ve done for me and Wendy.”

Mickey is all smiles. Vickie is worried. “Great. All this time, I’m thinking…we got nothing to fall back on. Nobody told me about any policy.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise. Thought it might take the edge off the grieving process. The pressure’s off now. We took care of Wendy for so long, I mean…now it’s time to enjoy life a little bit.”

Junior says, “She’s in a happy place. Why not us? Start having fun is what I hear you saying, Ray.”

“Yeah, live a little. For example, I would like nothing better than to go down to Florida and do some deep sea fishing.”

A disturbing thought comes together in Vickie’s mind. She sighs and bows her head. Her shoulders sag.

The next morning, same place. Vickie fries eggs, distracted. Junior enters in robe and pajamas, stretching and yawning. He sits at the table, reads the Weekly World News . “Gimme two over hard, some bacon and toast. You making hash browns?”

“What does this look like, the Squat ‘n’ Gobble? I’m fixing this for Ray. Make your own breakfast, you lazy slacker. And forget bacon. We can’t afford it.”

“You know what, Mother? That mouth of yours is gonna get you battered yet. Me, Ray, Mickey, somebody. Somebody’s gonna fucking really do you some bad hurt.”

“This is coming from my son?”

Ray enters with a heavy cardboard box, places it with other boxes near the front door. “I got all Wendy’s stuff boxed up for the Salvation Army. Junior, you and Lorna can have your room back. They’re gonna pick up the bed and the breathing machine and all that other rented shit today.” He sits at the table. Vickie serves him breakfast and sits down across from him. After a moment of reflection, she says, “There was something funny when I found Wendy, you know.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“She was all messed up. Lipstick all over the pillow. Something funny happened in there.”

Ray shrugs. “Oh, yeah?”

Mickey enters, proceeds silently to the kitchen, pours himself a cup of coffee, sits at the table. “What’s going on? Did I miss something?”

“Somebody was in Wendy’s room that night. And I’m pretty sure that person, or persons, smothered her with her pillow.”

Mickey looks directly at Ray and Junior. “Is she serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious. And now I find out about the policy.”

“A lotta people got policies,” Mickey offers. “You got one on you, Vickie. I got one on me.”

“Yeah, sure. We got burial policies. Five thousand…when you’re dead. Whoopie.”

Wendy’s room, later. Junior and Lorna have the room back. They lie in bed in their underwear and socks, the TV tuned to MTV, no sound. Junior fondles himself a little. “You wanna fuck?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Should I put on a rubber?”

“I just got off my period.” She removes her underwear without any help from Junior, who pulls his shorts down only as far as his knees and climbs on her, still wearing his socks. Lorna watches TV as Junior grinds away and climaxes quickly.

“Sorry, Babe, I got too excited.”

“It don’t matter. I don’t care.” She pops a Diet Pibb, lights a red Sherman.

Junior rolls a Bugler. “I wanna ask you a question. Hypothetical. Some stranger…somebody you never met…comes up and offers you huge bucks to pull the plug on one of their loved ones.”

“Like old Wendy.”

“Yeah…a hopeless case…brain-dead…on a breathing machine …a matter of time. If they could, they would pull their own plug.”

“I could do that. Is it against the law?”

“Technically, in some cases, but not really. You think you coulda done Wendy for, like, six or seven thousand?”

“In a minute.”

“You and me gotta talk about something.”

Junior tells her the story.

He told me the whole deal, you know. Too bad they had to put the pillow to her, but let’s be realistic for a minute. I totally agreed with Junior. We gotta change shit around. We gotta make some serious attitude adjustments. Look at all these old fucks everywhere. Florida’s full of them. The Sun Belt’s crawling with ‘em. We gotta start saying, okay, you can be old, as long as you stay healthy and productive. But if you get sick, real sick, or brain-dead…at any age…for any reason, then we say, “So long.” Yeah, I know all about Hitler. But, like I say, all of his ideas weren’t that bad. The Volkswagen…those little wiener dogs…beer…pretzels…jets and rockets. Getting rid of idiots and mental cases and Gypsies. Lemme tell you, Hitler was headed somewhere interesting. Probably a better place than where we’re at now. Anyway…long story short…it was the right thing…doing Wendy. If you can solve a problem, and make money at the same time, that’s like the definition of Americanism.

Ray and Junior are the only customers at a bar. The bartender watches a boxing match on TV.

Junior gurgles down half a bottle of Coors. “I had a dream last night.”

Ray says he never dreams, or can’t remember them.

“You’d get sick and die if you didn’t dream. I read it in the World News .”

“I’m living proof that’s a load of shit,” Ray says.

“It wasn’t a dream. It was a vision…big black letters on a white background: ‘Do it. And do it big.’”

“Do what?”

“Come on, Ray. What were we talking about the other night?”

“Doing dying people for money?”

“Yes!” Junior finishes off the Coors. “And we start doing them now, before somebody else does. There’s gotta be a lotta people out there that would pay up the kazoo to get a sick loved one put down.”

“You serious? You’re not serious. How’re we gonna find customers? Advertise in the paper?”

“No, word of mouth and by seizing opportunities. We go to flower shops, funeral homes, bars, places where you hear people talking about spending hard-earned money on a brain-dead relative…or maybe they know somebody who’s got cancer and wants to put themselves out of their misery…we slowly work up to the question.”

“What question would that be?”

“Like, ‘Hypothetically speaking, would you ever consider retaining someone to take care of that for you, for a fee? It’s all in a gray area of the law anyway. Guaranteed painless, too.’”

“Like a business. You’re serious, right?”

“That’s the vision, man. A family business.”

Ray thinks a business like that would need a name.

“It has to have the word ‘service’ in it. That’s what it is, a service. And we’re gonna have to operate out of the home for a while. That’s why we gotta tell Mickey and my mother. I already told Lorna.”

Ray says he’s game. “Shit, I’ll go along. Mickey will, too. There’s no jobs out there. None. He knows that. But Vickie. She’s not reasonable like us. And I think she knows something. I think she thinks we did Wendy.”

“Yeah, she knows. We’re gonna hafta deal with her some way.”

The Squat ‘n’ Gobble. Ray, Junior, Mickey and Lorna eat burgers and fries and drink Coors.

Junior polishes off the last French fry, then licks the salt and ketchup from the plate. “Hey, Mickey. Let’s talk about something. It could be a major money maker for all of us.”