David Ohle - The Pisstown Chaos

The next case was that of a Pisstown physician, Dr. Elliott Massengil. The Dutchman had written: "As do certain fungi, Dr. Massengil fed on material already dead, often illegally obtained final-stage stinkers. He stacked them in his barn like cord-wood, drawing canvas cloth over the pile, the summer heat hastening their decomposition. Whenever the doctor vacationed, one of the stinkers went with him in a speciallymade carpet bag lined with pure, sterile para rubber.

"At some well-defined point in Dr. Massengil's evolution, the line between parasite and predator was crossed. It happened the day his neighbor's wife was found dead. She had been throttled by someone missing a middle finger. Later, poring over Dr. Massengil's photo album, I was suddenly struck with a furious urgency when a snapshot flopped onto the rug in his home, one of Massengil stripping the trigeminals from a cadaver. His hands were plainly seen. He was missing a middle finger. Here was my man. Case closed."

The watchman appeared at the door of Ophelia's office at 9:10 exactly. He was a pudgy, ill-tempered American with thick cascades of oily black hair.

"Who arc you? You must be new. Where's van Vliet? Is he gone to Permanganate already?"

"He left just a few minutes ago."

"You sure?"

"Yes, absolutely."

"He was always pissing in his pants, that thick-headed son of a bitch. I hated him so much I juked him between the eyes with my pick." The watchman displayed the pick lying flat in the palm of his hand. "You his replacement?"

"I'm taking over his cases. They shifted me here."

"I'm Karl, night watchman. They used to call me Cowfoot. I've gone barefoot all my life. Never once had on a shoe. Winter, summer, fall, never a shoe. My feet got awful tough, you know. Now they're numb and cold as the ground they step on."

"I'm Ophelia."

"That's not a Dutch girl's name, is it?"

"No, no. It isn't at all."

The watchman shuffled his way down the hall. "I guess I'll go on down to 144 and catch a short nap." Ophelia saw the ice pick sticking out of his pocket. "I like you," he said. "I can tell you're an honest person. That's why I'm not going to stick you. Soon as I saw the Dutchman, I knew I'd be pulling the pick on him."

Shortly before twelve, when Ophelia was about to leave for the night, she was startled to see someone standing in the office door, a disfigured young woman with a single, blond braid as thick as a ship's rope. Her eyes were crossed, her nostrils widely flared, her lower lip sagged, her gums were blue, her fingers all the same length. Some of her dull, green teeth had small patches of algae growing on them. Ophelia couldn't look her in the eye.

"Is this the Home Guard office?"

"Yes, it is. But we're closed. We've been closed for hours."

The woman drooled, then wiped it away with a wet bandana. "That Dutchman, van Vliet, is he here? I'm looking for that Dutchman."

"I've taken over his cases. He's doing time at Permanganate Island."

"That can't be. I'm supposed to mate with him. We were going to have some babies after I recover from my genital surgery. All the organs come from a donor stinker, but they swore the kids would be normal. They guaranteed it. Who are you?" She drooled again and wiped it away.

"Ophelia, his replacement…. It's interesting that you have the same condition he had."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"Excess saliva."

"I always had it, since I was born."

"They say the shifting is random, but I sometimes wonder. The two of you, the same condition."

"What am I supposed to do? They shift me here to mate with this Dutchman, who's got the same saliva problem. I reserve the bridal suite at the Gons, and they send him to Permanganate Island before I get here."

"Let's go see the watchman. Maybe he knows what to do."

The door to 144 was closed, with carpet scraps stuffed under it. Ophelia knocked repeatedly. "Are you in there, Karl? I just wanted to tell you there's someone here by mistake." She put her ear to the door. "Karl?" She could hear hoarse breathing.

"Don't make me open the door, girl. I've got a bad case of the black twirlies."

"There's someone here. Some kind of mistake. She was supposed to mate with the Dutchman."

"Is she cock-eyed?"

"Yes."

"Off-putting face?"

"Some would think so."

When the carpet pieces were pulled away and the door swung open, there Karl sat, cleaning his ice pick with an oiled cloth.

Ophelia turned to the disfigured girl. "I'd like you to meet Karl, the watchman."

Karl held the pick out of sight behind his back. "Come closer, girl. Let me get a good look."

The girl stepped closer to the watchman, who stood up and examined her face closely. "Ophelia, it looks like we've reeled in a big fish here. She's a carrier. What's your name, girl?"

'Daisy.-

"Daisy who?"

"Doolittle." Her voice faltered, her eyes blinked rapidly.

"She carries the parasite. I can tell by that face. And I'll wager she's been spreading it around, infecting hundreds."

"She was shifted here," Ophelia said, "to mate with van Vliet."

"Get her out of the building before I stick her." The watchman disclosed his freshly-oiled pick and placed its sharp point on the girl's breast bone. "You've infested people. And those people have infested other people. I'm almost in the mood to send you off to another world in the name of the Reverend, for better or worse."

Ophelia turned away, thinking she might hear the pick shhhump into the girl's chest, but Karl, instead, took a lump of willy from his top pocket and are it. "All right, Daisy," he said, flinging the pick into the wall, "The old willy just reprieved you." He looked at Ophelia. "Take her out to the alley. The City'll pick her up."

Ophelia grasped the young woman's hard, cold hands and dragged her by fits and starts to the freight door, down the loading-dock steps and into the alley. A pedal truck was parked close by, workers flinging stinkers into the bed.

"She's a carrier," Ophelia said.

"Don't matter. We'll take her anyway. Night, Ma'am."

Two workers lifted the Doolittle girl by her hands and feet and flung her into the bed, where she landed atop a pile of put-down stinkers collected from Bum Bay alleyways.

"You'll all be sorry for this. It's not the last you'll hear from me. My next stop is Pisstown. I'll find the perfect mate."

Out of sympathy, Ophelia waved half-heartedly. "Good luck, Daisy."

His face as red as a berry, Karl was sitting in Ophelia's chair eating a starch bar stuck on the end of his pick when she returned to her office. "Just a warning, kid," he said. "I'm feeling restless, a little explosive. The willy does that sometimes. If you're here much longer I may fall into a rage and stick you twenty or thirty times."

Without a second thought, Ophelia left the building and walked one block to the old hotel. Crumbling with neglect, its awnings were shredded and flapping noisily in an icy wind and there were patches of brown lichen on the brickwork. But inside, a glowing pellet stove kept the lobby warm and the candles of a small cafe tucked into a corner shone brightly.

Ophelia bought a City Moon and sat down to have a late supper there. It wasn't long before she noticed a man in a back booth staring conspicuously at her while he dunked a johnnycake into a bowl of Canal fish stew, then kneaded it like dough with fingers that were thick at the hilts and tapered to small, sharply pointed nails. He then stuffed it down in a fit of clumsy swallowing.

Ophelia ordered the stew and a Jake before opening her City Moon to look for news about the Chaos in Pisstown. But the man watched her continuously, coughing, clearing his throat, puckering his lips, blowing her kisses, tapping his tin spoon on the table to get her attention, all the while holding a clove-scented urpflanz cigar clenched in his front teeth. It was impossible for her to concentrate on the news. She turned away from the annoyance and looked out at the street. Workers shuffled wearily along, heads bowed to the wind. The streetlamps were running low on fuel, some completely out. Others crackled and glowed dimly blue.