David Ohle - The Pisstown Chaos

In yet another hagfish incident, a worker was hauling a dead one in the bed of his van, strapped, he thought, securel; encircled by rings of inch-thick iron cable. But it rolled off at a narrow turn and hit the pavement in such a manner as to break open and release the same choking, surous gas. Three are deadly including the worker and two bystanders.

Moldenke, the touring stinker, has filed a deed to purchase certain properties in the afterworld. Local legals say the properties do not exist. Moldenke says they do, at the edge of the city and that he has seen them as recently as two nights ago. "They are vast. Their earth is black, rich and fecund; "be told the City Moon. "It has arable soil, surprisingly rich in nutrients. A white cabbage grows there in profusion. "With a wink to one of the Guards, the wig asked Moldenke, "This afterworld of yours. Do the wicked on Earth continue in their wickedness there, and the good in their goodness?"

Moldenkes answer: "Yes, in churches and nice homes. The wicked get worse, the good go bad, only the indifferent remain the same. The average Joe can't understand it. "

He went on to detail his inaugural other-world astonishments: "The first morning I awoke feeling more rested than I had in years. My first surprise was that there wasn't enough fire there to roast an imp. It seemed to have burned out long ago, and a cool drizzle has since turned everything into a slimy, black tar. I saw familiar faces, old friends, generations in single file, squeezed along in a narrow passageway. There are no children there, no animals, an absence of clouds, no urpflanz, the sun is very dim, the nights long, dazzling and bright. "

Asked when he first had intimations of the afterworla he said it had started with a talent show, when he offered his belly to all comers for punching and for charity. Five hundred contestants stood in line for the opportunity. He laughed through the first 1,000 punches, complained ofa bellyache at 1,500, spat blood at 2,908 and at 3, 000 had to be taken to the Templex clinic, where he `passed away" with a burst abdominal cyst.

He told the paper, "They said I was dead all night long, then I woke up in the morning. No one has offered me a proper explanation yet. That's when I first saw the afterworld, when I passed away.'When I woke up, I kept all the memories of the place. It's a real place. I intend to build a retirement home on the land once I find a court to recognize my deed. "

Everyone knows the old saying about a snake in the grass. Only a few weeks ago the Reverend stopped to visit his brother, Wallace. They had a very pleasant chat on the patio. Wallace explained his method of brewing '*sert" tea, which had none of the tannic bitterness of tea brewed in tin pots, then announced that it was his day to cut the lawn and suggested the Reverend pass the time with a booklet called "Ice Yachts of the Future" while he finished the task.

After a short time, the slashing sound of a sickle was drowned out by the younger Hooker's crs "I'm bitten! B n bitten!" It seems that poison from the fangs of a copperhead adder, hiding in the grass, might possibly end Wallaces peripatetic career. What happened was, his sickle struck a stone and fell from his grip. As he reached into the grass to remove it, the snake struck at him, getting its fangs into his hand In a later release to the press, the Reverend is quoted as saying, "Some degree of mental function has been lost, but Wallace will live. His coma lasted only a few hours. Now hes sitting up and taking hot liquids. "

Hookerites have become a law unto themselves. They load their canal boats with Jake and float downstream, bailiwick to bailiwick. At each port they are spoiled with handsome pies baked by admirers and fellow travelers. These houseboat dwellers are not stifled by convention or limitation of any sort. They lie nude in the sun atop their boats if they wish and pass their money ashore for anything they want, with no barriers. Their lives are utterly without responsibility and their lawless practices have caused them to be dreaded by shore people and other boatmen. When they are not stealing, eating, drinking or sleeping, their time is spent playing liar's dice or cut-throat euchre. Bloody quarrels are frequent during these games and sometimes a murder is hidden by the waters of a muddy canal. Fortunately many Hookerite boats are run down by steamers in the night, owing to the entire crew being asleep or drunk and no light being shone.

At the Reverend's imp farm, Roe served as a lookout, quartered in a watch-tower so high that, had it not lain beyond a curtain of persistent haze, he would have been able to see the wavering glow of Bum Bay. A wooden cistern atop the living quarters collected rain when it came, generally in stingy amounts. The water that dribbled from the faucet was tinted green and had a faintly noxious odor.

With so much time on his hands, Roe was able to play his saw for long hours and still keep an effective eye on the Reverend's imps, who roamed freely over a vast area of damp willow thickets, open meadows of vetch, mallow and wild berries. They were a breed of manipulated imps with the capacity to re-grow muscle. In his "welcome to the farm" speech, the Reverend had told the new arrivals, "Think of it. Just imagine it. Ham, rump roasts, tenderloin, chitterlings, all for the taking, with no pain or discomfort to the imp. In a few days, the meat's all grown back. What could be more providential?"

Roe was told to watch for poachers, who had been seen among the herds with cleavers and wheelbarrows. They were an of breed band of third-stage stinkers, different in appearance than others. The first time Roe looked, he spotted them in his binoculars. They were short, flat-headed, musclebound, and had hard, white skin that shed flakes. If one of them stood still long enough, falling flakes would pile up like snow. There were about ten of them, working as a team. They would encircle the altered imps, tie their legs and cleave as much meat as their wheelbarrows would hold.

While playing a tune on his saw a few foggy mornings later, Roe was thinking he needed to oil the blade to stop it from rusting, when the first poacher to approach the tower did so in a little handmade pedal car with rusted tin can headlamps and a painted-on grill. It was a mystery how he wasn't stung to death by the wasps in the sumac along the ditch-bank.

"You up there. What's that sound? It grates on the nerves. I've been hearing it for miles. It makes me sicker than I am. What do you hope to gain by doing it? Those imps aren't providing the way they were before you moved in here and started your assault on the peace and quiet we like around here."

Roe stepped out onto the rickety metal gallery that surrounded his quarters. "This is as far as you can go," he shouted down. "The limit of the Reverend's property is right where you're parked. Do not proceed an inch farther."

"Let me come up and talk."

"I don't have that authority."

"It doesn't matter. I have it." The poacher held up a sheet of paper. "It's a letter of introduction from the Reverend. Let me come up. This is urgent business."

"All right. I'll read the letter at least. It's a long, hard climb, especially for a short-legged individual like you."

"Best to start right away, then. Promise you won't play that saw while I'm around? My ears are ringing."

"I won't play. It's two hundred and thirty three tall steps. Some of them are loose. Be careful."

Roe opened the door slowly when the out-of-breath little poacher appeared on the gallery.

"Come in. It's chilly out there. I'll make a fire."

The poacher entered warily. Gasping for breath, he looked at Roe's feet with muddy yellow eyes, said nothing, made no gesture, his appearance ageless and simple. Red whiskers, sharp and thick, covered a long, hanging jaw whose bones seemed to be loose and out of their sockets.