David Ohle - The Pisstown Chaos

I hope to be back at the estate in less than a year. I've made an arrangement with the Administration. I'll be taking care of some donor stinkers in exchange for early release, depending on the level of my parasite load. I hope you and Ophelia are getting along. I've asked her not to lock you in the closet so much of the time. Make sure you take your medicine, practice your saw playing, and don't be putting any warm raisins in your sister's nose while she's asleep.

Your Grandmother

Dear Ophelia,

Make sure you have the butler give Roe his daily colonic. You know how he gets without it. And clean up after you shave him. Take him for walks. Above all, don't leave any fruit where he can get to it. I remember when you found him behind the stable forcing his little "worm" into a cored apple. That's a thing not to be repeated.

I'm praying that lazy yard man rakes the algae and duckweed from the pond. I don't want to come home to a stagnant little swamp. Tell Roe to go out to the potting shed in the afternoon and see if the lazy whelp is taking a nap on the peat bags. We catch him at that much too often.

I hope to be home sooner than expected. Until then, you are the "man" of the house in your grandmother's absence. Please fulfill your responsibilities to the estate and to Roe.

Finally, this is my message to you from captivity. Don't be such a shy, withering little flower. Advertise yourself. Dress prettily and have Roe take you to town. Dance with some of the fellows over at the Reverend's Templex. A few of them still have their heads screwed on and know not to kiss you. And you, of course, will not kiss anyone under any circumstances. To show affection, if you must, just touch the tips of your fingers to your tongue, then press them against the person's forehead.

I don't mean to be rushing you, but the sooner you mate, the sooner we'll have an offspring to nurse, play with and rear. I promise to be a full partner with you on the project. We'll build you and the child a nice little cozy cottage on the estate grounds.

All of this begs the question, though, which is, will the parasites die before I do? I hope the answer is yes. I hope there's a way to expel them, every last one and all their eggs.

Remember me in your nightly meditations.

With all my affection,

Grandmother

Sealing the letters and stamping them, she called down to the trustees. "Please, can you take these letters back to Administration for posting?"

One of them said, "We build pens for stinks. That's all we know about."

Mildred waved the letter in the air. "Isn't there a letterpost there, at Administration?"

"Yeah, there's one."

"And you're going back there, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"And you won't just drop these off at the post?"

"Nope. Can't do that. All we do is build pens for stinks. If we did anything else, theyd spank us till our rumps were purple."

"I'd pay you, but they took every buck I had."

A third trustee said, "Don't you boys know who that is? That's Mildred Balls. She's rich as God. Her old man owned the recipe for making Jake, and she invented the Q ped."

"Please, will you take these letters to Administration?"

"Shit on you, you rich old cow. Look where your money got you."

The day following completion of the pen, a pedal truck appeared with three stinkers asleep in the bed under a blanket of leaves and straw. Mildred threw on her house robe and stood in the doorway. Two trustees got out of the truck in the midst of an argument.

"You lazy clump of shit! Who did all the pedaling? My legs are killing me."

"Who got out and oiled them chains every couple miles? It was me, slopehead!"

"Stop that fighting!" Mildred shouted.

One of the trustees shook his fist at her. "Stay out of other people's business!" He poked the stinkers with sharp sticks to wake them. "Here you go, lady, three old stinks in sore need of a good washing."

The weary stinkers, all males, climbed out of the truck's bed and were prodded into the pen. All wore soiled, wrinkled business suits, outlandish ties and mismatched footwear. Once locked into the pen, they lay beside one another in the dirt and began to snore.

The two trustees got back in the truck and resumed their bickering.

"This time, I oil and you pedal, you rotten son of a bitch."

"Kiss my ass till your nose breaks off, you god-damned moron."

Mildred went inside and got the letters to her grandchildren. "Can you take these with you and post them? I don't want to wait a month."

The driver's head angled out of the window. "We haul stinkers, lady. We don't carry no mail."

"Please, can you make an exception?"

"A what?"

"Just this once. Take my letters to Administration. My grandchildren. They worry about me."

"Okay, one time. Next time, wait for the mail pickup."

"I will."

"You swear?"

"I do."

The other trustee trudged halfway up the stairs. "My legs hurt. Throw 'em down. I'll catch 'em."

Mildred tied the letters with an imp-hair strand from her sweater in hopes they would stay together, then tossed them to the trustee with a flick of her wrist. The catch was successful and the trustee backed down. "Okay, that's it. No more schleppin' mail, lady. You know what I'm sayin'?"

"Oh, yes."

The truck moved slowly down the narrow road that led west, and the quiet returned. Mildred stood by the window as the sun set and kept an eye on the stinkers until it was too dark to see them. The door had no lock and she went to bed fretful. Why, she wondered, would the Administration send her three males? It seemed thoughtless. Surely females would have been a better choice for an old woman to handle. She had read many times in the papers of criminality among late-stage stinkers. It was not unheard of for them to commit assault, rape, even murder.

But the night passed without incident. Though Mildred could hear imps shrieking in the distance, they hadn't yet picked up the scent of her stinkers, who slept peacefuly together on the ground. Their snoring was something of a comfort, like far away thunder, and Mildred awoke with the first sunlight that reached her face. When she opened the window, a small cloud of urpflanz pollen blew in. "Autumn's on the way," she said to herself.

The stinkers were walking around the perimeter of their pen, hands in pockets, searching the ground, as if something of value, or importance, had been lost. They looked up in her direction for a moment.

Mildred cupped her small mouth with arthritic hands and shouted, "Yoo-hooo, fellows? I'll be down there after breakfast and give you baths."

First, she would have to collect her stool sample. After working the noisy pump handle until the tank of the commode was Ul, she sat down with a fresh tongue depressor, emptied her bowels, and lifted out the required amount.

The odor of the stinkers seeped under the tower's loose siding and through the window, curbing Mildred's appetite. She was able to get down only a small plug of imp meat and a few bites of starch bar before putting on her rags, tying her long white hair into a bun atop her head and slipping on a pair of leaky rubber boots she found in the closet.

As she walked toward the door with an armload of washing supplies, scented oil and a pan of water, she felt a sting on the bottom of her foot. It was not particularly painful, less so than a bee sting, so she stepped down hard, crushed whatever had bitten her, and carried on with her obligations. She recognized the possibility that it might have been a fiddleback, but chose to file the thought away.

When she got to the pen, the stinkers were continuing to walk in circles, policing the perimeter of the pen. "You stinkers," she called, stepping into the pen. "Do you have names?"

All three stopped walking at once, but continued looking downward. One of them said, "Spanish Johnny." Another mumbled, "Percy Chips." The third, whose shoes were on the wrong feet, grumbled, "They call me Side Porch."