The Theatre - Kellerman, Jonathan

Bravo.

Living off those pictures for two butt-numbing days of air travel to Djakarta, only to feel the joy die inside of him as the rattling shuttle prop landed on that putrid, humid shithole of an island.

A lumpy brown patch. Water all around, like some cartoon. Sand and mud and droopy trees.

Where are we?

The pilot, a rotten-toothed half-breed, had turned off the engine, opened the door, and tossed his luggage out onto the landing strip.

Welcome to Sumbok, Doc.

Reality: mosquitoes and swamps and grass huts and pockmarked Gauguin-scum hobbling around in loincloths and T-shirts. Pigs and goats and ducks living in the huts, mounds of shit everywhere. On the south side of the island, a muck-filled stagnant bay, jellyfish and sea slugs and other disgusting things washing up on the beach, putrefying, sliming the sand. The rest of it jungle: snakes, nightmare bugs as big as rats, rats as big as dogs, hairy things that gibbered and shrieked in the night.

The so-called school: a bunch of rusting Quonset huts, cement-floored wooden cabins for dormitories, the bunks hooded with mosquito netting. One big, crumbling stucco building for classrooms. In the basement, the Gross Anatomy Lab.

A hand-painted tin sign over the front door: The Grand Medical Facility of St. Ignatius.

Big joke, ha ha.

Except that he was living it.

The so-called students: a bunch of losers. Morons, dopers, chronic complainers, perverts of sullied ethnic origin. The faculty: slant creeps with M.D.'s from dubious places. Delivering their lectures in pidgin accents no normal person could understand, taking delight in insulting the students, insisting on being addressed as Professor. He felt like hate-beaming into their slant-eyes, smiling:

Heavy starch in the shirts, One Hung Low.

Total scam, no one gave a shit. Most of the students gave up and went home after a few months, forfeiting two years' tuition paid in advance. The others got the energy leeched out of them and turned into bums-pissing away days sunning themselves on the beach, nights given over to smoking dope, jerking off under the mosquito netting, wandering the island trying to seduce twelve-year-old Gauguin-girls.

Depraved. He knew if he let himself be sucked into their apathy, he'd be sidetracked from the Schwann mission. Wondered how to insulate himself, decided an identity change was in order-identity changes always cleansed the mind, renewed the spirit.

And he knew which identity to assume, the only one that would enable him to float above it all.

He went and talked to the dean. Slantiest slant of all, nasty little shit with greasy Dracula hair, oily yellow skin, pig eyes, pencil-line mustache, potbelly as if he'd swallowed a melon. But with a fancy Dutch name: Professor Anton Bromet Van der Veering, M.D., D.Sc.

Pretentious little scrotebag.

Sitting behind a big, messy desk, surrounded by books he never read. Smoking a meerschaum pipe carved in the shape of a naked woman.

Slant took a long time to light the pipe, made him stand there for a while before acknowledging his presence. He filled the time by visualizing smashing the scrote's face, meerschaum chips atop the bloody yellow pulp like confectioners' sugar on a lemon tart

Yes, what is it?

I want to change my name, Dean.

What? What are you talking about?

I want to change my name.

Surely this is a legal matter, to be taken up with-

Legal matters don't concern me. Dean. This is a personal issue.

Talking low and serious, one doctor to another, the way he'd seen Doctor confer with his associates while discussing a case.

Scrote was confused. Dense. I really don't see what-

From now on I want to be known as Dieter Terrif.

Spelling it.

Confusion in the pig eyes: This your real name? Terrif?

In a manner of speaking.

I don't-

It's my real name.

Then why did you enroll as-

A long story, Dean.

Charming smile: And for our purposes, irrelevant. The important thing is from now on I want to be known as Dieter Terrif. When I graduate, the diploma will say Dieter Terrif, M.D.,Ph.D.

A slip. The scrote caught it, pounced on it:

We don't grant Ph. D.'s, Mister-

I realize that. I'm planning on continuing my studies past the M.D. Surgical pathology, histological research.

Scrote was definitely confused. That was the problem with dealing with inferior types.

Really, now, this is highly irregular.

Scrote fondled the breasts of the meerschaum lady, pig eyes widening as he watched the money land on his desk.

One, two, three, four, five hundred-dollar bills, fanned out like a green poker hand.

Will this help regularize it?

A greedy hand reaching out. Then, hesitation. More greed.

Five hundred more landed on the desk.

What do you say, Dean?

Well, I suppose

Little shit held a grudge against him after that, looked at him strangely every time they passed each other.

No matter. His new identity cleansed him. Six months of medical studies went by fast, despite tropical storms and heavy rains that brought more mosquitoes to the island; a plague of hairy spiders, spiny lizards, and other creepy-crawlies making their way into the dormitories, scuttling across night sheets, melding bad dreams with reality.

His fellow students woke up screaming. More morons started dropping out, talking about pharmacy school, chiropractic.

None of that second-rate bullshit for him.

He floated above it, cracking the books. Filling his head with doctor-words, taking special pleasure in Gross Lab, spending extra time there. Alone in the basement.

He had little use for food or sleep, was preparing himself for his rightful role as prizewinning pathologist on the staff of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

Then came the day they wheeled Gauguin Boy into the lab, brain-ravaged, but the body so beautiful.

The cadaver got assigned to another student. He bribed the moron, exchanged a disgusting, shriveled old man, plus cash, for the boy.

Came back late at night to study. And cut. Lit the lamp over his dissecting table, left the rest of the room dark. Opened the black leather case, took out a dancer and made a real science Y incision. Cracked the sternum, pinned back the skin flaps.

And saw the internal beauty.

He wanted to dive in, swim among the colors, unite with the cells, the structure, the primal soup of life.

Be as one.

And why not?

Moving automatically, without thinking, he was stripping off his clothes, his nakedness delicious and holy. The lab, hot and humid and reeking of formaldehyde and rot, crickets chirping inside and out. But he wasn't afraid, wasn't sweating, so cool with purpose, floating above it all.

Then descending. On top of the boy, the hole a window to beauty, welcoming him.

Merge.

Coolflesh.

A moment of indescribable ecstasy, then betrayal:

Pidgin curses. The lights sharp and blinding.

Professor Anton Bromet Van der Veering, M.D., D.Sc, standing in the doorway, pipe in hand, the naked-lady meerschaum resembling a tiny female victim struggling in his slimy yellow fingers.

Staring, the piggy-slant eyes so bugged out they'd become round.

Fucker expelled him that night, gave him three days to leave the island. Remained resolute, beyond the lure of more money.

The first time in St. Ignatius history. Hot death-shame took hold of him and made him tremble as he packed. He considered letting a dancer jitterbug along his own wrists, ending it all, then realized it was an honor to be expelled.

He was lucky: set free from a shitpile, separated from stink. Too clean and noble for this place. It was all part of a plan-of Schwann's plan.

Dieter-Daddy had better things in mind for him. Cleaner things.