A Close Schiavo
I got the call at 4:30 am: “I’ve stolen her.” It was James, the old college buddy I needed to get rid of. “I replaced her with a nurse. I switched clothes, see, and just walked her out. Put the nurse in the bed, doped her good, doped her real good. Thought about jamming the feeding tube down her throat.”
“What the fuck are you — ”
“The girl! The girl in the news! The creepy starey girl. The bed wetter — The Living Motherfucking Corpse, baby.”
“What?”
“I’ve got her. I stole her.”
“What?”
“What-what-what! Is this What Day? I’m at your fucking front door! Open up!”
“You’ve stolen a corpse?”
“No! The news girl! She’s not a corpse. She can smile and shudder and piss herself. Far from corpse-like behavior. More like you after a bad Saturday. Come on!”
I tip-toed through the house, where not a creature was stirring, and unlocked the front door. James blundered in, dragging Terry Schiavo in a nurse’s uniform. “Flat tits!” He hissed in my ear, letting her tumble to the floor with a bone-shattering crash. I stood staring for a moment.
“Drink?” He handed me his hip flask.
I took a long swallow, gathered my wits, then turned to him, “What have you done?”
“It’s like a college prank,” he replied. “You know, like, stealing the mascot. They won’t miss her till the morning.”
“You drove her up here from Florida?”
“I find the drive relaxing. I often go to Florida. Usually I just sleep in my car for an hour then turn around. The point is, we’ve got her now. Let’s write a ransom note! We can demand something strange and frivolous! Like slices of white American cheese.”
“They make that.”
“Okay, blue then! I don’t fucking know. You’re the brains, man.”
“Woah, woah, woah! I ain’t nothing in this, sweetheart. This is your corpse.”
“She’s not a corpse.” He cleared his throat, then mumbled, “She had a bowel movement on the way up.” He looked down at her, “It was strange. Somehow calming, though. Peaceful. The gentle flow of shit. Like some sort of zen-like — ”
“James! This is kidnapping.”
“Is it kidnapping or grave robbing, Nach? We’ll let the fucking United States Government decide that point after a days long debate, during which the world collapses without anyone noticing. But, for right now, we need to face the facts. You’ve got stare girl in your house and, any moment now, someone’s going to notice what’s happened. It’ll be all over the news.”
“So we’re fucked.”
James leaned in close, his lips to my ear, “Unless you call someone who controls the news…”
* * *
I wouldn’t usually do what I did. Under the circumstances, it seemed that I had no choice. We dragged Terry to the kitchen and propped her up in one of the chairs at the table, then I grabbed the wall phone and dialed a number I swore I would never call again.
The other end picked up after one ring, but no one spoke. Instead, I listened to about ten seconds of ‘ohGr’ before I finally took the initiative: “Oscar?”
“Nacho?” Texas Billionaire Oscar bin Laden sounded the same as ever.
“Yeah.”
“Allah be praised, I’ haven’t heard from you in -”
“Look, Oscar, I need a favor. I need a cover up news story.”
“Great Society finally get hit by the FBI?”
“No. James stole Terry Schiavo.”
“Old Tubey?” OBL laughed for several long seconds, “Oh, no. That James! What won’t he do?”
“That’s what we say about you. And that’s why I’m calling!”
“Nacho, please, the whole thing with me, it’s a misunderstanding. I’m an upstanding citizen with oil interests in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and New Jersey. Just like many other loyal Americans. Are you on a cell phone?”
“Oscar, I need help. Seriously.”
“Are you on a cell phone?”
“No.”
“Okay, I’ll send Ali and the boys. Make sure you have a suitcase of unmarked, mixed denomination bills prepared.”
“How much?
“Forty dollars.”
“What?”
“Gas money. Maybe burgers and soda. Ali has low blood sugar.”
* * *
James and I switched to coffee at dawn, Terry still perched at the table. On a lark, he pulled off her shirt and left her leaning backwards in the chair.
“Flat,” he said. “It’s hideous. Yet, I watch then, rise gently…every breath…like a corpse…of life!”
“Fuck, James…”
“I don’t expect someone like you to appreciate fine poetry. All I ask is that you remain silent while I compose. It’s a very delicate task, which you don’t understand because you clobber sentences together as if they were unruly dogs.”
My grandfather, wearing skimpy underwear and a wife beater, wandered in at that moment. He stopped dead. The topless vegetable at the table, head lolled back, spit trailing down her cheek. James and I, clutching each other, staring back as if we’d been caught diddling an infant. For an intense and powerful minute, we held that pose. Then he furrowed his brow, pursed his lips, and turned around back to the bedroom.
“Narrow miss,” James muttered, “I thought he’d see us for sure.”
“What?”
“It is What Day!”
Several rapid knocks at the front door nearly brought us out of our skin. I ran to the front of the house and let Ali and the boys in.
“With me,” I said, leading them to the kitchen. I pointed at Terry, “So James stole Terry Schiavo and now they’re going to find out and we need to – ”
Ali held up a hand, nodding as if he knew all about the problem. He tilted his head and his team grabbed Terry, dragging her out. Then he put out his palm.
“Forty bucks, James.” I mumbled.
“How ‘bout the latest Tori Amos album?”
Ali nodded enthusiastically and snatched the CD when James pulled it out from under his coat. He slung his rifle on his shoulder, nuzzled the Tori album and ran off.
James smiled sheepishly at me, “Strongest currency in the Mid-East. Let’s go.”
“No!”
“Hey, Terry’s my find, Mr. Hornblower. I’m not going to let those bloody wogs claim the prize!”
I put my hands to my head, “James! The prize is a jail cell!”
“To me!” He shouted, racing to the front of the house and onto the driveway. I followed, being foolish and weak, and we piled into the back of Ali’s nondescript white van. One of Ali’s boys handed me a cell phone. It was Oscar bin Laden on the other end.
“Has the package been collected?”
“Terry’s – ”
“Sshh! Cell phone!”
“Sorry.”
“The chair is against the door.”
“What? Oscar, I – ”
“The chair is against the door.”
I held the cell phone away from me, then put it back against my ear. “I don’t – ”
“The farmer plows the field uphill.”
“Oscar!”
“Over and out.”
Ali slammed the van into reverse and we were on my road and away before I could hand the phone back. Though, for all the fancy driving, we only made it about ten miles, into downtown Silver Spring, before James started screaming and shaking. Ali hit the breaks and we screeched to a stop along Georgia Avenue, Terry’s body flinging forward and crashing against the seats.
“Quarry House!” James shouted.
I looked at Ali, then at James.
James tilted his head, “A drink!”
“It’s morning. We have an undead corpse here, which you kidnapped or grave robbed or whatever. We’re in a van full of international – ” I saw Ali tense out of the corner of my eye, ” – entrepreneurs. Come on!”
James crawled forward, putting his hand close to my face and holding his thumb and forefinger about a quarter inch apart, “Just a…just a wee thimbleful. So much to ask for such a dear friend?”
“We can’t leave old tubey in the car.”
“We’ll walk her in. Weekend at Bernie’s trick. Easy.”
“Is the Quarry House even open?”
“They are. Do you know how I know?”
“Because you’re drinking yourself to death?”
James grinned, “To quote you: ‘What?'”
* * *
Ali took one side and I took the other and we walked Terry a quarter block to the Quarry House, then followed James down the narrow steps and into the basement bar. We had to duck to get in, but forgot about Terry. She cracked her head against one of the overhead pipes.
“Dude! She shuddered!” I called ahead to James.
“Just a bowel movement!” He called back. “Hey, make sure you didn’t break her neck.”
We all took a seat at Magical Table One and the morning waitress breezed by. I ordered the winter ale, as did James. It was the strongest beer around. Ali and the boys all ordered water. Then the waitress looked at Terry, whose head had lobbed forward onto her chest, spit flowing freely down the front of her shirt.
“Um…” the waitress looked strangely at us.
James curled back his lips and spoke slowly through clenched teeth. “My friend will have a Coca-Cola.”
Ali closed his eyes as if in pain when the cell phone rang. He flipped it open, listened, then handed it to me.
“So, all okay?” Oscar asked.
“Just fine, Oscar. We brought her to a bar.”
Ali squeezed past with his Tori Amos CD and spoke softly to the bartender. It only took a few seconds to get some keening on the stereo.
“Is that Tori Amos?” Oscar asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re there with Ali?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Nacho. Oh, Nacho, Nacho.”
Ali pulled up his shirt, tying it off at his sternum, then he began undulating his hairy stomach and dancing some bizarre tribal belly dance, pulling out a curved knife.
“I know what’s happening,” Oscar said. “It’s the new album, right? The Beekeeper.”
“Uh…” I was transfixed by Ali’s hideously homosexual dance, his free hand running to his crotch, rubbing himself, the curved knife playing across his stomach, his impossibly long tongue flicking towards me as he moved his body in some terrible mockery of a dance.
I put the cellphone down on the table.
“We need our beers to come, I think,” James muttered. “Everything will be much easier, then. Everything will be much easier then. Everything will be – ”
I looked over at him, his eyes focused on middle space, rocking back and forth and chanting his mantra.
I was going to shake him out of it, but my eyes were drawn, car-crash-fast, to Ali, rolling his body to Tori.
When I come to terms to terms with this
When I come to terms with this
When I come to terms with this whip lash
of silk on wool embroidery
Ali tore off his shirt, began to spin wildly with that wicked Arabian knife, then he came towards us, thrusting his crotch towards me repeatedly. I watched the knife glint as he spun it beneath the lights then, without any sense of reality, James screamed for his beer. He stood, pushing me forward into Ali. My face connected with Ali’s crotch and, as I reeled back into James, knocking him back towards the floor, I watched the curved dagger rise through the air.
Someone, somewhere, screamed, “Your retarded friend!” But it was too late. The knife came down and slammed into the back of Terry’s skull, digging in about four inches.
“Oh!” James shouted from the floor, looking up at Terry’s blank face, “Party foul!”
Ali, tenderly, pulled the knife out of her skull as the waitress rushed over, screeching and threatening to call an ambulance. I placed a hand on her shoulder,
“Old tubey’s a tough bird. We’ll just take her home.”
I don’t know what happened. I don’t really follow the news anymore. I mean, I scan and see if the Pope’s dead or if we’re involved in some new war. I like to read the foreign press and see what’s going on in the world. Sometimes, I get really involved in Nepal and all those weird places. You know, the places I’d like to see some day. I’ve always dreamed of trekking in Bhutan, so I stop and read articles about them. Sometimes a friend sends along some silly local story. As for Terry Schiavo, I never pay attention. Maybe a part of me is afraid to look too closely.
James and I left her in a bus stop in Silver Spring. Despite the knife to the head, she seemed okay. It was hard to tell. She cried, so I guess that was acknowledging her wound. James swears she squeezed his hand, but he was a little hopped up on my prescription painkillers at that point. I just turned away and told Ali to drive us home. It was 9am by the time I hit my house again, dragged myself past my grandfather who glanced over at me but didn’t speak, and then hit the sack. As always, James had screwed up my sleep patterns. Something that takes me weeks to correct. I have a delicate constitution.