Rasputin in the Disco

Rasputin feels the madeira flow through his veins and the sweetness and the liquor make him feel fucking alive. The room is dark and it flickers and flashes in bright colours, there is dyed or painted paper fixed to the lanterns, the mirrors on the walls, one of them shattered, send out scraps of multi-coloured light in a thousand directions as the movement of the dancers shakes the wall its chains are attached to.

Rasputin stamps his feet and swings his head, his arms raised (one, holding a glass, tentatively) and his face shows a bliss he only ever feels when his body is engaged in these bestial, essential, human pleasures.

Like dancing, like drinking, like fucking, like prayer.

The room is full of beauty, beauties, beautiful women, beautiful young women. They aren’t beautiful because they’re young, he thinks as he stares, his body shaking and sweet wine splashing from his large right hand. They’re beautiful, he believes, because they’re women. Because woman is beautiful, because woman is life. Femininity is divine, he muses, his eyes focused on the bouncing tits of a blonde actress renowned as a hedonist. Femininity is fertility, Rasputin thinks, his head nodding to the bass and his shoulders twisting to the melody. We must love the beautiful, divine, female, he thinks, and to prove this to God we must make love to as many women as will have us.

Rasputin is taller by a foot than everyone else in the room. His beard is five times bigger than every other man’s, and the gold crucifix that swings from his neck beneath it looks like a broken pendulum as his jerky movements keep it in motion.

The dance has him gripped, his feet, his knees, his chest, his arms (he drains the last of his madeira and flings the glass towards a wall; there is a gentle twinkle of smashing glass and a booming laugh from one of the smarmy fucking aristocrats who follow him around trying to lick his bootstraps or his balls), his whole body seems to roll and shake and shudder. Sweat drips from his eyebrows, his heels tear into the wooden floor, almost splintering it beneath him, his robes float, his eyes light up and he doesn’t stop. 

The band finishes a song and in the moment of silence before the next he doesn’t stop moving, just shouts ‘Bol’she! Bol’she!’ and continues dancing to silence.

The musicians on the low stage share a look and start to play again, but Rasputin is demanding ‘Bystreye!’ over and over again. He wants the music faster, he wants more of it, he wants it constantly.

Deep breaths, pumping feet, plucking strings, fingers and arms moving with the speed and an intensity that Rasputin wants, and he floats, drunk, licking his lips and looking at the bodies of the women around him, listening to the music that fills the air, blinking into the lights that surround him from a thousand directions, the shattered mirrors, the coloured lanterns, the glow that seems to emanate from his own eyes. Rasputin dances, and Rasputin dances hard.

Making Mother Proud

Gerald couldn’t believe the beauty in front of him.  He was absolutely terrified to be in the same room with such an attractive woman.  His mother always harped that he would never be able to find a woman that would be into him, and those words haunted him his entire life.  Gerald looked up to the heavens and thought, look at me now Ma, as he gave the cutie a sly smile from crooked lips.  Sweat started to bead up on his forehead and run down his side from his underarms.  The nervousness overtook him, and he had to excuse himself.

Gerald went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror at himself.  In a low volume he chastised the reflection that stared back at him. 

“Get it together motherfucker. This is the opportunity of a lifetime you’ve always dreamed of. Don’t blow this. You are the man. Show Ma that you CAN be a man.”

After a few short, hard punches to his face, he flushed the toilet and exited the bathroom.  Once back in the room, Gerald apologized for the interruption and returned to his seat next to the dream girl.  He stared deep into her eyes, and relished in the moment.  Gerald anticipated her saying something, but quickly placed his finger over her mouth and gently shook his head.

“No, no. You don’t have to say anything. Your beauty speaks a million words even without a sound.”

Gerald thought to himself, that was good.   Not wanting the moment to fade, he thought about kissing her right then, but halted.  A plethora of scenarios ran through his head.  What if she turns away?  What if she laughs?  What if she vomits?

In spite of all of his negative concerns, Gerald decided to risk it, and went in for a kiss.  When his lips touched hers, he immediately fell in love.  This was Gerald’s first kiss, and it was everything he could have imagined.  Best of all, she didn’t withdraw, laugh, or vomit.

Her lips were soft and full, and Gerald gently licked and sucked on them.  He used his tongue to explore her mouth, gently biting her bottom lip upon withdrawal.

Gerald was getting extremely hot, and began to explore her body with his hands as he continued kissing her.  He moved his hand up the side of her body, under her gown, to her breast, and sensually massaged her with every caress.  The absence of panties and bra excited Gerald even more, and gave him the confidence he needed to take things further.  

She really wants it, Gerald thought, as animalistic urges took control of him.  His breathing quickened and heart raced, as he ripped at the material just enough to expose a breast.  Gerald maniacally sucked at her nipple, as he feverishly rubbed and gripped every portion of her body that he could grab.  He mounted, and struggled to pull down his pants and spread her legs, while still tonguing her slightly parted mouth.

Just as he was about to penetrate her, the door opened, and a hysterical, loud voice could be heard.

“What the fuck are you doing?  Jesus Christ!  Get off of her!”

It was Frank, the proprietor of Resting Days Mortuary.  

Gerald worked for Frank for about two months and had been an exemplary employee.  That is, until Frank had to leave to run an errand and left Gerald alone for the first time. 

Frank was absolutely horrified.  He pulled out his phone and called the police, while he covered up the body and pushed Gerald away.

“Yes, this is Frank Lorretto from the mortuary.  I’d like police assistance immediately.  Defiling of a dead body.  Yes, defiling a dead body!  He’s here now.  Hurry.”

Frank picked up a metal rod from the table beside him and held Gerald at bay.  Neither of them spoke much while they waited.  Frank shook his head, looked at Gerald in disgust, and surveyed the rest of the room.

A few minutes passed and a knock could be heard at the front door.  Frank motioned for Gerald to head that way as he followed.  Frank opened the door and two policemen were standing there.

“Thank God, officers.  I caught my employee having sex with a corpse.  I want him off the premises right away, and I would like to press charges.  I run an honorable business here, and the dead need to be given the respect that they deserve.  How would you feel if she was your wife or daughter?”

Neither cop knew how to respond, but tried to remain professional as possible as they looked at Gerald.

“Is this true sir?”

Gerald was embarrassed, scared, and visibly shaken.

“Yes.  I’m sorry.  I couldn’t help myself.  She was just so beautiful.”

The cops handcuffed Gerald, put him in the car, and one of them informed Frank how to go forward with the legalities.

“Thank you officer.  I appreciate your fast response.  I am in shock.  He seemed like such a  personable guy and was always great help.  I was under the impression that he wanted to learn about this profession.  Now I see that it was for all the wrong reasons.  I just don’t know how I’m going to tell the family.  Like I said, no one deserves this treatment, living or dead.  I have hours of sanitizing and repairing to do tonight because of him.  Again, thanks for your assistance officer.”

Frank shut the door behind the officer and went back into the cooler.  He looked around and attempted to notice anything else that Gerald may have contaminated.  He nervously made his way over to the body of the woman, reluctant to look at her.  Frank stood over the woman and shook his head.  A single tear ran down his cheek and fell to the floor.  He looked down on the woman, and spoke in a reverent tone.

“I’m so sorry.  I should never have left you with him.  I’m just glad I got back when I did.  Let’s get you fixed up.  What do you say?”

Frank retrieved numerous sanitizing agents and his makeup bag, then spent several hours righting the wrongs that were done by Gerald. 

When he was finished, Frank stepped back and observed his completed work.  He proudly smiled wide, then began to disrobe.

“Now where were we beautiful?”

Big Betty’s Bad Day

This was Peckerwood Johnson’s lucky day. He rummaged through the dumpsters behind the mall, one eye open for an airsoft cop, one eye looking for anything to eat, wear, barter, or sell. Fleas leaped between his voluminous beard and the dumpster. A half-eaten Cinnabon went straight down the hatch. Socks, too small, but keep those, you never know. Whoa, what was this? He pulled out a bright yellow box, still sealed. “Big Betty… inflatable party doll,” he said. He sounded like a little boy who has opened the present he never dreamed in a hundred years he would get. Occasionally he had looked for a Big Betty, or one of her sisters, but they were like fifty bucks. His eyes stared back at the package’s flirtatious gaze. His soul filled with the thought of having a body to lie next to at night, under the bridge. It had been so long… so long. Big Betty’s eyes looked so kind. 

“Hey! You! Gethefuckouttamydumpsteryapieceofshit!” Peckerwood saw the Paul Blart wannabe huffing and jiggling towards him. He took off into the woods behind the loading docks, the yellow box clutched to his chest. He made a beeline for the Jiffy Mart, where the air pump was still free. He had a woman!

Jimbo Puffpants dragged himself upright, one hand after another, clinging to the lamp post in the park. He stood, swayed, took a step, bent over and vomited. It spurted out of him, red with wine and blood, spasm after spasm, until his ribs ached and his throat burned. Finally he spat a few times and stood up. Now he felt like a new man, especially after he pissed down his legs. The urine warmed him and softened the stiffened filth in the several pairs of trousers he wore. He thought about finding that bench at the bus stop to watch the high school girls bounce by, but he knew this robust feeling wouldn’t last. Booze, he had to find more booze. Thunderbird, shart-donnay, it didn’t matter, but he had to get something.

He dug through all the pockets in all the clothes that layered him. A few nickels and pennies. A single quarter. Fear prickled his spine. He couldn’t take the shakes again. It would kill him. He knew there was a long stoplight nearby, good for change and foldables. He pulled the crumpled cardboard from his shopping cart and shambled off to the Jiffy Market.

Peckerwood’s heart raced as he fiddled to get the air nozzle latched onto Big Betty’s valve. “You just piss off if a customer needs that pump, y’hear?” someone from the market yelled, but he was too excited to worry about some aproned clerk. Soon he heard the hiss, and Big Betty’s arms and legs trembled, flapped, and unfolded with a crinkle of fresh plastic. Her head, and her red mouth! He would be so happy tonight, so happy.

“Hey, whatcha got there?”

Peckerwood glanced over his shoulder. “Mind your ways, Jimbo, this ain’t nothin’ for you.” She was almost full, her tits high and perky.

“I need that, Peckerwood, I ain’t got time to wait for change. I can feel the shakes comin’ and it’s gonna be bad. You gimme that doll and I can get twenty for her at Russell’s place.” Jimbo had a thought and looked at Peckerwood all skewy. “You ain’t used her yet or nuthin’, have you?” He shook his head. “It don’ matter, just hand her over. I’ll give ya half, promise.” He stepped forward, arms outstretched, fingers grasping like a toddler wanting a lift.

Big Betty had filled to her full, curvy glory. “Fuck you, Jimbo, back off. Big Betty’s my girl, and she’s spending the night!” Peckerwood stepped away, but Jimbo was fighting for his life.

He grabbed for an arm, missed, grabbed at a leg and found purchase. Peckerwood wanted to flee, but he had to face the maddened Jimbo or lose Big Betty entirely. The battle was vicious, two implacable foes bent on victory yet mindful of their prey’s fragility.

A big-car honk sounded long and loud as an Escalade pulled up looking for the free air. A middle-aged woman with a short haircut hammered the horn in righteous rage. Water sprayed the combatants as the store clerk unleashed the hose coiled at the back of the store.

A gaggle of high school girls walked by, spellbound and disgusted in equal measure, fortunately unaware of the role they had almost played in Jimbo’s fantasy afternoon.

The end was nigh. Jimbo had his hand stuck in Big Betty’s life-like action mouth, while Peckerwood pulled on an arm. Now a breast was grabbed in the reckless, desperate melee.

With a terrible ripping of pink plastic and a sudden whoosh Big Betty collapsed to her former, foldable self. The store clerk turned off the water once he saw the fight was over. The Escalade now had room by the pump, but the lady refused to open her door until the combatants cleared the field. The girls had passed on from the terrible scene. 

Jimbo sat on the curb groaning as the tremors began. Peckerwood shook the water off. He wanted to kick Jimbo, but he knew what horrors the night held for him. He trundled back to the mall. Maybe it was still his lucky day.

Driving and Drinking with Dracula

Drac needs to talk. Urgent. 

I’m getting drowsy, just about ready for bed, when Drac calls. His full name is Count Dracula, but we go way back, so we’re down to nicknames. I call him Drac. Drac calls me Ray. 

“Let’s drive,” he says. “And drink.”

“It’s bedtime,” I protest.

“Not for everyone. Just a little while? No all-nighter. I’ve got work.”

He picks me up in his old ‘54 Nash Metropolitan. Funky, for a guy of Drac’s stature, but as he told me once, “Who cares? I only go out at night.”

I’ll give it to him. He comes prepared, a short case of Burgie on the seat between us. Stubbies. “Wow, these are chill,” I say, using the opener on his dash. 

“I sleep with them,” he says. “Advantages of being … well, you know.”

We met at the blood bank. We were both lying there, needles in our arms, draining into the bags when I realized who he was. I asked what he was doing there, in the middle of the day.

“All that daylight-turns-me-to-ash stuff is horseshit. It’s what they tell you, in vampire basic, but it’s just not true. We gotta get out. Mingle.”

I asked him if he didn’t think it was a little contrarian for him to be giving blood, instead of taking. 

“It’s not like I need it all,” he said. “I’ve got more than I can use, to be honest. I’m an aggregator. And a giver.”

Decent kind of guy. Now, tipping his Burgie, he says he’s been having trouble sleeping. Nights come around, no energy left for popping in on the ladies, sharing a few pints.

I love the way his fangs embrace the bottle mouth, like it’s a kiss and he could chomp down, but he doesn’t, because the kiss is good and besides, who kisses glass? 

He reaches down, punches a button on the radio. He likes oldies rock, always tuned to ‘50s doo-wop. “I Only Have Eyes for You,” “In the Still of the Night,” “Blue Moon.”

“You’re into irony, right?” I asked one time. 

“Who, little-ol’ flittin’-around-in-the-bat-shit me?” 

He smiled and his incisors twinkled in the light. Then he laughed harder, longer, so much he urped. 

“Reflux,” he said, and reached into the tub of Tums on the seat. “I gotta see a Doc, but who would take a guy dead six hundred years?”

“Six?”

“Do the math. If you start at Vlad.”

Just a regular guy. Not sure what this night is about, killing time, I ask him to drive by Lenora’s house. 

“Sweet on her?”

I nod. 

“Maybe I shouldn’t say this,” he says, to preface what he wants to say,  “but I tried to suck her neck one time.”

I wait. There’s more.

“Not so hot,” he says. 

I tell him I’ll compare notes, if ever I get past first. “Is she a vvvv–?”

“Vampire? No. She had a crucifix around her neck.” 

I nod, happy she’s still available.

“She’s nice and all,” he says, “but she wouldn’t shut up about her Barbie collection. A  woman in her twenties? I never knew.” 

He pulls up in front of Lenora’s, his motor running. I stare at the window of her room. The light is still on. I see her shadow, moving around. Then her arms extend. She’s holding something, a doll maybe. Or a phone. The light goes out. I wish I were in there.

Drac puts it in gear and we head off. We finish the beer, talking about taxes and repairs to his water heater, and he turns toward home. 

“I called for another reason,” he says. “I’ve got news.”

“Oh?”

“I’m going back to school.”

“Seriously? For what?”

“Accounting. I’ve always had a head for numbers.”

“Really? I would’ve guessed phlebotomy. Don’t want to be too obvious?”

“Right?” he says, chuckling. “Hey, what about mortuary science?”

I blow a spurt of Burgie out my nose. 

“I just want to be normal. No more nights. Spend more time with the wife and kids.”

That’s a big reveal, that he has a family. I don’t ask about them. I’d hate to run into them on the street and start wondering if they were gonna jump me.

I steer it back to accounting.

“When I took all the paperwork to my tax guy last year?”

I nod.

“He was so calm. Adding and subtracting. I loved the desk lamp with the green shade. It’s me. A spot of light in the dark. Believe it or not, but I like light. My eyes aren’t cut out for the dark. My nose is my eyes. Keeps me from crashing into things.”

I want to support him, but hold back. Who wants to talk Drac out of being Drac? 

“Wouldn’t you miss the percs?” I ask.

“Like what?”

“You get more neck than anybody I know.”

“You think that’s cool? Dude, it’s neck. There’s more to sex than neck, but not in my line of work. It’s pretty stifling, frankly.”

Then he goes on a rant, about all the limits, how he wants to go out to dinner and have a steak and a glass of wine. Or a salad. 

“Do you realize, for the entirety of my curse, I’ve had nothing to eat but blood? No crackers. No cheese. No Lunchables. No kale. Believe that shit?”

 He tells me change is hard. He’ll have to see a dentist, lose the fangs. Slowly work his way into Italian food, with all that garlic. 

“Talk about indigestion,” he says. “And — I know this sounds whiney — but imagine trying to get a good day’s sleep. All these idiots out there, vampire hunters. They’ve  seen too many movies, running around looking for castle cellars with seeping walls, so they can terminate me. If just one more person drives a stake through my chest, I’m gonna scream.”

He says he would love health insurance without the cardiac risk rider.

I think of Drac in his new gig. Probably have to lose the cape. Shame. I’ve never needed one. If you’re Drac, you need a cape. If you’re not Drac?

Two thoughts hit me: One, an accountant with a cape would attract clients like … I dunno, Bela Lugosi? Two, if he’s not Drac, then who? 

I could do it. Maybe he would cut me a deal on the franchise? Maybe time for something new?

It would be interesting. Meet new people. Working nights? Not my favorite. But that would leave my days free, to go on walks with Lenora, who surely would say “yes” to getting married if she knew I, her husband, was about to become The New Dracula. 

Ha! 

How’s that for a business card? And I could see the fun building my LinkedIn.

Drac pulls up in front of my house and stops. I get out but lean on the roof and look back in. I am wondering if they make queen-size coffins (room for Lenora), even as I give him my best advice.

“Follow your bliss, Dude.”

Turns out, he does. 

Me? I pass on the whole Drac thing. Ugly hours, no upside, and Lenora wouldn’t hear of it. But I got the cape anyway. I wear it for yuks, when we go out driving and drinking. Not for Halloween, though. I know where to draw the line.

The Whole World in Her Hands

​I don’t know how I got myself into this situation. Well okay, that’s not true. It wasn’t like I was just moseying along, and accidentally stumbled into a church. Her name was Christina and I met her at a bookstore a few weeks back. She was reading some Artaud translation and happened to peer up while I was checking her out and holding a Robert Parker novel. We smiled at each other, and the next thing I knew we were getting coffee around the block and then out of nowhere we were snuggled up on the couch in my apartment. She straddled me and started to push her tongue down my throat. I started sliding my hands up her back and she removed her tongue from the inside of my mouth, pushed my hands slowly back to my sides, and readjusted herself. She kissed my neck and whispered in my ear:

​“I don’t sleep with every guy I meet, Nick.”

​I watched the crucifix hanging around her neck sway back and forth.

​“You aren’t saving it for marriage, are you?”

Christina laughed.

​“No. I just don’t like to jump into things.”

​Well normally, that would have been it for me. It wasn’t that I was some misogynistic pig, but I didn’t see the point in wining and dining someone, for weeks on end, just to maybe, possibly, end up sleeping with them (perhaps I am a misogynistic). But there was something different about Christina. She had long, red hair that looked like it had been dyed, but wasn’t. There were freckles that ran across her face, and an innocence that could only belong to someone that counts for less than two-percent of the earth’s population. The two of us kept making-out like a couple of middle-schoolers. It took some effort, but I tried not to get too excited when she dry-humped me. This was starting to become a daily occurrence, and I didn’t know how much longer I could put up with it.

​I was fighting off an erection one night when Christina was sitting on top of me, and I started working my hands up her back. When they reached her bra-strap she released herself from my lips and pushed my hands back down.

​“You’re no fair,” I said resting my hands on her hips.

​“I know.”

​“Don’t you feel that?”

​I thrusted my pelvis ever so slightly upward. Christina laughed and bit her lip.

​“I’m sure you have plenty of girls who would take care of things like that. I’m just not the one.”

​She went back to poking her tongue down my throat. What Christina was implying felt nice, it really gave the ego a good stroking, but it simply wasn’t true. My luck with the ladies was running out and had been for some time. The world was moving on to new and enlightened things, and the perpetual bad boy was not winning the war the way he used to. I started sliding my hands up her back again, and when I wrapped one of my fingers around her bra strap she unclenched my lips and raised one of her eyebrows at me.

​“What would it take?”

“For what?”

​“You know.”

“Hmmm. I don’t think I do.”

​“To fuck you,” I said kissing her neck.

​“You really want to know?”

​“Yes.”

​“Okay,” she said hopping off of me. “But I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

​And that’s how I ended up in a church bright and early this Sunday morning. I had found a wrinkled, white button-up and black tie I was sure I had worn to a funeral a few years back. Christina was dressed in a red sundress with yellow roses on it, and if it weren’t for the fact we were in a house of the lord, I would have jumped her bones right then and there. Christina and I found some open pews and sat down. They were as far in the back as possible, per my request.

​“I’m so glad you came,” Christina said.

​“I’ll be glad when I cum too.”

​“What’s that?”

​“Nothing, nothing. Anything for you.”

​She smiled, and the congregation started making their way into the chapel and filling in all of the empty pews. I watched a short, elderly man in a black robe start walking up to the pulpit. A group of young girls, all blonde and about seven or eight, walked up on stage behind the preacher and started singing “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” People around me started clapping in rhythm with the song and I tried not to throw up in my mouth. I don’t know what it was, but organized religion and I had never gotten along. Maybe it was knowing that it was all a sham or knowing that the elderly guy standing before me right now probably had a better house and car than anyone out here. Christina’s bare knee pushed against my slacks and I felt as though I was going to lose it. It was weird. I’d spent the last few weeks acting like a middle schooler and now my threshold for attraction was at about middle-school level. A smile could have gave me a hard-on at this point. It made me want to reach my hand underneath Christina’s sundress and try to slide a finger in, but it didn’t feel right with the children singing: 

​He’s got the tiny little baby, in his hands.

​He’s got the tiny little baby, in his hands.

​He’s got the tiny little baby, in his hands

​He’s got the whole world in his hands.

​Everyone around me started to join in singing with the girls, including Christina. I never understood why this level of devotion and faith got under my skin. But in that moment, I was starting to think it had to be the nuns. I went to a catholic preschool and the nuns told my mother I wasn’t mature enough, so they held me back a year. I suppose I’d never forgave them–or religion–for that. Not that they were wrong. I mean here I was attending a church service in the pursuit of pussy. If that’s not immature I’m not sure what is.

​The children stopped singing and the preacher waited a bit for everyone to settle down. I swallowed some saliva as Christina’s knee was pushing even harder into mine. The elderly man cleared his throat into the microphone.

​“Good morning everyone. I’m so glad you all could be here. I see some new face, some old. But isn’t it just a great day on God’s planet?”

“Amens,” rang out all over the place.

​“If you love the lord, let me hear GOD IS GREAT.

”GOD IS GREAT,” everyone said in unison without me.

​“Today I’m going to talk about something that I think needs addressing,” he said opening up a binder in front of him. “I’ve been talking with Brother Johnson and he brought to my attention that many of our young people are starting to sin at an early age.”

​There were gasps all around the room.

​“Yes, yes. They are sinning early and having PREMARITAL SEX.”

​I felt the sweat start to drip down from my forehead. The last thing I needed was some preacher fucking this up for me. They fucked up enough of the world as it was – altar boys, marriage for gays, and even abortion. I looked down and noticed that Christina had placed her hand on my thigh.

​“Brother Johnson was informing me that at St. Mary’s we have four young girls that are pregnant. We must teach our children that for everything there is a time and place. As the Bible says, there is a season for giving, and a season for loving.”

​“AMEN,” rang out again.

​“I figured I’d spend some time today talking about what the Lord thinks of premarital sex. If we could all open our Bibles too…”

​Everyone opened their Bibles to the verse he asked, and he started explaining how this was God telling us not to fornicate. I personally couldn’t understand how this verse had anything to do with sex at all. But that’s how most of the Bible was: someone telling you what something meant, even though they weren’t around and never met the person who wrote it. It was a complicated thing. The preacher stopped his sermon and gave a large smile. He seemed to be looking directly at me. Christina’s hand was completely on my crotch at this point. She had wrapped one finger through a belt loop. The preacher took his gaze away from me and closed his binder.

​“Let’s all pray.”

​I watched everyone bow their heads and close their eyes. He started with the usual – thanking the lord, repenting for everyone’s sins they may have committed, how the thing goes. Then out of nowhere, I felt it. Christina had reacher her hand under my trousers and was grabbing my half-chubbed cock. I sucked my lips in as she started stroking back and forth, back and forth. I tried to hold it together while the preacher, and her, and myself, were finishing up. I don’t know how I kept the grunt in, but I reached release just as the old man said “Amen.” Christina wiped her hands on my briefs, pulled her hand out,  and said “Amen” in unison with everyone else.

​The children started singing again and everyone got up and went into the lobby. There was food and talking and coffee, but I didn’t want any of that. I wanted to get hell out of this place. I started walking for the exit and Christina followed after me. I unlocked Volkswagen and swung the door open. I put the key in the ignition and dangled a Camel from my lips as I turned the motor over. Christina placed her hand on my thigh again. I shook my head and looked at her. It seemed like her green eyes had grown three sizes.

​“I have to ask,” I said shaking my head.

​“What?”

“What was that exactly?”

​“Have you never had a handjob before?”

“C’mon now. Men do that to themselves,”I said flicking an ash out of the window.“But in a church? Don’t you think that was a little risky? The old fucker could have noticed.”

​Christina Laughed.

​“That ‘old fucker’ is my father.”

​“Oh.”

“He kept me locked up and in the house when I was a kid. Now that I’m grown, I take every chance to piss him off I get.”

​“Oh?”

“Yup. So I bring as many boys as I can to his Sunday services. He really doesn’t like knowing I do that in there.”

“I see,” I said heading out of the parking lot. “Good thing his eyes were closed while it was going down. That might have really pissed him off.”

“He’ll know.”

“Is God going to tell him or something?”

“No, silly. I’ll tell him over dinner tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

I held in a laugh. Christina started unzipping my trousers.

“Can we go to your place?”

“If that’s what you want.”

I watched her head go down to my waist as we made it to the first stoplight. A man with hole-y jeans and a baggy black shirt with the words JESUS SAVES sprawled across it was crossing in front of us. I couldn’t help but laugh. The light turned green and I took off, knowing that for everything there was a season and a time to every purpose under the sun. Time was looking good for me under the sun. I didn’t know how long it would last. Christina would probably be gone soon–she would need a new guy to parade around the church pews – but for this season it was me, and I’d take the laugh while I could get it.

Sometimes I Almost Feel Like a Real Human Being

Courtney became best friends with Mary Beth in order to learn her secrets, but she didn’t discover the most important one. It was Sam who found that out. He crawled from his basement tunnel and began bouncing excitedly. Dirt showered everywhere like water off a wet dog.

“I know it, I know it,” he said.

“Know what?” I asked.

“What she did, Frank. What Mary Beth did.”

Even when he stands upright, Sam’s head barely brushes my knee. It is as round as a pumpkin and disproportionately large for his body. His eyes are the shape and color of egg yolks and his mouth is crammed with broad flat teeth. Sam has many talents. He can mimic any sound he hears. His sense of smell is extraordinary. Perhaps this is because his nose is so immense that the tip actually touches his chin.

“What did Mary Beth do?”

Except for the corner where Sam had dug the entrance to his tunnel, most of the basement is finished. The walls are paneled with fake wood veneer and the floor is covered with plastic tiles that imitate real brick. Against one wall are a washer and dryer and a cabinet of laundry supplies. Against the other is the old couch on which I was sprawled. I was bored. I’m always bored. Sometimes it seems like I’ve been bored for centuries. My whole entire life.

Sam didn’t answer directly. He isn’t very smart and he has trouble holding onto a line of thought.

“I was hungry, Frank. Really, really hungry. And this big old rat, he was too fast. I didn’t catch him until he was inside Mary Beth’s house.”

Sam’s tunnels lead everywhere across the neighborhood. There’s not a home he doesn’t have access to for at least a half mile in every direction.

“Well?” I asked.

“He was nice and juicy.”

“Not the rat, Sam. Mary Beth.”

“Oh, her. Well, I knew what was up right away. The stink was that strong, Frank. Even you could smell it.”

“Smell what, Sam?”

“Mary Beth. She’s pregnant.”

Courtney said, “I can’t believe she didn’t tell me. I mean, what are best friends for?”

We were sitting at the kitchen table having a breakfast of cereal and toast and orange juice. We had to be at school in half an hour. Courtney was wearing jeans and a tight knit shirt without a collar. She was chewing gum and eating at the same time. I couldn’t figure out how she managed not to swallow the gum. In many ways Courtney is as talented as Sam.

“Maybe Mary Beth doesn’t know herself,” I said.

“Get real, Frank. Of course she knows. She has to. Sam says she’s in her sixth month.”

“Almost too late for an abortion,” I said.

“Mary Beth wouldn’t have one anyway. They’re Catholic.”

“Who’s the father?”

“Brad Vogel. Has to be. They’ve been going steady since eighth grade. Mary Beth says they haven’t gone all the way.”

“Maybe she’s lying.”

“No, I don’t think so. There must be some other explanation.”

“It’s been two thousand years since the last immaculate conception.”

“Don’t remind me, Frank.”

Dad joined us in the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee from the pot warming on the counter top. Dad’s in software development. He used to be in armaments but he got out of that business. He was dressed for work in his usual gray pinstripe suit and black wingtip shoes with the built up right heel that prevents people from noticing his limp. If they do, he says he had polio when he was a kid. This is not the truth. Dad’s always been lame.

“What are you two looking so serious about?” he asked.

“My friend, Mary Beth, is pregnant,” Courtney answered.

“So what do you have in mind?”

“We don’t know yet,” Courtney answered.

“I’m thinking about it,” I said.

Brad Vogel was seventeen but seemed younger. He was into computer gaming and since there is little I can’t do with electronics it was easy to impress him with my expertise. We went to his house after school and settled down with a couple bags of chips before his computer and took turns playing death matches on-line.

“I don’t think they’ve had sex,” I told Courtney. “They were doing some heavy petting and accidentally got a little too close. I don’t believe he even knows she’s pregnant.”

“How do you suppose he’ll react to the news?”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

Going down to the basement, I explained to Sam what we wanted. His grin was so wide that it almost split his head in half. Using a burner phone spoofed to identify itself as belonging to Mary Beth, I dialed the number for Sam since he has stubby claws instead of real fingers.

“Brad?” Sam said in an adolescent female voice. “Yes, it’s Mary Beth, of course, it’s me. How can you ask if something’s the matter? Yes, I’m crying. We have to talk. Now. I’m pregnant, Brad. Yes, I’m sure. Don’t be stupid. Who do you think? Half an hour. I’ll leave the porch door open.”

I clicked off the phone and Sam said: “That was fun, Frank. Real fun. I did good, didn’t I?”

Then I spoofed the phone to display Brad’s number, dialed Mary Beth, and gave the phone back to Sam. His voice was indistinguishable from the teenage boy’s.

“Hi, Mary Beth, it’s me. Well, I’m OK, but there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask. No, no, nothing like that, it’s what you haven’t told me…. Please, don’t start. I can’t bear to hear you crying. Yes, that’s better. We’ll talk. No, no one else knows. It’s just I noticed you were gaining weight. All right. I’ll be over. Leave the porch door open.”

This time Sam was so excited that he got down on all fours and started chasing rats. As small as Sam is, he was still much larger than the rodents, and soon his groin was messy with blood and fur.

The squealing got on my nerves and I went upstairs. Courtney remained behind until her favorite television program came on.

Sam wired Brad’s and Mary Beth’s rooms so we could overhear their conversations. Brad wanted to tell their parents about the pregnancy but Mary Beth didn’t. She was a big girl and she was sure that if she wore loose clothing no one would guess her condition. Brad was less certain. Neither had much idea what to do with the baby after Mary Beth gave birth.

Dad was sitting on the couch in his boxer shorts like he does every evening after work. He was finishing his third glass of the vodka he keeps in the freezer until it becomes as thick as syrup.

Brad was visiting Mary Beth. We were streaming the microphones in their rooms to our smart TV and their voices came clearly through the stereo speakers. Brad was saying:

“Of course, I love you, Mary Beth. How could you think I don’t?”

“But you want to ruin my life.”

“I’m only saying it might be better if we got help.”

“My mother will kill me. She’ll really kill me. You don’t know her.”

“Let’s think about it.” Brad didn’t sound convinced.

Dad scratched absently at the thigh of his thin leg and took a swallow of vodka. “The boy’s scared,” he observed.

“They’re both scared.”

“He needs to be able to justify keeping the pregnancy secret,” Dad went on. “Otherwise he’ll tell his parents.”

“I think you’re right,” I agreed.

So the next afternoon I met Brad after school and we went to his house and slipped a game into the console.

“You ever notice –” I began.

“Notice what, Frank?”

“Well, all the heroes, all the real heroes in the good games, I mean, there’s always something mysterious about how they’re born. Either some god was screwing around with their mother. Or else they’re foundlings. You know, left on a doorstep by their parents, who can’t keep them for one reason or another. Maybe there’s a rule about it. Like, you can’t be a true hero with an ordinary mother and father.”

Brad’s eyes became distant. They held so much innocence that I wanted to steal them from their sockets and cradle them in my palm.

“You really think so, Frank?” he asked. “There’s a rule?”

“I’d bet on it.”

Mary Beth called Brad when she felt the first contractions. The motel they’d picked out lay a couple miles down the state road beyond the town limits. Sam had wired the entire place since we couldn’t know what room they’d be given. We switched channels until we tuned in on them. It was not an easy labor but they were left alone since it was the kind of establishment where unusual noises are attributed to energetic sexual activity.

“Push,” Brad said. “One more time.”

“I’m pushing.”

The groan Mary Beth made mingled pain and effort and deep satisfaction. After this we heard the wail of a newborn. Mary Beth said, “Let me hold him.”

“Just for a little while, OK?”

“He’s so small, isn’t he, Brad? Oh, I wish we could keep him.”

“Come on, Mary Beth. You know we can’t. We’ve gone over this a thousand times. Look, I’ll get the bassinet ready.”

I stood up and said, “I’d better leave now.”

“Can I come, too?” Courtney asked.

I shrugged and pulled on a jacket. Twilight had faded to night and a chill November wind snapped sheets of rain against the pavement. A walk of ten minutes brought us to St. Luke’s Church. We waited around the corner against the overgrown hedge that framed the rectory. The shrubbery screened us from observation while allowing a good view of the front steps. Just past nine an old Civic pulled up before the church. Brad got out of the car. He didn’t notice us. He leaned inside in order to take out the cradle with his son in it.

For a moment he stared into the cradle. It was easy to guess what he was thinking. For Brad, giving up the child had mystical significance. He was ensuring the boy an extraordinary future. Like in computer games.

Brad placed the bassinet in front of the entrance under the overhang and out of the rain. Then he hurried down the steps and gunned the car away from there. I immediately went to the church and took the bassinet and brought it to Courtney in the shadow of the hedge. Together we peered at the baby.

His eyes were so blue as to seem black. He looked at us fearlessly. There was such wonder and delight in his regard that for the briefest instant I almost felt like a real human being.

“Isn’t he the cutest thing,” Courtney said. She blew a huge bubble.

“Sure is,” I replied.

I reached into the cradle and strangled him. Then I cut off his left ear and tucked it in my pocket.

I replaced the bassinet with the dead body before the church door and Courtney and I returned home.

“I want to report a crime,” Sam said in a woman’s voice. “Yes, well, I think there was a crime, but I’m not one hundred percent sure. I could be wrong. What? What does my name have to do with anything? I’m simply a good citizen, is that so hard to believe? Anyway, my point is, I was visiting a friend at the Seven Oaks Lodge, out on the state road, and I couldn’t help but hear all sorts of funny noises coming from a couple doors down. Number seventeen, I think it was. What? Oh, I don’t know, like crying and maybe like someone was being slapped around a little. I didn’t make too much of it, that’s how the Seven Oaks is. Only I started wondering if maybe I heard a child in there. Now that surely isn’t any place for a child. There’s all sorts of goings on.”

“Very good,” I told Sam. “Now this time you’re a man.” I dialed the police again. In a masculine voice he said:

“There’s been a murder. No, I didn’t see it myself. Let me tell you what happened. I was walking by St. Luke’s Church over on Montgomery, and I saw an old Honda pull up. A kid got out. He was carrying a box or something and he left it on the church steps. I didn’t think nothing of it, but there was something odd about the kid, you know how it is, and after he left, I opened the box. Only it wasn’t a box. It was a cradle. There was a dead baby in it, the son of a bitch dropped off a dead baby like a God damned bundle of used clothes. Sure, I got the license plate. Let me tell you what it was.”

Brad and Mary Beth were arrested for murder. The news made the national papers because the district attorney decided to press for the death penalty even though they were juveniles, but the charges were bargained down to manslaughter. I visited Brad while he was out on bail before sentencing.

“Mary Beth is sure I did it,” he told me. We were sitting on the edge of his bed in his room in front of the computer but the machine was off. “She hates me. She won’t talk to me.”

“Well, you did plead guilty.”

“Only because no one believed my story. They told me if I said I was innocent, and was convicted anyway, I might get the chair or a lethal injection or something. So I had to say I did it. What other choice was there?”

“I don’t know, Brad.”

“That baby was alive when I left him at the church. I swear it. Why would I kill my son? Why would anyone kill a baby? And steal his little ear?”

“Maybe someone had it in for you,” I said. “Maybe it was all a set up, Brad. They were keeping you and Mary Beth under observation. Watching you all the time, just waiting for the right opportunity to frame you both. Probably you were followed from the motel. They killed the baby as soon as you left him at the church. And after that they let the police know where you were.”

Brad looked at me like I was crazy.

“Why would anyone go to all that trouble?” he asked.

“Maybe they wanted to see you suffer for something you didn’t do.”

Brad shook his head slowly. “You’ve been playing too many computer games, Frank. The real world doesn’t work like that. I’ve learned the truth. Probably what happened is some sick bastard, some psychopath, was passing by. That’s all. It was chance. Bad luck. Nothing else.”

“If that’s what you believe, Brad,” I said, “who am I to argue?”

Mom’s a terrible cook and never gets any better. I doubt she’d get any better even if she tried for another thousand years. The frozen green beans were still cold in the middle and the turkey was dry on the outside while at the same time being underdone. Sam crawled onto the table and stuck his head into the cavity and munched happily at the raw meat. Dad carved around him. Courtney blew a bubble and said:

“Mary Beth got two years since they said she was only an accessory. Brad was sentenced to four.”

“I spoke with him last week,” I said. “I told him what happened. He thought I was making it up.”

“Never underestimate the human capacity for rationalization,” Dad observed.

“Even now Brad doubts evil exists,” I continued. “He thinks life is all just circumstance.”

“An Existentialist, is he?” Dad asked.

“He considers himself a cynic.”

Mom was chewing deliberately at the turkey. She dislikes her own cooking as much as we do. “How will you change his mind?” she asked.

“Well, first I’m going to wait four years. Until just before he’s served his sentence.”

“And then, Frank? And then?” Sam popped his head from the turkey and wiped grease from his eyes.

“I’ll send him the videos we made of him and Mary Beth.”

“And the ear, too, Frank,” Sam said. “Don’t forget the ear. That’ll really do it.”

I took the tiny scrap of flesh from my pocket and rubbed it between my thumb and forefinger. For a fleeting instant I was reminded of that fragile second when I had felt alive. It didn’t last. I was bored again.

“The ear, too,” I said.

***

Originally published in Candlelight magazine

This Drink’s on Her

You started doing it as a joke, any time your wife made you wait in restaurants or bars. Especially bars. You hated drinking alone, nursing the one whiskey, killing time until she showed up. You never knew what to do with your hands.

To explain you were waiting for someone always came out sounding like a dodge, an excuse, since you couldn’t be sure when she’d show up from work or whatever “engagement” she had.

So you’d settled on this one joke to fend off your discomfort.

Your wife had taken a new lover, you’d say, and you were giving them time to get used to each other. You’d add a little half-smile of apology, but never laughed.

It put anyone curious or judgmental on the defensive, unsure how to respond. It bled off your anxiety as you pictured what you might look like to anyone bothering to notice you sitting by yourself, giving off that kind of first-date failure or rookie predator vibe.

The response, in free drinks, surprised you. Totally unexpected. Bartenders especially would sport you to a free one. For the wait, they’d say. You perfected the nod of humble gratitude and furrowed brow of wounded pride to mask the guilty pleasure at the cheap victory. You’d salute with the glass, saying “this drink’s on her” and they’d laugh—with you, not at you.

It worked in most places. Probably not the kind of thing you’d try in a biker bar, or red-neck dive, pissing on your own manhood.

You watched the waitstaff for any reaction when she finally did show up. Did they gossip among themselves about her? Like—did she look freshly fucked? Did she act guilty or evasive? Did she even look the type to leave a new lover for drinks and dinner with the likes of you?

She’d enjoy herself, oblivious to her unfortunate reputation. Her vivacity—if that’s a word, then it’s her—her vivacity an odd underscore to what you had the staff thinking of her.

Maybe she would have thought your insecurity funny. Maybe she would have been flattered. You can’t come clean about it now. You could beat yourself up for not appreciating what you had. But it’s a little late for that.

Now, you whip out the line for real. That first time out alone, you didn’t feel at all guilty when that free drink showed up. Some nights it would get you a second freebie when you called for the check, when the waitstaffer got all tender for the long-suffering guy with the randy wife, eating, then leaving alone.

Tonight, in the bar when you tried it, you were sitting next to an older woman. Lots of makeup and side-boob.

She wanted to know all about it, not bothering with excuses or apologies for listening in and chatting you up.

You’ve never given much thought to filling in the details. No one ever asked before. So you make it up as you go, how it ended much too soon, how she’s probably happier, probably better off, maybe you were a jerk, not appreciating what you two had and you deserved what you got. But—you admit—there are things about the whole situation you can’t stop brooding over. Guess it goes with the territory, you say.

She asks about the asshole lover. You dismiss him with a hand wave. Never more than a name to me, you say. Not that you’d been formally introduced.

What’s he look like? Better looking than you, she asks.

Never saw him, you say, and you aren’t all that keen to find out. In fact, you’d like to avoid thinking of him at all.

Not like you should go up, shake his hand and ask him his intentions, she says. You laugh and say no, probably not.

You’re a young enough guy, she says. There’s other fish in the sea.

Much wisdom, you say, and heft your glass. To wisdom. But then you add, it’s hard to go back, throwing out the net when you can’t forget that first fish.

She turns on her stool to face you, looks you over, and says, come on babe, I can fix that. Make you forget your own name.

That she can do, says the bartender, then hurries to add, not that I’ve ever needed my memory wiped.

She laughs and says, you wait, there’ll come a time, even for you, and she laughs along with the bartender. Just like to see the customers satisfied, he says back at her.

If I don’t fix you right up, she says, it won’t cost you a thing. She points to her glass and the bartender fills her up. I’m the Angel of Subtraction. I can take it all away. Whatever it is. I’m here nights and weekends.

Watch yourself, the bartender says to you, she can be addictive.

Bring him another one when we’re done, she says to the bartender as she slips off the stool, a mite unsteady. He’ll need it.

She leads you to a booth in the back, chatting as you go.

Very scientific, she says. Known fact. Resets the chemicals in your brain. I read up on it. I’m not just a pretty face, she says, and laughs. Once I get done, your brain won’t know what to do with itself.

 She gets you seated in the booth, balances her cigarette on her glass, and slips under the table.

Watch the door, she says, and let me know if she does show up.

No chance of that, you tell her, as she takes you into her mouth. But she does show up, superimposed over the lips on you right now.

What would you say? If she did walk in? Standing over you, this cloud of hair, rinsed to a bright rust between your knees? Sorry? It’s one-time thing? I’ll tell you—if you tell me why you left without a half-believable reason?

You think you are about to embarrass yourself with a soft performance. Her vivid absence distracting you from the expert attention given to your crank.

But her face begins a slow dissolve as you respond to the Angel of Subtraction under the table. It’s a long way, but a swift trip, and from a distance you can tell the orgasm train is approaching the station. The nerves in your calves and thighs wake up and the tingling vibration builds. It chugs up to your midriff, your belly flinching and flexing and then the tingle spreading to your ass, clinching closed, all attention to the mouth.

You’re concentrating and you are feeling the swell of intense pleasure rise up through your crank, the forewarning of juice to come and then it’s electric, like lights going on all over the house, your dick swelling—swelling beyond the capacity of your skin to contain it, and the vocalizing that comes unbidden, warnings of impending deluge.

The music is louder somehow. Maybe the bartender turned it up to cover the sounds you’re making. The room fades, the walls fade, the world fades, and you clinch holding onto this feeling. Teetering at the precipice, already over-balanced, you are a cartoon character windmilling your arms to keep an impossible balance at the cliff edge, and then—you explode and rise, not falling, the contractions, a biologic efficiency, jetting it all out of you.

The Angel of Subtraction doesn’t recoil. Instead, pushing down hard, she makes you feel the back of her throat, the swallowing muscles constricting the head to take it all as the convulsions go on, and the sucking goes on, and you are trapped — deliciously trapped—and your legs and belly flinch and jerk, the nerves receiving and responding to the nervous system gone mad with sweet chaotic pleasure.

And then you relax—which is not the right word, but it will have to do—so the weight of your body descends once more and you are lumpen, settling on the booth bench.

She tongues the spot that always makes your leg jump, just because she can.

She comes up from under the table, swinging her ass onto the bench beside you, running a hand through her hair and taking up the cigarette she left burning on the rim of her glass.

 So, she says blowing a jet of smoke up into the dim, shaded light over the table, can you even say the name of her new lover. You think a long minute, then say, yes. Yes, you can, as it swims up from its dark hole, back into your memory. Death, you say. Fucker’s name is death.

The bartender standing there with your fresh drink, goes ‘whoa’ and sets the glass down on the coaster. On me, buddy, he says.

Might as well bring me another while you’re at it, she says. This one’s going to be tough, and she slipped under the table again.

As you are engulfed, surprised at rising again, you hoist your glass to the vacant seat, the missing face across the table, and say, this drink’s on you.

Accident  

When Jake’s head exploded it surprised me. I mean, what woman wants blood all over their living room? Not me. Look, it was an accident. I just wanted him to stop talking. I know it sounds silly. But that’s the truth, and I always tell the truth, believe me. I asked my husband to stop talking and he wouldn’t, he just kept going on and on and on. It didn’t matter what he was yammering about. It could be the weather. Something he saw on TV. What he was thinking. Why my clothing was wrong. If his left elbow had a twinge. Whatever. Anything.

Sometimes I’d wave my hands in his face, in hopes he’d stop jabbering, stop explaining, stop going on and on and on. Other times I’d stomp my foot or tell him I had a headache or was too sleep deprived. That I didn’t need to know that the actual temperature outside differed from what the TV said. Nothing had an effect. I think there was something wrong with him. Maybe his brain had a bad turn-off switch.

Perhaps he was born that way. I don’t know. Why are you staring at me? Like I told you, it was an accident. He would not be quiet when I asked him to.  I didn’t care if Atilla the Hun was born with a different name. So what? Just a constant blah, blah, blah, yak, yak, yak.

That’s when I took out the pistol. For effect. It had blanks in it. Well, it didn’t this time apparently.  But that’s not my fault, because I didn’t put real bullets in it. I don’t know who did that. I can’t imagine who did that. No, blanks can’t kill? 

You don’t believe me, do you? But it’s the truth. I know my rights. Wait a minute, what are you doing? Handcuffs? I don’t need handcuffs. Ouch. That’s too tight. You’re hurting me. Why are you pushing my head down? Oh, into the car. Where are we going? This isn’t right. Who’s Miranda? My husband’s dead and I need to call my sister. You have a phone up there, let me use it. No? This is not right. Look, it was an accident. No, I don’t know who could have put the bullets in there.

I think he did it, loaded the pistol. He probably wanted to catch me by surprise, murder me. He’d reach into the drawer, grab the pistol, and shoot me. That’s probably what he planned to do. No, that’s not crazy.

I want to call my sister. I want a lawyer. Wait. No, that’s not what I want. I want out. Let me out of here.

This isn’t fair. It was an accident, or else a setup. No, I won’t stop kicking the back of your seat. Let me go. You can’t hold me. Oh, you think you can? Well, let me tell you something if you keep talking the same thing might happen to you. No, that’s not a confession. You are so stupid. Don’t you understand? I didn’t put the bullets in the gun. I didn’t plan to kill him. I only wanted to scare him, get his attention so he would listen to me and stop talking.

Where are we going? Observation? You’re looking at me now. I can see that in the mirror. Okay, I’ll be quiet, but you’ll hear from my attorney, and he won’t be quiet. He’ll make a lot of noise. Right. I’ll shut up. I won’t say a thing. I’ll sit silent as a mouse. And I would appreciate it if you would too. I’m tired of hearing you talk so much. Goddamn man.

Midnight Meat

The advertisement was for a loft apartment in a building that had been converted from a warehouse. It was in the fashionable Fishtown section of Philadelphia, an area where prices were always rising. Nowadays Fishtown is a hip area of restaurants, boutiques, nightclubs and galleries. Young professionals want to live there. It is only a ten minute El ride from Center City. You can walk, bike or roller skate the distance if you are health conscious or want to save the environment. Forty years ago, however, Fishtown was different. It was a working class neighborhood of factories and row homes. There were warehouses, not lofts, and corner bars instead of chic eateries and fancy watering holes. I knew the history, vaguely. I was not from out of town. I had grown up in the Roxborough section on city’s northwest fringe. I guess you could say I was one of the would be hipsters who wanted to be closer to the action.

The price for the unit was reasonable. I didn’t understand why at the time, but now know why the rent was lower than most of the buildings around it. I signed the lease and moved in. All was fine for a few weeks. I had time to decorate and explore the area when not at work. Maybe I was too tired from drinking and working those first few weeks, but with time I began to notice things. At first it was strange sounds, always after midnight. It would evolve from there.

One night I was woken by what sounded like mooing. I looked around, thought it was part of a dream, and went back to sleep. A few nights later it was a persistent clucking as if I were surrounded by chickens. Again, there was nothing to be seen and a chalked it off as a dream. Then there was the oinks and shuffle of trotters. This was not every night, nor happening in any fixed pattern. I began to suspect delivery trucks for a halal butcher shop several blocks away, but, when I asked the owner, he said he didn’t take deliveries until 5 AM.

I wondered what this meant, but not too much because the nights were quiet for a while, or quiet enough for Fishtown. There was always the normal rumbling of the El and the noise of cars. Then the music started.

I was laying in bed when I heard the rumba like tune, monotonous, reminiscent of the Muzak that used to be played in elevators and shopping malls.

Da da da. Da da DA DA DA. Da da da. Da da DA DA DA. Da da da. Da da DA DA DA.

It was low at first, but grew louder. I Iooked out of my apartment window to see if a passing car was blasting its radio. There was no car outside. I banged on the ceiling thinking it was coming from my upstairs neighbor’s apartment, then remembered she had moved out the previous weekend. The unit was empty. That left the downstairs tenant. I banged on the floor, then remembered he was visiting California. After twenty minutes or so the music stopped. I could not get back to sleep. I kept thinking about the music and where it could be coming from. I managed to fall back asleep right before my alarm went off. It was a weary and bloodshot day at work.

The next night was safe from music, but the night after that it began early, around 11 PM. 

Da da da. Da da DA DA DA. Da da da. Da da DA DA DA. Da da da. Da da DA DA DA.

It lasted on and off for over an hour.

During my lunch hour at work I went to a drug store and bought a jar of foam earplugs. This should solve the noise problem, or so I thought. That night it was quiet at 11 PM and at midnight, but around three in the morning the music started.

Da da da. Da da DA DA DA. Da da da. Da da DA DA DA. Da da da. Da da DA DA DA.

I took my earplugs out and out them back in again. The sound was the same whether I had the ear plugs in or not, as if the sound was in my head and not in the room. I tossed and turned, and finally shouted, “What do you want from me?” The music stopped. I was finally able to get some sleep.

Being an optimist, I thought that was it. Whatever spell I was under had been broken by confronting it. I was wrong. The next night the real trouble began. Around one in the morning the music began, lower than before, but still audible. It was as if whoever or whatever was the source of the music was trying to be at least a little considerate. I might have been able to sleep in spite of the sound if not for the animals. They came one after another floating across the room, just below the ceiling. They came out of one wall, crossed rug and bed, and disappeared into the wall above the headboard. Cattle mostly. At least this night. Though there were other animals near the end of the parade. A few pigs. Some sheep. A stray cat. They all moved in tune with the music, as if on a conveyor belt of some kind. Start start start, Stop start Stop start, etc. I hid as best I could under the sheets. I buried my head under the pillow. But every time I looked out they were there. Once I pulled the sheets down and stared directed into the eyes of a somber steer who hazed down at me, nose so close to mine that we could have nuzzled.

I went to see a doctor and obtained a prescription for sleeping pills. I slept well for a few nights, then the noise and the visions became my dreams. The same thing every night. After a month I gave up on the pills. I might be getting more rest, but I was not getting away from the problem. I was also afraid that I was be getting addicted. It was taking more pills each night to make my body sleep through the animal show, but my mind could never rest. The animals were always there, inside my head, every night whether I was awake or asleep.

I went to a psychologist. She asked me to talk about what was bothering me. When I told her she gave me a referral to a psychiatrist. I saw the psychiatrist once. He offered me more pills. I knew that would not help any more than sleeping pills. Plus, once I saw the bill I knew I could never afford to be sick in that way.

Without sleeping pills the animals occupied my apartment most nights. The music came at midnight or just after. The animals came out of the wall and danced across the ceiling. Cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, and the rare household pet. They spun and pirouetted. They slid and shuffled. They tapped and twisted. All in time to the music. Da da da. Da da DA DA DA. Da da da. Da da DA DA DA. Da da da. Da da DA DA DA.

My hair began to fall out. Maybe I had caught the mange. Maybe it was just the lack of sleep. Maybe it was the coffee and chemical assistance I had been using to stay awake and alert through the work day. I was tired and itchy. I needed rest. I needed peace. I needed my mind back. I needed my life back. I needed my apartment back.

The dancing continued. Nearly every night. Then one night all the animals crossed over my head. The room was quiet for a minute. Then the conveyor belt reversed. For the first time the animals came out of the wall over the headboard and crossed the room towards my bureau. They were no longer whole beasts. They were pieces. Chopped. Bloodied. Decapitated. Skinned. Plucked. Dismembered. They crossed the room in bloody bits and sometimes in shrink wrapped plastic and foam packages. Da da da. Da da DA DA DA. Da da da. Da da DA DA DA. Da da da. Da da DA DA DA. The music. The music. It could not calm the savage beasts. It could not calm the docile herd. It could not calm me or my stomach. I vomited.

I did some research online about the building where I lived. I found the name of a company, but not much else. I went to the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Central Branch, the big one at 19^th and Vine Streets. I asked for information in the Business and Science Department. A librarian referred me to dusty volumes of old city records and phone books. I learned the business name was for real estate holding company. That was not what I wanted. I wanted to know what was there before. A librarian referred me to the Social Science and History Department and the Map Collection. On a fifty year old map I found my apartment building, the name of a business and the term “rendering plant”. More research in old City Directories, reverse directories, and phone books showed the history of the building. For most of its history it had been a slaughterhouse or a rendering plant processing animals into meat and other products. Skins, bones, hooves and hair all had their value. 

I wanted more information. I had the names of several companies that had been housed in my building over a century. I was sent to the Newspaper Collection. I went through indexes and scanned microfilm of newspapers that no longer existed. An article on music to keep man and beast in better spirits at a local slaughterhouse leaped out at me from 1971 edition of the Philadelphia Bulletin. It was one of those peculiar stories, a mix of business and human interest. Later I read about the history of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws, how they were passed, and how the laws eventually led to the closing of many factories including rendering plants in Philadelphia. The stench and runoff from slaughterhouses and animal processing plants had become unacceptable in a closely packed urban area. Health. Disease. Death. Music. After the plants closed years of vacant buildings, poverty and unemployment characterized the neighborhood. Then rebirth. Fishtown was reborn in the new century. It was a mix of quaint old buildings and new construction. It was clean, modern, hip, desirable. Underneath, the past was still there.

I thought I understood. That night I cried out to the dead. “I’m sorry for what was done to you. I am sorry for the slaughter. The torture. The maiming. The mockery.” I heard music and a noise in the kitchen. Slowly I walked towards the noise. The refrigerator was open. Both the fridge part and the freezer. All the sausages and bacon, the hamburgers and spareribs, the steaks and eggs and scrapple from both the fridge and the freezer had been cast on the floor.

“Is that what you want?” I shouted. “Is that what will bring you peace? Is that what will bring me peace? “ I listened for a response. A low moo, a baa, a squawk? Something. “I mean it.”

It was a quiet night. I burned the meat in reverence and buried the ashes. I became a vegan. Not just a vegan. A low fat vegan. I lost a lot of weight, lowered my blood pressure and lowered my cholesterol. I became more flexible. I healed faster. I felt more calm. More at peace. But the animals did not leave. They wandered around my apartment at night gazing at me with loving eyes. It was beautiful. And creepy. When it came time to renew my lease, I chose to move. 

I found another apartment in Fishtown. I tried to stay vegan for spiritual and health reasons, but it was too damn hard. Especially at barbecues and Thanksgiving. I still ate much less meat than I used to. On most days. But that was not good enough. It could never be good enough. They came for me one night while I was still awake. Not into my new apartment. They stayed outside, floating in the air next to my living room window. Three stories up, the ghosts of the slaughterhouse, the cows, the pigs, the sheep, the hens, all took their turn looking in on me with sad disappointed eyes. 

But they did not make any noise. I had won that much for the effort. 

When I realized this, I felt like celebrating. I put on some music. A familiar piece I had found online. Da da da. Da da DA DA DA. Da da da. Da da DA DA DA. Da da da. Da da DA DA DA. And danced. I had earned it.

The Pope’s Dildo

The head that wears the papal crown was bare. So was the rest of him. After a hard day of leading the world’s one billion Catholics, Pope Porky the Second needed to relax, and best way he knew to relax was stimulation of his aging prostate gland with his favorite vibrating dildo. .His anus was greased, his sphincter relaxed and ready. Pope Porky was prepared in every way except for one thing, he couldn’t find his fucking dildo.

“Where is it?” he growled yelling at the purple socks in the drawer where he kept his toys. He tossed balls of purple silk onto his bed. “It should be here!”

Search as he might, no dildo was to be found. Pope Porky turned his eyes towards the ornately painted ceiling of his bedroom and let out a cry of primal anguish.

Monsignor Pepe De Silva came running in response to the shout, his high heels clicking on the marble floors of the corridors. He arrived at the pope’s bedchamber and banged on the large heavy doors.

“What is it my pope?” de Silva cried. “Have you fallen and you can’t get up?”

“No, Pepe,” the pope wept. “It is worse than that, much worse.”

“What is it your magnification?”

“I can’t tell you until I let you in.”

The pope unlocked the door with his a television remote. Pepe De Silva rushed in, his shoulder slipping through his strapless habit, made from the finest sackcloth. He saw the pope wrapped in a sheet.

“Closed the door,” commanded Pope Porky.

De Silva closed the door.

“What is it?”

“Come closer,” the pope gestured.

The monsignor moved towards the pope. The pope embraced him.

“Pepe, oh Pepe,” Pope Porky slobbered.

“You can tell me anything,” De Silva reassured him with a hug. “What is bothering you so much.”

“Pepe. You know my dildo?”

“The one modeled after Michelangelo’s David?”

“Not David,” Pope Porky corrected, “just his cock.”

“Yes, I know it. I helped you try it out after the Archbishop of Canterbury gave it to you.”

“Ah, yes,” Porky smiled. “How could I forget that night. How the mind weakens as we get older. That is why I thought I had just misplaced it, but I have searched everywhere. Now I fear that it was stolen.”

“Stolen? Who could have done such a thing?”

“I don’t know,” said the pope grimly. “But whomever it was, he or she is a real dastardly bastard.”

“Shall I notify security?” asked De Silva. “Or the police?”

“No,” said the pope. “This is too sensitive a crime. We need someone clever, someone subtle, someone discrete.”

“Who do you suggest?”

“Padre Brio,” said the pope, his features stern.

“Padre Brio?” Monsignor De Silva gasped. “Are you sure? He’s a loose canon, a wild man. He’s out of control.”

“He is also the best man I have,” said the pope.

“And the most dangerous,” sighed De Silva.

Padre Brio was laying on an inflatable mattress floating in a swimming pool in his retreat in Capri. He was working on his tan and enjoying semi retirement. He lifted a large cocktail with a straw to his lips and gazed at a pair of beautiful young women in bikinis splashing nearby. The young nuns were at the height of beauty and had been recruited for their unwavering devotion. Maria was a feisty lass originally from Naples. She could speak seven languages, and her black hair, ample bosom and full lips could stun a man, and many women as well. The nuns had trained her to perfection. Matilda, her rival in the water fight, was an expert in electronics. He slender frame concealed an inner strength fueled by fasting and meditation. She could go for a week without sleep, had done so many times, and she could be trusted unto death never to confess except to the pope himself. Which she had done on more than one occasion when blood was of necessity spilled. Padre Brio shifted his glance to the young seminarian, Antonio, 19, a bronze work of art, as the lad prepared to leap from the diving board into the deep end of the pool. Brio was not sure how this new addition would fit into his team, but he enjoyed the way he fit into Antonio even more than he had meshed with his previous counterpart. 

On parchment, Antonio was an agent in training, filling a role that Brio had once played when he was apprenticed at a similar age. Brio half suspected that Antonio’s role was also to spy on him for the Vatican, to make sure his faith, however liberally practiced, was within the proper range of thought. If that were the case, Padre Brioe could live with it. Brio made sure he lived in accordance with the strict rules, and privileges, afforded him by the Papal Indulgence that sat in his safe deposit box in Zurich. Such were the rewards of being the chief assassin and agent to the Vatican. Of course there were risks. Padre Brio’s firmly muscled chest bore the dark scars of entry wounds. He had been seven times, and stabbed twice more than that, but he still lived. Padre Brio was certain his survival was a miracle, a sign of God’s favor. The Pope had assigned two monasteries, one in Quebec and one in Poland, to pray for Padre Brio in twenty four hour shifts. Padre Brio could feel the power of their faith even as his own rose in his trunks.

A shapely Filipina in a white bikini strode over to the pool holding a towel and a bathrobe.

“It’s the white phone, Padre,” she said with a smile that accentuated everything erotic in her form.

Padre Brio’s eyes widened.

The white hone was a secure hotline. Only the Pope called on it. Regretabbly, it was in the trouble room and could be brought pool side. 

“Thank you, Sister Bianca,” the Padre said.

Bianca was gorgeous, but no one’s toy unless she wanted to be. She came from a family of escrima fighters, trained from childhood until she took the veil at seventeen. Bianca was deadly with a machete, knife or stick. Some of Padre Brio’s scars had come from training with her. Bianca accompanied Brio on some of his rougher jobs.

Brio paddled over to the side of the pool and climbed out. Bianca helped him towel off. Her hand brushed against his swollen member.

“Would you like me to take care of that for you Padre?”

Brio grinned. He slipped on his robe and lowered his Speedo. 

“If you wouldn’t mind,” he said, “but we should not keep the pope waiting for long.”

“Of course not,” Bianca replied sinking to her knees. “I will be quick about it.”

***

The Pope was angry at being kept waiting, but Padre Brio was in a good mood when he picked up the phone. 

“Your Holiness, to what do I owe this pleasure?”

“You owe loyalty, obedience, secrecy and success,” recited the Pope.

“Bananas taste best when they are yellow and hard,” said Brio repeating the day’s code phrase.

“But some prefer bananas that are brown and soft,” replied the pope with the other half of the code phrase.

“Who came up with today’s code phrase?” Brio asked. “Monsignor De Silva?”

Pope Porky grunted, “I picked this one.”

“And what a good phrase it is,” Brio kiss-assed.

The pope sighed, “So you did not like the code phrase. Don’t treat me as if I am an infant.”

“My apologies, your holiness,” Padre Brio said with with emotion while bowing slightly to the phone. “I did not mean to offend. How can I be of service?”

“A private and personal object of great value has gone missing.”

“What is it?”

“I dare not tell you over a telephone.”

“This is a secure line.”

“We are in Italy. There is no such thing as a secure line.””

“How will I find out what this object is?” Brio asked.

“Monsignor De Silva has sent a carrier pigeon. It should be arriving soon.”

A shotgun blast was heard. 

“What was that?” asked the pope with alarm.

“Probably my groundskeeper,” Brio said. “He fancies himself a hunter.”

“What can he hunt on a small island?”

“Birds mostly.”

“He better not kill my pigeon,” the pope growled. “It is a fancy breed.”

“He does not tell me what he kills, and I do not tell him who I kill,” Brio explained. ”It is an agreement we have.”

“He sounds like a scoundrel. Why do you keep him on?”

“He has relatives in the Calabrian mob,’ Brio said. “Those connections are sometimes useful.”

Benito Esposito entered the room. He was a short bull-face man with broad shoulders and a flat nose. A brace of birds hung from a string in his hands, including a pigeon with rare and colorful plumage.

“Boss,” he said in a deep voice. “I think this pigeon is for you.”

“Thank you Benito.”

Brio grabbed the pigeon and slipped the note from its leg.

“Your message has arrived.” Brio told the pope. 

“Good, take a look at it and tell me if you can help.”

Brio read the message and suppressed a laugh.

“Your holiness, I think I can help you, but you will need to provide me with a list, a complete list, of all who have had access to your bedchamber since you last saw the object.”

“That would only be three. Monsignor De Silva, Cardinal Scruggs and Monsignor Menida.”

“Is that all? What about security and cleaning staff? What about secret visitors?”

“I can get you the names of the guards and cleaning staff, but I do not know you mean by secret visitors, are you suggesting something untoward?”

“I suggest nothing,” Brio said. “I just ask questions. The answers suggest more questions. It is one way of getting to the facts, but there are others. I will check the security tapes.”

“The object was not used for three days before its loss was determined,” the pope said somberly. “If that helps any.”

“Every piece of information helps,” assured Brio. “I will get Matilda on it. How soon can we get the security tapes, visual, audio, whatever you have?”

“By this evening.”

“Good,” said Brio. “I hope you did not send more pigeons?”

“Of course not,” said the Pope. “They are in a compressed digital file sent to your secure computer.”

“Very well,” said Brio. “We shall see what we shall see.”

“I want this matter solved quickly.,’ ordered the pope. “No leaks, No screw ups. No scandal. The Church as has had too much scandal.”

“Of course your holiness,” Brio said oozing charm and confidence. “Have I ailed you yet?”

“No,” Pope Porky agreed. “Let us pray you do not fail me now.”

***

Matilda went over the tapes while Antonio and Maria ran background checks on all the guests on a list provided by the pope. As Brio had suspected, there had been a backstairs visitor, a disreputable ballet dancer from Budapest. Brio thought it was wise of the pope to produce this new information. Concealing it from Brio would have only delayed the investigation. 

“I doubt our good pope was taking dance lessons,” Brio told Maria. She was not pleased with the remark. 

“Remember your vows, padre” she hissed.

Touchy, Brio thought, but he should have known better. If not for Pope Porky’s dispensations, they would all be mournfully celibate, or at least trying to be, and none of them would be enjoying the cloak and dagger world, unless they were missionaries in China, Iran or Guatemala.

Antonio brought him the news he was looking for. Brio read the dossier his assistant had prepared, pulled from newspaper clippings, Interpol reports and attendance lists at inter-faith conferences. Brio double checked the facts himself, then called the Pope.

“Be careful who you dance with.”

“What do you mean?” Pope Porky asked with indignation.

“Your visitor has some unsavory connections.”

“The Mafia?’

“No,” Padre Brio said. “They are old friends. This is an older enemy who may try to play a game the Mafia plays well.”

The pope asked, “What game and what enemy?”

“The game is blackmail,” Brio said grimly, “and the enemy is the oldest enemy the Roman Catholic church has.”

The pope gasped, “The Lutherans?”

“Older than than that.”

“The Muslims?”

“Older still.”

“You can’t mean…” 

“I do,” Brio said firmly. “The Patriarch of Constantinople.”

“You mean Istanbul?” the pope corrected.

“Call it what you will. I believe your object is on its way there now.”

“Why?” the pope inquired. “What good would it be to the Patriarch?”

“It is most likely wanted for leverage in unification talks between the Orthodox churches and the Roman Catholic churches. What has been the major stumbling blocks to unification? Married clergy? No. Latin versus Greek for liturgy? No. The two stumbling blocks have been the refusal of the West to admit that the Latin translations on which the Western faith is founded were poor translations, the Eastern translations being more accurate from the start. The second major stumblingly block has always been who is top dog. Who bows to who? If the Patriarch can get you to bow to him, if you bend, the Patriarch will have the power, the prestige and the patronage that goes with it. After that, who knows? In another five hundred years the other christian churches may follow suit like loyal children and bow to the Patriarch. The Patriarch would control all of Christianity. And who would control the Patriarch? I think you know.”

“We can’t let that happen,” the pope said angrily. “We cannot diminish the the See of Peter.”

“We won’t let it happen,” Brio assured him. “I’m leaving for Istanbul with my team in a matter of hours, but I need an extra player.”

“Who do you you need?”

“I want sister Gerturde.”

The pope was silent.

“Sister Gertrude is retired. She is greatly troubled by her former life of service to the church. In her moral crisis, she has taken a vow of silence and transferred to a Carmelite Convent. No one gets in. No one gets out. It is high walls, small cells, days and nights of deprivation and prayer.”

“I would have thought she had enough of that when she was in that KGB prison,” Brio said thoughtfully. “It was very difficult to spring her. Cost several lives. If that is what she wanted, she should have let me know and I would have left her there. Now I need her.”

“Do not mock Sister Gertrude’s faith,” the pope scolded. “I fear her vocation is stronger than yours.”

“So is her wrist lock, but I still need her special skills.”

The pope sighed. 

“This may not be the best thing for her soul, but if it is for the good of the Church…?”

“It is essential to the survival of the Church.”

The pope conceded.

“I will see to it that she meets you in Istanbul.”

*** 

Sister Gertrude was an enormous Dutch nun, an expert in Judo and other martial arts, such as the little know drunken style and ox style. She was also an expert torturer, a talent that had greatly challenged her faith and caused her fits of despair. In between jobs she was often plunged into dark binges of prayer, denial and flagellation. But when the pope called, Sister Gertrude always came. She never failed to follow through with an assignment, no matter how much physical pain or spiritual anguish it caused her.

The pope’s mischievous dancer was performing at a theater in Istanbul. He was a bit player on stage, but a much larger player in the world of religious espionage. A triple agent, he had worked for the Russian Metropolitan, the Greek Patriarch and the Church of Scientology. He had been lucky until now, but his time was running short. 

Matilda became a maid for a day at the hotel where the dance troop was staying. It only required a uniform, a fake mustache and a lot of chutzpah. Matilda searched the Hungarian dancer’s room. She did not expect to be so fortunate as to find the dildo. She did not, but was able to bug the room with cameras and listening devices. Bianca covered her head in a scarf and watched the front door, posing as a street vendor. She followed our dancer where ever he went. She later reported seeing him meeting with a known Orthodox priest. No packages were exchanged. 

Antonio stationed himself in the hotel bar. He lured one of the other minor dancers into a tryst, drugged him and assumed his identity before the evening performance. In between acts he jabbed the suspected thief with a needle. Brio, disguised as a stage hand, helped get the package to the street and shove him into a waiting car with Maria at the wheel. Sister Gertrude was waiting in the safe house. It was safe for Padre Brio and his team, not for the intrepid dancer. The poor man nearly died when he saw Gertrude’s instruments laid out on the table waiting for him. Despite his apparent fright, he was a tough bastard. It took more than a crushed testicle and a few missing finger nails to get him to reveal the whereabouts of the dildo.

“It’s hidden in my ass,” the man confess. “It has been there the whole time.”

“Incredible.” Gertrude stammered. “You must have one deep anus.”

“It is my pride.
“Was your pride,” Brio said.

He stuck his hand into the dancer’s dark recesses and felt around. There was something there. A string? Brio pulled it. The man laughed.

Brio realized his stupidity.

“Everyone out quickly!”

Our dancer was in no condition to run, but he did not seem to care. Brio’s team barely got out of there before the dancer’s intestines exploded, taking half the house with them.

“What now boss?” Antonio asked.

“We trace his steps,” Padre Brio said. “He must have ditched the dildo somewhere in town.”

“I’ve checked his room already,” said Matilda.

“We have not checked the theater.”

The show was over. The performance had not been the best, being shy two dancers, but the audience had been indifferent and had not noticed the poor quality of the art displayed before them. The troop had returned to their hotel. The police were another matter, They seemed to be creeping around the theater in uncomfortable numbers, as if they had been tipped off that something was up. This is where the ladies proved most useful. Turkish sexism made them less suspect to the local police, and men being men everywhere, they were easily duped by their charms. Even Gertrude drew the attention of one officer. The poor soul did not live long enough to give her the tussle he had desired. It was a messy affair, but Brio had come prepared. He had his team plant pamphlets in Kurdish on the bodies so local rebels would take the blame for the casualties. The dressing rooms revealed no secrets. Nor did the prop room, but the stage was another matter. Matilda ran a series of sweeps of the area. She saw something odd in an x-ray scan. She notified Padre Brio.

“Look at that sandbag used to leverage one of the backdrops. There is a long shape inside it.”

Brio looked at the ghostly shape on Matilda’s hand held monitor.

“Could just be a bottle of booze hidden by one of the stage crew,” Brio cautioned.

”Could be,” Matilda agreed, “but we’ll never know until we look.” 

Antonio shimmied up the rope attached to the sandbag. He cut open the bag with a dagger. Sand poured onto the floor. The back drop behind the team raised slightly. Brio watched the grains fall until the dildo appeared. It was a work of exquisite craftsmanship, a gold and jeweled vibrating dildo, presently missing its batteries, a work of art suitable to please a pontiff.

Bianca, who was on watch, signaled Brio to hurry as more police had arrived, looking for officers who had not called in. Matilda had previously arranged for a diversionary explosion a quarter mile away, should it be necessary. She pushed a key on her cell phone. The small bomb detonated. The blast drew the police away from the theater long enough for Padre Brio’s team to slip off into the dark. A speed boat was waiting on the coast near Marmara. The papal dildo safe in a latex sack, was secured in Sister Gertrude’s unassailable vagina. In an hour hour the team was on an Italian fishing trawler, skirting Greek territory. A seaplane met them south of Kithira. They landed near Brindisi. Two limousines were waiting. Padre Brio, Sister Gertrude, and Bianca climbed into one vehicle. Matilda, Antonio and Maria git in the other. They were driven to a private landing strip and a jet ride to Rome. 

Pope Porky was ecstatic upon seeking his beloved dildo again. 

“Padre Brio,” he declared. “Buy some purple socks. I am making you a Monsignor.”

“As you wish your holiness,” Brio said, “but what about my team?”

“My blessings and forgiveness to you all.” 

The pope called to Monsignor De Silva, “Get the cards.”

De Silva bowed, exited the private chamber where the pope was having his audience Padre Brio and his team. De Silva returned with what appeared to be a set of business cards. He handed one to Padre Brio and each member of his team. Each read the card he or she had been given.

Padre Brio looked at the card in his hand. It read, “Get of of hell free,” and bore the papal signature.

“Go ahead,” said Pope Porky. “Enjoy yourselves. You’ve earned it.”

And we will, Padre Brio, thought. We will, until the next time that duty calls.