by Stephen Biro
Our relationship lasted nearly a month before she passed into the afterlife on a bright Tuesday morning, her arms and legs were totally gone at this stage, all that was left was a bloodstained torso and head. Her passing seemed fast, one minute she’d been here breathing and the next, this small empty husk lay on the cold floor. She had moved on, I hoped to a better place for I meant her only goodwill for the services she had performed. Although there was no emotional bond in terms of love, I would genuinely miss her company on a daily basis just as I still missed Jane.
The day she died, I cooked her pretty soft brown eyes in batter and served them with a helping of mixed vegetables as a light lunch. For the record, they didn’t taste dissimilar to oysters. Later, after removing her skullcap with a saw (this was hard work and I wish I’d had proper equipment at hand for the procedure), I removed her brain and ate some of the grey matter in a curry, the remainder I soaked before cooking with eggs and milk, eating them scrambled. They were fatty but tasty nonetheless and rich in omega-3; brain food, indeed.
I cut her remaining pale flesh from her, wrapped it carefully, almost ceremoniously, and froze it for future meals, refrigerating too the offal that would provide sustenance in the short term. Once this was done, I buried her remains in my muddy grounds in a deep hole I’d dug over the proceeding weeks, next to the bones of dearest Jane.
As I was rooting through her bag of belongings, I found a file of papers containing what would become my “to do list” for the foreseeable future. It contained thorough personal details of every individual who had undergone treatment at one of the clinics using animal genetics in plastic surgery. In my mind’s eye, I could see my field becoming a grazing area for several pig-people. I’d allow them to grow big and strong before enjoying them to the full. Ah, such dreams, it was my mission to make this a reality, to put flesh on the bones of this brainwave. It could not have been a coincidence that Dawn had called at my home; it was meant to be. I’m not a religious man but a higher power was surely at work here and I would be a fool not to accept such help from above.
My dreams were disturbed last night, fevered and hallucinogenic. In one, I was lying in a state of paralysis on a huge silver platter whilst nightmarish half-human, half-animal beasts circled me, surveying my still body with ill-concealed glee, droplets of puss-like saliva dribbling from eager mouths, black tongues licking malformed lips. A malevolent goat-like creature peered into my face and laughed bloodcurdlingly before biting down on my face, its pointed fangs taking a deep chunk out of my cheek. I screamed as the other demonic creatures descended on me; their teeth and talons ripping into my protesting skin as they enjoyed the tasty pleasures my body had to offer them. My head was savagely yanked and pulled by numerous demons that reminded me of wolves until, despite my protests; it separated from my neck and body with a disgusting wet ripping sound that reminded me of Velcro. Even beheaded, I was still capable of seeing and hearing the morbid spectacle taking place. I tried to cry out but couldn’t make a sound.
My head was placed in a prominent position in the room so I could watch the bloody butchery unfold before me, my innards being devoured by the baying mass of furry bodies. A small but sprightly goblin-like figure struggled to join the mass of bodies attacking my body, managing instead to slip between my legs, fastening onto my pride and joy with its crooked teeth and chomping on my manhood like a hungry tramp would eat a hotdog.
I woke this morning with a start, my heart pumping too fast in my chest. I took a handful of mixed meds and washed them down with the glass of water sitting on the bedside table, waiting for my heart to regain its normal pace and my mind to focus on reality before swinging both legs out from beneath the duvet. With all that has gone on in recent months, I can still look myself straight in the eyes when I shave. I have done no wrong, just followed my natural impulses as a predator, enjoying life’s great tapestry on a daily basis. My moral compass is still pointing towards true north. As I finished brushing my yellowing tobacco stained teeth today, it could have been a trick of the light but I could have sworn my appearance had changed somewhat, that my features were subtly softer and that my nose had become just a fraction shorter. I smiled at my reflection and the beast in the mirror grinned back at me.
DIVE
Michael S. Simmons
The following is the opening of the novel “Ghost of the Gulf”
“Dive.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. A dive.”
Irony is what it was, but a stronger word fit better, if there was one.
“The place is a dive. Period. You remember the weird cannibal thing? The one where the crabs ate each other?”
That was weird. Kind of. But not that weird.
Skip chuckled. “It’s nothing different than bikini girls jello wrestling at a bar. Brings people in. Makes people drink. Makes people money.”
Right. But the wrestling women didn’t dine on one another.
Two black dots, in a grey sea, insignificant in the big picture, we were those two black dots. And we were treading water.
The seas were grey. The clouds would clear, hopefully not, because the summer sun was a killer out here. It’s called exposure. And we’re in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. You see, we had a little hiccup on our expedition.
Our boat sank.
Looking down we could see flashes of scaly skin reflecting the sunlight. We weren’t sure if they were white trout, which again, ironically, I fished for in Bay St. Louis as a kid. Or grey sharks, which were very common in the Gulf.
I wasn’t scared of sharks.
Until now of course.
We also had a sprinkle of luck. We had our wet suits on.
And we’re treading water and chit-chatting. I was stuck in this situation with my best friend Skip, so our small talk was the talk.
“Now I’ve got to get Karen to review the place.”
“I’ve eaten there. It’s a dive. The Crab Shack sucks.”
“She’s got to give it a decent review. I’ve got to convince her.”
“If not, Otis will arrest her.”
We both laughed.
“Is Otis really a cop?” That was the big question of Pass Christian, a little Mississippi town parked on the Gulf of Mexico. Wiped out by Katrina, it was being rebuilt with fed and state funds.
Skip gave out some great advice. “Give her some drinks first. Food’s always better if you’re buzzed.”
The slow rolling waves of the Gulf lifted us up, and then dropped us down. The waves were a gentle but dramatic roller coaster. Rescue was just around the corner, and we were cocky and confident.
But as time dragged on, and our words began to run out, it got to be a lonely ocean. The clouds were breaking, the sun was coming out. Exposure, I told you I was worried. Exposure wasn’t the worry. Sunburn me. Dehydrate me. Make me 24/7 super-sea sick. It was the idea of not being rescued, the idea of dying out here. At least let me get a message to my loved ones.
But that was all ridiculous paranoid panic talk. A boat would cut right over the horizon, and we’d be warming up and liquefying our bodies quickly.
“Hey, Charlie, what are we going to write on? We’ve got to leave death notes. I saw it on T.V.” He didn’t say it – I imagined it – but he was going to say it. The funny part was our potential mortality didn’t faze our ability to talk about anything and everything. It was like going on Oprah for 72 hours straight – on eight cups of coffee - before being executed.
The clouds cleared. Damn! Direct sunlight beaming down on you, skin would burn. Our beat-up hats were ugly, but it was saving our noggins from getting fried. If not, we’d have baked head.
But what was worse, no water. Even though we were up to our necks to it, drinking salt water will kill you quickly. All this gentle, cozy liquid would dehydrate a body at an awful rate.
“Otis saved the Crab Shack,” Skip stated. “And now he loves it and wants some payback. It’s amazing what free food will do to people.”
“I could use some seafood now.”
Now that’s ironic. Damned ironic. It had been 24 hours since we lost the boat.
“I still don’t understand how Otis became a cop.”
“How he became a cop? Skip, he’s now the Mayor.”
A few weeks ago, on a lovely Tuesday afternoon it had just showered, and the beautiful grey rain clouds were traveling east and the powerful sun shone down on the wet earth. My cell chimed. My programmed chime was a powerful rock song. So whenever my phone rang, it was like the opening of an adventure movie, one that had never happened. Until now.
“Hey, Charlie, you got Saturday open?”
When Skip called, it was like fresh air, or the sound of a beer can being popped open on a hot summer day, or maybe just getting away from the wifey for a while. You see, I loved her. And still do. But all the TV experts say that a couple needs space between them. But not too much, as too much space ultimately gets filled in by divorce. We had our ups and downs, but through it all, I stayed loyal. Well, almost loyal. There was an incident, one incident…we’ll let me put it this way; it’s going to stay buried. Buried deep. Buried deeper than that buried treasure in a deep ocean, that again, ironically, is what we were looking for.
Until the boat sank.
Hell, we all make mistakes. And hopefully they won’t kill us, or destroy our friends, or our wifeys. And Hell again, we all make mistakes. And this was the humble beginnings of another. In fact, a whopper. If not - ‘The Whopper’. Never imagined for a minute we might die. Not good.
“Hey, Charlie? You there? Or you spacing out on some hottie in a one-piece?”
Skip laughed, and then stopped. I juggled the phone to get comfortable. Calls with Skip could turn into epics.
“What’s going on?” I answered.
“Otis got the keys.”
“He got the keys? You’re shitting me.”
“Otis got ‘em.”
Otis was Skip’s brother-in-law. Otis was a real piece of work brother-in-law. I guess we all have them in some way or another. The word brother-in-law has a connotation, maybe a stink around it that means ‘proceed with caution’… cause look out, you may have a good time. And brother-in-laws can also be a curse.
Karen had a brother. So I had a brother-in-law. But he was gone now. He disappeared one weekend thirteen years ago. Still not a whisper of what happened. He didn’t owe money. He was a good man, had no enemies. But pow! He was gone. Karen and I don’t talk about it anymore. That’s buried, too. His disappearance screwed with our marriage for about a year, then Karen got her senses back, a rebalancing, and we got smooth again. That incident actually drew us closer. Still a heartbreaker, though. One of those great mysteries in life that will never be solved; just gets stored by your mind on a shelf that stops getting visited.
“How the hell did Otis get keys?”
“It’s one hell of a story, Charlie. But screw that. You got Saturday open?”
Otis was a sad excuse for a cop in Pass Christian. He was too local, too casual, too well known for being well known. In a pinch, Otis would make the right decision. That’s the only reason he has his job. During Katrina, he saved a black family caught in an SUV being pulled into an overrun flood channel with water pouring in from Lake Pontchartrain. Otis wasn’t going for fame; he really risked himself to save the family. Then it turns out the family was related to the nanny that raised him. That coincidental connection caused the family’s business, the Crab Shack, to revive and bring in more customers. See, Otis and the family he rescued got real tight. Then Otis became the ‘de facto’ mayor of Pass Christian. And free food at the Crab Shack for life. Basically this white boy was adopted by the black family. It was a good story and might make a good book. And it always felt good to see the races getting along. I had seen too much negative shit in my life growing up in New Orleans. So much of it was race’s talking about other races, and not once the term ‘human being’ was heard.
But what was Otis doing in New Orleans during the killer storm? Cheating on his girlfriend? His girlfriend was a mean one. One time I saw Otis and he had a black eye. Claimed he walked into a mirror. A mirror? Yeah, right. How do you walk into yourself?
Anyway with Otis, something very odd and very tempting fell into his lap. He had a knack for things like that. He got access to a boat yard, but not any boat yard. A boat yard is a landlocked fenced off area that held boats up on blocks, being stored for various reasons. Whether being re-planked, repainted or a new keel or engine installed, it seemed that many of these boats rarely made it back into the water. When you drive from Pass Christian to New Orleans, you can see hundreds of boatyards with watercraft that will never be wet again unless it rains. Which it does, all the time in the South; we’ve got a nasty rainy season here.
Most of these boats will never float again. Katrina had unintentionally refloated many of the boats with her flooding, clearing them out. They ended up in the Gulf like ghost ships and were declared a danger to water traffic. The Coast Guard ordered them all sunk. So the fed offered contracts to sink them. That would be the most fun one could have in their life. Sinking boats and getting paid for it. I was thinking of getting a contract to sink ‘em all, but I got beat to it by the Saltaformaggio’s from Bay St. Louis. The Salty’s were going to sub-contract me, but in the end, we all got sunk. The deal got stalled in Federal Court. Damn. And lawyers keep flying their firms directly into the target, the Salty’s proved too costly for them to pursue the case.
So I was still fixing compressors and the like at Westwego Gas & Oil. It was a good job, but I really wished I’d stayed in law. But that’s all history now.
“Of all people, Otis has got a damned lucky charm around his neck, Charley. You tell me. Hey, you got Saturday open?”
I had to think on that one, because I made a promise to Karen. And we all know relationships are built on promises fulfilled. And I was a little weak on that. If a score was kept, I guess you could say I was behind. Way behind.
Skip gave me the down low. “Homeland Security approached Otis to watch over the Fed’s goods. They get all those drug dealer yachts and boats, and then they confiscate them, and then store ‘em in this yard down in Pass Christian. Locals were always breaking in and trying to steal them. Not to do drugs or anything, but just to go fishing in the Gulf. Or maybe to move drugs around. I don’t know and I don’t give a shit about that.”
“Skip, man. What are we talking here?” I adjusted my seat trying to find a bit of ass comfort, digging in for a longer phone call. I don’t like to get caught up in Skip’s shenanigans, but my butt was finding a soft spot, because my subconscious was ordering it too. It was saying ‘listen, there is gold in that Gulf.’ I was tired of being half broke all the time. Karen did some local reviews, of restaurants, and things that the public does, but the money was poor. Like us. But I loved Karen and didn’t mind carrying the load as she pursued her dream. I think I mostly did it because Karen’s ultimate review would be of me – and I might not do so well. Ah, love.
“There’s some honey’s in there.”
“Hell, yeah. There’s a 75 footer worth at least 500k that I’d love to get wet.”
“What happens? They get auctioned off? The DEA get all the dough?”
“Not sure. But the Fed’s forgot about it. I think Homeland doesn’t know what to do. And it doesn’t want to hand ‘em over to the DEA, then they’ll get all the profits from the auction. That’s my guess why no auctions for years and more boats coming in. I don’t understand, and Otis says he don’t either. But regardless—“
“—Otis has the keys.”
Even though on the phone, we exchanged smiles. There was that pause where smiles shoot across the phone lines, or whatever cell phones do. I got rid of my line land a long time ago.
“We’ve got to make this one special.”
With stars in my eyes, I said, “go for the General?”
“Hell yes, Charles, the Genera
l!”
Ya’ see, the General was a converted minesweeper, owned by the U.S Government that would make runs between New Orleans and Miami. Back and forth, east and west, through the Gulf. There was a rumor it was running confiscated drug money to the Federal Bank in the Crescent City.
That is until it sank on a run back to New Orleans. Which could mean that it was loaded with money, gold, silver and of course whatever else your imagination could conjure up. And after a few drinks, a million turned into 30 million…depending on the quality of the booze.
“Shit, Skip. I think my Saturday just opened up. Maybe Karen will want to go. You can bring Joyce.”
“Well, naw. Let’s just go ourselves.”
“Oh, so when we find all that gold and silver on the General, we don’t have to split it with our wives?”
“Now, I did not say that.”
“Yes you did.”
If I did that, Karen would neuter me, then slice my ears off, gouge my eyes out with a spoon, then just to top it off - cut my chest open and eat my heart. That would hurt. And I couldn’t blame her. Would hurt my review, you know what I mean?
And now we were two black dots, in a very grey, very deep, very large sea. And we were as thirsty as hell. Throats dry, our talk was scratchy. Thinking was getting a tad disoriented. Thoughts would come and go randomly.
“You’ll never believe what’s in the water bottle!” I’ll never forget what Skip yelled out as the boat was sinking. “
It was a great laugh then, and still is. Also, was the idea that two scuba divers in wetsuits were on deck as their boat sank from underneath them. We just stepped off the deck as she went under. But we made one big error.
We didn’t have our fins on.
Though in our wetsuits, exposure was starting to set in. If the water temperature is even slightly lower than your body temperature, even with a wetsuit, there’s a chance you will freeze to death. Well, let me explain it like this. You’re about 98 degrees. If the water you’re in is 7 degrees lower, you will eventually die from exposure. Freeze to death - in slow motion. Over 10 days. Maybe 20 days. No one really knows, and then with no drinking water? Well that’s the real death sentence. The wetsuits could only do so much. Plus our skin was soaked, water captured by the neoprene.
