The Pisstown Chaos

by David Ohle

  When Jacob's turn came, the nurse said, "Stand behind that screen and lower your rags and briefs. We're looking at anal discharges, to get a baseline parasite count. This is the second phase of the new shift. Word came down yesterday from the Reverend's office. I guess they're doing a study. It's for the public good."

  Jacob lowered his pants and pulled down his shorts. He felt the cool sting of alcohol being applied with a cotton swab, then the insertion and twisting of something dull and wooden. "Ouch!"

  The nurse withdrew the broken probe. "These probes are not well made. Looks like a little piece stayed in there. Oh, well. Nothing we can do. It won't harm you. Natural processes will dissolve it. Move on, now. Go out the back entrance. You and your new partner will be issued a trailer number, a map, and a pedal car. It's up to you to locate your trailer."

  "How large is the camp?" Jacob asked the nurse.

  "It would take a full day to pedal around it. So don't get lost. There are Guards at the gate and they'll point you in the right direction. They'll also have you take a strong dose of Willy."

  New arrivals waited behind the Quonset hut to be issued pedal cars. Camp trustees pedaled them up to the crowd one at a time from a garage so far from the welcome station, it took the better part of an hour. The process was agonizingly slow.

  At some distance, Mildred saw the young American and his old shift-partner get into their pedal car. Other shiftees knew the half-dead stinker wouldn't be pedaling at all and some of the larger, heavier males got behind the car and gave it a push. It rolled slowly down a slight incline, then gained momentum.

  "I'm going to refuse the willy," Mildred said. "What can they do if you refuse? Turn you around and send you home?"

  "What's wrong with willy? I hear it's relaxing. And I could use something to ease the pain down there. She left a splinter in my bung, from the probe. It hurts."

  "It doesn't surprise me. The swabs were dirty. They used them over and over. Tell me, who owns the patent on the swabs and the probes? Who owns the plant where they make them?"

  "The Reverend, I guess."

  "Of course."

  "So what? He's a good man. He's looking out for us. He's got a plan. I'm taking the willy. It's harmless. That's what they say. It's natural. It comes from urpflanz, a juice from the root. Hooker says it's the perfect plant. It has a thousand uses.

  "And I'm sure one of them is to make what's intolerable more or less agreeable."

  "You're crazy, girl. You're gonna get into trouble."

  A reconditioned pedal car was eventually brought to them, freshly painted bright yellow, but with a dry, rusty chain, grinding gears and a broken windshield.

  "We're gonna be a hell of a mating pair," Jacob said, strapping his feet into the pedals, then squeezing Mildred's shoulder. "But I'll take it slow."

  At the gate was a small, octagonal guardhouse. Two Divine Guards armed with billy bats played pinochle inside and smoked hand-rolled urpflanz cigarettes. One of them got up languidly and strode to the pedal car with two doses of willy in waxed paper envelopes, a packet of documents, and a bottle of water. "Here's your trailer number, a map to find it, a list of do's and don'ts, and your willywhack." He handed the documents to Mildred and the willy to Jacob. "One for you and one for the woman. Have a swig of water if you like."

  "I'm not taking that," Mildred said matter-of-factly. "It doesn't agree with me. I'll take my chances without it."

  "I'll take it," Jacob said. "I'll take hers, too, if it's all right."

  The second Guard swaggered from the guardpost with his billy bat drawn. "What have we got here, a refuser? Nixing the willy, are you? Get out of the car, both of you."

  "It was her," Jacob said. "Hell, I'll take it gladly ... . Come on, Mildred, take it, please."

  "No, I'm not. If it's free, and from the Reverend, it's to be avoided."

  "Listen to me, lady. This is willy-10, far, far purer than anything they've come up with yet. Willy-1 was rough, untested, yes, and it killed a lot. But we're nine levels beyond that. Now it's also an anti-parasitic."

  "I don't believe it," Mildred insisted.

  "All right. That's it. I'm going to shove it down your throat. Then you'll know what you're missing."

  Mildred tried to keep her mouth closed and her teeth clenched, but the two Guards overpowered her, brought her to the ground and pried open her mouth. She had no option but to swallow the willy, encased in a gelatin capsule. If she hadn't she would have gagged. After this, Jacob swallowed his dose with a gulp of chalky, off tasting water.

  One of the Guards said, "Okay, get in the car and follow the map. Go north fifty trailers then dogleg cast. You're in living unit 8080802. You can find all the things you need either in the unit itself or on the grounds. There are plenty of imps living in the greenbelt that surrounds the camp. Trap them or club them for food. In the camp, you'll have to rely a lot on your own devices." He backed away from the pedal car. "What about willy?" Jacob asked. "How do we get more willy?"

  "A wagon comes by once or twice a week, possibly tomorrow, I think. You'll be supplied with willy and commodities, too. Water, starch bars, urpmeal, the works. And don't forget, that dose of willy you just had'll put you to sleep right at curfew. It's time-release, so be warned."

  The other Guard leaned into the window. "On your way, now, folks. The sun's going down. Things can get hincty in there at night when the stinkers get restless and roam."

  Feeling a surge of energy from the willy, Mildred and Jacob pedaled effortlessly. The car's wheels spun in the dirt as it rolled on at a fast rate and headed up the only hill in the camp.

  "This willy isn't bad," Mildred said.

  "See, I told you."

  "They've improved it a lot."

  "It gives me ideas," Jacob said, "I'll trap imps. We'll eat the meat and make hats from the fur. We can sell those and turn a few bucks." He glanced out the window once the hill had been topped and they were gliding down.

  Mildred watched a nighthawk streak across the face of the moon, dipping and turning in pursuit of mayflies. "It's a beautiful night. My blisters don't itch any more, and I love the way the moonlight dances over the trailer roofs."

  "I feel alive. Full of hope," Jacob burbled.

  "Same here," Mildred said. "Resisting it wasn't worth the trouble."

  After three or four wrong turns, they located trailer 8080802, which was set far apart from the others at the very edge of the camp, standing against a perimeter fence made of concrete and steel and topped with broken glass. The trailer had been lifted onto concrete piers that were out of level, so that it leaned downward in one rear corner. The few trees that survived in the area were in decline, their foliage tinged with a dry, brown fungus.

  A few feet away from the trailer, bees and flies swarmed around a small metal privy, entering and leaving through a vent in the roof. Beside the privy, covered with a canvas tarp were sacks of lime and a small shovel.

  "I'm surprised we have no neighbors," Mildred said. "You can't see any other trailers from here." She walked around 8080802, noting the broken jalousie windows and the tattered curtains behind them. She picked up a stick and knocked down a few of the mud-dauber nests that were plastered on the shady underside of the back window awning. The steel drum mounted on the roof to catch rainwater worried her. It dripped from several small rust holes.

  Jacob got on his knees and pulled a crate of gel cans from under the trailer. "Okay, we got a shitter, we got lime, we got water up there on the roof, and we got enough gel to last awhile. So far, so good." He entered the trailer to have a look.

  Mildred stood near an open jalousie. "How is it in there?"

  "It's hot as blazes and it stinks."

  The mattress in the bedroom was speckled with yellow mold and sagged under a mat of hair. "Looks like imps been living in here," he shouted.

  A jar of dried urpflanz graced the top of a bedside table. A drawer was full of candles and matches. The pellet stove had seen long-term use and was in con
siderable disrepair. "I can fix that," Jacob said, "but there's no pellets around. We're gonna freeze come winter."

  Mildred entered the trailer warily, her hands in the air, careful not to touch any of the dusty, oily surfaces all around her. Something was spattered above the sink, an old stain, years old. It was dark red, almost black, and could have been blood.

  Jacob took her hands. "How's about a little smack, honey? Right on the kisser."

  No, not yet. No mating yet. It's almost curfew anyway."

  Shortly before ten, when a merciful breeze swept hot air out of the trailer and made it habitable for the night, Mildred and Jacob fell into effortless, willy-deep sleep on the dirty mattress.

  Two.

  The well-known Doolittle girl has made the news again. Her mother recently attested that the child's progress was not typical. In her first year the deep-set eyes grew dark and animal-like, and she was never known to sleep or cry. Whenever she opened her mouth and let her tongue slither forth, she was fed starch bars. During the long summer days she lay quietly cool in her basement room, staring restfully at a radiating water stain on the pulp-board ceiling. At intervals this state of semi-awareness would lapse, her head would turn into her sour pillow, and a white foam would spill from her open mouth and rapidly harden as it ran down her throat and onto her quilt.

  One sultry wet night, Daisy Doolittle came up from the basement, stood there briefly said something inaudible to her mother, and left the house. She took a pedal bus to Pisstown, rented a room in a downtown guest house, and placed an ad in the evening edition of the City Moon seeking a suitable mate.

  The American ship, Amber Princess, collided with a barge delivering stinkers to the waiting camp at Indian Apple. As a result of this collision, three hundred and ninety stinkers were thrown into the icy Bum Bay Straits. The Reverend's Guards were not informed and therefore took no action. Ten days after the incident, a storm swept through the Straits, scattering the floating stinkers widely Because of clockwise currents in those waters, some of them washed up on the shores of Square Island. Water-logged and slightly frozen, they were taken to the Templex and given strong doses of willy. Soon they were put to hard labor in the Reverend's mining operation there.

  The Reverend's brother, Wallace, barged into the Office of Patents and Subventions, bringing something smelly in the sleeve of a newspaper, which turned out to be a pickled imp's foot on the end of a stick. He said the device was designed for use in determining the best plank-spacing in the floor of an imp cage and that he was exploring the notion of raising anemic imps for use in parasite research. Further inquiries were discouraged and the patent denied.

  The Home Guard reports that a houseboat was found grounded in the National Canal which has been at low water lately. There were no lights on its deck, nor any outward signs of habitation. It was a practical box cottage, nicely finished, built atop a barge. The shiplap siding was newly painted and the windows caulked. A plaque above the entry door read, "Pisstown or Bust. "

  When Guards jimmied the door and went into the parlor, a grisly sight awaited them. It was a family of laststage stinkers, all burst open at the abdomen. The father reclined in a natural attitude on the davenport, the mother sat erect in a wingback chair, an infant lay on the floor in a sea of rags. The Guards report that parasites covered almost every surface in the room. There were so many on the davenport, it seemed alive.

  On entering the parasite facility at Permanganate Island, those in the first stage of infestation were segregated from other prisoners and taken by pedal bus to a staging area where, in the stifling heat of a metal Quonset hut, an older Mildred Vink, now Mildred Balls, and a few other victims were checked in. Diagnostic specimens of stool, blood, urine, semen, and hair were taken, and questions asked. "What is the name and address of the last person with whom you've made lip-to-lip contact, and when did that occur?"

  "My late husband, Jacob," Mildred said, "about two or three years ago, as many as five. I don't remember."

  "Jacob Balls, the brewmeister?" asked an Administration official who overheard her answer. "Didn't he invent Jake powder?"

  "Yes, that's true. Before we met."

  "I hated the way it tasted in the beginning, in the early days, and the way it smelled, too. I had to hold my nose when I drank it."

  A few batches were bad. There were manpower shortages during the last Chaos. Mistakes were made."

  "Well, Mrs. Balls, here's hoping we can lick your parasites before you stiffen up. They tell me the stiffening feels like you've got one foot in the grave and one foot out. But I guess the Reverend said it best when he said, 'We die that we may die no more.' Once you're over it, you don't have to go through it again."

  "Brilliant," Mildred said, and the official moved on.

  The questions resumed: "Have you committed to memory the Reverend's Field Guide to the Satisfied Life?"

  "No. I'm not a Hookerite."

  "What are you, then?"

  "Utilitarian, I suppose. What's good for the most is best for all."

  The clerk shook her head and stamped one of Mildred's forms. "I'm going to put you down as Hookerite anyway. Things will go better for you."

  "I appreciate that."

  "Now, just in case it comes to it, do you want to be buried or burned?"

  "Burned, thank you."

  "And the ashes sent to?"

  "To my granddaughter, Ophelia. The address is there."

  "Yes, I see it. Oh, that's a posh area. Wish I lived there."

  "Beware of envy, young woman. It's a green-eyed monster, certain to turn on you."

  "All right, I've heard enough of your blather. Take your papers and go to the oath-swearing booth."

  Mildred removed her spectacles and wiped the lenses with the sleeve of her rags. "An oath to what?"

  "It's on the wall in there. Just recite it, sign the form, and get on with your treatment."

  In the oath-swearing line, Mildred conferred with several others about the nature of the oath. One of them had known someone who was treated at the facility. "They said it's foolish not to sign it. You don't want curtailed treatment, do you?"

  "That's why they make you recite it aloud. People weren't reading it. They were just signing it. So now there's somebody behind a curtain in there listening. If you don't recite it, you're on a list."

  Another piped up. "Have you memorized the Hundred and One Sayings, from the Field Guide?"

  "I haven't."

  "Take our word for it," they said. "It would be the smart thing to do. I'm up to fifty-five myself."

  "The Reverend says when you can recite them all from memory, you're guaranteed an upshift next go-round."

  "If I don't, if I fail to, what happens to me?"

  "Some have been pushed out the back door of the Templex with a hand or a foot missing. Maybe it's a rumor. I don't really know."

  "You could be tested any time, stopped by a Guard or an Administrator or a certified wig and told to recite the Sayings."

  "Thank you for the warning."

  "Remember the first one at least-'We die that we may die no more.'"

  "I'll remember that. It's easy enough."

  "Yes, but what does it mean? What if a Guard asks you that?"

  "I suppose it means that death, being what it is, puts an end to the dying process, which may be worse than death. Or, it could suggest the existence of an eternal afterlife, when one never dies again."

  "Those are good enough answers to fool a Guard, who are dumb as dirt. Only the Reverend knows the real, true meaning anyway."

  When all the preliminaries were over, someone in a mudcolored Administration uniform stepped up to an outdoor dais and made introductory remarks: "For better or worse, welcome to the Island parasite facility. It should be understandable that we see the need to isolate those with early infestations from the populace at large. We'd have a Chaos that could get out of control, spread like a prairie fire, move slowly for a while, then flare up whenever it finds flammable mate
rial. And where do we find the equivalent of such flammable material in our cities, towns and bailiwicks? Does anyone know? It's one of the Reverend's Sayings, number seventy-seven to be exact."

  A zealous Hookerite raised her hand. "`We grow to hate things we fear'?"

  "Yes. Very good. Now, each of you will be assigned living quarters at some distance from your neighbor. Isolation is the best safeguard until we understand what these parasites really are, and how to bring them under control. All of you are listed as first-stage, so let's hope we have a breakthrough before you advance any further."

  After a three-hour pedal bus ride, Mildred was dropped off at her living quarters, an old clapboard shack resting atop four pitted, rust-caked steel pilings, one of which had buckled at a weak point, tipping the shack slightly downward, and many of the steps leading up to the flimsy wooden deck surrounding it had rotted away long ago. The structure looked as if it had been a pre-Chaos watchtower, useful when the land was heavily wooded and subject to fires.

  Already fatigued by hours of relentless pedaling, having to heave her heavy baggage and bulk over the empty stairway spaces-and skinning her ankles many times-was almost more than Mildred could endure. She removed her spectacles and lay on the deck all that night, too weak to stand on her feet. When she awoke, a string of saliva stretched from the corner of her lip to the plank beneath her head. With her eyes at floor level, she detected a sudden movement, something small and dark streaking across the deck. Without her spectacles, the bug was too blurred to identify.

  In a kitchen cabinet she found a two-month supply of starch bars, a kilo of urpmeal, some ground nuts, a tin of Jake powder and a packet of dried imp meat. On the counter was a five-gallon drum labeled "Safe Drinking Water. Boil First," a case of gel cans and a box of Sur-strike matches. In a drawer were a few cooking utensils, a skillet and a mismatched collection of dinnerware. A wooden box nailed to the wall was full of stationery, pencils, and official Permanganate Parasite Facility stamps.