The Pisstown Chaos

by David Ohle

  Roe stepped out onto the rickety metal gallery that surrounded his quarters. "This is as far as you can go," he shouted down. "The limit of the Reverend's property is right where you're parked. Do not proceed an inch farther."

  "Let me come up and talk."

  "I don't have that authority."

  "It doesn't matter. I have it." The poacher held up a sheet of paper. "It's a letter of introduction from the Reverend. Let me come up. This is urgent business."

  "All right. I'll read the letter at least. It's a long, hard climb, especially for a short-legged individual like you."

  "Best to start right away, then. Promise you won't play that saw while I'm around? My ears are ringing."

  "I won't play. It's two hundred and thirty three tall steps. Some of them are loose. Be careful."

  Roe opened the door slowly when the out-of-breath little poacher appeared on the gallery.

  "Come in. It's chilly out there. I'll make a fire."

  The poacher entered warily. Gasping for breath, he looked at Roe's feet with muddy yellow eyes, said nothing, made no gesture, his appearance ageless and simple. Red whiskers, sharp and thick, covered a long, hanging jaw whose bones seemed to be loose and out of their sockets.

  Roe built a fire in the potbelly. Soon the poacher was warming his callused hands against the evening chill. "Don't worry, Mr. Watchman. I won't run amok on you. We're a special breed of stiff, not like the rest. We're the peaceable kind and we have a strong appetite for imp meat. What's more, I've got a proposition for you."

  "Tell me what it is. I'm prepared to listen."

  "If my stink bothers you, please say so."

  "It isn't so bad yet."

  "If it gets where you can't stand it, I've got some scented oil in my pouch. You can rub me down with it."

  "All right. Now, a proposition you said?"

  The poacher's mouth opened at intervals and his black tongue darted and quivered. "Yes, the proposition. It's quite a good one for you. Do you have any tea? I'm parched and drowsy."

  After a cup of urpflanz tea and four starch bars, the stinker fell asleep on the floor near the fire.

  "I suppose we'll talk in the morning," Roe said to himself, and retired to his pallet on the other side of the stove.

  Some time during the night, a light awakened him. The poacher held a burning match at the face of an old wind-up clock ticking on the mantel. "What's that?" he asked. "Is it marking time?"

  "Yes. It's called a clock."

  "A clock?"

  "The little hand tells the hour, the big hand tells the minutes."

  "That makes no sense. An hour is big, a minute is little."

  "What is your proposition? You say you have a letter from the Reverend? May I see it?"

  The poacher produced a sheet of paper. "There it is. It gives me harvesting rights, signed by the Reverend himself. It's all for charity, you know. We feed a lot of city stinkers with the meat. I expect you'll abide by the document."

  Roe lit a candle. "It looks official."

  "That's the proposition. That you be shifted back to Bum Bay and I and my fellow workers will take over this tower. We need a place to rest and regroup after the harvest. This is an up-shift for you. You'll be in training at the Office of Parasite Control. Very cushy position. A load of responsibility."

  "I can say without hesitation, I accept the proposal."

  "Good. I'll be on my way."

  "Will you join me for a little something to eat?"

  "You got any imp?"

  "Sorry, no."

  "Urpmilk?"

  Roe shook his head.

  "All right, then. I'll be going now. Hope you like your new position."

  "Have a safe trip."

  The poacher made his way to the stairs and climbed down. Roe went out to the gallery to see him off. After squatting to defecate, the poacher climbed into his pedal car and waved. "The best of luck in your new position." The car rolled off down the road that went north, eventually, to Indian Apple.

  Roe oiled his saw and packed his duffel that evening, pulled on his walking boots and took the same road on foot. After trekking two days and a night, resting, eating and bathing once at a roadside Templex, he arrived at the PC office just as they were opening their doors. His case officer, a square-faced American female with a bald head, interrogated him briefly.

  "Any recent mouth-to-mouth contact with stinkers?"

  "No."

  "Anyone in your family or circle of friends infested with parasites?"

  "My grandmother. She's at Permanganate Island. A mild case. She'll be getting early release."

  "What is in that bag over your shoulder?"

  "My saw."

  "You're a carpenter. That's very handy around here."

  "I play the saw with a bow. I don't know one nail or plank from another."

  The officer stood up and took a set of keys from a hook behind her. "How very unusual. I'd like to hear that sometime, but right now I better show you the ropes."

  Roe and the officer pedaled a van out of the PC garage and rolled across town to Grand Street, a posh neighborhood. The officer said, "I'll show you the ropes," and stopped before a nicely appointed home with a red tile roof and a granite chimney. "Now here's a typical situation," she said. "That's the Peterbilt mansion. These are stinkers with money and parasites. It's a situation crying out for some control."

  A servant led them into the rear of the house and through the kitchen, where a maid was rinsing dishes. Mrs. Peterbilt, a third-stage stinker, entered in a white silk chemise, carrying an envelope. There was a pendulous growth on her throat, filled with parasites. One could see their movements through the flesh.

  "You take the envelope from her," the officer said, "without making physical contact, and count what's in it."

  Roe counted the bucks. "One hundred."

  "That isn't half enough, Mrs. Peterbilt," the officer said, with extreme annoyance.

  Mrs. Peterbilt begged for more time. "Please. You know my husband has been shifted. I'll be destitute if this keeps up. A hundred here, a hundred there."

  "In a case like this," the officer explained to Roe; "when they fail to pay up, do something that hurts them. They don't feel much pain, so you have to be brutal. Hit her in the head with something, or kick her over and over again as hard as you can." The officer demonstrated her skill by taking two or three steps back, then charging forward with a kick to Mrs. Peterbilt's leg that cracked her brittle shin bone and dropped her to the floor.

  "See, their bones are brittle. A hard kick to the shins will topple them like a stool with a broken leg."

  "This is my work?"

  "Yes, to put the squeeze on wealthy stinkers, to slowly drain them dry of financial resources. In return they get protection."

  "From what?"

  "Further harm, I suppose. I've never really wondered or asked. That's why I haven't been shifted in ages. They like me at the office."

  "Does that hurt?" Roe asked Mrs. Peterbilt.

  "Not much," she said, "but now I can't walk without help. How will I pick the bagworms off my cedar bush?"

  "Where do the bucks go after I collect them?" Roe asked the officer.

  "First they go from you to me, then I pass it on. I suppose sooner or later it ends up in the private account of Reverend Hooker. He deserves it above all and to the exclusion of every other."

  "He's known for his witty sayings," Roe said.

  "So he is. Now, go over and hurt that old sack of bones. You need practice. Make her tell you where the bucks are."

  Mrs. Peterbilt still lay sprawled on the floor.

  The maid and the servant had been watching these doings with interest, smiling, their arms folded. "Hurt her good," the servant said. "I like to see it." He held out a pair of poultry shears. "Cut something off her."

  Roe took the shears, knelt beside the old stinker, placed her little finger between the blades and cut it nearly off by squeezing the handles as hard as he could. "My apolog
ies, Mrs. Peterbilt, but I was shifted into this. Just doing what I'm told. Where do you keep your bucks?"

  "I won't tell."

  The officer nodded toward Roe. "Take it all the way off."

  The first squeeze of the handle had not been enough to cut completely through the bone, so Roe placed the shears on the floor and stepped on the handle. This severed the finger completely. Mrs. Peterbilt groaned, then placed the slightlybleeding stump into her mouth.

  The officer rifled through kitchen cabinets, looked inside all the crockery. "Where've you hidden it?"

  Mrs. Peterbilt had no response.

  "Okay, Roe. Do something else to her. Show me what you're made of."

  The maid held out an iron skillet. "Smash her head with this."

  The servant stepped forward with a lit candle. "No, burn her face. She doesn't like that at all. She'll tell you where the bucks are."

  Roe took the suggestion and held the flame just beneath her nose. Mrs. Peterbilt could only endure this a few moments before giving up, turning from the flame, and crying, "It's under the begonia pot in the greenhouse."

  "That's good, Roe," the officer said. "I think you'll be out on your own starting tomorrow. We'll get the bucks and go to lunch. The Impeteria's got stew on special, all you can eat."

  After locating the begonia and collecting the bucks, the officer pried open Mrs. Peterbilt's mouth with a dinner knife. "You got any gold in there?" Finding none, she tossed the knife into the sink. "It's pretty common with these stinks," she told Roe. "Most of them have got some gold in their mouth. Always be sure to check. If they don't pay, you're authorized to pull teeth."

  On the pedal to the cafe, Roe wondered whether this move to the Control office had been an up- or down-shift. "So, once more," he said to the officer, "what I'll be doing is taking money from wealthy stinkers and giving it to the Reverend?"

  "Correct."

  "And inflicting pain if they hedge."

  "As much as necessary."

  "I understand."

  "When we get back to the office, I'll give you a voucher for three nights at the Gons Hotel. After that you'll have to find quarters of your own. Your pay will be fifty a week, on duty sunup to sunset every day. The Office will issue you a pedal car. Come see me in the morning and I'll give you your list for the day."

  "A list of what, of wealthy stinkers?"

  "Correct, and their addresses. Look in the trunk of the car you get. There're some tools of the trade in there, in a kit. Take it into the properties with you. It's got picks, blades, candles, a mallet, tooth pliers, fish hooks, brace and bit, sulfuric acid-be careful with that-and a ball peen hammer. You'll need to be issued some boots, too, with steel toes. Maybe you'll even want to use that saw of yours to take off a foot or a hand or something."

  The Impeteria was crowded for the lunch hour. Dozens of pedal cars and Q-peds were parked side by side in the rear lot. In the hazy, still air, a plume of gray smoke rose undisturbed from a stack behind the clapboard building, and smelled faintly of cooked meat. Stinkers unloaded fresh-killed imps by the basketful from a pedal van parked at the rear. Beneath a sign saying "No Stinkers," a line had formed at the front door.

  At seeing the sign, Roe felt a small degree of sympathy. "Things have gotten bad for the stinkers, haven't they?"

  The officer placed a wog of willy in her mouth and swallowed it. "Worthless hunks of putrid flesh. You want some willy before we eat?" She pressed another wog of the red, clay-like material into Roe's palm. "It'll turn on your apostat."

  Roe rolled the willy between his hands until it looked like a small sausage, then bit off portions and chewed them until the binder dissolved and released prickly little granules that irritated his throat as they went down. The irritation lasted only moments, replaced by an empty feeling in his stomach. "That stew sounds good," he said. "I hope they don't run out before we get a table."

  "No tables," the officer said. "It's a stand-up place."

  Roe stood tip-toe and looked into the cafe's window. He saw diners standing shoulder to shoulder and elbow to elbow. There were frequent spills of stew, spoons were dropped, and a noisy confusion of arms and hands was something of an impediment in the attempt to get the stew from bowl to mouth. Servings were being delivered from the kitchen to patrons by passing bowls from one set of uplifted hands to another. "That's mine!" someone shouted. "Over here!" another did, and the bowls changed direction.

  "I'm a little claustrophobic," Roe said.

  "Wait till the Willy kicks all the way in. You'll be a peopleperson right away."

  The line shortened slowly over a period of three or four hours as customers who were finished eating came out of a side door, the backs of their rags spattered with gravy, strings of meat clinging to their caps.

  When the last person waiting in front of Roe had been pulled into the dining room and swallowed by the crowd, a cook came around from the kitchen door and addressed the still-waiting dozens in line. "Sorry, folks. We're all out. The stew is gone, the pots are washed, and we're closing up till breakfast tomorrow."

  "This happens a lot," the officer said. "I don't know why I keep coming."

  Roe said. "Let's go somewhere else. It's almost supper time."

  "This is the only place still open." The officer dug her clog into the dirt and took her first step toward the van. "The last Chaos killed off most of the restaurants. The food got contaminated. Don't you read the papers?"

  "I don't. I'm print blind. It runs in the family. Words on the page are a blur. My grandmother always read to me, but never the newspaper."

  The officer lifted her shoulders one at a time, rotated her arms in their sockets and let out a long, weary breath. "All right, let's go back to the office and call it a day." The officer gave Roe another plug of willy. "Here, this much will turn off your apostat. You'll sleep. Go to your room at the Gons and come to work in the morning."

  Roe rubbed the wog between his palms. "That suits me."

  His room at the Gons was at street level, a little moldy and damp, but with a bunk bed high off the water-logged floor and accessible by a three-rung wooden ladder. To pass the evening hours, he sat in the top bunk and played the saw until his hand went numb, when he dropped his bow and fell back into a deep, willy-deep sleep.

  When Roe reported to the Control Office in the morning, a different officer greeted him at the pedal car shed. "Good morning, Mr. Balls. The officer who showed you the ropes yesterday is no longer here. They shifted her to Permanganate last night. She's infested."

  "I was to be given a list."

  The new officer searched through a drawer that made a shrill sound when it was pulled out. "Here's a list of loaded stinkers. Is that it?"

  "Yes."

  "There's your car, over there, the black one. It pulls to the left. Be careful."

  Roe put the car in neutral and pedaled in place to wind the spring and warm the sprockets while he looked over the list. There were three names and three posh addresses. The first, on Cherry Avenue, was Arlen Chips, a fourth-stage stinker who had made his fortune selling antique coffin silk to Reverend Hooker's parachute works.

  Roe went to the front door with his bag of tools. From within the home, he heard a shrill, wavering sound, which he identified as a saw being poorly played. He rang the bell. When he did, the saw playing ceased and a maid answered the door.

  "Good morning," Roe said matter-of-factly, a tone he had been instructed to use at this stage of the collection process. "I'll need to see Mr. Chips. I'm from the Parasite Control office."

  The maid turned toward the dim, curtained interior. "Mr. Chips? There's a man from PC to see you..

  A tall figure at the far end of a long hallway waved an envelope. "Come on in, son. I'm ready. I've got what you want. It's all right here in this envelope."

  Roe looked at his list. "It says two hundred bucks."

  "No, no." As the man came closer to the door, Roe could see that he was wearing a cloth bag over his head, which he lift
ed slightly when he spoke, showing several gold-capped teeth. "My regular payment is a hundred. It's been that way for years."

  The maid nodded. "That's right. Is always been a hundred."

  "I'm sorry, sir. It says two, as of today. We need another hundred."

  "All right, Louise, let him in, then go out to the garden and get another hundred. I'm in no condition for a beating."

  The maid showed Roe to a well-padded chair in the library. Mr. Chips came in with his saw and bow, walking sideways, then faced the wall and took the bag off his head. "Forgive me for coming in like a crab. I don't like showing my face to anyone. It'll be just a few minutes. Louise will dig up the bucks. Don't worry."

  "That's good enough for me. I don't particularly like to hurt a stinker if I don't have to."

  Mr. Chips said, "It's like skinning an imp. You'd rather not have to do it. But if you're hungry, that's an other matter."

  It is," Roe agreed. "You play the saw. I heard you."

  "What's that? My hearing's half gone and I'm facing away from you."

  "I said you play the saw."

  "I do try, but my arms are weak. It's just a screeching. Poor Louise patiently puts up with it."

  Roe was about to let on that he played the saw himself when Louise returned from the garden with a metal box. Mr. Chips handed her a key. "Give him a hundred."

  She opened the box and counted. "Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty .... Oh, dear. There's only fifty." She gave Roe that much, held the box upside down and shook it. "It's all there is."

  Roe opened his bag of tools. "That's only half, Mr. Chips. I'll have to take out a couple of those teeth."

  "Please," the maid said, "he only has a few left. He doesn't eat much, but without them, he'll have to be spoon fed."

  "I'm only doing my job, Ma'am."

  "Just a minute," Mr. Chips said. "I'll make this easier for all of us." He put the bag back in place, then banged his head on the wall and fell backward to the floor, his mouth conveniently open.