The Pisstown Chaos

by David Ohle

  The first tooth came out of the gum with little effort on Roe's part and no blood. The second took a little moxie and more than a few hard tugs before it tore out of its dry socket. Mr. Chips showed no sign of pain or discomfort.

  With the teeth in his pocket, Roe said goodbye to the maid and left the premises.

  Eight.

  After an evening together at the Bones jangle a steam press operator and his stinker paramour returned to their hotel The Gons, where he plunged a knife into his companions body She, in turn, quickly unsheathed the blade from her taut, sunken belly and plunged her lover twice. Still, they laughed until other guests complained and Guards arrived. The bellboy turned the key in the lock and the two were dead before the door flew open. A note found in the stinker's purse indicated the bloody encounter was the result of a suicide pact, commonplace in the early days of any Chaos.

  The Reverend has endorsed the theory that, because the earth has begun to wobble and list in its orbit, the lower half of the planet will eventually fall away a cataclysmic event that would send the two halves striking for the stars separately one to freeze, the other to burn. Meanwhile, the Reverend says he is going to re-calibrate the weight of the planet, now that we know roughly half of it will be gone: "To perform this measurement I'll take a pendulum to the Pole and note its vibration there. Then it must be taken to the Equator and the vibration there noted. "After calculation, he admits, very little ofscientiflc value would be known, "but something would have begun toward solving this mystery "

  In Bum Bay hopeless stinkers are hanging themselves from the be of the Templex, from lamp posts and from the eaves of dwellings. Bum Bayans can't leave their homes without seeing another one strung from a rafter tail, or swaying like a piece of meat from an awning, with imps licking at their feet. Living stinkers believe that when one of them is completely dead, the soul hovers near the body for forty or fifty days. So no one is willing to take them down until it is safe.

  The Reverend has spoken out on the issue: 'My people can't go out of their homes without seeing them hanging from the soffits like bats. On the pedal buses we see them swinging from the ceiling, their faces blue. They dangle from trees in Hooker Park, near the lagoon, swishing in the breeze, frightening children and drawing flies. This bad business hovers over us like a rain cloud. I'll find a way to stop them. That I can promise. "

  One of the most remarkable experiments in the indefinite prolongation of life in tissues by artificial methods, it became known today is the specimen of a donor stinker's heart extracted at the Permanganate facility eight years ago. It has not only retained the spark of life, but has grown to many times its original size. The organism is still functioning and, disbarring accidents, will continue to grow indefinitely. The organism has been nourished regularly while cultured in an antiseptic solution.

  You can survive a Chaos, says Wallace Hooker, who remains in guarded condition after a venomous snake bite, if you order one of his patented Hyberhomes. Pre-made of driftwood and pig iron, walls six inches thick, the structure measures ten by ten with a maximum occupancy of six and can be lowered into a backyard excavation. Along with the Hyberhome, buyers receive a copy of Hooker's Survival Tips for Chaotic Times, a how-to manual for living in a stuffy Hyberhome for indefinite periods while Chaos rages above.

  An excerpt from Survival Tips: "The Chaos has finally come. Now what? Without one of my Hyberhomes, survival is a matter of luck. With one, it is almost guaranteed, provided you and your family can weather the stillness and boredom. That! what this manual is all about. First, as soon as the Chaos reaches your area, adults should escort the young children into the Hyberhome and explain to them that there will be a very bad period of depression for three or four days after the door is closed and sealed. After the shock has worn off and the dreadful monotony of lift underground sets in, activity is one of the best remedies. Each person should have regular tasks to perform. In the off-duty periods, there should be reading, games, Willy-taking, anything to keep from dwelling overmuch on one self. Afar the depression passes, there will be a notable lift in spirits. Talk will turn to planning what to do when the all-clear signal is broadcast.- rebuilding homes, putting out fires, disposing of corpses, and planting a garden. When this happens, you are over the hump. "

  Reports from Pisstown detail a series of hair thefts. Young females, grown females, long-haired males are all potential victims. The thief pulls them down to the sidewalk and applies a sanitary napkin soaked with chloroform to their faces. This behavior has been described many times by his shaven subjects. Some say he mumbles in a barely articulate manner when he works his magic with razor and scissors. He has not injured anyone beyond minor abrasions and superficial cuts, although an overdose of chloroform did completely kill a young male stinker, third-stage. Some say he mumbles his name, which sounds like Ozalo, perhaps Oxward or Oswald. Guards are fearful of what they might find when the hair thief is finally caught and his quarters entered for searching.

  What then is a final-stage stinker's life like? It has been described by scientists as showing a poverty of sensation and a low body temperature. In their nostrils is the persistent odor of urpmilk. The membrane which lines their mouth is extremely tough and is covered with thick scales. They like to touch fur and drink their own urine. Because they have been known to go without food for as long as eighteen years, we can assume that their sense of time passing is also very different from our own.

  Less than a week after Jacob Balls's fatal fall, which occurred just a day before his sixtieth birthday, Mildred appeared at the Pisstown Templex to file a lawsuit. There was every reason to believe his death was not an accident.

  "Take a number, please," the receptionist said without lifting her gaze. "What grievance brings you to this office?"

  "I plan to sue the RPC."

  "The Reverend's Parachute Company?"

  "Yes."

  "Your claim against them?"

  "My husband's death. The parachute was demonstrably flawed. It failed to open."

  "You'll see the first available counselor. Give me your hand, the back of it. You need a number."

  Mildred held out her hand, palm down. The receptionist used a rubber stamp to ink the number seventy-three onto her liver-spotted flesh. "Seventy three? But I'm the only person here."

  "Pay no attention to that. The numbers are not in order. We're very busy and we have no time to waste. We call the numbers randomly, coo, so everyone has an equal chance."

  "In other words, arriving early is rather pointless."

  "No rhetorical gymnastics, please. I'd appreciate it if you'd speak to me plain and simple."

  "The Reverend killed my husband. I want to press charges."

  "Didn't you say it was a faulty parachute that killed your husband?"

  "That was the proximate cause in a causal chain going directly to Reverend Hooker."

  "That's enough of your smart talk. Please sit down. It may be a long wait." She handed Mildred a pad and pencil. "Use the time to write down the details of your case against the Reverend's company. In doing so, you should know beforehand that no one has ever prevailed in a legal tangle with Reverend Hooker. And you won't either."

  Mildred sat down and pulled together her thoughts on the matter:

  After Jacob took early retirement three years ago, he began to parachute for the thrill and pleasure of it. On the 4th of July last he attempted to parachute into Hooker Park with fatal consequences.

  That day the butler pedaled the children and me to the park for a picnic. Jacob was going to dive right into the picnic grounds and the butler was going to roast an imp and make an urpflanz salad.

  At about noon we saw an orbigator overhead, as high as a thousand feet I would guess. It was leaving a little trail of steam, or smoke. Roe said, "Look, Mildred, the door is opening. He's ready to jump."

  A moment later we saw him leap from the orbigator into the air. He was just a small spot in the glare of the sun. When he was about halfway down
, we heard him scream. "It's not opening! It won't open!" We saw him frantically pulling on the cord. I was frozen, I couldn't move. The children's faces were ashen. We heard Jacob's last desperate shout, "Sue the company!"

  Then he struck the ground a few feet away. We heard every bone in him break. His lungs popped like balloons. It was a terrible shock and I intend to carry out his last wish, to take legal action against the Reverend, who owns the parachute company.

  As Mildred sat composing, other would-be litigants entered the Templex legal office and were stamped with numbers. By the time she was finished, half the room's chairs were taken. After an hour's wait, the receptionist, who had been enjoying cat naps, called, "Number seventy-four? Where is seventy-four?"

  An American standing in the rear came forward. "That's me." After a brief discussion with the receptionist, he sat next to Mildred. "It's cockeyed, the way things are done around here, isn't it? She's given me all this paperwork to fill out. I'm Frank. Pleased to meet you." He sat down and began to complete the paperwork.

  "Mildred Balls. Likewise. What's your complaint?"

  "I got side-shifted, did five years living in a broken-down movie house. Now I'm Willy addicted and I drink enough Jake every day to drown an elephant. My digestive processes have stopped. At times I can hardly breathe. I'm going to sue the Reverend's shifting authority. And yours?"

  "One of his parachutes killed my husband. The fall broke every bone in his body. The grandchildren were traumatized for life."

  "That's fairly common lately, isn't it, those faulty parachutes. I'm sure it's intentional. They tell me the Reverend loves to get out there with his spyglass and watch them fall. It's a sport for him. Please, excuse me now while I do my paperwork. They say nobody ever wins these suits."

  Five hours and twenty-two numbers later, long after the American had been in and out, seventy-three was called. "That's me," Mildred said. She'd sat so long her legs had fallen asleep and when she stood up, she toppled over and fell onto the worn wooden floor, driving several splinters into her face. She rolled onto her back and pumped her legs, as if pedaling, until sensation returned. The receptionist watched all this with mild interest, but made no effort to help. "I'll be fine," Mildred said, turning over and getting on her knees, then standing unsteadily.

  "The attorney will see you now, Mrs. Balls. He apologizes in advance for being a little bilious today, so bear with his belching. Now, go down the hallway and it's the first door to the right. No, the left. Wait, no, it's the right. It's the last door on the right, as I said."

  Mildred tried the knob on the first door to the right. It was locked. Through a frosted glass window she could see an empty desk with its drawers open and a wastebasket full of yellow, shredded, pre-edible paper.

  She tried the last door on the left. It was open and she entered a dark room that was extremely cold. A bright light came on when the heavy door closed, revealing a pale, sicklylooking stinker in a business suit, sitting on a rickety bench with a yellow pad in his lap and a fountain pen in his hand. Beside the bench was a wastebasket, also full to the spillingover point with balled-up sheets of yellow paper.

  "You're number seventy-three and you want to sue the Reverend?"

  "Yes."

  "Sit down then." There was no place other than next to the attorney on the bench.

  "It's very cool in here, isn't it?" she said.

  The attorney burped acidly. "It keeps the stink down, the cool does. Used to be too warm in here. One of the boilers exploded last year. The heat doesn't come this far any more. I'm well adapted to it but I can understand how you might find it uncomfortable. If it becomes too unpleasant to continue, we can re-schedule at another time. I have some open dates in the latter part of next year."

  "I'll continue."

  "Fine, let me see your complaint. And let me know if my smell offends you. I have some scented oil handy if it does."

  Mildred gave him her written account and he read it over quickly. "You must understand, Mildred, the Reverend will argue that your husband never tried to open the main chute. He will argue that it was a suicide. You won't get far in the higher courts with a claim of faulty parachute, not against the Reverend's legal muscle. I suggest you drop this claim immediately." He balled up her account and threw it into the wastebasket among all the others.

  "I'm not prepared to do that. I'm determined to press this claim."

  "We can't help you at all. I'm sorry. This office is not sanctioned to handle cases like this. You can plainly see how understaffed we are."

  "Then what is a person to do?"

  "I can tell you only this, that when the neighborhood judiciaries were set up, the intent was not to bring cases forward but to bottle them up at street level. All crime is local. And so is punishment."

  "I suppose I have no more business here, then," Mildred sighed, getting up from the bench. "I'll be going now, to look for other channels to petition for legal action."

  "All the luck in the world is what you'll need. I hope you understand the mission of the neighborhood judiciaries a little better than you did before."

  "I do, I do."

  Nine.

  Ray "Gluefoot" Bishop, eighteen years old, is the youngest Guard to die in the Reverend's service. He was run over by a Pisstown pedal bus at Second and Central on Thursday while in pursuit of an imp which had escaped from a woman who was carrying it in a cage and lodged itself in the eaves of a nearby precinct building. Bishop, known for his remarkable climbing abilities, helped by a running start, walked fifty feet up the side of a brick wall, took the imp by its feet, walked down again, and tumbled into the wheels and gears of the passing bus. The imp survived but was never captured.

  Not many times has Wallace Hooker been seen in public of late. Those who have been so lucky describe him as smaller in stature than they had imagined, with a face that is pale, drawn, and dotted with liver spots and weeping sores. He has been seen sleeping in gutters, snoring like a buzz saw and attracting flies. He has been spotted in alleyways eating garbage. And thats not alL the Reverend said yesterday. "He has taken his Q-ped all the way to Indian Apple, frequented brothels and engaged in other revelries too sordid to repeat. "

  During an unscheduled appearance by Reverend Hooker in Witchy Toe, an anti-Hookerite rushed out of the audience and slapped him repeatedly across the cheeks and then escaped through a back exit in the midst of the confusion. No one was surprised. When the Reverend makes a public appearance these days, its like a falling leaf breaking the surface of a pond. It awakens creatures long asleep at the bottom.

  Recovered from the slapping, the Reverend gave this statement to reporters: "The town is frolicsome tonight. Its just a bagatelle. I remain joyful and confident. "

  The miscreant who did the slapping was apprehended and taken into custody and will be dispatched to the Templex for a parasite check, and then to Permanganate for a long, unhurried stay.

  A charcoal burner who, about a year ago, was shifted to Indian Apple, attempted to kill his family with a handsickle. A third-stage stinker, he returned to his cabin at about ten a. m. and said to all members of his family but his son, who was out shoveling coal, "I have just taught myself to use this tricky sickle and now I want all of you to stand up. " In order to humor him, they rose. He tied their hands with a piece of cord, which he knotted on the rafters. Holding the sickle, he commenced cutting his family, inflicting some dreadful wounds.

  As he completed his work, his son returned, covered in coal dust, and was alarmed by what he saw. Chasing his father from the cabin, the son then went back to help his severely injured loved ones.

  A posse was formed, but as yet the charcoal burner remains at large.

  An early traveler on the National Canal described Permanganate thus: "There is a small island in the Canal a hundred miles downstream from Pisstown on which no vegetation or animation can exist. Bones that have drifted to the island invariably turn to ashes within eight to ten days. One imp has ossified merely by lappin
g the water in a stagnant ditch. Box turtles anchoring at the island to sunbathe on its logs have suddenly gelled and dripped away like candle wax. Caustic permanganate in the soil is blamed both for its odd violet color and its toxicity. "

  Moldenke is in Indian Apple, appearing nightly at the Imperial His earthly father's head is pickled in a jar onstage beside him. In some way Moldenke is not only able to make its lips move, but to reproduce his father's voice with perfect fidelity. Moldenke tells the audience he is "in his father's head" when he spins his long yarns of the world beyond. After every tale the head solicits contributions in a bubbling voice and the mouth spits a coin into the fluid to encourage tithing. "Please give generously " it says. "Only in that way will I be kept alive. "

  Not long after Ophelia was shifted, other shiftees began to arrive at the Balls mansion. With Templex records listing it as abandoned property, it was only a matter of a few days before all the rooms were spoken for, even the butler's quarters, and noisy children were sliding down the banisters and screaming with excitement.

  Red moved into the potting shed with Peters and fashioned a bed out of peat, straw and sheets stolen from the clothesline. "I don't know who owns this bedding," he told Peters, who didn't mind sleeping on the bare ground, "but as sure as Hooker is the American Divine, they owe it to me. After all, I cook for fifty or sixty every night and empty their chamber pots every morning. Two sheets is no great loss, and I richly deserve them."

  The pantry in the main house kitchen was soon empty, all the wild-picked urpflanz gone, and the basement larder devoid of anything but rat droppings. Red was at a loss as to how he would continue to feed his unwanted but needy guests. "Too bad Mrs. Balls is gone to Permanganate. She would have thought of a way to cope with this. We've already trapped all the imps on the property."