The United States of Air: a Satire that Mocks the War on Terror

by J. M. Porup

  “But why didn’t he go clean?” Erpent asked.

  I was surprised at Erpent’s question. It showed how little he knew of field work. Even I knew the answer to that one.

  “To go clean” meant illegal removal of your social security number and bar code. While only ex-cons were obliged by law to wear their tattoos, these days that meant pretty much everyone. After all, who hadn’t been to Fat Camp at least once?

  I let the coroner explain.

  “No one looks twice at a multiple offender these days,” Juicy said. “But a first-timer? Someone without their digits?” He shook his head. “It would attract too much attention.”

  The coroner lifted the sheet until only the dead man’s head remained covered. He cut away Crusteau’s blood-soaked grey sweatshirt to reveal a navy-and-white striped shirt underneath. The thick stripes ran horizontally across the man’s chest. From under one armpit, the coroner plucked a crumpled black beret. From the other armpit, a half-empty pack of Gauloises.

  “Voilà!” he said. “As I suspected. The uniform of French Intelligence. Your pizza dealer was a spy.”

  “Why would a French spy want to work for Fatso?” I asked. “That makes no sense.”

  Green chewed on a fingernail. I would have to have a talk with him about that later. “Maybe it does, partner mine. Remember Taco Tim?”

  Nine months ago, Congressman Tim O’Mexico, the Irish-American “Lion of Airizona,” had come to the ATFF with a confession. In return for a reduced sentence, he told us how a blackmailer had photos of him in a compromising position with half a dozen chimichangas. The press had dubbed him “Taco Tim.” I guess “Chimichanga Tim” just didn’t have the same ring to it. He could have paid, he told us. But the blackmailers would have slowly bled him dry. He was nearing retirement age, and he wanted to leave an inheritance for his kids. He decided a two-month stretch in Fat Camp wasn’t such a bad deal after all. Even managed to keep his Congressional seat when he got out. I wouldn’t have voted for him, you understand. I was shocked to hear that others had. That kind of vice in our public officials is more than just anomalous. It’s a disgrace. Can you imagine? Half a dozen chimichangas? At the same time?

  “So you think Crusteau was looking for someone to blackmail?” I asked.

  “That’s what spies do, isn’t it?” Green said. “Maybe the murderer was a politician.” He glanced at Erpent. “Or maybe someone’s aide.”

  “Entirely possible,” Juicy said. “Now you see why he had a phony social?”

  “The question is, though,” I said, “is Fatso part of this? I mean, is he working for French Intelligence too?”

  Erpent broke his silence. “Fatso and the French spies hate each others’ guts,” he said. “Fatso may be a criminal but he’s still a loyal Airitarian. He doesn’t want to see the Amendment repealed. Or he’d lose all his business. It’s the French we have to worry about.” With a flick of his wrist he dropped the stack of papers back on top of the corpse’s chest. The papers slid against Crusteau’s head, pinning the remaining sheet to his neck. “Now can we please start cutting? I want to see what’s in his stomach. This is rather urgent, you know.”

  Juicy grabbed hold of the edge of the sheet. “Do you mind?”

  I picked up the papers, and the coroner yanked the sheet off the dead man’s face. The three of us newcomers gasped.

  In the park we had seen Jacques Crusteau alias Nick Hungry lying face down in the dead grass under a broken streetlamp. Now we saw him face up under the bright light Juicy turned on. Deep gashes pocked the dead man’s face, neck and chest. His skin shone damp, like someone had recently wiped down the body.

  Something was missing. It was Green who spotted it first.

  “No vomit,” he said. “No pizza sauce. No leftover cheese.”

  Juicy clucked his tongue. “This is how they brought him in.”

  “What!” I exclaimed. “Didn’t you examine the crime scene?”

  “And when would I have time to do that?” he asked. “Two Skinny Service types dragged me out of bed half-dressed. Told me it was a matter of national security.” He scowled at Erpent. “So if this isn’t how the body looked at time of death, don’t blame me.”

  Juicy and Erpent glared at each other. There was an acid tension between the two, like drinking a glass of vinegar on an empty stomach. The sort of thing the Prophet used to do in his “health food phase,” before discovering the miracle of eating air. I tried to throw some sodium bicarbonate on the situation.

  “So it was a knife, then?” I asked.

  Juicy withdrew from his staring match. He turned back to the corpse in front of him.

  “At first I thought so too,” he said in a tired monotone. He put down the scissors and picked up a surgical spreader. “But if you look closely at the depth of the wounds,” —and here he spread open a deep gash in the man’s shoulder and inserted a plastic ruler— “you’ll notice the weapon appears to have been circular in shape, and sharp all around.”

  “So what was it?” I asked.

  “He was trying to defend himself,” Juicy went on. He lifted up the man’s wrists. The backs of Crusteau’s hands and forearms had been gashed in the same peculiar manner. “And this,” he said, and traced a long gash across the man’s neck, “is the wound that killed him. Severed the carroty artery.”

  “We’re not interested in the murder weapon,” Erpent said, tapping his shoe against the concrete floor. “What we want to know is what is in his stomach. Can you get cutting now? Please?”

  The coroner fastened a pair of goggles over his eyes. He regarded the SS agent through the smudged plastic. “Young man,” he said, “do you know why I’m still here?”

  Erpent cracked his knuckles. “What do you mean?”

  Juicy tossed the surgical spreader back onto the tray with a clatter. He lifted a circular saw from the floor. “Why I didn’t go to Canafooda with the rest of them. The AMA crowd. Why I chose a shitty job like this instead of going into private practice in the first place. I could have, you know.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he flicked a switch on the saw and slid the spinning blade through Crusteau’s sternum. Bone dust and flecks of flesh sprayed fore and aft. The three of us stepped away from the gurney, shielding our faces with our hands.

  “Because I believe in justice!” Juicy howled like a food-crazed chef carving a turkey corpse. Over the whine of the saw against bone we could barely make out his words. “Because I believe in punishing the guilty! And there are none of us who is innocent!”

  The saw sputtered and died. Juicy dropped it back onto the floor and dug his gloved fingers into the space made in Crusteau’s chest cavity. With a heave the ribs separated, exposing the French spy’s internal organs to the cold basement air.

  “I will give you all the information I have,” he said. “But I will not be bullied, I will not be threatened and I will not be silenced.”

  And with that, he buried his arms up to his elbows in the dead man’s intestines.

  “Funny,” Erpent said, in the silence that followed, the squish of internal organs loud in the quiet basement. “I thought you stayed put because of your special ham.”

  Juicy bent his head lower over his work. His face was hidden in shadow. “I believe in this country, Agent Erpent. I believe in the words that end our Pledge of Allegiance: ‘and justice for all.’ Including for me.”

  Erpent rested his hand on the butt of his gun, and rocked back on his heels. “Even for cannibals?”

  “For them, for everyone,” Juicy said, squeezing the dead man’s intestines between his fists. “Monstrous brutes, cannibals. Consuming the flesh of their fellow man.”

  “You know the punishment for cannibalism?” Erpent leaned forward now, his face contorted once more in that death’s-head grimace.

  I put my hand in the air, jumped up and down. This was just like ATFF school. “Ooh! I know!” I cried. “Pick me! Pick me!”

  Green sighed, pulled down on my arm. “Go
ahead, Agent Frolick.”

  “The punishment for cannibalism,” I recited, “is to be tied hand and foot and dropped off at sundown in an area of known cannibal activity. Ironic, huh?” I looked up at Erpent. His recommendation, it occurred to me, would be crucial in making the jump to the Skinny Service. “Did I get it right? Can I give the dunce cap back now?”

  They were all looking at me kind of funny. Juicy spoke first. “Thank you,” he said. “Your memory, as usual, does not fail you.” He dropped the coil of intestines and shifted down to Crusteau’s hips. “Now help me with this, will you?”

  He slid both gloved hands, smeared with blood, under the dead man’s naked right buttock. I stood opposite and did the same. The cold skin of the corpse’s bottom weighed heavy on my fingertips.

  “Like this?”

  “Now lift.”

  We lifted.

  “You there. The bed pan,” he said to Erpent. “Be quick about it.”

  Erpent did not move. Green grabbed the bed pan and jammed it under the man’s tush. Crusteau’s legs, stiff with rigor mortis, poked up at an angle.

  “Now,” Juicy said with a smile, “let’s have a look-see, shall we?”

  He wrung the dead man’s colon between his fists until a thick brown poo oozed out into the bed pan. “He shat himself when he died,” the coroner said. “They all do, of course. Loss of bowel control at moment of death is normal. But here,” and Juicy picked through the paste with a pair of tweezers, “here we have the contents higher up. Look!” He held up a tiny piece of brown.

  “What is it?” I asked eagerly, bending over the bed pan, the aroma of the dead man’s last meal fragrant in my nostrils. This was being alive. Here I was, examining the contents of a French spy’s bowels. All I had to do now was catch Fatso. I was on my way to the top of the Skinny Service. I was sure of it.

  “Brown rice,” Juicy said. “And see this? Half-digested tofu. Bean sprouts. Legumes. Pulses. Even what looks like an apple seed.” He held aloft the suspect particle between his tweezers. “Fruit! Can you imagine?” he said, and laughed.

  “Loathsome creature,” Erpent spat.

  “He was an addict,” Juicy said. “He couldn’t help himself. I think we all know what that’s like.”

  “Speak for yourself, Doctor,” Erpent said with a scowl. “Now can we get to his stomach? That’s what we’re here for.”

  “I thought we were here to trace the contents of the man’s stomach back to the source,” Green objected. “To help us find Fatso.” He indicated the bed pan in front of us. “Isn’t that what we’re doing now?”

  “Patience,” the coroner said to Erpent. “I don’t know what your rush is, but we’re getting there.” He took up a scalpel and made an incision in Crusteau’s primary digestive organ.

  “You’re in luck, you know,” he said, peering down into the man’s stomach. “Monsieur Crusteau was a bad boy. He didn’t take his laxative the way Fatso told him to.”

  Over the last few months, we had discovered the French Food Mafia was issuing laxative tabs to all its dealers, with orders to clean out their colons every afternoon before reporting for duty on their street corners at nightfall. Simply having poo residue in your lower intestines was enough to get you thirty days in Fat Camp. In many cases, dealers destroyed evidence before we could arrest them, but we could always still nail them on residue charges. This new tactic of theirs had caused us great frustration. Time after time we had to let hardened ex-con dealers go just because their intestines were clean. It was maddening.

  The coroner scooped a handful of goop out of the French spy’s stomach and into the bed pan, on top of the rest of the residue.

  Erpent bent over the bowl, staring eagerly into the brown mess. “Well?” he said at last.

  Juicy picked through the goop for a long moment, humming to himself. Saliva dribbled from the corners of his mouth. He licked his lips.

  “That confirms it,” he said at last, and stood up straight.

  “Confirms what?” Erpent demanded.

  “Your boy here was a vegetarian. Vegan, in fact.”

  “What?” I said. “A pizza dealer who doesn’t use his own product?”

  Juicy waved a hand in the air. “Been seeing it a lot these days. You want me to bag that for you?” This last to Erpent.

  The SS man continued to stare down into the bed pan. “Are you sure there’s nothing else?”

  “Why would you want him to bag it for you?” I asked. I turned to Juicy. “Don’t you have a lab here?”

  Erpent snapped his fingers. “Give me the tweezers. Now!”

  Juicy held out the instrument in silence.

  The Skinny Service agent fished around in the goop. I looked over at Green, who made a face. He obviously had no more idea than I did what was going on. I was about to ask again about the coroner’s lab when Erpent came up with a big chunk of something between his tweezers.

  “Distilled water,” he ordered. “Quick.”

  Juicy grabbed a bottle of lab H2O and squirted it over the chunk Erpent held up. The poo rinsed away and the object took shape. I was stunned when I saw what it was.

  “Maybe not so vegan after all,” Juicy said.

  “How did that get in there?” Green asked.

  It was a nose. A human nose. Or piece of one, anyway. A prominent mole protruded from the tip. A mole in the shape of a bratwurst. The back end of the nose was ragged, like it had been bitten off. The skin was burned from exposure to stomach acid.

  I knew only one man with a mole in the shape of a bratwurst on the tip of his nose, and that was the Prophet himself. The famous “Nose Mole,” as the press had dubbed it, that led our Fearless Leader in search of the tastiest air in North America. What this meant, obviously, was that there was a second man somewhere in D.C. with an identical mole, who had just killed a pizza dealer across the street from the Thin House. Once we find Fatso, I thought, we’re coming for you. Whoever you are.

  I tapped my teeth. “I wonder who it could belong to?”

  “There’s always,” Green said with a glint in his eye, “the Prophet.”

  I burst out laughing. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in years!” I roared. “The Prophet. Eating pizza! Killing a food dealer! Getting his nose bitten off!” I wiped tears from my eyes. “Thanks, partner. I needed that.”

  Erpent slapped me on the back. “That’s the spirit.”

  “The spirit of what?” I asked. “It’s called deduction. We’re detectives. That’s what we do.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Right.” The SS man turned to the coroner. “I need a sterile container, and either milk or sugar solution. Stat.”

  The coroner shook his head. “Why would I have milk here? It’s illegal. Much less sugar solution. I’m a coroner. Not a GP.”

  Erpent scanned the room. His eyes fell on the tray of instruments. “Give me a clean scalpel, then.”

  “Sure.”

  Erpent took the scalpel, unhooked Juicy’s IV bag and slashed the feed. He turned it upside down and cut a hole in the bag.

  “You mothereating mouth,” Juicy swore. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” Erpent asked. “And watch the language, please?” He dropped the acid-burned nose into the bag of sugar water. He turned away from us and took out his cell phone.

  Juicy turned to us, flabbergasted.

  “Don’t look at me,” I said.

  “You know,” Green said, “whoever it was must be talking kind of funny right about now.” He pinched his nostrils together. “When you spoke on the phone to the Prophet, did he sound strange to you? Nasal, maybe?”

  I frowned, trying to remember. “A little bit,” I said. “Like he had a cold or something. Why?”

  Green exchanged glances with Juicy. “Or like he had his nose bandaged?”

  I laughed. “What a bizarre thing to say. Why would the Prophet have his nose bandaged?”

  Juicy nodded and crossed his arms. “Probabl
y just a cold then.”

  “Well, it could be the flu,” I said. “I can never remember the difference. Whatever causes that kind of congestion.”

  Green spat. “Disgusting. Don’t you think? I’d resign my tape measure right now if I thought it would do any good.”

  “Harry!” I exclaimed. “What’s gotten into you? The Prophet catches cold and you go crazy. Down, boy. Save it for the food terrists.”

  Meanwhile, Erpent had finally gotten a hold of whoever it was he was trying to reach. We fell silent. Even from across the room we could make out the hushed murmurings into his handset.

  “It’s me,” he said. “I found it. Yes. Get someone down here, now. What? Does it matter? It was in his stomach. He must have swallowed it. Have a surgeon standing by. I don’t care. Someone you trust.” Erpent looked over his shoulder. We were all staring at him. He raised his voice. “And get the forensics techs onto analyzing this fragment right away. It will no doubt lead us to the perpetrator of this heinous, heinous crime.”

  Erpent hung up the phone and rejoined us around the carved-up corpse.

  “You know what this means?” Green said.

  “It means we’ve got twenty-one hours left to find Fatso and save the Coalition of the Fasting,” Erpent said. “The Fate of the Food-Free World is in our hands, gentlemen. Let’s move.”

  “It means,” Green said, not moving, “that there’s someone out there with a missing nose. And when we find him, we’ll have our killer.”

  The muscles in Erpent’s jaw twitched. “This is no longer a criminal investigation, Agent Green,” he said. “It’s a matter of national security. Or do you happen to have a background in counterespionage?”

  “Counterespionage?” Green exclaimed. “What are you talking about?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Erpent said. “Crusteau here was an agent provocateur. Part of a French plot to sabotage the Coalition press conference tomorrow.”

  “Sabotage?” I asked. “How?”