Sucking on a Dirty Finger

I was in the midst of shaking off one of those powerful, full body drunks when I found myself with a bum’s index finger jammed in my mouth.  The foul taste of dirt, salt and filth encrusted for years on skin played over my tongue.  We were locked in a rough embrace near the door of my apartment, both of our arms pressed against the other’s shoulders.  Our stance was mirrored as well, legs split, my left foot forward and all my weight pressing off my back leg, the same for the bum.  His eyes seemed to be careening in opposing directions and my head was still swimming with booze.  At some point during the struggle he adjusted his grip in order to gain better leverage, moving his hand up the side of my neck like a hateful lover and then painfully pinching my cheek and that’s when his finger found its way into my mouth.
Repulsion had driven me to desperation as I gagged and shoved back with all my might.  He was mumbling something, a name I heard after I smelled his hot, horrible breath, a name the came from behind clenched teeth like a growl. 
 “Nannnggghh…Daaavvvee!!”  But I couldn’t reply because there was a finger violating my mouth.
It had been an epic party, an epic party that had quickly expanded far beyond our original meager intentions for it.  But, there had been a change over the course of the evening where it had ceased to be a party of friends and known associates and it turned into a free-for-all, an open to the public blow-out.  Strange people appeared at our door materializing from thin air but, nearly all had their own bottles and a few were with attractive women, so we of course had no choice but to let it all slide and invite them in. 
Considering my own impressive consumption during the evening it was a small miracle that I was still standing much less attempting to deal with an unruly guest, especially considering I was normally the one on the other end an expulsion.  Despite having a solid three inches of height on my opponent, not to mention the advantage of youth, he was blessed with drunken bum strength and my sense of balance was complete screwed up, making us more evenly matched.
During the evening’s the obligatory police visit it became obvious that no one was in control of this party.  A person had yanked me from the kitchen where I was engaged in conversation with an extremely buxom woman and steered me toward the door to deal with the police.  After convincing the officer that we would definitely be much quieter from that point on, that in fact we thanked his visit as it was plainly unclear to any of us just how loud and boisterous we had become, I turned and regarded the room.  Upwards of a dozen unfamiliar faces danced around to strange music booming from the stereo.  I poked my head around corners and into rooms in search of my roommate Eric or any of the people we had invited with no luck.  Still I played the genial host as hands clapped my back in appreciation and I let the spirit of good times and debauchery, not to mention to bottle of wine I kept swigging from, wash away any concerns I might have had over being a stranger in my own home.
The finger flicked around near the back of my throat and I was very close to vomiting.  A ratty fingernail poked around in my cheek causing great discomfort but I did not lose sight of my goal of extricating this man from the party.
It had been right around 4 AM, at a moment when the party seemed to in the first stages of coming to a close, no one was ready to leave just yet but, the rotation of various orbits indicated that the door was the direction people would next be heading, when the bum molested one of the guests.  The endowed woman from the kitchen was sitting on the good couch in the living room.  The bum was perched above and behind her on the arm rest and as I noticed him sitting there a thought entered my mind, “That’s a filthy old bum”.  I watched in horror as his right hand slowly crept over her should before it plunged violently down the front of her dress and retrieved a plump white tit.
At that instant I felt I was completely sober but it was more likely that I, like the rest of the room, was being hypnotized by this surprise nudity.  Noise was replaced with silence.  For a moment he groped at the fleshy orb before the woman screamed and smashed a champagne flute into his face causing a bright red flower of blood to blossom from his nose.  I realized in an instant that I had to do something.
Eric, drawn by the scream and possibly the sound of nudity, bounded in from whatever room he had been hiding himself in and together we dragged the bum bodily to the door while he flailed away punching at my ear.  It was now that he first begun to cry out for a “Dave”.  Eric ran to the open the door while I braced myself to expunge this fiend, but the bum dug in his heels and we became embroiled in a stand-off at the door that would result in my mouth becoming a brief home for one of his digits.. 
Hot and gritty particles of dirt flaked off the finger and filled my mouth.  The cut from the champagne glass zigzagged across his nose and glowed red with exertion as blood pumped to his face.  The finger then came to rest between my upper and lower back teeth.  I saw my opening and I bit down on the sausage-like appendage.  Unlike a sausage though there was no pleasant snap of the casing, this feeling was the sense of biting into something soft and gummy until my teeth struck bone.  My mouth began to fill with hot copper blood which is was what finally caused me to vomit.  The bum’s hand was drenched in bile and blood as he pulled his hand from my mouth and ceased struggling.  I however, held tight and as my body continued to convulse spewing red wine and stomach acids I fell forward with all my weight.  The two of us tumbled out the door on to the landing then halfway down the first flight of stairs.  The incessant cry of “Dave” had turned into a pained howl.  Behind us I could hear the party reaching a fever pitch; people flooded onto the tiny landing and were hollering, egging us on to fight.
I was able to stop our fall down the narrow staircase by grabbing the banister.  We were both covered in vomit and awkwardly balanced on the stairs, my left hand clutching the bum’s collar, my right hand holding the banister. 
“Dave!” he continued to whine.
“Get the hell out of here, you’ve ruined our party.” I rasped.  My throat was raw from vomiting and the fight.  Actually, I didn’t say anything, I wanted to say something but I was too exhausted to think.  Instead I silently climbed the stairs back to the party; the taste of dirty bum finger was still strong in my mouth.

Thursday, January 27, 2011 · (No comments)

Bully Porter

I see you, I do, and I feel you too. I know, I know. But I’ll tell you, it’s not like I’m driving, I haven’t in years. But I’ll tell you what else, the road scares me tonight, especially because I’m not driving. Look man, I know the bouncer’s hovering, I can feel his eyeball. But one more can’t hurt, can it? For the road, all that good shit. You take care of me I’ll take care of you, then I’ll up and walk with no drama. You can do that, can’t you?
  Listen to this shit, I know you hear this kind of thing all the time, but soon enough you won’t be hearing it from me. So you can hear me this little while, can’t you? Anyway, my oldest boy, Blake, thinks he’s too pretty. Yeah, he still thinks he’s a rock star or some shit. I’m glad to see him when I do, but he still has that uppity, independent attitude of his. He swings by once a year, for a few days; a little smug that he’s in his late thirties, hasn’t gotten fat yet, still has a full head of dark hair and not one of them’s grey yet. Yeah, and he can grow it as long as wants, cut it however he wants, prance around in girl pants and ratty t-shirts and there’s nothing I can say about it now. He’s a little cocky that he’s stayed so boyish, despite never having had to pay a mortgage or feed, clothe and shelter three kids like him.
   He was just here. In town, I mean. Helped himself to whatever was in the fridge or the pantry- some baked beans, some cole slaw, about half a Tombstone sausage pizza, of course a few pb and js (welcome to it, really. I’m not really eating right now), drank beer and watched TV with me and his brothers, Gus and Leo. His mom buys a case of Boulevard for his visits, and the three of them plow through it within an hour. Sometimes, if their mom’s not around, Blake’ll grab me one, though I’m not supposed to drink at all. I prefer the Bully Porter, which is made with chocolate hops and is dark and sweet. It’s just one beer, it really is, and it’s late in the game anyway. I’ve already conceded my defeats and celebrated my victories. Plus, it’s a Boulevard, a Bully Porter. I forget how good those are, you know?
   I can bounce soon without too much drama, I think. Blake’s already gone back to his life in Madison, whatever that entails. I really don’t know. He’s been a cook and a bike messenger, a student on and off, drifted from town to town, Portland to Austin to New Orleans to Madison, and that’s the extent of what I’ve been told. Gus and Leo still live in town, and so hang out here and help out a lot more. But even them, when they’re not here, I don’t know. Gus lets his paunch grow a little bit. He has some crazy girlfriend with tattoos and a permanent sneer who tells him what to do all the time, pretty sure she fucks around on him, while he spends whole paychecks from his job building garage doors to entertain her consumer whims. Leo starts school and then drops out mid-semester, has a parade of sluts in and out of his life, bounces around mall retail jobs. This is all speculation based on scant evidence, really.
  See, I don’t really know them, I just made them. I just fed, clothed and sheltered, blah, blah blah…I know. Of course it used to piss me off. Now I’m too tired to be angry anymore, and being too tired means I understand things a little better now. You bring life into the world, and it has a mind of its own, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about that, no matter how much you yell, scream threaten and shove.
  Maybe that’s kind of like God or something, you know? Not that I’m like God, I’m not trying to say that, but I think God just sort of sets us here and lets us go. Yeah, I think about God lately. Can you blame me?
  I try not to look in the mirror these days. Granted, I was never as pretty as Blake, or Gus and Leo for that matter, but my reflection now is too much to take in. I look like a wax statue that’s been set next to a furnace for too long, except everything’s pooling in the middle. I stopped trying to fight with my gut in my thirties, but now it looks like a pink whale swallowing up the rest of me. I guess that’s what happens, right?
  I know. I’m taking my time with this last one, nursing it, pussy sipping it. It tastes good, you know, and it feels good going down. Now, before you ring that last call bell, and before your bouncers start pushing and bellowing, open up that rolodex of deeds and let the record show I did what I was supposed to, as far as I understood it. Worked, got my BS in PoliSci, married a pretty teacher with bobbed brown hair and sweet and hopeful brown eyes on a freckled face, bought a yellow house with white trim, got what people think is a real job, a job with a suit and a desk and a pecking order. I made a family, three kids, and didn’t up and leave them all those times I thought about it, all those times when I’d thought they hated me anyway. That’s called being an adult, being a man, making and taking care of you and yours, right?
   Know what else a man is supposed to do? Secretly, or not so secretly, know there’s more to life than that shit. Know there’s a world outside of that bullshit job, where you make just enough to spoil your fucking wife and ungrateful brats- buy them Gameboys and bicycles and fucking Disneyworld- but not be able to do anything about it without looking like a complete asshole. Even if your wife and kids think you’re an asshole anyway, you can’t drop it. You have to hang around, take the hate, dish a little of it back out.
   A man is supposed to fuck off at his desk, steal a few hours, get in touch with the bigger, better world through a few fingers of Scotch, maybe a little weed. A man’s supposed to berate his underlings at work, and cheat on his wife with a slightly overly made-up office girl, one with big tits and a gap between her two front teeth, who’s younger than the woman he married, though not really prettier, and will grow homelier as she approaches the age you and your wife are now.
  What else? Let’s see. Oh yeah, a man is supposed to lay down the law in his house. If his eldest boy comes home with a goofy haircut- I mean shaved on the sides, with a tower of bleached locks jutting every which way on top, a sub-mediocre GPA and a ridiculous set of daydreams- a what, an artist? A bass player in a band that doesn’t really sound like music? A filmmaker?- you’ve gotta jump down his throat, smack him upside the head a little, drag him to Jimmy Shears to buzz the rest of his greasy mop off. You’ve got to tell him men don’t dream, men take care and do. Tell him in your house, nobody dreams. His brothers see that and know their boundaries, so you just have to come down on the one. Actually, by the time you’re done coming down on the one, you’re too tired to fight with the other two. I know it isn’t fair, but fuck fair.
   That, actually, is what you have to tell your wife when she takes the kid’s side, starts giving you lip. You have to remind her you’re out there, busting your ass, hearing endless amounts of bullshit from the fat, bald prick who’d inherited his fucking company, having to yell at these limp, incompetent fucking nerds who aren’t holding up their end and then…you know what? Her lip just keeps coming. She’ll talk some more shit about how she’s a teacher, puts up with just as much or more than you do and, man, you just want to backhand the cunt, just like want to throttle the fucking weirdo you spawned, but you can’t. Granted, you’re already the bad guy, but you can’t make it worse. You can only tell them that you made this family and that it’s your property and…
   …shit. Okay, look, I’m sorry, you’re right and I know. That’s what happens, though. Your hair turns white, your face turns red and your voice grows thin and raspy. The family that used to be afraid of you starts ignoring you, you can’t get your volume up anymore.
   And that’s what happens. You make a family, and they hate you for it. Imagine making something that hates you. Imagine grilling a hamburger, and it’s not perfect, it’s a little dark and lumpy, maybe a little too pink on the inside but it’s pretty good (and that’s kind of how I like them anyway). You dress it up in ketchup, mustard and relish, maybe some A1, some lettuce and thickly sliced tomato, all between a maybe slightly misshapen but toasted white bread bun. Now, imagine that every time you try to take a bite out of your burger, this burger you made and labored over, it flies out of your hands. What are you gonna do? Chase the burger around the yard? The block? Maybe a smarter man would grill another burger, I don’t know, but you only get so much to make with anyway.
   And sir, that’s what I’ve done. I’ve made with what I had to make with. I’m sure, on some level, the brats I raised, who I was so sure were sneering down on me, looked up to me on some level. I may not have been the rock star they’d have liked to have been raised by, but they still come to see me. That accounts for something, right? If nothing else, I grew into the cautionary tale that some fathers become. They look at me and know you can only pound Scotch, throw tantrums, smoke like the twin towers and shovel flying hamburgers down your gullet for so long before the body that carries you around- the body that carries all that anger and disappointment and resentment and guilt and all the other bullshit- up and says fuck you, Jack, I’m done and so are you.
   Yeah, I think about God a bit lately. More than I used to, anyway. You don’t blame me do you? I never meant to piss him off, even when I was mad at him. I still think he more or less puts us here and lets us go. He’s kind of like a cool boss in that sense, you know. He’s like the idealistic, good looking younger guy, fresh out of college, eager to not piss of the vets, that’s been put in charge.  You can do whatever you want.
  Problem with a cool boss is that, though you can do what you want, you still have to do your job, and a cool boss will just kind of let shit happen and shrug. Except, now, I don’t think of God as the cool boss. I think God is more like a host now. Like the guy in the maroon silk smoking jacket making the rounds of his house and his affair. He’s kind of like a cross between, I don’t know man, Hugh Hefner and George Clooney or some shit. And when you’re born, you’re invited to his party. You may or may not have a good time, you may or may not mingle well with the other guests, you may or may not play Pictionary or Charades with some of the others, you may or may not like the refreshments or the drink selection, you may or may not even get a decent conversation out of the thing. Either way, sooner or later, you have to go, though the party goes on for everyone else. You have to go simply because you can’t stay. Maybe, like me, you’ve overserved yourself a bit, and you didn’t always play well with the other guests.
   Still, I was invited and I came. I did what I was supposed to, right? And now I suppose we settle up, huh? You’ll have to tell me what I should tip you, though. I really don’t know, and I want to stay on good terms, you know? You know me, right? We’re cool, aren’t we? You took care of me, so I’ll take care of you.
  I just want to do right on this. I just don’t want to fuck this one up.
  I just don’t want anybody here to feel shortchanged.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011 · (No comments)

Crack Up

I wake up to find another six inches on the ground and the snow is unrelenting. Blowing. Pretty. Flecks of silver under the gold of the street lamps. I think for a moment about, I don’t know, something, before I drag myself out of bed and scroll through the wall screen for some waking up music. I find myself caught between the soundtrack for Raumpatrouille and Herb Alpert’s Whipped Cream and Other Delights before deciding on Mclusky Do Dallas. I get down to the floor and begin counting as I push against it.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. And fifteen more. After this it’s twenty sit ups and after that it’s twenty pull ups and after that it’s the shower.
Antarctica is a punishment or a threat of punishment generally conjoined with the words “six years” and “Danish pederasts” for generally any minor infraction, most of the time mouthing off to a Trumpeter. These men, however, were mostly Scottish. Military men from the look of their uniforms.
The formality of rank is all but dropped here. The acknowledgement of rank is sparse; “sir” is almost more of an insult. Men let their beards grow up their cheek bones and their hair fall past their ears, and leave their uniform shirts unbuttoned. Salted meats, canned fishes, lighter fluid, cigarettes, and cheap whiskey is a regular item on the supply request, fancy whiskey, bourbon, brandy, is ordered regularly from Thanksgiving to New Years. Crates for supply shipments are burned rather than reused for shipping and the men enjoy makeshift saunas. Nobody ever checks up on them so long as they put out a signal once a day and a report once a week.
Most of the time, the reports read:
Activity: None
Anomalies: None
Concerns: None
Incidents: None
Questions: None
Requests…
And then came the requests for whiskey, toilet paper, diesel gasoline, batteries, corned beef and bread, pilsner, cigarettes - a lot of cigarettes - and maybe some cigars, and then socks. Always socks. Socks and gloves.
I have those last ones.
I was to be one of thirteen, the thirteenth one.
I’m not here out of punishment. I’m here because… I don’t know.
The men here don’t call me Trumpeter. Because of their largely Scottish background, they call me the Bagpiper. The lead man is a skeletal-faced man: Reid. Frank Reid. He stands six two and is built like a rail tie. He seems OK being my second in command while I’m in, well, command.
In command. A trial. A grooming.
Reid greeted me on the runway with his jacket open and no gloves, already drunk, “Yer already wishin ye wern here!” He shouted it over the engines of the plane.
‘S’cold! Damn cold! You in command!?
“’Ndeed! Leas what ye could call ‘n command!” He looked over my shoulder and asked, “Ye gear!”
My gear!?
“Ye gear! Wheresit!?”
I pointed to the single duffel over my shoulder.
Reid laughed and bellowed, “Thas what they all think when they get here! Les get ye a drink, Trumpeter!”
I’m not a Trumpeter!
“Yer a Bagpiper, then!”
I left it at that.
Reid gave me the run of the place over a few pilsners: “Try te get lager, something stronger, all they cheap-asses’ll send down is pilsner.” He trailed off and continued, raising his glass to look at the amber alcohol, “Beggers cannae be bitchers, na can they?”
I shook my head and lit a square.
The compound was four buildings, two stories by two rooms per side or however you want to look at it; thirty two rooms, you’d think if you counted windows. Alpha building was the command building in the northwest corner, four command offices on the second floor and four admin offices on the first. Bravo building was in the northeast corner and handled communications and air traffic, the second floor was one giant hall with still operable commlink equipment and a giant tower and the first floor housed an office, equipment closet, and the garage. In the southeast corner sat Charlie building in which resided the bunks on the second floor and the mess on the first. Delta building was in the southwest corner; lounge, sickbay, all that jazz. Men lived in Charlie and worked in Bravo. Only two were qualified to work on the equipment in Delta and did so only when necessary. Alpha and Delta were ghost towns since anyone in command normally spent their days in Bravo; Reid’s command office was on the first floor. He was the one recognizably in charge.
And so I sat with Reid in the mess in Charlie, watching him nurse his pilsner and listen to him give me the lay of the land. After a long while, Reid finally asked me my duty assignments.
Straighten the books, tighten the bolts on the ship.
Reid had laughed at that, “Ach! Ye lookin for bolts to tighten, they already got us runnin tight as a drum!” He stopped. “Unless ye talkin about cutting off our liquor. Ye find it hard to get the men’s approval for that.”
I don’t care about that.
“Ye dinnae, na.”
Couldn’t give a shit less. I set my empty glass down and snapped my fingers at Randall, a Samoan, and pointed at it. To Reid, I said, Some Irish in me. You’ll find we’ll get along alright.
“Irish.”
Some. Half.
“Which half you have of whatever bothers me none, slong as yer drinkin half keeps up.”
I have some good halves. Randall set another glass of pilsner in front of me, taking the empty glass away. I lit another square. Thanks, Randall.
“Sa fancy lighter ye got there.”
Got it from a Belgian woman.
“Ye a man of the world, then.”
Been to parts.
“Been to parts.” Reid stared at his glass. “Sunny parts?”
Panama was sunny.
“Ach.”
Yeah. That’s how I felt.
I must have made a face. Reid asked, “Srong, lad?”
Ribs. Cracked. Two of ‘em. Maybe three. Never felt right in the cold.
“Jessus!”
Nah, happened a while ago. No big thing.
After a few sips, Reid asked, “What’d ye do?”
Do?
“To wind up here? What’d ye do?”
I didn’t tell him I was gunning for a promotion. Ribs hurt too much. I’m just here to go over the books. Check ledgers, take inventories, eliminate redundancies -
“Whatta ye mean ‘eliminate redundancies’?”
Beats the shit out of me. They just told me to do that. Also see what needs fixed up around here.
Reid had smirked a little at that.

In my makeshift office in Bravo, the equipment closet across from the real office that belongs to Reid, I adjust the space heater to warm the place up a little. The buildings are expertly insulated but there’s a draft from the garage. I go back to looking over supply requests for the mess extending back to the first of last year. Everything looks to be normal. Poultry, soups, vegetables, breads, whiskeys, beers, coffee, bottled water, all in monthly quantities.
I close up the book of carbon copies and look over the stack of the others. I toss this one next to the stack and attach a Post-It which, in red ink, reads: Lager. Not Pilsner.
Through the window, I see the stairwell door open. Reid and the quadroon Haysell (pronounced ‘Hazel’) come through and Reid, I can hear, says, “Alright, then, ye go check on that, then.”
Haysell says, “I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks,” Reid says following Haysell to the garage door to stop at mine. The garage door lets in a cold bite and closes with a soft thud. “Lemme know when yer ready to move out of those supply requests.”
Actually just finished up last year’s. Haven’t found anything out of the ordinary; might be able to get you your lager after all.
Reid smirks a little at that. “Ye’ll be wantin to see the year before’s then, I imagine.”
Let me hold off on the books, Reid. I’m starting to go cross eyed. How about some inventory?
“Over in the mess?”
Yeah, that would help to verify the numbers.
Reid smirks again. “Ye know, seems to me that they got ye in more of an accountin role than a supervisory one.”
I just have to find the loose nuts and tighten them up a little. Besides, your men already know what the hell they do around here better than I would so who the hell am I to tell them their business?
Reid nods at that. “Ye need any help in the mess, then? I can see if there’s a spare a pair of hands or two.”
Not interested?
“Nah. Been on the wire all day with Otto von Bismarck over at Neumayer.”
Neumayer? What the hell you doing to talking to Neumayer?
“Calm down, Chief; we got one of ours positioned over there. He says there’s trade talks between the jerries and them dumb Dutch motherfuckers over at Sanae.”
That’s nothing new, is it?
“Nah but Otto’s on a tear about things.”
So his name’s really Otto von Bismarck?
“Nah, Nachtwächter. I just call him that to rile him up.”
Alright, well, hey, if anything important comes up, let me know.
“Right.” Reid turns to leave and turns back, “Ah, the fellas will be pilin in to the mess in a while. Probably best to wait until after dinner to take an inventory.”
Shit. I recline in my chair and rub my eyes. I can’t take anymore of these books. I stretch and see a set of books on the shelf for med requests. May as well. What’s sick bay look like, Reid?
“Empty so far as I know.”
Who’s the medicine man around here?
“McIntire. Due up to get shipped back to the states in about two months.”
He keep hours over at the sick bay?
“Nah. Works upstairs with the rest of us, just qualified to run the sickbay is all.”
Qualified?
“Doctor, after all. General practitioner or something.”
Ring him up and tell him I need sickbay unlocked. If he has an office over there, tell him to bring a book because I’m not running outside in this shit from one building to the next every time I have a question.
“Right.”

McIntire is fucking useless. Smug, sloppy, middle aged, know-it-all; couldn’t find a vein if it was staring at him. He’s upstairs in the lounge so far as I know.
I’ve got three skimpy ledgers in front of me. Not a lot of injuries to report around here. The occasional bit of hypothermia. Not a lot of airborne illnesses; everybody gets a check up and a mandatory inoculation before departing for this place.
The first aid kits are gathering dust. Band-Aids and such. I start going through the medicine cabinets and checking the contents against the inventory books.
Quinine.
The line stops me.
Quinine. Capsule form. The good stuff.
I juggle with it in my head and decide to go upstairs and ask McIntire about it. I grab the book and exit sick bay, through the double doors to the hall and hit the stairs for the lounge. I climb the eighteen steps to find the lounge empty.
Fuck.
Step over to the wall panel past the billiard table and dial up Reid.
A rattle and hum, then Reid’s voice comes through as the oscilloscope brightens up green to register a visual display of his voice, “Yeah, Chief.”
McIntire with you?
“Nah, he’s over in the mess here havin dinner. Ye’d do well to do the same.”
Shit.
“Somethin wrong, Chief?”
I got something funny over here. Why don’t you bring me a plate when you finish up yours?
“Ah, yer workin too hard, Chief. Come on over and have a pint. Knock off for the day.”
Nah, just bring a twelve pack over here with a plate when you’re done.
“Hey, says you, Chief. Ye wan a workin dinner, I’ll bring ye one.”
Thanks, Reid. I’ll leave the door unlocked for you. I hit exit on the call and End Communiqué pops up on screen. Light a square. In ten minutes I’ll have a few beers and the ink in the ledgers will start to blur and then fuck it.
I scratch absent-mindedly at the felt on the table.
Alone now, I think about women. Been here a week. I’d like a woman around.

Reid hands me a mess plate and sets a bag of beers on the examining table next to the ledgers. I ask him about tonight’s menu.
“Duck a l’orange or however you say it on a bed of spinach. It’s fucking shit on a shingle with a vitamin drink that tastes the way Windex smells, what do ye expect?”
You know what I’d like? In high school they made this horrible chicken parmesan that I really liked. Only day of the week I bought lunch.
“Institutional food.”
It was decent.
I light a square and Reid says, “They got oxygen tanks in here, Chief.”
Yeah, I can tell you about oxygen tanks, Reid. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
I pull a beer out of the bag as Reid starts to shake one loose from his pack, “Ye got a hair up yer ass, Chief?”
Yeah, how old are these kits?
“Kits?”
Yeah. Look at this here, pointing at the line, Quinine.
“What’s that?”
An anti-malarial drug. Popular back in World War One, so it might’ve been handed out then. But what are the chances you’d get malaria in this climate?
“I dinnae handle any of that, Chief.” A pause. “‘n fact, I cannae recall ever gettin medical inventory forms or the like.”
Any of the men ever complain of leg cramps? During sleep?
“Who the hell complains about that?”
Never mind. I drum my fingers along the table. I’ll have to ship these off, see if I can get them replaced. There’s probably a mess of unnecessary shit in here.
“We dinnae get too many illnesses. Injuries, either, for that matter. Billy Gosi tripped and twisted his ankle once about… two years? back. Thas about it.”
Taking a sip off my beer and pulling the chipped beef up with my fork to inspect the toast, I ask, What the hell do you guys do here all day?
“What do we do?” Reid laughs. “Ye been here a week and ye still dinnae know what we’re doin here! Thas rich!”
I don’t have a rank on the need to know list, Reid, give me a break. You yourself said I’m doing more accounting than anything.
Reid smirks, nodding, “Yer really in the dark, huh?”
Yeah.
“We’re all Linemen, Chief. Yer at what’s officially known as,” and intoning heavily, almost patronizingly, “Antarctic Corridor Collection Unit… parenthetically ‘for’… Radio And Telecommunication Emissions.”
It takes me a minute. I respond, ACCURATE. Cute.
“Nah, ye dinnae get it, Chief. We’re all Linemen.”
So, you’re all Linemen. I’m still not getting it, no.
“This is the pipe, Chief. Yer in it.”

“I thought ye were aware.”
They don’t tell me shit. I’m six beers in and now that we’re back at my office, I’m cracking seven. And popping Quinine behind Reid’s back. This is it, though. This is where all the echoes and words come through. Twelve men handling -
“Eight men, actually. Eight on overlappin shifts. Eight on, four sleep, or somethin like that. It works out.”
Whatever. Twelve men are responsible for everything. Decide everything.
“We dinnae decide shit, Chief. We just do the verifyin.”
I nod into my beer. You ever been wrong? Curiosity more than anything.
“Wouldn’t remember to be honest with ye. We get more shit in here than we can handle. Somethin comes in and we either verify it, classify it, or reroute it. Then we forget about it and go on to the next bleedin thing.”
This can’t be where they send the insubordinates.
“Ye’d be surprised, Chief. Yer bunk got any windows?” I shake my head. “Yeah. Six month days, six month nights. Eight men on and four men off. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner all the same menu with only a variation here and there dependin on what time it is for ye. And when yer not eatin a meal, yer eatin sixteen hours of noise from the pipe and shittin it right back into it.
“Before I got here, I mean years ago, this place was run by forty men. Science labs and the like, R&D or whatever. Operated under a different name, so far as I understand it, and then the higher ups, they decide to scale back operations. Bravo buildin was about the only buildin they gave a shit about, I guess, so they changed the focus, changed the parameters, and relabeled this shit pit ‘ACCURATE’. Like ye said, cute name.
“Well, some men cannae handle it. Before I was put in command, there were a few crack ups here and there. Words, Chief, words, not echoes, got thrown in the pipe. After all, we are the pipe. Word got out that people lost their minds down here and the higher ups thought it was a fittin threat to keep insubordinate folks in line. Not so prestigious, any more.”
Twelve year sentences; scrubbing toilets with pederastic Norwegians.
“Completely false. Ye pull a six year stint and then yer given the option to go on for another three if yer so inclined. And then another three. And then another three. And then, ye know, we got only one Norwegian here, Grønli, and I dinnae think he’s a pederast. In fact, I think he’s a priest.”
That doesn’t help his case, much.
Reid laughs, and then continues, “Nah, I imagine not.” He stops laughing and then starts back up, “But, yeah, a few crack ups. The one that really… Hmm. About two years before I got shipped down here, there was a bad one. Name of McMillan. Jesse McMillan. I think that’s where our bad rep comes from.”
What happened?
A heavy sigh, probably Reid’s lung capacity, blows from his mouth with agitated force before he asks, “Ye really want to know?” I nod. “I wasn’t here for it but it’s a word, sure enough. McMillan, I dinnae know what made him crack up but the facts, as verified, go like this - and ye’ll pardon me, Chief, for forgettin the timeline verbatim if it isnae in front of me at the moment.
“McMillan put in a full shift. Sixteen hours like every one else. Didn’t say anything to cause alarm in the men, or at least that’s the testimony and none of them work here anymore; their times were up one by one and they got the hell out of here. Dinnae blame them.
“McMillan didn’t report to his bunk that night and Nachtwächter - I told ye about him, he’s our guy at Neumayer now - was doing a security run. Got an empty bunk. McMillan’s. Probably takin a piss. Bunk’s still empty about an hour later or so, so Otto checks the head. Isnae in there.
“Now it isnae anybody’s business what a man is doin up and about when he ought to be sleepin but keepin up with the pipe for sixteen hours gets fatiguin. Ye need to get some sleep or else ye’ll crack up. That’s a certain way, right there.
“So, Otto gets curious and heads down to the mess. Empty. Throws on his coat and heads over to Bravo. Staffed, sure, but McMillan isnae there. Why would he be? He’s off the clock. Otto heads over to Delta and checks sickbay, locked up, and then heads up to the lounge. Finds McMillan stark naked, sittin on the billiard table, staring out the window, and he’s just sweatin buckets. Otto attests to that. Ask him and he’ll tell you to this day that the man looked like he had just jumped out of the shower and hadn’t a towel to dry off with. And then he’s mumblin somethin. Like a chant.”
What was it?
“They asked Otto after it was all said and done and he said he had no bloody idea what the hell McMillan was sayin. Just kept repeatin things over and over again, kind of sing-songy-like. So they grill him, try to get him to remember and Otto says he dinnae know the language but he tries and it turns out it’s ‘madainn mhath oihdche mhath’ just over and over again.”
What’s that?
“Scot’s Gaelic. ‘Good mornin good night’.”
Because there’s no morning. No sunrise or sunset.
“Time is meaninless here, aint it, Chief? Well, Otto says he asks McMillan if everything’s alright and he gets no response. He asks a couple times and McMillan keeps chatterin away his little chant. Says he grabs McMillan’s shoulder and McMillan starts shoutin ‘Dè a tha seo!?’ over and over now.”
More Gaelic.
“Scot’s Gaelic, please, Chief.”
Scot’s Gaelic. What’s that one?
“‘What is this?’ Just ‘What is this? What is this?’ over and over. Otto called over to Bravo and Charlie, got a couple of spare hands and hauled McMillan down to sickbay.”
We got a record of that?
Nodding over my shoulder, “Probably buried in that stack behind ye.”
You recall off the top of your head who the attending physician was?
“Nah. Cannae say, Chief. I read the report when I got bumped up to command and then I stashed it back in here. Otto told me I ought to read it. Otherwise I would’ve never bothered with it; it would’ve just stayed none of my concern. But if yer lookin to talk to the man that tended to McMillan, he’s long gone.”
Just curious about the diagnosis.
“‘Diagnosis’!? The man just cracked up, Chief. That’s the diagnosis.”
So what happened, then? They ship him off?
“Yeah. Horizontally.” I must be making a look. “McMillan - ” Reid clears his throat, “McMillan kept chantin and yellin all the while they’re haulin him downstairs, eyes rollin back in his head, convulsin, sweatin, real mess. And they strapped him down to one of those tables and gave him a sedative and counted to ten and watched and waited and his breathin went back to normal. That’s about where Otto’s involvement ends if I’m recallin it right.” Reid scratches at his chin (one of the few hairless ones on the entire base, probably to keep up appearance of rank) and continues, “Yeah. Pretty sure he says he was done with the matter at that point.
“So McMillan is restin and they got a man standin by at the sickbay just in case, ye know? And they got another man placin the call, ‘Yeah, we got a crack up down here, real bad one, speakin in tongues; we’re going to need a new twelfth. We’ll strap this one down and send him back.’
“Like I said, I cannae remember the timeline verbatim but I reckon that’s about the time McMillan came to. Dinnae know how, probably had a head full of cobwebs, who knows? Dinnae know how he managed to pull it off but he got up, sure enough, and he sneaks up on the man at the door and chokes the life out of him and leaves. Just walks right over to Charlie. Watched the tape they got from Charlie… McMillan strolls through the mess, strolls, almost bleedin floats across the floor, floats right back to the fire equipment. It’s ghostly if ye watch it, Chief, ye gotta watch it with the lights on and the sun out because yer watchin a possessed man.
“And he goes off camera and that’s when the word ‘alarm’ comes across the bottom of the screen and ye can see the sprinklers come on and then there’s McMillan floatin again, right back to the door. Got the axe on him.”
Broke the glass, set off the alarm. What was on the tape from Delta?
“Nobody fired it up. Delta, hell, ye seen it, nothing goes on in Delta. The crew here regard the mess as the lounge, anymore. Keep talkin about haulin the billiard table over as a matter of fact, even though they never get around to it. But nothing goes on in Delta. Alpha either for that matter, so those two run on minimal power. Only thing that keeps them warm is the central furnace under Alpha. All these buildings get heat or none of them get heat. Works the same way with lights and plumbin, all centralized under Alpha. The engine room, we call it. Keeps this shit pit alive. But there are cost cutting measures in place, so surveillance? In Alpha, it’s motion activated. In Delta you have to turn it on manually and with all the commotion, nobody got around to it. So, no, Chief, I didn’t see any tapes aside from thems that comes from Charlie and Bravo.”
Bravo?
“Aye. Bravo. Watched McMillan float in that door right there,” pointing at the door back at the other end of the hall, “Like a ghost. If I e’er imagined a ghost, that’s what McMillan was. Turns and opens the door to the stairwell and floats on up, fire axe in hand. And then there’s the next tape.
“Came up right behind - and I remember this guy’s name, Chief, cannae tell you why - Bill Lester - file said something like a few weeks? a few months? something ridiculous like that away from end of assignment - and swings the fire axe right into his head. Cannae say if he felt it, I just hope he died quick.
“And ye know what I thought while I watched these fuckin tapes? That I’d feel a whole lot more at ease if we had sound on ‘em. Because now I’m watchin the commotion and the silence is just as frightenin as McMillan’s floatin; the crew were probably tryin to figure out why there was a fire alarm over at Charlie. Hell, I still dinnae know how they missed McMillan comin out of Charlie and in to Bravo but they were standin up now, Chief, ye better believe they were standin up, now. I forget this guy’s name, Chief, think it was Fredrick, but he pulls some hero shit and lunges at McMillan while McMillan tries to yank the axe out of Lester’s head. He gets there too late and McMillan pulls it out in time, dodges Fredrick, turns and buries it in Fredrick’s back.
“And then ye see the side of McMillan’s head explode. Had to back it up and watch it again. Another grunt, dinnae remember his name, I see he’s in the back and he draws a bead on McMillan and I watch two little flashes blow out of his sidearm, flash-flash, like that. Report says first one lodged itself between McMillan’s shoulder blade and ribs, shattered the shit out of them but didn’t make an exit. Second one blew clean through McMillan’s head.
“Suppose that’s the ghost story they use to keep the crews out there in the world in line.”
Never heard that one. Just the one about Norwegian pederasts.
“The Linemen know it. All the Linemen know it. Ye’d be hard pressed to find one that hasn’t heard that one rattlin in the pipe.”
How many crack ups you witness, Reid?
“There was one or two. Two. Yankees. One just pissed and moaned constantly until he blew a fuse in the mess and started throwin his and everyone else’s food around. The other was just a crybaby. Yates. He was in charge then. He cracked and started drinkin all the damn time. Sat on the commlink upstairs listenin to silence and just nursin the bottle. By the time he stopped comin out of his office - just sittin in there cryin and drinkin and pissin in a mop bucket, not comin out to go to his bunk and only goin to the mess for another bottle - that’s about the time the higher ups yanked him. Put me in charge and I figured that I’d had enough of readin reports of this shit and the two I had to file were three too many for my tastes, so, well, that’s why things run the way they run around here.”
You filed the reports. You were second in command?
“Ach. There is no ‘second in command’ around here; I just knew how to file reports like those better than the other fellas, so if I was second in command, I was second in command by default: Nobody else wanted the job. Or could do it worth a damn, for that matter.”
I let that sink in. It made sense. Sixteen hours and nothing from the windows to tell you how long you’d been at it. Day and night, taking in all the chatter and crosstalk at what amounts to the single most important communications hub in the organization. Pressure and strain and fatigue all brought together in perfect storm proportions. So the rest of it made sense. The booze, the lack of dress code, the informality of rank. Reid was opening up the valves, letting the pressure out. Otherwise, the crack ups would just keep rolling in and the reports would just keep piling up. Reid had taken the reins and had thrown out every rule that didn’t actually affect how the crew did their jobs.
But, then that’s why I was sent here. Things had gotten slack and they wanted me to tighten ‘em back up. Performance hadn’t fallen, it had actually improved, illness and injury were so rare here that they could reasonably run the sickbay on an “as-needed” basis, the crew requested assignment extensions. But the higher ups saw all of this as a temporary improvement and were waiting for the fallout because the higher ups saw one other thing that should have impressed them but instead ‘concerned’ them.
A total lack of disciplinary action noted in the (regularly late) reports.
What it was was that there was no need for disciplinary action, nobody stepped out of line. What it looked like was that things were getting too loose over here, how long until something went awry? And nobody ever checked up on them. Until now. Until they sent me here. And they sent me with a few objectives. One of which was to ‘eliminate redundancies’, the PC way of saying ‘trim the fat’, get rid of unneeded personnel. I can think of one already; I’m having a beer with him.
They want me to shit can you, Reid.
Reid nodded and said, “Aye, I know that.”
You didn’t say anything.
“Ach, I made the dumbassed mistake of extendin my assignment again. Had to, I look at my crew and I cannae think of a one that would be decent enough to take over. Perhaps Murphy. Strong, superior, but still young. Haysell’s a good one, too, a little more seasoned. I mean, these men are in charge of the pipe and someone needs to be in charge of the men in charge of the pipe. But I knew that the higher ups wanted me out, just couldn’t find a good reason to get rid of me as long as the numbers were up. And to tell ye the truth, when I heard the word come down the pipe that they were sendin someone out to perform inspections and take inventory, I knew that they were investigatin me.”
And you didn’t say anything.
“I dinnae mind, honestly, because, well, as long as we’re using the word ‘honestly’, Chief, I’ve been on the verge of crackin up for about four or five years now.”
How have you kept from - I mean -
“How do I keep it in check? How far did ye get in yer sickbay inventory?”
I stopped at Quinine.
“Alphabetical?”
Yeah.
“If ye got down to ‘V’, ye’d find we’re out of valium. When we ran out of that, I reckoned that I couldn’t place an order for more without getting pegged, so I did the research and found that diazepam was the same fuckin thing and erased the letter ‘D’ from the inventory and kept the ‘D’ drugs in the ‘V’ bottles. When that ran out, I went after the benzodiazepine and did the same thing. And we’ve been out of all those for about two weeks. All I’ve been doin since is drinkin.”
You’re cracking up because you’re the only one that’s not slacking on all the peripheral rules.
“Not true, Chief. Haysell, Murphy? Those two are as straight-laced as they come. Just dinnae know who I can hand the baton to, y’know?” He pauses, continues, “I should’ve seen where we were getting low on those meds and opted out of extending. Now I got another two years left.
“I’m ready to go home, Chief. Leave this shit to them.”
I think about it for a minute. You ever look under ‘X’?
“Xanax? I thought about it. I’m done with pills, Chief. I’m done with running ACCURATE.”
I can recommend a reassignment. Get you thrown over to a sunny place. I can’t promise anything but -
“I’m done with the whole thing, Chief. I been drinkin to combat the crack up that’s due to come any day now and it just isnae enough. Helped a little at first but I guess I flushed all the meds out of my system by now. I can feel it creepin up my spine and tinglin in my extremities. Sometimes it feels like there’s a fire behind my face and in my guts it’s just bubbles and knots. I’m done. I want out.”
You know that’s not possible. I’ll put it in my report that you need a vacation. I can throw a word in the pipe tonight, even.
“Ye dinnae know how to work the equipment and I can’t have ye compromise what command I have in front of my men when ye have them operate it for ye. What would they think? What would they think of me, then, Chief? That I couldn’t cut it. That I cracked up like the others.”
You’re only human, Reid. You just need to get away from this shit, for good.
“Yer right, I do.” Reid gets up from the milk crates he’s been sitting on and walks across the hall to his office. I get up to follow but he locks the door as I get to it.
Reid?
He sits down behind his desk and reaches into one of the lower drawers.
Reid! What are you doing!?
I relax only a little when I see Reid put a bottle of Seven Crowns on his desk. He smiles warmly at me before rolling his chair back from the desk. I then see his foot stretch out and, with his heel, he rolls a mop bucket closer to himself.

There are twenty five eyes on me in the mess (Murphy and Campbell wear glasses - myopic, you see - and Sellers has an eye patch) and Campbell, out of his crooked mouth, asks, “What’s the word on Reid, Bagpiper?”
Reid has been - There are orders, emergency orders, for Reid to be transferred, there’s a situation up in Panama that requires his expertise.
Muir’s not buying it, “Bullshit! It dinnae come through here!”
Maybe you just haven’t heard of it yet, Muir.
“Ach, it’s bullshit! Isnae nothing happenin in Panama and we all damned well know it. The old man has cracked up.”
Twenty five eyes stare at me, lifeless but expecting, bored and owed. Alright, so, you want the truth, huh? Is that what you’re after? Why? So you can go about talking shit about how Reid cracked up? The guy let everything slide to keep you guys from cracking up and then -
Murphy stands up, “No, sir. We want to know the truth so that we know if we’re at risk as well. If Reid, of all people, sir, could crack up, then that means that any one of us could crack up.”
I nod at that. Yeah. Fine. He cracked. He just wanted to save face was all. I should’ve known better than to assume these guys could be bullshitted really. So I tell them, Yeah. He cracked up. There.
“Hey, Bagpiper,” comes out of Muir again, “Hey, man, Reid knows that we’d find out sooner than we could be lied to. He knows that if there was any white wash, we’d see right through it, there’d be no way to save face.”
Haysell blurts out, “That’s real fucking great, Muir! Why don’t you shut your fucking mouth!?”
“Nah, man, it isnae about that. Nah, listen, Bagpiper, if’n ye can get through to him, I mean if ye can get through to him at all, tell him his boys already knew before ye could say shite and that his boys understand and we appreciate his sacrifice for us.” And then, almost as an afterthought, Muir takes it back, “Nah. Just tell him we dinnae know anything. Tell him it‘s OK. Tell him we’re still his boys.”

In my office, I finish up my reports. I decide to recommend both Haysell and Murphy in the end, joint command. As far as pulling in a twelfth, I also recommend bringing Nachtwächter back from Neumayer, even though I know the higher ups won’t go for it but I’m done coming up with ideas. I was done yesterday when I watched an extraction crew load Reid on to his plane home or wherever they were taking him. He went without a fight; I caught McIntire’s useless ass in the hall and told him to dump Reid’s piss bucket and hang some air fresheners in his office, place smelled like a fucking hamster cage.
Now I stand here waiting for my plane, and I have only three recommendations in my report:
Haysell / Murphy, Joint Command of ACCURATE
Transfer Otto Nachtwächter to ACCURATE
Lager, not pilsner
I also take copies of the McMillan reports with me, remembering to watch them in the daylight with the windows open.
But, yeah, Reid left without a fight. When he saw the extraction team, he got up and unlocked the door, asking them to let him grab his coat.
He hadn’t shaved in the two days he spent holed up in there and, from the smell of things, hadn’t taken a bar of soap in there with him, either. He reeked like a brewery and his eyes were glassy and jaundiced and across his long, skeletal face he wore a serene smile. He strolled over to me and dropped the keys in my hand, “Whichever bastard ye hand these to, Chief, tell em... tell em… ah, the fuck I care ye tell em? Just dinnae go takin those yerself, Chief.”
Then I watched them, from the garage, load Reid on to the plane.

Saturday, January 22, 2011 · (No comments)

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