Coelacanth
01/28/2009

     I am no stranger to gore.  I'm a doctor, of course.  The Baldwinization procedure, which I am the inventor and patent-holder of, requires that I see the ungodly under-mush that rests just beneath that fragile surface.  So I was comfortable with the degree to which Gravy's face had been vaporized before my eyes.  What had truly shaken me was my own unfortunate injury.  Resting just under the hairline on the left side of my forehead was a half-inch slice.   It was an area of my head that can technically qualify as my face. There was no escaping it.  My face had been "de-perfected".
     The paramedic took a quick look at my ghastly injury and told me to "stop being such a pussy".  I suppose that Gravy did have it worse off than I did, so I was able to see the man's point.  Still, I could not stop myself from feeling the pain, and I just needed two minutes with my glove compartment to make it all better.  Unfortunately, the police had placed "crime-scene" tape all around my beloved Hummer, and every time I approached it I would get a "Hey! Back off, motherfucker!" from one of the flat-top haircut and mirrored shade wearing Kansas State Police.
     So there I was, standing on the side of a Kansas highway as the ambulance drove off with Gravy.  Franz Pinkerton, the best god damned lawyer in the world (as it says on his business card), is talking to the cops on my behalf.  I have complete faith in Franz.  He's a man who deftly wields the scalpel of the law like a coked out surgeon with a God complex.  As he finished up sprinkling his pixie dust on the State Troopers, they simply give me a respectful wave and a wink from eyes that gaze upon me in adoring fascination.
     The state patrol cars are driving away, their lights spinning like tilt-a-whirls, and I just can't take it anymore.  I want to throw open the door of the Hummer, dive into the glove compartment, and swim in a sea of assorted pills and smokeables, if for no other reason than to remove it from the vehicle before it gets logged into evidence.  Thankfully, I get my opportunity when Franz informs me that I'm being given ten minutes to remove any of my "valuables" from the Hummer before the detectives arrive.  My money is well spent with Franz Pinkerton and the law firm of Pinkerton, Duff and Graves.
     After removing anything incriminating from the Hummer, we drive off in Franz's car.  Franz held the wheel of the Cadillac with his knees as he tapped out some kind of powder onto the web of his left hand and snorts it.  He offers me some, and I pass.  I'm not so foolhardy as to think I can possibly withstand the impact from a bump off of Franz's personal stash. 
     Once he's able to hold the steering wheel with his hands again, he explained to me that there was a little goof-up in the message that was trying to be delivered.  He had come here with Caesar's goons to work out a settlement to our beef.
     With the shotgun accidentally going off and taking Gravy’s face with it, things had gotten complicated and Caesar resorted to Plan B: Kidnapping and Ransom.  I confirmed this with a phone call to the "mother" of my child, and came to the conclusion that a head-on approach was in order.  First, I wanted to talk to Eldon's parents to see if they had anything useful to contribute.
     We pulled into the driveway of the Nugent’s.  Eldon's dad, Eugene, was standing there in an open bathrobe flapping in the breeze as his old-man torso assaulted my vision beneath the thin fabric of worn undergarments that hung off of him like mummy-wrap.  He was chewing on a cigar, and every few seconds he would extract the tree-branch-like smoldering stub from his mouth between his index and middle finger and proceed to spit a grayish-brown blast of tobacco-plasm into a brass spittoon.
     "Oh for fuck's sake." Eugene greeted me as I stepped out of the car.  He tossed the cigar into the spittoon, and I felt a cold chill of near vomit rise within me as I heard the splash and sizzle of hundreds of brown wads of spit suffocating the discarded stogie.
     "Sweet Jesus."  I shuttered to myself, entering the Nugent House.
     Eldon's mom jumped up from her chair and ran over as she saw me, tossing her arms around my neck and planting a big kiss on my cheek.  I took a moment to calculate the possibility, and ramifications, of putting the moves on Mrs. Nugent, as I rarely make physical contact with a woman without it resulting in a mutually agreeable sexual encounter.  I decided against, for the moment, seeing as how her almost motherly interest in me would result in a chain reaction of Oedipal anxiety were I to succeed in this quest.   The Oedipal complex was easy to sidestep, as I exceed in denial.  However, I was privy to Mr. Nugent being a shotgun enthusiast, and I didn’t need an ass full of buckshot.  There had been enough gunplay for one day.
     "I just wanted to drop in and see how you guys were." I said, making some severe eye contact with Eldon's mom that led to my unwittingly leaning in for a full-on face-sucking.  She politely jammed her had in my face and pushed me away before offering Franz and I some coffee.
     "Well, when those Mexicans came in looking for Eldon, my jaw just about hit the floor."  She said, pouring some Sanka.
     "They're Colombians."  Franz corrected her.
     "Have you seen Eldon?"  I took a sip of the coffee and my bowels tightened like an anaconda on a kangaroo.  I had to be polite, though, so I took another sip.
     "Nope.  But, seeing as how I found out he's alive and all, I'd sure like to."  Mrs. Nugent calmly sipped her coffee, and I could tell from the look on her face that even she couldn't stomach the nasty brew.
     "That boy needs Jesus."  Eugene piped up.  He had one finger dug into an ear and was twisting away, and the other finger was obscenely probing his belly button.  Interesting sounds and smells were emanating from him.
     "Jesus, huh?"  I chuckled.  "You think that'll do it?"
     "We got Pastor Unger coming over."  Mrs. Nugent said softly.  "He said some words at the service when we thought Eldon had... you know..."  I looked over at her, and once again found myself contemplating a carnal rendezvous with her on Eldon's bed as poster of Zack from "Saved by the Bell" looked on in bitter resentment.
     "Well he didn't... you know..." I assured her, and placed my hand sensually on her thigh before she rested the hot cup of coffee on it.  I pulled my hand away, but made a solemn vow to myself that I would Have This Woman.
     There was a sudden knock at the door, and before anyone could stand up to answer, the door flew open, revealing a large-framed man standing there in a flowing black overcoat and wide-brimmed hat.  He had an eye patch over one eye and walked with a metal-tipped cane.  He stepped inside, and I could strangely hear the cries of the damned as the door closed behind him, as if on cue, and he made his way to the center of the room.
     "I am..." He spoke in a very bouncy, thick hick accent before iduldging in a long pause, "... Pastor Horatio Unger.  Nadine, my lovely.  How are you?"
     Pastor Unger took Mrs. Nugent, whose name is apparently Nadine, by the hand placed a gentlemanly kiss on it.  She blushed and offered him some coffee, which he declined in favor of a small silver flask in his jacket.
     "I was just telling this homo that my boy needs Jesus."  Eugene motioned over to me.  Pastor Unger cast his gaze upon me, and his head tilted as he took in the vision.
     "Good Lord!" Pastor Unger gasped.  "You are one handsome man!"
     "It's only natural to feel that way.  Don’t worry, you won’t be condemned to hell as a sodomite."  I assured the Pastor.
     Pastor Unger proceeded to offer words of encouragement and sympathy to the Nugent family.  How much they had endured, he said, would surely reward them in the afterlife.
     "So let me get this straight."  I butted in.  "Their son fakes his suicide, and the pain this has caused them is like currency they get to spend when they die?  So, if I were stab myself in the balls right now, what would that get me in heaven?  A Ferrari?"
     "My child," Unger said in a rather condescending way that made me clench my fists, "the Good Lord prepares you in this life with faith, and rewards the faithful with eternal grace in his presence in the afterlife."
     "You said 'his presence'.  So God is a man?"
     "Well, I..."
     "So, he has a penis?  Is it huge?  I mean... if God is huge then of course his penis would be huge.  But I'm talking proportional to his height?"
     Mrs. Nugent blushed and placed her hand over her mouth, flustered, and I flashed her a wink and a nod.
     "My son, let's not get silly with semantics.  I am here to bring the healing power of the lord God almighty, who’s only begotten son Jesus had suffered for all of our sins.  Remember that.  What Jesus endured that incredible day was to take all of this pain from those who believe in him.  So Eugene, Nadine, I want you both to just rest comfortably knowing that there is no pain for you to feel.  Jesus has already taken on that burden."
     "So, is it just emotional pain?"  I interrupted.  "Or does Jesus also take on financial obligations?  I mean, according to you, these people shouldn't feel any pain at all because their pain was already 'pre-felt' by Jesus when Mel Gibson stapled him up on that telephone pole, or whatever.  So, can I transfer some of my debt over to the tab-of-suffering that J.C. opened up at the Anguish Bar?  Or is it more of a nebulous concept that can’t be accounted for?”
     "You know," Unger leaned forward, preparing to make some profound point, "it's doesn't surprise me that you're here to challenge me.  Do you know what a Coelacanth is?"
     "Was that a song on Led Zeppelin III?"
     "No, my son.  It's a fish.  For many years people thought it was gone.  Extinct.  Then, lo and behold, one day it's just there.  Unchanged after all this time.  And that's what evil does.  It goes into hiding, and you think it's gone.  But when it returns, you see that it's the same as it ever was.  You may have that handsome face, but just as with Eldon, a new face can't hide the evil inside forever.  And when it's exposed to the world, it's just the same old evil that it ever was.  You're not special, Mr. Boddicker.  And unlike the Coelacanth, when you get caught up in the cleansing net of Jesus, you won't get tossed back into the ocean because there is no endangered species act that protects the works of Satan.  You will be cleansed by the blood of the lamb and cast back into the fires of Hell from whence you came."
     "How the hell do you know about Eldon's new face?"
     Pastor Unger looked at me with that one good eye and scowled.  He stood up and approached the kitchen, his long jacket flowing like Darth Vader's cape.  He pointed at me and motioned for me to follow him, and I did as requested, flashing another seductive smile at Mrs. Nugent as I walked by.  She Would Be Mine.
     As we entered the kitchen, Unger made sure we were out of earshot, and then proceeded to pour himself a tall Jack and Coke.  He sized me up a moment, and then took a sip of his drink.
     "Look," Unger finally said, "I don't know what kind of game you're running on these folks, but go run your grift elsewhere.  I got a good thing going on with these rubes."
     "What the fuck are you talking about?"  I asked, half interested as I rifled through the Nugents' refrigerator.  I came across a jar of maraschino cherries and proceeded to pop them into my mouth one at a time.
     "Come see me tonight, eight o'clock, at this address."  He handed me a card for Diamond Doug's Classy Ladies Gentlemen's Club, then closed with the news:  "I saw Eldon."  Unger chugged the rest of his drink and then plastered on the Holy Smile once more before going back into the living room.
     Franz and I spent a few more minutes at the Nugent's before excusing ourselves, and as we departed I gave a seductive smile and passionate hug to Eldon's mom.  I told her she smelled so good, like Coconuts and Glade air freshener, and she told me that she would stab me in the scrotum if I did not release her from my embrace.  I knew I was making progress.
     We arrived at Diamond Doug's at eight o'clock, and I was delighted to find that it was about as skanky a strip club as one could find in the deadlands of Middle America.  The thick odor of ammonia and sadness hung in the air as sagging strippers with track marks and c-section scars twirled on smudged poles to the sound of 80’s hair band music.  As the song ended, a familiar voice piped in over the loudspeakers.
     “Alright guys, let’s give it up for the lovely Samanthaaaaaaa!” The announcer rapped quickly.  “Right now comin’ up on stage number one we got the beautiful Bunny and on stage two we’ve got you covered with a two-fer, with the scorching hot Veronica and her sexy playmate Raven!  Remember to tip your waitress, and all beers on tap are half off until ten.  And don’t forget, we’ve got the Velvet Room in the back where you can get a little one-on-one time with any of these sexy ladies.”
     A new, horrifying song came blaring over the loudspeakers.  It was the kind of anthem crap-rock that a band twenty years past its prime insists on playing off of their new album at a concert instead of the two or three well known ones the poor schmos who actually go to their concerts paid to hear.  The unfortunate strippers began their clumsy fumbles.  The announcer emerged from this booth, passing off the duties to a stick-thin meth freak.   It took me a moment to realize it, but the announcer, who possessed two perfectly functional eyeballs, was actually Pastor Unger, sans eye patch.  He approached Franz and me with a self-satisfied expression on his face as if we were marveling at the revelation that he was not the fire-and-brimstone holy man he had tried to portray.
     “Gentlemen.”  Unger said with an oily grin.  “Come into my office.”
     We followed him to a back room behind lock and key.  On his desk were several lines of coke chopped out and a few assorted weapons.  I looked over to Franz, and he simply shrugged and helped himself to a few rails.
     “That little queer bait, Eldon, came to visit me.”  Pastor Unger said as he helped himself to a line.
     “What did he want?”  I asked, using Franz’s crack lighter to spark up a joint.
     “He read in the paper about the eulogy I gave at his memorial service.  He wanted me to be the one to break the news to his parents that he was alive.  Unfortunately, he followed me here and figured out what I was about.”
     “What exactly are you about?”  Franz asked, rubbing some residue into his gums before offering a complimenting nod for the free drugs, which Unger reciprocated with his own “you’re welcome” nod.
     “I’m a man of God.”  Unger said so plainly that you’d almost swear he believed it.  “I do what I need to do to provide for my flock.”
     “Your flock?”  I laughed.  “So, does that include the used up skank-towels you got working the poles or the degenerate weirdoes that are crunching folded up stained singles in their g-strings?”
     “I’m like a train, son.  I’m the joy train.  And the joy I give, whether it’s in the salvation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, or the sweet clapping ass cheeks of a nubile young lady up on that stage, is a kind of joy that carries my flock for a thousand miles.”
     “Now that’s a train of joy I can get on board with.”  I winked. 
     “Scoff if you like, but all of this work I do will fund the largest mega-church Kansas has ever seen.  Is it so terrible that I use money taken from the wicked to pay for a structure so righteous? ”  Unger pulled out a large artist’s conception of a crystal Palace Of Prayer and displayed it for us with a coked-out twinkle of pride in his eye.  “When the lord sees fit, I will tear down the walls of this house of sin and rebuild with the money it has brought me. “
     “So what’s with the eye patch and the Pastor routine?”
     “There needs to be a separation between the man you see before you here and the poor suffering souls who need the salvation I am trying to provide.  It is a deception, I will grant you that.   But the deception is mine, and I am not putting the souls of my flock in jeopardy whatsoever.”
     “But Eldon caught you.”
     “He did.”
     “What did he do then?”
     “He asked me to get him guns.   Lots of guns.   And a car that would get him to California.”
     “And you helped him?”
     “It was either that or risk being exposed.  Or kill him.”  Unger laughed.  We didn’t.  “That was a joke.”
     “What kind of car did you get him?”
     “I had a Chevy Astrovan.   He left yesterday morning.”
     Unger sat back and smiled that shitty, shitty smile that made me want to rear back with all my might and swing around with a righteous bitch slap.   I looked around the office, taking in the vast wallpapering of nude models and religious artwork.  Several highly illegal assault rifles were lined up against the wall, along with many sealed crates containing God-Knows-What.
     “All that shit about the coelacanth,” I finally said, “you just pulled that out of your ass, didn’t you?”
     “I saw it on Discovery Channel a while ago.”  He answered, tapping on his nose to loosen up any crystal stragglers.
     “I tell you what.  You steer real clear of Eldon’s family.  You got me?  Because you can rest assured that I will be out there, and you may think I’m gone, but if I need to show myself again, the horrible shit I want to do to you will remain unchanged.  Like the Coelacanth.  Unchanged after however long it takes.   And still as potent.”
     “My son…” he began to say, but he was met with that righteous bitch-slap I had been saving, and despite the harsh sting the impact to his face caused on the backside of my hand, it felt so very good.
     “I’m not your son.”  I forced Unger’s freshly slapped face onto the desk, mashing it into the pile of coke, which upset Franz as he was going in for another round.  “I’m going to take a few things.  And you’re going to let me.”
     “You do what you feel you need to do,” Unger choked, taking deep breaths that were frosted with puffs of powder, “but you cannot hide from the lord and his judgment.”
     “He knows where to find me.”  I said, releasing him.  I threw open a small cash-box on the desk and removed all of the bills, then helped myself to a few handguns.   I noticed a set of Hummer keys on the desk and picked them up, jingling them in my hand and admiring the Hummer logo.   “Yours?”  I smiled, and he nodded.  I shook my head “no” and assured him: “Mine.”
     Franz was heading back to Denver to take care of some business at the law firm after he dealt with the Kansas State Patrol regarding the incident that afternoon, and I intended to take Unger’s Hummer all the way back to California.  Before I left Kansas, however, there was some business I needed to take care of.
     I made sweet, forbidden love to Mrs. Nugent on Eldon’s bed that night as Eugene sat passed out in his lounge chair downstairs, a warm can of Schlitz resting on his belly and a remote control in his hand.  Not even my carnal cries of passion awoke Eugene from sleep, nor did the yelps of ecstasy Mrs. Nugent let out stir him, despite eliciting a chorus of prairie animals to howl along in harmony.
     We sat on Eldon’s bed, basking in the moonlight and afterglow, and shared a cigar-sized joint that I had managed to remove from Gravy’s jacket before he was carted off in the ambulance.  Mrs. Nugent had a moment of weakness where she wept into her hand, asking what she had done, and if her soul was condemned to hell.
     “It’s been a while since Eugene made you yap like a show dog from the good lovin’, eh?”  I warmly whispered to her, stroking her hair, trying to keep ash from the giant joint away as it floated gently in the breeze.  She nodded in agreement, and we stayed embraced until the sun began to peak up over the horizon and cast deep yellow light over Eldon’s room.
     As I drove off the next day, I was consumed with a feeling of hope.  Despite everything, I was once again loaded with cash and contraband in a nice big Hummer.  While Unger’s Hummer was not as pimped out as my own unfortunate Hummer was, it would do.  I would be travelling to California in a chemical stupor and in style.  And thinking about the deeply disturbing yet satisfying sexual scenarios I had been able to find myself entangled in with Mrs. Nugent, I could not help but forget all of my woes and tell myself that Life Was Good. 
     And that’s the kind of joy would carry me for a thousand miles.