Suzze accuses jack of setting her up.

| Bunga Bunga

“You’re a pimp, Jack.”

They had said goodnight to Yeshu’a who was on his way to visit an old friend, and were walking down the hall on the second floor of the Apostolic Palace, the guest apartments of the Vatican housing bunga bunga rooms for higher-ups in need of corporeal stimulation.

Suzze was talking to the HushPuppies, comparing dinner notes. Although they weren’t sure they cared for him, both Mr. Right and Miss Left agreed that Yeshu’a was a handsome man of impeccable tastes and sophistication, and oh, oh, oh those fabulous eyes.

“And the gift, the gift was nice,” said Miss Left.

“Yes, yes it was, but a little presumptuous don’t you think?” said Mr. Right, “for a first date.”

Suzze stopped and stomped her foot to admonish Mr. Right, “Don’t say that! It wasn’t a date!”

The Old Man fished for the key, compared the number to the door and entered the apartment. It was formerly the private domain of Cardinal Iacopo Borogolio who, having a fetish for pop art and the mod style of the 70’s, had it decorated top to bottom like a cheap motel. He had developed the fetish as a young priest while ministering to every street walking puttana on the south side of Naples. It had been vacant for some time and smelled of unwashed flesh and stale marijuana.

Cardinal Borogolio had been an oddity. Boys had never been his style. He preferred women like his sainted mamma, lusty, big breasted women with hairy armpits, a bush that extended from navel to knees, and breath redolent with the fishy aroma of fresh sperm.

Months earlier, Iacopo had hit the road when it was discovered that he was short something on the high side of two-hundred million Euros without offsetting receipts, having laundered the funds through the Istituto per le Opere di Religione, the IOR, commonly known as the Vatican Bank.

Cardinal Borogolio currently resided on a hillside villa in Panama, quite opulent, following a tradition previously established by Joseph Aloisius “Rat Man” Ratzinger, otherwise known as Pope Benedict XVI, namely, When the shit hits the fan, head for the hills. Quando la merda colpisce il ventilatore, testa per le colline, or something like that.

The loss, though not inconsequential to the Vatican, was not uncommon, so the press office spun it in biblical terms, see no evil, speak no evil, forgiveness this, forgiveness that, yada yada yada, and with the raised hand of a papal pardon, Iacopo, Jock to his friends and family, was off the hook.

They walked inside.

“Wow, Jack got to hand it to you, you still haven’t lost that wonderful sense of humor.”

“Hey, it’s free. And it’s the Vatican. And it’s Rome. And rooms are hard to come by. I pulled some strings. Quit complaining.”

Suzze sat on the edge of the bed and bounced up and down to make the springs squeak in simulated coitus, “I kind of like it, Jack. Reminds me of a Motel 6 me and Joel lived in for a while.”

As the Old Man wandered around opening drawers and peering behind the draperies, Suzze read aloud from an iPhone, “Nietzsche says that hope makes us forgo the essence of life, the here and now – which is why preachers and politicians always espouse Hope. They like to sell the future so they don’t have to be accountable for today.”

“Where’d you get the iPhone?”

“Stole it from Larry. His toilet. Remember? The day you blew my finger off? Fingers. Fingers, Jack.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that wasn’t me?”

The Old Man continued to inspect the premises. Crusts of dried semen stained the pink shag carpet. There was no bathroom as such, the bathroom and bedroom merely one large space. The fixtures showed their age, cast iron spotted with rust and mold. An ancient throne, complete with padded toilet seat sat between the sink and stand-alone shower stall. There was no tub. A coin box on the wall controlled the vibrating bed. Got to give the decorator credit, the room was a museum piece, a stage set for high-level high jinks.

Suzze dropped her robe and headed for the commode, draining the last drops of instant cappuccino that was sure to keep her awake but good for her bowels, which were in distress after spending the past hour and a half eating artichokes, in the Jewish style, no less, with Jesus Christ, catching up on old times.

Suzze’s bare bottom plopped down on the spongy vinyl seat with a smack, squishing the air from it with a honk. She removed the HushPuppies and sat them each at the base of the commode, Mr. Right on the right, Miss Left on the left, lifted her feet and folded them across the seat Buddha-like, joined palms, took a deep breath and began to hum.

“Susan, what are you doing?” the Old Man asked, still prowling the room, now flipping through a stack of vintage pornographic videotapes.

“I’m Supremely Relaxing My Anus, Jack.” She rolled back and forth on the padded toilet seat, settling in, “It affords significant health benefits. It’s Zen.”

“Oh.” He continued to scrutinize the dirty movies.

“A tight anus is not a healthy anus, Jack.”

The Old Man tucked one of the videotapes into his pocket, then continued walking around the fetid premises. He tried to open and close the door to the shower, which was stuck, pulled a lamp cord, turned it on, turned it off, turned it on again.

“Nietzsche got it right, Jack. Religion is a disease. A mental illness. A sales pitch. A promotion. A way to separate suckers from their money. Trust me, Jack, I know whereof I speak.”

The Old Man ran out of corners to explore and took his place on the floor beside the commode.

Suzze stopped her meditation, having given up on her unhealthy anus, and tapped in another book she had downloaded from Amazon. She looked down to Mr. Right and Miss Left, “So, picking up where we left off, Quantum physics might seem to undermine the idea that nature is governed by laws, but that is not the case. Instead it leads us to accept a new form of determinism: Given the state of a system at some point in time, the laws of nature determine the probabilities of various futures and pasts rather than determining the future and past with certainty.”

Suzze elaborated, offering her own interpretation of the passage to Mr. Right and Miss Left, “Those who believe in the desert gods, Yahweh, Allah, Jesus, etcetera, etcetera, find that incomprehensible, but people must come to accept theories that agree with experiment, not their own preconceived notions or what a preacher, the very personification of ignorance, tells them.”

She looked down at her shoes, “Still with me?”

“With you,” said Miss Left.

“Got it,” said Mr. Right.

She looked over to the Old Man who was reading the carton to the purloined videotape, or staring at the pictures, she wasn’t sure which.

“To continue, ‘What science demands of a theory is that it is testable. If the probabilistic nature of the predictions of quantum physics meant it was impossible to confirm those predictions, then quantum theories would not qualify as valid theories. The bottom line is that quantum physics agrees with observation.” Suzze enunciated for emphasis, “It has never, not once, failed a test, and it has been tested more than any other theory in science.”

“Wow,” said Miss Left, “you know your stuff.”

“Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. The Grand Design. They lay it all out. I paraphrase, of course,” said Suzze.

“What about Jesus,” asked Mister Right?

“Well, there is little or no credible evidence that he ever existed.”

“Now, now, now,” said the Old Man, now fondling the videotape.

“Let me get back with you on the Jesus part,” said Suzze.

“I mean, what happens? Do our soles just wear out?” Mister Right was distressed.

“Are we just canvas and rubber?” Miss Left was catching his anxiety.

“What are we?” asked Mister Right.

“Yes, what are we made of?” asked Miss Left.

Suzze sought to comfort them, “We are stardust. We are golden. We will all return to our beginnings in a billion, billion little pieces. And we will join again and again with a billion, billion other little pieces for all of eternity. What a wonderful thing.” Suzze was in awe of the purity and simplicity of it all.

“I’m not so sure I feel any better.” Mister Right was forlorn.

“Me neither,” said Miss Left. “It’s good to have something to believe in, something to hang on to, something to hope for.”

Suzze decided to ignore them, clueless souls that they be.

Suzze lowered the iPhone and gazed around the room talking to herself as much as the Old Man, “You know, Jack, I loved Joel. I really did. Once upon a time, I did. Joel created me. He made me who I am. Or at least who I was. Maybe being who I was made me who I am, but when you get right down to it, Joel was just a slimy little used car salesman and I was his hot ride. I don’t want to be anybody’s ride anymore. I don’t. I won’t. I know that now.”

She looked down at the HushPuppies, justifying her decision, “He could barely read. Couldn’t write. Eight best sellers and he couldn’t write a lick. But boy could he smile. Smile and talk. I swear to God, the man smiled in his sleep.”

“How was he in bed?” asked Mr. Right.

“That’s none of your business.”

Miss Left piped in, “Oh come on, just between us girls.”

She leaned in close to Miss Left, “Like a rabbit. Fast, relentless and unimaginative, if you have to know.”

“Your man’s just like him, Jack. And do you really believe that anybody is really going to believe that this guy is the corporeal son of the Jew god Yahweh. Really, Jack? Really?”

“It worked before.”

“Before? Before’s not now, Jack. Now’s the Internet. Now’s Grand Theft Auto 8. He’s a pussy, Jack, weak in the knees.”

Suzze put her feet down, folded her arms across her knees and rested her head in her lap, looking down at the floor, whispering to herself, “Be-lieve. If only you believe. Believe, believe, believe. It is yours, if only you believe. If only you believe, my brothers and sisters.”

A minute passed in silence.

Suzze sat upright and looked the Old Man straight in the eye, “I don’t believe anymore Jack. I never did. I wanted them to believe. Not me. I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m finished.”

The sweaty vinyl seat stuck to Suzze’s butt, then dropped with a plunk as she stood up and walked to the shower.

The Old Man returned the videotape to his pocket and looked into the commode, which was empty. He flushed it anyway, just for good measure.

Suzze stepped into the shower, yanking and jimmying the sliding Plexiglas door trying to get it to close. The shower started and stopped and started again as it spewed rusty water.

She called out above the hissing shower, “You know, Jack, they’re not far from figuring the whole thing out, this whole cosmic thing. And when they do, when ultimate truth is revealed, what then, Jack?”

“Four Horsemen? The Antichrist? 6-6-6?” said the Old Man.

“Come on Jack, that fire and brimstone shit is so ancient history. Bad things don’t have to happen. And when they do, they do, that’s all. That’s life. Buck up. Get used to it.”

“Buck up. Buck up? That’s life? Shit happens? You think they’re gonna go for that? You think that’s what they want to hear? Especially with no pot of gold on the back end? That’s your message? Stardust? Golden? Don’t count on it.”

Suzze turned off the water, grabbed a towel to dry her hair and stepped back into Miss Left and Mister Right, “You know Jack, I’ve been thinking.  No, that’s not true, you’ve been leading me to believe, Jack, you’ve been leading me to believe that this was going to be about me, Jack.  Now you tell me you want me to marry this guy. I’m going to be someone’s wife, Jack? I didn’t sign up to play second string, Jack, not that I actually remember signing up at all.”

Suzze donned her robe. “Remember Oprah, Jack? All about how you needed a Messianic figure? Me the new Oprah? And now you want me to be a freaking housewife, Jack?

“Oh yes, Yeshu’a you’re so special.

“Oh yes, Yeshu’a, I can’t live without you.

“Oh yes, Yeshu’a, you’re my one and only.

“Oh please, Yeshu’a, can I have some more, please, sir?

“Oh, and in case you’ve missed something here, Jack, I’m not exactly pure of flesh, if you know what I mean.”

“But Susan, there are sacrifices to be made. You have to think of the greater good.”

“Nope Jack. I sacrificed already, remember?”

“Think about it. You never know. You might feel better about it in the morning.”

“Why’s that, Jack?”

“Cause I don’t think I’ve ever known two people more perfectly suited for each other.”

“A dream come true,” said Mr. Right.

“A match made in heaven,” said Miss Left.

-end-

 

Suzze hits bottom

| The Doors

"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."

“What’s that, Jack?”

“William Blake.”

“Who’s that, Jack?”

They were back in the Garden, shimmering, glittering, idyllic.

“A poet. William Blake was a poet. ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’. He wrote it. That’s where it comes from.”

“Wow Jack, you never cease to impress me, she said with forced irony,” said Suzze.

“Actually, it was from a book by Aldous Huxley. He copied it from Blake. He was doing mushrooms at the time.”

“Sounds like your kind of man, Jack.”

“I thought you liked poetry.”

“I never said that.”

The Old Man waited for Suzze to ask him to explain himself, a tactic that Aristotle had first written about, don’t be forthcoming with an answer, require the student to ask for the answer, a sign of acceptance, an enlightened way to teach.

Suzze was tired of the game, “So go ahead, Jack. Tell me. What does it mean? I know you’re just dying to tell me what it all means.”

“That we see what we want to see,” said the Old Man.

“Wow Jack, you never cease to impress me with your insight, she said, making no effort to conceal her cynicism,” said Suzze.

“Sounds like we’re in a bad mood today,” said the Old Man.

They were sitting in the grass by the edge of the pond. Everything was beautiful. Everything was perfect. Suzze was despondent.

“I got a headache, Jack. A migraine. At least I think it’s a migraine. Never had one before. Been getting them a lot, lately.”

“Like your head is going to explode?”

“Don’t say that Jack. It’s not funny.”

“I want to go home, Jack. I’m not happy here.” Suzze looked around, asking herself how she could possibly fail to be happy amid all this beauty.

“So what would make you happy? Right now?”

“My mamma, Jack. That’s what would make me happy.”

“Sorry,” said the Old Man.

“I read a poem once, Jack. It was about a guy who measured his life in tea spoons. One cup of tea, one spoon. One day, one cup of tea. The next day another cup of tea. And the next day another cup of tea so his whole life was nothing more than a cup of tea and a bunch of dirty tea spoons. I think it was supposed to be art. It was depressing, Jack.”

The Old Man leaned to one side and farted, “Prufrock.”

“Excuse you, Jack.”

“‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.’ All about the futility of life.”

“My whole life, since my mom left anyway, has been just one big squat.”

The Old Man leaned to the other side and farted again.

Suzze ignored him this time. “He drinks tea. I squat. That’s what my whole life has been, Jack, one big squat.”

“Everybody squats,” said the Old Man.

“Suzze Squats. Maybe I’ll write a book.”

“Suzze Poops,” offered the Old Man. “I like that better.”

“But I don’t Jack, poop, not much. Mostly I just squat, and nothing ever happens. Squatting and pooping aren’t the same, Jack.”

“Joel wrote books, sold millions,” said the Old Man.

“Yeah, and you know what they were about, Jack? Nothing. Crap. Squats. Squat. That’s what they were about, squat,” said Suzze. “Religious crap. Bullshit.”

“Made money,” said the Old Man.

“Can’t argue with that, Jack. Can’t argue with that. Sell them a shitload of crap and make a ton of money.”

The Old Man leaned in the other direction. Suzze gave him the evil eye which stopped him mid-poof.

“’Sell them hope,’ that’s what he said. Told them they were going to get rich. Told them God wanted them to have everything we had. Told them they were gonna have what we had, we just had to have it first. Riches were a sin but we absorbed the sin and made it all okay. All we had to do was live their dream for them till they got their own. That’s what we got paid for, Jack, living their dream, living somebody else’s dream.

“And what did they want from me? They wanted to know about my hair. My clothes. My pussy. Is that it, Jack? Is that what they really care about, Jack, my pussy? Why, Jack? Why don’t they worry about their own pussies? Why mine?

“Show your pussy. Show your ass. Show them your clothes, your furniture, your car. Show them your pussy and tell them that one day, if they’re lucky, and if they pray – and if they pay -- one day they can have a pussy just like yours.

“A rich pussy. That’s all they all want, Jack, a rich pussy.”

Suzze ran out of steam.

She looked over at the Old Man, inviting him to say something. He didn’t.

“And maybe a bass boat.” Suzze was finished.

A butterfly lit on Suzze’s shoulder.

The Old Man swept his palm up behind it, snatched it off her shoulder, ripped off its wings, broke the body in half and tossed it on the ground in front of them.

Suzze leaned over and poked at the carcass with her toe. “I think that was a real one, Jack.”

The Old Man shrugged.

“I want more, Jack.”

“More?” The Old Man decided it was time to take control of the conversation. “Well, I think . . . “

“Think? Do you think anybody cares, Jack? All this . . thinking about stuff? This . . I’m smarter than you because I think about stuff and you don’t? Like they care about what some guy who wrote a poem thinks? People don’t want to think, Jack. People want to feel. Let me tell you something, Jack. Nobody gives a shit what somebody else thinks. How do you feel? That’s what they want to know. On the news, these reporters, do they ever ask the fat-assed neighbor who just watched her house trailer burn down and all her kids charred to a crisp what she thinks about it? No, Jack. How do you feel? They stick a microphone in her fat face . .  Tell me how you feel . . that’s what they ask. How do you feel about it? People are feeling creatures, Jack. They don’t like eggheads. They don’t like people who think. Thinking scares the shit out of them. All they want is to feel and all they want to feel is good.”

“Where was home?” asked the Old Man.

“Where was home, Jack? Where was home really? I’ll tell you where home was, Jack. Between my mother’s legs. Singing and giggling and being free.”

“Between her legs?”

“Under her skirt. It was my own little world, Jack. Every time I remember my mother, she was always singing and dancing. She’d wear these long, white cotton skirts, tie-dyed in these splashy colors. Pink and blue. I’d dance with her. We’d shake our butts. She’d hold my hands and swing me around. Hippie music. Mom was a hippie. A flower child. Peace and love and brotherhood and all that stuff.”

Another butterfly flickered by. Suzze held out her nub. The butterfly settled onto the end, just where her fingernail used to be. Suzze held it in front of the Old Man. “Thumbs up? Thumbs down?”

The Old Man shrugged his indifference.

“Thumbs down.” She snatched her hand away and grabbed the butterfly in mid air, crushing it to pieces and tossing in on the ground in one single motion.

Suzze put her head on her knees staring at the ground, “Our house is a very very very fine house . . .

“I’d sit between her legs and pick at the hair. That’s where I’d hide. My secret place. Like being in a tent with the sunlight shining through. All I could see were the colors. Sometimes I’d pick out a hair and she’d smack me. She never got mad. Never yelled at me. No matter how many hairs I pulled out of her legs, she’d always yank me up and tell me how much she loved me.

“Our house is a very very very fine house. She’d sing that song over and over. We never had a very fine house, Jack. We lived with Dwight and Eunice, thank you Jesus, please Jesus, yes Jesus. Nothing was easy with Dwight and Eunice, Jack, so mother and me, we’d go out in the yard and she’d smoke pot. I knew she was doing it because she would put me under her shirt while she smoked. And when she finished, she would spin round and round and the colors would swirl around my head and she would sing our house is a very very very fine house . . . “

A moth, pale and green with bright blue and lavender eyespots on each giant wing, slowly and gently came to rest where the butterfly had sat a minute earlier.

“That was my house, Jack. Under my mother’s skirt.”

“What happened?”

“They took her away. Saved her soul.”

[There was a scene with men in white uniforms, maybe put it here]

“And you?”

“I stayed with Eunice and Dwight.”

“Not good?”

“It was okay. They were hard-working, God fearing people.”

Suzze stroked the edge of the moth’s wings, as if touching the lips of a baby.

The firemen got there just in time.”

“Firemen?”

“Anyway, the house went up in no time. I was, like, fourteen or fifteen by then. Bad wiring or something, they never knew exactly what. They kicked in the front door and found me lying inside, unconscious. A few minutes more and I wouldn’t have made it. That’s what they said. They had a picture of me the next day in the paper, front page, and the 6 o’clock news, the whole nine yards. Russ, that’s the fireman, Russ carrying me out in his arms, me like a rag doll in my nightgown with little lambs and crosses on it. God saved me. It was a miracle. I was famous for a day.”

“After that?”

“Foster home. Lived upstairs. Home schooled, not really. Never let me out of my room except to go to church. Still had to go to church. No matter how much things change, it’s still the same, or something like that. Isn’t that what they say, Jack?”

“You never told me about your grandparents. What happened to them?”

“Grandmamma Eunice and Grandpappa Dwight?”

Suzze turned to look at the Old Man face to face. “Eunice and Dwight, Jack? They didn’t make it.”

Suzze stood up, the moth still perched on her fingertip. “Let’s go Jack. Time to go. Somewhere else.”

The Old Man rose with her, “Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky, Let us go through half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels. And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells.”

“Yeah, that’s it Jack. Prufrock, huh?”

“Prufrock.”

“That’s me, Jack. I’m Prufrocked.”

Suzze gazed at the moth, her eyes losing focus, lost in its delicate, intricate, infinite beauty. She brought it to her lips, blew gently beneath its wings and sent it on its way.

-end-

 

Awaiting final edit

 

| Nothing Left to Lose

Susie remembered when they came for her mother.

They were all smiles.

She was reaching up to her mother’s hairy woo-woo. It was spinning all round and round, and she was under her mother’s skirt, and it was all pink and blue and lavender, and the sun was shining through so the colors were spinning round too, and her mother was singing that song by that woman she liked, Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, as they twirled round and round, and the cold smell of grass, and how it made her dizzy and giggle until she fell down and mama tripped and they fell on each other and lay there in the grass tickling and giggling and laughing.

They came in a station wagon. It was old and black and had fins and a gold cross on the door and gold letters but she couldn’t read them.

And four men got out. The man who was driving stayed behind. The doors made a loud noise, bang, bang, bang when they slammed them shut, as if they wanted to make as much sound as they could. The driver leaned against the car with his arms folded, nothing special, like he had done it a hundred times before.

They were all dressed alike, not like a uniform but like they didn’t know how to dress any differently, black pants, white shirts, short-sleeves and skinny black neck ties, and black shoes, shiny black shoes. One, the fat one, the one who was in charge, was bald. The others had greasy hair, a lot of greasy hair, like Ronald Reagan.

Mother didn’t notice them, or pretended not to. She just danced and spun, spun and danced. Freedom’s just another word . .

They got closer.

The bald one reached out his hand, “Now come with us, [name, what should her name be?]. The Lord is waiting for you.”

And just when he reached out for her, she ran.

But they caught her. It was only a few steps. The two others, the two with the greasy hair, they grabbed her, and she still danced, or tried to, trying to spin herself out of their arms.

“Don’t you worry little Susie, your mama’s gonna be just fine,” the fat one, the bald one said, and he held her by the wrist, and when she tried to get lose like her mother, he held her tighter, pulling her closer, not letting her go.

And two men with greasy hair dragged her mother to the car.

And mother stared at them, never took her eyes off of them, Eunice and Dwight, standing on the small front stoop, arms crossed, watching them take away the daughter they could never control, the one who always wanted to sing and dance and blaspheme the Lord.

And she remembered her mother singing to them, Eunice and Dwight locking her eyes with theirs, not singing now, but screaming, freedom’s just another word . .

The fat man, the bald one who had her by the wrist said, “We’re doing this for you little Susie, so you can grow up with the love of Jesus in your heart,” as he lifted her by her wrist and walked her to Grandmamma Eunice.

And the man who was standing by the car with his arms folded opened the back door.

Susie’s grandmamma picked her up and put her over her shoulder and patted her on the back as she sang in a high pitched, discordant voice, Jesus loves you this I know . .

As Grandmamma Eunice turned to go back inside the small frame house, Susie looked backwards to see her mother crying out. But she could not hear her mother cry. She saw her lips moving but she heard no sound. She saw the tears in her eyes. She could feel mother’s pleading, feel it inside her body, in her soul, in her heart. She could see the anguish that contorted her mother’s body, anguish that reached out to Susie even though she knew that Susie couldn’t help. But Susie could not hear a single word as her mind went blank and one by one all of her senses shut down.

And that was the last time Susan Gilmore ever saw her mother.

 - - -

What did it say? The lettering on the door, what did it say? What did the lettering say? Where did they take her? She had thought, and thought, and thought about it, a thousand times and she never could picture the lettering, the name, what it said, or who they were.

- - -

The woman in the white coat watching the monitor saw Suzze, clear and plain and in high definition. But she did not know what Suzze was thinking. Nor did she care.

-end-