Smith's Monthly #11 Read online

  “There weren’t that many of them moving around last time I was down there,” I said as we slid into the booth, the cool vinyl seat feeling wonderful. “That’s only after six months of regular hot chocolate use. Imagine after a year?”

  Again Patty laughed. “Trust me, they have to treat us well.”

  “And why?” I asked as Madge headed our way with large glasses of water she must have had ready.

  “Because if they don’t,” Patty said, patting my hand on the table top like I was two years old, “we just cut off their supply of hot chocolate.”

  “Oh,” was all I could think to say.

  “One event follows another.” I remember saying that up on a writing panel one day and then added in “Well, maybe not.”

  That stuck with me and I went back and decided to start with an event and see what happened if I ended the event with “Well, maybe not.”

  This may well be one of the strangest stories I have ever written. Well, maybe not...

  WELL, MAYBE NOT

  ONE

  CHANNEL SURFING WAS Henry’s life.

  Click.

  Jackie “Big Tits” Simpson slipped seductively up to the counter of Chucky Cheese and leaned forward just enough to cause her low-cut sweater to bag open the right amount. As the newest star of the famous soap opera “Eat Me,” this was her big moment.

  Her big break.

  Her best shot at showing off her big tits.

  “May I help you?” the fat kid with the pimples on his nose asked. He stood back a few feet as if he were afraid to get too close to Jackie, but in actuality it was to make sure all eyes remained on her.

  “You sure can,” she said and then slowly, oh, so slowly, she turned to face the camera...

  Click.

  Jill Bantor, bartender extraordinaire, flipped the bottle high into the air and caught it with her perfect right hand, the bottle’s spout poised perfectly over the highball glass, ready to pour the perfect martini, not too wet, not too dry.

  Harvey, her boss, the love of her life, watched from his usual seat.

  Tonight she would get him to her pink, padded bed.

  Get those tight pants off those wonderful buns.

  Get him to....

  Click.

  Henry sucked down another handful of way-too-salty chips and clicked past five shopping channels. He loved to channel surf, loved to spend the evening just catching slight glimpses of other worlds.

  He’d sit in his small two-bedroom-with-one-bath ranch house every night, seven days a week, surfing. Dishes would pile up in the sink and he wouldn’t notice until the flies got too bad.

  His laundry would go unwashed for weeks until he ran out of socks. Empty bags of potato chips would surround his couch until he couldn’t stand kicking them out of the way.

  He’d surfed for years and now that they had improved the cable channels he had even more choices.

  “Cindy Slut, private dick, will return after a message from our sponsor Magic Hot Tubs.”

  Henry was about to surf on when on the forty-inch screen appeared a naked, sloppy, fat man with a very small penis. So small it took a close-up shot with a ground level camera focused up to even see it.

  Henry watched, arm poised, special surfing control aimed at the set ready to move on as the fat guy huffed and grunted and finally shifted his bulk over the edge of the blue hot tub and settled into the bubbling water. Below the picture flashed off and on the words “Hidden camera view of satisfied customer.”

  Water splashed over the edge of the tub and after a moment the man’s eyes seemed to roll up into his head.

  Below the picture the words switched to “ten minutes elapsed time” and the picture shifted slightly as what appeared to be the same man shook his head, stretched and then stood up.

  He was now slim, with a deep tan, a handsome grin, and a huge penis. So big the camera had to pull back to catch it all.

  “Wow!” Henry said and scrambled for a pen to write down the toll-free number.

  Henry was clearly overweight and his dick at its best was no longer than his little finger, even though he always thought of himself as just average. This Magic Hot Tub would be the perfect thing for him.

  He would buy the Magic Hot Tub, soak in it for ten minutes and never have to diet again. And he could meet women and do things to them that he couldn’t even see done on the Penthouse channel.

  And then afterwards they could channel surf together, of course, with him holding the control.

  He reached for the phone. This would be great.

  Well, maybe not.

  TWO

  DETECTIVE DANNY DOHICKEY stared down at the bloated, overcooked form of Henry floating in the steaming water. So far the flies hadn’t started swarming, but it would only be another hour or so. They had been lucky to get the call from the meter man on this one. Sometimes these hot tub deaths went days without being discovered. Usually the neighbors complained about the smell after three days.

  “Another Magic Hot Tub death?” his partner, Detective Walter Waker asked as he glanced at the body, his face showing the disgust he felt and the indigestion from too much pork at breakfast.

  “Afraid so,” Danny said.

  “Why anyone would use these things is beyond me,” Walter said. He leaned over the edge and looked at the special box on the side. “Penis enlarger again?”

  “Afraid so,” Danny said.

  “Another one cut off?”

  “Afraid so.” Danny pointed to the shriveled, finger-looking thing floating near the filter.

  “Medical examiner done with him?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Which means we’ve got to haul him out of there?”

  “Afraid so.”

  Walter rolled up his sleeves, reached in, and grabbed a leg.

  Danny grabbed an arm and they heaved and hauled and huffed and puffed and after a good ten minutes they had flopped Henry like a dead white fish beside the tub.

  “You as wet as I am?” Walter asked, brushing water from his arms and pants.

  “Afraid so,” Danny said.

  “He’s all yours,” Walter said to the woman from the morgue. “We got a report to fill out, don’t we Danny?”

  “Afraid so.”

  Betty Black, the woman from the morgue, put the cart beside Henry and gestured to the two cops. “Not before you roll him onto there.” She pointed to her cart.

  She wasn’t going to do it and hurt her back. She needed her back limber for what she had planned later that night.

  Walter grunted, but both detectives quickly had Henry on the cart and were walking away.

  Suddenly Walter turned back to Betty. “Forgot to tell you. His penis is still in the hot tub.”

  “You’re kidding!” Betty said.

  This was her first Magic Hot Tub death and she hadn’t heard about what really happened from reading the papers.

  “Afraid not,” Walter said, obviously enjoying her discomfort.

  “And I have to fish it out?”

  Afraid so,” Danny said, slapped his partner on the back. Laughing, they walked off.

  “Wonderful,” Betty said in disgust, staring down at the naked, penis-less fat man on her stretcher. “And I’ll bet it was a big one, too.”

  Well, maybe not.

  THREE

  BETTY USUALLY WORE black to work. She felt it appropriate, since she worked with so much death. But at work in the morgue they always made her put on a clean, white surgical gown over her street clothes.

  Betty was a pretty average woman, both in size and looks and the white surgical gown did nothing to help those looks. It flattened her chest and covered her best asset, her ass.

  Betty had only worked at the morgue for three weeks, but her years of training were medical. And some veterinary. But that was much earlier.

  Now she was in line for helping out with autopsies. That had been a dream of hers since the first time she had cut open her brother’s dead dog to see how mu
ch damage the car had done.

  “You want this one to be your first?” Brad, Betty’s boss, asked her, pointing at the naked Harry with his small penis laying on the stretcher beside him. “You could do him this afternoon and I could watch.”

  Brad’s face seemed almost flushed and he sounded breathless.

  Betty almost clapped her hands together in excitement. Her first. She was really looking forward to cutting this one open, stem to stern, then talking into the recorder about what she was seeing, and then doing the report. It was what she had trained all these years for, the ultimate moment.

  “That would be wonderful,” she said to Brad, doing her best to keep her voice in control and totally professional.

  Brad nodded and smiled real big. “Good. But lunch first. I know this great Italian place with the best red sauce and big glasses of wine. I’ll meet you outside in five minutes.”

  “Wonderful,” Betty said and watched Brad head toward his office. Too bad he was married, she always thought when she watched him walk away from her. This time was no exception to that rule.

  As Brad left, she turned to face the naked form of Henry.

  “Well, it seems you get to be the lucky one.” She patted his fat, cold stomach and then walked around the table. “You get to be my first real stiff, not like those in school. You get to be the one who pops my cherry.”

  Henry, of course, didn’t say a word.

  “You know,” she said, “I need something to remember this day. Maybe I should buy myself a special present. What do you think about that?”

  Again, of course, Henry didn’t say a word. He was just too dead.

  “Or maybe I should keep a little something from inside of you.”

  She pretended to make a cut mark down the center of his chest.

  Henry kept very still, as was his condition.

  “But Brad will be here then. Maybe I should just take this.”

  She picked up Henry’s small (and now-even-smaller-because-the-water-had-shrunk-it) penis.

  She held it up in front of her face, turning it to look at all sides, studying the pattern of wrinkles. “I think this will be a wonderful memento, don’t you?”

  Henry would have objected, of that there was no doubt, but he couldn’t and therefore didn’t.

  So Betty pulled off her surgical gown, opened her black handbag and dropped Henry’s penis into her change purse. “Thanks,” she said and patted Henry’s arm. “I’ve got a wonderful lunch date, but I will see you this afternoon.”

  Well, maybe not.

  FOUR

  BETTY AND BRAD had three large glasses of wine each and both were feeling very, very happy.

  Brad had suggested she do Henry in the private cutting room, with the door locked so that they wouldn’t be interrupted. Betty had been so excited at that suggestion she almost wet herself.

  On the way back, both of them breathless, both excited, both half smashed, they didn’t expect a problem.

  But they got one.

  A big one.

  The city bus with the bad brakes that none of the bus drivers wanted to drive, jumped the curb and gave both Betty and Brad a very quick ride into the side of a brick three-story building.

  Blood splattered everywhere and the clean-up crew ended up having an awful time telling which part went with which body. However, a few hours later Betty and Bob were both beside Harry again, in body bags, smaller bags, and buckets. Not at all the way they had intended.

  Betty’s black handbag was tossed clear of the massive mess and mayhem, where it was picked up by a homeless young woman from Kansas named Dot. She held it for a time, watching the cops and medics clean up the mess, pretending all the time that she would give the handbag to the first person who asked.

  She stood there for an hour, pretending.

  But no one asked, so she decided she would turn it in later.

  Back at her hot-air grate beside the dumpster, she opened the bag and found eighteen dollars in bills. She also saw a picture of Betty’s apartment and in a secret place inside the lining she found a naked picture of Betty with her legs spread. Why Betty would carry a picture of herself doing that was beyond Dot, who was from a farm and had never really even looked at herself naked in a mirror. When she was growing up she even locked her dog out of the bathroom when she was taking a bath.

  Inside the change purse was another eighty-seven cents and a strange-looking rubbery thing.

  “Oh, yuck,” she said and dropped the thing back inside the handbag with the picture of naked Betty.

  She dug through the rest of the junk in the bag, but found nothing worth anything at all. She stuffed the money into a deep pocket in her cloth coat and held the bag at arm’s length and looked at it. “Maybe I can get a reward for this down at the police station.”

  Well, maybe not.

  FIVE

  THE BIG GUY with a gray mustache behind the desk at the police station just took the purse after listening to Dot’s story. He sort of grunted a thank you and then handed the purse to a young woman in a freshly ironed and washed uniform behind him. “Run this to the morgue to be put with the other personal stuff of that woman bus-crash victim.”

  The young woman named Officer Josepha Friday nodded her head excitedly, like a little puppy, then scampered forward and took the bag. “Yes, sir. Will do, sir.”

  The desk sergeant rolled his eyes as she ran at top speed for the back door of the station that would lead across the alley to the morgue.

  But she didn’t have to run far.

  In that alley waited postal worker Ken Silverman, who was angry at his wife, his boss, and the fact that his best friend had been arrested by the police for the sixth time for drunk driving. Because of that, Ken’s friend had lost his job.

  So while sorting letters, Ken decided to do something about everything. He went home that afternoon, early, without telling anyone and immediately got in a fight with his wife, took out the pistol he had bought for her to protect herself coming home on bridge night, and shot her in the chest three times.

  Then he reloaded, went back down to the post office and shot his boss, then calmly walked downtown to the police station where he waited in the alley until Josepha came out.

  He told her to stop.

  She saw his gun and reached for hers. She had just been trained last month to do the draw and she knew how to do it real well.

  But she never really got to it.

  He shot her.

  Twice.

  Two hours later Betty’s handbag ended up in Josepha’s personal stuff in a locker in the morgue. And there it seemed destined to stay.

  Well, maybe not.

  SIX

  THE NEXT MORNING Jill, Josepha’s twin sister, arrived at the morgue with her husband Jack Hill. Jill had obviously been crying all night and it took everything Jack could do to keep her from tumbling to the floor in a pile as she looked at poor Josepha laid out there on the slab, two holes punched in her chest and a look of surprise stuck on her face.

  After all the viewing and crying and stuff was over, the night guy at the morgue, who had suddenly been promoted to the day guy, handed Jill her sister’s box of personal things. Jill thanked him and without even looking at what was in the box left the morgue.

  At home that night, in front of a crackling fire, she got up the nerve to open the box.

  Inside was Josepha’s uniform with two holes in it.

  Her bra, also with two holes in it, but these holes were designed by the manufacturer and Jill was shocked. She quickly hid the bra so Jack wouldn’t see it. She didn’t want him to get any ideas.

  Little did she know that Jack knew about the holes in Josepha’s bra, and much more, too. He had spent many a night peeking into Jill’s sister’s bedroom window when he had told his wife he was out jogging. He always came home sweating, so she believed him.

  Jill found no underwear in the box, but some nylons and lace garters. There was an envelope with the contents of Josepha’s pockets
in it. Just some change and a wine opener.

  So Jill opened the big black handbag and the first thing she pulled out was the picture of a naked Betty.

  “Oh my God,” Jill said.

  “Something I can do, dear,” Jack said as he came in from the kitchen and looked over her shoulder. Before Jill could hide the picture he too gasped. “Who’s that?”

  “I don’t know,” Jill said.

  Jill dropped the picture on the carpet and looked carefully into the purse. And there she saw this finger-long piece of shriveled skin and meat.

  With her fingernails she gently picked it out of the purse and held it up. “What is—?”

  “My God!” Jack said. “It’s a man’s penis!”

  Jill screamed, dropped the penis into the bag, and then fainted.

  Jill had never seen a man’s penis, not even Jack’s, since they “did it” in the dark.

  Twenty minutes later she still hadn’t come to, so Jack called an ambulance and ten minutes after that they were speeding toward the hospital, forgetting a few things such as the handbag on the living room floor, Jill’s own much smaller purse on the stand beside the front door, and locking the back door.

  Outside Bad Boy Benny Burges, the fifteen-year-old neighborhood bully and drug pusher watched the scene as they rushed Jill from the house to the ambulance.

  He smiled to himself and ambled slowly down the tree-lined street as the ambulance sped off. He went an entire block before cutting through to the alley and then back to the rear of Jill’s house.

  He smiled even bigger when he discovered the back door was unlocked.

  And he broke out into an even bigger smile when he saw the handbag and the purse. He stuffed the small purse into the handbag without checking either, then went upstairs to look for more cash and stuff.