Dr. Identity (22 page)

The salesman opened the guitar case and removed me. In my protolithic form I resembled something like a giant walking stick or deathly anorexic marionette puppet. I couldn’t feel anything. But I was aware of my body. My mind was schizofunctional.

The plaquedemic filled out the questionnaire. The salesman liquefied his responses and blended them in a Petri dish with a sample of his blood and two special ingredients called Badass and the McGuyver Factor. He sprinkled a bit of table salt on top. He sucked up the resultant mixture with an antique-looking syringe and injected the mixture into one of my extremities. Finally he put a straw into a hole in my shriveled head.

“Blow. Hard.”

The wife-thing peeked into the living cube. “Can I interest either of you gentlemen in a piece of cake? I picked it up from the floor. I dusted it off. I put it on the table. It’s sitting there now. Good as new!”

“Woman!” the salesman snarled. “Goddamn your cake and bring us thirsty bulls a couple of scotches!”

“But, but.”

“Do as I say!”

The wife-thing hurried back into the kitchenette. She tried to hide in the refrigerator. Not enough room. She wrapped herself in the tablecloth. She locked her knees. She tipped over into the wall and froze there pretending to be a patio umbrella.

The salesman touched the plaquedemic’s thigh. “I’m sorry about that. It’s awkward when customers have to see their wife-things reprimanded. But we’ve all got jobs to do, isn’t that so? Blow now.”

My head flopped closer to the plaquedemic. “The fragrance is the color of a scream,” I said.

“It spoke!”

“Yes. Sometimes it speaks. That’s what happens. You better get moving. Without the user’s Breath of Life, the machine may acquire down syndrome, or hermaphroditism, or cerebral palsy, or webbed toes, or an allergic reaction to aardvarks, or some such birth defect. I’ve seen neglected ’gängers come to life that were anthropomorphous globs of noses. Granted, some of the noses were extremely good-looking and went on to become supermodels for clip-on mustaches and pince-nez, but as a whole the ’gänger they comprised was reliably malcontent and couldn’t function without its medication.”

“I get the picture.” The plaquedemic filled his lungs with air. He wrapped his lips around the straw and blew until his cheeks turned purple…

He gasped for air as I sprung across the living cube and crashed into a clock face. Ticks and tocks rained onto my shoulders in slowtime…

My withered limbs swelled and erupted in spasms. An electric current shattered my frail skeleton. My shrunken head melted and a new head crawled out of the residual hole.

I screamed. I screamed.

I heard somebody else scream. I still couldn’t see…A bolt of television static struck my visual screen. I grabbed the bolt. My hand caught on fire. My flesh melted. My bones melted…and burned and burned into chrome…My blood sizzled…I screamed. I screamed…Then I could see.

In the beginning was the Image…Later was the Word. Suddenly I possessed a fully loaded WCOED (Wang Chung Oxford English Dictionary) lexicon including unconscious how-to instructions. I discharged a creative magazine of curse words as my body continued the agonizing hustle and flow of inflating and deflating and constructing and reconstructing…

“I’m naked,” I said when it was over. I sat by myself on the loveseat. Ectoplasm seeped from my pores and dripped down my skin in large brown chunks. “I shit myself.” It was true. I was mired in a pool of feces. I glanced across the room at my original. He was plastered against a wall. “May I have a shower?”

The plaquedemic pinched his nose with his fingers and gawked at the salesman. The salesman stood at attention on the other side of the living cube. He had applied a giant clothespin to his nose.

“I forgot to mention this bit of unpleasantness,” he said. “It’s worth it, though, don’t you think? Sir, meet your match. Literally. Well, not quite literally. Literally in terms of the generally understood connotation of the phrase ‘meet your match,’ I mean. Does that make sense?”

My original and I looked at each other. I stood up and bowed deeply. He said, “I…”

“Woman!” blurted the salesman. “Get your canned ham out here and clean up this mess! Jesus!” The salesman crossed his arms over his chest. The wife-thing scampered out of the kitchenette at top speed and smashed into a china cabinet. She was still tangled in the tablecloth. She wriggled out of it and got to her feet. She saluted the salesman and began to pick up the broken cups and saucers and dishes.

The salesman yelled, “Leave the china! Tend to the android!”

“Oh!” exclaimed the wife-thing. She broke into tears.

The plaquedemic stepped forward. “Mr. Loman!”

“Loman?” said the salesman. He furrowed his brow.

The plaquedemic picked up a book and threw it at him. The salesman ducked…and climbed onto the plaquedemic’s back. He wrapped his legs around his waist and massaged his shoulders and spine. “Calm down now,” he said. “It’s going to be all right. Sometimes a man has to take control of a situation. You understand. Yes. There you are. My my, you’re a bundle of knots. My my. I’ll take care of you. How does that feel?”

The plaquedemic closed his eyes and moaned in pleasure.

The wife-thing sprayed me down with a bottle of Windex. Bit by bit she squeaked my body clean. Afterwards she tried to strap me into a diaper. I asked if I could have a pair of Dudley Horrorshow boxer briefs instead. She told me my original couldn’t afford that brand of underwear.

“Alas,” I said.

The massage felt so good that the plaquedemic fell asleep standing up.

The salesman quietly climbed off of him. He picked up the wife-thing and packed her into the guitar case. He nodded at me. “Good luck then.” As he was about to leave the plaquedemic snorted awake and asked where he was going.

The salesman frowned. “Going? Ah yes, going. I’m going home, I suppose. It’s almost dinnertime.”

“Ahem,” said the plaquedemic.

“Oh yes. I almost forgot.” He unsnapped the guitar case. The wife-thing rolled out of it. She hit the floor and shrieked. “Well then,” the salesman said. “I guess that’s it. I’d like to take this opportunity to say that I appreciate your business. Have a nice day then. Bye.” He slammed the door shut behind him.

My original placed his fists on his hips and frowned at me…

Later that night the salesman died in his sleep. The obituary said he was 54 years old. Forensic schizoanalysts determined that at the time of death he had been dreaming about butlers. The butlers were jetpacking across the troposphere in a great V-shape. Each carried a plate of hors d’oeuvres and wore astronaut bubbles on their heads in case they slipped out of formation and fell into space.

According to the coroner the cause of death was the fear of dying alone.

20

BARRACUDA VS. BOGUE – 3RD PERSON

The debate ran simultaneously on over twenty thousand channels. Disting-uished Congressman-thing Chapman Barracuda was squaring off against incumbent President-thing Grimley Bogue, leader of the Pogocratic party and the science fictionalized world. A member of the Headless Horseman party, Congressman-thing Barracuda was in the middle of critiquing the current administration’s advocacy of a particular brand of hairdo called The Dirty Figaro, an unorthodox piece infamous for inciting the belief in its users that they were messiahs. Some people bought it just to see if they could fend off the belief. Invariably they failed. “And that’s precisely the point,” the congressman-thing tooted.

“Fuck that point,” the President-thing broke in, hopping in place on his proverbial pogo stick. “That point doesn’t make any sense. You’re such a cunt.”

The mouth of the congressman-thing’s jack-o-lantern shriveled into a prune. “Cunt?” He clutched his chest and staggered backwards. “How dare you call me a cunt on national television! How dare you, sir!”

“I’ll call you whatever I want on national television! I’m the President-thing.” Exhibiting supernatural dexterity, he spread out his arms and bowed for the camera while still managing to hop up and down on the pogo stick.

Three volcanic seconds of applause superimposed a laugh track…

Congressman-thing Barracuda gestured at somebody off-camera. “This isn’t fair! I’m trying to have a civilized debate and he’s calling me names! What the hell is going on here?”

“Quit being such a baby. You sound like my grandkid for Chrissakes. Address the issue on the table or get the rotten fuck out of my kitchen.”

Congressman-thing Barracuda removed his jack-o-lantern. Beneath it was a dirty, rotting skull. Closer inspection revealed it to be a skull-shaped vegetable that appeared to have just been yanked out of the soil. More than a few children watching the broadcast buried their faces between their mother-thing’s breasts, scared of the politician.

The congressman-thing lifted the jack-o-lantern over his head and smashed it on the stage in a fit of anger.

President-thing Bogue said, “Let me know when your temper tantrum is over. In the meantime I’d like to have a personal conversation with the Amerikan people. Can you hear me Amerika?” He smiled at the camera.

Hysterical, Congressman-thing Barracuda attacked the President-thing. He dashed across the stage and tried to tackle him. The President-thing hopped over him. The congressman-thing crashed into an urn of flagpoles. He picked one up and tossed it at the President-thing like a javelin. The President-thing bounced out of the way. He picked up another flagpole and charged the President-thing, shrieking at an ear-splitting pitch. He slipped on a piece of pumpkin. His legs flew over his head and he landed on his back. His head smacked against the floor and cracked open. The camera zoomed inggggto the wound…

“My skull!” howled Congressman-thing Barracuda. “My spine! I’m broken!”

President-thing Bogue regarded his opponent grimly.

Papanazi swarmed the stage. They galloped and jetpacked over to the injured congressman-thing and devoured the image of his grotesquerie. Livid, the President-thing pulled two Colt six-shooters out of holsters in his Texarkana suit. The handguns contained internal microwombs that virginbirthed new bullets the instant an adult bullet was discharged, rendering infinite supplies of ammunition. The President-thing was an expert marksman and unloaded over a hundred rounds in seconds. He wounded and killed most of the Papanazi and scared the rest away.

He blew smoke from the tips of the Colts and flipped them back into their holsters. He hopped across the stage, tripping over corpses but never losing his balance. “Get a doctor! No contender for President-thing’s gonna die in my presence! That’s shitty karma! Medic!”

Diminutive men and ’gängers wearing bleached white jackets and stethoscopes crawled onto the stage. They waddled towards Congressman-thing Barracuda as the camera cut to a commercial.

The commercial advertised a new variety of Dr. Identity action figure. Unlike former models, this one came equipped with de la Footwa pockets containing endless, fully operable supplies of classic science fiction weapons. It was sentient, too, and included a large supply of facemasks and personalities, ersatz veins coursing with Hammer blood, a chameleon skinsuit and flippers, four refills of Hammer blood, a token Dr. ’Blah sidekick (non-sentient), and, for added effect, a vintage
Star Wars
jawa. Viewers were warned that the action figure would only be available for a limited time. Very likely it would be taken off the market in no time at all.

The next commercial advertised an upgraded version of the new variety of Dr. Identity action figure advertised in the preceding commercial. The upgrade was outfitted exactly like its predecessor with one twist: it possessed superhuman babysitting skills.

The next commercial advertised an old brand of Dr. Identity cereal with a new image of the upgraded version of the new variety of Dr. Identity action figure on the box cover. An actor’s ’gänger (or an actor disguised as a ’gänger) dressed like Dr. Identity poured the cereal into a large bowl, poured milk over the cereal, and set the bowl on a table. The action figure then swung onto the table from off-camera and attacked the bowl with an electroshock mace…

Seven more commercials followed. The first six were repeats of the first three commercials two times over. The last one announced the impending death of all Dr. Identity products, especially action figures and cereal. Nothing could last forever, and marketing conglomerates were running out of ideas. In order to deal with the loss, sponsors urged consumers to seek out their local witch doctors and exorcists for assistance in coming to terms with the illusory feelings of demonic possession that might ensue.

A global earthquake accompanied the consumer bombardment of every Littleoldladyville in the Amerikanized universe…A cosmology of television screens turned to static and white noise. The holocaust was quickly replaced by the Technicolors of the spectrum and a quiet, hypnotic whistle. Then:

“And now we return to our regularly scheduled program.”

Congressman-thing Barracuda was propped up in a wheelchair, a fresh jack-o-lantern wedged onto his head. Barely discernable facial features had been haphazardly carved onto its surface, and its insides weren’t fully hollowed out: seeds and pulp oozed down the congressman-thing’s chest and shoulders.

Grimley Bogue stood next to him, a hand resting on his shoulder. He climbed back onto his pogo stick when he noticed the camera had turned back on. The congressman-thing tipped into his lap. The President-thing got off the pogo stick and propped him up again. He wrapped a length of wire tubing around his chest and the back of the wheelchair to make sure he stayed in place, then climbed back onto the pogo stick. He gained altitude with each playful hop.

“Right! Next question!”

The moderator of the debate rose from his chair. The camera zoomed inggggon his bald spot, held for a beat, and zoomed back out.

“Thank you, Mr. President-thing,” said the moderator. “The next question concerns the latest edition of Yahtzee. How do you feel about the addition of a ten-sided Dungeons & Dragons die to the board game? Let’s start with Congressman-thing Barracuda.”