Lud’s routine was monthly. That’s why he had twelve gals, ya know, one fer each month. Fer instance, right now it was August, so that’s why he this very second had his peter in the August gal. He’d give it to her least three times a day, ever day fer the whole month. That way it’d stand ta reason she’d be good an’ preggered by the time September rolled around. Then acorse he’d start givin it to the gal in the September trough. An’ when he wasn’t dickin’ em, or gettin’ ’em viddles or washin’ ’em up, he’d go upstairs and check out the city paper classified fer folks lookin’ fer a critter to ’dopt. Lot of them folks was rich and they’d pay good scratch with no questions asked rather’n wait a coupla years ta get a critter legal like through the ’doption agencies. An’ in his spare time, Lud’d kick back an’ read his favorite books ’bout the meanin’ of life an’ all. He liked those books just fine, he did.
Only problem was the task of gettin’ it on with the gals. See,
sometimes it took awhiles ta get his peter hard enough ta give ’em a good pokin’ on account it was no easy thing fer
any
fella keep a stiffer when the gal was, like, ya know, didn’t have no arms or gams. An’ worse was the noises they made sometimes while Lud was tryin’ ta get his nut, kinda mewlin’ noises an’ another noise like “gaaaaaa—gaaaaaaaa” on account of ’cos Lud had jiggled their brains. Yessiree, downright unappealin’ they was ta look at an’ listen to which is why ol’ Lud’d put one of the girlie center-folds on their bellies so’s he had somethin’ inspirin’ ta look at whiles he was givin’ ’em the wood.
Lotta times too he’d go limp right in ’em an’ pop out, like right now with this red hairt gal in the August trough. “Dag dabbit!” he cursed ’cos Lud, see, he never took the Lord’s name in vain. Couldn’t get a nut out noways like that! So poor Lud stepped back from the trough with his pants around his ankles so’s he could jack hisself back up but meantimes the K-Y in the gal’s babyhole’d get gummy. See, ’fore Lud got ta dickin’ a gal he’d have ta give them a squirt of the K-Y on account the gals couldn’t get wet no more thereself ’cos of the brain-jiggle he gave ’em. But like just was mentioned, see, that K-Y up there’d go gummy sometimes just like right now with this red-hairt gal, so’s Lud’d have ta kneel down an’ hock a lunger right smackdab on her snatch ta wet her up again, all the whiles he’s jackin’ his peter. It got a right frustratin’ sometimes. “Ain’t got all blammed day ta be beatin’ my peter ’front of a torso!” he hollered aloud. “Jiminy Christmas! Can’t keep a good stiffer, can’t hardly come no more!” Acorse when such things happened ta cause Lud ta pitch a fit, he’d let hisself calm down and get ta thinkin’. Shore, it weren’t easy sometimes, but this was God’s work. He oughta be grateful—lotta fellas his age couldn’t get a stiffer at all no more and they’se shore as heck couldn’t have
out with a nut. The books made it clear ta him. It was The Man Upstairs Hisself who’d called on him ta do this deed an’ by golly there weren’t no way he was gonna fail The Man Upstairs! His work weren’t always easy, weren’t supposed ta be.
So Lud gandered down real hard at that girlie centerfold of Miss August, pretendin’ it was her in that there trough ’stead of this red-hairt gal with no arms or gams goin’ “gaaaaa—gaaaaaa!” an’ he was jackin’ hisself real hard an’ fast eyein’ them purdy centerfold hooters and that nice paper cooze an— “Yeah, lordy!” he celebrated ’cos there his peter went finally gettin’ hard again. “Yeah, oh yeah! Here she comes, August!” he promised an’ just as ol’ Lud’d have his nut he stuck his peter back inta that stump sided red-hairt snatch an’ got a good load of his dicksnot right up theres in her baby-makin’ parts.
“Gaaaaa! Gaaaaaaaa!” went the gal’s droolin’ mouth.
“Yer quite welcome, missy,” Lud replied.
««—»»
Next morning Tipps’ Guccis took him up to the city-district squad room where some newbies from south county vice swapped jokes.
“Hey, how’s a torso play basketball?”
“How?”
“With difficulty!”
“Hey, guys, you know where a torso sleeps?”
“Where?”
“In a
trunk!
”
The explosion of laughter ceased when Tipps’ shadow crossed the squad room floor. “Next guy I hear telling torso jokes gets transferred to district impound,” was all he remarked, then moved to his office.
The sun in the window blinded him. Tipps didn’t want the answers most cops wanted—he didn’t give a shit. He didn’t even care about justice.
Justice is only what the actualized self makes it
, he reflected. Tipps was obsessed with philosophy. He was forty-one, never married, had no friends. Nobody liked him, and he didn’t like anybody, and that was the only aspect of his exterior life that he liked. He hated cops as much as he hated bad guys. He hated niggers, spics, slant-eyes. He hated pedophile rings and church coteries. He hated God and Satan and atheists, faith and disbelief, yuppies and bikers, homos, lezzies, the erotopathic and the celibate. He hated kikes, wops, and wasps. Especially wasps because he himself was born a
wasp. He hated everybody and everything, because, somehow the nihilistic acknowledgment was all that kept him from feeling totally false. He hated falsehood.
He loved truth, and the philosophical calculations thereof. Truth, he believed, could only be derived via
the self-assessment of the individual. For instance, there was no global
truth
. There was no political or societal
verity
. Only the truth of the separate individual against the terrascape of the universe. That’s why Tipps had become a cop, because, further, it seemed that real truth could only be decrypted through the revelations of
purpose
, and such purpose was more thoroughly bared in the
spiritual
proximity to stress. Being a cop got him closer to the face that was the answer.
Fuck,
he mused at his desk. He wanted to know the
purpose
of things, for it was the only way he’d ever discover
his
purpose. That’s why the Mr. Torso case fascinated him.
If truth can only be defined on an individual stratum via one’s conception of universal purpose, then what purpose is this? Tell me, Mr. Torso.
It had to be unique. It had to be—
Brilliant
, he considered. Mr. Torso was making effective efforts to avoid detection, which meant he was not pathological, nor bipolar. The m.o. was identical, painstakingly so. Nor was Mr. Torso retrograde, schizoaffective, ritualized, or hallucinotic; if he were, the psych unit would’ve discerned that by now, and so would the Technical Services Division.
Mr. Torso
, Tipps thought. What purpose could there be behind the acts of such a man?
Tell me, Mr. Torso.
Tipps had to know.
««—»»
Lud always ’ranged ta meet ’em out in the boonies, with phony plates on his pickup. Old lots, convenience stores an’ the like.
“Oh thank God I can’t believe it’s true,” yammered the blueblood lady when ol’ Lud passed her the fresh, new critter. The critter made cute goo-goo sounds, its pudgy little brand-spankin’ new fingers playin’ with his new mommy’s pearl necklace. She was crying she was so et
up with happy. “Richard, give him the money.”
Lud scratched his crotch sittin’ back there in the back seat of this fancified big lux seedan, one of them ’spensive kraut cars was what he thought. But the gray hairt guy in the suit gave Lud a bad look. Then, kinda hezzatatin’ an’ twitchy, this fella asked, “Could you, uh, tell us a little bit about the mother?”
She’s a torso, ya dipstick
, Lud thought.
An’ it was my spunk preggered her up. But what’choo care anyways? I got’cha what ya wanted, ain’t I? Jiminy Christmas, these rich folks!
“I mean,” the suit said, “you’re certain that this arrangement is consentual? I mean, the child wasn’t…abducted or kidnaped or anything like that, right?”
“No way this critter here’s kitnapped, mister, so’s you’s got nothin’ to worry about.” Then Lud felt the fella could use a reminder. “Acorse, no questions asked is what we agreet, weren’t it? Like ya said in yer ad, conferdential. Now if yawl gots second thoughts, that’s fine too. I’lls just take the little critter back and yawl can sign back up at the ’doption agency, a’course if ya don’t mind waitin’ like five er six years..”
“
Give him the money, Richard
,” the lady had out in a tone’a voice like the devil on a bad day. Women shore did have them some wrath now an’ again.
“
Give him the money so we can take our baby home! And I mean right now, Richard,
right now!
”
“Er, yes,” mouthed the new papa in the suit. “Yes, of course.” And then he passed ol’ Lud an envelope full ’o hunnert’ dollar bills stuffed like ta the tune of twenty grand. Lud shot the folks a smile. “I just knows in my heart that yawl’ll raise yer new critter fines an’ proper. Don’t ferget ta teach ’im ta say his prayers ever night, an’ make shore he’s raised in the ways of The Man Upstairs now, ya hear?”
“We will,” said the suit. “Thank you.”
“Thank you thank you!” gushed the new mommy all silly-face happy and teary eyed. “You’ve made us very happy.”
“Don’t’chall thanks me ’s much as The Man Upstairs,” Lud said an’ scooted outa the big lux kraut seedan parked at the QWIK-STOP. ’cos
it’s Him that called me ta do this
. After the rich folks left, Lud hisself drove off in his beat-ta-holy-hail pickup, thinkin’. He had work ta do tonight. What with that skinny-ass brownyhead dyin’ on him yesterday (Lud figured she musta got some bad germs up in her noggin when he jigged her brain, and that’s why she didn’t live long). He had to swipe hisself a new gal an’ get her torsoed up ’cos the June trough was empty now. Acorse, ’fore he did that he figured he best git home ta that red-hairt August gal ta lay some afternoon peter on her, get some
good
spunk up her hole. After all, Lud had future orders now, and it didn’t seem fit ta hafta keep God’s work waitin’. An’ he also knew, from his fave-urt books, that The Man Upstairs kept his mitts off the world itself, ever since Eve put her choppers ta that apple, so’s there was physerolegy in play too, which was why ol’ Lud knew he hadda get his dicksnot up the girl’s hole many times a day as he could manage so’s she’d be shore ta get preggered up just fine.
And bring new life unto the world.
««—»»
Tipps wore the morgue’s ghastly fluorescent light like a pallor; he could’ve passed for a well-dressed corpse himself, here in such company. Jan Beck, the TSD field chief, set a bottle of Snapple Raspberry Iced Tea on a Vision Series II blood-gas analyzer. “Be with you in a minute, sir,” she offered, matching source-spectrums to the field indexes. Tipps wondered how she applied her own notions of truth to her overall assessment of human purpose. Did she
have
such an assessment? She histologized brains for a living, autopsied children, and had probably seen more guts than a fishmarket dumpster.
What is your truth
? he wondered.
“Your man wears size-11 shoes.”
“That’s great!” Tipps celebrated.
“Ground was wet last night.” Beck chewed the end of a fat camel’s-hair brush. “Left good impressions for the field boys.” Rather despondently then, she closed a big red book entitled:
Pre-1980 U.S. Automotive Paint Index
. “I checked every source index we got, and it’s not here.”
“What’s not here?” Tipps queried.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. When he backed up to the ravine last night, his right-rear fender scraped the culvert rim. I ran the paint-residuum through the mass-photospectrometer.
It’s not stock-auto paint so I can’t give you a make and model. All I can tell you is he drives a red vehicle.”
Tipps felt delighted. Finally they had a real lead…
Beck continued, sipping her Snapple. “And that g/p-run you asked for? Well, you hit pay-dirt this time, Lieutenant. We got a positive match with the state CID records index. Torso Number Four has a name. Susan H. Bilkens.”
“Why the hell’s she got a genetic-profile record?”
“She’s a whore, er, was. Six busts, five city, one county. Pressed charges against her first pimp last year so the city asked for a g/p-material sample. The pimp cut her up a little, they hoped the g/p-sample would match blood on the pimp’s clothes.” Beck let out a humorless chuckle. “Too bad it didn’t wash in court, fuckin’ judges must be out of their minds. But at least it gave the girl’s name for a rundown.”
“Susan H. Bilkens,” Tipps repeated. He appraised the naked torso on the stainless-steel morgue platform which came complete with removable drain-trap and motorized height-adjustment. The torso’s acid-burned face more resembled a mound of excrement, and her y-section had been stitched back up like a macabre zipper. “You said she’s a hooker?”
“
Was
a hooker, that’s right.” Another chuckle. “She’s just a dead torso now. Worked the West Street Block, the dope bars, till she shitnamed herself with the pimp thing. For the last year she was turning her tricks at a truck stop up on the Route.”
“This is…
wonderful,
” Tipps intoned.