art by Steven Lawler
Tom Selleck's Mustache
H. Turnip Smith
You reached Thunderhead Meat Processing by a dirt road that passed every Lo-Rider, red clay double-wide, and sway-backed coon hound in Bent Shoulder County. Nelson knew; hell he'd started at Thunderhead when he was 17 and worked his way up to supervisor in just short of 15 years. He was now making $9.62 an hour "supervising."
It had taken him awhile to get onto what a Thunderhead supervisor was supposed to do. The job description was this. Once the employees were locked in the huge aluminum-sided warehouse minus fire exits, he was to make sure they weren't beating off in the sour-smelling restroom, stealing product, or sleeping in some dark corner of the plant under barrels of ammonia.
As a supervisor, he had been privileged to gaze in the trucks of diseased, gabbling
chickens that farmers hauled up to the backdoor of the plant. An important part of Nelson's job description was to avoid noticing the scabs, scars, extruded pus, pecked-out eyeballs, scaly feet, and cancerous tumors that burdened Thunderhead's contribution to America's meat supply. In short, Thunderhead was the reason Nelson hadn't eaten a chicken nugget in the past 15 years.
Of course, when Nelson was young and innocent and had still thought you could make apple butter from shit if you only stirred hard enough, he had gone to his supervisor and pointed out that the "product" coming down the line wasn't fit to feed to a rat, much less America's school children.
His supervisor had stared at Nelson like he had a Mercedes-Benz growing out of his nose and told him, "There can't be anything wrong with our product because we are inspected regularly by the USDA."
"Well the USDA better get their heads out of their ass," Nelson had said, "because I seen better looking stuff thrown into hospital skut bags."
The supervisor patted Nelson on the back and told him. "Get back to work, son. Thunderhead don't much care for whistle blowers."
That same afternoon Nelson decided if he wanted to get ahead in life with a GED, he'd better just do his job and keep his mouth shut. However, he was occasionally bothered by that impediment to ever becoming President of the United States--a guilty conscience.
That's how it was that on Nelson's thirty-second birthday, his 12-year-old pickup didn't follow the 6:15 a.m. going-to-work parade out to Thunderhead, but instead meandered aimlessly along the muddy banks of the Scioto River. He passed Gus' Otway Auto Salvage Yard, home to a thousand rusting hulks awaiting euthanasia; the ever-thriving Otway Party Store, home of five hundred brands of beer and rental videos; and finally the huge billboard at the edge of town, featuring a blond-haired Jesus with a mullet over the caption "He is the answer."
Hell, Nelson didn't even know what the question was. All he knew was he had a nagging wife that weighed 200 pounds, a delinquent 7th grade son training to be a school shooter, a pile of debt that would have put a Third World country to shame, and a tumor on his spine the size of a Dixie Cup that made his every waking moment a living Hell.
Parking just off Gravel Bottom Road, Nelson limped back into Edger's Woods where it paralleled the river and simply strolled out of his 33 year-old-body. He had read the secret of doing it in a Rosicrucian magazine he thumbed in the can at work, but was surprised it was so easily managed. All he felt was a slight dizziness as he molted and left the useless envelope of flesh he'd been lugging around, lying on the muddy banks of the Scioto.
Having jumped ship, his first act was to float above his discarded body lying on the river bank and assess its viability. He gave his former body a two--it was an ugly wreck with swollen hands, bleeding hemorrhoids, flat feet, and incurable body odor. The worn Carharts and half-shot boots he'd left behind might have been worth 20 bucks, but they were the only thing a sane looter might care to grab. What a relief to see his body that no reputable insurance company would have warrantied for even 1,000 miles lying there junked and finally feeling no pain.
Being nothing but brain waves wasn't bad at all at first, kind of like how he imagined floating in space, except before long Nelson was bored. Disoriented, he floated down to Thunderhead because it was Monday, and that was a Monday thing to do.
He spent at least three hours trying to clean up filth and pus that littered the incoming chickens, but once he figured out brain waves couldn't even lift a chicken beak, he gave up.
However, to Nelson's surprise the USDA inspector was on site that very morning. She was a pretty young thing. The boss steered her around the plant with the greatest of ease so that the worst chicken atrocities never even got to the inspector's eyes.
Nelson floated right down into her mascara-laced face and screamed, "Look at all that diseased shit in the refrigerators!" but he soon realized it didn't matter how loud a brain wave shouted, nobody heard a thing.
Fed up, when the boss took the inspector back in his office and made it clear to her that she'd be handsomely taken care of if she wrote a clean report, Nelson floated on down to the junior high to look in on his son.
Nelson Junior was sitting in English class staring at a workbook where he had to complete sentences like this by filling in the missing word: The doctor reached in the---to get a cold glass of juice and a slice of cheese. Nelson watched his son struggling to answer the question before he realized that his boy was, also, trying to explode a giant fart.
"School ain't never going to change," Nelson said to himself, remembering how amazed he was when he and the missus were watching television one night and he suddenly discovered that there had been something called WWI back in 1914.
Bored with school in fifteen minutes, Nelson floated down to the Otway County Courthouse recorder's office to see how his wife would react when she got the news.
He timed it just right. When one of the local sheriff's deputies brought in Nelson's Carharts and work boots and delivered the bad news, Carla Lee said, "Suicide? The coward! Where am I going to come up with the money to bury him?"
The sheriff's deputy suggested that she donate the body to science.
"There's not a science in the world hard up enough to take that body," Carla Lee said.
Nelson wasn't surprised. He and Carla Lee hadn't been in bed together for at least ten years as she claimed he could never get the smell of chicken off him, and he didn't find going to bed with a woman who resembled an inflatable rhinoceros-doll all that appealing.
It was some time that same afternoon when, more or less bored out of his mind because he didn't need to go eat, didn't have to take the dog a walk, and couldn't go fishing, that he was hovering around the post office reading discarded "Have You Seen This Child" postcards, when a puffy spirit floated up behind him.
"Nelson Walker, what the hell are you doing here?"
Nelson instantly recognized the booming voice of Big Gus Swackhammer, who'd heart-attacked out just a month earlier. Chewing tobacco leakage still dribbled down the jaws of the former local junk yard owner.
"Just hanging around, killing time, Gus. Say what good is this being a brain wave?"
Gus shook hands, but Nelson couldn't feel a thing. "You're not bored already, are you, Nelson? I didn't get bored for a couple of weeks."
"Well what are we supposed to do here?"
"Well first of all I heard you suicided?" Gus clicked his tongue. " That means you gotta face the tribunal and get a judgment."
"Wait, Gus. I didn't really suicide. I just bailed out. But what's this tribunal?"
Gus grinned. "They handle all the local stuff. Always want to know what you learned in life. That's how I got stationed back here. The heart attack being sudden and all I hadn't learned a damn thing. Anyways I'm slated for re-routing next January. Can you picture me a baby, Nelson?"
"No way. You're too ugly, Gus." Nelson laughed; then he got serious. "Listen, Gus, what the hell am I supposed to do with myself until the tribunal?"
"You got free time, buddy. Just hover if you want, or you can travel and check things out. See a ballgame. Whatever. They give you a week on your own."
"Travel?"
"Sure I'll show you around another planet. Just scrunch up and name a location. C'mon, I'll go with you. 1-2-3 say "Axlan."
At Gus' words, Nelson had the sensation of riding an Indy car; he tumbled out of nowhere onto a barren planet with six gray moons hanging in an overcast sky.
"What do you think?" Gus asked.
"Ugly, Gus, but look over there!" Nelson pointed at half a dozen, semi-naked dwarfs with bows and arrows.
"Yep, Axlans," Gus grinned. "You want to go talk to them?"
Wearing what looked like ill-fitting diapers, the Axlans were barefoot, with stringy dreadlocks and man-sized body odor.
Always the extrovert, Gus floated right up to them.
"Guys, this is my friend Nelson. He's new."
Maintaining grim expressions, the Axlan bowed.
"Have you got any gifts for us?" The head Axlan glared at Nelson.
Nelson shook his head. "No, sorry guys. I didn't know I was coming."
"That's not nice." The Axlan honcho went into an agitated huddle with his buddies.
"Hey, guys, look; don't make it such a big deal; he didn't know," Gus called out as Nelson gnawed on non-existent fingernails.
"Watch what happens now," Gus boomed as the Axlan turned their bows on Nelson and began to fire.
Before Nelson could duck, the arrows passed straight through his body and lodged in a mud hut. Gus laughed like crazy.
"These Axlan are so stupid they can never figure out why their arrows don't work on us. Hell, they haven't even invented the wheel yet."
"Well let's get out of this dump," Nelson said. "There's got to be a place with brains."
Gus shrugged his shoulders. "Why? We never had any back in Otway. OK, I stand corrected; we could try Zool."
Nelson looked at Gus. "Zool?"
"I never been there before," Gus said, "but I heard a lot about it. Supposed to be advanced. We could check it out if you want. Just scrunch and say, "Zool."
As soon as Gus mentioned "Zool," Nelson felt his belly turn inside out. A blink later, he and Gus were standing in a park surrounded by semi-underground buildings with opaque, blue-glass roofs. It was 72 degrees, and the sky was filled with silent, floating vehicles.
"Hey, this place looks all right," Gus said, checking out a Zool that could double for Marilyn Monroe.
"Not bad at all!" Nelson agreed as a curly-haired, blue dog tried to take a chunk out of his non-existent ankles.
Gus steered Nelson across the park until they came to what looked like a rubbery, state-highway, salt-storage facility with a sign that said--Body Pickup Station. Curious, they floated in, past some dozing robos, into what looked like a wax museum. Bodies, ranging from Queen Elizabeth I to Jesse Ventura, were flung on the floor. A sign over Richard Nixon said, "You are invited to wear this body for a 24-hour period, but no tape recorders will be allowed. All other bodies can be used up to 48 hours."
Nobody had to beg Nelson. Before Gus knew it, Nelson had wormed inside George Washington, Sonny Bono, and Al Capone.
"How do I look?" Nelson shouted, crawling into Tom Selleck.
"Sure as hell better than back in Otway," Gus said. "Check me out in this one."
He was decked out in General Patton, ivory-handled revolvers, motorcycle pants, skinny ass, and all.
As soon as they were all togged out in their new-you, they hit the moving sidewalks for a look around. It didn't take them long to conclude that the Zool minus their wax-museum bodies looked a lot like skinny humans except for their elongate heads that reminded Nelson of llamas with migraine.
Just down the street from the body pickup station, they came to a pink-plastic building shaped like a huge chicken and labeled Incubator. Gus insisted they have a look around.
The big chicken had a hospital-clean look, but with all the bright red spot lights and tiny wall-cubicles, it resembled a chicken farm. In fact a giant, green robo-pullet squatted on each nest.
"What the hell's the deal?" Nelson wondered until they saw a nurse, dressed up like Naomi Judd, remove a wriggling baby Zool the size of an earthworm from a nest.
Gus grinned, "Artificial to the max. No wonder they've got funny heads and need replacement bodies to dress up in."
Then he made a big mistake. He lifted one of the robo-chickens off the nest to see what it was hatching. The robo-chicken went off like fifteen car alarms, and a huge John Wayne clone in pink cowboy clothes, with swiveling head and flashing lights, suddenly raced towards them. As the robot got closer, Nelson had the sensation of being micro-waved.
"Papers please," the robot demanded.
"We haven't got no papers," Gus explained, standing there guiltily holding the pulsating robo-chicken. He stared at the outline of Nelson and his Earth-body, highlighted like an X-ray on John Wayne's cowboy hat.
"Come with me," the robot said like he wasn't used to any debates about orders he gave.
Instantly propelled by a vacuum-like suction, Nelson and Gus were sucked out of the Incubator into open park space where a sliding wall retracted, putting them in an underground building.
"Wait here." The robot rode off on a huge, turdless horse.
Here was the middle of what unfortunately resembled the interior of the Thunderhead Meat Processing.
"We got to get out of here." Nelson tried not to get sick at his stomach.
"Let's go for it." However, when Gus tried the departure trick, it didn't work.
"Oh shit," Gus said, "That microwave job demagnetized us. We're stuck here."
In a minute the robot returned accompanied by a tall Zool, wearing Madonna's head on Mickey Mouse's body. A wire cage descended from the ceiling to provide a private room that resembled the Thunderhead boss' office, and the questioning began.
Were they aware that they had disturbed Zool breeding experiments?
Were they aware that they had leached power from Zool electrical generators? Were they agents of a foreign government? Did they have access to any codes? Were they proficient in inorganic chemistry, calculus, or astrophysics? Were they seeking asylum? Did they harbor any rare, contagious medical conditions?
Nelson managed to babble something about failing algebra and being a foreman at a chicken factory, which only triggered sniggers of disbelief from the interrogators. Finally Madonna cum Mickey Mouse breathed in Nelson's face.
"Why did you steal a Zool replacent body?"
Nelson tried to explain about the sign on Richard Nixon, but Madonna wouldn't buy it.
She stiffened. "Gentlemen, I'm charging you with attempted illegal immigration, body snatching, and sabotage of our incubation facility. All these crimes carry the death penalty."
"How can you kill us if we're already dead?" Gus cried as Nelson's big Tom Selleck muscles trembled.
"We do not deal in technicalities on Zool." Madonna stood up, displaying her funny little mouse feet to better advantage. "Tomorrow morning at six strokes your replacement body will be incinerated."
Nelson gnawed his Tom Selleck fingernails. Even though what Gus had said was right, he was wearing a body. A body would register pain.
Meanwhile as Nelson reflected, a squad of headless mini-robots in chicken suits trundled out of the floor and marched the prisoners to an outdoor cell ringed with blue fluorescent lights, but no visible bars and no ceiling.
"What do we do now?" Nelson flopped on the floor of the cell, hardly relishing the thought of being cooked alive even looking like Tom Selleck.
"I'll think of something," Gus said.
"Well I'm hungry," Nelson said.
"That's because you're back in a stupid body again," Gus said. "Just ignore it, and it'll go away."
Nelson dropped his head in his hands, wishing he'd never driven to the river. He'd been a fool to trade a soft life on earth for torture. Hell he could have had a surgery or gotten a divorce or made his son toe the line or gone to the attorney general about Thunderhead. Fool! Fool! Fool!
"Well what do we do now?" he moaned.
"Pray, buddy, pray."
Hours limped by. Then suddenly Gus snapped his fingers. "I got it."
"Got what?"
"Water!"
"Water?" Nelson shot Gus a look like he was an Axlan dropout.
"Yeah, any second-hand body we wear is soluble in water. I remember they told me that when I faced the tribunal. Didn't mean a thing to me at the time. Just a sort of coping strategy they passed along, but I can remember the guy saying it perfectly now. 'In case of emergency, always remember you are soluble in water.'"
On the other side of the blue lights, a headless robo wearing the Hunchback of Notre Dame sat playing solitaire and muttering to himself.
"Hey, Hunchie," Gus yelled, "how bout a glass of water in here?"
The robot spun to attention. He had a chest full of metals and an ugly little stump of neck where he should have had a head.
"My instructions do not include providing enemy agents with water."
"C'mon, what's a little water going to hurt?" Nelson pleaded.
"Water fosters dangerous dependencies." The robot sounded cocky as hell.
"Jesus!" Gus said. "Why don't you just torture us?"
"Torture is forbidden by the Universal Convention Regarding Treatment of Alien Prisoners. As inter-planetary vermin you are to be exterminated, not tortured."
"Inter-planetary vermin?" Gus cried. "What kind of talk is that? Who'd we hurt? A damn robo-chicken? Hell, we'll give the stupid bodies back."
"Now wait a minute, Gus," Nelson said; "I want to keep Tom Selleck."
"You want to keep your body?" Gus said. "Your body is the source of all your problems. You want to burn to death? Don't be stupid!"
"Yeah, I forgot. I'm dumb, Gus." Nelson sagged to the floor and put his head in his hands.
"Not dumb, Nelson. It's just hard getting over being human."
Nelson sighed, lost in a funk over losing the best damn body he'd ever even dreamed of having.
Meanwhile Gus paced the blue-lighted perimeter as silky darkness settled over the city, and artificial pink illumination flashed on, bathing the domes in stunning purple shadows. The minutes crawled like centuries. Then suddenly Gus pulled up short, sticking out his hand.
"Did you feel that?" Gus cried.
"Feel what?" Nelson was too glum to even pay attention.
"Rain, Nelson! Rain!"
Scrambling to his feet, Nelson spread his big hands upward. "Water! For God sakes, water!"
With tears in his eyes, Nelson felt Tom Selleck melting away, dissolving like snowflakes in July. He struggled to at least keep the mustache, but it was no good. He was brain waves again.
He gave Gus a hug, before it was too late. Then his shoulders were gone, his hips were history, his face was dissolved. He was wonderfully free. His fear disappeared. As steady rain pattered down, he became pure nothing again. The blue lights of the city faded. Gone. Zero. Nada. Dissolved.
Nelson was liberated. Too damn bad he was instantly bored again. Without Tom Selleck he'd become a big zero multiplied by ten. Maybe in a thousand years he'd get used to it, but in the meantime, he would try like hell to grow a big, black mustache.
Then he heard Gus shout "goodbye," and the two of them were tumbling through space and time, only to fall harmlessly to earth in front of the Otway Party Store, two fucked-up ghosts, with about as much to do for the next ten thousand years as a renegade pullet plucker in a union-controlled chicken factory.