Dead Clown Barbecue (32 page)

I stared into the mirror. There was a small bloody smear on my forehead, but no nose. It had fallen off.

Josh stepped into the bathroom doorway. "You should really calm down," he said.

"I'm fine now."

I didn't much care for the condescending look he was giving me. How macho would
he
be if a detached body part hit him? Perhaps I'd just scoop up the nose and throw it in his face. Make him catch it in his mouth like a grape.

No, I wouldn't really do that. No need to regress into primal savagery.

Upon closer examination, his look seemed to be less of a condescending one than an appalled one. Had the nose landed someplace else on my body? I tapped my chin, right shoulder, belly button, and left hip, but there was no sign of it. I hoped it hadn't slipped down inside the waist of my pants.

"What?" I asked.

He was staring at my shoes.

My heart sank. I didn't need to look at the bottom of my shoes to know what lurked beneath them.

"You're not going to tell him, are you?" I asked.

Chester pushed past his brother. I backed against the wall as he walked toward me, looking very, very unhappy. His spark of insanity had grown to one of those globes with electricity inside that mad scientists keep on their desks. He held out his hand, palm-up. "Give it back to me."

"It's . . . not currently available."

"Hand it over," he said.

"It got smeared. I'm really sorry."

"If you hurt it, I'm going to cut off your nose," Chester informed me.

I'm not a confrontational person by any stretch of the imagination, but I had to admit that I was getting a little sick of Chester trying to push me around. Who did he think he was? "I don't appreciate your attitude," I told him. "If it weren't for me, you'd still be in that cage. I didn't
have
to make an effort to get you out. I could've left you there. They could've kept chopping off parts, and I could've kept sticking them in my refrigerator. When I did try to save you, it was with the understanding that I'd be treated with respect. So stop being a dick."

"I appreciate you saving my life," said Chester. "But I'm still going to cut off your nose."

"Why mine? Preston's the one who left yours out for the roaches!"

"His nose looks like a ski jump."

"Well, mine is prone to inflammation and clogging!"

"Stop this, both of you," said Josh. "Nobody is cutting off anybody's nose today. Everybody take a nice deep breath and calm down so we can —"

Chester gave him a violent shove, pushing him out of the bathroom, and then slammed and locked the door. He turned back toward me, looking most menacing indeed.

"We really shouldn't be locked in the bathroom together for very long," I said, trying to add a touch of levity to the situation and postpone the violence. "They'll wonder what we're up to."

Chester seemed completely unamused. I wished that real life came with emoticons so he'd know I was joking. Josh pounded on the door and loudly suggested that matters had gotten slightly out of hand and that it would be a good idea for somebody to let him in.

Chester opened one of the drawers, rifled through the contents for a few seconds, and took out a nail file.

"You know who has a nose very similar to yours?" I asked. "Your brother. If you're looking to do an exchange, he's a much better candidate."

"I'm not going to mutilate my own brother," he said, acting as if I was the insane person standing in the bathroom instead of him.

I have to admit, I was starting to grow weary of these dramatic moments where I had to prove my inner strength. I was comfortable with my inner strength. I just wanted to watch some TV. That said, I couldn't let him file off my nose while waiting for Josh's efforts to kick open the bathroom door to bear fruit, so I had to act.

As he moved toward me, I kicked him in the leg. I'd been aiming for his face, but my high-kick wasn't well developed. A fleshy glob came off my shoe and smeared on his blue jeans.

"My nose! It's — it's all messed up!" said Chester. "You can't even tell what it's supposed to be!"

"I thought we'd already established that it was ruined."

"I didn't think it would be
that
bad!"

"I'm actually pretty good with Play-Doh," I said. "I bet if you let me fool around with it, I could smoosh it back into something nose-shaped." Technically, I hadn't used Play-Doh in years, but this seemed like a good bargaining chip.

I'm not sure why he got so mad. It's not as if I compared his nose to Silly Putty.

He bellowed with animalistic rage and attacked me.

It's difficult for me to describe what happened next because it sounds like I'm bragging. Hopefully I've confessed to enough cowardice and poor judgment thus far that my version of these events has credibility, so please believe me when I say that it was the
most awesome dodge ever
! He swung that nail file at my face, and I moved away at the last possible instant. He missed by millimeters. I grabbed the nail file out of his hand and jabbed it into the top of his head. Not hard enough to puncture his brain or anything — just hard enough to make it stick. Then I swung my foot and tripped him.

He landed flat on his back on the floor. He just lay there, looking confused, as if unsure how he got there. Maybe the blow to the head was exactly what he needed to become less deranged.

The bathroom door burst open, slamming into the nail file and driving it substantially further into Chester's skull.

* * *

Josh, Preston, and I sat on Preston's couch, trying to determine the best course of action.

"The way I see it," Josh began, "we're all equally responsible."

Preston let out an incredulous laugh. "You wish! I didn't poke him in the head with anything."

"Don't make me list your offenses, Clue Boy. Look, I loved my brother dearly, but he was also kind of a cretin. When he's kidnapped and being held for ransom, yeah, I'm gonna try to get him back. When I'm partially responsible for his death, albeit accidentally, and run the risk of a judge trying to make an example of me, I tend to lean in more of a 'let's cover everything up' direction."

"What exactly are you suggesting?" I asked.

"We need to dismember his body — a task which has already been started for us — and bury him in the woods."

I shook my head. "No. No way. I refuse to be part of that."

"You have to help us."

"No. Absolutely not."

Preston shifted in his seat. "I don't want to come off as morbid or anything, but that actually sounds like fun. I'd be more than happy to do his share."

Josh looked horrified. "You depraved psycho!"

"What? What's the big deal? It's better than having him puke the whole time."

"I'm not letting you chop up my brother if you're planning to enjoy it!"

"Okay, whatever. How about this? I'll be morally outraged and physically repulsed, but I'll do it just to keep us out of prison. Is that better?"

Josh sighed. "If I hear so much as a giggle — one giggle — there'll be hell to pay."

"That's fair. I do have a tendency to smile when I work, though."

"Fine. But no silent giggles where your shoulders twitch."

"Deal."

So I left them to their task. Hugs seemed inappropriate, so I simply returned to my apartment and made myself a salad. I didn't much enjoy the salad, but I wasn't sure if that was because of the gruesome recent events or because the lettuce was starting to wilt.

And that's when my problems began . . .

* * *

There was another knock at the door. I was becoming tempted to install a layer of iron spikes to keep that from happening. I glanced through the peephole, grimaced, and opened the door.

"Did you call about a severed ear?" asked the police officer.

"Yes, sir."

"Will you take me to it?"

I hesitated. "I believe I was mistaken."

"How so?"

"I was drunk. Very, very drunk. And in my drunken stupor I hallucinated a severed ear on my dining room table and called the police. It was a terrible mix-up and I apologize."

The officer frowned. "Alcohol isn't a hallucinogen. Sounds more like you were enjoying a bit of medicinal marijuana. May I see your prescription, please?"

"What I actually meant was that I was so drunk that I thought it would be funny to call about a severed nose. I'm sorry."

"Who said anything about a severed nose?"

"I meant ear."

"Who said anything about a severed ear?"

"You did."

"Did I?"

"I thought so."

"You were smoking pot, weren't you? Do you realize that it's a crime to contact the authorities while under the influence of illegal drugs?"

I considered that. "Isn't it a crime to do
anything
under the influence of illegal drugs?"

"Where's the dope, sir? I can smell it all over you. You probably sprung for the good stuff, didn't you? You and your pot-smoking stoner buddies. Or is LSD more your style? You doing some Lucying in the sky with diamonds? Crystal meth, perhaps?"

"I've never done drugs in my life."

"Oh, really? Never took a tiny little snort of cocaine? Never shot up just a wee bit of heroin on the weekends?"

"Never."

The police officer chuckled. "Prude."

"Are you . . . are you a real cop?"

"I'm just messing with you," said the officer. "I like to do that sometimes, when I'm at the end of my shift. But seriously, where's the ear?"

"There is no ear."

"Sir, you made two calls to 911 about a severed ear that you found in your apartment. I don't believe for a second that you were drunk, even though that's something I'd normally believe about a person. If you can't produce the ear, I'm going to have to take you in to the station for questioning."

Technically, the ear was still in my refrigerator, and I could give it to him. But since the ear belonged to Chester and I'd been partially responsible for his death, I didn't want forensics to trace anything. I probably should've had Josh and Preston bury the ear with the rest of Chester's corpse — it was odd how it kept getting overlooked while in my crisper.

"I made it all up," I insisted.

"Interesting. Mind if I take a look around?"

"Do you have a search warrant?"

"No. That's why I asked if you minded. But if you fabricated the whole story, then you have nothing to hide, right? I'll just take a quick peek around your apartment and let you off with a warning. If I have to come back with a warrant, I won't be so easygoing."

"You can look around," I told him.

"Thank you." The cop glanced around my living room, then walked into the kitchen.

Somehow I just
knew
this was going to end with a dead police officer in my apartment. I had no plans to murder him, but the way things were going I'd probably be mopping up cop brains from my kitchen floor within ten minutes.

"You keep a very tidy home," said the officer.

"Thank you."

The officer strolled over to the refrigerator. "Mind if I have a look inside?"

He knew. He had to know. I was tempted to say, "You know, don't you?" just to get the suspense over with, but decided against it. "Go ahead."

He opened the refrigerator door.

What to do? What to do? What to do?

He knelt down. My heart felt like it was going to spontaneously combust.

What to do? What to do? What to do?

Confess. "There's an ear in my crisper," I said. "A few days ago I found a severed nose on my table and hid it in my refrigerator and it was joined the next day by an ear and I called the police and they never showed up and then some kidnappers showed up demanding ransom and they took me back to see the boss who cut off the kidnappee's toe and sewed it to my foot and let me go and I realized that the kidnappee's brother had the same name as me so I called him and the kidnappers came back and we went to get the kidnappee's brother and the brother killed one of the kidnappers — it was really splattery — but the other kidnapper kidnapped the brother and we went back to the boss and I accidentally killed the boss by pushing him into an oversized pushpin and then the brother killed the other kidnapper and then my downstairs neighbor stole the nose and the kidnappee got killed completely by accident and then you showed up and I lied about the ear in my crisper to keep forensics from matching it to the kidnappee and finding out that he was dead."

"Is that so?"

I nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Then you would seem to be in a lot of trouble." The officer opened my crisper and removed the plastic baggie. "Is this the one?"

"Yes."

He stood up. "Looks like I hit paydirt. I was just looking for a beer." He opened the baggie, took out the roll of paper towel, and removed the ear, holding it carefully between his thumb and index finger.

"Am I under arrest?"

The officer looked at the ear, looked at me, looked back at the ear, and then popped it into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully for a few moments, swallowed, and cleared his throat. "You will tell
nobody
about this," he said.

"Okay."

"I hear any stories about the cannibal cop, I'll eat your entire intestinal tract. Do we understand each other?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good." He walked out of my kitchen and headed for the front door. "You have a pleasant evening."

* * *

A couple of hours after that, there was another knock at the goddamn door.

"Sorry to bother you," said Preston. "There was, uh, a change in circumstances, and there's, uh, another body to dispose of. I'm totally fine with the sawing part, but if you didn't have anything else going on, I was wondering if you could maybe help me dig the extra grave."

I declined.

* * *

Shortly after that, the nightmares began.

Horrible nightmares where I had no nose, just like the traditional yellow smiley face. I stood in front of the entire class, noseless and not wearing pants. The other kids pointed at me and laughed, especially Pinocchio. I woke up screaming in a nasal voice.

The guilt was overwhelming. Finally, I went to see a psychiatrist, although I was rather vague about the source of my guilt, focusing more on hurt feelings than on mutilation and death. Her advice was to write down the entire series of events that led to my nightmares. Committing my thoughts to paper might help me work through them.