His ship, the Lana VI, was being buffetted by extraordinary d-forces. The mission was in its thirty-third year, and the captain had never seen the gastrometer record pressure levels this high.
"Squint, I want you to ease us off the colo-rectal wall, but try to hold her steady. I think we're in for a stormy night."
"Oh, my goodness, yes," said the navigator. "What a tummy ache!"
Pookee winced. His second-in-command had long ago abandoned home-fleet decorum. The eccentricity first exhibited by chief navigation officer Squint had gradually turned to madness. But the man did his duty. Squint worked the controls efficiently with his silver-gloved hands, while on the top of his head, his antennae bobbed gently. His body made light swooshing noises as his arms rubbed against his Teflon-coated silver suit.
The captain was sympathetic. After all, Squint wasn't the first officer to contract fecal fever on board an anal probe. The journey itself, from mother planet Yerainnus, took twenty-five years to complete. The earthling host could live more than eighty years, and then there would be the return voyage. In total, a mission like this could rob a Yerainnee of a measurable portion of his or her 2,000-year life span. And there was the loneliness.
The doors parted, and in walked chief science officer Guinnevere. Her navy-blue jumpsuit clung tightly to her body. It would have been inappropriate of the captain ever to tell her how good she looked in her officer's uniform, but she did indeed. Squint, on the other hand, looked ridiculous. He said he felt "more like a space man" in silver Teflon than in sailor-blue Spandex. This was also his reasoning behind the antennae. Aliens on planets nearby Yerainnus still had antennae, but evolution at home had eliminated the impractical appendages ages ago. But, true to his nature, Squint couldn't feel other-worldly without them. So one day he glued two cotton balls to a pair of pipe cleaners and spray-painted them silver.
Pookee sat up straight as the female scientist stepped up to the bridge.
"Ciao, Gulli-vere," said Squint.
"That's Guinnevere," she snapped. The captain could tell she was edgy; usually she'd ignore the navigator's remarks. But there was good reason for her to be concerned.
"Lieutenant, do you have an explanation for this gas build-up?" the captain demanded.
"I'm working on it, sir," she said. As she leaned in next to the captain for a look at the instrument panel, a soft, shrill sound filled the room. The gauge had moved past the green and yellow markers and was now firmly in the red. She frowned pensively. She hadn't yet received her hourly report on the dietary intake of the host, but she was starting to make an educated guess. The sound started getting louder and was taking on the form of distinct musical notes, but she didn't let it distract her from forming her hypothesis.
Legumes had undoubtedly been ingested because she could feel the diarrheal-force pressure rocking the ship.
"How many d-forces are we currently experiencing, captain?"
"Fifty thousand."
"Fifty? In thirty years, we've never had a reading of forty thousand."
"It's a bloody tempest out there," the captain lamented.
Guinnevere needed to gather her thoughts and make an accurate diagnosis quickly. Legumes alone wouldn't cause fifty thousand d-forces; the digestive distress was starting to sound Mexican in nature. But what was that damn noise? It was piercing her eardrums, she couldn't think. "Damn it, Squint, stop playing that stupid theramine!"
The navigator put down the instrument, and sniffed, "Just trying to set the proper mood for this campy space adventure, Doctor Dysentery. Sorr-rree!"
"Squint," the captain commanded, "stop clowning around and set the ship's course!"
Unfortunately, these instances were becoming more frequent and were bordering on insubordination. But the captain was lenient because, despite Squint's lapses in protocol, he was still the best damn shit-ship Sacagawea in the business.
A beeping sound broke the silence left by the theramine.
"It's a remote vessel, captain, trying to contact the mother ship."
Guinnevere picked up the phone. The static on the line was so intense that she couldn't communicate effectively with the callers. "Captain, I think it's research analysts Mookie and Sally. They're out doing field work in the anal rover."
"Try to put them on screen."
The monitor lit up. Despite the graininess and rolling picture, Guinnevere recognized her associates. They were huddled together on a brown, mushy bog somewhere out in the digestive system. Their slickers were flapping in the wind, and the wreckage of the rover was visible behind them.
"Captain, we had to abandon ship! We were measuring gaseous gusts at 60 knots. The rover couldn't handle it."
The picture rolled, and Sally's voice was overridden by static.
The captain watched disgustedly, waiting for the transmission to resume. His nostrils flared, and he slammed his fist down on the table. "God, it stinks in here! Deploy the oxygen masks."
Squint flipped a switch and the masks dropped from the ceiling. All hands covered their noses and mouths. Then the monitor went dark; the two scientists were stranded.
Admiral Pookee was angry.
"Lieutenant, you have to tell me what's happening here. I have to know how bad this is going to get. I'm responsible for those two Yerainnees out there."
Guinnevere trusted her instinct. "I want the latest Taco Bell menu on-screen," she ordered. Then she picked the phone back up. "Hello, lab, this is Guinn. What has the host eaten in the last few hours? Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh..." Guinnevere scribbled down the details on a notepad. "Uh-huh...oh, God."
She hung up the phone. "Captain, without going into great detail about calories, fats, carbohydrates, etcetera, the data shows a large Mexican meal was consumed. The data also suggest that it was Taco Bell. However, the lab cannot determine specifically what she ate. Perhaps it was a new item on the menu."
The captain looked puzzled, but the navigator just smirked.
"New item....Oh, fiddle-dee-dee," said Squint. "Remember the gordita scare? Everyone thought it would blow the lid off this place." He hmmffed in self-righteousness. "A little dirty dishwater seeped in through the hull-that was it. Listen, our main concern should be in getting the host to dump her new boyfriend. That penny-pinching Knobbly just isn't going to spend any money on fine dining."
Guinnevere looked peeved with her associate, and to her surprise the captain took his side.
"With all due respect, Lieutenant, you and I both know that all ships in the fleet were built to code, and that code was formulated with Taco Bell in mind. Show me on your damn menu what could do this to my ship!"
At that moment the Lana VI rose sharply forcing the captain to grab the rail. Then as it dipped suddenly everyone scrambled to the floor. From her knees, Guinnevere desperately scanned the Run for the Border menu while the ship's rivets creaked and the lights flicked on and off.
"See," the captain said, "everything's made of beef, beans, ground corn meal and cheese-just in different combinations. There's nothing on there that will produce anything greater than thirty thousand d-forces."
Guinnevere wasn't so sure. "Captain, what's that?" She picked up the phone again. "Lab, what's this new side dish-Spicy Refried Beans?...They mix pinto beans with what? With jalapeño seeds? Are they out of their minds?!"
Guinnevere wanted to scream with rage, but she forced herself to set the phone down calmly. "Captain, this could mean seventy-five thousand d-forces."
"But the ship can withstand only sixty thousand."
"Phleeeeeewwwwwwwwww." The chief navigation officer made the universal gasser noise by raising both palms to his mouth and blowing air out through his vibrating lips. "Serves us right for afflicting her with this nasty itching. The poor girl hasn't felt fresh in thirty years." This was no time to discipline Squint. The captain turned back to the crew and shouted his orders. "Illuminate the exterior floodlights and put this on-screen. If three decades of research are going down the toilet, damn it, I want a visual of this."
The inside lights flickered again, and this time they stayed off. It was completely dark on the bridge except for the glow from the monitor. The maelstrom swirled before them, with reds dancing with browns, blacks smothering yellows. The whole steaming, sweltering, bubbling mass was on an inevitable collision course with the ship.
Admiral Pookee was scarcely breathing himself, but he could hear the delicate sucking of breath in and out of Guinnevere's oxygen mask. He turned and gently took her hand in his own.
"Lieutenant, this is difficult for me to tell you...it would never have been right for me to express my true feelings...but being stuck up inside this rectum together, all these years...I've grown fond of you."
The tear rolling down Guinnevere's cheek spoke for the sense of loss and regret that they both felt in their hearts.
The captain squeezed her hand and stood upright. "Officers! Crew!" His voice boomed. "Prepare for defecation!"
Gyp washed her hands in the bathroom sink and crawled back into bed. Her stomach felt better now, and for the first time in her entire life she had no desire to scratch herself.
With his head pounding and his stomach a quivering knot, he swung his legs to the floor and began to rise from bed. His mind jolted back to the previous night’s victory celebration. It was a wild night, and foggy memories drifted back one at a time...
"Ohhh. shit," a troubled Santo grumbled, stumbling to the bathroom to vomit. He remembered the clubhouse party, the celebrity visitors, champagne everywhere. He remembered Sammy dancing to his salsa music, and he remembered the tequila shots, quite a few of them. He leaned into the toilet bowl and puked again.
He remembered Don Baylor drunkenly babbling about what a pussy Fred Lynn was. He remembered Ernie Banks spanking the batboys. He remembered Chip Caray snorting coke from a stripper’s cleavage.
Sensing an abrupt shift in the depths of his ailing stomach, Santo quickly twisted his hips around and planted his ass onto the toilet seat, barely in time for the rancid outpouring. An intense burning sensation consumed his entire bottom half as the shit streamed out souplike, but his stomach began to feel better.
He took a hefty handful of toilet paper -- this was going to be a messy one -- and began to wipe. With his fourth wipe, he glanced at the paper and was shocked and frightened by what he saw. The brown smear was peppered with glittery flecks of blue and red. He took another wipe and found yet more blue and red.
Distressed, Santo quickly pulled up his pants and headed back to his bedroom. More memories began to trickle in. He remembered the last several drinks, the sloppy good-night hugs, the walk home. He remembered the 24-hour erotic boutique on Halsted.
As he achingly climbed back into bed, he was startled to find someone else under the blankets, motionless beside him. His memory was blank as his heart filled with dread. Who the hell did he spend the night with?
"Oh please," he thought to himself. "Not Sandberg’s wife again!"
Cautiously pulling back the covers, Santo discovered with great relief that the figure wasn’t Sandberg’s wife -- she’d gone home with Barry Foote. Instead, it was the Cubs’ star outfielder Mark Kotsay -- or, more specifically, the inflatable Kotsay replica that Santo had swiped from the Mr. Erection police scene a week ago.
Santo now remembered the glitter paint. He now remembered the device strapped to the figure’s inflated groin, painted to match. He remembered the action.
His feelings of pride and relief came rushing back, and Santo’s soul became as inflated as his bed partner. A smile crept across his face. With a kiss to Kotsay’s cheek, he drifted peacefully back to sleep.
"Dad, you won't believe this," Varsho said in one of his weekly calls back to Des Plaines, Illinois. "We cleared over 40 large this week. . . ."
"Large?"
"Thousand, Dad. It's gambling talk."
"Oh."
"Anyway, that's been a pretty normal week. I can't believe how easy this is. The money I saved in baseball [he turned to his girlfriend, Sally, and winked] was more than enough to get going down here. We bought some banner ads on a few Web sites . . ."
"Banner ads?"
"It's Internet talk, Dad."
"Oh. . . . Gary, when are your mother and I going to see you again? It's been months, almost a year now."
"That's the catch, Dad. I told you that. You'll have to visit here. I'll send you the tickets."
Varsho had fallen easily into life in the Caymans. He met Sally, a singer, at one of her concerts, and the two moved into a beachfront condo a few months later. He never wore long pants or shirts with a collar, and the only shoes he wore were golf shoes. His time in the office was spent on the phone saying, "Good to hear from you again," and making the people on the other end believe that it was actually good to hear from them again. He golfed. He golfed a lot, and regularly invited athletes cum golfers such as Al Del Greco, Dan Marino, and Mario Lemieux to weekend challenge matches.
And he was right: clearing $40,000 a week was not unusual, and he hadn't even worked a football season yet. His marketing plan was simple: banner ads on every adult Web site he could find. His site, varshoyamigos.com was set up in time for the NFL playoffs, and his click-through rate was astronomical.
"Dad, really, I'm doing great. And you've got to meet Sally. She's the best."
"We'd love to, son. Why don't you bring her for a visit."
"Dad, it's just not that easy. You know my business; it's perfectly legal, just not in the States. Sally will be there soon. In Chicago. She'd love to meet you. Would you go see her and her band?"
"A band? Gary, we're a little old for that."
"She's going to be your daughter-in-law."
Three weeks later, Steve and Nancy Varsho were driving around the north side of Chicago, trying to find their future daughter-in-law.
"Steve, do you know where we are?"
"There's the ballpark. We must be close. He said it was right by the ballpark."
"We've been past the park three times now. Steve, let's just go home. This is a little strange. Our son is a millionaire but he can't come home to visit us; his girlfriend is 40-some years old and plays in a rock and roll band and we have to meet her in some nightclub. I just don't like it. We've probably missed the show by now."
"Just as well. Maybe we can catch the end and say hello after. That'll be fine. . . . Metro! There it is."
Inside the Metro, the stage was empty but the audience stood, clapping rhythmically. After a few moments, the band emerged.
"That must be her," Nancy Varsho said.
"Which? The blonde or the brunette?" Steve Varsho answered.
And then the band erupted into song. . . .
"Destroy your safe and happy lives,
"Before it is too late.
"The battles we fought were long and hard,
"Just not to be consumed by rock n' roll. . . ."
"Oh, good Lord," Nancy Varsho sighed.
Brant Brown tossed his long, blond whiskers to one side, and took in the picture from an arm's-length view. Why had he bothered to hang on to this thing? That picture was taken a lifetime ago, back in Iowa, right before everything fell apart. The dropped ball, cancer, the drugs, Gyp... But he'd gotten past all that, thanks to Gary. A quarter million dollars isn't a lot of money--in Chicago, at least. But up here... It was a fortune, enough to start over, away from temptation.
Brant dropped the magazine and finished his business. Exciting the outhouse, he stopped to admire the surrounding valley and lake. For those who wanted to "get away from it all," it was hard to top Alaska, and buying the resort and surrounding land had been just what the doctor ordered for Brant.
He heard the distinctive whine of the DeHavilland DHC-2 BEAVER before he spotted it making its approach from the east. More vacationers about to experience their first water landing, most likely.
"Time to head back."
Whistling to himself, Brant walked toward his resort and contemplated what kind of exotic meat he'd cook for his new guests for dinner. Something fat and greasy--like bear--maybe even a Cub.
Babe Ruth points and then hits Charlie Root’s 0-2 fastball four rows into the center field bleachers. In a war-depleted World Series that one Chicago sports writer predicts "neither team can win," the Detroit Tigers score five runs in the top of the first, and the Cubs effectively lose game 7 before their first at bat. Don Young drops a fly ball in New York, allowing three runs to score and hastening the Cubs breathtaking fall from first place. ("Nooooooooooo!" cries Santo, as he bangs Young’s head against a locker.) Steve Garvey strokes Rick Sutcliffe’s hanging curve over the right field wall and snuffs out the Cubs’ hopes for a rematch with the Tigers. Will Clark reads Greg Maddux’s lips and clobbers a grand slam deep into the Wrigleyville night . . .
But as Jack continues to watch, another image begins to emerge. Eric Young springs off second with the crack of the bat; his cheeks and lips shake with the jar of each step. Arms pumping hard, he swings wide and cuts across the inside of third base. In left field, Knoblauch uncoils a throw toward the plate. Young begins to slow. His back becomes hunched and his arms and legs begin to shrink into themselves. His face and hands are hard and shriveled. The ball sails over his head, and a small tent appears in his pants. As he scores the most important run in Cubs' history, Jack Boomer rolls over in his hospital bed and dies.