Convict Science: Episode 4,281

PART ONE

Ace Carver sits alone in his cell, cross-legged, in a slender rectangle of indirect sunlight. The window above him is shaped like a coin-slot, tall and thin, cut through the wall eight feet from the concrete floor. Near Ace’s right knee is a drain through which hosed-down material can sluice.

"Coming at you from Varner Supermax penitentiary in lovely Lincoln County, Arkansas, solitary cell #27…You may think all science is the same, but all science is not the same…some science is CONVICT SCIENCE!

BUDDA da BUDDA da BUDDA da BUM! BIDDLEY BIDDLEY BUM!

Thank you! Thank you.

Please.

Please. You're too kind.

Best fans in the world. Right here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Please.

Welcome to the show, I’m Ace Carver, Inmate #76359. Wonderful to be here. Great show for you today. Bitey the Rat's going to stop by, give us some anti-rabies tips for swimsuit season. But first, I got to tell you…my wife came for a visit this week.

I know. Women.

Put the Missus behind a Plexiglas partition under the gaze of armed guards for twenty minutes twice a month and HERE COME THE WATERWORKS…and the divorce papers! Am I right? The fellas know what I’m talking about.

But it got me thinking. Marriage is like a plant. Neglect it, say, by working too much, or serving seven consecutive life sentences, it gets stunted and weak. And eventually, it’ll die.

So, because death is a gift that nourishes the Faithful, today’s Convict Science is about…PHOTOSYNTHESIS!

Don’t touch that dial or I’ll turn your face into a lampshade!”

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PART TWO

As The Announcer, Ace Carver affects a deeper voice.

“Today’s show is brought to you by Ace-Carv-Co: a local, family-owned maker of Day-Counting Wall Notches. Can’t see a clock? Girls Gone Tea Party calendar confiscated? Lean on the precision of Ace-Carv-Co Day-Counting Wall Notches.”

“Welcome back to Convict Science, friends, I’m Ace Carver. Today’s topic is particularly dear to me.

Powerful beings are nourished by light...specifically, the light that leaves the eyes of the weak as they die by your hand, igniting the spree of narcotic euphoria that lights The Correct Path.

Plants are also nourished by light through a process called PHOTOSYNTHESIS.

To execute today’s experiment at home, you’ll need 0.5 ft.³ dirt from your exercise yard (thirty-two pockets full), one apple seed squirreled away from lunch, and twenty minutes of indirect sunlight a day. Finally, you must be willing to allocate half your daily water allowance to the study of PHOTOSYNTHESIS, a cornerstone of all the pitiful life on Earth.

Need a few minutes to round up some supplies? Sounds good. We’ll be right back.”

Inmate #76359 motors through a stack of handwritten pages. Finding the correct sheet, he holds it up to his imaginary camera:

PRO-TIP: Anal Storage v. Intestinal - Extracting an item from the stomach usually requires a special tool, like a very thin hook or binder clip descending from a very thin wire or rod. But you can get most things out of your butt with just your hands!

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PART THREE

“Welcome back. Today we’re studying PHOTOSYNTHESIS by growing an apple tree, just like the ones lining the sidewalks in my favorite pornographic movies.

We have our materials here. First, scoop the dirt into your cupped hands…spit the seed into the dirt…(ptew)…bury it with your nose…there we go.

Now give it sun, water and sixty uninterrupted years to grow.”

“Singing to your tree helps. Try something pretty, like an excerpt from The Turner Diaries:

‘If the White nations of the world

had not allowed themselves to become

subject to Jews,

this war…

would…

not…

be…

necessary!’”

Three sharp knocks on the cell door: “Shaddup, 76359, before I knock yer racist teeth out yer intolerant jaw!”

Three sharp knocks on the cell door: “Shaddup, 76359, before I knock yer racist teeth out yer intolerant jaw!”

“Viewers, it’s friend of the show, Guard Percy “Dicktits” O’Connell! I bet he can help us! Hey Dicktits, can I interpret your threat as an admission you would give anything to touch a submissive, prison-buff male body?”

“Oooo, #76359! Open the door, Smitty, I’m gonna learn this Ruffle-Feathers a lesson!”

Percy is barely inside before Ace claps his dirt-filled hands over the guard’s mouth and nose.

“You see, Science Friends, every time Dicktits here exhales into the soil, he’s feeding our tree vital CO2. And now he’s sweating - which is a nice drink for a thirsty tree – and getting chills at intervals, which is fun to watch. Go to sleep, Dicktits…stretch out on the couch of eternity. That’s right. Goodnight. Goodnight, Dicktits.”

As Ace lowers Percy to the floor, guards stream into the cell like tenants of an upset hive. Ace raises his dirt-filled hands to the sky: “Sorry to Bitey the Rat, who got bumped today. Friends, I’ll see you tomorrow, same Convict time, same Science channel!”

The beating is severe, obviously.

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PART FOUR

The day Percy O’Connell is killed, the Warden of Varner Supermax, a perpetually exhausted-looking man named Michael Donahue, fast-tracks Ace Carver’s execution. The Warden justifies his subversion of the penal system’s standard bureaucratic machinations on grounds of: “Come on. The guy’s kind of an asshole.”

That night, a priest, a coroner, a convict and a Warden walk into a lethal injection theater. The priest says to the convict, “Have you any final words?” The convict says, “Convict Science is filmed before a live studio audience.”

“What? What is he talking about?” asks the Warden.

“He does a show…of sorts.” says the Priest, “About science?”

“Directed by: Ace ‘Kubrick-Dwarfer’ Carver. Executive Producer: Ace ‘Forger of History’ Carver.”

“This is ridiculous. Ace, your wife is here.” Donahue gestures to the viewing area beyond the glass to a crying woman clutching a handbag.

“Executive Titty-Pincher: Michael ‘When I’m Finally Able to Think, I Have the Wrong Thought’ Donahue.”

“Fine. Who cares. Do the thing.” The coroner flicks the syringe’s tip.

“Sound Design: Ace “Round Mound of Sound” Carver.” In goes the needle.

“Catering by the U.S. Food and ‘What Should We Do With Baloney Containing Unacceptable Levels of Feces?’ Drug Administration.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Xerox Technician: Ace ‘Emulator’ Carver. Wardrobe provided by the Day-Glo Prison Jumpsuit Emporium… a subsidiary…of…Smith…and…Wesson.”

As his voice fails, Ace’s eyes widen at something above and beyond the room. He summons the Priest, who bends low to hear Ace’s final whispers. Then, the EKG sings a steady note.

“Inmate #76359, T.O.D., 8:24 pm.” The coroner writes this down.

“What’d he say, Father?” Donahue asks.

The stricken Priest dabs his brow. “He said, ‘Sit, Ubu, sit. Good dog.’”

House of Titans

Written for Mel Favara's wonderful 1000 Words PDX.

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HOUSE OF TITANS

Part One.

Former CEO Donald Einhorn had decided there was nothing about his crumbling empire twelve or thirteen scotches couldn't fix. Over the third, he castigated his visionless board of directors. He toasted number five to greasy VP Skip Chestersonberryfield, which good look filling old Donald's Farragamos, kid. He celebrated his tenth by writing a check to himself in the amount of "Golden Parachute", including the phrase "cunning linguist" in the memo line. By the time he took his final swallow, Donald had achieved military-grade intoxication. He lurched through his spinning home, shoulder-checking walls and fumbling with doorknobs, unable to locate any of the estate's reputed fourteen bedrooms. With his last conscious thought, Donald cursed the general practice of architecture and passed out in a hallway.

He woke to the discovery that the seed of a giant redwood tree had taken root between the lobes of his brain and erupted overnight to towering maturity. A truly majestic headache. A survey of further damage included: icepick pain in back and shoulders; a split in his trouser's crotch; and, he realized, unease with his surroundings. On rare visits to a room that wasn't his study, Donald sometimes registered a manner of faint surprise, a "who put this here?" kind of feeling. But the vaulted ceilings, artwork, even paint color in this particular hallway seemed totally unfamiliar. Maybe he was somewhere in the northeast wing. Lined with doors, the hallway seemed to stretch for miles, even to have a perceptible bend along the curvature of the earth.

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Part Two.

Donald's money had always been a faithful friend. Always told him how valuable he was, always complimented his skill prognosticating the markets that made other men jump out of high windows. And, despite Donald's portly frame and face that looked like an exit wound, his money had always brought beautiful companions to his side. But it also bought this house, where each door opened into a room with three more doors, or into another interminable hallway. Donald wandered through anonymous bedrooms, libraries, four different kitchens, but couldn't find so much as a throw pillow he recognized. He passed the same Victorian fainting couch three times in an hour, and started leaving a Hansel and Gretel trail behind him of the items in his pockets: cash, keys, coins and cards.

The final nail in the coffin of Donald's composure was his discovery of the trophy room. The son and stepson of two veterans, Donald had never hunted in his life, in fact had always been fearful of nature's ability, with a frightened animal or slight tectonic shift, to swiftly and permanently erase all a man's achievements. Yet here was a room, in his own home, filled with glass-eyed animals frozen in various stages of roaring or flight. Eagles, cheetahs, gorillas, groundhogs. Mounted on the farthest wall was a handsome flintlock rifle with a solid silver butt into which was engraved in swirling, ostentatious typeface: "To Richard- Keep showing 'em who's boss. Love, Charlton Heston."

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Part Three.

In being forcibly unburdened of the weight of his (and his shareholder's) expectations, Richard Halifax had found freedom. In the decade since being bounced from the corporate garden, he'd built a comfortable routine of untied bathrobes and lunchtime scotch. On the occasions when he needed to feel strong and useful again, he put on one of his fraying Savile Row suits, propped his feet up on the desk, and dictated letters to the obediently silent animals mounted in his trophy room. Any nagging psychospiritual stuff about loneliness or personal value to society he'd learned to smother or drink away. Or else he filled the hole inside with a white truffle and mayonnaise sandwich, which was the method he'd chosen today. Richard cut it into 16 bite-sized cubelets, arranging them into a smiling face.

He gathered his happy plate and happy glass of Bushmills and tottered off toward the study, singing "Peter and the Wolf" and marching in time, when something small and green registered at the edge of his vision. A crisp ten, right there on the floor. And ten steps later, a dollar. Ten more, an AMEX card. Richard had a wispy memory of a cartoon rabbit being lured into a trap by a trail of carrots. The trail ended at Richard's trophy room where, inside, he found a disheveled man admiring the antique monkey rifle Chuck Heston had given him in Botswana. Richard set his smiling plate on the oak cabinet by the door. The disheveled man turned. "What are you doing in my house?" they asked each other.

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Part Four.

EPILOGUE

Donald and Richard greeted the discovery that they'd lived in the same mansion for thirteen years with trademark bottom-line clarity. They determined the fiscally responsible thing was to keep living together as mansion-mates, and the arrangement pleased them far more than either could have predicted. It wasn't like living with a family to which they felt no real connection; unbridgeable division was replaced by mutual empathy of the struggles of rich white men. The drone of Donald's snores proved a comfort Richard hadn't known he'd needed.

They started a business. Based on the truth that everyone loves puppies but far fewer people like dogs, they conceived a subscription service by which customers could purchase a puppy, return it when it got too old to love, and receive a new one. Donald convinced an overseas vendor to sell bulk-rate puppies for pennies on the dollar. As co-CEOs of PuppyLease, LLC, they became like paternal twins, finishing each other's sentences, sensing when the other was in danger.

Hundreds of billions in revenue later, Richard Halifax developed Alzheimer's. Richard's acumen drained until he became a well-tailored husk of undefinable antiquity. He started believing Donald was his ex-wife, forcing Donald to make the most heart-wrenching power-grab of his life.

"Richard, the board has decided to buy you out."

"But Sally, no, why?"

"They just… I just believe you're no longer mentally capable of the job. I'm sorry."

"Whether my head is good or bad, Sally, only it can save us now."

Richard Halifax leaned in to kiss the old billionaire he believed was his ex-wife, and Donald Einhorn, his friend, couldn't bring himself to pull away.

Cialis: Prologue

CIALIS: PROLOGUE

It is the fate of each of Nature's pristine dawns to be spoiled by the first groggy human to wake up and 

begin his noisy human errands. And so it was a kind of a fulfillment of destiny when, just as the horizon's 

axis eased below the peach-colored morning sun, Dan Brown missed the unpaved turnoff from the main 

road he was looking for, jerked the wheel hard right, and sent the tail end of his 1993 Ford Flareside pickup 

spinning and squealing through the roadside gravel. In his oversteer's wake, Dan's wife's pretty sleeping head 

thonked against the passenger side window. One hard sharp thonk, and a second smaller rebound thonk. 

She woke up cursing. 

"-ucking (THONK) son of a (thonk) FUCK."

The truck rocked to a stop perpendicular to the main road, facing it, gravel dust settling on the hood. 

The radio, which Dan had turned way down in respect of his wife's nap, was playing an oldie very softly, 

it sounded like The Hollies maybe, and the beat of it (the oldie) very nearly but did not quite sync with 

the beating wings of the startled birds retreating eastward. 

"I'm sorry. I missed the turn."

"Fuck."

"It was a mistake."

"Most people's mistakes don't concuss other, sleeping people. Generally."

"I'm sorry. People make mistakes. You do. Make mistakes sometimes."

"The very fucking definition of innocence, a sleeping person is."

Dan pulled a U through the shallow trench by the road, and the heavy old claw foot tub he had tension 

strapped to the bed of the truck that very early morning slid surprisingly gently into the little bump in 

the bed's surface that accommodated the back right wheelwell. 

"Very nearly literally the last people on earth who deserve to have their heads slammed into a piece of glass."

"We're almost there."

"Well keep on going then."

But Dan and his wife, pickup and antique bathtub were already gently bumping down the little unpaved road. 

*

Parked lakeside, Dan with one boot up on the lip of the tub. He flipped open the steel clasps on the 

straps, releasing each with a quick zip of retreating nylon. His wife stood at the tailgate's open mouth 

with her arms crossed and the ends of her sleeves pulled over her hands. She watched the lake's easy 

movement, the grace with which water can accommodate anything it touches. 

"Don't scuff it."

"Just stand right where you're standing, and I'll push it down to you."

Dan wedged himself into the narrow tubless space at the back of the truck's bed and unfolded his little 

body against the tub, pushing with everything he had. It moved haltingly for three inches or so, the tub's 

claws turning up brittle curls of the bed's paint. He stopped to pull off his sweatshirt.

"They don't make bathtubs this sturdy, this uh, solid, anymore."

"That's true of almost everything, I imagine." She looked at him directly for the first time that morning. 

"Maybe you should come up here and help me push, and when we get it kind of tilted over the tailgate, 

I'll jump down and grab the other end."

She ignored his offered hand and pulled herself up. They took positions and pushed, Dan's wife's side of the 

tub moving a little faster and veering off to Dan's slightly slower moving side. After a few heave-ho stops and 

starts, they got it seesawed over the tailgate and stopped, hands over their heads holding the lofted end of the 

tub. Dan's wife looked at him. 

"Maybe I better go down and grab it instead."

And of course as soon as she turned the tub loose, the heavy old thing lifted Dan up off his kicking feet and 

slid down the lip of the tailgate and slammed into the ground so solidly it barely made a sound and Dan, 

doubled over the airborne end of the tub, had just enough time to wheeze some air back into himself before 

his own relatively insubstantial body weight tilted the tub clockwise and sliding across the tailgate's edge, 

lengthwise toward the earth. And from his perch he watched his own slow fall, the inevitable advancement 

of the ground, and clung to the tub as if it might save him, somehow. 

When he opened his eyes, he learned he had landed or rolled far enough from his truck to see from the ground 

back up into the empty bed, where the tub's claws had left desperate jagged trails, like it had been trying to 

prevent its own abduction. 

*

Together, they rolled the tub upright and pointed it at the lake. 

"Thank Christ that's done."

"Well, halfway done." Dan a gave a kind of mock-bemused 1/4 smile. 

"What does that mean, halfway done?"

"I mean we have to go get the other tub, back at home."

"The other tub?"

"His and Hers. Yours and mine."

"HIs and Hers antique claw foot tubs at the lake."

"I thought that part was evident, from the two tubs tubs sitting there in the the garage."

Dan's wife closed her eyes. 

"I mean the truck's not big enough to hold them both." He gestured at his truck to her shut eyelids. 

"I can't do this anymore."

"We can get back and set up by sundown, if we leave now. It'll be perfect." 

She pinched the bridge of her nose. Her disappointment always capsized his stomach, rolled it right over, 

it made him hate himself and everything he'd seen and touched in the world in his lifetime that his best 

effort to finally stop disappointing her, his last, best plan, had caused more disappointment, for her. 

"If we can just get through this, things will get better."

"Where are you going to get water to fill the tubs, Dan?" 

He touched the bottle of pills in his pocket. 

"If we just do this, things will start getting better."

"Were you going to use lake water, Dan?"