Now, Welsh Losser, permanently disfigured by his hanging – masterminded by Andrew Plumb, grinding his axe against cosmic injustice – is in hospital waiting with great patience and hope for The Ferret, his intimate companion and off-again-on-again business instigator, to show up.
And then he shows up.
“Heh-heh.”
“The Ferret! Come on over here so that Uncle Welsh can take a better look at you!”
The Ferret begins to move shyly and uncertainly toward Losser’s hospital bed, feet shuffling across the floor uncharacteristically, like a rat’s over broken glass. He feels changes taking place, some of them physically painful, causing his old, Ferret-tempered confidence to steadily wane and wither. Inexplicably doubt-filled, halting, as he hesitantly and halfheartedly moves toward Losser, he becomes increasingly nonplussed at his changing predicament, whether merely psychologically perceived or real. His mind, such as it is, or was, now waxes especially insecure.
“Heh,” The Ferret begins in an awkward attempt to break the ice as he nervously wobbles heel-to-toe over Losser in the bed, with his arms behind his back, like a little boy, “funny, Andrew Plumb also put Lard in the hospital, blowing half his ass off, but he was aiming for you! You could have been dead even then. In essence, that’s twice Plumb missed, if you count his latest and most effective attempt on your life, which landed you in this bed. Three times, if you count his foiled photo-carpet chase of you through the night sky over Kyiv central. I know all about it. I watched it from a rooftop after I entered the figure of a gargoyle. Though filled with obvious danger for you, that chase, in my opinion, was quite whimsical, fairytale-like and even romantic. Four times, if he hadn’t strangled one of your changelings you brought back from Venus at the Promethean Award ceremony before the real you came out, going nyuk-nya, to claim your much-deserved writing statuette, second only to the Nobel Prize for Literature in international prestige.”
“Funny?”
“What do you mean? Heh.”
“Well, you said funny. I don’t see anything funny about it.”
“Hey, yeah, that’s just a manner of speaking. Do not sweat it, dude.”
“Your voice seems changed. Is there something wrong with you? Did you catch a cold or something?”
“My voice? Well, yours is no Siren dream tune either.”
Losser, suddenly keenly aware of his permanent deformity, checks himself, desperate not to lose The Ferret.
“Okay, okay,” he says, “let’s drop this petty squabbling. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve been through so much, and…”
“Oh, dude – I know, I know… I’m sorry too. Heh. Eeekh, eeeeekhhh – Supreme Being – eeeeekhhh – help me – eeeeekhhh – help – eeekh, eeeeekhhh, no, no, stop it, help me, dude, I do not know what I am saying… but you didn’t hear that from me, AAAHH…”
“The Ferret! What’s going on?!”
“Eeekhhh – shove it up your! – eeeeekhhh…”
Well, this goes on but then it stops. Physiological changes have taken place all over The Ferret’s body, but Losser, having opened up his heart to The Ferret due to what Losser believes is The Ferret’s anguish over Losser’s suffering, momentarily becomes blind to these changes, which would otherwise have made The Ferret suddenly physically hideous to Losser. Instead, he is filled with a renewed desire to simply be wanted by The Ferret, as Losser is terrified of the effects his own deformity will provoke in The Ferret and in the greater world at large, which he had been conquering till now, using his diabolically multiplied media powers and secretly acquired magical PR capacities.
Seeing Losser soften, but not yet seeing all of Losser, whose freshly incongruous torso is tucked under hospital sheets, The Ferret also softens and draws closer to Losser, finally sitting on the edge of the bed next to him, sighing and rasping with audible longing.
Then he says:
“Hey, did you like me in Jim Hitshitz’s play where you were sitting with Lard and Plumb blew his ass off? Josh Davies ruined the performance with his private soliloquies, like he’s evil or insane. Heh. He raped Hitshitz’s wife in a balcony at intermission. I tied her up and primed her for it. She didn’t struggle much, even though she’s half Hitshitz’s size but still bigger than me, so I think she liked it. Did you catch my secret speech later, after it was over, pondering myself, when no one else was listening? I really wish you had. I was reciting ex tempore with you in mind. I think you would have found me quite attractive. Heh-heh-heh…”
“You…”
What, heh, what…?
“Oh, nothing… nyoog… nothing…”
“No, dude, heh-heh, that can’t be. It’s like you’ve seen something in me you haven’t seen before and you don’t want to say what it is.”
“Ah, no, no, it was nothing…”
“No, dude, dude, say it, say it!”
“Well, for a minute there, you looked something like… a rat…”
“Heh-heh-heh…”
“Exactly; it was just for a moment – hell, these drugs they’ve got me on are making me see things that aren’t true. It’s nothing. Just forget it. Hey, lift me up, will you?”
“Heh, what do you mean?”
“Here, just prop up those pillows behind me and then gently pull me up against them under my arms. I’ll push off with my legs, and before you know it, I’ll be sitting up in this bed, and we could…”
“Dude, you shouldn’t say that. Heh, okay, like this?”
“Yeah, that’s it, just puuuuull… and… there we go. Oh, The Ferret, it feels so good to be sitting up and able to put my arm around your –”
Heeeeey!!! Heh, dude, don’t touch me… don’t…!!!”
“What… why… nyegsharenglix… what’s the matter?”
“I don’t know, dude. Sit up straight. Heh.”
“I am sitting up straight.”
“Duuuuude… you’re crooked.”
“It’s not that bad, is it?”
“Heh, dude, it’s pretty damn bad! A body you can’t airbrush to any good effect anymore.”
With pain, Welsh Losser stretches his hand toward The Ferret.
“Heh, heh, stop it, dude! Don’t touch me!”
“Nyoogi–ny, why, wha-… what does this mean?”
“Dude – eeeeekhhh – help me, AAAHH… huh-huh-huh-huh… it means – eeekh, it means – eeekh, it means – eeeeeeeeeeeeekhhhhh… it’s over!”
“NOOOOOOO…!!!”
Filed by Jack Step, writing freelance for The Gnarled East Village Tree, October 6, 2013