Dear diary,
Now space and time explode, so I go out and get a carrot sandwich with Josh.
“Khrist, this is fun.”
“It sure is, Josh.”
“But do you think they solved your murder properly, Jezebel?” Josh looks like he wants to say this, so I press my fragrant hand against his mouth.
“Don’t say it. I’m dead now — let’s just try to enjoy what life we have left.”
So Josh and I take a taxi cab to the mall. Josh lights up a cigarette while we’re in the cab, and the driver sez: “Please, sir, will you roll up your window if you’re going to smoke menthols? — I simply love the aroma of menthol cigarettes, and it pains me to know that any of that precious smoke might escape.”
“Sure,” sez Josh; and he rolls up the window. The car becomes thick with menthol fumes.
“I’m happy today,” I say.
“Well, you should be,” sez Josh; “it’s your golden birthday.”
I sip my glass of blood and smile and pull my gun from its holster.
“Whoa — wait,” Josh sez with the cigarette still in his mouth; “what are you aiming at?”
“Angels,” I say.
“Oh, OK,” sez Josh.
So we bodybag four angels on our way to the mall. We bequeath them to the driver, as thanks for putting up with our boring conversation. He ties the corpses to the hood of his cab. Now it’s difficult for him to see out of his front windshield, cuz their wings are so big. (We cut lengthy slits in the bodybags so that the wings can droop out.)
“Turn on the wipers!” I shout as we walk away waving goodbye. The taxi driver takes my advice, and the wipers begin to squeak back and forth against the windshield: this movement agitates the corpses from where they are tied and causes them to become dislodged; and they roll down onto the busy street, soiling their wings. Chaos ensues, as the surrounding traffic now must dodge these stray bodybagged angel-cadavers that are blocking all six lanes.
Josh and I giggle as we enter the Mall of the Americas.
“Where’s the stun-gun shop?” I say.
Josh looks at the monolithic display beneath the sign that reads “MALL MAP” and points to a place and sez: “Right here. Catty Corner from the Pet Shop.”
So I ask Josh if he’ll buy me a stun-gun, and he reluctantly agrees. He pulls the wallet out of his back pocket and gives eighty-nine thousand bills to the cashier.
I take the wallet from Josh’s free hand and place it into my purse, before he can realize what’s happening; then I address the clerk who rang us up: “Is it OK for me to use this thing in here?” I hold up the stun-gun that we’re in the middle of purchasing.
“Sure,” sez the cashier.
“Is it OK if I use it to shoot him,” I point the stun-gun at Josh, so that the clerk knows who I’m talking about.
“Sure,” sez the cashier. “It’s your gun now.”
“But I just wanna make sure you’re cool with the idea that Josh will then be frozen solid right here where he’s currently standing, just beside your register; and he’ll remain like this indefinitely, with the same outfit and the same bad haircut, cuz I’ll probably never unfreeze him.”
“Thaw him out,” sez the clerk.
I look confused. “But I haven’t even shot him yet.”
“No,” the clerk explains, “I’m telling you the proper phraseology — you said ‘unfreeze him’ but it’s known as ‘thawing out’.”
“O-o-o-oh!” I say, slapping my forehead. “I get it — thanks! So I should have said: Are you sure you’re alright with me shooting this jerk right here, right now; cuz I have zero plans to unthaw him?”
“That’s totally fine; I like statues,” the clerk smiles deviously. Then, amid handing Josh his change, she passes me a note in secret; and the note sez: ‘I’d like to be your new girlfriend, if this old man is truly out of the picture’.”
I smile after reading this note, and I look up and see that the clerk is smiling at me. We are thus two pretty women smiling at each other.
I now shoot Josh with the stun-gun that he just bought me. He turns to ice, and the clerk who was serving him immediately leaps over the counter, revealing for an instant that she’s wearing nothing under her skirt, and joins me to meander around the mall.
“I’m Jezebel. What’s your name?” I hold hands with my new girlfriend.
“I’m Jen,” she sez, while squeezing my palm affectionately. (This is love at first sight.)
So our show is therefore called Jez and Jen Go Malling; and it’s subtitled Dames fantômes sur Bloomington, because that’s where the mall is located.
As we windowshop, I review in my mind all the reasons I’m relieved from being engaged to my ex-fiancé Josh. (We were scheduled to be married next week, at the Megamall Chapel.) — One: he was old with gray hair, yet he kept his face smoothly shaven and had a light skin-shade. Two: he was a billionaire, yuck.
So the first shop we actually visit is a clothing store named Washed Cloths, because they have ginormous changing rooms. Jen and I enter the first changing room because it has the best cameras. We perform an impromptu show, half for ourselves and half for the staff; then, when we both finish in tandem, the staff who was watching from the back room steps out into the fluorescent lighting and greets us as we exit.
“That was great,” they say. “Very nice.”
“Thanx!” we blow kisses to them and leave.
§
Jen and I continue to walk thru the mall. We turn a corner and encounter Betty. She is dreamily typing a screenplay. When she sees me, she perks up:
“O, hi, Jez!”
“Bee! I want you to meet my new girlfriend: Jen.” Then, turning to Jen, I say, “Jen, this is Betty — she’s a bigshot screenwriter.”
“Well, I’m trying to be a bigshot screenwriter,” sez Betty; “but, as of yet, no studio has shown the slightest interest in my work.”
“Don’t worry,” sez Jen, “you’ll make it someday.”
“Thanks,” sez Betty.
So the three of us end up going back to Betty’s apartment, which she shares with her roommate. “This must be Midge,” sez Jen.
“No, this is just some woman who shares rent with me,” Betty explains. “We’re friends, and we enjoy each other’s company, but Midge is from San Francisco — she’s a true artist.”
“A true artist?” sez the roommate, overhearing our gab; “I didn’t know that; I thought Midge worked in advertising.”
“She does,” Betty explains; “she draws pictures of brassieres for a living; but then, when she creates her portrait paintings of police and detectives, which are her true calling and therefore non-lucrative, she reverts to being a genuinely starving artist.”
“Ah,” sez the roommate; “hmm… wow, interesting.” She records this new data in her mini-notebook; then shuts it and slides it back into her blouse.
At this moment, God sends a prophet to earth. We notice this when all four of us ladies see what we think is a comet flash before the apartment’s window.
“Was that what I think it was?” I exclaim.
“Yes, it looked like a meteor,” sez Jen.
“No, Jen,” sez Betty, “Jez was thinking it was a U.F.O. — an Unidentified Flying Object that is piloted by an extraterrestrial.”
Jen and Betty’s roommate both look at me inquisitively, to see if I will either support or gainsay this confident statement that Betty has asserted about the contents of my private thoughts.
“Betty’s right,” I confirm.
“But,” sez Jen, “if it was a U.F.O., it would be travelling diagonally upward, not diagonally downward. Lucifer the Satan did not ascend into the Heavens via rocket fuel: no, he FREEFELL from the moon.”
“That’s true — he did crash-land to earth,” sez Betty; “not the other way around.”
I hang my head, feeling vaguely shameful, despite suspecting a fault in their logic. “I stand corrected,” I say.
“Well, why are we all lounging around in our pantsuits, wasting our comeliness indoors? Shall we go outside and have a look at the flying saucer?” sez Betty.
“Yes, let’s!” I join the chorus of affirmatives, greatly relieved at this promise of a change in our topic of convo.
We all walk out of the French glass automatic sliding doors of Betty’s apartment building. There is a flying saucer burning in the parking lot — it ain’t flying anymore: It has landed on an ice-cream truck. The curved windshield of the silver saucer rolls up and a ramp extends to the pavement as if by magic; then a prophet arises from the fuselage, walks down the exit ramp, and stands before us flirtatious females. He bows. “I am God’s messenger, come to you. My name is not important.”
We all shake hands with this nice fellow. “Welcome to Bloomington,” I say.
“Do you want any bon-bons?” Betty asks. “It looks like when you landed on the ice-cream truck there, some bon-bons oozed out of the wound in its frame.”
The prophet turns to look. “Do you think they bled out as a sacrifice to me?” he sez in a concerned tone.
“No, no — when I said ‘they gushed out like chocolate syrup from stigmata’, it was probably not the right turn of phrase,” Betty admits. “I’m just a beginner playwright. — But they sure look tasty. The fire apparently has had no effect upon them.”
The prophet turns back sharply to Betty now: “Are you saying they’re unconsumable?”
“No, no, no — again, I only mean that you’re in luck, if you like treats.” Betty steps past the man and puts forth her hand and takes some of the bon-bons that have spilled forth. “They smell good; they look good,” she takes a small, test bite; “mmm, and they taste VERY good. Plus they’ve instilled me with wisdom and opened my eyes to evil, just like the gods, so now I could legally qualify to judge angels [I Corinthians 6:3]; but I won’t, cuz that’s not my desire.”
“Put it down! Spit it out!” the prophet is troubled.
“I’m just kidding about that last part,” Betty laughs. “It’s just regular dessert. Here, try one…” She offers a bon-bon to the prophet.
The prophet sniffs the treat many times before he dares to eat it. “Great Scott! — this IS good,” he confesses while nodding slowly as if hearing celestial music.
“Gals, come try some,” Betty distributes bon-bons to all.
§
Now the lid of the bottomless pit is lifted by its chain, so that it no longer plugs the mouth of the murky smoking abyss. So the false prophet creeps out, and he immediately walks into the marsh of fire, which fries him up — this was a mistake, for he was supposed to go visit the true prophet so as to present him some challenging questions and then print the results in a magazine; but now he has met the second death. Therefore the citizens of Hell vote to send their most esteemed diplomat, Lucifer the Satan, to go bother the prophet instead.
Now we four ladies are all at an eatery enjoying ice cream and trading combat stories with the true prophet, when the entry door jingles open and presents us with a sight.
“Lucy, is that you?” Betty rises excitedly. “O, no! it’s Lucifer — sorry: I mistook you for your sister,” Betty genuflects; then she waves him over: “Come and sit with us, hon. We’re having a very curious discussion with that prom queen who just got murdered,” she rests her hand on my shoulder; “we’re all trying to figure out what actually happened to her mortal spectre.”
Lucifer takes a seat next to me. “Hi Jez,” he sez and pats my thigh. Then he turns to acknowledge my tablemates: “Betty, nice to see you again. Hi Jen. And I don’t think we’ve met—” Lucifer extends his hand to Betty Schaefer’s roommate, “I’m Lucifer the Satan.”
“This is my roommate,” Betty sez. “We share an apartment in that complex across the highway from the Mall of the Americas.”
“Ah, I know that place,” sez Lucifer.
“Pleased to meet you,” sez Betty’s roommate, as they shake hands.
“Alright, so we were all just arguing about who might’ve been the TRUE killer of this girl J.F.K. whom they recently found strangled.”
“Oh my god!” sez Betty’s roommate; “Jezebel Khrist? Your middle name starts with an eff?”
“That’s right,” I say.
“I can’t believe it took me this long to piece that together,” Betty’s roommate shakes her head and laughs hard: “I’m such a slowpoke!”
“So you don’t think the deed was done by the girl’s loving father?” Lucifer asks. “Don’t you trust the official reports?”
“Those reports are false lies,” sez the prophet, “concocted to deceive us.”
Lucifer quickly turns his head: “Master Adam? Is that you?” he lifts his brow; “Oh my goodness, you’re here? I didn’t even notice you in the corner there—”
“I was holding my hand out in greeting, but you were preoccupied with Betty’s roommate,” the prophet frowns.
“I’m sorry,” Lucifer rises from his seat and extends his arm to shake hands with God’s true prophet; “I just thought that I already knew everyone in this world; so this damsel here took me off-guard. — It’s really nice to see you.”
“Likewise,” sez the prophet.
“Ah yes, this is the prophet of God,” sez Betty; “he came to us earlier, bearing good tidings — or should I say ‘bon-bon blessings’ (ha! inside joke),” Betty winks. “But, seriously: I’m the guilty party, for neglecting to introduce you two. ”
“No worries,” Lucifer replies; “we go way back.”
The prophet nods gravely.
Now Jen directs a question to Lucifer the Satan: “So who do YOU think did the murder?”
Lucifer smiles, “To tell the truth, I’ve recently grown convinced of the official report, myself.”
Jen narrows her eyes: “You became convinced in the last few seconds, after hearing the words of God’s prophet here? I find that hard to believe.”
“No, Adam makes a good point,” sez Lucifer the Satan in perfect innocence; “I am persuaded now, verily: My new opinion is that the loving father definitely did NOT strangle his daughter to death on the train tracks while he was possessed by one of my demonic brethren from Hell; but, rather, this deed was done by the C.I.A., in the name of national security.”
The prophet’s jaw drops. “I really convinced you?”
“Yes,” sez Lucifer.
§
So, later that night, the whole gang of us goes out to visit the burial place of our small town’s beloved prom queen, to pay our respects and then dig up the casket to see if we’re correct in our assessment of her death.
Each one of us steps forward, weeping, and tosses flowers on the grave. Betty brings primrose; then her roommate offers tufted crowtoe (wild hyacinth) and pale jessamine (a climbing shrub with fragrant flowers). Jen sets upon the headstone a glowing violet. I offer a white pink and a pansy freaked with jet. The true prophet tosses forth a musk-rose and woodbine with cowslips, plus a large bouquet of various other sad flowers. Finally, Lucifer the Satan, with eyes red from excessive mourning, places amaranthus (an immortal flower from the garden of Eden) upon the site, and also daffadillies whose cups he fills with teardrops.
Then we take the sod-cutters and spades from the back of our red pickup truck, and we set to digging. Soon the coffin’s top is exposed, and we brush away the dirt and pry open the lid. Inside rests a most beautiful succubus, whose face is radiant with lovingkindness.
After asking to view her full autopsy results, explaining that our reason for this strange request is because those excerpts that were included in the official murder report were heavily redacted, we find out that Ms. Khrist (my soma) was not strangled to death at all, but rather her injuries are consistent with a sharp couple blows to the head — her skull is cracked and indented — plus a fall from the thousandth story of a building after being forcefully shoved thru the glass of a triple-paned window (for most of her bones are broken). Also there is a dagger lodged in her chest; and, if you press your ear against her exposed heart (go ahead, try it!) you’ll hear it emitting white noise from the seashore: this heart seems almost to be still faintly pumping blood; as if Ms. Khrist cannot be assassinated by the Roman C.I.A. except with a wooden stake whereas this present dagger is metal.
So we drive back to town in our 1977 Yugo Ciao and stop at Ms. Khrist’s parent’s house in the suburbs to inform the father that he is not, in fact, guilty of the death of his own beloved daughter. He weeps, and we comfort him. Then he shows us around his daughter’s former bedroom, which he and his wife have kept in exactly the same state that it was left on the night she was assassinated. I reach under the pillow and locate a diary that has cocaine in it and a few pages ripped out.
“Jez, don’t touch!” sez Lucifer the Satan. “You’re leaving fingerprints!”
I hold my hand up to Lucifer as if to say “Shh! Remain quiet and stop telling me what to do; for I might be on the verge of a breakthrough in our detective work.” Then I turn to the father of Ms. Khrist and say “Did you do this?” while holding the diary open to the obviously torn-out pages (the book’s golden lock has been pried open by an F.B.I. agent, so its covers part naturally); then I add: “And why are you not in jail, if the authors of the official murder report cast you as the patsy? And what is taking so long for them to suicide you?”
These questions are answered satisfactorily by the loving father of the recently slain prom queen, with crucial help from Lucifer the Satan (who coincidentally also was the man’s chief defense lawyer and got him his sweetheart deal — that’s actually part of the answer to my second question above: for the father was allowed, as part of his sentence, to live in his suburban home instead of going to prison). So, everything checks out. The C.I.A. is exonerated of all wrongdoing, and we girlfriends say goodbye to God’s prophet and Lucifer, who fly back to the outer darkness in the damaged space-pod. We then head over to Betty’s apartment again.
“That was fun,” I say.
“It sure was,” sez Jen. “What should we do now?”
“How about we visit the Promised Land,” sez Betty’s roommate, while painting her toenails.
“Sounds like a plan!” Betty smiles.
So we all drive to the Promised Land and make sure that it’s properly inhabited. Everyone seems to be getting along fine, so we leave. On our way out of the Promised Land, we trip over the sunken tombstone of an unmarked grave, and we decide to dig up its treasure. (We’ve developed the habit, or rather the addiction, of excavating whatever burial sites we encounter, in our nightly wanderings.) — We cheer, upon finding that this cave contains the skeleton of Moses. We play with the bones for a while, as they evince paranormal virtues; then we put everything back where we found it, and replace its marker.
On the way home, we stop at a fancy restaurant and order cheeseburgers and fries. Good men ask us out and we all get married, except for Betty — she stays true to UNE FEMME.
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