Wiggling his buttocks in a rotary fashion, Sasha smeared all across the windshield the brown pancake that had emerged from his wiry body.
Nancy squirmed. “Well, before we make love again, I think you need to reach some very important decisions about how you feel about me.”
Both his fraudulent hands were at work now. While his counterfeit lips nuzzled her neck, he tugged up her skirt, spreading her white thighs. He rubbed light circles around the silky crotch of her pink briefs. Hands raised over her head, Nancy caressed his ears. Joe murmured, “All right,” and lifted his hands, crushing her breasts. “What sort of decisions did you have in mind?”
Nancy groaned and arched. Her eyes had shut. Joe probed her mouth with a couple of fingers. She sucked hungrily, then gasped. “Well, first of all you should decide who’s more valuable to you—me, or your wife and family. As long as you’re intimate with Heidi, I doubt it could work with us.”
Slurring deliberately (huskily), the mealymouthed Janus said, “Come into the back seat. I have to make love with you.…”
Nancy swung one leg over the passengerside seatback. Joe scooped an arm under and around her waist, hoisting her into the back. Sasha turned around and began to fingerpaint in his windshield excrement. Their lips locked in a passionate kiss. The rest of their limbs were tangled in cramped quarters. Her knee landed painfully in his groin. Joe said, “Ouch, wait a sec. Can you shift over that way a little? This is awkward.”
Her hot breath almost fogging his eyes, Nancy said, “I’ve always been a one-man woman, and I really believe that’s the only way a relationship can work out. This past week, whenever you’ve been with Heidi, or Diana, or even whatshername—the Romanian fan dancer—I can always tell, because your relationship with them gets in the way of our time together. I can feel you reacting to me as if I were one of them, but I’m not. And so naturally I resent it.”
Joe lurched—painfully—working to unzip his fly. Grunting, he tried to muscle her around so that they were not pinned tightly against each other. He strained, pushing and pulling. She said, “Wait a minute, my leg is wedged down there. Can you move a little that way?—there, that’s better.”
A cramp hit his twisted calf. “Ow! Nancy! Raise your ass a second, would you? My foot is pinned … listen, can you shift over to my other side … maybe if I could somehow work on top of you…”
“Okay. But there isn’t much space in here … is that better?”
“It’s not too bad.” Passionately, their lips remet. Sasha was creating a Kandinskiesque work of art on the windshield. Though his arm was painfully bent at the elbow, Joe twisted a hand between her legs, applying a few more erotic softeners. Nancy pressed against him sideways, one leg caught pincerlike in a space between the two front seats. Her other leg was caught under his right leg: her thigh levered painfully up between his legs, squashing one testicle. Diana’s gun jabbed into his groin. Joe shifted to ease the pain; she cried, “Ouch! Your elbow is killing me!”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t move it. I’m trapped. Can you swivel your left arm over there? That’d give me room, maybe, to slip around on top of you.”
“I can’t. You’ve got my left leg pinned.”
“Okay, wait a minute, we can figure this out.” Joe kissed her, tasting salt: both of them were sweating profusely. He probed inside her with two fingers until she wriggled. Then he broke another lascivious kiss to suggest a variation on their contortions.
“Listen, do the front seats move at all? Let’s tip them forward.”
“Only the driver’s side—but I can’t reach the release lever.”
“Maybe if I tug you around on top of me. That’d free my left arm and I could reach up there and grab it.”
“Like this?”
“Yeah, uh-huh, easy does it … fine … no! Ow!”
“Oh God, what?”
“You’re killing my knee! Back off! No, not that way, the other way! The other way, dammit! There! Oh Jesus, you almost killed me.”
“Can you lift your rump?” she pleaded politely. “It’s squashing my other hand.”
“I can’t. I got no leverage. You’re crushing my chest … I can’t breathe.”
“There’s no room to move around back here,” she complained. “How did we ever get into such a fix?”
Another typical symbol of my life, Joe thought. No doubt, God had decided to end his adventure trapped in the back of a VW Beetle, inadvertently locked in a double-pretzel even the most agile contortionists would admire. Somehow, attempting to perpetrate a final sexual swindle in the confined space, Joe had managed to tie himself up, in a foolproof knot, with the object of his lust. These headlines would top them all:
CHAMISAVILLE GARBAGE MAN AND METAPHYSICIAN EXPIRE IN BACK OF BEETLE! HUMAN PRETZEL PROVES FATAL TO GUINNESS RECORD ASPIREES. SUICIDE IN A BUG: SENSUALISTS MEET TWISTED FATE.
Pilgrims would travel thousands of miles to laugh on his grave. Mortified, his children would seek anonymity by exiling themselves to Lithuania. Their coffin—for of course he and Nancy would have to be buried together—would resemble a large cube with sputniklike extensions poking out all over to accommodate their haphazardly jutting limbs. Once rigor mortis set in, would the authorities even be able to dislodge them from the car? Or would they wind up painting the Beetle black, taping a rose and silver dollar to the front hood, and lowering the car into a large hole by means of an enormous construction crane?
Joe groaned, “I’m wedged in tight, I can’t reach the knob.”
“Well, you have to move, otherwise I can’t free my leg and change positions.”
“But if you don’t move first, Heidi, I can’t get any leverage to change positions.”
“My name isn’t Heidi.”
“I mean Nancy.” Sasha chattered excitedly: fevered and animated, he continued to expand his excremental masterpiece.
“What I was talking to you about,” Nancy said resolutely, “is I think anybody else that you’re having a simultaneous relationship with intrudes on all other relationships you have. Your energy becomes so dispersed, you really can’t give any one person you’re involved with the attention an honest relationship needs. So if we continue being together, you really have to at least stop screwing the other women you’ve been screwing.”
“Nancy, we’re stuck, we can’t move.”
“I know.”
“I’m uncomfortable as hell. I can’t breathe. I hate confined spaces. I feel dizzy. I think I’m gonna faint. Can’t you shift a little?”
“Only like this…”
“No … no! Christ, you’ll break my knee!”
“Then I don’t know what to do.”
“How the hell did this happen?”
“You wanted to make love.”
“You did too.”
“Yes, I did too. We both did.”
“I want out,” Joe hissed threateningly. “I’m beginning to get hysterical.”
“Maybe if I bend myself backwards this way…”
“Ow … stop! That’s my groin! Those are my family jewels!”
Peering up underneath her left armpit, Joe could see a patch of the rear window … against which Bradley pressed his nose and lips, staring in at them.
Joe said, “Don’t look now, but your kid’s getting a real eyeful.”
“Bradley?” She tried to turn her head. “Bradley, darling, open the door, please, and trip the little lever that knocks forward the front seat, okay?”
The kid didn’t want to make an unduly hasty move, however. Not before assessing the potential bribe, kickback, or payola that might come his way. “What are you guys doing, Mom?”
“We were hugging and somehow got tangled up back here and we’re stuck.”
“Sasha’s playing in his own caca on the front windshield.”
“I know, darling. Now help us like I asked you, please.”
Bradley disappeared from the window. Seconds later Joe heard the driverside door open. The kid said, “I don’t kno
w which is the lever, Mom. Is this one it?”
“I can’t see, darling, but you’re probably right. Just give it a twist.”
Bradley punched in a button on the emergency-brake handle and lowered it. Parked on a slight incline, the car immediately began to roll backward.
Too late, Joe hollered, “No, that’s the emergency brake!” Terrified, Bradley bailed out. Slowly, the car glided down the driveway and out into the middle of the subdivision’s main street, where it stopped dead, blocking the road. Sasha banged his cast angrily on the roof, then returned to his chef d’oeuvre.
Joe said, “I don’t believe it!”
A car purred down the street, braked, and the driver honked.
Joe whispered, “As soon as we get out of this I’m going to catch the first flight from the capital for Ulan Bator.”
Nancy said, “There’s a reason for everything. This isn’t just happening in a void.”
“Thanks. I feel a lot better.”
The horn-honking grew louder, more insistent. “What the hell is the matter with him?” Joe snarled. “People are insane. Can’t he see something’s wrong?”
Eventually, the honking stopped, a door opened, feet landed on the ground, footsteps approached their vehicle. Joe held his breath, closed his eyes, and concentrated on remembering these last few seconds of sweet life on earth. For no doubt the notoriety arising from the discovery of himself and Nancy Ryan in this buffoonish predicament would immediately commence hounding him—like screaming beasts and cawing jackdaws—into an early grave.
* * *
“WELL, WELL,” said a disdainful, slightly limp-wristed voice; “look what we have here. Peck’s Bad Boy in an uncompromising position.”
Even without twisting his head, Joe realized he was farther up a creek minus the proverbial paddle than he had thought possible. “I don’t believe it,” he muttered fatalistically. “You again.”
“Oh, I’m a persistent fellow.” The angel’s chuckle withered Joe. “Occasionally, I may lose a few feathers, but in general I always get my man. You certainly did frighten me, last time out, with that noisy little gun. I’ve always hated firearms.”
“He has a gun in his pocket,” Nancy said. “You better watch out.”
“Not to worry, my dear. Thanks to your marvelous preparation, I doubt he can contort enough to use it. This time I believe we’ve got him, how would you say it, properly ‘swine-tied’?”
“Hog-tied.”
“‘We’?” Joe muttered. What other gruesome twists and turns could occur in the ordinary, everyday life of an all-American boy?
Nancy said, “Yes—‘we.’”
“You two are in cahoots?”
“Cahoots,” said the angel. “What a colorful word.”
“Then it’s true?” Joe asked Nancy. “They really did hire you to wreck my marriage and throw that land into limbo?”
The angel explained, “She wasn’t exactly hired, Joe. Let’s just say that all of us are always open for assignments on whatever happens to be expedient.”
“I don’t believe it.” More rueful and bemused than angry, he said, “Nancy, how could you be so unethical?”
“I never cheated, Joe. I merely made it possible for you to do what you wanted to do. You constructed all the traps and tumbled into them yourself.”
“But I thought you loved me. I thought—”
Abruptly, he clammed up, ashamed of his outrage. After all, she had him dead to rights. His weaknesses, and not her wiles, had preordained his doom.
Time to be contrite. Though he would have welcomed a smithereen job at the hands of Ray Verboten and his teddy boys, Joe gagged at the image of a blissful annihilation engineered by this feathered creep and his psychic concubine.
“All right, you guys win. Now, help us out of this pretzel.”
“Not so fast, Joe.” The angel leered munificently. “We’ve decided to take you on a little trip.” Obviously enjoying his adversary’s helpless position, he flicked open the door, and, after carefully arranging his wing-feathers, slid behind the wheel. Enthralled by his cacophonous windshield painting, Sasha was still up there, proving that “even a monkey could paint like that.”
“What kind of trip? Where are you taking me?”
“It’s all right,” Nancy said. “Nothing bad can happen.”
“You’re such a roughneck, Joe. We want to refine you a little.”
“Thanks but no thanks. I’m perfect just the way I am. Come on, Nancy, twist your leg over to the left. Hey, you in the front seat! Lean forward or get out, screw your help, I’ll untangle myself.”
“My name is Lorin, by the way. Any danger he can untangle himself?” the angel asked Nancy, poking blindly about on the dash like one thoroughly unaccustomed to driving a car. “How do I start this thing?”
“There’s a key stuck into the dash beside the steering wheel.”
To Nancy, Joe said, “You mean all along you meant to entice me into this pickle?”
“You might say that.”
“What are you, some kind of Mata Hari?”
“She’s one of our best agents,” Lorin said. “Aha, here they are. Now what do I do?”
“Twist them—I think it’s to the left. Don’t give it gas until the engine’s ready to catch.”
“What does that mean, ‘to give it gas’?”
“Place the gearshift in neutral—it’s that stick in the floor by your right hand.”
“What’s ‘neutral’?”
Joe said, “Is this guy for real? Didn’t you arrive in a car?”
“No gratuitous denigration, Miniver. I arrived in an auto in which I believe the expression is I had ‘hitched’ a ride. My wings were tired.”
“There’s five gears,” Nancy explained. “Four forward and one reverse. In between all of them is a resting place called neutral, because it isn’t in any gear at all. If you play around a little you can feel it.”
Joe bleated, “Nancy, stop him, he’s gonna kill us!”
“Maybe I should drive,” she suggested.
“No sir, lady!” Lorin’s turn to panic. “Don’t let him free, or he’ll murder us both.”
“Well, the gas pedal is that rubber-coated tin lever underneath your right foot. The brake is between that pedal and the pedal on your left, which is the clutch.”
“‘Brakes’? ‘Clutch’?”
“Stop him!” Joe struggled to dislodge an arm, a leg, an anything. “If he starts the engine and finds a gear, we’re goners!”
“I only need about three hundred feet, I think,” Lorin said.
“What’s that supposed to mean, ‘three hundred feet’? Come on, Nancy, we’ve got to try. He’s a guaranteed slaughter.”
“My job, Joe, is to keep you hors de combat. I’m sorry.”
“Three hundred feet is all I need to raise us off the ground,” Lorin explained. “Good God, what’s happening to the windscreen?”
“My monkey defecated,” Nancy explained. “Now he thinks he’s Picasso.”
“‘Off the ground’?” Joe wailed.
“Sure. It takes a certain speed to create an aerodynamically favorable situation for flight. But believe me, once we’re in the air, I can handle everything.”
“Did you hear that, Nancy? He’s gonna fly this Bug. The bum is nuts!”
“He’s not a bum, Joe. He’s a celestial guide.”
Lorin twisted the ignition keys. The engine turned over and the car gallumphed humpingly forward, bone-jarring them all.
“Stop!” Nancy cried. “You don’t have the shifting stick in neutral.”
Joe moaned, “I wanna go home.…”
“It won’t move,” Lorin complained.
“Is the clutch depressed?”
“Which one is the clutch?”
“The pedal underneath your left foot. When it’s pushed to the floor, you can move the gearshift lever into neutral.”
Lorin stepped on the clutch and commenced wiggling the stick. “Is this neutra
l?”
“I can’t see.” Nancy tried twisting her head, but failed. “You’ll have to judge from the feel. Generally, when there’s some play in the stick, then it’s in neutral. Try starting up again, and we’ll see.”
He tried, but the car jounced forward. Sasha banged his cast again and chattered angrily: full of hatred, his bloodshot eyes peered through a clearing in the windshield muck.
Joe barked sharply, “Forget about neutral. Just depress the clutch pedal, that’ll disengage the gears! Nancy, this apparition is a maniac!”
“Hush, Joe, you’ll only confuse him.”
“More than already?”
Lorin properly stomped the clutch pedal, again turned the keys, and, with only minor grating, the engine caught. When he popped the clutch, however, they lunged forward and stalled. The emergency brake and seat-belt buzzer blared. Sasha stomped his little feet and tore off his pink eye-patch and threw it away.
“Oh shucks,” Lorin groused. “I’m an abysmal learner.” Flustered, he banged at the dashboard, trying to quell the warning buzzers. Instead, he whacked a button activating the windshield wipers. A rubber blade swept across Sasha’s tail. Startled, the monkey did an inadvertent flip, trying to escape. A loop in his tail caught around his own neck and one leg bent upward unnaturally to head-height. Knocked awry, twisting as he fell, Sasha landed helplessly against the hood, snagged in a hangman’s noose composed of his own tail, the tip of which was knotted around the powerful wiper.
“Oh my gosh!” Lorin exclaimed. “Look at the monkey!”
Jerked back and forth with each wiper pass, and hopelessly off-balance thanks to the bizarre nature of his trussed condition, Sasha screeched.
Nancy had her back to the situation. She cried, “What’s the matter?”
Sasha’s next holler was cut short as the noose yanked tighter. “I can’t stop it!” Lorin sobbed. “Which lever do I push?”
Tumbled to the right, then leftward, Sasha’s eyes bulged horribly until a final yank mercifully snapped his fragile neck.
Joe had opened his mouth to say “hallelujah!” when a bomb exploded. That is, they were engulfed by a shocking metallic thunderclap that crumpled their little car the way a hairy fist collapses an aluminum beer can after its contents have been swigged in a single gulp. The windshield and other glass panes shattered outward in a trillion glittering bits as the Bug’s exoskeleton buckled. They were airborne for a period of time Joe found difficult to judge because his limbs were being torn asunder by a gigantic invisible madman. Yet the savage whirlwind probably lasted hardly longer than a second. The Bug landed; Joe’s teeth clacked, and tiny chips of ivory spewed from between his lips.