Repo Men (6 page)

“The weekend after next is open,” said Beth, and planted a peck on my cheek that was more gratifying than any of the tantric positions we had occupied in the last hour.

And that was how our first date came to a close: I went to my home, she stayed in hers, and it ended with a peck on the cheek. Proper.

Basic training continued, an endless series of repetitive actions that our drill sergeant assured us would come in handy saving our skinny hides. I couldn’t see how swinging over a pit of water could help any when we were going to be fighting the enemy in the desert, but after the first three stints of KP duty, I made a habit of keeping my mouth shut.

Got down San Diego way about twice a month, which was as often as I could wrangle a forty-eight-hour pass. I took on so many extra duty shifts—patrol, orderly, clerk—in order to clear my weekends, I soon found myself subsisting on less than three hours of sleep a night. But Beth and I had a swell time, mostly holed up in the back room of the massage parlor, testing out the tensile strength of her mattress and bed frame, though we managed to get to a few nightclubs now and again. Beth had been thoughtful enough of my feelings to clear out her weekends, business-wise, and only once did we have to rush out of a bar because she’d forgotten about a client’s appointment she’d been unable to cancel. I waited in the lobby. I could hear the mattress springs creak. It lasted one hour and six minutes.

During the last few weeks of basic training, our instructors began to shift the focus away from basic military preparedness toward the practical and tactical. We engaged in mock military maneuvers, operations, whatever you want to call them. Our marching fields were transformed into great plains of faux warfare, littered with fake tanks and fake buildings and fake sniper nests sporting real soldiers writhing in real pain. Low-velocity rubber bullets were used. They stung like a bitch. One guy in E Squadron lost an eye when he took off his goggles to wipe off the fog.

On the last day—it was their mistake in the first place for telling us that these would be our last twenty-four hours of basic training—we cut loose. Red Team, ho!

We raided the Blue Fort, me and Harold Hennenson, and brought down three snipers in the process. Three-hour mission. Two-hours and twenty-five minutes of waiting, waiting, waiting, and thirty-five minutes of adrenal overload. Details: We shot up a flimsy plaster facade with a clip-full of red paint, smeared it across our foreheads, and wrote our names in the dripping excess while whooping up the sorriest of battle cries. We took prisoners, hostages, and bound them with ropes we pretended were thick sheets of eucalyptus. We interrogated them. We asked them for their names, their serial numbers, the women they’d slept with and their precise addresses. We were the RAF, the doughboys, and the yellow-ribbon brigade, taking our cues from every old war film we’d ever seen. We were Mongols making good, and we won the day.

Our instructors were furious. Each of us was given two hours of lecture, threats, push-ups, bunk and meal restriction, and one hundred hours’ KP and trash-hauling duty. We would never see a minute of that time. They shipped us out the very next day.

The prior week, just before the Corps shipped our squadron off to fun and sun and gun in the desert, Beth and I did the deed and got ourselves married. A half-drunk preacher culled from a local bar near Beth’s apartment, Jake Freivald standing by my side as best man, and Harold Hennenson, who was often found scrubbing toilets with his toothbrush—not because he was forced to, but out of a fanatic zeal for order—signing all the witness papers in triplicate.

Unlike Harold Hennenson, Jake Freivald would live through the war. Like me, he would return to America feeling lost, without purpose, and without the necessary training to compete in what was already a staggeringly technological job market, where computer programmers were cast onto the street with the morning’s refuse when they couldn’t learn the latest version of C-Triple-Plus quicker than their counterparts. And, like me, he would turn to the one thing that had always sustained him through difficult times, the one piece of hide-saving equipment with which the military way of life had vested us:

We could kill people and not care all that much.

But during the wedding we knew none of this. Harold was alive, and Jake and I were just a couple of knob kids trying to get our business done before jumping onto a transport plane heading into the heart of darkness.

“Somebody here to swear?” gurgled the preacher. During the short ceremony, he kept turning his back to us, ostensibly to cough, but it was pretty clear from his breath that he was belting down a new slug of rotgut with every spin. “Swearing, anybody?”

Harold glanced at me, shrugging his shoulders, wondering what to do. I shrugged back, so Jake took the reins and stepped up. “I stand up for this man,” he improvised. “I swear for him.”

“And…who gives…who gives the lady?”

We hadn’t discussed this. I turned to Beth, afraid that our lack of foresight was about to put a kibosh on the whole deal, when she whispered in my ear, “Harold can do it.”

“You sure?” I whispered back. “We can wait, I guess…Find someone else.”

“Harold will do fine.”

And he did. Stepped up, gave me my lovely bride—hair up; no veil; gown long, rented, slightly frayed at the hem—and backed away just as quickly. The preacher mumbled through a few benedictions, pronounced us husband and wife, and split to go find himself an after-hours club that didn’t bounce men of the slightly stained cloth.

We made love in a motel room I rented for two hours, sweating fantastically in the San Diego summer heat. When it was over, when our time was up, I put on my military fatigues, bundled up my belongings, kissed my wife goodbye, promised to write her every day, and headed up to base and out to the battlefield with a new, purposeful stride in my step.

She took off work for the rest of the night. At least, that’s what she told me.

In a letter she sent me while I was ensconced in one metal monstrosity or another during the war, Beth explained why Harold was the best choice to give her away. “He was the only man who had the chance to screw me and didn’t,” she scribbled, “and that makes him chaste enough in my book.”

Stupidly—thoughtlessly—naively—I wrote back, “We could have waited and called your father.”

I knew it was coming even before I got the reply letter, this one three days later than her usual response, the hurt and pain after all those years of good, healthy psychological burial resurfacing in every angry scrawl. “You’re such a sweet kid,” she wrote in part, “but sometimes you can be a complete asshole.”

No argument.

Enough reminiscing. I’m going outside today. Here’s hoping I make it back.

P
resent day, present time, and my heart rate is back to normal—the audible series of beeps from the remote control welded onto my hip tells me I’ve reentered acceptable ranges—and I imagine my adrenaline levels have cooled from their nuclear-reactor fury. Hard night tonight. Hard night every night, but this is one for the books.

I went out this afternoon, a little reconnaissance mission into the heart of enemy territory. To be fair, pretty much any place outside of this stinking twenty-by-twenty room is enemy territory, but this time we’re talking the big HQ, the see-and-don’t-be-seen, the pigeon-in-the-hole:

I went to the Mall. Dangerous digs, no doubt, but it’s a necessary evil predicated by my own seclusion. When it comes to staying alive for any length of time, playing badger is no way to survive. In order to run from the Union, a nearly impossible feat to sustain for any length of time, you have to know where they’re looking, how they’re looking, who they’re using to look. Every Bio-Repo man has his own style, his own way of smoking out the bees, and if you know who’s on your tail, there’s that much more of a chance that you can blow the fumes right back in his face.

The “non-collection” rate for the Credit Union runs about .2 percent. That’s one “escape” for every five hundred welshers, and those odds are regularly stated in big, bold ink at the bottom of every page of every artiforg contract. They must be initialed and signed in duplicate after a trained Credit Union reading clerk has dictated them aloud and ascertained that the client has, indeed, understood the nature of his debt to the Union, as well as the odds of his escaping the Union’s clutches should he decide to flee with his as-yet-unpaid-for organ into some far-flung territory.

During my time with the Union, my personal non-collection rate was 0.0. That’s a doughnut followed by a bullet hole, and it’s a number that won me acclaim in the department as well as with the national Union reps. No one got off free and clear, and even those who evaded me for a year, two years, three at most, eventually wound up flopping around on a floor somewhere, wondering with their last thoughts how I’d finally tracked them down.

That’s until the end, of course, but I don’t think that one slipup counted. Then again, I hope it did. I’d hate to have ended my career as a Bio-Repo man without even one blemish on my record. No one should be too good at this job.

Some years ago, the Mall used to be a sprawling pedestrian marketplace in the heart of the city’s west side, a mecca for trinkets and overpriced semi-designer clothes, much like any other consumer factory in any other town. Mothers scooted their children from store to store in bright red strollers provided by the management, girlfriends searched for gifts for their boyfriends, boyfriends searched for edible panties to force on their girlfriends, a lot of cash was transferred from hand to grimy hand, and all was right in suburbia.

The Credit Union was still in its infancy when the Kurtzman supply house bought out a doublewide storefront previously owned by The Gap and, two months later, opened the doors to the first artificial organ walk-in service station. E-Z Credit, open to the public, no qualified customer turned away. Atop the
Kurtzman Walk-In
sign, a bright neon heart—not the cartoonish Valentine’s symbol, but an accurate representation of the bulbous, vein-ridden organ—pulsed in crimson and pink, the tubing flashing in a steady, even rhythm. And in time, as if to match the cadence, a singsong chant emanated from hidden speakers, the tune wafting its way through the Mall, luring customers like cartoon dogs inexorably drawn to the smell of fresh-baked pies.
Let’s all go to Kurztman’s, let’s all go to Kurtzman’s, let’s all go to Kurtzman’s, where a lifetime can be yours…

The lines were out the door within an hour.

Arnold Kurtzman, who made his initial fortune recycling old NBA basketballs into cut-rate inner tubes before shifting his assets to the artiforg business, was a short, plump, balding man who never failed to attract the most dizzying array of young, beautiful women to his side. He was also a liar, a thief, a bad karaoke singer with a worse temper, and an absolute devotee of the French cinema. But despite these voluminous negatives, the man had a checkbook the size of the Eiffel Tower, and the cash he spread around kept him groin-deep in female flesh for nearly all of his life.

Frank, my boss at the Credit Union, had a genetic dislike of Arnold Kurtzman that went far beyond professional envy, and he passed the hatred down to me. It didn’t help that we all attended the same conferences, were forced to sit through his endless, patronizing speeches during interminable seminars. There were few creatures on Earth I disliked more than that foul-tempered, spittle-lipped old man, which is probably why I lobbied for the job of ripping out Kurtzman’s artificial lungs two years after his business and bank accounts went belly-up.

I was tickled to no end when I found him in a ramshackle motel, roaches crawling over his bloated, sweaty body, his brain partially eaten away by whatever syphilitic diseases had taken hold, his only belongings scattered in a pathetic pile on the stained carpet next to the bed. There wasn’t a woman in sight.

Kurtzman’s walk-in supply house was an instant hit with the public, his
A Lifetime Can Be Yours
motto the buzzwords on everyone’s tongue—both real and polyplastic—and it wasn’t long before the other artiforg manufacturers were angling for their own little piece of the Mall. Gabelman, Kenton, Taihitsu—they lay in wait like snipers in the underbrush, biding their time until a retail space came up for lease; then, at one minute past midnight on the day in question, they would descend upon the Mall leasing office like storm troopers in blitzkrieg and throw wads of cash at the rental agents until they cracked beneath the green, green pressure and informed Banana Republic or Pottery Barn that their time together, though fruitful, had drawn to a close.

The unions and artiforg manufacturers swept like a tidal wave through the Mall, demolishing everything in their path. Soon the entire third floor of the place was filled with supply houses, with the exception of one holdout company, The Greatest Cookie Ever. This was a rocking little bakery that served a regular clientele with custom-baked erotic dessert treats, and—go figure—they somehow had the cash to match the supply houses when it came to lease-renewal time.

Nowadays, they’re The Greatest Cookies and Organs Ever, and they do a brisk business in artificial taste buds.

Earlier this afternoon, the Mall (recapitalized some years back by overwhelming vote of the aggregate supply houses leasing office space) was an anthill of activity, medically challenged petitioners scurrying this way and that among the storefronts, trying to get someone, anyone, to give them a line of credit. There are no more holdouts inside the Mall, no last-ditch efforts to sell clothing or shoes or pastries of any sort. It’s all artiforgs now, and it’s the place to get up and go when your body won’t.

The Credit Union sports the largest of the storefronts, a big gleaming portal practically slapping you across the face as soon as you walk in from the parking structure. Technicolor lights stream about the entryway, drawing customers inside, leading them down the path to a new, improved way of life. Ponce de León be damned—the new Fountain of Youth is inside a shopping mall.

Harry the Heart and Larry the Lung, two of the more popular Credit Union mascots, were out in force this afternoon, dancing in the way that only overstuffed, underpaid teenagers dressed up as artificial organs can dance. There’s no sound box on these things—it’s not like the ones they have down at the Union theme park (motto:
Where Entertainment and Rejuvenation Meet
)—so the two cartoon characters spent most of their time waving at the customers, tapping their shoes against the mall’s tiled floor. At one point, Harry entertained a group of cancer patients by launching into a jump-roping act using a prop aorta while Larry the Lung clapped in time to the music.

I dated the girl who played Patty Pancreas once, but the relationship didn’t take. Every time she climbed into that costume I had to fight back the urge to rip her right out again.

I left most of my weapons in the hotel this afternoon; it’s hard enough to get through the weapons detectors without worrying about loose scalpels falling out of my pockets. Even in the city, it’s the kind of thing that might attract suspicion.

I chose the Mauser, one of my smaller handguns, and loaded it with enough ammunition to get me out of a moderate jam.
Should I find myself up against a Bio-Repo man
, I told myself this morning—
even two—three, if they’re fresh meat newly culled from the short training program—I will not hesitate to blast my way to safety. Should I find myself up against more than that, or even a single Level Five Bio-Repo, I will run like a roach with the lights turned on
.

Turns out I was being optimistic. Go figure.

The weapons-detection device at the Mall was easy enough to beat, though it’s a sad state of affairs when you can sneak through any object as metallic as a semi-automatic German handgun. I followed my plan, culled from years of collected tricks and treats:

On the way downtown, I jumped into a china store and pilfered a leaded-crystal vase, along with an attending box from the trash Dumpster outside. My movements were swift and assured, but it didn’t preclude me from taking momentary glances over my shoulder or executing 180-degree spins to check for tails. For all I knew, a team of Bio-Repo men could have been waiting for me just beyond the next corner, ready to snatch me up in their arms, throw me into the back of a waiting van, and end it all right there and then. I didn’t think I’d been spotted or followed, but that’s the lure of many a talented repossessor. Silence is bait.

A quick ride on public transport—here the odds of being recognized dropped considerably, as the hangdog faces inside the bus didn’t even look up as I entered, more concerned with their own misery than that of a fellow sad sack—and soon I was a block away from the Mall, a massive structure faced in beige travertine sprawling across 200,000 square feet of prime real estate. Word was they knocked down a V.A. hospital for this place, memorial stones and all. A steady stream of customers poured in and out of electric sliding doors set into the three-story structure; those entering did so with looks of determination and not a little anxiety, while those leaving were broken into two camps: smiles and tears. Hey, that’s the breaks—sometimes you get a loan, sometimes you don’t. But thanks to today’s no-equity credit application, it’s the rare down-on-his-luck sap who doesn’t qualify for at least a bladder at semi-usurious rates.

Stooping by a small hedge, I unearthed the Mauser from within the folds of my jacket and buried it beneath an outcropping of leaves, digging the barrel into the dirt, using the gun like a miniature shovel. Standing up again, I strode purposefully toward the Mall, making sure to place the proper look of pain, degradation, and anticipatory humiliation on my face. The fake mustache and beard I wore were affixed with a strong resin that I had fished out of the trash behind a costume shop, and I hoped that it wouldn’t give way to a firm tug by a security guard, let alone a strong burst of wind.

“All packages on the belt,” droned the X-ray tech. I was twelve back in line, the lone metal detector able to accommodate only one customer at a time. Behind me, a young man held a small shih tzu dog to his chest; the fluffy thing panted heavily, its fur undulating with each breath.

“He’s not feeling well,” said the guy, noticing my stare. People rarely brought their animals with them into the Mall; it was very low class and generally frowned upon to drag a pet into any credit department. Loan officers were not impressed with man’s best friend. “He needs a lung.”

“Who does?” I asked.

“Muffin.” He nodded down to the dog, and the thing stared up at me pathetically, big brown eyes rolled back in its head. “Yes, that’s right,” the man cooed to his ball of fur. “We’re gonna get you a biddie widdle lung.”

“What’s that cost?” I asked. I’d heard of people getting artiforgs for their pets, but that was mostly celebrities who could afford to fund in cold, hard cash.

The man shook his head, saying, “I don’t know yet. The vet told me he could set up a payment plan at eighteen hundred a month, but I thought I’d get a second bid.”

“Good luck,” I told him, then turned back to my place in line. Good luck, indeed. No union or supply house is going to extend credit to a guy who’s only got his goddamned dog to lose.

The linchpin of the artiforg credit system is that all equity rides within the body itself. That way, when it comes time to foreclose, there’s no way for the client to cut and run.

“Box on the belt, sir.” The X-ray tech motioned for me to drop my package on the conveyor, and I gladly did so. Taking a step through the metal detector—the Mauser still hidden beneath that shrub outside—I came up clean and reached for my package on the other side.

My hand was grabbed, held. “What’s in the box, sir?” A new guard, this one outfitted with a gun of his own. There were no external markings on his uniform to distinguish him from the woman still sitting on her butt five feet away, but I had a feeling he’d been trained to use that revolver with some degree of competence.

“A birthday gift,” I explained. “For my credit advisor.” This was commonplace, in fact, and not in the least out of the ordinary. In order to secure a line of credit or more favorable interest rates, customers often brought lavish bribes to their advisors, disguising them as birthday and holiday presents so as not to alarm the higher-ups. Of course, everyone knew it was going on, and everyone tolerated it, because the advisors would throw some of that booty up to their supervisors, who would, in turn, toss a few crumbs to their own managers. The series of kickbacks was endless, a thick layer of grease facilitating the slide up and down the pyramid. It was like Amway, only not quite as cutthroat.