The United States of Air: a Satire that Mocks the War on Terror (26 page)

I strolled among the tables, dwarfed by food piled high to the ceiling.
Grip your lapels. The connoisseur casts a critical eye over the food lab product.
Is anyone watching? I reached out a hand to touch a cake, but stopped, fingers an inch from the frosting.
Swivel the head from side to side.
No one was looking. No one cared.

More quickly now I waddled toward the soup vat. I took the vial out of my pocket. Ten feet to go. Around a table of pies. I uncorked the vial and covered the tube with my thumb.

I circled a table of chocolates and waltzed around a coffee urn. Nothing stood in my way. No chefs nearby. I approached the bubbling cauldron. The soup gurgled and hissed above me. I double-checked the sign: “Soup.” No mistake there. The top of the vat was two feet overhead, just within arm’s reach. I didn’t dare use the stepladder. I stood on tiptoe and sniffed loudly.
A curious diner wishes to sample the broth.
I could smell nothing.

I lifted the vial, still tight in my fist.
Thumb to forehead. Scratch an eyebrow.
In the burnished stainless steel of the vat the bustle behind me continued, distorted.
Fist to top of head. Scratch scratch scratch. Stretch arm overhead. Wrist on top of vat.
Hot. Hot hot!
Let fist drop open.
A soft plop.

Hold that position. No sudden moves. Nothing suspicious to see here. Just being nosy.
My calves began to ache.
Down from tiptoe. Hands in your pockets.
Now all you have to do is turn and stroll back to the dining hall. When the soup comes around, find a way to spill it in your lap. My face was slick with sweat beneath the mask. It was hot here next to the cauldron.
On the count of three, turn and go. One. Two. Thr—

“Don Baloney,” said a voice behind me.

I turned to face this new threat.
I am in charge. I am a senior leader of the French Food Mafia. If I feel like sniffing the soup, you’re g-d-word right I’m going to sniff the soup. Hands behind your back.
No wait, they don’t reach.
Rest them on your stomach, then.
Don’t reach that way either.
D-word it.

It was the waiter. My waiter. The one I’d been rude to over the water. He was looking at me funny. Had he seen me drop the vial? I couldn’t risk it. The mission was too important. I would have to kill the man.
Find some excuse. Find a weapon.
Chocolate cakes towered over us on either side. A serving knife lay at the base of one. It would be a simple matter of grabbing the blade and stabbing the waiter before he could cry out. I could tell Fatso the man had been insolent with me.

But what if the waiter had seen nothing? Was I prepared to murder an innocent man? I rested my fingers on the table near the knife.

“Whaddaya want?” I snarled.

“Fatso sent me to find you, Don Baloney,” he said. “When Gassy came back alone, the boss wanted to know what you were up to.”

“‘Up to’?” I asked, and grabbed the knife. “What does it look like I’m ‘up to’?” I spread my arms wide. What was that in my hand? Besides the knife. The other hand. S-word. The cork.
Make a fist and hide it. Good.
“I’m admiring this splendiferous repast of illicit viands our illustrious Godfather has seen fit to shower us with this fine Thanksgiving day.”

The man ducked his head. “I don’t know what that means, Don Baloney.” His accent, I realized, was French.

“Then why. Are. You. Still. Here?” I pressed my gut against his skeletal chest, and scratched his ear with the tip of the knife.

He stiffened. “Fatso boss of us all. Only he ask I bring you message. He say to.” His English was getting worse.

“Spit it out, man.” I nicked his ear lobe with the knife. Blood trickled down his neck. “Or I’ll cut off your ear and eat it for dessert.”

“Come back to the table now, or no come back at all. I just messenger,
monsieur!
Please!” He stepped backward and held up his arms as though to ward off a blow.

I followed his stare. A knife overhead aimed down at his chest. I was holding the knife. I was getting too much into this role. I put the knife back on the table. Around us dishes clattered, chefs shouted in some unintelligible ferrn language. French, I suppose. The silence between us continued. I didn’t believe he had seen anything. I would spare his life.

“Come on,” I said, and patted him on the back. “I’ll save you a turkey leg. How’s that?”

The man seemed overwhelmed by this generosity. “That would be wonderful,
monsieur!”
he stammered. “Food enough for my whole family for the rest of the week!”

I waddled along beside him back to the banquet hall. “How big is your family?”

“Five kids, Don Baloney,” he said. “Plus all my in-laws, cousins, parents, aunts, an uncle and my ex-stepsister’s lesbian partner.”

We stood before the swinging doors. I breathed a sigh of relief. The hard part was over. I had done it. I allowed myself a tiny smile. By this time tomorrow, the entire mafia leadership would be dead.

“After you,” I said.

“Thank you, oh thank you.” The waiter kissed my hand. Still in Turkey Leg Shared Sixteen Ways Dreamland. I felt so sorry for these food addicts. Soon they would learn what it means to eat air. The waiter pushed open the swinging doors and stepped into the hall.

I waited until the doors swung back before making my entrance. Generations of school children would study what I had done here today. The Prophet himself might give me a medal. The Congressional Medal of Air, like General O’Shitt has. There I’d stand, on the Thin House lawn—no, in the Rock Garden—the sun shining down, the Prophet in front of me, the medal in his hand, pointing a gun in my face—

Six men stood on the other side of the door. One held a pistol to my nose. It wasn’t the Prophet, and he definitely didn’t have a medal in his hand. Behind him, the entire hall had turned to watch.

Fatso stepped forward, still chewing on his piglet leg. “Well, Don Baloney,” he said. “Wat doo yoo seenk uv ow-air Sanksgeeveeng feest?” He smiled, and ripped meat from the bone with his teeth. “Or shood I say, Special Agent Froleek uv zee ATFF?”

Twenty-Two

What happened to the lights? The French police? They’re
what?
That’s ridiculous. Why would the French police attack us? We’re doing a show here.

A flashlight. Thank you. Corporal, get into that control booth, please. I don’t care if there’s French special forces rappeling down from the ceiling. Shoot them and get the lights back on.

Wow. What a mess. So that’s what happens when you pump a bunch of French commandos full of Laxafier juice. Unbelievable. You Frenchies really stuff your faces, don’t you? Look at the vile secretions seeping from their pants.

Wants to talk to me? Who is it? A hostage negotiator? They’re not hostages, you idiot. They’re the audience! All right. Fine. Translate this: I am the ambassador to France, and I am ordering him and his men to back off.

The president himself. Of France. Give me the phone. Listen, you frog-leg-chewing scum bag, I know where you pooped last Friday night. I know what it smelled like, what it consisted of and what you were thinking when you were sitting on the potty, and let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty.

That’s right. Apology accepted. In the future, remember the chain of command. You report to me. I report to the Prophet. I run this country. You are my puppet.

Sheesh. These people just don’t know their place.

Excellent work, Corporal. Now that the lights are back on, please dispose of these filthy French pigs in their black ski masks, and we will continue with our show.

Twenty-Three

They ripped the fat suit off me and tied me naked to a chair. A wicker chair without a seat. A plastic bucket sat underneath. They were going to torture me, I realized. Pull out my fingernails. Pluck out my eyeballs. Hack off my limbs. Fatso was famous for his creative torture techniques.

Well, I could suffer pain. I could suffer anything, knowing that the soup was poisoned. That my death was not in vain. I would be a martyr for the good ol’ US of Air. For the Prophet. The People. The Future. Hope.

Fatso held up his pig leg for silence. Grease glistened on his cheeks. “And now,” he said, “zee entertainment for zee evening shall
commence.”

“Go ahead and torture me,” I sneered. “You can’t make me talk. My faith is strong. Happiness is Eating Air.”

“Eez eet?” he asked. He turned to the audience. “Wee shall see.”

Laughter shook the hall. I lifted up my voice in prayer. “O Mine Prophet,” I prayed, “Forgive these poor food terrists who would impose their extremist fundamentalist beliefs on our great nation. Show them the light, the one true—”

But the words stuck in my throat. The waiter brandished the instrument of torture. I had expected a gun. A knife. Car battery clamps, an assault on my testicles. That I could live with. But this… It was too horrible for words.

“No!” I shouted, shrinking back in my seat. “Not that! Anything but that! Please!”

The waiter advanced. His face was grim. To stoop so low—it was barbaric. Inhuman. Torture beyond my wildest fears.

“You cruel monster!” I choked out.

In his hand lay a Twinkie. They had snapped off its beautiful gossamer wings. It flopped back and forth in agony.

I could smell it now. Its fear. Its pain. The waiter pressed its head against my lips. Rapist or no rapist, I could not bear to listen to the Twinkie’s cries of suffering. I opened my mouth and let it wriggle onto my tongue. It panted for a moment, catching its breath, then leaped down my throat in a suicidal swan dive, and so left this world of sorrow for the Twinkie graveyard of my stomach.

“Please,” I whimpered. “No more. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“But wee all-reddy know everyseeng, Agent Froleek,” Fatso said.

“See that pallet over there?” The waiter pointed. Thousands of Twinkies waited their turn.

I gasped in horror. To be forced to watch them torture innocent Twinkies—these pastries had done me no harm—was more than I could bear. But Fatso and his crew were hard, relentless men. One after another the waiter shucked the Twinkies, discarding the plastic cocoons and brutally snapping off their wings. I opened my mouth and put them out of their misery. What else could I do? It was an act of kindness. Of mercy.

“Yoo wair a phoney Caponey Baloney,” Fatso said. “How doo yoo seenk I knew?”

I moaned. Twinkie guts coated my lips. “Not enough attitude?”

He swallowed another mouthful of pig flesh. “Cuz I keeled heem myself,” he said. “Rite wair yoo seet now. Cut out heez asshole and shoved eet down heez throte. Hee wuz last yeer’s entertainment.”

Thousands of Twinkie wings fluttered overhead, drawn by their brethren’s death agony.

“But if Baloney’s been dead for a year,” I said, “why did the Resistance—”

The flying Twinkies cut me off.
“Betrayed, Betrayed! You’ve been betrayed!”

“Stop singing!” I hissed at them.

“Your hear that, boss?” Gassy said. “He wants a song.” He farted “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Fatso chuckled. “Full Stummick works for mee. Hee eez my head chef.”

“A French spy? Work for you?” I shook my head. “I don’t believe it.”

A man in a ten-foot-tall white hat strode from the kitchen. “Frolick!” he cried. “You made it! Will you not enjoy this bountiful banquet I have prepared for us?”

Was Stummick playing a double game? Maybe Fatso didn’t know about our plot.

I opened my mouth to reply, but two more injured Twinkies fought to rape my esophagus. I helped them kill themselves, then said to Fatso, “How can you live with yourself? Torturing innocent people like this.” Because Twinkies are people too.

“Inno-sent?” Fatso said. “I am not zee wun hoo poy-zunned zee soop.”

Found out! Now there was no hope. I slumped in my chair. My death would be for naught.

“Good thing it wasn’t really soup,” Full Stummick said. He held up the sign from the vat and turned it around. The other side read, “Dirty Dishes.”

Fatso hooted with laughter. “I hate zee soop. Always haf.”

The mission was a failure. I was a failure. Because of me the world was doomed to slavery and addiction. I wanted to die. I hoped they’d kill me soon.

“Show him the video!” someone called out from below.

The cry was repeated. “The video! The video!”

Fatso gave a nod. A projector screen was lowered onto the stage. He turned to me. “Zees eez my favoreet part.”

View from a pinhole camera in someone’s lapel. In the distance, the Thin House. The camera panned left and right. LaOmelette Park. Near where we found the body of Jacques Crusteau. A man in a trench coat approached. No tape measure, but thin enough to work for the Skinny Service.

“You order a pizza?” said a gruff French voice from above.

The buyer wore a fedora pulled low over his eyes. A grey scarf hid his face. “Yes,” he said, and reached for the pizza.

The seller drew back. “First let’s see the money.”

“Right here.” A chrome pizza wheel glittered in one hand.

“No you don’t. No money, no pizza.”

“I’m sorry,” the man said. “But I don’t have the money.” The voice was strangely familiar.

“What the food?” the man said. “They told me you were a qualified buyer. Look, I’m outta here. What are you doing?
Merde, ne peut pas—”

The pizza wheel slashed through the air. Blood splattered the lens. A gurgling sound. A view of the trees. The dying man clawed at his assailant’s face. The scarf came away in his hands. The image on the projector screen froze. My soul froze too.

It was the Prophet himself.

“But how?” I managed.

Fatso shrugged. “He eez boot a man.
Non?”

The video resumed. The Prophet opened the pizza box and crammed slice after slice into his mouth until it was all gone. But the seller wasn’t dead. He lunged up, and for a moment the view was in darkness. A scream from above.

The vendor fell back. A bloody hole filled the space where the Prophet’s nose had been. He lifted the pizza wheel and slashed again and again at the pizza dealer until the man stopped moving. A siren sounded in the distance. The Prophet looked up. He stuck two fingers down his throat and vomited on the body. A half-chewed circle of pepperoni covered the lens. Violent kicks turned the body over onto its stomach. The video ended.