Second Life by Paul Griner

Author:Paul Griner
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781619025233
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2018-04-27T00:00:00+00:00

9

Belmont’s Facebook page showed that he still worked the airport’s UPS night shift, which meant that he’d be getting off shortly. I had to see him. The QPR driver description matched him exactly, and Myrtle was right: whoever did this knew about the mixed-up names; even the most brazen body brokers didn’t steal random bodies. As I showered, I thought about Myrtle’s other comments, her desire that this not turn into a problem, and I knew that by problem she meant news story.

I understood. Newspapers and TV clarified and corrupted; everything became bright and simple. Covering my scandal, reporters noted that feet brought body brokers $3,000 a piece, brains $10,000, elbows $2,500, and that a complete torso fetched $10,000 while an eviscerated one still went for $7,500, and that a six-foot section of skin returned $6,000. But none of the stories detailed the costs of harvesting body parts, or of transporting, storing, or processing them: freezers, the filing fees for death certificates and cremation permits and all the other paperwork associated with death, or of the harvesting tools. That my skin-shaving blades ran $600 a set and lasted only a single cadaver. Nor did they mention that while most of the business was shady, some procured material saved lives, or that working so closely with the dead eventually deadened your response to the world. So I knew why Myrtle didn’t want it publicized. A good ghoul story was a big seller, and only partially true. But I was more worried about Belmont, who I hadn’t told Mrs. Stefanini I’d introduced to Lia. Why give her another reason to hate me?

Lia and I had been at a bar when Belmont walked in. I’d dated him twice, months before. On our first date, we’d driven thirty miles south of the city, through the beginnings of the knobs to Bernheim Arboretum. A former forestry student, as we walked through the holly grove toward the pines, he explained the way lumberers viewed the woods, pointing to a towering specimen. One large tree is worth more than two smaller ones, he said, and you look for the first major defect like a fork to determine board feet or numbers of logs. It’s a resource, not a tree.

All through the picnic, which I’d fixed and he loved, he told me about merchantable heights and chatter marks and flitching, and it all felt oddly romantic, though not much happened other than kissing. But the second date was a disaster, Belmont arriving drunk and belligerent, so much so that, when he stood in the bar doorway, I ducked.

Lia said, All right, what’s that about?

Worst mistake ever.

How big of a mistake can he be when he looks like a model?

He’s got the brains of a mannequin.

It’s not like you planned on marrying him, is it?

Not once he took his pants off.

Oh, she said, disappointed. Mr. Peanut?

Worse. He came naked to our second date. And drunk. And he had a tattoo.

Lots of people do, Lia said. Us included. She flashed the golden fleur-de-lis on the underside of her wrist.

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