— . . . okay.
So. This guy killed himself while squatting; hung himself from the doorknob. And the house he did it in, it wasn’t exactly abandoned, but it hadn’t been checked for a pretty long time. Anyway, real estate agent found him. And he didn’t want to tell the property-holder, ’cause then the holder calls the cops . . .
—Like with the apartment, with that first guy.
—Yeah, just like that. ’Cause it’s always the same story with these pricks.
So the agent calls us. ‘S obvious what happened, and there is not a lot of the guy left, anyway. It was summer, it was hot; he was probably in there, like . . . basically, he melted. Okay? Cranial fluid came out through his face, spinal fluid through his back. Fluid, generally. All this—crud.
—Brain machine time.
—Serious. Except we didn’t have the machine yet. (Pause) But that was why we were gonna do it, right? ’Cause we know if buddy pays us to dispose of a body for him, we’re gonna be the
people he calls in to do his dirty work for the rest of his life. And I won’t lie, man—we wanted to be those people, why the fuck not?
—And now . . . you are.
—Yeah.
So . . . back then, the whole company was just me and the S.O., basically—my “significant other.” So this was pretty big of a coup for us. And ‘cause we’re bankin’ on this little windfall, him and me decide we’re gonna do what we were never able, up ‘till now: We hire a third person. This girl, let’s call her—Rosa.
I was the one knew Rosa, from my maid days. Sat her down, told her about the company, what the job was gonna be about. But we didn’t have the puke book back then, either, and—
—Sorry. “Puke book”?
—Yeah. It’s this book at the office we got now, full of photos from real bad blood scenes, and we run it past everybody who comes in, ’cause if they heave right there then this probably ain’t the career they wanna get into.
So I don’t know. I don’t think she really got what she was sayin’ “yes” to, even after we got her all fitted up in the suit, the breather, showed her how to do everything . . . not even then. Not ’till she went in there, and saw it.
But anyway. We get to the house, and just the night before, we’d suddenly figured out how if we bring Rosa along then we’re gonna have to fake like it’s all been approved already. So the S.O. sets up a video camera, like we’re taping it for the cops, which they like us to do—they want to know what went where, after all the shit’s been squared away. In point of fact, it’s just in case buddy wants to screw us over, but how’s she supposed to know?
I’m humping in the disinfectants, and he’s pissin’ around with the camera, and Rosa’s out there parking the truck, so she comes in last. And because this guy did it from the doorknob on the front door . . . well, I guess it just didn’t occur to me. How when you walked in, you were basically walking right over all the—stuff—that used to be him.
And that smell. More like a taste than a smell, really. ’Cause you get it worst in your mouth, all the way at the back, even with the breather. Like it’s comin’ up from inside you.
You do get used to that too, believe it or not. Eventually.
But Rosa—
She steps in, hears that sticky sound, looks down. Sees what she’s steppin’ in. And when I see her face I think for sure she’s gonna run right back out the door, but instead, she runs in—into the house, away from the camera. Through the doors into what used to be the kitchen.
Well, we gave her about an hour, ’cause it took that long to get the absolute worst of this guy up. And then I go in, like: Okay Rosa, c’mon, man.
But.
No Rosa, for one thing. All right. So she’s gone upstairs, obviously, or out the back. Or something.
Try to open the door to the backyard, but that sucker’s locked—more like nailed shut, maybe ten, maybe twenty years ago. So I yell to the S.O., and he goes to check upstairs, and I go down in the basement. And there’s . . .
(Pause)
. . . at the bottom of the stairs, there’s this—I walk into this patch, this sort of—spot. And it’s really cold. Really, really . . .
I thought I could sort of hear her, too, just for a second there. Like she was far away. Like she was—yelling.
(Long Pause)
Well, we get the rest of the guy all cleaned up—fast as we fuckin’ can—and then we take the camera, and we get the fuck out of there. And we don’t tell the agent, and we don’t know who the hell else to call about it—her relatives? I don’t even know who they are. Cops? Please.