Vic Socotra

03 July 2009

Thriller

I got two increasingly belligerent calls from the Fifth Floor- Big Pink’s party central, and that is what determined how the evening was going to go. I had no idea it would be such a thriller.

I was exhausted and a little pissed off. I rose before the crack of dawn to write catalog copy for a project due at eight, which lead directly into a series of chaotic teleconferences about opportunities the Government dropped on us before heading to the beach.

That is Washington, by the way. The Government has its rhythms, and it dances to them. We carrion birds have to pick up the scraps where we can. When I had a budget job, the key decisions were always left to the weeks around Christmas and New Years, because the President’s budget was going to roll out in January, win or lose, and damn the holiday roast and the open houses.

Now, outside the government, we have to sweep in on the contracts that are put out so the government can barbeque in peace over the long weekend. I can’t complain, any more than I could about the rising of the tides and moon.

I did think that maybe I could sneak out a little early in the afternoon and catch a nap, and cleared off the e-mail queues, but that was a futile attempt to deny the tide. By the time I navigated the Bluesmobile across the streets of Buckingham, past the new gaping hole in the ground where the Bob Peck Chevy dealership used to stand, there were fifteen new notes, and a meeting scheduled right in the middle of nap-time.

I sighed and resigned myself to the inevitable. The call dragged on right to cocktail hour, and the Intern returned from Arlington Hall in time to make it time for a trip to Concrete Beach, and as an act of rebellion, I left the phone on the dining table.

The sun came and went. Strange weather this year, or maybe we are just paying more attention to it. I paddled around in the pool with Elizibeth Catherine Jiggs, granddaughter of Jiggs himself. He is playing grand-dad this weekend, and four-year old Elizibeth proudly swam and chatted up a storm.

Grandpa explained about the sharks that were released just at dinner time to make sure all the children were out of the pool, and Elizibeth took in the news thoughtfully, holding her left hand out of the water. “I am losing a fingernail,” she explained, waving her middle finger at me. “I caught it in a door and there is another one growing up underneath it.”

There was something about her little earnest face and her affinity for the water that mirored the gruff visage of Jiggs. There must be something of the toughness of the great-grandfather in there she will never know, but will carry in her bones.

He was a hard-as-nails graduate of the Academy who was skipper of a Pac Fleet pig-boat who had a good war against the Japanese.

Life does go on, doesn’t it?

I could see Cuba the Polish lifeguard was all over The Intern, practicing English, we told Elizibeth Catherine, and I made myself as scarce as possible, departing concrete beach as the rain came in.

It was when I got back to Tunnel Eight that I saw the phone blinking accusingly. Maybe the last thing in the world I wanted was an earnest conversation about some weekend work, but when I listened to the messages my eyes widened.

It was Death Junior, and the first call was pleasant enough, though there was something about a funeral I could not quite understand. Cell coverage is crappy on the west flank of Big Pink, but the downright threatening tone in the second note got my attention. Something about Mardy 1’s place, and be there now.

Only two things in life are certain, one being the taxes that I seek to recapture as a government contractor, and the other being the Big D. Apparently people were planning on dying, holiday or not, and the Murphy House of D where Mardy 1 and Death Junior work had them scheduled for greeting and embalming duty right through the holiday.

I poured a tall vodka in a traveling cup, slipped into some dry shorts and flip-flopped my way over to the stairs to head up to the party floor.

Did you know there were 9.98 million queries for the terms “Michael” and “Jackson” on the search engines and news and social media sites in the week ended June 27? Google freaked out. They thought they were under a denial of service attack and just about folded the tent.

I was just about over the death of the Maestro of Pop, and had been since the mild flicker of interest when I first heard of his passing last week. Apparently the rest of the world was not done with his genius just yet.

As I walked down the brown hall past the elevator I could see black crepe paper blowing off of Marty 1’s door, and the unmistakable thumping of Jackson’s masterwork, “Thriller,” the biggest selling album of all time.

Likely to stay that way, too, since the album has gone the way of the buffalo. Good riddance, too, I say. I am trying to load all my old CD’s on my new iPod and it is a pain in the ass. Remember records?

The door to Mardy 1’s place had a signed aped to it saying “Come on In,” and I did. I was hit by a blast of music profound enough to feel as vibrations in the air.

The wall of sound had pushed everyone out onto the balcony, and the first one I saw was DJ, her long red hair covered by a shiny black short wig. Mardy 1 was wearing dark slim slacks and a lacy blouse, with white socks and dainty black shoes.

The only thing missing was the glove, but obviously things had moved on past the initial tribute phase of the party and into something else.

Mardy 1 was wearing shocking crimson lipstick, and in short order I was too, as she planted a wet one on my moustache and a large one on my cheek.

Chad was tucked into a corner of the balcony, smoking, as was Gale, her dark beauty contrasting with that of Maeve, pale as an elfish maiden, and puffing on a Marlboro Light. Maude was there, too, Mardy 1’s partner in crime who used to work for you-know-who. Everyone was pretty well shit-faced, and it seemed like a good place to be, so I joined in.

“Where’s Jeremy?” I asked Chad.

“Working till Midnight he said. Bottoms up!”

There was some bumping and grinding happening in the living room, and there may be photographic evidence of it. The cat escaped once or twice into the hall as people came and went, which was better than the feline defenestration that occurred three years ago.

Jim from upstairs came down since there was no point in pretending that the party was not coming to him anyway.

It is a great vista from Mardy 1’s balcony. Her place is directly over Big Pink’s rear entrance, and the building’s massive wings make a horseshoe of bristling balconies that hug the asphalt, and invite the eye to the glittering lights of Ballston a mile away over the red brick of Buckingham.

One place to the left beckoned like a Playboy dream pad, black-painted walls and sleek chrome-touch window treatments the reflected subdued light off some obviously expensive artwork. To the right there was a two-bedroom place that looked like the Unit on Haunted Hill, the ancient Venetian blinds twisted in an stained aluminum snarled.

“How come no one has complained about that place?” I asked Jim, pointing at the eyesore. “I mean, you have to look at it every day. He shrugged. He told me who the owner was, and I shuddered at the thought of what the place must look like behind the blinds.

I never knew what he did, and now I do. He is a lobbyist for Samoan Airways, an 8a set-aside carrier. He used to be a lobbyist for TWA, which was one of those American companies you head about in the last century and disappeared.

“Do you like going to Samoa?” I asked.

“Never been,” said Jim. “Don’t plan to, either.”

Mardy 1 was dancing with a serial set of partners, and handing out Michael Jackson-themed snacks. She got a lot of mileage out of the little cocktail weenies, which also turned out to excellent precision munitions, if launched properly into the parking lot. Chad pointed that out, as an Air Force veteran, though he had been mostly in the logistics side of the house as a C-5 Flight Engineer.

“Three trips to Baghdad,” he said. “Only C-5 to have an engine shot out. Then three thousand funerals at Arlington.” I whistled. I may have been to a dozen of them, and will conclude my string with my own. Chad has an American Flag tattooed on his right forearm. An all-American kid, who I would be proud to go to war with.

“Why did you get out?” I said. “You must have been a super troop.”

Chad shrugged. “I would have stayed, but that would have meant denying who I am. I met Jeremy when I was stationed here, and between him and the Service, I chose love.”

It made sense to me. ‘It is the Air Force’s loss,” I said. One of the girls asked him if he was really bisexual rather than gay, in a hopeful manner. He laughed and shook his head. “Nope. We have been together for six years, and we are going to stay that way.”

I was interested to learn that he is scheduled to meet Mr. Murphy himself, Chief of the House of D, and may be entering the death business. With three thousand Arlington ceremonies under his belt, I imagine he will be an excellent funeral director.

Mardy 1 attempted to dive bomb one of the residents with a Jackson memorial weenie, but did not allow for windage or lead and missed him.

“Love you!” she shouted into the night. It occurred to me that this would be a party that was destined to be entered into the Red Book at the Front Desk when the inevitable complaints began.

Chad laughed. “Jeremy is working the desk. He is wearing a tie and everything. That didn’t stop Mrs. Hitler from chewing him out, but fuck her anyway. I don’t think she likes gay people.”

“I am sure the feeling is mutual,” I said. In the background, Thriller was finishing for about the twentieth time. The voice of Vincent Price emerged from the pulsing, compelling beat. That might have been the part of that record I liked the best, Michael using the greatest character actor of the previous generation as a tribute to the genre, joining us across generations as thoroughly as the crowd on this very balcony:

“Darkness falls
across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize yawls neighborhood
And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpses shell
The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom
And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller.”

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