Transorbital Read online

  TRANSORBITAL

  Nathan Singer

  PRAISE FOR TRANSORBITAL

  “Nathan Singer is what a writer is meant to be: daring, unique, original, and insightful. Transorbital proves it in spades.”—Reed Farrel Coleman, New York Times bestselling author of Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins

  “Nathan Singer’s Transorbital pulses with a relentless momentum. Singer propels a strange, unsettling world reminiscent of William Burroughs’s best work with the fierce urgency of a Michael Crichton science thriller. With Transorbital, Nathan Singer has once again proven himself the master of the literary pulp thriller.”—Steve Weddle, author of Country Hardball

  “I love everything about this book. I love the cult of the Transorbitals and the circus freakiness of it all. Like an ice pick to the frontal lobe of conventional fiction, Transorbital is what happens when the brilliant mind of Nathan Singer is unleashed on one of medicine’s most embarrassing periods.”—Bryon Quertermous, author of Murder Boy

  Copyright © 2015 by Nathan Singer

  First Down & Out Books Edition August 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Down & Out Books

  3959 Van Dyke Road, Suite 265

  Lutz, FL 33558

  DownAndOutBooks.com

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover design by Lance Wright

  Visit the Down & Out Books website to sign up for our monthly newsletter and we’ll deliver the latest news on our upcoming titles, sale books, Down & Out authors on the net, and more!

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Transorbital

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by the Author

  Preview from Together They Were Crimson by Ryan Sayles

  Preview from Gutted by Tony Black

  Preview from Wing and a Prayer by Lawrence Kelter

  For Julie, Wolf and Levi for their endless patience and support

  Voici le temps des Assassins

  —Arthur Rimbaud

  Part One

  Psycho Surgery

  Chapter 1

  “Don’t take one step closer! I’m gonna SPLIT THIS GODDAMN WHORE IN TWO!”

  Dr. Freeman had been giving a lecture at the University of Louisville when word reached us that one of his patients was at home attempting to cleaver his own wife into bite-sized filets. Apparently the lady had recently become possessed by several demons, including, perhaps, Old Scratch himself. Dumb luck that.

  You could say that we had arrived just in time, and good fortune was clearly on our side. We had no equipment on hand. But no worry. Doc and I had by that time developed quite a knack for improvisation. It really was almost like jazz.

  “Officers!” Dr. Freeman announced through the police chief’s bullhorn, “This is Doctor Walter Freeman! Mr. O’Dell is a patient of mine. Please do not harm him or do anything rash. I can handle this. Eugene? Eugene, can you hear me?”

  “Doc?” a voice shouted from the upstairs bedroom of the decrepit farmhouse. “Doc, I gotta do it! Gertrude’s got a devil inside her! I gotta cut it on outta her!”

  “I understand,” Dr. Freeman shouted. “Please just wait until I get in there.”

  “Uh…” the voice replied, “Well…OK, then.”

  There appeared to be no working electricity within the rustic, ramshackle dwelling. Chickens and piglets ran wild in the living room. The place smelled from the same.

  “Unless I miss my guess,” Dr. Freeman said to me, “There is likely no Frigidaire in the kitchen. Go in and check, please.”

  I did. The kitchen appeared to be from a century past at least. Black, cast-iron wood stove. Spinning wheel. Oak table covered in cracked, chipped bowls and pitchers. No Frigidaire.

  “You’re right, Doctor,” I shouted back to him. “Just an ice box.”

  “Glorious day,” he said. “You know what to do.”

  I reached inside the scuffed, wooden icebox, which contained little but a few cuts of unidentifiable meat wrapped in brown paper, and grabbed the ice pick out of the rapidly melting block.

  “Please tell me,” he asked as I returned to meet him at the bottom of the stairs, “is it a Uline pick?” His voice was positively giddy. I checked. It was indeed. “Could our luck be better?” he asked rhetorically, and with a broad smile.

  “We don’t have the electro-shock machine with us, though.”

  “True. Alas.”

  “No anesthetics.”

  “Hm.”

  “We won’t be able to sterilize.”

  Dr. Freeman looked at me as if I had just kicked an angry skunk.

  “My dear boy, did I just arrive here after you? I am plainly aware of the situation.”

  “Sorry, Doctor.”

  “Time is of the essence.”

  “It is, yes.”

  “And besides,” he said, “I cannot be bothered with all of that germ crap.”

  And so up the stairs we went. Once inside the bedroom we found poor, thin, apparently demon-infected Gertrude O’Dell safely blubbering into the shoulder of a young red-haired cop who looked as if he hadn’t signed up for this sort of detail. Four other officers held their pistols dead set on Eugene, who stood aloft his own spring-damaged mattress, swinging his cleaver wildly in front of him.

  “Doc!” Eugene hollered. “Make them cops give me Trudie! I gotta fix her! But quick!”

  Four hammers clicked back in unison. Gertrude wailed and sobbed.

  “Officers, please!” Dr. Freeman said. “Allow me! Eugene, Trudie is right here. She’s not going anywhere. If anyone requires surgery, I shall take care of it. Understood?”

  “But Doc!”

  “Eugene, who is the doctor here, you or I? Please do come down from the bed and hand me the cleaver.”

  “I can’t do that, Doc!”

  “Eugene, do you really want to be shot by these good officers here?”

  “Doc, you don’t unnerstan’—”

  “Hand me the cleaver. I will take care of the operation.”

  I looked over at Gertrude who had fallen into full-blown hysterics. The officer holding her looked frantically at me, then to Dr. Freeman, then back again. He reached for his holster, likely intent on shooting Dr. Freeman himself. I simply shook my head and he dutifully moved his hand back to Mrs. O’Dell’s shoulder.

  Finally, after much panting and casting about, Eugene dropped the cleaver. It clunked to the floor with the sharp blade cutting straight into the hard wood, handle upright. Freeman slowly helped Eugene down and laid his hands comfortingly upon the large man’s arms.

  “There we go. It’s all going to be OK,” Doc said. “All right? Listen to me, Eugene. I’m going to make everything better.”

  “But Doc, them demons—”

  “I will make the demons go away. Is that clear, Eugene? Do you understand?”

  Eugene nodded, nearly in tears.

  “Y—…yes, Doc.”

  “Very well then. No need to worry. Everything will be just fine. Just fine indeed.”

  Dr. Freeman turned his head toward the cops and shouted, “Now!” They instantly lunged and grabbed a hold of Mr. O’Dell who at once began thrashing and spitting, cursing loudly.

  “Freeman! Goddamn you! BURN IN HELL!”

  Two cops grabbed Eugene’s arms, two others grabbed his legs. They held him down flat agai
nst the bed. Dr. Freeman turned to me.

  “The Uline, please,” he said. I handed it to him and climbed onto the bed, kneeling, securing Eugene’s head. He growled and attempted to bite the meaty part of my palms, but I held tight to his sweat-slick face.

  “Please calm yourself, Eugene,” Dr. Freeman said casually. “Let’s not make this unpleasant.” All four officers looked at me, each more nervous and ill at ease than the next, holding on to the thrashing, 265 lb. farmer as tightly as they were able. I smiled, attempting to reassure them that all was well.

  “Doctor Freeman…” one of them said, but then had nothing more to add.

  “Please don’t let go, officers, no matter what,” Freeman said, his eyes glittering with anticipation behind the perfect circles of his wire-rimmed spectacles. He removed his left shoe, held it in his right hand as a makeshift hammer, and leaned over astride Eugene who lay helpless, prone, and nearly immobile. With both thumbs I peeled back Eugene’s eyelids, and Dr. Freeman pressed the pointed tip of the Uline ice pick directly above the right eye.

  “Mother Mary,” one of the cops gasped, his face draining to a deathly white. Dr. Freeman grinned wryly, visibly pleased by the reaction, and proceeded to hammer the metal point into the eye socket. At once Eugene began to shriek, attempting to flail, but the officers and I held strong (though a couple of them began to gag and salivate). Blood spilled thick from the eye and pooled in the crease of my right hand.

  “God NOOOOOO!” Eugene screamed. “STOP IT! YUH KILLING MEEEEEEE!!!”

  Dr. Freeman drove the pick further into the socket, twisting and screwing it left and right, until it could swing freely. He began to tap the handle to and fro, scrambling the rightmost frontal lobe of Eugene’s troubled brain. Gertrude and the young cop holding her both fainted to the floor with two dull thuds. The other cops held on, mouths agape in shock, sweat beading and dripping from their faces.

  After five minutes of sloshing the metal spear about in Eugene’s brain Dr. Freeman slid the pick out with a moist ssssthwk. No longer screeching and jerking, Eugene simply twitched, moaning in distant agony.

  “Yessss,” one of the cops hissed, gritting his teeth in a rapturous grin as Walter began to hammer the pick into the left socket. “Deeper…deeper…”

  All four officers’ eyes shimmered brightly, each becoming ever more excited, their breaths pulsing as one.

  By the time Dr. Freeman had finished swinging the pick back and forth within the second eye socket Eugene was no longer moving at all, nor was he making a sound, save his calm, steady breathing. Walter slid the thin spike out of the left eye, and I dabbed up the blood about Eugene’s face with a corner of the faded, handmade quilt. A faint smile spread across his lips.

  “How do you feel, Mr. O’Dell?” I asked.

  “Priddy good…” he slurred, his shut eyelids already beginning to bruise and swell. “Lil sore.”

  “I can’t…believe it,” one of the cops said, letting go and wiping his brow. A bright sheen of serene satisfaction radiated from him. “Thought this man was a sure goner. I thought we was gonna hafta—”

  “Violence is so seldom necessary,” Dr. Freeman said, wiping the fresh blood from his hands and cleaning the shaft of the ice pick. “Please do remember that.”

  An ambulance was called. Gertrude was revived, as was the red-haired cop. The Uline was returned to its rightful place. Dr. Freeman and I shook hands.

  “Masterful work as always, Doctor,” I said.

  “All in a day’s work, lad,” he replied. “All in a day’s work.”

  Chapter 2

  Dr. Freeman has always called me his assistant, but truth be told, I’ve never been more than an orderly. Early on he had real assistants on hand. True surgeons and professionals. Dr. Watts, Dr. Lichtenstein, all the various young doctors he trained. But after a while…it was only me. Just ol’ Doc and me.

  I was working the floors of Poughkeepsie’s own Riverside Psychiatric when Doc and I first met. He was already a superstar by then. A superhero. We relocated to Washington DC shortly thereafter, a town with which I was already quite familiar. DC would be a good town for superheroes, if any ever bothered to show up.

  Everything was right in its place, all right. The trouble with Rosemary…already deep in the past.

  “Rosemary Kennedy?” I heard a little voice chirp from the bathroom.

  Son of a bitch…there you go thinking out loud again…

  She walked into the room proper wearing something just this side of nothing, but for a face full of make-up and a pile of gaudy costume jewelry. She presented herself with a silent Ta Da! Swishing about in her short, laced nightie, she began to remove the larger baubles and trinkets from her fingers and ears, and lay them on the lamp table by the bed. Seventeen years old or so if I were guessing, but I never asked. A year younger than yours truly.

  “Rosemary Kennedy?” she asked again in that thick, Eastern European accent of hers.

  “That’d be the one,” I said, taking a deep drink of Johnnie Walker. It ran down my throat like a cool fire, burning and freezing tensions along its path.

  “Poor gyul.” She picked up the second glass of scotch and sniffed it. “Zis ees for me, yes?”

  “It ain’t for Red Buttons.” I looked about the dingy room, all torn cushions and nicotine stucco. Even more lowdown than normal for me, but I liked it. There’s a character to outer-DC motor lodges that you just don’t find anywhere else.

  “That was Watts’ doing anyhow,” I continued, “grinding through her skull like that. Traditional lobotomy. Pshh. Barbaric horse shit, that’s what that is. Thoroughly unnecessary. We don’t do that. No ma’am. We go in through the eyes. Trans-orbital is the only way.”

  “Vot vere you do zere?”

  “Huh? Where?”

  “Poughkeepsie.”

  “Oh, you know. The usual.” I peeled off my undershirt and lay back on the bed. She settled in beside me, her head on my chest, sapphire nails raking softly up and down my chest. Almost like we were lovers already, but I didn’t even know her name yet.

  “Sponge baths,” I continued, “meal trays…bed pans…hold down the screamers when I gotta. Typical.”

  “Zot sounds scary and awful.”

  “It ain’t always a humdinger of a hootenanny, that’s for damn sure.”

  “Yoll never scared?”

  “Nah.”

  “Never?”

  “Just once,” I admitted. “We had this fella…good goddamn. He was something else. More wolverine than man, to tell the truth of it. I thought he was gonna chew right through his leather restraints and rip us all apart with his bare hands. And he could have, no fooling. Salvador Reed was his name. But Doc Freeman and I fixed him right up. He’s a teddy bear now.”

  “My vord.”

  “It’s what we do.”

  “Ees good vork zot you do.”

  “Yeah…but before Doc Freeman came along, most of the time I was out back nippin’ gin and shootin’ dice with the micks. Let me just say, rumors concerning the luck of the Irish have been greatly exaggerated.”

  “Yoll silly,” she giggled.

  “Been drifting around this country since I’m knee-high to a grasshopper. I was even slinging pans at Camarillo State when they admitted Bird.”

  “Who?”

  “Charlie Parker. I saw him in his room all by himself. Sweating and shaking. Six months he was there…but I was too yellow to talk to him. Goddamn hospitals…It’s all I know. I still have the key to Camarillo.”

  I downed the rest of my scotch. She attempted to do the same, but coughed and sputtered a bit.

  “Careful,” I said. She licked her lips and swished the ice in the glass smartly.

  “Ees good.”

  “All that’s changed now, though,” I said. “We’re always on the road these days. On the circuit. In demand. Teaching. Lecturing. Training. Preaching the lobotomy gospel.”

  “You do lo
t of ze surgeries still?”

  “Do we ever. Sometimes ten a day! Doc Freeman says we’ll be doing even more soon. Believe that or not. Psycho-surgery…it’s the greatest break-through in medicine since antiseptics…course Doc ain’t really too concerned with antiseptics…”

  I cleared my throat. She looked at me, puzzled.

  “Yeah…Doc and me, we’ve got our system down,” I went on. “Shock ‘em, put ‘em under, spread the lids, then jab-pop-squish-scramble…and voila! Whole new person. A better, happier person. Like that.” I snapped my fingers, and found myself growing wistful in spite of myself. And proud. “No more rage. No more fits. No more acting out. You’re just…good. For good. Take some time to rest your eyes. And then good forever. Be healed…”

  We lay silently, letting the moment settle.

  “Es lamazia,” she said softly. “Zot ees beautiful. Just like Jesus.”

  “Hey, it ain’t me, babe,” I said, jumping back to reality. “I’m just the wingman, you understand.”

  “Yoll Robeen to hees Botmon.”

  We laughed.

  “You’re a real doll,” I said. “Anybody ever tell you that? You’re just like a doll-baby come to life. A satin doll, that’s what you are.”

  “Sank you werry myuch,” she said, blushing through a half-inch of rouge. “Yoll not so bad yollsyelf.”

  “Got any friends you could call on? We could have ourselves a little party here. What do you say?”

  “Yoll vant annuzza gyul?”

  “Nah, scratch it. We got a nice thing going here. Say doll, where you from anyway?”

  “Georgia.”

  “No foolin’. I met a fellow once from down in Macon. You know Harvey? Runs a little bait shop down there. Lost his leg in the war.”

  “Vot?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Yoll veird,” she said, then grinned coyly. “Cyute, zough.”