Freezing Tillie: An Alliance of Strangers

By Gary Barnes

Would you deep-freeze a dying loved one in anticipation of a medical cure? Alf Kravitz makes that decision on behalf of his dying wife Tillie. He and Tillie, Polish Gentiles who survived the Nazi Holocaust and the loss of their twin daughters, both know that every day alive is precious. Little does Alf realize that the "Institute of Igloology" is nothing more than taxi-driver Sammy Fitzgerald's scheme to make money by stowing the deceased in his friend Barney Lewis' basement Frigidaire. Hold on for the wild ride as an Alliance of Strangers combine to keep Tillie from entering Heaven... until she teaches her husband that it is natural and right to Die with Dignity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 28, 2000
• ISBN: 9781469736426

Gary Barnes

Gary Barnes is a woodworker who lives near Grand Canyon, AZ with his cat Columbo and his old Underwood typewriter.

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All Rights Reserved © 2000 by Gary Barnes

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Contents

PROLOGUE

PART I

THE INSTITUTE OF IGLOOLOGY

CWAYOLAWA GWAVY

BARNEY’S WORLD

JOURNAL: THOUGHTS AND REELECTIONS OF AN EDUCATOR

THE ENEMY WHO PUT ME HERE

PART II

ALF’S LAST HOPE

TALWANDA’S REVENGE

PART III

HOLD YOUR POISON

MEGA-BUCK DELIVERY

MAFIA DOOM

DWOLLS GWO PWOOP

TILL DEATH DO US PART

PORNOGRAPHERS BEWARE

IT’S THE REAL, RIGHT THING…UN-HUH!

ALF’S WOOD SHOP

LIBERATION

MAIL-ORDER BRIDE

WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHEN THEY COME FOR YOU?

MRS. OYSTER IS HERE

BARNEY’S SOLILOQUY

IRONKETTLE’S LEGACY

ADULT PUNISHMENT

THE SECOND COMING

ON THE ROAD

THE TAKE-DOWN

THE SPHAGHETTIBURGAR DRESS

THE BIG GAME

THE ACCIDENT

TO DER HOSPITAL

NOTES FROM THE SUICIDE WARD

THE LAST CHAPTER

To Alf and Tillie. Hope the Big Bands are playing.

PROLOGUE

PARADISE THIS WAY!

PARADISE THIS WAY!

PARADISE THIS WAY!

Tillie floated into the Heavenly Light. By thought alone she navigated the billowy clouds toward the flashing orange-neon. The large sign reminded her of the one outside Wrigley Field: Home of the Chicago Cubs. God, of course, could afford to have His Billboard electrified.

She smiled at Mr. Death who was sitting in the recliner next to Paradise’s open door.

Welcome, Mrs. Kravitz, it’s good to see you again. I’ve been expecting you.

Tillie tingled with embarrassment. This time into the Light marked her fifth visit. On the other occasions, her earthly Doctors had dragged her back to the Living. This time was different, though, this time Mr. Death acknowledged her and called her name. Maybe this time the Doctors had finally run out of bungee cord.

Forgive me for not staying…for going back…I’m such an old shilly-shally.

Ahhhh, never mind the apologies. Sooner or later, Tillie, sooner or later.

Tillie felt a rush of overwhelming Peace, grateful that Mr. Death was so gracious.

My twin daughters, Anna and Olga, are they…?

It goes without asking, Tillie. Of course they are here. Waiting on the Other Side. Though a bit impatient, I might add. What is this, visit number four? Mr. Death leafed through the clipboard notes listing that day’s reservations, Visit number five! My, my, my. Do you realize your girls baked a German chocolate cake each time?

My recipe? The one I taught them in our Meisenheim kitchen?

Yes! Can’t you tell by my waistline? Mr. Death patted his pudgy belly and laughed.

What about…the Nazis?

Oh, Tillie! As soon as one of those sorry bastards shows up, he’s wrestled to the down elevator. Headlock and pitchfork applied by You-Know-Who.

Tillie’s fear and concern melted away and she drifted in the beautiful warmth. In the instant before passing through Heaven’s Gate, a pleading voice called out: Tillie, mein leibe, Tillie, mein schotzee.

Alf. Her husband Alf. He needed her.

When Tillie glanced at Mr. Death, he was already chalking up her canceled reservation. Tillie lifted her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders in a silent apology.

Later. Mr. Death winked then shooed her with a flick of his hand.

Tillie did an about-face, an easy maneuver when floating in a cloud, and whisked toward Earth’s doorway.

Alf stood on the threshold between Life and Death, his weary face lined with grief.

My poor Alf. He does not understand the Peace waiting in Heaven.

Tillie squinted and searched for her legion of Doctors. Squinted until she realized that she no longer needed glasses this close to Heaven. The blood-soaked surgeons—the ones who had repeatedly carved her like a Thanksgiving turkey—were not cheering her return as on the previous yo-yo trips to-and-from the Light. Instead, a crowd of strangers surrounded Alf.

Why were these strangers in alliance to block her from Paradise and—most puzzling of all—why was Alf holding a small child? A little girl…a cute little girl splotched head-to-toe with…German chocolate cake?

PART I

CHAPTER 1

THE INSTITUTE OF IGLOOLOGY

If I don’t make it, THEY’LL KILL ME!

Sammy Fitzgerald let the terrifying thought linger, allowing it to embed in his mind the way neon continues to glow behind closed eyes. He stepped to the rack. The glaring eyes of the nine men, the nine drunken men, burned the back of his neck. The nine would judge his success…or failure.

His judges were quiet, respectfully allowing the silence needed to concentrate. Someone clicked a cigarette lighter; beer bottles clinked against the damp tabletop as the nine drank and waited.

Cold sweat trickled down Sammy’s face, his back, and from his armpits making his shirt stick to his skin.

Just one swallow of beer. That’s all. Only one. Maybe the others will allow it?

Do it, Fitzgerald!

Move boy! Do it!

Now or never!

It’s now or never! Hey, that’s a song, isn’t it? If I don’t make it, THEY’LL KILL ME!

Sammy lifted the green-and-white marbled bowling ball, last year’s Christmas gift from his wife Bess, to his chest and planted it on his bulging stomach.

Taco chip seasoning. His fingertips glistened with the grainy orange powder. How did he possibly forget to nibble the delicious salt before taking his position? The sticky grit was the best part and final reward after munching an entire bag of Doritos Taco chips. Sammy wanted to lick his fingertips, desperately wanted to suck salt and crumbs from his nails. He bowed his head—can’t let the guys see me—and shoved his thumb in his mouth and happily sucked the thick seasoning.

At least get the spare.

Do it Fitzgerald!

Move it, damn, the lanes close in an hour!

Is the bastard sucking his thumb?

Sammy yanked his thumb out and slapped orange slobber against his aqua-green bowling slacks. He waddled to the foul line. His large barrel-shaped thighs rubbed together, twisting his torso, causing him to wobble like a disabled ship shuddering into port. He swung the ball in a vicious circle and released it at the highest point. The ball zoomed over the first third of the lane, floated lazily for a second in defiance of Gravity, and then crashed with splintering thunder. Sammy chanted a silent prayer, the prayer he always recited when bowling: Oh God, please, please, please Oh God. I’ll never yell at Bess…never hit Bobby Joe

unless he asks for it first…please, please…let me make this spare…I’ll stay awake in church…pretty please, God?

The ball spun in a green-and-white blur and gathered speed like guacamole in a blender. For one glorious second, the ball aligned with the head pin. Sammy’s thumping heart shot up his throat.

Oh, yes! God, yes, yes…please, please, yes…I’ll change Shirley Jean’s crappy diapers, help with the housework, I will, I promise, God.

Three-quarters of the way, the ball sliced wickedly from one side to the other.

Too much English! God fix it! Oh, please, please, please…God! They’re going to kill me!

The ball skidded into the gutter five feet from the pins then rattled into the darkness like an angry Brahma bull down the chute.

Oh, shit God…ALL BETS ARE OFF!

Another gutter-ball, hot damn.

Son-of-a-bitch bowls like Fred Flintstone.

Sammy blushed, embarrassed with his eighth gutter-ball of the evening yet happy with the loud razzing and attention. He finished licking his fingers as he waddled back to the bench.

I want that no-good lunatic off the team! moaned Lou Reese to no one in particular, My dead Grandmother can bowl better.

Go suck a rotten egg, Lou. We’re still ahead, thanks to my hundred pin handicap. Sammy grinned and put his thumb to his nose and wiggled his wet, orange fingers.

Lou quickly returned the ‘Kiss my Ass’ gesture with his dry fingers.

Sammy plopped next to his best friend, Barney Lewis. Barney, chief mechanic at ‘Ed’s Full Service Shell Station’ and the only Tuesday ‘Bowl-A-Rama’ Men’s League member to pass high-school Practical Math, kept score.

Sammy grinned like the child with the cookie jar lid in hand and the broken jar at his feet. He leaned over the score sheet and grimaced at the goose egg ‘O’s’ strung in a pearl necklace chain behind his name. Are we still winning? he whispered low enough to keep Lou from overhearing.

Barney replied by tapping his Penezoil-stained finger on the large ‘102’ in the handicap column.

Sammy smiled and relaxed, redeemed of failure. Wait until Hal Frantz and his boys get hammered by that handicap. (Remember the old saying: He who laughs last, laughs last. Or is it He who laughs last, farts first? Or He who farts first, farts the finest?)

Barney ground his pencil into the score pad. When it was time for the opposing team to bowl, he would quickly calculate the different mathematical possibilities, much to Sammy’s amazement. His buddy Barney was a regulation whiz kid with numbers. By the end of the evening, the scorecard resembled Einstein’s coloring book soon after the famous scientist discovered the primary numbers.

Did you catch 60 Minutes Sunday? questioned Sammy.

Barney grunted.

Over the years of their friendship, Sammy had come to appreciate Barney’s grunts and snorts as his method of communicating. If he got a healthy grunt for an answer, Sammy assumed Barney was at least paying attention.

There was a story that gave me an idea. They took dead people right after they croaked, put ‘em in big plastic bags. They looked like Hefty Trash Bags. Bess buys Hefty for the kitchen…might’ve been Hefty…I like the ones with handles…I didn’t see handles on the ones they used. Froze ‘em solid. Like big popsicles. Scientist said it was ‘cry-o-genitals.’ I know my genitals would cry if they got froze solid, hee-hee-hee. Wouldn’t yours?

Barney snorted. His eyes were focused on Hal Frantz as Hal went for the spare that would narrow the score.

Hal eased the ball down the lane and, with the appropriate body English and prayers to God, rattled the pins for the spare.

Sheet. Barney mumbled then lit a Marlboro.

Oh, no Barney. I’m not kidding. It was on 60 Minutes. The government wouldn’t let the networks put anything on that wasn’t God’s honest-truth? And I wonder why they don’t call that show One Hour?

Naw, I weren’t talking about popsicles. That son-of-abitch Hal spared. They’re catching us. Besides, how can you eat a popsicle and drink beer at the same time? Maybe if you concentrated on the game instead of your stomach, you wouldn’t roll so many dang gutter balls.

We’ll get them losers, we still got a couple frames. Besides, here’s our secret weapon. Sammy tapped his large orange finger on the magic ‘102’ handicap points. Anyway, when doctors invent a miraculous cure, they’ll thaw and treat ‘em. The ice puts them in ‘suspendered aviation’ and they aren’t really dead but are in the ice tray waiting for a cure.

Barney swigged his Budweiser.

I saw the show Sunday and this morning while in my taxi at the Chickasha Airport reading the National Enquirer, I found another story about the same darn thing. Sammy shoved his fingers into his shirt pocket and withdrew a ragged newspaper clipping and handed it to Barney.

DOCTOR USES CRYOGENICS TO KEEP WIFE’S BODY IN FREEZER

Nusel-Sur-Layon, France (UPI)—A doctor is appealing to authorities to allow him to keep his dead wife in a basement deep freeze in the hope that she can be brought back to life in the next century.

Raymond Martionot has kept the body frozen since March. He said he would appeal to other countries to care for the body if French authorities try to force him to give her a regular burial. Monique Martionot, 49, was killed in a car accident.

Her face was so young. I hoped medical progress would allow her to come back to life, her husband, 62, said Friday.

Dr. Martionot is a gynecologist who has studied hibernation and body conservation at low temperatures. He put his wife’s body in the deep freeze at a temperature of minus 130 degrees, hoping medicine could bring her back to life by the year 2040.

I may not be around—life is just a question of chance—but my son may, Dr. Martionot said. "Why not believe she can live again? We don’t understand it now, but what keeps the sun shining? What keeps us alive?’ The doctor ran into trouble last week when the basement freezer broke down and he called the repairman. News of Dr. Martionot’s efforts leaked out from the Martionot castle to officials in the tiny central French town where they live 125 miles south

west of Paris.

"I’ve been interested in preserving bodies for 17

years. Now the press gets wind of my wife and blows

it into a big affair," Dr. Martionot said.

On Thursday, police inspected the deep freeze

casket and put new locks on the casket.

Under current law, the dead must be buried or

incinerated.

"If they don’t let me keep her here, they are taking

away her last chance for a natural life and not one

cut short unfairly by accident," Dr. Martionot said.

The accompanying photo pictured the gray-haired Dr. Martionot pointing to the deep freeze holding Monique. The doctor’s face was creased with worry and the weight of his loss but his eyes glimmered with hope and conviction that he would soon restore Life to his wife.

Barney sucked his cigarette then took another swallow of beer. He handed the clipping back to Sammy.

So? What do you say we give it a try? questioned Sammy.

Hal Frantz called out a challenge before Barney could reply, Come on, Lewis, quit reading the funny papers and get your butt to the line!

Hot damn right! Barney shouted as he sprang from the wooden bench and wiped his hands on the talcum towel, I’m going to roll me a dang strike!

We’re catching your ass. Hal teased as Barney moved to the ball rack. This is beer-round and you Mother-suckers are sure to be buying!

Like Hell! shouted the members of ‘Ed’s Full-Service Shell’ Team.

Like Hell you will! shouted the members of ‘Hal Frantz’s Feed Store’ Team.

Just like Hell we won’t! Sammy shouted for good measure.

Barney carefully positioned his feet according to his own special ritual and lifted his ball with the solemn deliberation of a surgeon lifting a scalpel for a first incision. He took two deep breaths then minced precise steps toward the foul line.

The catcalls and joking ceased in deference to his purity of concentration. At the moment of his downswing, human gas erupted from Sammy, a minor nuclear explosion that ripped the shellacked pine bench like a sputtering motorboat shattering a calm lake.

BRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPP…hee-hee-hee.

The ball squirted from Barney’s fingers and halfway down the alley rattled into the gutter. Maybe it was the grease embedded in every skin pore, maybe it was the thunder. Barney’s salvation was the indisputable fact that responsibility was not his but was square on Sammy.

Sammy didn’t care that his rectal sound effects had caused a gutter. After all, he had specialized in gutters from the first time he laced on bowling shoes. Instead of shame or guilt, he reveled in the wild laughter and catcalls of his fellow bowlers.

Barney stalked to the bench but did not sit, apparently aware that Sammy’s emissions had olfactory as well as auditory dimensions. Dang gummit, Sammy, why’d you go fart and spoil my shot? You crazy bastard…you’re the only person in History who can roll a gutter without even being at the line.

Sorry about that. Bess made ham-and-beans for supper yesterday. Me and the kids pop like Fourth-of-July Roman Candles for a day or so afterwards. But hey, you never did answer before throwing that gutter ball. What do you say we give it a try?

Give what a try? Barney fumed, What the devil are you rambling about?

A refrigeration operation. Like that French Doctor in his castle.

Sammy observed a visible shiver travel up Barney’s spine as Barney rescued his beer from the expanding fart cloud then stepped back. Sammy figured Barney was getting a little cagey, a little gun-shy, for his mega-buck schemes.

Probably because Barney had agreed too easily in the past.

Poor Barney regularly complained that his nose still hurt like Hell from the trip to the Oklahoma State Fair where Sammy had convinced him they could whip ‘Dick the Bruiser’ and ‘The Crusher’ in an audience-challenge wrestling match. Bitched just as often about his poor financial status after Sammy convinced him growing earthworms in the basement was a way to mega-bucks glory.

The slick salesman on late-night cable television had an audience of happy, rich folks grinning from ear-to-ear after they invested in Australian Monster Wiggler Worms and was convincing enough he and Barney had immediately called the toll-free number. What they had failed to consider was that few earthworms sold during Winter and even fewer sold when the nearest fishing hole in their part of dusty Oklahoma was fifty miles away.

Bess pulled the plug on the ‘Fitzgerald & Lewis Earthworm Farm, Inc.’ before Sammy could purchase a meat-grinder to manufacture worm burgers like McDonald’s. Shut down the business cold after she discovered three-year-old Shirley Jean and assorted neighbor children busily munching fresh worms straight from the manure-and-mulch.

I don’t see what we can refrigerate, Sammy. Krey got all the cattle farmers signed up to their processing plant in Lawton…don’t need to refrigerate wheat.

Oh, man-oh-man Barney, you big knucklehead. I’m talking about People. Dead People.

Barney had the puzzled look on his face that he sometimes had after Sammy outlined one of his more complex schemes.

Probably the compressor. Barney finally answered, The compressor is usually the first thing to fritz on a deep freeze. That French Doctor should check that first.

Hal Franz stepped forward, fingers pinching his nose against any lingering toxic gas, making the rounds to collect the two dollars from ‘Ed’s Full-Service Shell’ for the lost beer frame. His sweaty baseball cap overflowed with crumpled dollar bills.

You ought to pay for the beer, damn you Fitzgerald, you gassy son-of-a-bitch. complained retired mail carrier Lou Reese, Your fart cost us. And I swear the smell can raise the Dead.

Get away Lou, or I’ll powder your nose with one. Like you never let loose your own natural gas. I bet you fart as much and as loud as any of us. Sammy said then giggled as he could see his badgering was irritating the old-timer, Unless your old asshole is too tight and dry to squeeze out anything.

My asshole is as loose and wet as the next fella’s, damn you. Why, I have half-a-mind to whoop your fat tail… Lou sputtered and hacked blue sputum inhaled from a career licking postage stamps.

Remember the old saying, Lou: ‘He who farts first, farts the finest.’ Hee-hee-hee.

You clowns can quit squabbling! Hal interrupted after glancing at the score pad. You lunatics lost the beer round but won the damn game. Fart-britches’ handicap put you over the top.

Well, whoopee, let me shake that hand, partner.

Lou was now Sammy’s most trusted buddy, at least until the next misplaced fart.

The men retreated to the lounge and devoted the next hour to Budweiser, taco chips and tobacco. Each bowling frame was replayed; Lou would have had a strike in the fifth if he had moved his left foot a fraction closer to his right big toe; Hal had a spare on a normal lane but not this lane, why, the son-of-a-bitch tilts, anyone can see that with the naked eye. The experience relished most was Sammy’s beer frame fart. They took turns recreating the rippling sound. Lou, taking advantage of loose dentures and thick phlegm, was voted Best Imitation.

They guffawed through five versions of Hal in a voice that was a combination of Howard Cossell-Dennis Miller interviewing Lou as Sammy: And here we are, ladies and gentlemen, with the abominable one himself. What words of wisdom do you have for the viewing audience? At this point Lou forced air and gluey tongue across his loose dentures. Four times. Five times. Like Monday Night Football instant replays.

When the belly laughs mellowed to forced chuckles, the group broke up and headed for home. Sammy went to Barney’s truck as it had been Barney’s night to drive. Once in the passenger seat, Sammy turned the conversation to his latest scheme.

I figure we’ll put an ad in the National Enquirer or some other important magazine with a big circulation in the supermarkets. ‘Preservate your dying loved ones for the future. Why let them die and rot when a miraculous cure might be years or maybe only days from discovery by French Doctors?’ Then we enclose a permission form and ask for their check or money order. I even got a name for our business.

Crazy talk. Barney grunted.

No, it ain’t so crazy. I heard that Walt Disney is frozen solid like a TV dinner. He’s waiting for a cure. When they thaw him out, he’s going to draw some more Mickey Mouse cartoons.

Sounds like a goofy idea to me.

Don’t be a spoiled sport. This can be a mega-bucks deal. You been trying for years to get your own gas station and repair shop and get away from hothead Ed. This could be the ticket, Barney, this could be the big bus ticket.

Sammy paused long enough to glimpse at Barney and judge his friend’s reaction. At least Barney appeared to be listening.

I’m getting tired of driving taxi. Sammy continued, Never know how much I’m going to pull in each day, living day-to-day. Besides, what’s it take to freeze a dead person? Just throw ‘em in a damn freezer. They’re not like Australian Monster Wigglers…you have to mind worms, keep shoveling fresh horse poop to keep ‘em happy. Dead people are already dead. Don’t have to do anything. Don’t even have to change a diaper or wipe their ass.

Barney snorted as his eyes followed the road. His hand fumbled blindly over the seat for his cigarettes. The package was lodged under a burnt-out carburetor. Gas and black slime from the ancient car part had oozed over the pearl-white cigarettes. Barney finally freed a cigarette and clicked his lighter. The well-lubricated Marlboro flamed like an acetylene torch.

Sammy knew that when Barney was smoking and not talking, not even grunting, he was thinking and calculating outcomes. Barney had smoked almost half-a-pack before agreeing to the Worm Farm; finished a whole pack in the emergency tent after getting hammered by ‘Dick the Bruiser’ at the State Fair. Sammy appreciated his best tactic was to keep talking, keep piling on ideas and positive possibilities, mention mega-buck profits. This tactic was the easiest one in the World for him to follow.

"Now, I’ve been thinking about a name, something