Plague House

by


"Bodie's bit the lurgy."

"Never."

"Mr. Immunity, his own self?"

"How the mighty have fallen."

"Oyez. All stand for 3.7, on the premises. As you were, gentlemen, as you were."

He quietly entered quarantine quarters, maintaining a certain mien of benign dignity. All told, his claque would expect as much.

The accompanying medic ushered him onboard with the proprietary air appropriate to his profession.

Bodie eyed his surroundings, a largish, deep subterranean basement formed of grimy gray concrete. Ancient bomb shelter postings from two distinct war eras lent it a particularly surreal ambiance.

Still, there appeared a certain level of creature comfort. Roll out mattresses and camo sleeping bags, bundled with military precision. Space heaters and portable cook tops, together with a carbon monoxide monitor. Thousand count tea bag cartons. Vast pickle jars filled with ibuprofen tabs. Somebody even had brought in a supply of horehound drops in an apothecary glass. Polymer sleeves of government issue sliced bread, stacked in tidy pyramids next to a multislot toaster. Rough cut boards on cinder blocks served in lieu of tables.

At least twenty men in various bedraggled stages of illness or recovery were evident.

"Scope out his hooter."

"Redder'n Nikita Khrushchev."

Bodie dabbed at his nostrils with a clean corner of his pocket handkerchief, while offering a tolerant smirk.

Murphy nudged Jax. They had appropriated the one and only real table for poker purposes. But they'd set aside the deck in honor of the MO's arrival.

"Sergeant at Arms. Read the regs," Anson directed in grand tones, meanwhile pushing a spindly folding chair in Bodie's direction.

"Ahem." Jax offered his best Sadler's Wells basso profundo. "Silence all, for the latest reading of the regs." He unfolded a limp, much abused slice of ledger paper. "Welcome to Sister Cow's Contagion Ward of Intense Iniquity. Abandon hope, ye who, etcetera etcetera. Item one. Neophytes shall be added to the top of the duty roster. No exceptions." He paused to study Bodie, who merely shrugged agreeably in reply.

"Two. Baccy burning and puff darting regrettably restricted to the alley. Indoors sets off the monox monitor," Jax offered the slightly apologetic aside.

Bodie returned a sympathetic grimace of understanding.

"Three. From 2200 to 0600 hours daily, snorers may be sequestered to the hallway. Such ostracization to be determined by democratic vote of the masses. Criteria for sequestration are based upon decibel level, but other irritating qualities of said snorer also may be taken advisedly into account."

"Four. Whingers to be executed, firing squad in the alley at sunrise. Sooner as required. Be advised. Stuff a sock in it, full stop."

"Five. Monetary contributions to the ethanolic fund are to be proportionate to consumption rate. i.e. Credit shall equal debit. Defaulters to be executed, firing squad, etcetera etcetera. As per item four. "

Jax nodded informatively toward Murphy who sat vigilantly over a case of brown bottles, into which serious inroads clearly had been made.

"Six. Kindly restrict all offerings of widdle, puke and grem to appropriate, designated receptacles, located conveniently throughout the dungeon. Barf bags are available next to your nearest rubbish bin. Accidental emissions to be managed by the perpetrator. To whit, you ralff it, you swab it, mate."

Bodie found himself reflexively swallowing down a rising gorge. Under the weather as he was, the imagery was a bit too vivid.

Anson grinned at his facial greenery.

"Ahem," Murphy offered somewhat more sympathetically.

Jax resumed. "Seven. Quoting Camus and/or Solzhenitzyn strictly forbidden."

Bodie raised his eyebrows over this note. Must've been Anson, he reckoned.

"And eight. Dark corners, of which there are a local superabundance, are to be tolerated for willy wanking. Absolutely no todger tussling in the bog. Lest undue cue for the solitary loo ensue. That is all."

At which saying, Jax folded the paper and replaced it in a prominent central location upon the card table.

Bodie eased further into the unstable chair and urgently resisted massaging his aching temples. To distract from the anvil pounding sensorium, he watched the medic methodically walking rounds of the room, taking his patients' vitals and noting them in a record book.

The medic was a vast, gristly hulk of a fellow. Red headed, fresh faced, freckled, in strange contrast to his burly bodily form. He sported an army style crew cut which did exactly nothing to toughen his, from the neck up, boyish appearance.

Looking around the room, he called out, "where's my index case then? Lost, strayed or stolen?"

"Oi. Typhoid Mary!" Anson falsettoed, rising to saunter across the cement space. "Front and center. Wakey, wakey." He nudged his toe into an inert blanket batch.

The bed roll on the floor shuddered upright and gradually settled to the pull of gravity. Doyle emerged from the depths, blinking at the roust, and rubbed his fist backhand over his beslobbered face. "Not guilty as charged. Wasn't me," he muttered hoarsely.

"Doctor Bluey here wants to immortalize your lovely body in the anals, er ah, annals of medical science."

With the medic's assistance, Doyle stumbled to a gurney parked against the wall and perched there for a physical exam that involved considerable poking and prodding. After the initial proceedings, he lost his shirt, shuddering against the cold metal bell of the stethoscope. The MO listened to his chest front, back and sides. Then thumped upon it for good measure. Tongue depressors and swabs went down Ray's throat and nose until he gagged loudly. The swabs were then stored lovingly in sterile vials in the medic's ditty bag.

The MO looked Doyle squarely in the eye and announced, "Time to drop trou."

Groaning, the patient reluctantly bared his bum and fell face-flat upon the stretcher. Next a waft of rubbing alcohol drifted across the room, the entire occupancy thereof watching in morbid fascination as a hypodermic needle stabbed gluteal muscle, and a syringe plunger followed through to completion.

Twenty sets of jaws cringed and clenched while all pretended to be oblivious, otherwise engaged.

"Come along, Baker, you've graduated. Back amongst the living with you. Father is desperate for you motor pool lot." The MO collared one cheerful ex-patient and headed for the exit.

"Give our regards to Carnaby Street. Wave at Parliament as you pass, there's a dear. S'been so jolly. Thanks ever for stopping. Til' tomorrow, lurve."

"Speaking of shots," Anson commenced.

Bodie glared at him, ready to follow through with a roundhouse punch. Offsides, tantamount to confession, admission to staring at his partner's arse, that.

Anson inched away before stubborn resumption. "Why the fuck are we, in large, gremmly succumbed, when we all got our bloody flu injections back in September?"

"Shot's only good for a coupla strains of influenza per season," Murphy declared, whilst rummaging a kettle of distilled water onto the burner.

"Do tell?" Jax seemed genuinely interested.

"There's other myxoviruses out and about. Plus rhinoviruses, coronaviruses, arenaviruses, paramyxo and Coxsackie viruses."

A loud voice piped up from one of the aforementioned dark corners. "Har. A-squad figures we got's para military cock sucking viruses!"

This interpretation evoked several gruff chuckles, which ebbed and flowed around some admixed phlegm spewing before the noise sank back to semiprivate discussions.

Anson rolled his eyes. "Whoever said ignorance is bliss?" he demanded of the ceiling.

Bodie thought of a suitably scathing retort, opened his mouth upon it, and instead sneezed enthusiastically.

"Got to record that!" Anson asserted in great glee.

Unfolding his cambric to stifle the next impending expulsion, Bodie retorted a mere rough-edged "wha?"

Murphy had abandoned the tea kettle in favour of a vintage WWII notice board. Under the dusty heading "Snot Chronicles," he marked in chalk, "Gentleman Bodie politely requests an introduction."

"Huh?" Bodie demanded before raucously blowing his nose.

"Reversed encryption. Advanced sneeze translation," Murphy explained. "Heard you say 'who he?' quite distinctly."

Bodie read aloud from the chalked list. "Anson names the Kremlin's double agent."

Murphy clarified. "He says 'Ah-yeesh-sky-ya! So, erm, maybe it's a Roosky name."

"Lame."

"Stretching it," Jax shrugged.

Casting his glance down the long list of descriptors, Bodie spoke up. "Doyle makes salacious promises, but doesn't follow through?"

Anson smirked wickedly. "Your partner, when he sneezes, says 'Ah'll eat ya.' But then he doesn't."

"Should hope not."

"That would be the kettle," Anson announced irritably over the whistling rattle clatter.

"D'ya think?" Murphy retorted.

"You set it on."

"Which is exactly why someone else should steep the brew."

"There's logic for you."

"Division of labor. Only fair."

At which point, an alarm clock sounded.

"Shufti, Bodie." Anson gestured succinctly toward the alley door.

"Hadn't even got properly settled," Bodie grumbled, rising to depart. "Scarcely even arrived."

Fastening into a capacious navy pea coat, Doyle followed him.

At the exit, Bodie turned to prod his partner mid sternum. "Raymond, do yer think it wise?"

"Meh. Restore me circulation," he shrugged, ruefully rubbing his sore posterior.

"Just as you say, then," and they were out into a sinking chilly mist.

Safely distanced from earshot, Ray muttered aloud. "Willem Handjob Pirrip. Yer malingering?"

"Newt odd assort. Erm febrile, ant I? Medico declared it and all."

"Well then, thas awright then, in tit?"

"Just so." He groped under damp layers of fabric until his hand found warm flesh. Settled briefly upon a buttock cheek for a gentle caress. Then snagged his belt and clung there.

Doyle shivered against him. "Nasty bugglets. Feel like two pounds of horse shit in a one pound sack."

"Shoulda laid it on with the trowel. If you'd only wilted a tad more for the doc, he would have hauled you in to infirmary. Lovely puddings and nurses and blankies and such."

"Scarper, when you'd only just arrived? Naw."

"There's devotion."

"Never forget it."

Bodie studied the silver vault of heaven. "What's it all about then?"

"As if seeking divine guidance. Har. Well then, observe yon stonking great glass and platinum high rise?"

"Forty story dunny?"

"Snicker snortle."

"What then?"

"One has only to stroll up to same. Capture a thousand word equivalent or three. Camera automatically stores the exact precise Greenwich moment. Hoo yay, up she rises."

"Pissmire, you say."

"Would I?"

"Knowing you as I do, yar."

While Bodie hugged him, back to chest, Doyle snapped several photos of a neighboring skyscraper overlooking the river. "Home again, jiggity."

"Next time you're by the Thames, drop in?"

"Or sumfink."

"Never mind the why and wherefore?"

"Not in our contract." Doyle shook his head, then grinned wickedly. "I've got me a high-poor-phthisis."

"Been thinking? Tsk and tut. Well, then let's have it for laughs, this theory."

"Heard Interpol's been caught playing with their super computer. Big as a city block. Have only to record all events of international level rumpity pumpity, the timing thereof. Feed the nasty data into the comp with pics of the suspect location. Office lights, on or off. Micro milliseconds later. The program correlates presence or absence of the office occupants during the crime. Suspects become confirmed perps, and like that."

"Brilliant. Improbable. Highly imaginative." He shoved Doyle against a hidden brick corner and had at.

"Snog detour," Ray squirmed against him.

Bodie growled against the side of his throat.

"Youch. Boar bristle burn."

"Can't shave. Forgot me bayonet."

"What's this, then?" Rubbing hard against his hard on.

"Steel wool stiffy. Rough."

"Care to consummate?"

"Fresh out of clean swipers."

"Stick it, I'll lick it."

"Heard that about you."

"Mrmph."

Bodie pressed Doyle firmly against the wall. One hand on his hip, while the other exposed him to devourment. He swallowed him whole, meantime shoving a slicked thumb into his hole, fingers tickling at his balls.

Ray's breathing sounded dense.

"Not strangling up there, are you? Bout to swoon?"

"Kyree-iced, would you finish it then?"

Chuckle joined suckle.

Doyle bucked once, blasted, and sunk slowly.

Bodie grappled him by his pits and hoisted.

"And you, Andrew?"

"Gob smacked the paving stones. N' airy a dribble off mark."

"Hanging out all this time?"

"Practical. Post fuck tuck, and we're off."

"Say that again."

"We're off."

"S' truth."

A block's walk, and Doyle's teeth were clattering. "Feel hot."

"Sound cold."

"Exposure, pr'haps. Worth it."

"Yar." Bodie wrapped an arm around him. "Nearly there again."

"Oh joy."

xXxXx

"Lost your way, Ray?" Anson chirruped upon their return.

Doyle collapsed into the nearest chair and dropped his face into his folded arms on the table.

"Eight by ten glossies. Should make charming calendars. Or postcards, alternately." Bodie deposited the camera by the deck of cards. He sat next to Ray, draping his arm casually across the chair back.

Murphy idly flicked one of Doyle's curls. Bodie slapped at his hand, a quick, crisp stinging sound.

Ray straightened, glancing around in bleary eyed torpor. Then he allowed lashes to flutter down onto his cheeks, his head drooped back until his brain case rested on Bodie's elbow.

"All thunk out, petal?"

"Leave it to Father, turning a profit on morbidity and mortality, eh?" Anson muttered, riffling the cards expertly.

"Quarantine ops. Kill two birds with one stoner," Jax offered wryly.

"Did someone mention birds?" shouted from a corner of the basement.

"No!"

"Wish you would, then. Might speed things."

"What was in that shot then? Morphine?" Anson teased. "Feeling no further pain, old son?" He elbowed Doyle's somnolent form.

"Antibiotics," Murphy declared with expert assurance. "Secondary bacterial bronchitis."

Jax raised his eyebrows at Bodie, who nodded agreement.

Murphy went and erased Doyle's name from the duty roster.

"Ta." Bodie jostled his mate. "R-r-raymondo. Penny visitation and then hit the hammock, what?"

"In a minute."

"In a now. Ever onward and upward. Erph. Such density. Right foot. Left foot. There's progress for you."

Bodie chose a previously unoccupied distant dark shadow and lavishly bedecked it with bedding. He rolled Doyle's body onto it all.

"Just like gorillas, nesting at night." He nuzzled into Ray's curls. "Can feel me joints creaking. Ooof. Biserable virus."

"Yar," Doyle muttered into his mate's thorax.

A silent pause. Then Ray murmured, "Gentleman Bodie asks politely."

Bodie chuckled softly. "Doyle makes promises, sometimes follows through."

-- THE END --

September 2006

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