hey body

Hey body...

Donovan's the Ché. You know how there's always somebody who's not the leader, but seems more romantic and hardcore about the ideology? That's D. He's the Ché of the monks. The difference is that D knows who his killers will be because it'll be us. He had us all swear that if/when he flips, we'll take him out. Timo, of course, wouldn't swear. He thinks every Body is worth saving, no matter what. But that's not my policy. D can count on me.

And he almost got his proof last night when his nose started twitching and his lip yanked up, kind of like an Elvis sneer, if Elvis were, you know, dead. (Spasmodic rictus is an early warning sign of flippage. "Early" being a relative term here. It depends how fast you can run.)

He must have seen my hand moving. "Hold the ice pick. It's just an itch. Timo says if you can resist scratching an itch, just let it sit and feel it, control your reflex, it's like clearing a little piece of ground to build on."

Uh-huh. And once you've cleared that square inch, you might, theoretically, build an upside down copy of the Luxor hotel, balanced point down on it. Doesn't seem very likely though, does it?

Hey body...

I didn't mention anything about Project Ibu until last night. Timo and I were across the water in the North district of the city. They're trying to get people to move up there and there's a big push for new media companies even though a lot of it looks like plain old light industry to me. Lots of low to the ground buildings and parking lots. Nobody around at night. A great place for bodies. I don't imagine the Amsterdam city planners thought they were creating an undead development zone, but there you have it. Unintended consequences.

We went over to check out what we heard was a fixed body shop operating out of a food import warehouse. A body shop is where people go to get "delivered" (which is what they call it here. Gelevered.  Why do people always want to make a religious thing out of a biological thing?)  Sometimes they're already waiting to die of something. When option 2 is euthanasia, option 3 starts to look pretty good. Sometimes it's a lifestyle choice. The next step in creative self-destruction. But no matter why they want it, they've all got some money and no idea. They think it's going to be clean sheets and syringes but you're lucky if the guy brushes his teeth before.

We knew we were there because there was a big old Porsche Cayenne SUV pooting out exhaust in front of the loading dock with a real live Gooische Vrouw inside wearing a white fur shoulder wrap over what appeared to be a Prada Sport tracksuit. In the dim light from the dashboard, she looked like a cloud hovering on top of the thermal column no doubt rising from the heated seat beneath her.

Timo guessed that she was waiting for someone, likely the husband, and that we should probably just wait too. Try to intercept and hit him with the Sutras before he got to the car. I suggested that we could save time by just sticking a leaflet under the SUV's wipers. Preferably faintly xeroxed with lots of small irregular type and hand scrawled charts documenting the INVISIBLE yet INSIDIOUS Lines of FoRcE emanating from the TAXXX OFFICE in 2 our BRAINS.

He didn't get it (a Body thing or a Dutch thing?) but I didn't have time to explain it because a guy suddenly lurched off the loading dock and thunked face down onto the hood of the car. I rode in a 911 once. Can't say I loved it. Kinda bumpy. But the curves of a Porsche are mesmerizing. You just can't take your eyes off them. And as the woman backed away from the loading dock, her husband/son/lover slid gracefully off the car's nose following the perfect soapbar parabola of Herr Porsche's imagination with a minor deviation when his chin caught the edge of the license plate. Which tore the hole in his neck even wider. Too wide. He'd be a dangler for sure if he made it at all. We did the sutra anyway.

On the way back, Timo mentioned that maybe we should say something to people like the woman in the car. Maybe there was a sutra for them. So I told him about Ibu.