Just Another Night at Murk's House

Sunday, October 08, 2006

It was the four of us: Malach, The Angry Veteran, Dr. Mantodea and me. We had all received a summons to report to the palatial estate of Dr. Robert J. Murk. When we arrived, we were greeted at the door by his lovely Asian wife.

“Hello,” said the Angry Veteran. “We’re here to see—“

“Murk over there somewhere,” she gestured vaguely. “You go find him and no bother me!” We four exchanged glances, once again amazed at the way Mrs. Dr. Murk seemed to switch effortlessly from “Oxford-educated assassin” to “old Chinese harridan” dialect; her reasons for choosing either persona were arcane and would likely never be revealed—and even less likely understood—by the likes of us. We meandered down the Central Hall of Chez Murk, intent on finding the Doctor and ascertaining the reason for our summons with all due speed.

I, for one, was just happy that this time I came to the estate by my own free will, rather than waking up here, strapped to a stretcher, with a splitting headache. For once.

Suddenly, I heard a grating noise from behind me. I whirled, only to catch a glimpse of my friends vanishing behind a moving wall! I was suddenly alone, bereft of the comfort of my three stalwart companions. In vain I pounded against the wall, hearing the muffled cries of my friends beyond. But it was no use. With nothing else to do, I continued in the one direction I could go: deeper into the house.

I rounded the corner to find a long corridor, empty of doors and windows. At the far end, another wall was rapidly closing, leaving me only one point of egress. Resigned and more than a little afraid, I took it. Soon I was hopelessly lost. I wish I could accurately describe where I ended up, but such an endeavor is doomed to failure. The moving walls soon had me so disoriented that I could never find my way out unaided. I knew who was behind this: Murk’s wife. I pictured her behind a curtain somewhere, laughing hideously, watching my every move on closed-circuit television, pulling levers that activated the shifting walls that were herding me…to where I knew not.

I began to despair for my friends and seriously considered the thought that I once again might never leave Chez Murk alive, when I began to notice a distinct temperature change. It was getting hotter. How long had I been wandering this maze of corridors and shifting walls? It seemed like forever; certainly long enough for me to begin thinking in tired clichés like the one I just used.

At last I noticed the corridor opened into a room. As I approached I kept my eyes on the doorway. I heard the sudden hiss of steam. Warily, I entered. It was a sauna. Before me, draped only in a coarse towel and his ever-present bowler hat, sat Dr. Robert J. Murk, an empty water dipper in his hand. He had just emptied its contents over the hot coals providing the room’s dry heat.

“Hello, Shit-for-Brains,” said Murk. “Always good to see you.”

Dr. Murk reclined on a bench, basking sleepily in the glow of the sauna’s hot coals. His rippling, muscular chest was criss-crossed with scars; remnants of his time in the French Foreign Legion. His facial hair clung to his face, damp with the perspiration that ran in rivulets from the brim of his hat down his bronzed skin, and his towel was carelessly draped across his lap, revealing a startlingly enormous bulge at the crotch; no doubt indicative of what Murk describes as his “massive white chocolate bar.” The room was close with the smells of baked cedar wood, hot coals and Murk’s own manly scent.

“What have you done with my friends?” I demanded.

“Oh, do not worry,” Dr. Murk said. “They are being seen to. I wished to speak to you alone.”

“What have you done with them?” I persisted.

Murk sighed. “Oh, very well. But understand this, Piper. None of them will bother us. I dressed Malach in a pair of assless chaps and put him in a room with a vinyl couch. He’ll be entertained for hours. As for the good Dr. Mantodea, he will soon be battling for his life against a mutated mantis of large size, all for my wife’s amusement. Asians enjoy betting on bug fights. Did you ever see Enter the Dragon?”

“Only like fifteen times. Where did you get a huge mantis?” I asked, skeptical.

“Forcibly mutating a praying mantis to gigantic size and amplifying its natural predatory instincts are child’s play for one of my intellect and resources,” said Murk. “Mantodea’s cursed liberal pontificating may soon be coming to an end. Time to see if his much-vaunted kung-fu skills are up to snuff. But enough. You are wondering why I have called you here, and who you may turn to for succor. The answers are: because I wanted to, and no one.”

“The Angry Veteran will save me!” I said, thinking of my noble friend charging to the rescue, star-spangled shield in hand.

“The Angry Veteran?” said Murk. “Just who do you think he works for?”

My jaw dropped in astonished comprehension.

“MUHUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” laughed Murk.

I couldn’t believe it. The Angry Veteran, nothing more than a lackey of Dr. Murk!

“BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” Murk continued to laugh.

All this time, we thought the AV was an agent of some secret Government project. To know that there was no hope for me but to submit to Murk’s latest whim was a crushing defeat.

“AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA— OK, enough of that,” said Dr. Murk. “My dinner is here.”

I turned, startled to see that Dr. Murk’s Asian wife had entered the room, carrying a tray of neatly-arranged sushi. “Blowfish nigiri”, said Dr. Murk. “If not prepared properly, death occurs seconds after ingestion in a most painful manner.” He manipulated his chopsticks expertly, lifting a generous piece and inserting it in his mouth. “Mmmm. Tasty.”

“Are you nuts?!” I asked. “You could die!”

“I trust my wife implicitly,” he said, popping more fish into his mouth. “She loves me.”

Mrs. Murk put a plate of the same in front of me. Our gazes locked. She winked at me.

Mrs. Murk was not being flirtatious. Likewise there was nothing like a shared joke between she and I. I doubt very much she had something in her eye, nor did she have any nervous tics that I was aware of. Yet she winked at me, all the same. I hadn’t eaten anything all day, and this was the first time I had ever been offered refreshment at the palatial estate of Dr. Murk. Despite these facts, that wink made me more certain of one thing than I had ever been of anything in my life: there was no goddamn way I was touching that fish.

“Now, Piper,” Dr. Murk said to me after his wife left, “you want to know why I have called you here. I wish for you to be a guest on the Murk and Malach podcast, to be recorded tomorrow.”

I was elated. I pictured how the podcast would go. My mind wandered, enjoying the dreamlike vision of tomorrow’s recording:

Angry Piper: …and so the Sateen Dura-Luxe is Vonnegut’s symbol of the transient nature of a life wasted by taking the easy way out…

Dr. Murk: You are so right. Bluebeard is terrific. Vonnegut is a genius.

Angry Veteran: I never read that.

Malach: You know who was a real genius? The guy who created Captain Caveman. “Captain…CAAAAAAAVEEEEMAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!”

“Hey, jackass!” Murk’s voice broke me out of my reverie. “Be here tomorrow at noon.”

“Uh…will do.” I said. Now all I had to do was find my way out. I watched as Murk cleaned his plate of the blowfish. “Hey,” said I, “do you think you could point me in the direction of the exit?”

“No,” said Dr. Murk. “You have twenty seconds to leave, or Dr. Mantodea will never test his mettle against the mutated mantis. You will.”

I managed to get out.

But I still have to go back tomorrow.