Assessor v. Astronaut

The Assessor, being a fastidious sort of woman, objects to the requirements of the duel. Specifically, the requirements placed on the winner.

While I'm here I might as well make it worth my while, she says. So she adjusts the waist of her mall-bought jeans and begins assessing the valuables of the dead.

She assesses the Astrologer's coral beads.

She assesses the Assassin's gold tie clip.

She assesses the Artist's silver cuff links.

She assesses the Art Therapist's turquoise necklace.

And then she takes them all and walks back to the oak. She empties the basket of the pencil and list of the dead. Then puts her treasure into the basket and, moving the table over by the oak, stands on the table and shoves the basket into a hole in the oak eight feet from the ground.

The Astronaut arrives.

Hi, he says.

The Assessor jumps in fright, then slips, then falls from the table. The Astronaut helps her up.

The Astronaut's dressed in a baggy navy blue jumpsuit, agency logo on its breast. A beeper's attached to his belt. His belt rides a bit high. He's stands tall, yet slouched, goose-necked, jug-eared, with a patchy sort of mustard-yellow bramble over his upper lip. The mustache accentuates a pronounced overbite.

Who are you?

Astronaut.

She screws her eyes. You? she asks.

It's true! he says. Here's how I came to be one:

After seventeen years of continuous training at the academy - and being skipped over for about every mission for some reason or another - I started to wonder whether I was gonna to go up at all. And I almost quit. But then, it was really late one night when this high ranking officer sees the toilet in his office is backed up. And it's so late all the maintenance people gone for the night. So he walks around looking for someone and sees me, because I'm there using the centrifuge. So all of a sudden the machine stops and I look over and sure enough I see this officer and he says, Hey, son! I got a project for ya, if ya want it. And I say, sure! And he says, can you unclog a toilet? And I say, can I? And so I go and unclog his toilet.

The Assessor frowns.

Jump four months. Now there's a big problem up in the International Space Station. Guess what?

Tell me, she says.

Toilet's clogged. Space toilet. And none of the astronauts know how to unclog a NASA-designed toilet. Then the same officer as before - he snaps his fingers and says, well boys I got just the man the job. And he gives me a call. And I go up, and guess what?

You unclog the toilet.

Bingo.

And you've done that twice?

Once on the International Space Station, once in a space shuttle, yep. The moral to this story that I tell to all the kids? Never. Give. Up. Hope. Ever. It took me seventeen years, but I finally made it. And now whenever they need plumbing work on that space station. They call me. On this beeper. On my belt.

They pick their guns. They walk out to the field, fifteen paces apart.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

Assessor v. Astrologer

The Assessor walks the borders of the field, passing the Archer's stone cairn, the pile of junk heaped by the Anestheologist, the crows amid the growing line of dead, and, finally, the Artist's exquisite corpse.

Dada daya da dm um damyata, she sings, walking briskly, looking about. She stops.

I wonder how much value this crick adds, she says.

Just then she sees a swarthy figure mucking through the bog to the south, beyond the creek. The figure makes its way from one dead pine to the next. An uneasy procession between splintered white shards, each jutting from the grassy slop. The figure nearly falls. Then falls. Then stops. Then continues. Then falls again. Then continues.

The Assessor walks over to the edge of the creek.

I got lost on my way in from the city, the figure says. He's muddled, muddy.

Finally the he makes it from out the mire to the bank of the creek. The Assessor tells him he looks like hell. (Honest assessment.) He's caked in ice cold, foul-smelling muck. Bits of grass shoot from his hair, black and matted.

And this was all in today's reading, he says. How could I suppose "wrong path, soft underfoot" was to be taken literally? I would have worn boots.

With the Assessor's help, the Astrologer - a corpulent man - waddles down the creek's shallow trough, toes the head of a partially submerged stone and hurdles himself across. They make their way to the oak.

It's then, at the oak, that the Assessor catches the unmistakable whiff of bourbon. The Astronomer's face, heavily painted and mud-streaked, contorts into a wince. He belches quietly, relaxing. Pardon, he says. The Assessor rolls her eyes.

The Astronomer wears a short-cropped beard. His face is dark. Between his eyes, slightly above the brow, he wears a scarlet dot. Around his neck a long string of orange coral beads.

I have divined the most auspicious time to duel, he says, for both of us. Seven thirty-three we shall both pull our triggers.

The Assessor shows him her watch. It's half past nine.

The Astronomer is spinning, looking all around. What a marvelous place this is, he says excitedly. He takes a flask from under his coat and drinks deeply. Done, he offers it to the Assessor.

She shoves a pistol at him. He takes it, pockets his flask, and follows her - pistol in hand - to the field.

They raise their guns. The Astronomer falls over.

The Assessor rolls her eyes. The Astronomer gets up. Seven thirty-three, he cries, arm raised in premature victory.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

Assassin v. Assessor

The Assassin pats down the Artist's coat. He pulls out a cigar. Squeezes it gently. Holds it up half an inch from his nose. Bites off the end, spits, and lights it with matches from the Artist's shirt pocket. Cigar clenched between his teeth, he drags the Art Director and the Art Therapist to the corpses by the northern fence. He drags the body of the Artist to a spot to southwest, close to where the road bridges the creek.

Then he returns to the oak. He drops the matches on the table beside pistols and the basket. Then he leans back and waits.

The Assessor walks from the road. She's a short-haired, severe woman in a coarse, straw colored wool turtleneck, dark jeans, drab flats.

He watches as she approaches.

Hi, she says curtly. Before we start I want you to know that this little get-together's put a crimp in my day.

The Assassin nods.

Not just a little crimp. I know you're not to blame but c'mon. It's tax time. And I'm the only county assessor with her head outside her ass. So. Enough said, she says.

She looks him over. Who are you?

I work in risk management, he says.

Good for you, she says.

Have you assessed this area?

Depending on who you ask? This area officially falls either under the jurisdiction of about like five municipalities/agencies. And that doesn't even include the three tribal counsels, each with their own claim.

Really.

And you know there's an old missile silo literally feet from here?

I didn't.

Oh yeah. So then you bring in the Feds, too. You know, from any tax law standpoint? This land? Forget about it. Much less from an assessor's. I don't even care who owns the title, okay? Whatever.

They continue talking about land assessment until the Assassin finishes his cigar. He drops it, grinds it out with the toe of his black oxford wing-tip. He gestures toward the pistols. The Assessor chooses hers, the Assassin his.

The take the field, standing ten paces apart.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.