Crypt Nixon

I went to visit some friends of mine, a recently-married couple who were living in a mausoleum. That wasn't so odd, though, because I remembered that they were both dead. The man looked kind of like Steve Buscemi, kind of like Edgar Allen Poe, and the woman just looked like the young Dorothy Parker. The only thing really odd about them was that they were very, very pale and well-manicured, with no stray hairs or skin problems. They were as white and smooth as if they were made of unglazed porcelain.

It was a little disconcerting inside their mausoleum. I walked through a creepy and ancient-looking cemetery, complete with vines, lichen and spidery bushes to reach a weathered stone building, only to find within something that looked more like the tiny and beige studio apartment I used to live in. Instead of one window there was just a door, though, and it was lit entirely by candles, but it was still very beige.

My friends looked a little tired; they'd just had a baby. I was worried that it would be some kind of horrible Eraserhead baby, but it was just like a regular baby except quieter and chalk-white. They were having a combination baby shower and housewarming party, which was hard to do in such a small space. I gave them my gift; movie ticket vouchers. I figured that when you are undead but don't need to eat the flesh or drink the blood of the living, the night probably gets boring. My dead friends seemed to like them.

The other guests at the party were mostly the undead and other people I knew. Game show host and character actor Ben Stein was also there, as was the undead Richard Nixon. I physically bumped into Nixon while I was going to get more cheap pizza and tepid diet soda.

At first I didn't know he was Richard Nixon. He was wearing an achingly well-fitted dark blue suit, but his body was skinny and oddly misshapen, with enormous arms and an almost quadrupedal gait. Even with that, though, he towered over me. He features were exaggerated, perhaps by the tightening of dead skin, and his eyes were a dark red that didn't glow but smouldered. His tie was black, and right at my eye level was a small silver tie tack in the sideways-eight symbol of infinity.

I apologized immediately, but so did he. I had a hard time understanding his voice, characteristically Nixonian but with the hollow rasp of the grave. It sounded like he was speaking Swedish.

As I made my way across the room, I glanced back to be sure he wasn't following me. Ben Stein had hooked up with Nixon, and was looking very excited to be talking with him. He was standing a few feet away from Nixon and was covered in shadow, as though Richard Nixon were some kind of negative light source. I wandered back nearby and listened for a little bit, gathering finally that for his wickedness he had been sentenced for eternity to speak backwards. He was still undead and creepy, though, so I wandered off to play with my hosts' video game system. It was an old Nintendo, whichever edition had Duck Hunt, but I never had a video game console myself so I was vastly amused. Dan, a guy I know from my old dorm, was also playing, but because he was reciting entire comic books by Jhonen Vasquez as is his wont he was somewhat distracted. I was winning easily.

Eventually the party ground to a halt, and we all started to leave. I was helping the hosts clean up, so I was a fly on the wall as Ben Stein had to be physically dragged away from Richard Nixon. He was protesting, but as my male friend pointed out, he was doing so while speaking backwards. "You've had enough, Ben," my friend said, as Richard Nixon smiled, gloating slightly.

After I cleaned up I had to stay over and sleep on the couch, because it had started raining and it was too dangerous to go out. I had the impression that if you went outside while it was raining your flesh in dribs and drabs would be melted off your bones.