The white bread, "Mother's" brand, was very soft, but fortunately so was the hydrogenated spreadable margarine substitute. Tatty Trenchmouth lathered her porous, flimsy bread slices with the thick yellowish-white paste and took several hasty bites. "Mmm-mmm, good," she moaned.

"Tatty! Dinner's ready!" shouted her mother, Martyr, from the dining room.

"Coming!" Tatty mumbled, inadvertently spraying oleo and crumbs on the glass-encased statue of the Virgin Mary, which had cost only $9.99 at Dominatrix's, the local grocery store at which she, her mother, and five of her eight older siblings were all employed. The recent special on the religious icons had been in celebration of the installation of metal detectors at both of the store's entrances. Tatty shoved the rest of the "sandwich" into the pocket of her hand-me-down Tommy Hilfiger jeans and waddled into the kitchen.

"Sit down, honey. Do you want some potato chips with your ham/bacon/mayo/macaroni casserole and your mashed potatoes?"

"Yeah, why not? Where's Daddy?"

"He had to work extra hours at the post office. You know there's always a rush on priority mail around the holidays. But don't fret—I have some exciting St. Mary Contumacious gossip for you!"

"Ooh!" yelped Tatty through a mouthful of bacon. "Is it about Burt and Boobsie? Or Janis and Marrie?"

"No, it's about the Welches. Jim Welch, actually. Listen …"

Kelly Trucker paused before the bathroom mirror, deciding that she needed to apply more eyeliner and a touch more lip gloss. This was an important occasion, after all; it was the first time she was leaving the house in two days, and she was going to Osco for a pack of Benson and Hedges Deluxe Ultra Lights. She had to look good. After dashing into her sister Sassy's room to select some footwear from her eighty-pair collection and retrieve a filched Polly French novel, Kelly was ready to leave. On her way out the door, however, the phone rang.

"Hi, Kel!" It was her best friend, Marrie.

"Hi. What do you want?" Kelly demanded.

"What's your problem?"

"I've got to get to Osco before my lips lose their pearly sheen. Why are you calling me?"

"God, you'd think I was your worst enemy instead of your former band member and soul sister. Look, you won't believe the rumor I just heard … and it was confirmed by none other than the mother-son duo, the paragons of truth, Boobsie and Burt!"

"Tell me!" gasped Kel, intrigued now.

"Well, it's about Jim Welch …"

As the phone rang, Mitzie O'Leary frowned. Who could be calling her? She had already talked to her parents and her bosom buddies Marrie and Tanya today, and no one ever called for her live-in boyfriend Claudius or her French poodles, Cookie and Evelyn. Besides, it was nearly eight p.m., slightly past her usual bedtime. With a sigh, she ignored the phone, allowing it to ring eight times so that the answering machine would pick up and play its lively, lengthy ditty.

The machine beeped, and a male voice was broadcast throughout the room. "La, lalalalalaaaaa, la la … I do love that answering machine tune. Hello, mon cherie Claudius! It is none other than Burt! Oh, hello to you too, Mitzie …"

Mitzie giggled and picked up the receiver. "Hi, Burt. How are you?"

"No time for small talk, my dear. There are scandalous rumors to report! Have you heard about Jim Welch?"

Somewhere over Manila, the helicopter bearing Lt. Owen Meany opened its hatch and released to the skies its bravest soldier. He pulled his ripcord at the appropriate moment, but his chute failed to open. He cursed, wet his pants, and pulled his auxiliary cord. Despite the checks and rechecks he assumed had been made by his chopper crew as per protocol, this one failed to release the chute as well, and the young, brilliant lad plummeted three thousand feet into a fetid jungle swamp.

Above in the helicopter, Jim Welch too uttered foul obscenities, then pulled a hip flask of Stalin brand vodka from his camouflage pants. He paused a moment to rub his hand lovingly over his green- and brown-encased thigh, reflecting again that the clothes were the best reason of all to join the Army. Living in a family of nineteen, the only clothes he got were velour bell bottoms and paisley Nehru jackets that were handed down from his oldest brother, now 61 years old.

Jim cursed again as he reflected that if he had only pulled his lips away from his precious flask long enough to have checked the dead soldier's parachute even one of the four times he was supposed to have done so, Lt. Meany would still be alive. Jim didn't care much for Meany on a personal level, but the guy had reluctantly agreed to drive Jim and his albino sidekick Mason into Manila to the best little whorehouse in the Phillipines. Now Jim and Mason would have to settle for the local brothel instead, which was a shame because Jim had already slept with each of its employees once. Since he'd taken a vow never to bed the same woman twice, he'd have to fuck the madam herself. She was voluptuous, wheelchair-bound, and always sported fuchsia lipstick across her front teeth—and everyone called her Catty.

"Didja see that, Jim? His guts splattered everywhere!" Private Mason Wein called from his seat at the front of the aircraft.

"Uh, yeah," Jim grunted. "Don't you know what this means for me, though?"

He waited several seconds for his response. (Mason was rather slow.) "Oh. Yeah. D'ya think someone else will take us to Manila?"

"Nah. I'll just have to do Catty. I wonder if her pelvis is paralyzed, or just her legs?"

"Huh, I dunno. Oh, shit!" Mason turned his head back to the front and grabbed the controls, jerking the helicopter sharply to the left. "Almost hit a bird. Okay, what were you saying?"

It was nearly eleven p.m., and the only light in the small village thirteen miles outside of Manila was the neon sign with "Catty's Girlie Spot" emblazoned in pink. Jim and Mason trudged up its dirt path to where Catty's wheelchair was parked outside the door. She was eating a corn dog and had a box of Maurice Linell cookies at her side. "Hiya, soldiers!" she chirped, and as her mouth opened Jim noticed the "Berries in the Dirt" lipstick staining her otherwise yellowish dentures. "What can I do for you … or rather, who do you want to do?" She cacked raucously at her pathetic joke, which Jim waved aside, having heard it eighteen times before.

Mason, however, laughed uproariously, spurting his Dr. Pepper onto the muddy road. "I want Lisa!" he demanded when he had caught his breath.

"And what about you, cutie?" grinned Catty.

"Uh, well … I don't know how to say this, but …" Jim began nervously.

Catty began her laughing fit anew. "I gotcha! You wanna fuck the madam! Well, it'll be double the price. Hand over your three bucks, you sucker!"

Red-faced, Jim reached into his cavernous pockets and came up with three American dollars. Mason nudged him. "Uh, I kinda forgot my wallet at the barracks," he whispered. Jim reached in again and found sufficient change to pay Mason's way.

"Let's get this show on the road!" he muttered, reaching for Catty's chair so he could wheel her into the dilapidated hut she called a whorehouse.

An hour later, Mason appeared again at the front door. Jim was waiting for him, but Catty's wheelchair was conspicuously absent as they stepped over the muddy path back to the main road. "So, uh, how was she?" Mason asked, trying not to laugh.

"Dude, she lay still like I fuckin' told her to, all right?" Jim spat. "At least, she did after I knocked her out cold. Why the hell are you in such a good mood, anyway?"

"I just laid a hot piece of ass, that's why. She was even better than that Catholic chick Moira with the big nose I fucked in high school!"

"Who'd you screw? Lisa? I did her last week and she's not all that, okay, man?" Jim turned away.

Mason groaned. "Oh, no. I know what's wrong. Catty didn't do it for you! Does that mean I gotta bend over for you again tonight? I'm gettin' tired of that shit."

Jim stopped in his tracks. "I told you never to mention that! Anyway, no, you don't have to. My dick kinda hurts."

Mason accepted this with a shrug of his shoulders. "I hope you didn't catch nothin' from Catty."

Jim said nothing, but his face revealed that this was exactly his own deepest fear.

Three days later, Jim stood before the military physician, his heart pounding. "So tell me, Doc, how's my little soldier doin'?"

"It doesn't look good, Welch," said she. "You have about a week to live. I suggest you avoid Catty's so you don't spread cruel Dame Syphilis any further. Don't do your buddies up the ass any more, either."

Jim gulped. "You could tell?"

Dr. Szatski laughed meanly. "Just a lucky guess."

Two weeks later, the hallowed halls of St. Mary Contumacious were filled with Jim Welch's funeral music. "Amazing Grace" resounded from the choir loft as Mitzie and Claudius sauntered in, followed by Boobsie and Burt. An elderly retarded man handed them Xeroxed programs on goldenrod-colored paper. The front side of the clumsily folded half-sheet depicted Jim at his eighth-grade graduation. Inside, the Welch clan had chosen to print the words to the Bette Midler hit "The Rose" alongside the lengthy list of Jim's survivors.

"See, I told you I wasn't making it up. He really is dead. Mother and I never lie or exaggerate!" hissed Burt to Mitzie as they settled into the second pew from the front.

"Speak for yourself, lard-ass!" Boobsie interrupted. "Move your wide load over, Burt, so I have a good angle to the lectern. I have three rolls of film reserved especially for little Gora Welch's eulogy."

"Mother," Burt whispered with alarming ferocity. "I've been meaning to tell you this for quite some time, and now seems like the ideal opportunity: You weigh about twice as much as do I!" His face grew red, his eyes shrank to mere slits, and he shook his fist menacingly at Boobsie. She guffawed and, much to Burt's chagrin, snapped a picture of his enraged countenance.

Mitzie nudged him. "Ignore her, Burt," she told him blithely. "Look over there! Is that Derek Stoverton … or, as we used to call him, Bedraggled Duds? Oh, Claudius," she went on by way of explanation, "Duds was a good friend of mine, Kelly's, Marrie's, Burt's, and Jim's during the summer we …"

"I don't care!" Claudius interrupted her. "I don't even know the dead person. Why'd you make me come? Am I going to have to listen to more stories about junior high? The only good thing about this event is that my customary black and olive green clothing is appropriate. And why are we sitting way up here in front, anyway?" Claudius asked belligerently.

"Mother likes to have press-row seats to all the parish happenings," Burt whispered sweetly in reply, patting Claudius above the knee.

"Harish pappenings?" was Claudius's cryptic response.

"Hush, Claud!" Mitzie cried. "Burt, where are Marrie and Kelly? It's almost time for the fun to begin!" Indeed, the melodic strains of the processional, "Jesus, Remember Me," could be heard throughout the cavernous room.

"Ssssh! Here they come now," Burt replied.

Mitzie turned her head and saw that, indeed, Marrie was flouncing rapidly down the aisle in a too-short green corduroy dress with Kelly about thirty feet behind her in flare pants, knee boots, and a mohair sweater. "Hi, Mitzie! Hi, Burt!" cried Marrie. "Omigod, Kelly took forever picking out something black to wear, and then we had a CTA mishap as usual. Did we miss anything?"

"No," Burt explained, writhing in glee, "because look, Tatty and Martyr are just coming down the aisle now!" Marrie turned and saw that the two Trenchmouths were, in fact, edging into the pew across from them.

"Ooh, Kel, I think Tatty's gained a few pounds, and look at those roots!" Marrie squealed.

"Ssssh!" Kelly scolded her. "That's so irreverent! Oh, I need to use your Chapstick and compact, okay?"

"Wow, I can't believe why we're here. So the rumor about Jim Welch was true after all!" breathed Tatty Trenchmouth as she lumbered into the pew.

"You trusted your mommy, didn't you, my little pumpkin breath?" Martyr replied, fishing in her navy vinyl purse. "Here's a hair pick—try to tame those wild artificial curls. After all, we are in the house of the Lord."

"Ma, I'm hungry," whined Tatty suddenly.

"Don't worry, sweetie, I brought you some Life Savers, and then we'll have Communion before too long," Martyr cooed.

"You know that won't be enough!" Tatty protested.

"Well, then, you just kneel and pray for the repose of Jim's soul while I run across to the Social Hall and buy you a coffee-and."

"Okay, Ma!" Tatty beamed and slumped over the pew, relieved that Jim Welch was dead, her mother was by her side, and another meal was only moments away.