4th of July Weekend Spa Getaway Starring Yours Truly and The Nutty Professor

While others were hanging out in backyards eating brats and noodle salad, I was ensconced in the Potato Creek Spa & Salon over in Jackson County near Kadoka. Everything I did there was completely new. I have never had a seaweed wrap before and now I can say that I have. I have never had a mud bath before and never will again. I had facials of the non-porn variety and relaxed with cucumber slices on my eyes, which made me hungry for salad which was ok because that’s all there was on the menu. I had one half of a manipedi because the girl screamed and fainted when she saw my feet, which I often do myself.

It was quite the delightful time, overall, I must say.

The best part, if you ask me, were the massages. I got dozens of them. Tara, the masseuse there at Potato Creek, had firm but gentle hands, and also possessed many of the other qualities prized by the superficial male. “Again?” she would say as I came up to her wearing nothing but my fluffy American flag beach towel. I tell you, I made that girl work for her money.

In the lounge where Enya drifted from hidden speakers and incense perfumed the air, I met a college professor who taught forensics, which is the use of science in crime-solving.

“Did you ever work in the field?” I asked him.

“For over 15 years. Mainly in Minneapolis, but also for a few years in Milwaukee.”

“What was your weirdest case?”

“About 1997, a homeless person found a human leg in an alley. This was in Minneapolis, in a rough part of the city. It was an entire leg, separated from the body at the hip. Finding body parts isn’t all that unusual in forensics work, but there was something really strange about this leg.”

I moved to the edge of my seat. “Yeah? What was that?”

“Well, when I examined it, I determined that the leg hadn’t been cut from the body, but torn. Ripped. Yanked right out of the hip socket. I had confirmation of this not only from the nature of the wound, but also around the ankle, where bruising showed a handprint. All indications showed someone had gripped the leg around the ankle and literally tore it from the body. Obviously, a very strong someone, and someone with a very large hand.”

“Jesus H. Christ. Was it ever solved?”

“Nope. No body turned up or guy missing a leg–the leg was from a male, by the way. Frankly, if the guy hadn’t gotten immediate medical care, there is probably no way he could’ve survived. He would’ve bled to death or died from shock. Nothing else was ever found. No tips came in. Nothing. It was just a leg torn out off a body laying in an alley, found by a homeless person.”

“Wow.”

The whole conversation was very odd, what with Enya haunting the background and Rain Forest At Dusk® filling my nostrils. I asked him how he liked teaching and why he made the change.

“I love teaching. Wish I would’ve switched earlier. I wanted regular hours, regular vacations. Plus, it’s just plain easier. My wife, God rest her soul, loved it when I went to teaching. It was a definite boon to my marriage.”

When he said “God rest her soul”, he crossed himself, ala Catholicism.

“You lost your wife?” I asked.

“Yeah. Three years ago to breast cancer.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged.

There was a silence between us for a moment, then suddenly he smiled.

“In one of my advanced classes, I really like to mess with my students.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s an introductory to autopsy class and what I do, basically, is dissect a human body right in front of them. For most of them, it’s the first time they get down and dirty with forensics. They’re all raised on those CSI shows, where everybody’s pretty and the guts don’t show.”

“CSI: Akron is my favorite,” I told him.

“I’m not familiar with that one.”

“I was just kidding.”

“Oh.” He went and got another cup of free trade vegan organic cage-free decaffeinated gluten-free coffee. “Anyway, I’m standing up there in front of the class with a cadaver on the table. I have my implements of destruction. There’s a drain. There’s always a drain. All the little CSI kids are skittish. Probably the first dead body they’ve ever seen, at least a nude and grayish-blue one. You know, rigor mortis causes an erection?”

“I totally knew that.”

“You did?”

“No.”

“Well, it does. Big time. Anyway, maybe they’ve seen Grandma all made up in a nice dress in a nice comfy coffin, but there’s really nothing nice about death.”

“I’ve seen dead people before,” I told him. “I agree with you completely.”

“So this is on the first day of class and the cadaver is there before me on the table, nude, and I say ‘So you want go into forensics, huh? Well, you’re going to need a very strong stomach.’ I take my hand, my ungloved hand, mind you, point to the sky and then ram my index finger right up the cadaver’s anus. I then pull it back out and lick it.”

“Oh my fucking God, are you serious?” I stood up from my pink plastic chair and backed away a little.

“Dead serious,” he said and snorted.

“Jesus H. Christ.”

“After all the screams and retching die down, I say, ‘Who among you has the stomach to come forward and do the same? Break down that barrier between life and death. You will be working intimately with death. Prove to me that you can. Whoever comes forward and does the same, I will guarantee a B for the class. You won’t even have to show up again.’ Every semester, someone comes up and does it. Usually, a frat guy type. When he’s done it and has finished vomiting in the trash can next to my desk, I say, 'Forensics requires nerves of steel, not to mention a stomach of steel. It also requires keen observation. For example, how many of you noticed that I thrust my index finger up the cadaver’s anus, but licked my middle finger?’ At this point, the frat guy usually faints, which is ok because I always have paramedics standing by backstage.”

I backed a little farther away. “What in God’s name is wrong with you?”

“I’m a forensics professor.” He shrugged.

“So you give out a free B every semester? Why not an A+ for fucks sake? I’d say it’s deserved.”

“Nah, I’m kidding about that part. I usually end up flunking them because they think they’ve got a free pass and don’t come to class.”

“You’re a monster,” I said.

“I know,” he said, and laughed and laughed.

But overall, yeah, it was a pretty delightful weekend.