Free The Tetherballs of Bougainville: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries) by Mark Leyner Page A

through reimbursements to the insured individual. Check your policy and consult with your broker or benefits administrator.
    Q.
How does the State determine whether I will live or die?
    A. Your status is reevaluated on a daily basis. At precisely 9:00 P.M . each night, at the New Jersey State Discretionary Execution Control Center in Trenton, data processors insert everyNJSDE releasee’s social security number into an intricate equation whose variables include the current pollen count at Newark International Airport and the total daily receipts collected at toll-booths along the Garden State Parkway as of 7:45 P.M . If, factored through this algebraic operation, your SS number yields a prime number, any five-digit sequence from pi, or the Governor’s PIN code for her MAC card, you are subject to Discretionary Execution over that ensuing 24-hour period.
    Q.
Is NJSDE painful?
    A. Yes! The State avails itself of a potpourri of execution methods including bare hands and teeth, sharpened stick, flint ax, bisection by lumberyard circular saw, car bomb, drive-by shooting, rocket-propelled grenade, Tomahawk cruise missile, etc., any of which can cause significant discomfort. The
degree
of pain you experience may vary in accordance with the efficacy of the execution attempt and with your body’s ability to produce natural opiates, called endorphins, at moments of extreme stress. If you choose to augment your endorphins by prophylactically self-anesthetizing through heavy alcohol consumption and you develop cirrhosis, bear in mind that some hospitals in New Jersey will not perform liver transplants on patients who face possible execution within 48 hours of surgery.
    Q.
How does the State make certain it’s executing the right person?
    A. Prior to any execution attempt, your identity will be surreptitiously confirmed using sophisticated DNA-fingerprintingautoradiograph techniques developed by the LAPD Forensic Crime Laboratory.
    Q.
What will happen to me after I’m killed?
    A. You will experience a sense of well-being. You (i.e., your soul) will separate from your body. You will travel through a dark tunnel. Emerging from this darkness, you will encounter a field of white radiant light. And you will enter this light. You will conduct a review of your life. You may encounter a “presence.” You will probably meet deceased loved ones. At some juncture, you may hear what you think is your body calling out, beseeching you.
Do not return to your body!
This bark or whooping sound is made by a spasm in the muscles of the voice box caused by increased acidity in the blood of the corpse.
    Your body will undergo rigor mortis (rigidity), livor mortis (discoloration due to settling of blood), and algor mortis (cooling). Tissue will break down through enzymatic action, and putrefaction will ensue through the decomposition of proteins by bacteria. Your body will be colonized by necrophage insects, including blowfly larvae and saprophagous beetles, and within three to six months, caseic fermentation should occur.
    Q.
This is a change of subject, but—Why, after he’d been so successful as a starting pitcher and in fact had recently thrown a no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox, was Dave Righetti pulled from the starting rotation and put in the Yankee bullpen? Was this just
the result of one of Steinbrenner’s autocratic tantrums, or was there some sound baseball reasoning behind the decision?
    A. The months following Righetti’s July Fourth no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox were among the most tumultuous in Yankee history. Players had the locker room repainted, replacing the traditional Yankee pinstripe motif with gyrating chained dancers and huge flying griffins bearing futuristic bare-breasted Valkyries with laser guns. Each game was preceded by a ritual team circle jerk. Post-game revels raged into the early morning. It was not unusual to find Meg Tilly, Teri Hatcher, Amanda Plummer, Vanessa Williams, Jaye Davidson, Kate Capshaw, Janet