SHORT STORY: "CLONING NORMA"

The following is another story that flowed out of my warped mind, for readers to enjoy, laugh at, or despise. I wrote it in a few hours a while back.

Just remember folks - like Dark Resurrection, it's only a story...

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Cloning Norma

“I simply want to see if it can be done,” said Jonathan Barnes, a brilliant, eccentric, borderline deranged, independently wealthy medical researcher and forensic pathologist, leaning back in a leather recliner, a vodka martini in his right hand.

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” asked his wife Alice, also a pathologist, standing to the side in their living room next to a fireplace. “Sure, it’s a novel idea, but there is no way to get into the crypt without being caught – aside from that, she’s been rotting in there for 59 years!”

“There must be some good DNA left in her, hell, we can yank out some of her teeth and use those if we need to. She also has a pelvis full of marrow and osteoblasts if we have to go that far.”

“No; both would have been denatured by the formalin long ago,” Alice retorted.

“Not necessarily, all we need is a hearse and some money to buy off the security guard – I already talked to him and he even said he would help us.”

“You mean all YOU need,” said Alice.

“No, I mean us - who else is going to drive the hearse so we can get the body out of the cemetery?” asked Jonathan.

“How much will the guard cost us?”

“I’ll hand him ten grand, with that kind of loot for an hour’s work, we’re sure to succeed!”

Later, Dr. Barnes met with George Reiss, a security guard employee of Westwood Village and Memorial Park, Los Angeles. “Here’s the money,” said Barnes, handing him an envelope containing $10,000.

“All in hundreds, good,” said a greedy Reiss, counting his money, “I’ll be there on Sunday night at three AM, and I’ll have the crypt open and the casket ready to pull.”

“Right, see you then,” said Barnes.

Soon, Sunday night came, with the doctor seated in a late model Cadillac hearse, his wife Alice behind the wheel.

“If this screws up – they’ll lock us up in rubber rooms and throw away the keys,” Alice spat as they headed for I-405 North from Interstate 10 West.

“You worry too much Alice, the cemetery is deserted at 3:00 AM.”   

“It’s as if we’re ghouls,” Alice replied.

“If you’re going to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs.”

“We are not making an omelet, we are stealing a corpse!”

“Hardly, no one owns her, so who is the victim of our theft – the cemetery?” retorted a sardonic Jonathan as they headed down Santa Monica Boulevard toward Glendon Avenue.   

“Have you ever considered that what we are doing is unethical, not to mention illegal?” asked Alice.

“Ethics are irrelevant speculation, they’re nothing but a bunch of shit,” said an amoral Jonathan, Alice sighing at his cynical reply.

Alice drove the Cadillac into the cemetery, arriving at an open-air mausoleum called the Corridor of Memories. George was sitting on a stone bench near the crypt, smoking a cigarette.

“Evening, doc, you’re right on time.”

“Yep, let’s get this show on the road,” said Barnes, opening the rear of the vehicle and pulling out a collapsible aluminum funereal dolly.              

George and the doctor rolled the dolly down the concrete walkway toward a corner where crypt 24 was located. The resourceful security guard had already opened it. An ornate black casket with a layer of dust was therein, containing the rotting remains of none other than Marilyn Monroe.

“Let’s get that thing out of there,” said Barnes, locking the wheels of the dolly directly in front of the crypt, he and George pulling and sliding the casket onto the dolly. A desiccated lily was on the lid of the oblong box; Jonathan grabbed it and tossed it into the crypt without a second thought.

“An easy way to make 10 grand, that’s for sure,” remarked George, replacing the stone crypt cover, marked with “MARILYN MONROE 1926-1962”, afterward reinstalling the cover rosettes and retainers.

“Yep, they’ll never even know she’s took a powder,” replied Barnes, as the fiendish pair made their way to the hearse with the funereal dolly, the dusty black casket securely in place.

Pushing the collapsible dolly and casket into the hearse, Barnes shook Reiss’ hand and opened the passenger side door. “Thanks again,” he said after moving the electric window down.

“Anytime doc, call me again if you need me.”

“Right-o,” Barnes replied before he and Alice, along with the hijacked remains of Marilyn Monroe, drove off.

Coming up the ramp to I-405 South, Alice asked, “Why did you pick Marilyn Monroe and not someone else?”

“She was in a crypt; it was easier, we would have had to dig up Farrah, she’s at Westwood too.”

“Farrah Fawcett?”

“Yeah, I would have loved to use her, or even Lee Remick, but Farrah’s six feet under and Remick was cremated.”

“Why are we doing this anyway?” asked Alice as they headed home.

“Why not – it’s science Alice – what better things have we to do; I thought it would be fun to see if I could clone somebody. We have our paid volunteer to carry the clone, it’s time to put her to use.”

“Jonathan, you are so fixated on the idea that you could clone someone, you didn’t stop to think if you should clone someone. What do you think Marilyn Monroe would think of what you are doing?”

“Marilyn thinks nothing due to being consciously challenged; ethics don’t apply to bodies, and if she was anything like me, she’d think it’s a splendid idea!

“Why - we know it will work, look at Dolly the sheep – been there, done that.”

“That’s different – Dolly the sheep is not Marilyn Monroe.”

“As if there is a difference.”

“Well there is a difference – Monroe is a human, not a sheep.”

“Was a human, both were animals, mammals in particular,” Alice replied, as they exited I-10 East.

“We have not cloned a human before,” said Jonathan.

“That we know of, and it’s not like you are going to get a Nobel Prize for this.”

“You don’t know that, maybe I will.”

“More like a prison term,” she retorted as they pulled the hearse into their spacious compound with their home and private lab.

The next day, with the casket secure in a utility room adjacent to the lab, it was time to open it. Donning greens, face shields and gloves, they walked in, Jonathan switching on the lights and an exhaust fan. “Let’s open her up,” he said, sliding a latch on the side and opening the lid.

The corpse was in remarkable condition, with a veil over the body and another dried out lily clutched in Marilyn Monroe’s rotting hands.

“Well I’ll be damned, she’s in really good shape, what do you think Alice?” asked Jonathan, looking to his wife.

“Yeah, she’s another Medgar Evers, but a ripe melon, nevertheless,” Alice replied dryly, as the room filled with a bizarre, pungent, sweetish stench of formalin and nitrogenous amines, the products of decomposition. Reaching in and touching the face of the long-cold cadaver, she felt very little give, and added, “She’s turned into a glorified soap bar, Jonathan.”

“That’s to be expected; what we’ll need to do is obtain the DNA, do an assay, find usable genetic material, and then dismantle the cadaver,” said Jonathan, looking at the corpse of Monroe as if she was an old Chevrolet to strip for useful parts before sending it to the crusher.

“There’s no way we will get her jaws open, saponification has turned her into a block of adipocerous tissue,” Alice observed.

“I agree,” said Jonathan, pressing a knife into the cadaver’s cheek, and feeling quite a resistance. Pressing harder, Monroe’s head snapped off and rolled to the side of the casket. “Goddamnit!” he exclaimed, “Hold her skull and I’ll pull the lower jaw off.”

A dutiful Alice holding the skull, the jaw snapped away, nylon thread ripping through the lower lip of the corpse and now hanging from the upper gums. Jonathan held the lower jaw in his gloved right hand, crumbly adipocere falling into the casket like stale breadcrumbs.

“Son of a bitch,” a frowning Jonathan observed, looking at the upper and lower jawbones. “Fuckin’ mortician knocked out all of her teeth to get the gold and silver.”

“Typical,” said Alice, “One of the perquisites of the funeral industry.”

“Well, let’s take a break for a bit, then we’ll come back and pull her pelvis for assay,” said Jonathan, both exiting the room and closing the door.

During the break, Barnes and his wife conversed regarding the procurement of DNA from the decaying remains of Marilyn Monroe.

“Since the teeth are gone, what if there isn’t any usable DNA in her pelvis or thighbones?” Alice mused, having an iced tea and a roast beef sandwich.

“Then it’s back to the drawing board I guess, there’s always Sandra Dee over at Forest Lawn,” said Jonathan, taking a sip of black coffee, enjoying an Italian cold cut sub.

“She’s a lot fresher too,” Alice replied.

“Yeah, she bought it in 2005, I think.”

“Is she in a crypt or a grave?”

“She’s in a crypt, if we need her it won’t be a problem,” said Jonathan.

Soon, Marilyn Monroe was dismantled, a determined Dr. Barnes saving the pelvis and thighbones for genetic assay.

The other remains of Monroe were now strewn about the open casket haphazardly. Portions of nylons, a scarf, a desiccated torso with arms, clad in a green blouse, part of a head with bleach blonde hair, and toothless lower jawbone lay in the upper part of the casket. A pile of adipocere tissue cut from the pelvic area and upper legs lay on a discolored and decomposing skirt, sitting on rotting rubber padding beneath the torn and discolored cloth liner. The remnant of one buttock was clearly visible, as was a section of upper pubic mound, complete with brown hair. A pair of disconnected lower legs clad in nylons protruded over the other end of the casket, a pair of discolored high-heeled shoes still on the feet.

Having prepared the pelvis for genetic assay, the deranged physician awaited the results, noting with satisfaction that the DNA extracted was intact, with perfectly preserved bone cell nuclei in suitable condition for “cloning extraction and insertion” as he called it.

“All right Dr. Frankenstein, we’ve got the DNA, how are we going to get rid of the rest of her?” asked Alice, pointing to the utility room containing the remains of Marilyn Monroe and her casket.

“Like this,” said Jonathan, opening a closet door in the utility room. A blue plastic drum and various chemicals were on a shelf next to the drum. “I’ll unload the casket into this drum, add concentrated hydrochloric acid and water to reduce the bones, and then neutralize the mixture with sodium bicarbonate. After that, I’ll use this.”

He pointed to a one-quart bottle of Roebic K-37 septic tank treatment, sitting next to carboys of hydrochloric acid and a box of Arm and Hammer baking soda. “This will reduce Marilyn to a completely liquid form for convenient disposal via the sewer. The clothing and casket liner can go out for the garbage man, as can the casket, once I cut it up, or we can simply burn it in the fireplace.”

“Yeah, that should work, good plan,” Alice replied. “By the way, Jennifer Moore will be here tomorrow morning for her ovulation harvest.”

“Ah yes, our young incubator. Hopefully she responded well to the gonadotropins; I want to get as many ova as possible from her for this, as the first clone implantation may not take.”

Later that evening, the remains of Marilyn Monroe were unloaded from the casket and dumped into the blue drum. Using a hose, Dr. Barnes proceeded to fill it with around thirty gallons of water, to which he added two gallons of concentrated hydrochloric acid. Looking into the drum and seeing the floating remains being attacked by the acid, he said, “Adios, Marilyn.”

Putting the rotting clothing and shoes in a garbage bag, he ripped out the casket liner and bagged it as well, sitting it out in cans for the garbage men to collect the following morning.

“So, she is dissolving?” asked Alice after Jonathan put out the trash.

“Yep, Marilyn is melting away to nothing like the Wicked Witch of the West,” Jonathan answered, “The acid is working better than I expected. I should be able to neutralize it tonight and then add the K-37.”

“Oh goody,” said a smiling Alice, relieved that the remains of Marilyn Monroe would soon be leaving their compound quietly, via the sewer.

While Monroe’s remains assumed liquid form in her blue plastic drum, Barnes’ patient Jennifer Moore arrived the next morning for “super ovulation harvest” as the eccentric physician called the procedure.

A still somewhat sedated Moore afterward rested comfortably in a specially prepared and equipped recovery room, with Alice attending to her needs. “Jonathan wants you to remain in recovery until tomorrow to assure there are no complications from the harvest,” she said to their patient, who nodded.

Late into the afternoon, Barnes and wife were in the lab, creating nine cloned ova.

Before they reach blastula stage, I can divide these cells to create even more clones,” a smiling Jonathan observed with satisfaction.

“Why bother - what do you plan to do with them, create an army of Marilyn Monroes?” asked Alice.

“It would be interesting to do, wouldn’t it?”

“No Jonathan, it would not be interesting. It would be idiotic, or even insane – I think the world had enough with one of her.”

“It’s just an idea Alice. I’m heading to the utility room to saw up her casket,” he replied. “I’m also going to pump the drum dry and rinse it.”

“What do you intend to do with the pieces of the casket?” asked Alice, no longer concerned about the dissolved cadaver.

“I was going to throw it out, but I think we can just burn it all up in the fireplace to save time and bother,” said an unconcerned Jonathan, adding, “Call over to the Tasty Wok and have them send over some orange chicken, shrimp fried rice, shrimp chow mein and some egg rolls; please ask Jennifer what she wants.”

“Right,” said Alice, the doctor walking off to the utility room to perform his latest task.

A Black and Decker electric chain saw quickly reduced Monroe’s ornate black casket to more manageable form, Jonathan filling a large, wheeled trash can with small chunks of oak. “This will burn very well,” he observed with a smile, closing the lid and wheeling it over to a corner of the room. Quickly sweeping up sawdust from the casket, he dumped it into the blue drum containing the liquefied Marilyn, both to be pumped into the sewer for disposal. He walked over to the counter and plugged in a portable Milwaukee sludge pump, placing the intake hose in the drum, and the outlet hose in the utility sink. Throwing the switch, the drum was quickly relieved of its contents, rinsed, and then placed next to the trash can full of wood.

Conversing with Jennifer the following day in the lab, the doctor inquired if she was prepared for clonal implantation.

“Sure, as long as I’m getting paid like this, I’ll have as many clones as I can,” she replied, having been paid $100,000 dollars for her services as an incubator.

“Excellent,” said Jonathan, taking her blood pressure.

“It’s a helluva lot better than whoring myself out on Sepulveda Boulevard in the evenings; I’ve got student loans to repay and want to save up some money for a down payment on a house,” added a pragmatic Jennifer.

“Good, I will inform you when an embryo will be available for implantation, within the next four days,” said Barnes. One would be implanted, the others frozen for possible use if the first implantation failed, or with other “incubators”, if they were needed.

Free room and board in the compound would also be provided for Moore once the pregnancy was certified, so the doctor could monitor all aspects of his audacious venture.

On a warm summer day nearly eight months later, in front of horrified fans, the cover of Marilyn Monroe’s crypt fell to the walkway and broke into three pieces, exposing her empty tomb.

The following week, The National Enquirer bluntly asked:

“DID MARILYN MONROE REALLY DIE, OR WAS IT ALL AN ELABORATE HOAX?”

A photo of Monroe and Joe DiMaggio was beneath the headline.