  We present observations of the distribution and kinematics of neutral and
ionized gas in NGC 1144, a galaxy that forms part of the Arp 118 system.
Ionized gas is present over a huge spread in velocity (1100 km/s) in the disk
of NGC 1144, but HI emission is detected over only 1/3 of this velocity range,
in an area that corresponds to the NW half of the disk. In the nuclear region
of NGC 1144, a jump in velocity in the ionized gas component of 600 km/s is
observed. Faint, narrow HI absorption lines are also detected against radio
sources in the SE part of the disk of NGC 1144, which includes regions of
massive star formation and a Seyfert nucleus. The peculiar HI distribution,
which is concentrated in the NW disk, seems to be the inverse of the molecular
distribution which is concentrated in the SE disk. Although this may partly be
the result of the destruction of HI clouds in the SE disk, there is
circumstantial evidence that the entire HI emission spectrum of NGC 1144 is
affected by a deep nuclear absorption line covering a range of 600 km/s, and is
likely blueshifted with respect to the nucleus. In this picture, a high
column-density HI stream is associated with the nuclear ionized gas velocity
discontinuity, and the absorption effectively masks any HI emission that would
be present in the SE disk of NGC 1144.
