Survivor

by Chuck Palahniuk

  The caseworker asks, “It’s been ten years. Why don’t you ever want to open up and share any feelings about your dead family?”

  I’m sorry, I tell her, but I really need to get back to work. I tell her our hour is up.

  Before it’s too late, before we get too close to my plane crash, I need to explain about my name. Tender Branson. It’s not really a name. It’s more of a rank. It’s the same as somebody in another culture naming a child Lieutenant Smith or Bishop Jones. Or Governor Brown. Or Doctor Moore. Sheriff Peterson.

  The only names in Creedish culture were family names. The family name came from the husband. A family name was the way to claim property. The family name was a label.

  My family name is Branson.

  My rank is Tender Branson. It’s the lowest rank.

  The caseworker asked one time if the family name wasn’t a kind of endorsement or a curse when sons and daughters were contracted for work in the outside world.

  Since the suicides, people in the outside world have the same lurid picture of Creedish culture that my brother, Adam, had of them.

  In the outside world, my brother told me, people were as reckless as animals and fornicated with strangers on the street.

  These days, people in the outside world will ask me if certain family names brought higher prices. Did some family names bring lower labor contract prices?

  These people usually go on to ask if some Creedish fathers would impregnate their daughters to increase cash flow. They’ll ask if the Creedish children who weren’t allowed to marry were castrated, meaning was I. They’ll ask if Creedish sons masturbated or went with farm animals or sodomized each other, meaning do I.

  Did I. Was I.

  Strangers will ask me to my face if I’m a virgin.

  I don’t know. I forget. Or the entire issue is none of your business.

  For the record, my brother Adam Branson was my older brother by three minutes and thirty seconds, but by Creedish standards it could’ve been years.

  Since Creedish doctrine didn’t recognize a second-place finisher.

  In every family, the firstborn son was named Adam, and it was Adam Branson who would inherit our land in the church district colony.

  All sons after Adam were named Tender. In the Branson family that makes me one of at least eight Tender Bransons my parents released to be labor missionaries.

  All daughters, the first through the last, were named Biddy.

  Tenders are workers who tend.

  Biddies do your bidding.

  It’s a good guess that both words are slang, nicknames for longer traditional names, but I don’t know what.

  I know that if the church elders chose a Biddy Branson to marry the Adam of another family, her first name, really her rank, changed to Author.

  When she married Adam Maxton, Biddy Branson would become Author Maxton.

  The parents of that Adam Maxton were also called Adam and Author Maxton, until their just-married son and his wife had a child. After that, you addressed both members of the older couple as Elder Maxton.

  Most couples, by the time her firstborn son had his first child, the female Elder Maxton would be dead from having child after child after child.

  Almost all the church elders were men. A man could become a church elder by the time he was thirty-five if he was quick enough.

  It wasn’t complicated.

  It was nothing compared to the outside world and its ranking system of parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, all of them with their own first names.

  In Creedish culture, your name told everybody just where you belonged. Tender or Biddy. Adam or Author. Or Elder. Your name told you just how your life would go.

  People ask if I’m ever mad that I lost the right to own property and raise a family just because my brother was three and a half minutes ahead of me. And I’ve learned to tell them yes. That’s what people in the outside world want to hear. But it’s not true. I’ve never been mad.

  This would be the same as getting angry over the idea that if you had been born with longer fingers you might be a concert violinist.

  It’s the same as wishing that your parents had been taller, thinner, stronger, happy. There are details in the past you have no control over.

  The truth is, Adam was born first. And maybe Adam envied me because I would get to go out and see the outside world. While I was packing to leave, Adam was getting married to a Biddy Gleason he’d hardly met.

  It was the body of church elders who kept elaborate charts of who’d married which biddy from which family so that what people in the outside world call ‘cousins’ never married. Every generation as the Adams started turning seventeen, the church elders met to assign them wives as far from their family history as possible. Every generation, there was a season of marriages. There were almost forty families in the church district colony, and every generation almost every family would have at-home weddings and parties. For a tender or a biddy, a wedding season was something you’d watch only from around the edges.

  If you were a biddy, it was something you might dream of happening to you.

  If you were a tender, you didn’t dream.

  Tonight, the calls come the same as every night. Outside’s a full moon. People are ready to die for their bad grades in school. Their family upsets. Their boyfriend problems. Their dodgy little jobs. This is while I’m trying to butterfly a couple of stolen lamb chops.

  People are calling long-distance with the operator asking if I’ll accept the charges for a collect cry for attention from John Doe.

  Tonight I’m trying out a new way to eat salmon en croute, a sexy new turn of the wrist, a little flourish for the people who I work for to wow the other guests at their next dinner party. A little parlor trick. Here’s the etiquette equivalent of ballroom dancing. I’m working up a showy little routine for getting creamed onions into your mouth. I’ve just about perfected a failsafe technique for mopping up extra saged cream when the phone rings, again.

  A guy’s calling to say he’s failing Algebra II.

  Just as a point of practice, I say, Kill yourself.

  A woman calls and says her kids won’t behave.

  Without missing a beat, I tell her, Kill yourself.

  A man calls to say his car won’t start.

  Kill yourself.

  A woman calls to ask what time the late movie starts.

  Kill yourself.

  She asks, “Isn’t this 555-1327? Is this the Moorehouse CinePlex?”

  I say, Kill yourself. Kill yourself. Kill yourself.

  A girl calls and asks, “Does it hurt very much to die?”

  Well, sweetheart, I tell her, yes, but it hurts a lot more to keep living.

  “I was just wondering,” she says. “Last week, my brother killed himself.”

  This has to be Fertility Hollis. I ask, how old was her brother? I make my voice sound deeper, different enough I hope so she won’t know me.

  “Twenty-four,” she says, not crying or anything. She doesn’t even sound all that sad.

  Her voice makes me think of her mouth makes me think of her breath makes me think of her breasts.

  I Corinthians, Chapter Six, Verse Eighteen:

  “Flee fornication…he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.”

  In my new, deeper voice, I ask her to talk about what she’s feeling.

  “Timing-wise,” she says, “I can’t decide. Spring term is almost over, and I’m really hating my job. My lease on my apartment is almost run out. The tags on my car expire next week. If I’m ever going to do it, this just seems like a good time to kill myself.”

  There are a lot of good reasons to live, I tell her, and hope she won’t ask for a list. I ask, isn’t there someone who shares her grief over her brother? Maybe an old friend of her brother’s who can help support her in this tragedy?

  “Not really.”

  I ask, nobody else goes to her brother’s gr
ave?

  “Nope.”

  I ask, not one person? Nobody else puts flowers on the grave? Not a single old friend? “Nope.”

  It’s clear I made a big impression.

  “No,” she says. “Wait. There is this one pretty weird guy.” Great. I’m weird.

  I ask, how does she mean, weird?

  “You remember those cult people who all killed themselves?” she says. “It was about seven or eight years ago. Their whole town they started, they all went to church and drank poison, and the FBI found them all holding hands on the floor, dead. This guy reminded me of that. It wasn’t so much his dorky clothes, but his hair was cut like he did it himself with his eyes closed.”

  It was ten years ago, and all I want to do is hang up.

  II Chronicles, Chapter Twenty-one, Verse Nineteen:

  “…his bowels fell out…”

  “Hello,” she says. “Anybody still here?”

  Yeah, I say. What else?

  “Nothing else,” she says. “He was just at my brother’s crypt with a big bunch of flowers.”

  You see, I say. That’s just the kind of loving person she needs to run to in this crisis.

  “I don’t think so,” she says.

  Is she married, I ask.

  “No.”

  Is she seeing anybody?

  “No.”

  Then get to know this guy, I tell her. Let your mutual loss bring the two of you together. This could be a big breakthrough in romance for her.

  “I don’t think so,” she says. “First of all, you didn’t see this guy. I mean, I always wondered if my brother might be a homosexual, and this weird guy with all the flowers just confirms all my suspicions. Besides, he wasn’t that attractive.”

  Lamentations, Chapter Two, Verse Eleven:

  “…my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth…”

  I say, Maybe if he got a better haircut. You could help him out. Give him a makeover.

  “I don’t think so,” she says. “This guy is pretty intensively ugly. He has his terrible haircut with these long sideburns that come down almost to his mouth. It’s not like when guys use a little topiary facial hair the way women use makeup, you know, to hide the fact they have a double chin or they don’t have any cheekbones. This guy just doesn’t have any good features to work with. That and he’s queer.”

  I Corinthians, Chapter Eleven, Verse Fourteen:

  “Doth not even nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair it is a shame unto him?”

  I say, she has no proof he’s a sodomite.

  “What kind of proof do you need?”

  I say, ask him. Isn’t she supposed to see him again?

  “Well,” she says, “I told him I’d meet him at the crypt next week, but I don’t know. I didn’t mean it. I pretty much just said that just to get away from him. He was just so needy and pathetic. He followed me all over the mausoleum for an hour.”

  But she still has to meet him, I say. She promised. Think of poor dead Trevor, her brother. What would Trevor think of her ditching his one remaining friend?

  She asks, “How did you know his name?”

  Whose name?

  “My brother, Trevor. You said his name.”

  She must’ve said it first, I say. Just a minute ago she said it. Trevor.

  Twenty-four. Killed himself last week. Homosexual. Maybe. Had a secret lover who desperately needs her shoulder to cry on.

  “You caught all that? You’re a good listener,” she says. “I’m impressed. What do you look like?”

  Ugly, I say. Hideous. Ugly hair. Ugly past. She wouldn’t like the looks of me at all.

  I ask about her brother’s friend, maybe lover, widower, is she going to meet him next week like she promised?

  “I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe. I’ll meet the dork next week if you’ll do something for me right now.”

  Just remember, I tell her. You have the chance to make a big difference in someone’s loneliness. Here’s a perfect chance to bring love and supportive nurturing support to a man who needs your love desperately.

  “Fuck love,” she says, her voice dropping lower to meet mine. “Say something to get me off.”

  I don’t know what she means.

  “You know what I mean,” she says.

  Genesis, Chapter Three, Verse Twelve:

  “…The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.”

  Listen, I say. I’m not alone here. All around me are caring nurturing volunteers giving their time.

  “Do it,” she says. “Lick my tits.”

  I say she’s taking advantage of my naturally caring nurturing nature. I tell her I’ll have to hang up now.

  She says, “Put your mouth all over me.”

  I say, I’m hanging up now.

  “Harder,” she says. “Do it harder. Oh, harder, do me harder,” she laughs and says. “Lick me. Lick me. Lick me. Lick. Me.”

  I say, I’m hanging up now. But I don’t.

  Fertility’s saying, “You know you want me. Tell me what you want me to do. You know you want to. Make me do something terrible.”

  And before I can even take myself out, Fertility Hollis screams a ragged howling porn goddess orgasm scream.

  And I hang up.

  I Timothy, Chapter Five, Verse Fifteen:

  “For some are already turned aside after Satan.”

  How I feel is cheap and used, dirty and humiliated. Dirty and tricked and thrown away.

  Then the phone rings. It’s her. This has to be her so I don’t pick up. All night long the phone rings, and I sit here feeling cheated and don’t dare answer.

  About ten years ago I had my first one-on-one session with my caseworker, who’s a real person with a name and an office but I don’t want to get her in trouble.

  She has her own set of problems. She has a degree in social work. She’s thirty-five years old and can’t keep a boyfriend. Ten years ago she was twenty-five and just out of college and she was swamped with collecting the clients assigned to her as part of the federal government’s brand-new Survivor Retention Program.

  What happened was a policeman came to the front door of the house where I worked back then. Ten years ago, I was twenty-three years old, and this was still my first posting because I still worked really hard. I didn’t know any better. The yards around the house were always wet dark green and clipped so smooth they rolled out soft and perfect as a green mink coat. Nothing inside the house ever looked depreciated. When you’re twenty-three, you think you can keep up this level of performance forever.

  A ways back from the policeman at the front door were two more police and the caseworker standing in the driveway by a police car.

  You can’t understand how good my work felt up to the moment I opened that door.

  My whole life growing up, I’d been working toward this, toward baptism and getting placed in a job cleaning houses in the wicked outside world.

  When the people I worked for had sent the church a donation for my first month’s work, I was beaming. I really believed I was helping create Heaven on Earth.

  No matter how people stared at me, I wore the mandatory church costume everywhere, the hat, the baggy trousers with no pockets. The long-sleeved white shirt. No matter how hot it got, I wore the brown coat if I went out in public, no matter what silly things people said to me.

  “How come you can wear shirts with buttons?” somebody at the hardware store would want to know.

  Because I’m not Amish.

  “Do you have to wear special secret undergarments?”

  I think they were talking about Mormons.

  “Isn’t it against your religion to live outside your colony?”

  That sounds more like the Mennonites.

  “I’ve never met a Hutterite before.”

  You still haven’t.

  It felt good to stand out from the world, just mysterious and pious. You weren’t a lantern under any basket. Yo
u stood out righteous as a sore thumb. You were the one holy man to keep God from crushing all of the Sodom and Gomorrah seething around you in the Valley Plaza Shopping Center.

  You were everyone’s savior, whether they knew it or not. On a sweltering day in your heavy blah-colored wool, you were a martyr burning at the stake.

  It felt even more wonderful to meet someone dressed the same as you. The brown pants or the brown dress, we all wore the same lumpy brown potato shoes. The two of you would come together in a quiet little pocket of conversation. There were so few things we were allowed to say to each other in the outside world. You could only say three or four things so you wanted to start slow and not hurry a word. Shopping was the only reason you were allowed out in public, and this was only if you were trusted with money.

  If you met someone from the church district colony, you could say:

  May you die in complete service in your lifetime.

  You could say:

  Praise and glory to the Lord for this day through which we labor.

  You could say:

  May our efforts bring all those around us to Heaven.

  And you could say:

  May you die with all your work complete.

  That was the limit.

  You’d see someone else looking righteous and hot in their church district costume, and you’d run through this little handful of conversation in your head.

  The two of you would rush together and you weren’t allowed to touch. No hugging.

  No handshaking. You would say one approved bit. She would say one. The two of you would go back and forth until each of you had said two lines. You kept your heads bowed, and you each went back to your task.

  Those were just the smallest parts of the smallest part of all the rules you had to remember. Growing up inside the church district colony, half your studies were about church doctrine and rules. Half were about service. Service included gardening, etiquette, fabric care, cleaning, carpentry, sewing, animals, arithmetic, getting out stains, and tolerance.

  Rules for the outside world included you had to write weekly letters of confession back to the elders in the church district. You had to refrain from eating candy. Drinking and smoking were forbidden. Present a clean and orderly appearance at all times. You could not indulge in broadcast forms of entertainment. You could not participate in sexual relations.