“Whoa. Scleral, as in eyeball?” I say. “People tattoo their freaking eyeballs? Seriously?” I should put the magazine down, but it’s too gruesome, too fascinating, to stop looking. I flip through the pages.
Holy fucking freak show.
Holey, wholly, holy fucking freak show.
The pictures in the magazine make my rashy, sutured, piss-toting brethren look like farm-fresh Mormon missionaries. From children’s books. Heavily bleached children’s books. These are the stumpy-est, bumpy-est, inky-est, holey-est people I’ve ever seen.
Flesh zippers. I did not know there was such a thing.
Branding: it’s not just for cattle.
A four-page spread covers a recent performance by a troupe of dancers who perform while hanging from hooks piercing the flesh over their shoulder blades. The pictures look like crime-scene photos, except for the fact that the victims are smiling and posing with pointed toes and gracefully extended arms. It’s all surprisingly bloodless, and one of the performers is quoted as saying that he finds the act of suspension “therapeutic.” His dance partner is his wife; one of the pictures shows them gently skewering one another.
They look like ballerina kebabs.
“This is real?” I ask the Professor. “This is what you study?”
He reaches over and takes the magazine out of my hands. “Not exactly. May I have my briefcase back?”
I wait a beat before I hand it to him.
“I’m studying a variety of populations. The unifying theme, at least as I would argue it, is a desire for control. Over oneself, first. And by extension, a feeling of control over one’s circumstances. Sometimes people cause themselves harm just to prove to themselves, and perhaps to the rest of the world, that they can.”
“Or before someone else can hurt them first,” I say, without thinking.
“Or that,” he says.
I sit back and think about this. Then I grip the table and lean forward again. “Wait, you’re comparing us to those freaks in the magazine? That’s ridiculous. Totally fucking idiotic.”
“Is it really?” He’s pulling on his beard, enjoying my reaction. He has his notebook out and his pen in hand. Sneaky, baiting bastard. “Why does the comparison upset you so much?”
It does upset me. But I’m having a hard time expressing myself. Some of the pills I’ve been taking lately slow down my thoughts and stretch out my words, especially at night, and I had to double up today because I’d forgotten to take them again yesterday. They’re combining forces with the pain pills, plus the one or two or three drinks I may have had this evening, and now the chemicals are all mixing and churning and burrowing like hungry maggots in my thoughts.
I hate it when I get like this. I’m not normally an angry person, I don’t think, but certain combinations just set me off. The wrong people plus the wrong pills, and bam, it’s like someone lit a fuse in me. I take slow breaths and remind myself that bad things happen when I let my temper take over.
“We’re nothing like them. We’re just making a living,” I finally say. “We get paid to do what we do. Those freaks pay other people to mutilate them. If that’s not a good indicator of insanity, I don’t know what is.”
The Professor is scribbling notes so fast he bumps his cup with his elbow. “Damn!” he says as coffee spills across the table for the second time. But his eyes are glittering and he keeps writing, ignoring the growing puddle. “So the difference lies in the exchange of money? Is that what you’re arguing? That the decision to willingly allow another person to inflict pain upon you is a rational one, as long as you’re being compensated?”
“No. And don’t write that, either, because that’s not what I said.” I can tell that he’s trying to provoke me. Unfortunately, it’s working. “We—guinea pigs, professional volunteers, whatever you want to call us—serve a purpose. We’re part of a scientific process. What we do has a point. It isn’t just … self-butchery.”
“Ah. Yes, I see. It’s for science. So what you do is altruistic as well as lucrative. Which makes it all …” He mimics my own pause with a mocking smile. “Which makes it all perfectly sane.”
The smile fades from his face as notices the fork gripped in my fist. Stab him! the maggots cheer me on.
His eyes go wide and he raises his hands in surrender. “Whoa, settle down. I apologize, Audie; I didn’t mean to insult you. I just thought it would be a fun debate. Two intelligent minds turning over a juicy, complex topic. No disrespect intended. I may have taken our chat too far too fast.”
I relax my grip on the fork, but I run my thumb over the tines, checking for sharpness. Just in case.
I may enjoy the look of panic on his face slightly more than is healthy.
“How about this, Audie,” he says. His eyes have lost their glitter, and the taunting edge is gone from his voice. “Instead of me always asking questions, how about we talk about anything you’d like to. Anything at all.”
It actually makes me feel sorry for the guy, the way he says it. I mean, it’s pretty pathetic—here’s this grown man who doesn’t have anything better to do than try to insert himself into other people’s lives.
Whatever. He wants to chat? It’s not like I have anything better to do right now.
It’s not like Dylan has called or texted.
“So let’s talk about books,” I say, only because it’s the first remotely polite thing that comes to mind. Small talk, you know?
The Professor beams at me. “What have you read lately?”
“1984. You know, Big Brother, all that good stuff. George Orwell.” I fidget in my seat. The only reason I agreed to talk was to avoid thinking about Dylan. And yet, here we are. All topics lead to Dylan, it seems.
But the Professor lights up even more. “I actually reread that fairly recently; it’s one of my favorites. The main character, Winston, says a number of things that echo my own work. For example, he says in the beginning of the book that ‘Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.’ It’s a powerful statement about the need to maintain control over one’s own thoughts and beliefs and truths.”
I fidget around in my seat, making sure I look bored. Dylan never even bothered to tell me how he did on the paper I basically wrote for him.
The Professor doesn’t notice; he’s still rambling on. “It articulates a sentiment that I see in the various groups I study— a fundamental desire for autonomy, even if that self-control has to be gained or expressed via extreme behavior.”
He pauses, waiting for me to say something, but I take my time stirring more of the greasy artificial creamer into my cold coffee. In a booth on the other side of the restaurant a quartet of overmuscled teenage boys loudly order french fries all around, and their normal boyish drunkenness, of course, makes me think even more about Dylan.
Which makes me upset again. It’s like I can’t escape him—he’s everywhere. His rejection of me is everywhere.
Which makes the maggoty dark spots in my thoughts start to buzz and fidget.
Which makes me lash out against the Professor again, even though, up until this very moment, I had no strong feelings about either his research theories or his literary analysis, one way or the other.
“What a crock of shit,” I say. At this point I’d say that to anything that came out of his mouth. I’ve been called a contrarian little bitch on more than one occasion. Watch me earn the title.
“The right to say ‘two plus two equals four’ isn’t freedom. It’s just spouting off a fucking formula somebody more convincing drilled into your head.”
The Professor is staring at me with a strange little smile on his face. He isn’t taking notes. Pick up your fucking pen! the maggots chorus. My voice gets louder.
“Screw four,” I say, and the teenage jocks turn to stare at me. “Maybe that’s somebody else’s patheti
c idea of freedom, but what if I want more than that? Maybe I want five. I want more than numbers, more than science. I want the magic beans, you know? And, fuck yes, I want control. So, when everyone else says four is the answer—the “truth”—well, maybe I still want five. I want the power to make five happen. That’s freedom.”
I don’t even know where this is all coming from, or why I even care. But like I said, certain combinations just seem to set me off, and I guess this is one of them. Maybe I should stop taking those birth control pills. At the very least I’m going to report the mood swings.
But even though I’m annoyed with the Professor—and I’d never admit this to him in a million years—it actually feels kind of nice to sit here and talk about a book. About ideas. About something other than my family’s medical history or a list of my allergies and current prescription medications. About something other than Dylan.
It’s kind of nice to remember there’s still a brain lurking around inside of this price-tagged body of mine. I may be a slab of meat, but I’m a slab of meat with a head still attached.
But the shit-eating smile is back on the Professor’s face and he’s put down his pen, like nothing I have to say matters half as much as Charlotte’s bullshit sexcapade stories. He‘s always in a hurry to capture every motherfucking word of those.
She’s probably right about him. He probably is a little pervert. Maybe that’s why he does what he does—it gives him a chance to hang out with other deviants without admitting his own sick and twisted tendencies. I have a friend … I know this guy … I’m studying someone who …
While I’m thinking this, little bits and pieces of 1984 are running through my head. A word from the book flashes like neon in my mind: doublethink. Two contradictory beliefs, simultaneously accepted. Welcome to my life.
Big Brother is watching. Don’t I know it.
The maggots wriggle and squirm in my brain, and I flash-glance at the grinning faces of the jock posse in the booth. They’re elbowing each other, pointing and laughing. I turn my head and see the pinched straight line that is the waitress’s mouth as she walks over, probably to ask me to shut up or leave. Then I turn back and look at the pen sitting abandoned on the Professor’s blank page.
Book club for freaks is over.
“You know what? I don’t have time for this bullshit.” I push away from the table, spin toward the door as more phrases from the book flare up in the corners of my thoughts.
“Shove it up your memory hole,” I yell as I walk out the door, covering my ears so that I can’t hear anyone else’s voice saying anything at all.
OmniOnce
“I feel great. Really, I’m doing so much better.”
I smile as I lie to the doctor. I imagine his skin peeling off his face. I imagine machine guns loaded with hypodermic needles.
rat-a-tat-tat how d’ya like that?
He smiles as he lies back to me. Bullshit is the new black.
“Audie, the terms of your stay here have changed,” he’s saying. “There’s a question of consent, and the legal department is concerned. Without a signature from a legal guardian …” He trails off, waits for me to fill in the blank.
I’m too busy trying to keep the smile floating on my face. It’s not easy, keeping this skin mask on. It takes all of my concentration not to let it slide right off.
He sighs. Tries another approach. “There is one other option. My department is starting a new clinical study. It combines a new medication with a … procedure that I think could really help you. It is experimental, but you’d be under my care, so I would be your medical guardian for the purposes of the study. That would eliminate the consent problem.”
Consent problem. That’s one way to describe it. It’s also one way to describe me.
I could reach him. My thoughts are turbocharged calculations of force and distance and trajectory. I could reach that sharp, sharp pen in his pocket. Stupid, careless man, sitting there so foolishly close to me with his Proud Doctor Pen winking in the light. It’s silver, topped with two tiny snakes coiling around a tiny winged staff. The caduceus—a symbol of poisoners and torturers and thieves.
How do I know that? Where did that word come from? Words like that don’t float around in defective junkie heads like mine.
Then I understand.
They whispered it to me. The snakes. They’re moving, teeny, tiny little metal snakes the width of a string, and I can hear them hissing words at me. I can feel their scales as they circle around my ankles and squeeze.
As I watch, one snake stretches its jaws wide and then devours the other. It slowly, smoothly eats its twin, and then it loops back and begins to feast again, this time beginning with its own tail. The snake’s hunger is greater than its will to live, and it slowly begins to turn against its own flesh.
The snake hisses my name in greeting. The pain of being consumed and the burden of flesh in its mouth make it difficult for it to speak, but I understand. Even covered as it is with blood and gristle, the snake is beautiful in its wholeness. Life and death, hunger and pain, beginning and end. It is perfection.
It is truly everything.
“Audie?” The doctor’s voice breaks my concentration. “Audrea?”
I hate that fucking name, and I wish the snake would eat the man speaking it.
“Do you understand what I’m saying here? I think it’s our best option.”
I stare at his face for too long—I keep forgetting to blink. The snake in his pocket doesn’t blink, either. I nod.
Chapter 21
Pancake Moments™: A Family Affair!
Directed by: Yours truly
Fade in. Soft-focus wide shot of brown-eyed, shaggy-haired father figure (handsome, not too) making a delightful (!) mess in sun-kissed kitchen with small, brown-eyed progeny (three or fewer to avoid negative socioeconomic overtone).
[Props: bowl, spoon, spatula]
Cue montage: 1) Slow-motion spill followed by wide-eyed pantomimes of guilt (child) and forgiveness (father). 2) Touching moment involving dab of flour either brushed off or dabbed onto (better) adorable (!) button nose. 3) Playful mishap involving syrup.
Pan camera to bathrobe-clad mother figure entering kitchen, shaking her head (tousled, but not suggestively so) in mock consternation. Cut to flour-nosed child proudly serving plate of pancakes. Smiles and hugs all around, music swells, that’s a wrap!
**Postproduction note: Rough edits of discordant images/sounds already completed, per client request. Pls confirm deletion throughout of: Mommy’s scrunchy hangover face. Daddy’s sleep-gruff voice calling out for his goddamn cigarettes. The sound of foster brothers rattling lockless bathroom doorknobs. Sponsor sconfirms lack of brand compatibility: these are not Pancake Moments™.
I wake from a night of vivid dreams feeling so much better.
I finally feel like myself again.
My anger has evaporated. It was obviously only a temporary side effect, and I have my head on straight now. I do.
I’m apologizing with pancakes. I found a package of powdered mix in the back of a cupboard, which makes me laugh a little, because it’s just one of those things it would never even occur to me to buy.
Things got a bit weird for a little while, but not too long, right? It will all be fine. Because, pancakes! The Disneyland of breakfast entrees. The Hallmark of griddle fare.
I’ve never made pancakes before, but they’re turning out perfect. Pancakes: the fresh start of breakfasts. I crank up the stereo and dance while I flip.
I think about calling Dylan to invite him over, but then decide against it. I have this very strong feeling that he’ll come without me having to track him down. He always shows up when I need him the most. We joke about it sometimes, about how it’s like we’re on some private mental Wi-Fi network.
I’m sure he has a good explanation for not showing up last night.
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I’m sure there’s no reason to worry.
When the clock hits 11:00, the larvae in my head start to wake up, but I rinse them away with orange juice and make extra noise as I wash dishes and rattle the utensil drawer. At 11:20 I turn the music up to a semiobnoxious volume. At 11:25 I pound on Charlotte’s door, then Jameson’s. No answer at either.
I have enough pancakes for an army, but I’m the only one home.
At 11:31 the key rattles in the front door and Jameson drags himself in, bleary-eyed and stubble-cheeked. His clothes are usually starched and pressed to the point of squareness—he’s the rare kind of guy who might actually look natural in a bow tie—but now he’s wearing a stained hoodie that makes him look like one of his druggie customers. He looks like shit.
“Where the hell have you been?” he asks as he punches off the stereo, not even acknowledging the leaning tower of pancakes resting in front of him on the counter. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
Crap. I picture the last place I remember seeing my cell phone: on the table in the diner last night. “Why? What’s wrong?” I can’t even think of a single time that Jameson has called me—I mean, we live together, so it’s not like I’m hard to track down—so I can’t figure out why he’d care now. I step closer to the pancakes, waiting for him to notice my peace offering.
He rubs his hands over his face, hard, like he’s trying to squeegee away a bad dream. “It’s Charlotte. She—I don’t even know how to describe what happened. She completely lost it last night not long after you took off. I’ve never seen anything like it. We were trying to get her under control, but then she just … collapsed, I guess. I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”
Sad but true: this statement alone triggers no warning bells. Among the guinea-pig crowd, people collapse/black out/pass out/faint/fall fairly often. Side effects and substance abuse both tend to leave you with a wonky equilibrium and bruises on your ass. I make a so what? face at Jameson.
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