Witpunk

by Claude Lalumiere; Marty Halpern

  The kid's lightless motorbike was coughing at the gate as we helped Glass towards our mother ship. Mackay fingered his pocket controller, and the great inflated igloo pulsed in a riot of colored lights. A bubble marquee is perfect for this work despite the faint roar of the compressor: it even has an airlock. I myself found it a deeply moving sight. If only . . .

  He did not resist as we stripped him and settled him on an examination table of a design as unearthly as our resources could arrange. For him this would be a place of stabbing supernatural light, thanks to a few drops of atropine that dilated each eye to the full; and strange small Beings would hover around. The kid, who had changed into his own mask and white leotards before joining us now, was already short enough: but the deceptively high table made midgets of us all, while dry-ice fog confused the issue of how far down our legs might actually go. Truth is all a matter of presentation. Our putty-complexioned masks swelled at the top into mighty domes of intellect, and we peered through huge eyes of empty black glass.

  So we set to work, following the guidelines laid down by a myriad published cases. This is a hugely documented phenomenon. Mackay and I had had plenty of practice with communicants of both sexes, and we worked well together. Biopsies, minute incisions. Needles in Glass's navel, liquid drooling into his ear, surreal alien mechanisms blinking as they diagnosed and recorded nothing at all. Intermittent chemical blackouts helped break up the stream of his memory (partial amnesia is highly characteristic). There was a star map ready to show him, a patternless scattergram on which he could later impose any meaning he cared.

  He gaped. I knew we had him. Why should he be so loud in his filthy skepticism if he were not already close to belief, just waiting for the sign? Recorded messages of peace and millennial warning washed over him, the voices digitally processed into eerie tones appropriate to the farther stars. Never again would he be able to say with sincerity that it was all ridiculous, that in all probability the quote UFO abductees unquote are merely drawing attention to themselves with lurid fantasies.

  The culmination is the terrible Probe, the thing that bulks large in the encounter/abduction story which I believe has sold more copies than any other. It is a huge ugly object, like a phallus designed by H. R. Giger in a bilious mood: thirteen inches long, vaguely triangular in cross-section, gray and scaly, tipped with a jagged cage of wires. (The shaft is actually painted fiberglass.)

  It is a necessary part of the experience that the victim should feel himself anally penetrated by this probe. Of course we relied on suggestion: after showing him the thing, and turning him over to obstruct his vision, I would actually insert a finger. The greased rubber glove was already on my hand.

  But there was a hitch before the Probe came into play. The head-masks do not make it all that easy to see to the left or right. We had blacked Glass out again to allow a quick breather and a cup of tea from the thermos . . . and there was a confused sound. I fumbled impatiently with the mask and at the same time felt a small sharp pain in my thigh, some stinging insect, perhaps.

  When I'd finally pulled the stifling thing off my head I saw that Mackay had fallen over. The fog lapped around him. I thought at first he must have had an accidental whiff of the blackout agent. Everything was blurring and the tent walls shimmered. The kid smiled at me. It is not possible that the mask could smile.

  I told him to take that stupid thing off. I do not know whether I meant the mask or the smile. He invited me to remove it for him, and though I first reached out in blind anger at his playing around, I was suddenly afraid that if I touched it the great head would be built of living flesh. No. I said something loud, perhaps not an actual word. Was Glass's body melting and oozing off the table? No.

  There is a gap here. Partial amnesia is highly characteristic. Things tilted heavily in and out of focus. I remember the feel of another insect and knew this time it was a needle. By then I was pressed into the cold soggy fabric of the tent floor, choking in our artificial fog. Insistent fingers tugged at my tight white alien costume.

  Everything inside my skull was whirling in tight, chaotic patterns, led by a silly persistent worry about whether the syringe had been properly sterilized (I was always very conscientious about this). What did I know about the kid? It was his first outing. I had barely seen him before. They can take what form they like.

  Those eyes.

  He said . . .

  I do not recall all the words. That scopolamine cocktail is meant to be disorienting. The thin voice conveyed that we were playing a dangerous game. More than once he said: "My sister." I thought of sister worlds, sister craft gleaming silver as they made their inertialess turns and danced mockingly off the radar screens. He said: "In an institution." Would that have been the Institute of UFO Studies? At another point he said: "You bastards" and "did all this to her" and "waiting a long time for this . . ." The words of the sky-gods are always enigmatic, and perhaps we are only their bastard offspring.

  It was so hard to think. All this is confused in a red blur of pain, because to impress his seriousness upon me he then made scientific use of the Probe. Nor was there any reliance on suggestion or on a greased and rubber-sheathed finger. "This is for her. You hear me? This is for her." Did I hear that? At the time I could not begin to appreciate it as an exalting, a transcendent experience. I am sure that no chemical agents assisted the loss of consciousness which duly followed, although not soon enough.

  Waking up on chill plastic stretched over mud, racked with cramps and another, deeper ache . . . is not an experience to be recommended. The "kid" was long gone. I never knew his name, if on Earth he ever went under a name. I tried not to be consoled by the discovery that Mackay too had been warned, every bit as emphatically as myself.

  Under a dismal gray moon we limped somehow through the clear-up procedure and left Glass to sleep it off in his wretched Volvo, itself now stripped of our London man's gadgetry. When he uncoiled himself in the small hours, he would be awakening to his new membership in the ranks of abductees, the sufferers from "missing time." Would he proclaim it or would he lie by silence? Who cared? Glass was no longer important.

  The truth is what's important. After a longish period of convalescence and keeping a low profile (even my once-friendly family doctor was terrifyingly unsympathetic about the injury), I now see myself in the position of a worldly priest who has at last received his own sign. But it's a sign like the miraculous appearance of the face of the Virgin Mary in one's toilet bowl. The kind of thing that will do to win peasants: meaning so much to the recipient, but just another tawdry, commonplace sensation to the world at large. For this muddying of the waters I blame the people who have made up garish UFO encounter tales without ever having a genuine experience like the one we gave to Glass. Oh, I do loathe and despise these hoaxers, almost as much as the narrow-minded skeptics themselves.

  Meanwhile, how can I hope to publish this truth and have its very special status believed? How can it help me to my rightful position among the elect when They finally beam down in glory from the stars, with all their wonderful cargo? How?

  Tales from the Breast

  Hiromi Goto

  The questions that were never asked may be the most important. You don't think of this. You never do. When you were little, your mother used to tell you that asking too many questions could get you into trouble. You realize now that not asking enough has landed you in the same boat, in the same river of shit without the same paddle. You phone your mother long distance to tell her this, and she says, "Well, two wrongs don't make a right, dear," and gives you a dessert recipe that is quoted as being Prince Charles's favorite in the September issue of Royalty magazine.

  Your success in breastfeeding depends greatly on your desire to nurse as well as the encouragement you receive from those around you. – Brinkley, Goldberg and Kukar, Your Child's First Journey (copyright © 1988, 2nd Edition, page 173)

  "Is there anything coming out?" He peers curiously, at the baby's head, my covered breast
.

  "I don't know, I can't tell," I wince.

  "What do you mean, you can't tell? It's your body, isn't it? I mean, you must be able to feel something," scratching his head.

  "Nope, only pain."

  "Oh." Blinks twice. "I'm sorry. I'm very proud of you, you know."

  * * *

  The placenta slips out from between your legs like the hugest blood clot of your life. The still-wet baby is strong enough to nurse but cannot stagger to her feet like a fawn or a colt. You will have to carry her in your arms for a long time. You console yourself with the fact that at least you are not an elephant who would be pregnant for close to another year. This is the first and last time she will nurse for the next twelve hours.

  "Nurse, could you please come help me wake her up? She hasn't breastfed for five hours now."

  The nurse has a mole with a hair on it. You can't help but look at it a little too long each time you glance up at her face. The nurse undresses the baby but keeps the toque on. The infant is red and squirmy, and you hope no one who visits says she looks just like you.

  "Baby's just too comfortable," the nurse chirps. "And sometimes they're just extra tired after the delivery. It's hard work for them too you know!"

  "Yeah, I suppose you're right."

  "Of course. Oh, and when you go to the washroom, I wouldn't leave Baby by herself. Especially if the door is open." The nurse briskly rubs the red baby until she starts squirming, eyes still closed in determined sleep.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, we have security, but, really, anyone could just waltz in and leave with Baby," the nurse smiles, like she's joking.

  "Are you serious!"

  "Oh, yes. And you shouldn't leave valuables around either. We've been having problems with theft, and I know you people have nice cameras."

  You have just gone through twelve hours of labor and gone without sleep for twenty-eight. You do not have the energy to tell the nurse of the inappropriateness of her comment. The baby does not wake up.

  Your mother-in-law, from Japan, has come to visit. She is staying for a month to help with the older child. She gazes at the sleeping infant you hold to your chest. You tell your mother-inlaw that the baby won't feed properly and that you are getting a little worried. "Your nipples are too flat and she's not very good at breastfeeding," she says, and angry tears fill your eyes.

  "Are you people from Tibet?" the nurse asks.

  Breastmilk is raw and fresh. – Your Child's First Journey (page 174)

  You are at home. You had asked if you could stay longer in the hospital if you paid, but they just laughed and said no. Your motherin-law makes lunch for herself and the firstborn but does not make any for you because she does not know if you will like it. You eat shredded wheat with NutraSweet and try breastfeeding again.

  The pain is raw and fresh.

  She breastfeeds for three hours straight, and, when you burp her, there is a pinkish froth in the corners of her lips that looks like strawberry milkshake. You realize your breastmilk is bloodflavored and wonder if it is okay for her to drink. Secretly, you hope that it is bad for her so that you will have to quit breastfeeding her. When you call a friend and tell her about the pain and blood and your concerns for her health, you learn, to your dismay, that the blood will not hurt her. That your friend had problems too, that she even had blood blisters on her nipples, but she kept right on breastfeeding through it, the doctor okayed it and ohhhh the blood, the pain, when those blood blisters popped, but she went right on breastfeeding until the child was four years old.

  When you hang up, you are even more depressed. Because the blood is not a problem and your friend suffered even more than you do now. You don't come in first on the nipple tragic story. You don't even come close.

  "This isn't going very well," I try smiling, but give up the effort.

  "Just give it some time. Things'll get better." He snaps off the reading light at the head of the bed. I snap it back on.

  "I don't think so. I don't think things are going to get better at all."

  "Don't be so pessimistic," he smiles, trying not to offend me.

  "Have you read the pamphlet for fathers of breastfed babies?"

  "Uhm, no. Not yet." Shrugs his shoulders and tries reaching for the lamp again. I swing out my hand to catch his wrist in midair.

  "Well read the damn thing, and you might have some idea of what I'm going through."

  "Women have been breastfeeding since there have been women."

  "What!"

  "You know what I mean. It's natural. Women have been breastfeeding ever since their existence, ever since ever having a baby," he lectures, glancing down once at my tortured breasts.

  "That doesn't mean they've all been enjoying it, ever since existing and having done it since their existence! Natural isn't the same as liking it or being good at it," I hiss.

  "Why do you have to be so complicated?"

  "Why don't you just marry someone who isn't, then?"

  "Are you hungry?" My mother-in-law whispers from the other side of the closed bedroom door. "I could fix you something if you're hungry."

  Engorgement – (page 183)

  The baby breastfeeds for hours on end. This is not the way it is supposed to work. You phone the emergency breastfeeding number they gave to you at the hospital. The breastfeeder professionals tell you that Baby is doing what is only natural. That the more she sucks, the more breastmilk you will produce, how it works on a supply and demand system and how everything will be better when the milk comes in. On what kind of truck, you wonder.

  They tell you that, if you are experiencing pain of the nipples, it's because Baby isn't latched on properly. How the latch has to be just right for proper breastfeeding. You don't like the sounds of that. You don't like how latch sounds like something that's suctioned on and might never come off again. You think of lamprey eels and leeches. Notice how everything starts with an "l."

  When the milk comes in, it comes in on a semitrailer. There are even marbles of milk under the surface of skin in your armpits, hard as glass and painful to the touch. Your breasts are as solid as concrete balls, and the pressure of milk is so great that the veins around the nipple are swollen, bulging. Like the stuff of horror movies, they are ridged, expanded to the point of blood-splatter explosion.

  "Feel this, feel how hard my breasts are," I grit my teeth.

  "Oh my god!"

  "It hurts," I whisper.

  "Oh my god." He is horried. Not with me, but at me.

  "Can you suck them a little, so they're not so full? I can't go to sleep."

  "What!" He looks at me like I've asked him to suck from a vial of cobra venom.

  "Could you please suck some out? It doesn't taste bad. I tried some. It's like sugar water or something."

  "Uh, I don't think so. It's so . . . incestuous."

  "We're not blood relations, we're married, for god's sake. How can it be incestuous? Don't be so weird about it. Please! It's very painful."

  "I'm sorry. I just can't." Clicks o the lamp and turns over to sleep.

  Advantages also exist for you, the nursing mother . . . it is easy for you to lose weight without dieting and regain your shape sooner. – (page 176)

  "You look like you're still pregnant," he jokes. "Are you sure there isn't another one still in there?"

  "Just fuck off, okay?"

  Your belly has a loose fold of skin and fat that impedes your vision of your pubic hair. You have a beauty mark on your lower abdomen you haven't seen for five years. You wonder if you would have had a better chance at being slimmer if you had breastfed the first child. There is a dark stain that runs vertically over the skin of your belly, from the pubic mound, over the belly button and almost in line with the bottom of your breasts. Perversely, you imagined it to be the marker for the doctor to slice if the delivery had gone bad. The stain isn't going away and you don't really care because, what with the flab and all, it doesn't much make a difference. You are hungr
y all the time from producing breastmilk and eat three times as much as you normally would; therefore, you don't lose weight at all, you just don't gain on top of the residual fat you have already achieved.

  "You should eat as much as you want," your mother-in-law says. She spoons another eggplant on to your plate and your partner spoons his over as well. The baby starts to wail from the bedroom, and your mother-in-law rushes to pick her up.

  "Don't cry," you hear her say, "Breastmilk is coming right away."

  You want to yell down the hall, that you have a name and that it isn't Breastmilk.

  You eat the eggplants.

  The hormone prolactin, which causes the secretion of milk, helps you to feel "motherly." – (page 176)