I wasn't sure what to call odd. The tiny lumps burrowing across my body to the behind-tit area? Stabbing pain at 3 a.m. When they hit a growth spurt? I ignored it all and drank all the mimosas my dad's Gold Card paid for. The change felt gradual enough that I barely noticed when I first started stooping from the new weight up front. Then I had to make a conscious effort to stand up straight and my back hurt more often. Meanwhile, I wrote to social service agencies in Africa, and they all replied that they'd love to have me work if I could pay my own fare.
The Gold Card died the day after I moved into my new digs in the city, a studio furnished in ex-student style with a single futon and two beanbags. By then I had a ship's prow on my chest, and stabbing pains that I guessed were the Kawabatas grappling onto my ribcage—a war wound, shrapnel that grew hooks. I wasn't surprised that the card came up declined when I tried to buy drapes. Time to test out my new rack's ability to nurse success.
Temp job: fed manager's ferret and answered dedicated phone line to a coal mine in Pennsylvania where people always got trapped or went on strike. Three weeks. Retail job: poster store, selling pop portraits and art prints to students, under a manager who whined in baby talk to get my help: “I can't find my widdle register key. Make the pooter worky-work for me.” Two weeks. Restaurant job: they handed the trays to me over the meat grinder because there was no place else to put them and I always worried I'd lean too far into its blades. Six weeks.
None of my jobs required a particular cup size, though my chest posed a hazard when I reached across the grinder's maw. And plenty of my scarier customers asked for my phone number.
I broke down and worked as a pro domme for a week. One client, a foot fetishist, passed out from fumes when I made him polish my toenails by holding the brush in his teeth. I tied up another guy who lost circulation to his wrists. A third guy I dressed in petticoats and then he shat himself, which freaked me out.
So I ended up short on rent and chilling air in my fridge. I found another temp gig, but the first paycheck was two weeks off. I had five dollars to my name. So much for saving up to go to Africa.
I went back to Dr. Frost and stared at the same Manet nakedchick print that had leered down on my lacerated armpits. “Take them out,” I said. “I want a refund. In cash, if possible."
"I don't think we can do that, Miz Schtrumpf,” he said. His extra jawline bobbed like a loose car trunk. “We don't pay refunds, and anyway it would go to your father, not you."
"Why couldn't he have just given me the cash?” I wailed. “I'm fucking starving. I'll waste away except for these fake fat deposits. I'll be a skeleton with Olestra attachments!"
"Well.... “Dr. Frost's forehead puckered as he considered. “If you find yourself in the position where your Kawabata Firmware ™ is your only asset, then you do have another option.” He handed me a brochure. Its cover said, “YOUR IMPLANTS/OUR INFRASTRUCTURE.” Inside, it told me that well-respected telecommunications and marketing concerns needed special systems to send messages, and my implants were designed to function as wireless nodes on these corporate networks. I could receive a generous sign-up bonus, plus a few hundred a month, in exchange for letting them rent my jugs.
"Weird. I don't understand. It must be way cheaper to build their own wireless network.” I tried to summon the computer science texts I'd skimmed in school. “You just need a wireless Ethernet card and an antenna."
"That's true.” Dr. Frost's double-face nodded. “But other Internet companies often block the messages these companies wish to send. A wireless node that constantly moves and changes its IP address presents some advantages."
"What kind of messages would other ISP's want to.... Oh. Spam.” I felt the way I had in that restaurant when a full tray of food had nearly made me teeter into the mouth of the meat grinder.
"Commercial messages, yes. Think of it as a free speech issue. Crusade to bring unpopular viewpoints to the public."
"My goddess, how many women already have spam coming out of their tits?"
"Thousands. Not just breasts, though. Stomach implants, chins, butts, even penile implants."
"Men's penises are telling other men to add inches to their penises?” Cheap irony, I admit, but I was broke. I'd started to feel like a lab rat that received a shock every time it took a wrong turn in its maze. The contract with Kawabata daunted me with its pages of waivers of liability. I would have gotten a lawyer to look at it if I could have afforded one.
When Dr. Frost activated the wireless nodes inside my bosom, it didn't hurt—or even tingle—as I'd expected. Instead it itched. A little at first, and then a lot.
"It'll go away in a day or so,” Dr. Frost said. “Call me if it doesn't.” It didn't. A week later it felt like fire ants. “A psychosomatic histamine reaction,” Dr. Frost said. He gave me some cream. It never really stopped itching, but it bothered me less—or I learned to tune it out.
A month passed. I forgot my breasts transmitted spam, except when people bitched about spam in general and I felt guilty. Or when I woke up scratching. Meanwhile, I climbed out of financial Tartarus and my temp job turned perm. It wasn't exciting—I compiled statistics on how often people used the restrooms at various Kindly Koffee outlets without buying anything—but it was steady work. I regained the ability to hang with my college friends without sounding like a whiny loser.
Then my bank threw me out. I'd gone in to protest a bounced check from the lean days, but I'd barely gotten in line before the manager came up to me and said, “Sorry miss, you'll have to leave. You're transmitting a signal that's attempting to hijack our SMTP server.” I just stared at his blazer and surly mustache, not understanding. It took me a moment to realize he meant my chest. Then I grabbed as many free lollipops as I could hold in both hands and ran out of there.
The Kindly Koffee near my work told me never to return, because my implants hijacked its wireless network to send spam. “It's your fault for having an insecure mail server,” I tried to tell them, but they only growled in return. Every time I came near an open mail relay, the systems in my bosom reached out. They never stopped looking for places to broadcast their messages.
It happened more and more often. I walked too close to the office building near my subway stop and they sent security out to hassle me. Hotel lobbies and some of my favorite clothing stores were now off limits to me. I learned to chart a safe route from home to work that avoided all the hot spots where my chest might set off alarms.
I met my dad one lunchtime on a park bench. He wore a blue blazer; I wore a denim dress. “There's my girl,” he said. As soon as we sat together, his palmtop computer started bleeping. He glanced at the screen. “'Refinance your toilet....’ ‘Painless head removal....’ It's unbelievable what morons waste my time with.” He turned back to me. “So are you saving the world yet?” I shrugged. More messages kept blasting onto his palmtop screen.
"I guess I'm doing okay,” I said. “Hanging in there."
The bleeps from his palmtop became staccato. He swatted it, rushing to close the message windows as fast as they opened. “Just remember,” he said between grunts of frustration, “Even Albert Schweizernegger had to start small.” I didn't bother to tell him he'd confused the African mercy doctor with the Terminator.
"We all toil in obscurity at first,” Dad added. Swat, grunt. He squinted at the garbage pouring onto his screen. “Why am I getting so many of these shills?"
I shrugged in response.
Finally Dad shut down his handheld computer and the bleeping stopped. “So where does my perfect little butter statue wish to eat lunch?” he asked.
I was too flustered to bristle at the nickname. “I dunno.... Anywhere as long as it's not downtown.” I could already see what was coming.
"What's wrong with downtown, the bustling nerve center of our urban hive? Where commerce meets culture! I support revitalizing our downtown, and I'm surprised to hear you don't."
"It's just that ... I've already eaten everywhere downtown."
"So
order something new!” He marched into the center of my no-walk zone. I followed, trying to hide behind his John Wayne swagger. He spied a steakhouse on the ground floor of an office tower. “The slaughter beckons! Are you coming?"
He ordered the sirloin. I ordered a salad. Before our food came, the maitre d’ walked up to me with a tiny portable scanner. Its tinny little alarm spazzed when he reached my nipple. “Excuse me, miss, I'm afraid you'll have to leave. You're not welcome in this building."
"What's going on? Why are you bothering my daughter?” My dad stood up, but waved for me to stay seated. “I'm a regular customer here, and I demand—"
The host explained about my wireless signals. “Alas, of all the meat products we offer here at Canyon Con Carne, the only one we disallow is spam.” He smirked slightly.
My dad blustered and mentioned lawyers. But in the end, we had to go. We went back to the park bench and ate hot dogs. I explained my situation, putting the blame on him as much as possible for forcing monstrosities on me. “I signed a contract, but they didn't explain what would happen."
My dad just stared for a moment. Then he slapped the park bench. Ketchup flew. His face turned the color of ketchup. “Typical! Idiot! Shirking and crawfishing! It's how your generation—irresponsible—I paid my way—served in the Gulf—all your fault—despoiled and sullied—"
I couldn't help it. I started to sob. I tried to pretend my dad's spasms were just more spam, offers for things I couldn't afford or imagine wanting. Instead I just lost it. He raged, I cried. I shuddered like a flu patient. I didn't even understand why my dad was so pissed, because it took him half an hour to form a sentence.
"I gave you a gift and you sold it!” He jabbed at my cleavage with a trigger finger. “I'm disowning you!"
"You never owned me!"
It went downhill from there. I remember only fragments after that, until I woke up in my bed the next day, still crying. Hating myself for it.
Cue montage: scenes of me weeping at the window, walking down a windy street looking downcast and kicking fast-food bags, standing outside restaurants in the rain, unable to enter. If this were the TV movie of my life, an acoustic guitar chick would wail and images of misery would cross-fade.
This not being a TV movie, my despair went on nearly a month. I worked the temp job, slunk home, and holed up, barely remembering to eat. I almost flunked the will-to-live thing. I posted the equivalent of a term paper to LiveJournal daily.
Finally I pulled out my copy of the contract I'd signed in Dr. Frost's office and read it carefully. I took out books on wireless networks from the library and piled them on my bed. They put me to sleep, but I started reading them again when I woke. Read, sleep. Read, sleep.
The doorbell rang while I slept or read, I'm not sure which. My friends hadn't called in ages, so at first I thought it was one of them. Instead, my mom held Tupperware up to the door's fisheye. I opened it.
"I made lasagna and garlic bread,” she said. “I hear you don't eat out much these days."
"I thought I was disowned."
"Did you hear me say that?"
"Did I have to? You're the bastard's echo."
Mom put the container in my fridge, carefully relocating halfempty soup cans. “Your father averted a heart attack, thanks for asking. Let me tell you something about Morton. He doesn't like to be contradicted. True. But if you repeat what he's just said and change the meaning slightly, he'll think that's what he really said. Never fails. Remember when you were a kid and he wanted you to go to military boot camp? Who fixed it so you joined the Scouts instead?"
"You mean you do that on purpose? I always just thought you were just a little deaf."
My mom shrugged. It made her bony frame rattle.
"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard,” I said. “How can you communicate that way? That's beyond dysfunctional!"
"You didn't learn everything in all those seminars.” My mom pulled something out of her purse. A big envelope. More legal documents? A letter from Dad? Another nail in my coffin?
"Whatever it is, I don't want to see it. You can mail it, or better yet burn it. I've signed too much garbage lately."
"There's only one thing in here you need to sign.” She opened the envelope: plane tickets, traveler's checks. Tickets to Johannesburg? “You can change the destination if you want. Africa's a big place; I took a stab.” I started to cry again.
"Just promise me,” she added. “Stay over there until the contract on your implants winds down. Once this whole junk mail thing blows over, you can come back. A year and a half, right? Oh, and take malaria pills and don't drink river water or bathe naked."
I took the tickets and money and held them in front of me. Africa. Needy people. Ancient cultures. Probably no wireless networks outside the cities. My dream. “I can't,” I said. “I'd be letting guys run my life again solve my problems for me again, and it's about time I became a grown-up and ran my own life and stuff, but thank you; I believe in sisterhood and motherhood and nice-personhood again and this is the nicest thing anyone has ever done.... “I cried some more. My tears spattered the pictures of the blue chick on the Amex checks.
My mom put her hand on my shoulder. “Are you sure, hon? You really don't want to go?” She reached out for the tickets and checks.
"Oh hell no, I'm going to Africa.” I snatched the wad away from her and shoved it in a drawer out of her reach. “No way I'm passing up a chance like that. But before I go, I'm going to figure out my own solution to this fucking mess.” I hugged my mom and kissed her cheek for longer than I'd ever kissed anyone anywhere. I cried on her sweater. “Thanks, mom."
My mom didn't really understand the hair-splitting between her way and mine, but the distinction mattered to me. “I found this clause in my contract.” I showed her the page. “If the Kawabata Firmware™ becomes compromised to the extent that the Beneficial Owners risk exposure.... Blah blah blah.... The contract is voided."
If my dad had been there, he'd have launched into a detailed but wrong explanation of that clause. My mom just gave me a blank look.
"It didn't make sense to me either, until I read up on this stuff. Look at it this way.” I cupped my breasts. “Pretend my left tit here is receiving input from a satellite uplink somewhere. It takes in junk mail and then strips off all the information on who sent it: headers, routing details, and so on. Then my right tit sends the spam to whichever mail relay is handy. But first it adds lies about where the spam came from, to confuse anyone who might retaliate."
My mom frowned at my chest. Then she nodded. “Your breasts really are striking. Do you ever wear a strapless dress? I have an old ballgown that I can't wear any more."
I roared through my nose and smacked my head. “Mom! Just when I thought you and I were actually going to have a conversation, you go back to Ludicrous Land."
"Okay, so your left breast is the input. Right?"
"Right. The point is, they strip the sender information off those spam messages, but the information is probably still on my left breast somewhere. They may erase it, but it's not totally gone. A hacker could use a buffer overrun attack to get into my implants, then dig up the information and use it to go after the people who own my breasts. Nobody will use my tits to send spam again after that, because they'll have a back door."
"Your breasts will have a back door?” My mom shook her head. “Oh, never mind. I don't want to know. So where are you going to find a hacker to do this?"
"I don't think that'll be too hard.” I smiled for the first time in months.
I went across town to the big conference center hunched on the water's edge. A huge banner proclaimed the start of the Fifth Annual Sno-Con, the Northeast's largest gathering of hacktivists, hacktortionists, hackristocrats, and probably a few hackysack players. Men unloaded crates of caffeinated peppermints into the lobby. Men my father's age and girth were introducing themselves as “Elflord” or “Princeling.” And at the bottom of the big stairwell, a giant bal
lroom full of young upstarts pummeling laptops with wireless modems. Competing. Seeking challenges.
I wore Sailor Moon-ish schoolgirl drag, but they still caught my signal before they saw me. I heard mutters of “drive-by spamming, but it's inside the building.... “Someone exclaimed “Kawabata!” as if coveting a toy. I descended the stairs slowly, greeting the murmurs. At the bottom step, I undid all but one of my blouse's buttons. I loosed the last as I entered the ballroom, throwing my blouse to the wall. I almost shouted, “Come and get ‘em, boys!” but I didn't need to. I was letting my body speak for itself.
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No Motor Home by Kenneth Ryan
Our squatter's Cuddy
Cabin in the woods:
misplaced an abandoned alien alloy, deep vee pendulum hull wedged between fir trees like pilings and I swear to you, in your ear, some nights, when bog mist seeps over our bow
and your fingertips taste like salt we're finally, finally gone to sea.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Past Due: Final Notice by Kenneth Ryan
When Kentucky caught fire
they sent us to a mountaintop road too late for anything but boys diving low scattered in dirt, bandit kerchiefs double-knotted, gripping shovels.
Fire crested like a boiling sea pulling under trees, the sky.
Curling over my shoulders.
I knew then. Before we hid our faces from the smoke,
I missed some signal to flee—
a raised fist or fingertips walking a palm—
and was left to be smudged into the black earth alone.
You think your envelopes scare me.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Fortune by Kenneth Ryan
My fingertip traces the cup of your palm, whorls
whimsically the soft belly behind your knuckle, backward, trolling for answers there, our future delta-shaped and elementary as a birthmark—
our past meanders scaphoid to metacarpal—past species scratched into your pad, when we moved like quicksilver under a hot lamp, in tandem, lateral lines binding as love letters and the sea drew back from the beach with a sound like unstrung pearls cascading into your palm
GUD Magazine Issue 0 :: Spring 2007 Page 13