“If you want me to teach you,” Joseph said at last, “I’m gonna have to cut out your feed.”
I touched the warm nub on my neck and bit back a smile.
Mark of the Devil.
Already, I could feel it. The sting of alcohol. Metal on skin, the knife’s edge like nightbreeze. Blood. One drop, and then a trickle. The cut, the last hum of the feed running my numbers.
And then a release, when it tells the world that I’m a dead man.
BIBI FROM JUPITER
Tessa Mellas
When I marked on my roommate survey sheet that I’d be interested in living with an international student, I was thinking she’d take me to Switzerland for Christmas break or to Puerto Rico for a month in the summer. I wasn’t thinking about a romp around the red eye of Jupiter, which is exactly what I’d have gotten had I followed my roommate home. Apparently, American school systems have gotten popular all over. Universities shepherd the foreigners in. Anything to be able to write on the brochures, “Our student body hails from thirty-three countries and the far reaches of the solar system.”
You’d think there’d have been an uproar over the matter. I mean, here we have student-funding going down the toilet and everyone staging protests to show they’re pissed. And she gets a full ride, all the amenities paid for. She comes in like a Cuban refugee, minus the boat, sweeps up all the scholarships. And why shouldn’t she? She probably qualifies as fifteen different types of minority. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything against her. We were friends. I just didn’t expect her to be so popular. I figured I’d have to protect her from riots and reporters. But as it turns out, she was really well liked.
The first time I met her I nearly peed my pants. It’s the end of August and I’ve got all my stuff shoved in the family van, a bit too unorganized for my father’s taste, but we only live an hour away. I’m hoping to get there first to pick the best side of the room, the one with the most sunlight and the least damaged furniture. I get up early—just to beat her there. But I don’t.
She’s sitting at her desk already, reading the student handbook. I double-check the room number. 317. I’ve got the right place. This is my roommate.
At first, I think she’s an inmate. She’s wearing this light-blue jumpsuit. And she’s got pale-green skin that looks sickly. Gangrene, I think, not quite knowing what that is. It just sounds like a disease that would turn you green. She’s not an all-out green. Tinted rather, like she got a sunless tanner that didn’t work out. Her ears are inset like a whale’s, and she doesn’t have eyelids. She’s this tiny creature, not even five feet tall, completely flat, no breasts. It doesn’t even look like she has nipples.
My parents are right behind me. My mother’s carrying my lava lamp like some offering. My father’s got my futon extended over his head, trying to be all macho in case my roommate’s a babe. They drop my stuff on the side of the room with a broken closet door and turn to this green, earless girl. They’re all excited, want to make friends with the new roommate. So they start asking questions: “How was your drive? Do you like the campus? Have your parents left?”
Not even acknowledging the obvious. That she’s green. Maybe they didn’t notice. Like I said, it was a pale green, a tint really, but it was pretty obvious to me, and she had weird eyes too, beady black pinhead eyes like a hamster’s.
So finally I ask, “Where are you from?”
And she says, “Jupiter.”
“Jupiter, New York?” my parents ask.
Not that they know there is a Jupiter, New York. It just makes more sense than the other possibility.
“No,” she says. “Jupiter, Jupiter. The planet.”
“Oh,” they say. “I didn’t realize we’d found life on other planets yet. How interesting.”
She says, “You didn’t. We found you,” and goes back to her reading.
That shuts my parents up fast. They have no response. They do an about-face and head back to the car.
“Jupiter,” my father’s saying. “You believe that, Cath?”
My mother’s shaking her head, saying “Jupiter” over and over. First, like it’s a word she’s never heard, a word she’s trying to get used to. Then like a question. “Jupiter?” Not quite sure whether or not to believe it. She says it several more times, looks at my father, then me.
“I was worried about Angela living with city kids,” she says. “This is a bit different.” She unlocks the car, grabs a handful of pillows, and adds, “Is Jupiter the one with the rings?”
“I thought Jupiter was made of gas,” my father says. “How can she live on a gaseous planet?”
“Let’s just drop it,” I say. “She could be from the moon, for all I care.”
As it turned out, she was from the moon. Well, one of them. Apparently Jupiter’s got a few dozen. The one she’s from is called Europa—by Americans at least. But she tells everyone she’s from Jupiter, says it’s easier to explain. Her name is Bibi. No last name. Just Bibi. I looked it up. It means “lady” in Arabic. Ironic, as her kind doesn’t have genders, just one type, like flowers, self-germinating and everything. But she looks more like a girl than a guy, so that’s how we treat her while she’s here, even though her body parts serve both functions.
She tells me most of this the first night in the dorm. I’m unpacking my toiletries and makeup, and she’s still reading. I say, “Your parents were cool with you coming to America? Mine wouldn’t even let me go out of state.”
“I don’t have parents,” Bibi says.
“Oh Christ!” I say. “I’m sorry. That sucks.” What can you say in a situation like that? I’d never met an orphan.
“It’s fine,” she says. “Nobody has parents. I grew up like this, sort of in a dorm.”
“How can nobody on Jupiter have parents?” I ask. I know I’m being nosy, but you’ve got to admit it’s a bit strange.
“It’s complicated,” she says. “I don’t feel like getting into it.”
I’m about to insist when there’s a knock at the door. Bibi jumps to get it and these men wheel in a full-size fridge. It’s brand-new, a Frigidaire, one of those side-by-side freezer-and-fridge jobs complete with icemaker. They prop it against the window, plug it in, and leave.
“What the hell is that?” I ask, knowing damn well it’s a fridge, not quite sure what it’s doing in our room. My parents bought us one of those mini units, just enough space for a Brita filter, pudding snacks, and string cheese. The university had exact specifications on which ones were allowed. This Frigidaire wasn’t on the list. Bibi explains how she got special permission to have it in the room, says she has a medical condition.
“What kind of condition?” I ask. “Are you contagious?”
“It’s not a viral condition,” she says. “I need a daily supply of ice.”
“Ice,” I say. “For what?”
“Don’t they teach you this stuff in school?” she asks. “The basics of the solar system?”
“Of course,” I say. “Third grade. We memorized the planets. There was a song.”
Apparently she doesn’t believe me. She goes to my dresser and starts grabbing stuff. She throws my nightie in a lump in the middle of the floor and says, “That’s the sun.” She places a red thong beside it and calls that Mercury. Venus is a pair of toe socks. Earth a blue bra. Mars a pair of leggings. And Jupiter and all its moons are my best sparkly panties. She lines them up, stands to the side, says, “See?”
“Yeah, I get your point,” I say, though I don’t really. I’m too pissed that my underwear are on the floor. Matching bras and panties aren’t cheap. “I appreciate the astronomy lesson,” I say, but she cuts me off.
She points at my bra. “You’re here,” she says. “We’re there. See how far we are from the sun? It’s cold. We don’t have sweat glands. Your planet is hot, so I need ice. Capisce?”
Capisce? Who the hell does she think she is? A Jupitarian girl trying to intimidate me with Italian. Barging in with her refrigerator. Ta
king the best side of the room and making my thong a planet. I snatch her solar system off the floor and stuff it back in my drawer, say, “I don’t know much about Jupiter, but here, shit like that just isn’t cool.”
There’s another knock at the door. I’m about to say, “That better not be a fucking stove,” when these guys from down the hall walk in. They want Bibi to join them for a game of pool.
“I’m Angela,” I say, extending my hand.
“You can come too if you want,” they say. But it’s clear they’re just interested in Bibi.
I shrug. “I got stuff to do. Maybe next time.”
And Bibi takes off. No apology. No, ”I’m not going without my roommate.” No nothing. She just leaves me there with her big fucking fridge while she goes to shoot pool with these boys she’s never even seen. I’m not sure what they see in her. She isn’t at all pretty. I mean, I don’t think so. We have rigid aesthetics here, right? How can you count a green earless girl without eyelids as pretty?
I watch them head down the stairs. The dorm is quiet, empty. I thought people were supposed to congregate on their floor the first night, praise each other’s bedspreads and posters and shit. The door across the hall opens and a guy wearing pink pants and a polo shirt steps out.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” he replies.
He’s wearing his collar propped up like he’s Snow White. His hair is gelled back and all goopy. I want to tell him that went out of style with the Fonz, but instead say, “I’m Angela,” even though it’s written on the construction paper sign on my door.
“Call me Skippy,” he says, even though his sign says John Ward III.
“Where’d the nickname come from?” I ask.
“I made it up. People say you can reinvent yourself in college.”
“Huh,” I say. “Good choice.”
“So that green girl’s your roommate?” he asks.
“Yeah. Afraid so.”
“Do you know when she’s getting back?” he asks. “I heard she’s from Jupiter. You think you could introduce me? Lloyd in Space is my favorite cartoon.”
The first week wasn’t at all what I expected from freshman year. Bibi followed me all over the place, dragging her leaky ice packs along. Didn’t quite understand we had different schedules. She’s taking all these science and math courses. And I have this good mix. Swahili. Ballet. Psychology. Statistics. My adviser made me take that last one, said I needed a math credit. But besides statistics, I’m thinking classes will be fun.
Then in psych lab, I turn around and there she is sitting behind me. She’s even got the books. I figure she must have bought them for both our schedules. How’s a girl from Jupiter to know better?
Everyone wants to be her lab partner. They crowd around her desk and ask stupid questions like, “Are you going to be a psychologist? Will you go back to Jupiter and counsel manic-depressives?”
“No,” she says. “I’m a neurobiology major. Stem cell research. I’m going to learn to grow pancreases and livers on rats, then take them back to Jupiter and implant them in bodies.”
“Right,” I say. “You’re not even supposed to be here. Don’t you have chemistry?”
She doesn’t answer, just prepares her rat for the maze.
Of course, hers finishes first. Mine gets stuck in a corner and goes into shock.
But what does it matter that her rat’s the smartest? The girl doesn’t have any common sense. She forgets her shoes all the time, puts the toothpaste in her mouth instead of on the brush, and doesn’t close the stall door behind her when she goes to the bathroom. No one wants to see how Jupitarians pee. Actually, everyone was interested, but once they saw it, they didn’t want to see it again.
Around the third week I finally get a look at her schedule. It’s in one of those ugly-ass Trapper Keeper things. As it turns out, Bibi is enrolled in my classes. Hers too. She’s taking nine at once. I didn’t think that was allowed. Bet they make exceptions for Jupitarians, figuring anyone from another planet is more intelligent than us. Bibi is pretty smart actually, gets perfect scores on the tests even though she says absolutely nothing in class.
And to top it all off, even the boys are into her. That guy Skippy won’t stop hanging around. He’s a complete dork, a grade-A loser. He stands outside our door like he’s the king’s guard. At night he brings Bibi ice cream and Popsicles. He follows her to dinner and leaves flowers outside our door, nasty weedy ones with ants. Bibi hangs them from the ceiling and the flowers die because there’s absolutely no light in the room. She won’t let me open the blinds, not even a crack, on account of her condition. So now we’ve got all these ants crawling across our ceiling between brown crusty root systems. And Skippy’s become this stalker. I find him in my closet behind my shoe rack and Dustbuster.
“Just playing hide-and-seek,” he says, and winks.
“Hide-and-seek, my ass,” I yell. “She doesn’t even have a vagina!”
I call my mother and tell her about Skippy and the icepacks and the ants. My mother tells me to be patient. She reminds me about Martin Luther King Jr. I tell her she shouldn’t send Bibi presents anymore. She puts something in all my care packages for Bibi. Cookies. Statuettes from the dollar store. Soup-for-the-Soul books. I tell her, “Bibi doesn’t need presents. You should see this girl’s checks. The government gives her plenty of money.”
My mother says presents are different. Bibi doesn’t have parents. She tells me to be mindful of that. I tell my mother no one on Jupiter has parents. She says that doesn’t sound right, and I agree. I mean a whole planet full of orphans. That just seems too sad to be true. She’s probably lying. Going for the sympathy vote. I could press the issue, but I don’t. I think about Martin Luther King Jr., and when Bibi comes back, I give the roommate chitchat thing another try.
“So who do you have the hots for?” I ask.
And she says, “Nobody really.”
I’m not quite sure how it works for Jupitarians, since they can self-germinate. She seems asexual, never mentions boys.
I say, “What about Skippy? He wants you bad.”
“Oh, him,” she says, as though she hadn’t noticed. She gets her shower caddy and heads down the hall. I stare at the door after she’s gone.
Maybe she’s bisexual. Maybe she’s gay. I wonder if she masturbates when I’m out of the room. It seems like genderless people don’t care about anyone but themselves. They might, but Bibi could give two shits about me.
By the time Thanksgiving rolls around, I’m getting pretty sick of my roommate. I mean how many times do you have to tell a person, “Put on your shoes,” before she gets it right? There’s snow on the ground, and she’s prancing in it like some leprechaun. She walks around in her bare feet, leaving these monster frog prints. Did I mention Jupitarians only have three toes? It’s like she needed to show them off. You’d think she at least would have tried to fit in. I think she liked being different. Everyone was always stopping by our room to see what the space alien was up to. I was happy to have a week at home without her.
But there was no place for her to go, and my mother offered our house, insisted, really, said, “Angela, if we were dead, I would hope someone would be nice enough to take you in for the holidays.”
I guess she was right. Bibi couldn’t very well go back to the moon. The least I could do was share my goddamn turkey with the girl. My turkey. My gravy. My family.
Bibi stayed in the guest room, and wouldn’t you know it, she got along great with my mom. Better than me. The two of them bonded like bears.
My mother showed her how to cook cranberry sauce and corn bread from scratch and, of course, how to pull the guts out of a turkey. Bibi was fascinated, watched my mother tear the bird’s insides out of its ass, leaving this hollow pink part in the middle. Bibi couldn’t stop staring at it, until finally I said, “It’s only a turkey. Gobble, gobble.”
Bibi didn’t answer, just looked at me like I’d threatened to cut off her head.
/> And my mother said, “Angela, why don’t you help your father clean the garage?”
Things went on like this for days, my mother acting like Bibi’s her new adopted daughter and treating me like chopped meat.
Then Thanksgiving Day, we sit down for dinner and, of course, my mother makes us hold hands. We do this every year, even though we’re a family that doesn’t go to church. Even though we’re a family that doesn’t pray. My mother insists we still believe in God.
She starts out as usual with, “Thank you, Lord, for the food before us.” Then she goes off on this new part, says, “Thank you for bringing this space child into our lives. May our civilizations be as peaceful as those of the Pilgrims and Indians.”
I want to say, “God, Mom, does everything have to be about Bibi?” Instead, I grab the nicest piece of turkey and dump gravy all over, a little extra in case Bibi helps herself to more than her fair share. But she doesn’t. She takes some potatoes and squash, a little cranberry sauce and corn bread, really small portions. My father tries to pass her the turkey.
“Don’t you like meat?” he asks.
My mother says, “Bill, maybe she’s a vegetarian.”
“No,” Bibi says. “It’s just that the turkey reminds me of my mother.”
I want to ask Bibi what the hell she meant at dinner, but she goes to bed early and shuts the door. The next day my mother takes us to the mall. I’m thinking she feels bad about the turkey thing because she tells us to buy any outfit we want. But Bibi doesn’t want clothes. She goes to the cooking store and buys a turkey baster. And now I’m really confused.
We go to the food court for lunch. We get Sbarro’s, chow mein, and Arby’s. My mom’s sucking a slushie. She gives Bibi a sip, says, “Tell me about your mother.”
Bibi says, “I never had a mother. No one does. She died before I was born.”
It’s been three months and this chick still hasn’t explained the “no parents” situation. So I say, “What’s the deal? No parents. No fathers. How exactly do you make babies?”
Lightspeed: Year One Page 70