Unger House Radicals

by Chris Kelso

  I wanted you to know that I’m grateful for everything you’ve ever done for me. You put up with me when I was a pain in the backside, which was 90% of the time I guess. You did your best, I mean you really did your best. You forgave me for killing your beautiful wife, stuck up for me when people said things, when they called me evil. You took me to the city to give me a real shot at being happy and being around cultured folks. Arguably the city corrupted my mind in a way that even the Deep South couldn’t have achieved. It isolated me from my family.

  You fed me and kept me clothed. You were a father and a mother and I love you. You gave me an example to live up to, an example I’ve failed to meet the standard of by a long shot. I don’t deserve to touch the soles of your feet. I want you to know this was not your doing. Auntie is right, there’s something bad in me, or there was—I feel like Brandon Swarthy has strangled all the badness out of me. You gave me the benefit of the doubt when I didn’t deserve it. You were amazing, you are amazing. I’m sorry. That’s all I can say. I know it’s not enough. I’ve put you through too much, it’s too late to start backtracking. When word gets out about the Unger House exploits, our relationship will surely be irreconcilable. I wish there was a one last true hope. I wish there was. If I could will it into existence I would do it.

  I love you. I didn’t say that enough either.

  I love you father…

  *

  Her flesh has gone a simmering indigo. Janice came back to life and rejected her own body.

  She fell in love with Heinz immediately. They ate her body together, chewed her flesh until it revealed the structures beneath.

  - It was not Bolshevik art collectors or their literary henchmen who laid the foundation for a new art or even secured the continued existence of art in this country. No, we were the ones who created this state and have since then provided vast sums for the encouragement of art. We have given art great new tasks.

  Janice giggles coquettishly as she feeds from his palms like a starving pigeon.

  Heinz turns to me, smiling as if nothing out of the ordinary has transpired, offers me a piece of hard necrotic tissue. He is still immaculate, save for a periwinkle of blood on his shirt like a badge commemorating all the fallen soldiers of darkness throughout the eons. The vomit rises as far as my chest but I can swallow it back down. He turns around again and his face has changed, as if he’s put on a different mask.

  It’s MY face. I’m sitting face to face with…myself…

  The initial frisson of anxiety has given way to a wretched terror that stiffens my spine. I believe it has been Swarthy’s intention all along to get me out to the country where he could study me, learn to mimic my every move and nuance then usurp my position in society.

  It seems so obvious!

  He opens his mouth and the voice belongs to someone else. His face belongs to me but the voice… someone else.

  - I went on a trip to Western Africa during my time as itinerant for the New York Times and lived for three months with a tribe of indigenous natives in Mali.

  - What?

  - There was a man there who cooked food for us all called Mbenguey, an aloof but likeable big character with one ear—which he claims to have lost to wild dogs. He asked me if I’d ever tasted human flesh. I told him I’d always been curious. This was common practice over here, to eat the recently departed.

  - Brandon. I have no idea what’s happening. I think I’ve been drugged.

  - They’d smoke the flesh to keep it from spoiling and eat entire cadavers in a communal feast whenever the moon became fullest each month. Mbenguey showed me the pile of bodies he had to cut up and prepare in time for the next feast. He was jolly about it all. He dispelled any reservations I might’ve had about backing out. There were at least 30 corpses, women, children and men. I wanted to taste female flesh. I didn’t realise just how much I wanted it. I was following in the footsteps of my NYT hero William Seabrook, I was convinced that this was a journalist’s dream and I was ready and willing to completely throw myself into my new surroundings. So anyway…

  - Wait…

  - … the night of the feast came shortly after. Mbenguey’s people were very similar in practice to the Polynesian cannibals I’d encountered a year ago, similar in that they ate as a form of spiritual expression, a kind of respectful mourning of the dead. They didn’t believe in wastefulness and when the human spirit left the body it was not barbaric to feast on the hollow husk left behind. The body was there to be eaten, a gift inherited from the deceased. I wasn’t as interested in being respectful. My desires had more in common with the vicious tribesmen of Papa New Guinea. Mbenguey asked which body part I’d like and tried to push a plate of fly infested intestines on me. I said that I’d much prefer the heart, thigh, and upper arm after hearing about practices in 19th-century Fiji which resulted in tribesmen experiencing unnaturally long lasting lives afterwards. A slab of richly pigmented meat with a rim of pale yellow fat came my way. Mbenguey said the flesh was white and belonged to a European missionary who died of a snake bite. I’d say pork or veal might be accurate approximations to the flavour of human meat.

  Apparently seeing your doppelganger is an omen of imminent death and bad luck. I know I’m going to die soon, I just know it. I’ve become so obsessed over the past few weeks that I can’t tell where Swarthy ends and I begin. Now he’s manipulated his face to look exactly like mine…I don’t know how…?

  - As it happens Mbenguey was not a popular man amongst the rest of his tribe. While he was the only person equipped with the knowhow to prepare food for us, he had been behaving in ways which, even to the savage African cannibals of his own tribe, were deemed highly insidious.

  - Oh really? – Janice broke in.

  - Oh yes. There were rumours circulating that Mbenguey had been killing local children and eating them himself. I do seem to remember one time seeing him cut the throat of a little slave-girl belonging to him, and was in the act of cooking her when my translator and escort saw him.

  Eventually he turns to me again and stops his story.

  - What’s wrong? You look live you’ve seen a ghost or something?

  The words are stuck in my mouth. I can’t unclutter them. This is the most shocked, the most appalled, the most alive I have ever felt. Perhaps Heinz is my own psychopomp come to escort me into hell?

  - Vincent? – he offers me another pronged piece of flesh - You should eat this. It’ll stop your heart from shrinking. Old Mbenguey wasn’t without his wisdoms.

  I look over at Janice, who is ogling me with jealous revenge in her eyes. I bend forward with my mouth half open. Heinz pops the morsel in and I pull back. The meat is hot on my tongue, seeping juices pour down my throat. I clear my thoughts, take in the spirit of unreality currently permeating the walls of Unger House and bite down. Janice looks away in disgust, like she’s watching a video of someone she used to love get raped by someone she presently hates. Heinz is pleased by my new co-operation. He bends in to kiss me. I hesitate a moment before bending in to meet myself for an erotic exchange of saliva. Chunks of meat cross tongues. Heinz hooks his tongue into my mouth and scoops out some small fragments of flesh lodged between my gums. He even tastes like me, although I suppose we both taste of Janice’s flesh.

  - Good, huh?

  I’m still chewing, still not thinking too hard about what I’m doing or what I’m eating. Trying to lose all grip on what is real, allowing myself to be taken away into this surreal, violent nightmare without restraint. It’s my only chance of getting out of here alive…

  I suppose I should start calling Heinz ‘Vincent’ now… right? To me he is neither. To me he is and shall remain Brandon Swarthy. Even though he looks identical to me—I can reach out and feel my own skin and ruffle my own dirty blonde head of hair—he is nothing like me. There is the rise of nausea you’d expect, some bizarre variation of the uncanny valley, but when it passes I’m just left with a feeling of anger. He stole my body. He plans to kill me. He broke my f
ucking heart and tossed me to one side. I hear the West Side Story overture in my head.

  *

  I have discovered, or rather I have decided, that I have a tumour. It’s started to talk to me. There’s a type of hallucination called Heautoscopy, I think I might be having it. I think that’s why I’m seeing Swarthy as my doppelganger. I heard that people with abnormal tissue growths in their brains experience frequent delusions of a subjective double.

  I still think it was Swarthy who helped the proliferation of tumorous tissue in my brain, somehow.

  Swarthy is talking to Janice, ranting about insane things that no one could ever hope to understand. But towards the end of his diatribe I hear him mention my name.

  - I plan on killing God tomorrow – he says - Now that I’m Vince. I have absorbed everything worth preserving in Vincent Bittacker character and appearance. There is no need for two incarnations.

  *

  I am naïve, by my own description, but not lacking in gumption. I am the tumour. I grow. As is my function. Why? I do not care why. I simply am. It's my prerogative. The host is good to me. You are good to me. As if you want me here. Somehow.

  I can delve into the brain. I have your complete submission. A good, sizeable mind organ. Swollen at the occipital and weighty with fluid. A good fat brain, perfect to suck dry.

  I am the tumour inside your brain. You have many questions. I will try and answer as many as I am able. Since we'll be living together until the end. Might as well grant you the truth at least.

  As I've said before, I don't know why I am here. Something in me has a feeling you suspect conspiracy of some kind. Believe me when I say that I was not put here by anyone, not to my knowledge. It's my job to feed and grow until the rest of your body collapses under my oppressive regime. But there is a long time to go till we're at that stage. I’m only the size of an olive right now. Your capacity to think has not been compromised too severely, not yet anyway.

  You already know you're going to die. My awareness of your every cell fills me with great joy. I feel there is no fight left in you. Your life-force is lower than most men, seemingly lower even than those who are seconds from death. I have inherited a weak soul. This is the best way. If you lie back and let me feed and grow at my own pace this will be a much less traumatic experience for you. I am a tumour; if you allow me to grow we can grow and die hand in hand. Think of me as a malignant mushroom budding outwards from your soil.

  We are one, you and I. The heart aches for the love of another. But THIS is real love. Together till the end, bound, fused by tissue and membrane, complete assimilation.

  I have only been here a short while, but I already feel close to you. Silly thing to think really—OF COURSE we're close. But not just in proximity. I have looked into your memory banks, your deepest inlets of thought and imagination. You have had quite a turbulent life. Yet something recent has struck you as particularly significant. I notice that burned into every cranny is a sharp, pristine image of this Brandon Swarthy. He is stuck inside here, tattooed onto your heart. In a sense, I will be living with two people. Swarthy is as much a resident here as you or me.

  I am the tumour. I grow.

  I find myself curious. How has my host lived before I came along? I am almost… jealous. To envisage my life partner enjoying life, doing and thinking things without me—doing fine without me—makes me sad indeed. This is not rational thinking. It is emotive thinking. Knee-jerk.

  I relate to your feelings of sadness and jealousy. These are ghastly afflictions to bear. I am only a tumour after all. You did not ask for me. You did not seek me out. I appeared like a bolt from the blue. I chose you. You played no part in our union. You did not choose me. I believe you would not have chosen me given the opportunity either. Can you see how this might make me feel? Of course you can. All I ever see or hear is BRANDON SWARTHY. BRANDON SWARTHY, BRANDON SWARTHY.

  It is in my nature to be possessive, to dominate and demand control. It is intrinsic to my genetic make-up. Perhaps Swarthy and I share some common traits.

  You give me sustenance. I need you, you do not need me. This also makes me sad. At least we have the ability to relate. At least when I destroy your body from the brain down we can ebb away from the light together knowing we related on some level. The way kindred spirits do.

  I have no conception of the world outside this skull. THIS is my world. YOU are my world. This hollowed dome with the pulsing, multi-faceted food source. It is the perfect isolated existence.

  If I had genitalia I would inflict great sexual wounds on your body in the name of love. I can feel your reproductive organ. It continues to throb with sensation, though I feel that since you became aware of my presence it has ceased to throb with the same intensity. I hope this is not true. This would make me doubly sad. If I had genitals I would penetrate your brain. I would own you in every conceivable way.

  Is it silly to feel like this? It would be hasty to judge me. After all, I was only born a matter of days ago. I have a lot to learn. A lover of death should not bow to love. Lover of death? I sense this is a familiar concept. Ah, yes, Swarthy—who else? He is not a lover of death. I am 10 times more effective than his twisted ego. I was born to kill.

  I am the tumour. You are my lover.

  Perhaps it was... fate? Is that what it's called? Yes? Perhaps it was fate that brought us together in holy matrimony. Perhaps if you stopped focusing on someone who has not reciprocated your love and turned your attention to someone who loves you implicitly, unconditionally, you would feel better? I am not SO bad, am I? Everyone dies. There is an image in here of a girl... Janice? You saw her die only yesterday according to your memory banks. Death is natural. You should embrace it. You should embrace me. It is my function to embrace.

  Aim low, sex-feet-beneath-the-soil-low

  Headlong into the bloody fissure

  A soft, red sprout

  And love and death will entwine their fingers

  And the world will be free of our disease

  We’ll go out as artists, artists with dignity

  What are you afraid of? A cellular death?

  Are you afraid of pain, of necrosis, or annihilated consciousness?

  Did you worry about life before you were born?

  Let’s write fatal poetry together

  *

  Vince looks at his own face in the knife's reflection. He tilts it until it distorts. His thoughts soon shift to that of Brandon. The tumour in his brain sends a shuddering migraine throughout the dimensions of his skull in jealous protest. When he thinks of Swarthy, he feels bereaved. He feels like his lover has died—murdered by a neo-Nazi philistine called Heinz. After killing Swarthy, Heinz went about stealing Vince's identity. He wonders how long it'll be until the mad German tries to take him out of the game once and for all. There is temptation in Vince to let Heinz have his wish.

  Janice's disembodied head is sitting in from of the fire. The imitation of Vincent is lying beside it, legs outstretched, toes flexed towards the flames. He has an erection. Vince notices that even the penis has shrunk to copy his own. No longer does he have the long tumescent instrument of Swarthy, nor even the firm, wide shank of Heinz. It looks very much like Vincent's penis—stubby but fleshy, well hidden beneath a long hood of foreskin and jumble of pubic hair.

  The tumour has sapped his sexual motivation. That said, it's not likely Vince would've been aroused by the image of himself lying naked in front of the hearth. He is a rather unattractive specimen. Seeing the imitation before him only clarifies these insecurities. Death now seems like a warm and welcome release from all this agony and self-doubt. For the first time he can feel a maddening sadness build up inside him. He feels so frustrated and futile.

  A part of him wants nothing more than to walk over to the imitation of himself and tear open his own throat with the knife. Vince takes a step forward, fingers tightening around the grooves of the weapon's handle. He thumbs the blade until a pinprick of blood slides down the metal in dropl
ets and collects on the floor beside his foot. He takes another step forward.

  - Vincent? - he says, checking if the imitation is really drifting into a deep sleep. Janice doesn't move either. Another step forward, then one back. He re-assumes forward motion. The knife is in a vice-tight grip; blood is leaking from the thumb under this forced exertion.

  - Oh... Vincent?

  Still nothing. Another step forward, this time no step back. Always forward motion, there is only forward motion.

  - Stop - says the imitation. Vince stops dead in his tracks; an icy wave courses through his belly. The knife falls to the floor of Unger House.

  - I was... just… I think…. – he struggles to retrieve a satisfactory explanation and gives up.

  - I can see.

  - What're you talking about?

  - I see! - The imitation twists his head round to an unnatural angle, almost completely turned back on the frontal neck muscles. The mirror-image of Vince's face sends a fresh surge of cold fear and nausea through him.

  - What'd you mean 'you see'? - He tries to sound casually off-hand and innocent.

  - I see. I see with my eyes. Killing God will be easy. Kill the director. The director - PAH! I'm the star of the Fourth Reich. Kill the Untermenschen, kill the lousy Jew in power!

  - Are you implying that I’m the Jew in power?

  - Yes! Yes! It's a fucking conspiracy. My brain is always on, but there is no broadcast except the Indian head test pattern of my quiet plotting, ha-ha. Ultra-violence is the one true justice. Kill the lousy fucker behind the veil! Hiding, that's what you're doin’ yano! – Vince’s head is prickled with fear and embarrassment. As Heinz goes on with his diatribe none of the words seem to make any sense. Vince is stuck in a state of semantic satiation. Janice starts laughing and the mist clears. Vince calms himself down. It occurs to him that the imitation is malfunctioning. Perhaps it is Swarthy and he's a replicating organism. Whatever he is, Vince can see the holes in him. His weakness is his own insanity.