Mammother

by Zachary Schomburg

  “What is that?”

  “It’s a giant bird.”

  “No, not all strange animals are birds.”

  “It’s a mammoth.”

  “What’s a mammoth?”

  “It’s something that doesn’t exist.”

  “Who is on it?”

  “That’s Enid Pine!”

  “The statue of the girl in the patch?”

  There was nothing left of the butcher shop for Enid and her mammoth to visit. Where the butcher shop used to be was now a pet shop called XO Pets. Behind XO Pets was a yard for the pets to play in. The yard is where the sheep pen used to be. And as Enid and her mammoth visited the yard around back, the people of XO City watched Enid water down the yard to make it muddy for her mammoth. They watched the mammoth root in the mud, and they watched Enid pet the muddy hair on her mammoth’s side. The mammoth dug in the mud with its tusks. It stood still. Then it flattened the fence with its tusks.

  What happened after Enid and her mammoth left the yard behind XO Pets would be disputed by many of the people along the parade route. Some people remembered seeing a low dense fog over the entire city, as if Enid and her mammoth were walking on the inside of a cloud. But other people remembered the sun was bright that day. To those people, they remembered the day Enid came down from the woods on her mammoth was a day so clear that they could nearly see all the way to the pinnacle of the pyramid of the dead in Nun’s Hat. They could remember that even the lone apple tree at the pinnacle of the pyramid, which grew from the apple seed left in the stomach of Mitzi Let, could be seen from that distance.

  The Landlord remembered Enid and her mammoth planting a few flowers around the garden of the house where Mano grew up, which was now the XO History Museum. And The Foreman remembered Enid using her mammoth to demolish what remained of the brick walls of the old abandoned Pie Time Factory. The Lawyer remembered Enid squeezing her mammoth through the electric double doors of XO Meats, to frighten the few customers inside. He remembered that after Enid fed her mammoth from the produce department, those customers also joined the gathering crowd, and followed her out to Lady Bods for a photograph.

  Those who had coins to put into the coin slots of Lady Bods so they could look through the windows, remembered only the mammoth’s head and tusks inside the door. Some people say it was Enid who took off her clothes, confessed to the priest, and had her photograph taken by him with the part of her mammoth that could fit inside the booth. Other people who were looking in the windows remembered Enid, with her bloody dress still on, helped Mothers take off his own clothes, and propped him up by the armpits on the mammoth’s two tusks. Those people said she asked the priest if he was afraid, and when he didn’t answer, she took his photograph.

  Mothers remembered none of this however. He remembered talking to Lil’ Jorge, asking Lil’ Jorge if he heard the parade of people outside their booth. He spoke through the wood slats in the floor. “No one can get in without unlocking the door.” He told Lil’ Jorge not to be afraid, that there was nothing to fear. Mothers knew nothing of how he died, except for feeling a sudden push through the center of his chest.

  Cheers of “Death is back!” and “Godspeed, Mothers!” came from the people watching through the circular window. When Father Felipe, who was watching the parade from the steps of The Hole, heard the news of Mothers’ death, he said, “Mercy has come as a mammoth.”

  By many accounts, the parade stopped at The Good House for Children and the Very Sick and Old. The word of the parade had arrived at The Good House ahead of Enid and her mammoth. Ernesto and Leda saw the children line up on Vera’s front porch in anticipation of its arrival. To them, the word was that the mammoth was a kind of beast, with kind eyes, and long smooth beautiful tusks strong enough for the children to play on. Hera helped Luis up on to one of the mammoth’s tusks first, and then once up there, Luis helped pull Lois up on top of the tusk. The people at The Good House all remembered Enid ordered her mammoth to lower itself all the way down on its elbows and knees so that Igor, who was on his back on the lawn giggling uncontrollably with a violent joy, could wrap his knees around the other tusk and hang upside down while the mammoth lifted him. Enid’s mammoth lifted all three children, and swung them slowly back and forth, up and down, in giant circles, like a ride.

  Mary and Mimi, who joined the parade as it was stopped on the front lawn of The Good House, both remembered a very different scene, a terrifying one. They remembered seeing young Igor crying uncontrollably while the mammoth tossed him carelessly and violently in the air. Lois and Luis were doing their best to save Igor, trying to use their bodies to lower the tusks to the ground so his helpless, nearly lifeless, body could slide off of the mammoth’s tusk back to the ground. Enid and her mammoth, however, were relentless in their wicked fun, waving the orphan around to the delight of the other strange residents of The Good House, who were clapping and cheering. The people at The Good House had always been a mystery to Mary and Mimi.

  Vera’s favorite part of the parade was its path from The Good House to The Shoveler’s Graveyard. With the help of Ernest, Vera helped three of the most sick of her very sick onto the back of Enid’s mammoth. All three of the very sick were also very light. Enid was behind them all, on top of the mammoth’s rump, holding them all steady. To Vera, the arrival of Enid and her mammoth was a very rare and special visit, an opportunity to invite death back into the lives of the very sick, who had to be kept in their rooms for the past few years so that the gentle breeze wouldn’t blow their body into twos, or so that a few minutes of sun wouldn’t burn them alive. Irene Mire, who was the oldest of the three very sick and old that Vera had chosen for the mammoth ride, was first to crawl out of the front door of The Good House. She, too, was happy to see Enid’s mammoth. When Irene arrived at the mammoth’s feet, she reached up to rub its long tusks like it was a glass bottle with a genie inside coming to grant her final wish. “I’m ready,” Irene said.

  “I know you are, dear,” said Vera. “I know how ready you are.”

  Vera sent the children out ahead of the parade, along with The Shoveler, to the Shoveler’s Graveyard. The Shoveler, who was now done with his part to make way for the new train, would lead the children in a real opportunity—the digging of actual graves. “This is not practice,” he reminded them over and over again, as they each stepped on their own shovel, piercing the hard dirt of the nearly abandoned graveyard. Some of the children whistled dirges in anticipation. Some of them cried quiet tears of joy and relief.

  Enid led her mammoth with the three very sick and old on its back, the few blocks across town to The Shoveler’s Graveyard. They slid from side to side, not holding on. Earlier, Vera had given them each a portrait that one of the children from The Good House had drawn for them—a portrait of the loved ones they had each left behind. They raised their portraits above their heads, in the air, and waved them like flags. Two of them hadn’t felt real air in a year. They all, more or less, knew it was their final ride into the grave, and even though each of them was in extreme pain, their vertebrae snapping in different places with each of the mammoth’s mammoth steps, they smiled. They were too sick and old even to laugh, but if there was one living cell inside their bodies that was capable of smiling, it was smiling.

  When the parade arrived at The Shoveler’s graveyard, the graves that the children had dug for them were already ready, and nearly everyone in XO City was surrounding them. The names of the very sick and old had already been carved into the stumps by the children. Irene Mire, her portrait in her clutches, was barely able to crawl into her own grave. The other two were carried and lowered.

  Almost everyone in the parade lit either an XO or a Nun’s Hat cigarette while they stood to watch what had quickly become a kind of somber and serious ceremony. Each of the very sick and old had their own chance to say a few words at their own funerals.

  One of them kept it very simple. He said, “Thank you. That was fun.”

  The youngest, but sic
kest of the three, just gurgled, but it was a very sweet gurgle.

  When it came time for Irene to say a few words, she asked that her sister Mira speak for her instead. Mira, upon hearing this request, stepped into the center of the crowd. As Irene lay on her back, finally in her very own grave, Mira, with all the love left in her heart, opened her bible, raised her head to the sky, and said, “God, damn you for taking her so soon.” But other people remembered that Mira, with all the love left in her heart, opened her bible, raised her head to the sky, and said, “God damn, she should have died a long time ago.”

  And with that, one at a time, Enid led her mammoth to three graves. The mammoth, with Enid still on its neck, stood tall above each one. In the name of her mammoth, Enid asked each of the very sick and old for forgiveness. Then right after each of them took a big breath, and granted her their forgiveness with their eyes or with a slight nod of their head, Enid pushed down on the back of her mammoth’s head, so that it lined up one of its tusks over their chests. It pushed down hard with all eight tons of its giant mammoth body, piercing its long tusk straight through their chests, and into the soft soil beneath them.

  “It’s God’s Finger!” said Inez. “It’s so beautiful.”

  Inez was standing next to her husband, The Barber. When he put his arm around her, she felt the arm of her first husband, The Barber, and wept. What she was watching was his death, once invisible, made visible in the shape of Enid and her mammoth. Inez was watching the beginning of her loss on the ends of the mammoth’s tusks. She felt like a young woman beneath his arm for a moment. But then The Barber spoke, and she remembered it was the wrong barber.

  “It’s so foggy,” he said. “We should have brought our raincoats. It might rain.” He lowered his arm from her shoulders, and rubbed his own neck.

  Many of the children, who were especially curious about death, leaned down into the graves to see what had just happened. Some people remembered that out of the holes the newly dead left behind, the children pulled out a birdcage, a snow globe, and a pair of ballerina slippers. They raised them above their heads, and the crowd clapped, as if they were satisfied with a well-executed sleight of hand magic trick. The children passed the things to the people in the crowd, who then passed them around amongst each other.

  The Florist, along with a few other people in the crowd, didn’t remember the children lifting things out of the bodies. He instead remembered the children lowering flowers onto their chests, like a final gift from the living, before filling their graves back up with shovels of fresh dirt.

  Zuzu, who hadn’t spoken to her mother since her last trip to the woods, arrived just in time to see the end of the ceremony. She had been building a little boat out of sticks down by The Cure when she heard news of the parade, where it had been, and where it was going. The crowd that gathered was so large that she could hardly see a thing over the tops of anyone’s shoulders, or through the crooks of their elbows. But she could see enough to know that she was watching Irene Mire’s funeral. This made her very happy. Zuzu pushed her way through the crowd to say goodbye to Irene in her own way, quietly, only saying her farewells to herself. Zuzu could finally see her life, the shape of it, somehow, now that she knew death was at the very end of it. With death at the end of it, she could see her life would be long. Like The Florist, Zuzu didn’t remember any of the things coming out of the bodies, and she didn’t remember any of the things being passed around amongst the crowd. Also, unlike everyone else who was a part of the parade that day, Zuzu had no memory of seeing a mammoth.

  One person who remembered nothing of the parade was Beulah Minx, who heard none of the city’s commotion as Enid Pine rode her mammoth through the streets. Beulah was alone in the apartment that she shared with her husband in one of XO City’s high-rises. Their only window faced east. Beulah watched Enid and her mammoth through her window walking along the path that The Shoveler had cleared for the new train. They walked through the valley toward the mountains in the distance. She watched them for hours, until they were too small to see. When there was nothing left of Enid and her mammoth to watch, Beulah lay down on her back in her bed. She picked up the stuffed black poodle that her first husband, The Postman, had left behind for her, and let it rest on her chest. She closed her eyes to imagine what was next for the pair.

  Enid and her mammoth left XO City that day without knowing where they were going. They were two hunters, but they didn’t know what it was they were hunting. They walked for a couple of days, until they reached the mountains on the other side of the valley. Just as they were too tired to go any further, they came upon a brightly lit clearing in the trees. There they found a pond. Enid climbed down from her perch on the mammoth’s neck, and slowly walked in. Then the mammoth slowly lowered itself into the pond, too, one leg at a time.

  When they were both all the way in, Enid helped her mammoth let go of everything it held. A rusty microwave oven was the first thing to float off of its body and immediately sink. Then a set of golf clubs, a water bottle, a metronome, and a few encyclopedias. Then a flattened birthday cake, and a saw. A bicycle, a bicycle pump, and many other things, some of which were unrecognizable, floated off, too. Some of the things floated, and some of the things began piling up on the bottom of the pond. Enid and her mammoth were laughing as they pulled more things off. A step ladder, a pitchfork, and a thermos. An empty picture frame. A chair. A toolbox. A set of forks. Sinking, and piling up. Or clanging together on the surface. Then an old accordion floated off the mammoth’s back and played a few notes as it knocked into some of the other floating things.

  The very last things that the mammoth let go of were its two tusks. Enid gave each of the tusks a gentle tug. Enid and her mammoth each cradled one of the tusks in their arms for a few moments, and then dropped them into the water. The tusks sank to the bottom of the pond, where they settled together in the cold mud. Once the mammoth let go of the tusks, there was no mammoth left at all. Just two people, treading water in the center of the pond, splashing and laughing between the things that remained.

  In the distance, on the mountain ridge above the pond, through the trees, they saw a red dot. The red dot grew bigger as it approached. When it got close enough to the edge of the pond, they could see that the red dot was a hunter. Black birds were flying in tiny circles around his red plaid hunter’s cap.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Mammother was written during the spring of 2015 in France. Thank you Jacques Rebotier for the use of your mill house outside of Fécamp in Normandy. Thank you everyone at the Château de Monthelon outside of Montréal in Burgundy where I was on an artist’s residency. Thank you Allison Cardon. The initial idea for Mammother began with the word “Mammother,” which was invented collaboratively from a one-letter-at-a-time poem we wrote together while waiting for a Red Fang show at the Wonder Ballroom in Portland in 2011. Thank you Gregor Holtz. Before writing Mammother as a novel, we collaborated on making it into a graphic novel. While ultimately we failed to finish the book, many of the ideas for the novel were born from our collaboration. Thank you to all of Mammother’s very first readers for your encouragement and for helping me make it more readable. Thank you Alexis Smith. Thank you Edie Rylander. Thank you Emily Chenoweth. Thank you Jesse Lichtenstein. Thank you Joseph Mains. Thank you Joshua Marie Wilkinson. Thank you Mathias Svalina. Thank you to my mother, Nancy Schomburg. Thank you Patrick DeWitt. Thank you Sara Guest. Thank you Kyle Morton. Thank you Tony Tost. Thank you Wong May. Thank you Zachary Hardy. Also, thank you Craig Florence. Your bookshop, Mother Foucault’s, is where the first paragraph of Mammother was written on one of your typewriters. Thank you Zach Dodson for making this book look beautiful. Thank you Tim Wojcik for representing me and this novel. Thank you Tim Kinsella for your editorial eye, your energy, and for taking the time to get to know Mammother as well as I do. Thank you to Featherproof for taking this novel seriously.

  And most significantly, thank you Brandi Katherine Herrera, my partner. Because you
believed when I didn’t. Because you let me read it to you every night at Château de Monthelon as I wrote it. You are its co-writer, and you are the reason this thing isn’t ashes in a Norman fireplace. This book owes its life to you.

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