Katherine Dunn - Attic

“She was always a good woman” he says. “Forty years we was married and I never once knew she was pissin.”

When I get out of here it won’t matter. I’ll go back and kill her.

And the students — kill them all — walk into the dining hall with a machine gun and spray into their faces — stop them all dead in the laughing with their war stories about Wittgenstein — stop all the noise with one great burst of noise and they all lying bleeding — crawling at the carpet with trays and tables spilled everywhere their young hopeful blood running useless like mine because they are not me but pretend to be — because they do speak English — because if I could talk with anyone it would be them — but least of all them — and then they will come and take me away and there will be no more noise and I will listen to nothing in a place in the hills where you can see for a long way — the apple tree stands gnawed by the tent worms — covered with sweeping nets of silk gauze and they crawling by the millions yellow and black eat the tree and drop to the ground to die crawling to other trees — it is no one worm or no particular series of worms but the millions and millions of no particular worms singing in the trees and boring in the walls and pale on the sidewalk when it rains and fat and white in the meat and gray in the flour and round and red on my legs and arms and belly and eating all eating and I the worm eating and I’m tired tired and will lie down here beneath the worms and the worms and the grass and my own self eat me in my sleep and shit me out to nothing.

The days are all alike. Only Sunday bells ring and people shout in the bull pen all day. It’s really Sunday and can’t be argued. I tell time by Sundays. Not counting, only saying, it’s Sunday again. That’s the only time anything is different with all the fights and squalls and intrigues and romances. They all run together until they seem to be constant though they’re not. I just want to sleep and lie still not thinking. I get hungry regularly and I piss before meals and shit before lights out and shower after breakfast. It’s too much to do. I would cut out everything but sleeping. I have never been so tired and my dreams are pleasant, or at least interesting. Only once in a while it’s bad and I wake up sick and scared and so sorry for me thinking I blew it I really blew it it’s all over the whole thing and I want to sleep and sleep.

Marge comes to me apologetic and serious her large hands brushing what she says away — the urgent asking — if you get out of here for good tomorrow if they let you go will you do me a favor it would only take you a minute to call him and tell him that I’m still here and ask him why he hasn’t written or come to see me all this time and ask him how the baby is and couldn’t he bring her on visiting day she’ll be almost a year old she’ll forget me you could phone from a booth to this number it would only take a minute her lips are thick and dry she licks them and spits out the hair gone wild and yellow at her lips and looks at me clearly with bandages still around her chest and over her shoulder lumpy under the uniform and I say sure I’ll be glad to — and I’ll send you a card from Paris, France, ’cause that’s where I’m going ma’am and I want to thank you for helping me all your cards and letters promised and I leaning hard against the bars with my spine between the bars never intended never thought for a moment I would send them or would care or do your sucking little favor though it is you it sucks I will not let it suck me and though I say yes I will not and only say yes to quiet you sooner and avoid the hassle of refusing and do not care or think of it except sometimes in the dark cell with the sound of Blendina’s cards slapping in the darkness and the faces come without faces and slip pale around me like gulls and I am afraid like the bugs though I kill them they will meet me and maybe somehow though I cannot believe it and only feel it when I am afraid maybe I do owe them all something.

I keep thinking in the cell — lying on the bunk where nothing from the outside touches me — I feel trapped in my own history — memory is such an aggressive thing — I have two lives — this still one in the cell where nothing changes and that other that eats at me — not what happened but what I can remember — there should be some point where it turns off — where you go on from there unaffected by what happened before — not forgetting — only not still living it — I can imagine such a thing — there is Blendina.

I don’t speak any more unless someone asks me something specifically. I say yes or no or I don’t remember if it’s too complicated. I don’t lie any more. I used to tell anyone who would listen that I was innocent and felt offended when they laughed. I told everyone I just sold the guy magazines and he gave me a bad check for them. Now I don’t say anything about it. For a while Joyce told me that her cousin Gary in Independence must have been the guy who did it and he was already up twice for paperhanging and I thought maybe I didn’t do it. Maybe he did it to me. But I remember how young and just married he worked in an auto upholstery shop he said his wife was a waitress their three rooms very clean with landlady furniture and a crease all down his chinos Redbook for your wife I said and Ladies’ Home Journal and maybe True for yourself. “Well, if you really think it won’t get me into any trouble…” No I’ll get the votes, you’ll get the magazines and it won’t cost you anything I was down on my knees beside his chair showing the cards they tell you always get down on your knees and look straight up into their faces so they can’t escape you. My hair was shining that morning all the way down my back and my hands white and long and perfume sprayed on my throat just before I knocked on his door and my eyes Egyptian with gold freckles and I so young and he only a year older and how lovely you’re just married I wish you every my stomach touches his knees as I reach for the order blank he blushes slow Mizoorah talking blushes down from the head instead of up to it. And I so happy I met my quota today out into the street sunny still and the long walk golden with leaves and the car waiting for me will I get my hundred-dollar-a-day pin? They are so proud for me. “Ya done good Kay, but you’ll have to cash that check because it’s made out to you instead of the company you can do it when we stop for lunch.” I ordered a peanut butter and banana sandwich and cocoa don’t like coffee we are all laughing and joking the driver goes to call Horace — Dean has been picked up for burglary how awful tsk tsk “You better go cash that check” I leave my raincoat with the velvet belt and collar the silver buttons my mother gave it to me and only take my handbag along and showed my company card for I.D. and now I’ll go to sleep for ever and ever only I’m too tired.

It so happened that when the dragon first started coughing one little boy and one little girl had been down in her mother’s basement playing doctor. When all the shaking and burning had started the beams had fallen down and the walls had cracked and all the jars fell off the shelves and smashed but the little boy and girl were not hurt. For a long time they couldn’t get out through all the things that had fallen in front of the door so they didn’t get burned up with everyone else. After the dragon had been sleeping for a while they finally crawled out and looked around. They could barely recognize their little town all heaps and ashes and there was no one around anywhere. By this time they were very hungry so they held hands and walked along looking for something to eat. They walked over hills and through valleys until they could see the mountain where the dragon was sleeping. They had never seen him before and since he was the only living thing in sight and the sun was going down they climbed up the mountain and crawled into the dragon’s warm armpit and went to sleep. Now when the sun rose in the morning the dragon woke slowly and gently as was his custom. He lay still watching the sky and scratching himself gently in spots. When he scratched in his armpit he found the little boy and girl and picked them up carefully and set them on his stomach where he could see them. They sat up yawning and stretching and rubbing their eyes and looked at the dragon. The dragon looked around at all the black earth and then at the children. He said Hi! I’m the Goody Dragon. The little boy and girl said We’re hungry! The dragon said Oh just a minute — I can fix that — and he put them down beside him and got up. He turned around once or twice and then squatted down. He held his breath and closed his eyes and pushed down inside himself and then he stood up. There was a whole pile of little brown lumps about as big as your fist — the little boy and girl ran up and grabbed some and put them up to their faces — then the little girl shook hers out of her hand and made a horrible face — That’s not peanut clusters, that’s shit — and the little boy threw his away too and they both rubbed their hands in the dust disgusted. The dragon was very embarrassed and said Oh I’m terribly sorry — I don’t know how that could have happened. I’ll try again. He went a little ways away and thought for a moment and then he squatted down — he took a very deep breath and held it — he closed his eyes as tight as he could — he crossed all his fingers and all his toes and lifted his tail as high as it would go. He stayed that way until his face was quite white and the children were beginning to worry about him — then he staggered to his feet and looked behind him — the children ran to look — the little girl said It’s still shit. Then the little boy and girl crawled all over the dragon looking. There was snot in his nose — there was sweat under his arms — there was wax in his ears — there was mold in his belly button — there were tears in his eyes. It’s no use they said — There’s nothing good to eat. And they all sat down and looked at each other and the little boy and girl listened to their stomachs rumbling. At first big tears rolled out of the dragon’s eyes and then he sat very still thinking. After a long time he looked up and said What if there were never peanut clusters or whipped cream or caramel or any of the other good things? What do you mean? said the children. Well what if they were always what they are now and it was only because people believed that they were good to eat? The children looked at the dragon — then they thought for a minute — then they looked at each other and smiled. I think he’s right they said — I’m sure he’s right — he’s right — and they went straight over to the brown pile and started eating cheerfully. The dragon groaned with relief and the children ate until they thought they would pop and they all lived happily ever after.