Katherine Dunn: Attic

Yes.

“Then we shall proceed….Is your name K Dunn alias K Rossich?”

(Is it true that your parents were never legally married?)

Uh, yes, well…

“You were employed with a transient magazine sales crew at the time of your arrest?”

(Did your stepfather have carnal knowledge of you when you were four?)

I have to go to the bathroom very badly. These thigh-links are pinching my crotch and this book is wet on my legs. It’s funny, whenever I feel something wet on me or hear water running I have to pee so bad….

“Answer the question please.”

I raise my hand with all the fingers folded into my palm and wrapped in the thumb. Just the index finger sticks straight up. He’s not looking at my hand, just at my eyes with his blurred eyes behind the lenses. I don’t have any eye liner on, not even my glasses to hide my eyes.

“Answer the question!”

Is he going to hit me? What was the question? Yes.

“Did you know that the check you tried to cash in the Kresge’s store this afternoon was drawn on a nonexisting account?”

(Are the scars on your arms from monkey bites?)

Hee hee oh ha ha yes

“Did you write that check?”

(Did you become a prostitute to support your habit?)

No.

“Did you trick a young man into writing the check to pay for magazines?”

( Did you become a prostitute to pay a debt?)

If Dogsbody were in shape she’d rub her titties on his arm and roll her eyes and get us to a john pretty quick. If I could slip out of her she’d get a better rest. It’s like being a Siamese twin joined at the crotch and trying to recover from pneumonia while your other half does the Watusi. Getting all those people to buy magazines these past few months probably wore her out.

Oh yes! never let a person think!

“Is it common practice for your magazine crew to trick people into buying from them?”

(What did you prostitute?)

I don’t think they know who I am! I used to be in all the school plays. I got such good grades all the way through high school that none of the teachers dared to put me on detention. I was on the debate squad. I was Song Leader of the Girls League. I would have got a National Merit Scholarship but I got drunk the night before the final exam and slept through it. I was such hot stuff that they used to let me wear Levi’s to school, and when I skipped school the truant officer used to come up to my house and drink beer with me. And my mother loves me. Don’t you see I’m gifted! Sensitive, an intellectual. You can’t treat me like a common criminal. I mean I write poetry and things….This magazine selling is just a joke because I ran away from college. I live in Oregon see, not on Liberty Street like I told you. We’re civilized out there, and people can go off all quiet to private little rooms to pee so nobody knows. And if you hear the toilet flushing you pretend you don’t. God I feel funny. They are so quiet. I’ve got to piss so bad I can taste it. He standing still with his teeth showing and those lenses like oceans between his eyes and mine. Somewhere a muffled slapping sound — the speaker over the door. A flap, a slap, steady and low. I never liked night classes.

“Miss Dunn, we must take your refusal to speak as an affirmative answer. You are accused of possession and uttering of a fraudulent check. Do you understand the charge?”

(Dogsbody is dead.)

I’m off the stool and toddling as fast as the thigh-links allow. There’s something hot running down my legs but by the time it reaches my knees it’s cold. The floor behind me is wet and there’s laughter around me. The students are still in the same position. No one looks at me. No one moves but the laughter rises as I lurch down the aisle. Stumbling, I brush against one of the students. His body offers no resistance. It falls to the floor in the same position it held at the desk. The face looks intently at a book no longer before it and from the chest the laughter echoes. The door. It opens and the old man is standing there with his arm braced on the sill blocking my way. I open my mouth to yell and it closes on his arm. Taste of blue wool, sound of blue wool tearing as I fall. And through the torn sleeve that reaches for me a glimpse of metal rods and pulleys moving in the sleeve.

She doesn’t seem to need any sleep at all. I can’t seem to sleep either, but she’s been marching around stamping on bugs ever since I came back up. I have never been fond of bugs, but I haven’t any such ferocious energy as hers to waste mashing them when they’re more than two feet from me. Marie’s conscientious though, she goes looking for them. She’ll cross the whole room to get one if she sees it. I might be bothered by them if I could see, but as it is the floor’s dirty and I couldn’t tell a bug from a hunk of week-old scrambled egg without tasting it.

Marie, does that toilet flush at all?

“The handle’s in the next room. Somebody over there flushes it once a day, early in the morning. Usually wakes you up just before breakfast.”

Funny I never noticed how her voice cracks. I guess she hasn’t said much.

How long have you been here?

“Going on eleven days.”

Why what did they bust you for?

“I was in the car but they said if I had to they wouldn’t and I began to bawl the neighbors saw it but didn’t mind so I started to run then they brought me here and made me put my clothes on.”

What kind of bugs are those?

“Schwinn bugs.”

What?

“They’s riding red Schwinn bicycles and they’ve got these transistor radios plugged into their ears and if you stand still for them they ride up your legs and scream ‘Mama, Mama, Mama!’ ”

The wind’s gone and the boots are long enough to keep my legs warm. I can put my hands in my armpits. The cold reaction is all in how you breathe. If you let your diaphragm tighten up and take short jerky breaths you’re bound to shiver and your rib cage starts to ache. Breathe slowly, deeply, it’s no warmer but there’s less pain.

In my dream I can hear the slow slap of Blendina’s cards falling on one another. I remember the sound from the speaker in the classroom. The water rushes in and the echoes drowning. The soles of Marie’s sneakers are in my face. The toilet is flushing alone in the corner and the pipes moan in the walls. This is the first time I’ve noticed how much taller I am than she is. Her feet are at the level of my nose but she is clutching my knees to her breast in her sleep. My feet extend inches beyond her head. Her mouth is open showing bruised naked gums. A glutinous stream of spittle runs onto my boots. I’m relieved to see there aren’t any bug carcasses on her soles. No ichor, no carapace potsherds, just dust. My sneeze makes her eyes pop open. She sits up and swings her feet to the floor without noticing me. There’s something about the way she holds her legs together, moving them as a unit, that reminds me of the thigh-links. I stretch a little to try them out before trying anything as strenuous as sitting up. The stretch is painful. My shame of last night has left me with a clammy case of iron diaper rash. With no chance of spreading my legs to dry-air my panty crotch and the adjacent flesh will stay wet and hot for quite a while. I’m rubbed raw and the pain makes pissing urgent. I wish I’d gotten up without waking Marie. Now that whole scene begins again with a fresh-flushed toilet.

The doors rattle and breakfast comes in but I blink and miss the action. By the time my eyes open the doors are closed and there are two paper plates beside me on the bunk. I sit up and hold the soggy plate high over my lap. Close up under my chin where the wetness won’t elicit my urinary response and I can see whether there are bugs in the food. The pancakes and the plate have already soaked up the molasses. The three-pronged plastic fork makes grooves in the sweet wet paper. The pancakes make my stomach tight and heavy. Marie is eating from the other plate and drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup.