Katherine Dunn - Geek Love

My stomach tried to crawl into my mouth. If she couldn’t buy them into disfigurement she’d find another way, and in that minute I realized it was lucky she did have money. I’m resigned since then. I like her. She doesn’t usually scare me. But I know what I have to do.

I am driving the golf cart and Miss Lick walks alongside. We are somewhere past the fourth green.

“It’s a tax write-off. My girls go down as handicapped. No trouble establishing fake accident reports. Private nursing. I’m a bona fide charitable organization with rehabilitation as my main goal. It’s the truth too.”

I am glad that Miss Lick has made a big campaign out of her hobby. It gives me more substantial justification.

If Miranda were the only one she’d ever approached I’d do it anyway — but I would have doubted the propriety of dousing anyone’s lights permanently for the sake of Miranda’s ridiculous little tail. I’m the only one who sets any real store by that tail. Anybody else would call it great luck to get paid for having the nuisance removed.

Sometimes when we’ve been drinking I can’t help smiling at Miss Lick while I picture myself drilling her through the eye with her pop’s target pistol. The irony of my killing her righteously for doing what she considers righteous — and she, remember, never killed anyone — is hilarious to me. I must watch my drinking. I like it too much.

I read nothing but murders lately. Six solid weeks of mystery stories on my program. The puzzles intrigue me — and the methods. Surely the simplest way is the best.

I am terrified of trying and failing. The idea of her looking at me, that great hopelessly rumpled mass of flesh seeing me as a betrayer — knowing that I am responsible — that I deliberately led her on and am now hurting her. That image comes to me horribly in my sleep. I can’t bear for her to live on knowing that I would try to do that to her. She’d become a real monster — and my creation. No, it has to be absolutely sure, and quick. Very quick.

Meanwhile the cheap editions of murder pile higher and higher in this temporary room. I must be leaving a mile-wide trail. Hiding my intentions from her will be enough — but it will be obvious to anyone nosing around after the fact. Still, I am not as afraid of being caught as I imagined I would be. I’m only afraid of Miss Lick’s knowing. And I’m afraid of failing.

Knowing Miss Lick has made me think about Arty again. Wanting to do it didn’t make him evil. Getting away with it is what turned him into a monster.

Of course I will have to apply this rule to myself eventually. And I’m glad I’ve discovered whiskey.

I can’t spend much time at Lil’s house for now. I go in every Thursday night to deal with the garbage and to arrange my notes with the other papers in the trunk for Miranda. I tell myself that it matters, and that the relics of my life will miss me. Sometimes I believe it.

The guy was obviously sixty but he looked like he’d never stopped training for some tight and lonesome sport, rock climbing maybe, or breaking his own long-distance record for walking on his hands. He sat on the step of Arty’s van with his sleeves rolled nearly above his elbows and a pair of suspenders holding up his shin-length work pants. His shoes were high button-and-lace combos that must have been forty years old and made from hand-lasted baby rhino. They had an odd grey luster about half a century deep in elbow oil. Nice shoes, and he had them planted firmly under him and his elbows dug into his knees and his forearms angled up to a peak where his hands clasped. The muscles cut so solidly away from each other that my first thought was of old wood and roof beams.

He had the good sense not to get up when I walked over to him. He nodded and took off his cap as though he meant to air his brown scalp rather than honor me. “My name is McGurk … Zephir McGurk, and I’d like to visit with Arturo … your brother, I think.”

I started my standard routine. “Arturo undergoes great strain during his demonstrations and requires rest.…”

McGurk flicked his window-cool eyes at me, quirked one corner of his mouth and reached down beside him for an elaborate leather-bound case with brass clamps. “I think I’ve got something the Aqua Kid would very much like to see. I’m an electrician and an inventor, miss … And I’ve been thinking about your brother for a solid year — ever since the show came through here last March. You let me see him. You won’t regret it. And neither will he.”

The case wasn’t hiding a bomb or a gun. I was sure of that just looking at the guy. I unlocked the door and took him in. McGurk stood beside the table and examined the fingernails of both his hands in a discreet way. I went to Arty’s door and knocked.

Though he insisted on the charade of attempted privacy, Arty liked having people clamoring to see him. He swung up onto his red velvet throne and held his face up for me to wipe his nose.

“Stay in the security room,” he said.

I opened the door for McGurk and introduced him as I slid out. In the security room I checked the gun and took off the safety while I slowly opened the ventilator beneath the one-way glass. McGurk was sitting in the armchair. He was looking coolly at Arty’s lower body. After a few seconds McGurk’s eyes jumped up to Arty’s.

“Have your testicles descended?”

Arty was used to impertinent questions. “Why do you ask?”

“How can you sit upright without hurting yourself?”

“I have well-developed buttocks and I wear a rigid cup.”

McGurk nodded and put the case on his lap. He used a small key to unlock it.

“I’ve been thinking about your life and I’ve designed something that may do you some good.”

“That’s kind of you.”

“Not exactly. I just couldn’t sleep until I came up with a solution.” The case spread open on his knees and revealed an old-fashioned record player with a chrome bar elbowing out from a spot near the center of the turntable. A soft thick tube drooped from the end of the chrome. McGurk looked at the bed and got up. He set the thing on the bed near the wall and stretched the shining bar toward the center of the bed. The tube drooped toward the maroon satin spread.

“The switch cable is pressure operated.” He pulled a rubber ball away from the side and a chrome-wrapped coil followed it, whirring against the case.

“You can hold it in your teeth and have complete control, one click turns it on.” He pressed and a faint hum pulsed into the room. “You insert your penis in the tube here …,” his fingers lifted the flaccid bag until a deep pink mouth showed, “and a second click adjusts the clamps to a firm grip.” The tube jumped and the mouth took on an form.

Arty began to chuckle. “Clever. But are you sure you didn’t design this for yourself?”

McGurk’s head swung around to look at Arty. A crease of irritation flickered between his eyes. “You’re what? eighteen or nineteen years old?” he said. “I kept thinking what things would be like for you.” He thumbed a pressure switch in the rubber ball. The turntable began to spin and the chrome arm pulled and thrust, pushed and retreated smoothly, with the bag at the end inflated and Arty stared at the pumping chrome arm and its full tip. McGurk leaned forward and pushed his thumb deep into the mouth. The bag sucked and jumped around the thumb as he watched it. “You get thirty-three, forty-five, or seventy-eight RPMs on this suction tube.”

Arty licked his lips, sniffed carefully to make sure his nose wasn’t running. “Have you tried it out?” he asked.