Katherine Dunn - Geek Love

Arty had laid down the law on the Bag Man. No one but Arty himself and I were to know that the Bag Man was the shootist from that long-ago parking-lot incident. Chick knew the Bag Man was scary, but Chick was resigned to being scared as well as uninformed. As far as anyone else knew, the Bag Man was just another one of Arty’s followers.

I was not amazed. It seemed unremarkable that if you failed to murder someone you should become that person’s guardian slave. The Bag Man worshiped Arty. Arty did not worship the Bag Man but he made an effort to keep the big lump busy and feeling useful.

I wasn’t jealous of the Bag Man even though he took over some of my chores and magnified them. I had been the usual guard in the security room while Arty entertained. The Bag Man set up his residence there. Where I had fidgeted, cramped, sweating resentfully onto the idiot gun, the Bag Man sat on a flimsy cot staring raptly through the mirror glass hour after hour. As long as Arty was in the room. When Arty went out, the Bag Man trailed after him, looming and snorking like some asthmatic mastiff hypnotized by his master’s scent. He waited behind the tank during Arty’s show. He lumbered after Arty’s electric cart on the way to and from the stage. Where Arty went, there was the Bag Man. When he wasn’t looming he dusted and vacuumed, took out trash, emptied waste tanks, and left the more intimate service to me.

I still served Arty’s food, took care of his clothes, acted as masseuse and towel brigade for the shows. Arty could give orders to the Bag Man but he could talk to me.

One day in late spring Arty had tried interrogating me: “What are the twins up to? Why are they so stuck-up lately?”

Arty lay on the rubbing bench, eyes folded to slits watching my face as I pummeled lotion into his ribs and belly.

“I don’t know. Maybe they figure you’re busy.” I avoided his eyes, concentrating on the rope of muscle above his pelvis.

“I am busy. Are they taking advantage?”

“Don’t ask me. I’m busy, too. Roll over.”

He flopped onto his belly and I poured lotion down the deep ditch of spine between his banks of muscle.

“Their gates have been good this year.”

“Not like yours. You’re breaking three-ring records every week.”

“They’re getting the slops and doing good business. Have they changed their act?”

“Iphy says they’re dancing less, and they do play one of their own songs.”

“What are they up to?” His head is cranked up to glare at me.

“Don’t twist like that! You’ll tighten up on that side!” I could feel the Bag Man’s eyes on me from behind the mirror. I started work on Arty’s neck and he let the subject drop.

He could have made me tell if he’d pushed. Instead, he sicced the Bag Man on the twins.

“There are more weirdos around all the time,” Arty explained. “They need their own guard in addition to the general security. Beautiful girls like that. You don’t know what might happen.”

The following day the Bag Man had knocked at the door of the twins’ domain and handed Elly a small slip of paper torn from his notebook. Iphy leaned to read it:

Arturo the Aqua Man loves you and has sent me to protect you. I will be your guard

.

Elly’s mouth set thinly. Iphy tried to smile at the Bag Man.

“That’s very kind, but …”

“Arty means to kill me entirely,” snapped Elly. “Go away. Tell Arty we don’t want you or anyone else guarding us.” Elly closed the door as Iphy called out, “But it’s a kind thought!”

After that the Bag Man followed them everywhere. Elly glared at me accusingly when we met. As Arty’s ally I was suspect. One thing about Elly, you were for her or against her. She didn’t recognize neutral zones. I sat on the hood of the generator truck polishing Grandpa and wondering what would happen when Arty found out about their paying visitors.

• • •

Elly was crying. Iphy looked barely conscious, like a beaten fighter absorbed in the consolations of shock. They were sprawled on the rosy bed, drenched in pink light. Their intricate separateness and unity seemed luxurious in the satin sheets. The nightie was short and sheer and their big, four-armed robe hung in clownish embarrassment, covering the tall mirror on the wall.

Elly grimaced and shook Iphy. “We’ll run away. There are other shows. We’ll just go!”

Iphy’s eyes opened calmly and I had an uncomfortable feeling that we had been wrong, that Iphy was the strong one. Her placid face quirked at the mouth.

“Don’t be stupid. You’re panicked. We don’t know how to drive. We’re too noticeable to sneak.”

“We could go to Mama’s sisters in Boston! We could hide in a freight car!” Elly’s desperation pumped her from fear to anger.

Iphy backed off gingerly. “Take a breath, Elly.”

The Bag Man had been following the twins for weeks. This had disrupted their once- or twice-a-month visits from connoisseurs of sexual novelty. But Jonathan Tomaini, who had felt himself defiled by pimping, urged them to take on one special client despite the risk. He had become addicted to his percentage of the profits.

“This is not just the state governor, believe me. The man’s fortune is legendary. When I realized who he was — I mean, he came to three shows on three consecutive days. The man is utterly fascinated. In LOVE. I knew his face but couldn’t place him. He understood immediately when I approached him. A gentleman. A man of refined sensibility. He did everything to spare me the humiliation of specific explanations. He made the offer himself, without urging. Ten thousand! Don’t tell me it’s not worth a little effort on our part!”

It was sheer cantankerous defiance in Elly that made her accept. She wasn’t interested in the money or the millionaire. She just hated having Arty cramp her style.

It took me days to figure out what happened that night. The twins had planned carefully. They went to bed early for a solid week to lull the Bag Man into complacence. On the fateful night they turned out the lights at the usual time and waited.

Tomaini was supposed to distract the Bag Man by taking him to the bachelor quarters for a beer and a long talk.

“Get him to tell his story,” Elly ordered. “He writes so slowly it will take hours. Get him drunk.”

The distinguished visitor arrived at the appointed time, was welcomed, and was settling into some serious exploration.

“He’d had his shower and we’d got him onto the bed and were just getting really friendly when the door broke open,” explained Iphy. “I was facing the mirror. I saw the whole thing in the mirror. That’s why I threw our robe over it.”

“How was I to know he couldn’t hold his liquor?” asked Tomaini. The truth was that Tomaini couldn’t hold his beer. Instead of getting the Bag Man to tell his story, Tomaini dwelt on his own favorite subject, himself. The Bag Man recounted the whole episode to Arty. I found a few of the crumpled sheets from his note pad in the trash.

One read: “He said he could do very special hand jobs because of his piano training. I thought he was going to offer to give me one of these special hand jobs so I got up to leave. He started to cry. He said even if he was ugly he wasn’t a freak. Something made me suspicious.”

Another sheet of the notepaper had been torn in two. I pieced it together and read: “The key worked. I heard sounds behind the bedroom door. A man’s voice. I went in. They were on the bed. He was kneeling. Elly was sucking his cock while Iphy licked and kissed his ass. His hands were twisted in their hair.”

I must have known, even then, what my time would be like. I saved these scraps from the Bag Man’s hand. I have them still, brown and fragile on the table beside me. Their value to me doesn’t come from the blighted hole who scratched the words, it is that they describe mysterious acts by my people. I wonder, for example, if the twins’ piano training had given them the Tomaini brand of dexterity with hand jobs? Could a non-musician learn it? Could I?