Katherine Dunn - Geek Love

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**** Redheads reading magazines in the Binewski van say Crystal Lil is asleep on pills

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**** The Arturan office queen, Miz Z., unperturbed, has her battalion of campers contemplating their stumps and meditating on P.I.P. (Peace, Isolation, Purity) — generally lollygagging in the sun and oblivious of the situation on the other side of the fence. As long as lunch and supper happen, they won’t notice

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**** Randy J. — a Binewski guard and ex-Marine who was driving the van when the twins were located. Randy says it was an Ob-Gyn office — Chick spotted the pickup and the Rita redhead smoking a cigarette out front. The vigilantes busted in

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“They were up on the table on their hands and knees, bare ass sticking up in the air kind of pitiful with the nurse getting ’em ready. See us, they about go to the moon, jump down screaming, try to break out the window. I scared they’d hurt themselves, catch hell from the boss. But, Jesus, that little bugger, Chick, steps through and looks at ’em, down they go to sleep in a pile on the floor. We just sort through for arms and legs, tote ’em out to the van and the nurse and the doc dithering behind us. Rita and McFee gone. Jumped in that beat-up old Dodge and gone. Know they’re in up to their ass, see?

“Them twins sleep sweet in the back all the way here. That boy Chick did something. Some hypnotism, maybe. Tell you, it scared the shit outa me. You shoulda seen it!”

Which, I assume, means that the twins fainted. They’re locked in their trailer under guard now as we move on

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Arty is laid up. He’s staying in his trailer van. He’s got a bandage across one ear and on the cheek on the same side, and a thick dressing on his neck just below that ear. A thin scratch on his chest is visible — just the end of it — at the edge of his shirt collar. He is

NOT

explaining the damage. He’s moody — an anger that alternates with what I suspect is grief. All very controlled, of course. He discusses philosophy. Talks Arturism. Nothing personal allowed

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Oly, his maid of all work, is running constantly between Arty’s van and the twins

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The twins are jailed in their van, incommunicado

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The redheads say (buxom Bella, jouncing Jennifer, and Vicki) that Arty went into the twins’ van just as they were coming around — waking up from their capture at the doctor’s office

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“His Armlessness, the Mighty Fin, was gonna read ’em the riot act. He’s all high and mighty and they flipped out on him.”

“Just Elly. She went for him. Tried to bite out his jugular. Iphy couldn’t stop her. That Elly’s a rocket to Reno when she’s rolling.”

“He’s in there alone, see. Just the pinky, Oly, to wheel his chair. Oly screams for the guard and jumps on Elly, trying to pull her off. You catch her without her sunglasses you’ll see. Oly’s got a doozy of a shiner.”

“A week off is what they’re saying. First time this show’s been closed down that long in more than eighteen years. I can use it. Fine by me.”

Caught Chick crushing ants today in the dust. Shocked me. He’s very gentle, usually. I’ve seen him watch his feet not to step on a bug. Feels terrible if he kills one by accident. I went out to check on the fly farm and heard a muffled thumping around back. There was Chick, dancing and stamping on a small anthill. His face red

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eyes glaring, respiration fast. When he saw me he stopped, stood still, looked down at the ground around his feet and burst out bawling. Scrawny ten-year-old kid, wailing like his heart was boiling out through his ears

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I picked him up and took him over to the water tank. Dabbed my hanky under the tap and washed his face and waited for the storm to ease. He leaned on my knee and tried to get a grip on himself. Touched my own crusty heart, I admit. Brave little bastard. Finally started asking questions but got little out of him

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Total gist: He tries “to be good and help but it seems like everything turns out wrong” and he’s “no good to anybody and ends up hurting instead of helping people.” Pretty heavy load for a tyke

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I beat the bush, working around some of the wild stories they tell about him in the midway. He got embarrassed. Clammed up. At last he says, “They can’t figure out why all the other kids are special and I’m not. They make stuff up, crazy stuff, so I’ll seem special too.”

Maybe this crew is getting to me. Maybe I sat too close to too many big explosions and the miniature ruptures in my brain are spreading over to

dementia pugilistica.

Maybe it’s just me being contrary

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The hell of it is, Chick’s explanation was a replica of what I’ve been telling myself all along. But, when he told me precisely that, I didn’t believe a word of it. What the hell does he do with that fat spider Doc P.? How come a ten-year-old kid runs the anesthetic for every operation? Some of the stump folks claim it’s just air coming through the mask and that the real painkiller is Chick himself. How many times have I heard people claim that their pain disappears the instant Chick comes near them? I’ve had no discomfort during my surgery but I never noticed anything about Chick. He’s just there. I’ll pay closer attention next time

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Here I am trying to make a case for healing powers or mental fingers or some such hog wallop. The kid’s a colorless little drudge with an inferiority complex at not being a freak like his brother and sisters. He overcompensates with an idiot sensitivity halfway to martyrdom. The perfect patsy. Anything to please. Christ knows, anybody with Arty for a brother is in deep water trying to preserve his self-esteem

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So — the kid says he thinks when he dies all the creatures he has ever hurt will be waiting for him, looking at him, still hurting from the hurt he laid on them.… Says he was walking along “just now” and stepped on a lone ant before he noticed it. “Failed again as usual” seems to be his feeling. So he flips off the rails and goes berserk on the anthill

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Ike Thiebault, the guard, sits on a folding yellow plastic deck chair next to the door of the twins’ van. He nods peaceably at everyone entering or leaving the Binewski van or Arty’s van. The portable “porch” or platform on which Ike sits has steps at one end, a ramp for Arty’s chair on the side, and is supposed to have a reticulated flex tunnel over it to keep out the weather. The Binewskis never get around to setting up the tunnel

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Today

— 10

A.M

. or so — Jouncing Jenny, the redhead who complains about having to color her “honey-blond” hair, comes up the step with an armload of magazines and catalogues

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“Ike, honey, these are for the twins. I got to deliver ’em,” she says. Ike, who is halfway through a self-help book promising him a method for making money in his spare time, stands up, embarrassed

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“Nobody goes in, Jenny. That’s my orders.”

“These are catalogues that just got here in the mail bag. It’s just clothes and knickknacks. No harm. The twins want ’em to shop from.” Jenny is rolling her bare golden shoulder at Ike and being gently provocative. Ike is far from immune but locked into his duty

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“Only ones can go in or out is Miss Oly and Mr. Arty. That’s my orders.”

“Well, Ike, you take ’em in. It don’t matter. The girls want them catalogues. Ordered ’em six weeks ago. You take ’em in.”