Katherine Dunn - Geek Love

Lily is winking conspiratorially at me. She proceeds to dust and polish the lids and jars on the counter. The maggots appreciate it, no doubt. An old line comes to me: “Lovely you are, and kind to the tender young of ravening lions.”

She took a walk with Iphy today, she says. She seems to be ignoring the existence of what remains of Elly — doesn’t mention her at all. Is completely taken up with “my grandchild,” and its current protuberant form

.

“I swan!” says Lily, making me think of times past when she must have, in fact, swanned. Crystal Lil “swans to goodness” that Iphy’s child is twins and wouldn’t it be a miracle and a blessing if it was Siamese twins? She (Lily) says Iphy is far too big for a six-month pregnancy. Iphy says the only thing she wants is to see Arty. Lil asks if I will speak to Arty about it. “The boy’s so busy I don’t see him myself except across the camp or if I should peep in at showtime and catch his act.”

From the files of Norval Sanderson:

(Iphigenia, pregnant, hugging the lobotomized Elly on the sofa in the twins’ van — conversation with N.S.)

“Oly has a boyfriend? Oly and the Pin Kid? How could she have time for that? She’s always with Arty

.

“I almost had a boyfriend, once. Elly would have let me. She thought it was O.K. She shut down when I talked to him. Whenever he came around, she’d cut her voltage way back and stay quiet. She wanted me to go ahead and love him

.

“He was just a geek. He was clean between his shows. Laundry, hospital corners on the sheets when he made his bunk up. He was a poor boy, he said, so he knew how to take care of himself. I thought how good it would be … like you’d be proud to clean and cook for a man who knew how to clean and cook. It would feel right taking care of a man who could take care of himself

.

“But he was a norm. At first I thought he was pretty even

though

he was a norm. But it grows on you. After a while it was his being such a norm that got to me, touched me.… I don’t know. Like colors or a spring tree against that kind of blue sky that pulls your heart out through your eyes. Pretty things will swarm you like that, like your heart was a hive of electric bees. He was like that, the geek boy. He made normal seem beautiful to me. And Elly said it was O.K. She wanted me to. So I did. I saw him and was happy. Then I wanted to talk to him and she let me. Then I couldn’t be happy unless I was near him, unless he was talking to me

.

“He laughed a lot and told silly jokes and was going away to college in the fall. He had such a wonderful time being the geek. And he had long, perfect teeth. The redheads called him a darling

.

“He started paying attention to me. He would come and find us and talk to me. Not to Elly but to me. He’d bring his lunch in a bag and sit by us. He’d wait outside in the morning and walk us to practice. But he talked just to me. He told me things about himself. Sweet, sad things. And Elly damped herself way down

.

“And a terrible thing happened. He seemed to forget about her. He forgot she was part of me. That was what we’d meant to happen. Elly was glad. She’d crow in bed at night. He touched me. He’d put his hand on my hair, gently. He took my hand. I saw it in his eyes, so I stopped it. Elly was mad. She bit me on the inside of my arm until we both cried. But she wanted to get me away from Arty. She didn’t care about the boy at all. She wanted me to love somebody else than Arty. You know Elly. She figured I was going to love somebody whether she liked it or not and she decided she could handle anybody but Arty. Arty is too much for her

.

“She was mad when I stopped. I couldn’t help it. It was a thing that cracked and spilled in my head. Elly understood but she was mad. I know better now. I’ll never let it happen again

.

“He started to love me, you see? He was so pure, like that leaf against the sky. I don’t mean he was naïve or innocent or a virgin or even a virtuous boy, though he was nice, but that he was purely, from tip to toe, from nose to tail, absolutely what he was. That was normal with a big

N.

That was what I loved. But when the look in his eye changed, I realized, if there’s one thing a healthy, beautiful, utterly normal boy does

not

do, it’s fall in love with half of a pair of Siamese twins

.

“That’s how I learned. It’s O.K. for me to love a norm like that. But if he comes to loving me it’s because I’ve twisted him and changed him. If he loves me he’s corrupted. I can’t love him anymore. I won’t pretend it didn’t hurt.”

(Arty — conversation with N.S.)

“There are those whose own vulgar normality is so apparent and stultifying that they strive to escape it. They affect flamboyant behavior and claim originality according to the fashionable eccentricities of their time. They claim brains or talent or indifference to mores in desperate attempts to deny their own mediocrity. These are frequently artists and performers, adventurers and wide-life devotees

.

“Then there are those who feel their own strangeness and are terrified by it. They struggle toward normalcy. They suffer to exactly that degree that they are unable to appear normal to others, or to convince themselves that their aberration does not exist. These are true freaks, who appear, almost always, conventional and dull.”

(Arturo in response to critics)

“It’s interesting that when these individuals choose — and it is their choice always — to endure voluntary amputations for their own personal benefit, society professes itself shocked and disapproving. Yet this same society respects the concept that any individual should risk total annihilation in war, subject to the judgment of any superior officer at all and for purposes ranging from a promotion for the lieutenant to higher profits for the bullet company. Hell, they don’t just respect that idea, they flat expect it. And they’ll shoot your ass if you don’t go along with it.”

N.S.: If you could make it happen by snapping your fingers, wouldn’t you want your whole family to be physically and mentally normal?

Oly: That’s ridiculous! Each of us is unique. We are masterpieces. Why would I want us to change into assembly-line items? The only way you people can tell each other apart is by your clothes. (Miss Olympia begins to giggle and refuses to answer seriously to further questions.)

Zephir McGurk’s love life took place in his safari car with the khaki canvas shades pulled down all around. If surplus females arrived on Arty’s doorstep, or if one didn’t appeal to Arty (whose taste, when you come right down to it, was for standard pneumatic types with commercial grooming products), he would send her on to McGurk. Arty’s line wasn’t particularly imaginative. He would give her the old “If you would do me a great service, console my trusted lieutenant in his spartan dedication” routine.

It evidently worked often enough to keep McGurk healthy and even-tempered. McGurk was such a gent that nobody who went tap-tapping at his windshield in the dark after the midway was closed ever went screeching in fear or pain or shame through the camp before dawn. There were occasional exits like that from Arty’s van, but the guards would catch them and calm them and give them hush money.

McGurk’s little trysts were always discreet. He was never seen with female company and he was never late to work. We figured he escorted them to the gates and kissed their hands adieu before first light. Arty claimed that McGurk actually fed them to Horst’s cats, but that was Arty. McGurk was silent on the subject and would not be baited.