Katherine Dunn - Geek Love

Once, when I was in trouble and pacing the camp in the dark, I did hear something. But I had maggot brains that night and may have imagined half of it and misunderstood the rest.

I’d gone to cool my face on Grandpa’s urn. I was lying on the hood of the generator truck with my face against the silver loving cup that held the old Binewski ashes and served as a hood ornament. Whoever drove the generator truck would always complain that the wind whistled through the urn’s handles like a siren at any speed past thirty-five. Al just said, “Tough,” and that was that.

On the hottest night Grandpa seemed to cool off before anything else. Leaning a cheek or my forehead against the urn felt like packing ice in my burning brain. So there I was, finished blubbering but still half loony, leaning my face on the urn, when I heard something. It came from McGurk’s safari car, parked just ahead of me. I could have spit on his bumper. It was a rough, strangled sound and I figured it must be McGurk’s climax song. But it kept going on. It scared me. I thought someone was dying. I remembered what Arty said about McGurk’s feeding his women to the cats, and I thought he was strangling somebody. Then I heard a word in his own voice. “Please,” he said. Then the ropy, gurgling sound started again. He was crying. For a minute there was another voice, softer and smooth — quick. I couldn’t tell what she was saying. Then McGurk again, desperate, almost shouting, “Don’t you see? There’ll be nothing left of you that I can get a grip on!” Then the soft woman’s voice drifted monotonously among McGurk’s ugly sobs. I got down and went away from there.

There were promotions scheduled for the next morning. Four women were due to “complete their liberation.” All had abandoned their legs entirely and were left with arms only from the elbow up. They were ready to shed their arms at the shoulder. These liberations were supposed to take place between 8 and 11 A.M. Dr. Phyllis would spend the afternoon whittling on fingers and toes.

I figured McGurk’s lady had to be one of those who were doing arms. I thought about going to the line outside the infirmary early to try to figure out which one it might be. I decided against it. I didn’t want to know.

McGurk seemed the same as usual that day and every day afterward. That’s why I say I may have misunderstood or imagined the whole thing.

Up on the roof of the van, Arty flopped in exhaustion. “Hey, oil me, Oly. Will you?”

It was scary to have him ask. I crouched over him, rubbing my fingertips into the knotted tension of his neck and shoulders.

“You’re ugly, brother, and you’ve got rigor mortis from the nipples up.

His eyes closed and his face relaxed slightly.

“Silence, anus,” he responded ritually. He took a long, slow breath and held it before he spoke again. “I think Elly’s coming back some, don’t you?”

“She doesn’t flop as much. Maybe not as limp as she was?”

“Yeah. I think she’ll come back some. Not like before, though.”

“Maybe Iphy’s just learning to handle her better. Balance and support.”

He shook his head against the mat, eyes clenched shut.

“No. She’s coming back. Just takes time. She’ll be able to help take care of the baby.”

“Maybe. You know, Chick could help you sleep nights. You look about three hundred years old.”

“Chick doesn’t like me. I wouldn’t want to tempt him.”

“He’s still sore about Elly.”

“And other things. Another chore. He’ll do it, though. And Papa’s mad at me. He says we’ll kill the whole outfit by hanging it all on one novelty act. That’s what he’s calling my show lately. A novelty act. He says my ‘fans’ will pass away when some new fad hits the air. Mama is mad too but she pretends not to be.”

“You’re a creep, I guess.”

“Did you ever wish you were dead?”

“Not lately.”

“Guess it’s you and the Pin Kid, hunh?”

I stopped kneading his spine and looked at his shadowed profile. He looked like a sleeping hieroglyph against the blanket. I forced my thumbs to rotate so he wouldn’t notice.

Down the line I could see Mama outside the Chute. She was folding a dust cloth and talking to someone still inside the door of the Chute. It was Iphy, walking out huge and awkward. Elly’s head tucked into Iphy’s throat, the cloth billowing around the frail legs beneath them, the belly balanced in front of them.

“I can see Iphy. She looks like an old car.” Mama and Iphy tottered out of sight.

“The Pin Kid seems O.K. You could do worse. Do you reckon you’ll leave?” His eyes were open now, his neck twisting to let the eyes touch me. His eyes were grey, very pale. I pinched his round, hard buttock, slapped his back sharp and loud.

“Trash! Stuff it, Arty.”

He closed his eyes again. “I’m gonna cut down to three shows a week. Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, eight P.M. Flat.”

“Papa will flip.”

“That’ll give him his carnival back the rest of the time.”

“Mama will think you’ve fallen to the vilest depths of leisure.”

“Oly … stick by me. How about it?”

His eyes were open again, looking straight at a fold of blanket in front of him. The big chain-link fence was below us on one side of the van. It stretched a long way and the Arturan camp sprawled out from it in a refugee confusion.

“I’m gonna stick a broom,” I muttered grimly, “up your ass, brother, and peddle you as an all-day sucker.”

Massaging the twins on the sea-green carpet of their front room, crawling around on my knees to reach the peculiar juncture of the split spine, the small of their backs that was actually much wider, nearly two backs wide.

“Sorry I can’t quite lie on my stomach.”

“It’s O.K., Iphy. Does that hurt?”

“Hurts good.”

Elly stretched limply away from Iphy, folded oddly across Iphy’s side.

“No wonder your back’s bitching, getting pulled in different directions by Elly and the belly.”

Iphy’s pale face softened in pleasure. “Elly belly, weak as jelly.”

“Arty thinks Elly’s coming back some,” I said.

“Does it make him feel better?”

“Do you think she is?”

“Sometimes. For a second. No more. That’s good. Now work on Elly.”

I inched slowly up Elly’s arms and shoulders, probing, stretching, lifting, rotating but feeling how much of her muscle was gone into soupy flab like the dismal mush in her skull.

“Iphy?”

She blinked awake.

“Having that baby inside …” I held Elly’s neck in my fingers and felt the strong hammer of her blood. “Is it bad or good?”

Iphy blinked again. “Good. Inside me is good. The bad is outside.”

“Arty’s not happy.”

“I know.” Her tone was peculiar. Something familiar made me look up. She was absolutely twinkling. She pulled her lips flat, widening her grin grotesquely. She tipped her head back, let her eyes droop to slits. The colored beads of her eyeballs slid from side to side and her voice rolled out in Arty’s pompous, patronizing bell of power: “Happiness! Happiness, I tell you! Are you listening? Happiness? You Poor Paralyzed and Constipated Dung Chutes! Happiness is Not the POINT!”

I fell down laughing and Iphy laughed and we rolled giggling and kicking on the thick softness of the carpet, tangling hilariously with the flopping, laughless Elly until I hurt all over from laughing and kind Iphy stretched away from her dragging belly trying to breathe but was caught by the laughter again and again.

“Whyever,” she gasped, hee-heeing. “However,” she ha-ha’d, “could we love??” which set her off again and me with her, chortling, “love him!!” and screaming with the sunburst air of laughter and pounding our heels on the carpet and kicking our heels toward the ceiling until we both collapsed, exhausted, into feeble titters. Only Iphy had the strength at last to shout, “He’s such a SIMP!” which set us off again.