Katherine Dunn - Geek Love

I went hopping and celebrating around, patting him on the shoulders and rumpling his hair. I was as happy as if it were my own stunt he’d just pulled.

Chick agreed to be ready to do it whenever my time came around if he could be sure of having both Arty and me still and in the same room, preferably for some time.

“Maybe I could do it without seeing you both, but something might go wrong. It’s tricky.”

• • •

It happened one night in Arty’s front room with Norval Sanderson there. Arty and Sanderson were talking their endless talk, Arty drawn up to his desk in the wheelchair and Sanderson stretched out in a soft chair with his legs ending in the loose sandals he wore to accommodate the bandages on his feet.

Chick was lolling on his belly on the carpet, pretending to read a big picture magazine about foreign lands. I was curled in the corner on a built-in bench, listening.

My pulse filled my head as though the heart had punched its way up my throat and was stuck beating between my ears. I couldn’t take my eyes off Arty. He was in his wrangling mood. He loved to talk to Sanderson. He seemed to relax and enjoy the winding stalk of argument. Sanderson, the camouflaged hunter, pretended a casual indifference but secretly struggled to catch Arty unawares, skewer him on his own words.

Arty chuckled delightedly, “Such a sadist! You go unarmed because you’re sure you can make me turn my own weapons on myself! You don’t want to dirty your delicate paws with my blood! You want me to rip out my own guts so you can tsk and sigh and write prize-winning features on the tragic flaw. The self-destructive vortex at the core of greatness! You do see greatness in me. Admit it!”

Sanderson, with his head tipped in cartoon contemplation, would tap his lip slowly with his thumb and question, always question: “Is elephant gas great? Is it great in the pain that it causes the elephant? Or in the relief it affords when expressed? Or perhaps it is only great if it is ignited on farting and the resulting explosion is used to power a turbine? Is an elephant fart great in and of itself? Or only in its effect?”

“Ah! So now we’re down to fart jokes! But you’ll notice that I am sitting here with all I was born with, Norval, my lad, while you are being whittled away. How do you account for this?”

On and on they went, having such a good time. I loved Arty when he really laughed, and Sanderson made him roar. I watched, knowing this was my moment as Arty tipped back his smooth skull and rippled his belly in waves of pleasure that bounced out through his wide mouth and creased his grey eyes shut in the wild dance of his whole twitching, rocking body to the tune of the glitter inside his skull.

I sat very still. Chick had assured me that the thing in me was ripe and waiting.

There was Chick, on his belly with his bare feet kicking slowly in the air. His water-white hair hung in his eyes as he turned the pages slowly, revealing the mysteries of Tibet and the banner wall of the palace in Lhasa. His head turned slightly, one eye peeking at me. I grinned near convulsions. Do it. Do it now, while he’s laughing, I thought. And Chick nodded slightly, turning back to his book as Arty said, “Consider how protected our lives are. Never seen a movie, never set foot in a school.”

“But there’s no reason for not seeing movies and whatnot,” protested Sanderson. “The redheads have a portable set. It’s sheer cantankerousness and barbarism,” he drawled.

“Early training!” barked Arty. “Hatching habits!”

“Poor feller, try this …” and Sanderson pulled a flat steel bottle out of his tweed pocket and poured a golden dollop into the drained lemonade glass on Arty’s desk. Sanderson pulled a long swig from the bottle, capped it, and sighed, “Am-fucking-brosia!” while Arty cautiously nipped at his straw and made wry mouths at the taste.

“If that’s your idea of pleasure, it’s no wonder you need religion.”

Chick was flapping his magazine closed, pulling in his knees, getting to his feet with a stretch and a yawn, twisting to look at me. I stared anxiously at him. He winked.

“G’night,” he said to the room.

“You’ll start on Miz Z. in the morning? I promised her,” said Arty.

Chick nodded and slid over next to the chair, looping an arm around Arty’s neck, pulling his face close. Chick planted a kiss on Arty’s bare, flat cheek and then went to the door and out. As he closed the door after him, my cap slid down toward my nose and then back up to its proper place again.

That was it. I didn’t feel anything. But I believed it. And I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to go on watching Arty at play, knowing he would talk for hours longer, until Sanderson’s flask was empty and the black sky turned green and fleshy in the first seep of dawn. But I also needed to crawl back into my cupboard and feel miraculous. So I went home.

This, Miranda, is how you were conceived. Don’t ever doubt that it was an act of love. Your father was as happy then as he was capable of being. Your uncle Chick, the dove, was delighted to do it, to be able to do it. And I was a seventeen-year-old dwarf, pink-cheeked, rosy-humped, scarlet-eyed. I was beside myself with glory. Understand, child, that my idea of you was as a gift to your father, a living love for Arturo. And that’s not bad, Miranda, considered as a motive for your existence.

• • •

Eleven days later the twins gave birth to Mumpo. It was a long labor, twenty-six hours, and a difficult delivery. Chick did a lot but Mama and Papa helped. I wasn’t allowed in the van. I sat with Arty all night and most of the day. He was sick with fear. I was sick myself. The Arturans were buzzing on the intercom constantly. I took messages and shunted them off. Miz Z. in her proud bandage (one little toe’s worth) appeared at the door twice with a sheaf of papers, but I shooed her away. Arty wouldn’t eat. He insisted on playing checkers, hour after hour, game after game. He beat me fifty times and he would have gone on forever except that I accidentally won a game and he threw the board off the desk in a fury. He rolled off to his bedroom and locked himself in.

When Papa finally came to the door with the news, Arty wheeled out of his room to hear. A boy. Twenty-six pounds, five ounces. The mothers were doing fine.

Papa looked young again, leaning in the doorway to shout the news; his mustache bristled with power and pride, which, he used to say, “are the same except that pride leaves the lights on and power can do it in the dark.”

“Twenty-six pounds?”

“Thought it was twins, did you?” He chortled. “Fat little! A natural! Twenty handsome inches long and twenty-six of the babiest pounds! What do you think, uncle? Cheeks like a politician! Ten chins right out of the oven! That Iphy! Took one look and says, ‘Mumpo.’ His name, see? Lily went to lay him on Iphy’s breast and she like to die! Couldn’t breathe, he’s so heavy. Got to tell Horst; he’s been sucking the bottle for two days worrying!” Then a sudden change, a confidentiality, a secret wondering, near whisper as he put one foot inside to keep it among us. “That Chick, Great Christo, he’s good. I would have popped it with a knife myself after so long. I was scared to death with the kid so big. Not Chick. He pumped in air somehow, don’t ask me. That baby breathing easy for hours and still inside. That Chick, sweet lollyballs of the prophet!” And he was gone, thumping down the ramp, hailing people in the line, hollering, “A boy … Fine … All fine … A boy! Yes! By the bouncing melons of Mary! I’m a grandpa!”

Arty sat petrified in his chair, staring through the open door. Miz Z. appeared, heading for us, a clipboard in hand.

“Scare her off,” said Arty. He looked deflated and a little damp. “Then go get the baby, will you?”