Chuck Palahniuk - Doomed

As my nana plucked my freshly laundered items from the clothesline, she repeated, “Your mama used to write in books.”

The Pencil and the Blue Pen. The ferns and thyme and rose petals.

I did not, Gentle Tweeter, inquire about the ultimate fate of my ejaculate-spoiled chambray shirt.

Patterson says to start collecting flowers ….

Leonard wants me to pick some flowers ….

These had all been my mother’s and my nana’s thoughts when they had been my age. I studied my nana as intently as I’d study my own reflection in a mirror. For there was my nose, my future nose. Hers were my thighs. How her shoulders stooped forward when she walked was how I’d someday walk. Even her cough, ragged and constant, would likely be part of my inheritance. The liver spots on her hands I’d someday find on my own. It looked like such an impossible task: growing old. It scared me how I’d ever manage to achieve all those wrinkles.

My nana never asked about her missing tea jar. She didn’t seem to notice me always wearing my second-best eyeglasses. And in turn I went from not eating anything to scarfing down everything. In Toulouse, cooks say the first crepe is always “ pour le chat .” For the cat. The first crepe is always flawed, scorched, or torn, so they let the cat eat it. Somehow I decided that I could do the same with my nana’s flaws. The more she cooked and baked, the more I ate. I could absolve her sins by eating them. And, if not forgive them, I could carry them around my hips as my own burden.

With every bite I swallowed my fear and grew older. And fatter. In every mouthful I choked down my bilious guilt.

The Beagle book had taught me about turtle eggs, but the Bible book taught me about Jesus Christ, and Jesus seemed like the greatest ally I could ever gain in the battle against my do-gooder parents. What a summer this had been. I’d gotten plump… chunky… just awful, in fact. And I’d begun to love reading. And I’d killed a man. I’d killed my grandfather. And I’d learned discretion.

Yes, I might’ve been eleven years old and a secret grandpa killer, an upstate-hating, passive-aggressive snob, but I learned what discretion meant. That summer I learned discretion and reserve and patience: qualities my former-hippie, former-punk, former-everything parents would never acquire.

On Halloween day, I didn’t speak up when I spied my nana sneaking on tiptoe. I was pretending to take a nap on the parlor sofa when she crept to the bookshelf, and from the wall of books she untucked one I’d never noticed. Hiding the book in the folds of her apron, Nana Minnie carried it back to where she was packing my luggage.

Exhibiting enormous willpower, I did not eat the basket of orange-colored popcorn balls we’d prepared for the night’s trick-or-treaters.

When she wasn’t looking, I peeked into that same suitcase. Buried under my neatly folded sweaters in the bottom was the book. Persuasion by Jane Austen. A book I would cherish for the remainder of my own short life.

As the sun set on my last day in tedious upstate, a trickle of monsters staggered out of the dusk. Skeletons emerged. Ghosts appeared. They came carrying pillowcases and paper shopping bags. They took form from out of the shadows, their not-clean faces smudged with graveyard dirt, and their clothes shredded. Their hands smeared with blood, these zombies and werewolves stumbled toward where my nana and I stood in the farmhouse’s front doorway.

These lurching, swaying corpses, they shouted, “Trick or treat!” And my nana offered them popcorn pumpkins from a big wicker basket she held in front of her in both hands. Then a cough came, and not even two alligators later, another cough. She handed the basket to me and lifted her apron to cover her face. As the monsters picked through the orange balls, she stepped back into the parlor and settled on the sofa, gasping to catch her breath. In my arms the basket felt lighter and lighter.

Among that first wave of ghouls was a towheaded angel, a boy child whose placid face looked as smooth as fresh-baked bread. A lightly freckled brioche. His wispy halo of blond hair shone as pale yellow as butter melting down his forehead. False wings were tied to his back with a hank of rough twine, but their whitewashed cardboard was layered quite meticulously with the castoff quills of some indigenous farmyard goose. His cherubim hands carried a rude three-string lyre, and this he strummed as he bade, “Trick or treat, Miss Madison.” He held a pillowcase already bulging with red licorice and gummy bears. “Has the Good Book helped you in your time of loss?”

Standing before me on the porch was the ragged youth I’d met at Papadaddy’s funeral. My upstate version of David Copperfield. As before, I sensed my flesh calling to his. On that, my final night in my nana’s house, I yearned to cleave my eleven-year-old self unto him, but subverted the carnal impulse by offering, “Popcorn ball?” As added enticement I whispered, “They’re loaded with Xanax.” He looked confused, so I added, “It’s a drug, not an Old Testament king.” Gravely said I, “Do not operate farm machinery while under the influence of this popcorn ball.”

My rustic beau helped himself to several. Taking great lusty bites of sweet Xanax, he lingered a moment to ask about my summer. We discussed the Bible book. Finally, he bade me good night and took his leave.

To answer CanuckAIDSemily, no, I did not get his e-mail address; I rather doubt he’d have one. But while his feathered wings were retreating, dwindling in size as he departed down the dusty country thoroughfare, I called out, “It’s Festus, right? Your name is Festus?”

Without turning back, he waved his harp above his head in a lighthearted salute. And with that gesture of farewell he was gone.

Coughing out the words, my Nana Minnie said, “Don’t fret, Tiny Sweet.” From the sofa she coughed, “Everything is going to be all right.”

And I forgave her for telling her biggest untruth to date.

I stood alone on the porch in the gloaming dusk. That’s why my nana didn’t see someone new arrive: a scarecrow figure. Stopping at the foot of the porch steps was a gaunt old man. His cheekbones and chin were as craggy as the sculptures people carved with chain saws and sold in weedy vacant lots next to upstate gas stations. My worst nightmare made real, here was Papadaddy Ben standing at the ragged edge of the porch light. His eyes stared from behind the mess of his gray hair. Even as harpies and witches swarmed around him and climbed the steps, his eyes held mine.

The naturalist in me knew this was impossible. The dead didn’t come back. It happens, on rare occasion, that natural phenomena occur for which we’ve no ready explanation. The role of the naturalist is to take note and to record a description of said occurrence, trusting that eventually that rogue event will make sense. I mention this because the oddest thing happened next….

A smirking voice asked, “Popcorn balls?”

The question broke my trance. Standing at my elbow was a teenage boy dressed as an ancient Egyptian something. Nodding his head at the basket, he asked, “Not popcorn balls again. What’s up with this place?”

A Marie Antoinette of the ancien régime, gowned and bewigged, ascended the steps, demanding, “Yeah, what’s the deal with popcorn balls?” She was wearing fake Manolo Blahniks and carried a fake Coach bag.

Also in the Egyptian’s company were a Roman legionnaire… and a Sid Vicious punk with a safety pin poked through one cheek…. The four of them smelled faintly of sulfur and smoke. The punk’s hair was dyed electric blue and shaped into a Mohawk. He dipped his black-painted fingernails into the basket and lifted out a popcorn pumpkin, asking, “You have anything better, Maddy?”