Chuck Palahniuk - Invisible Monsters

There's a fourth box of condoms in my stocking. Perry Como is singing "It Came upon a Midnight Clear." The box is labeled . .. safe and strong enough even for prolonged anal intercourse... .

"There's granuloma inguinale," my father says to my mother, "and bacterial vaginosis." He opens one hand and counts the fingers, then counts them again, then says, "there's molluscum contagiosum."

Some of the condoms are white. Some are assorted colors. Some are ribbed to feel like serrated bread knives, I guess. Some are extra large. Some glow in the dark. This is flattering in a creepy way. My folks must think I'm wildly popular.

Perry Como is singing "Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel."

"We don't want to scare you," my mom says, "but you're young. We can't expect you to just sit home nights."

"And if you ever can't sleep," my father says, "it could be pinworms."

My mom says, "We just don't want you to end up like your brother is all."

My brother's dead, but he still has a stocking full of presents and you can bet they're not rubbers. He's dead, but you can bet he's laughing his head off right now.

"With pinworms," my father says, "the females migrate down the colon to the perianal area to lay their eggs at night." He says, "If you suspect worm activity, it works best to press clear adhesive tape against the rectum, then look at the tape under a magnifying glass. The worms should be about a quarter-inch long."

My mom says, "Bob, hush."

My dad leans toward me and says, "Ten percent of the men in this country can give you these worms." He says, "You just remember that."

Almost everything in my stocking is condoms, in boxes, in little gold foil coins, in long strips of a hundred with perforations so you can tear them apart. My only other gifts are a rape whistle and a pocket-sized spray canister of Mace. That looks like I'm set for the worst, but I'm afraid to ask if there's more. There could be a vibrator to keep me at home and celibate every night. There could be dental dams in case of cunnilingus. Saran Wrap. Rubber gloves.

Perry Como is singing "Nuttin' for Christmas."

I look at Shane's stocking still lumpy with presents and ask, "You guys bought for Shane?"

If it's condoms, they're a little late.

My mom and dad look at each other. To my mom, my dad says, "You tell her."

"That's what you got for your brother," my mom says. "Go ahead and look."

Jump to me being being confused as hell

Give me clarity. Give me reasons. Give me answers.

Flash.

I reach up to unhook Shane's stocking from the mantel, and inside it's filled with crumpled tissue paper.

"Keep digging," my dad says.

In with the tissue, there's a sealed envelope.

"Open it," my mom says.

Inside the envelope is a printed letter with right at the top the words "Thank You."

"It's really a gift to both our children," my dad says.

I can't believe what I'm reading.

"Instead of buying you a big present," my mom says, "we made a donation in your name to the World AIDS Research Fund."

Inside the stocking is a second letter I take out.

"That," my dad says, "is Shane's present to you."

Oh, this is too much.

Perry Como is singing "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus."

I say, "That crafty old dead brother of mine, he's so thoughtful." I say, "He shouldn't have. He really, really shouldn't have gone to all this trouble. He needs to maybe move away from denial and coping and just get on with being dead. Maybe reincarnate." I say, "His pretending he's still alive can't be healthy."

Inside, I'm ranting. What I really wanted this year was a new Prada handbag. It wasn't my fault that some hair-spray can exploded in Shane's face. Boom, and he came staggering into the house with his forehead already turning black and blue. The long drive to the hospital with his one eye swoll shut and the face around it just getting bigger and bigger with every vein inside broken and bleeding under the skin, Shane didn't say a word.

It wasn't my fault how the social service people at the hospital took one look at Shane's face and came down on my father with both feet. Suspicion of child abuse. Criminal neglect. Family intervention. It wasn't any of it my fault. Police statements. A caseworker went around interviewing our neighbors, our school friends, our teachers until everybody we knew treated me like, you poor brave thing.

Sitting here Christmas morning with all these gifts I need a penis to enjoy, everybody doesn't know the half of it.

Even after the police investigation was done, and nothing was proved, even then, our family was wrecked. And everybody still thinks I'm the one who threw away the hair-spray. And since I started this, it was all my fault. The explosion. The police. Shane's running away. His death.

And it wasn't my fault.

"Really," I say, "if Shane really wanted to give me a present, he'd come back from the dead and buy me the new wardrobe he owes me. That would give me a merry Christmas. That I could really say 'thank you' for."

Silence.

As I fish out the second envelope, my mom says, "We're officially 'outing' you."

"In your brother's name," my dad says, "we bought you a membership in P.F.L.A.G.

"Fee-flag?" I say.

"Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays," my mom says.

Perry Como is singing "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays."

Silence.

My mother starts up from her chair and says, "I'll go run get those bananas." She says, "Just to be on the safe side, your father and I can't wait to see you try on some of your presents.”

Jump to around midnight in Evie's house where I catch Seth Thomas trying to kill me.

The way my face is without a jaw, my throat just ends in sort of a hole with my tongue hanging out. Around the hole, the skin is all scar tissue: dark red lumps and shiny the way you'd look if you got the cherry pie in a pie eating contest. If I let my tongue hang down, you can see the roof of my mouth, pink arid smooth as the inside of a crab's back, and hanging down around the roof is the white vertebrae horseshoe of the upper teeth I have left. There are times to wear a veil and there are not. Other than this, I'm stunning when I meet Seth Thomas breaking into Evie's big house at midnight.

What Seth sees coming down the big circular staircase in Evie's foyer is me wearing one of Evie's peachy-pink satin and lace peignoir sets pieced on the bias. Evie's bathrobe is this peachy-pink retro Zsa Zsa number that hides me the way cellophane hides a frozen turkey. At the cuffs and along the front of the bathrobe is the peachy-pink ozone haze of ostrich feathers that match the feathers on the high-heeled mules I'm wearing.

Seth is just frozen at the foot of Evie's big circular staircase with Evie's best sixteen-inch carving knife in his hand. A pair of Evie's control top pantyhose is pulled down over Seth's head. You can see Evie's hygienic cotton crotch sitting across Seth's face. The pantyhose legs drape the way a cocker spaniel's ears would look down the front of his otherwise mix-andmatch army fatigues ensemble.

And I am a vision. Descending step by step toward the point of the carving knife, with the slow step-pause-step of a showgirl in a big Vegas revue.

Oh, I am just that fabulous. So sex furniture.

Seth's standing there, looking up, having a moment, afraid for the first time in his life because I'm holding Evie's rifle. The butt is planted against my shoulder, and the barrel is out in both hands in front of me. The sight's cross-haired right in the middle of Evie Cottrell's cotton crotch.

This is just Seth and me in Evie's foyer with its beveled glass windows broken around the front door and Evie's Austrian crystal chandelier that sparkles like so much costume jewelry for a house. The only other thing is a little desk in that Frenchy provincial white and gold.