Chuck Palahniuk - Invisible Monsters

On the little French desk is a tres ooh-la-la telephone where the receiver is as big as a gold saxophone and sits in a gold cradle on top of an ivory box. In the middle of the push-button circle is a cameo. So chic, Evie probably thinks.

With the knife out in front of him, Seth goes, "I'm not going to hurt you."

I'm doing that slow step-pause-step down the stairs.

Seth says, "Let's not anybody get killed, here."

And it's so deja vu.

This was the exact way Manus Kelley would ask if I'd gotten my orgasm. Not the words, but the voice.

Seth says through Evie's crotch, "All's I did was sleep with Evie."

So deja vu.

Let's go sailing. It's the exact same voice.

Seth drops the carving knife and the tip of the blade sticks mumblety-peg straight down next to his combat boot in Evie's foyer parquet floor. Seth says, "If Evie says it was me that shot you, she was lying."

On the desk next to the telephone is a pad and pencil for taking down messages.

Seth says, "I knew the second I heard about you in the hospital that it was Evie's doing."

Balancing the rifle with one arm, on the pad, I write:

take off your pantyhose.

"I mean you can't kill me," Seth says. Seth's pulling at the waistband of his pantyhose. "I'm just the reason why Evie shot you."

I step-pause-step the last ten feet to Seth and hook the end of the rifle barrel on the pantyhose waistband and pull them off Seth's square-jawed face. Seth Thomas who would be Alfa Romeo in Vancouver, British Columbia. Alfa Romeo who was Nash Rambler, formerly Bergdorf Goodman, formerly Neiman Marcus, formerly Saks Fifth Avenue, formerly Christian Dior.

Seth Thomas who a long time before was named Manus Kelley, my fiance from the infomercial. I couldn't tell you this until now because I want you to know how discovering this felt. In my heart. My fiance wanted to kill me. Even when he's that much an asshole, I loved Manus. I still love Seth. A knife, it felt like a knife, and I'd discovered that despite everything that's happened, I still had an endless untapped potential for getting hurt.

It's from this night we started on the road together and Manus Kelley would someday become Seth Thomas. In between, in Santa Barbara and San Francisco and Los Angles and Reno and Boise and Salt Lake City, Manus was other men. Between that night and now, tonight, me in bed in Seattle still in love with him, Seth was Lance Corporal and Chase Manhattan. He was Dow Corning and Herald Tribune and Morris Code.

All courtesy of the Brandy Alexander Witness Reincarnation Project, as she calls it.

Different names, but all these men started out as Manus TryingToKillMe.

Different men, but there's always the same special police vice operative good looks. The same power blue eyes. Don't shoot—Let's go sailing—it's the same voice. Different haircuts but it's always the same thick black sexy dog hair.

Seth Thomas is Manus. Manus cheated on me with Evie, but I still love him so much I'll hide any amount of conjugated estrogen in his food. So much I'll do anything to destroy him.

You'd think I'd be smarter now after, what? Sixteen hundred college credits. I should be smarter. I could be a doctor by now.

Sorry, Mom. Sorry, God.

Jump to me not feeling anything but stupid, trying to balance one of Evie's gold saxophone telephones against my ear. Brandy Alexander, the inconvenient queen she is, isn't listed in the phone book. All I know is she lives downtown at the Congress Hotel in a corner suite with three roommates:

Kitty Litter.

Sofonda Peters.

And the vivacious Vivienne VaVane.

AKA the Rhea sisters, three drag guys who worship the quality queen deluxe but would kill each other for more closet space. The Brandy queen told me that much.

It should be Brandy I talk to, but I call my folks. What's gone on is I lock my killer fiance in the coat closet, and when I go to put him inside there's more of my beautiful clothes but all stretched out three sizes. Those clothes were every penny I ever made. After all that, I have to call somebody.

For so many reasons, no way can I just go back to bed. So I call, and my call goes out across mountains and deserts to where my father answers, and in my best ventriloquist voice, avoiding the consonants you really need a jaw to say, I tell him, "Gflerb sorlfd qortk, erd sairk. Srd. Erd, korts derk sairk? Kirdo!"

Anymore, the telephone is just not my friend.

And my father says, "Please don't hang up. Let me get my wife."

Away from the receiver, he says, "Leslie, wake up, we're being hate-crimed finally."

And in the background is my mother's voice saying, "Don't even talk to them. Tell them we loved and treasured our dead

homosexual child."

It's the middle of the night here. They must be in bed.

"Lot. Ordilj," I say. "Serta ish ka alt. Serta ish ka alt!"

"Here," my father says as his voice drifts away. "Leslie, you give them what for."

The gold saxophone receiver feels heavy and stagy, a prop, as if this call needs any more drama. From back in the coat closet, Seth yells, "Please. Don't be calling the police until you've talked to Evie."

Then from the telephone, "Hello?" And it's my mother.

"The world is big enough we can all love each other." she says, "There's room in God's heart for all His children. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered. Just because it's anal intercourse doesn't mean it's not love."

She says, "I hear a lot of hurt from you. I want to help you deal with these issues."

And Seth yells, "I wasn't going to kill you. I was here to confront Evie because of what she did to you. I was only trying to protect myself."

On the telephone, a two-hour drive from here, there's a toilet flush, then my father's voice, "You still talking to those lunatics?"

And my mother, "It's so exciting! I think one of them says he's going to kill us."

And Seth yells, "It had to be Evie who shot you."

Then in the telephone is my father's voice, roaring so loud that I have to hold the receiver away from my ear, he says, "You, you're the one who should be dead." He says, "You killed my son, you goddamned perverts."

And Seth yells, "What I had with Evie was just sex."

I might as well not even be in the room, or just hand the phone to Seth.

Seth says, "Please don't think for one minute that I could just stab you in your sleep.”

And in the phone, my father shouts, "You just try it, mister. I've got a gun here and I'll keep it loaded and next to me day and night." He says, "We're through letting you torture us." He says, "We're proud to be the parents of a dead gay son."

And Seth yells, "Please, just put the phone down."

And I go, "Aht! Oahk!"

But my father hangs up.

My inventory of people who can save me is down to just me. Not my best friend. Or my old boyfriend. Not the doctors or the nuns. Maybe the police, but not yet. It isn't time to wrap this whole mess into a neat legal package and get on with my less-than life. Hideous and invisible forever and picking up pieces.

Things are still all messy and up in the air, but I'm not ready to settle them. My comfort zone was getting bigger by the minute. My threshold for drama was bumping out. It was time to keep pushing the envelope. It felt like I could do anything, and I was only getting started.

My rifle was loaded, and I had my first hostage.

Jump way back to the last time I ever went home to see my parents. It was my last birthday before the accident. What with Shane still being dead, I wasn't expecting presents. I'm not expecting a cake. This last time, I go home just to see them, my folks. This is when I still have a mouth so I'm not so stymied by the idea of blowing out candles.

The house, the brown living room sofa and reclining chairs, everything is the same except my father's put big Xs of duct tape across the inside of all the windows. Mom's car isn't in the driveway where they usually park it. The car's locked in the garage. There's a big deadbolt I don't remember being on the front door. On the front gate is a big "Beware of Dog" sign and a smaller sign for a home security system.