Mark Leyner - Et Tu, Babe

“That whole thing was bullshit, wasn’t it … there’s no such thing as awakura. Right?”

I couldn’t stop laughing.

She put me in a hammerlock and held my head underwater.

“Right?” she repeated.

Bubbles of laughter clustered at the surface.

She let me go.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “Friends? C’mon … friends for life?”

She was laughing now herself.

“You’re a fucking dickhead, y’know that? What did I just eat anyway?”

“Can’t say, Patricia … hey, look, we’re almost at the island.”

“Yeah, just a little more. Do you have those pay movies in your room?”

“We don’t even have television sets. I’m telling you, the Green Isle is no-frills.”

“Well, last night there was a really cool movie — it was called Miracle Worker 2200 . It’s like a remake of The Miracle Worker , but it takes place in the year 2200 and Anne Sullivan implants all these electronic microprosthetic devices into Helen Keller, like this infrared sensor to pick up hot spots — y’know, heat sources — and this voice synthesizer so that she can sound like anything she wants to — y’know, like a flute or an electric piano or an Australian dingo or anything. Y’know, it’s so amazing when you think about what science can do.”

We had reached the shore … Kana Island. Before it was condemned by the government, its medieval insane asylum was considered a true house of horrors. There were persistent reports of torture, cannibalism, human sacrifice, and bizarre medical experimentation. As we emerged from the water, we observed each other’s nakedness in the moonlight and we embraced.

“Do you get collagen injections or are those your real lips?” I asked her.

“Are you serious?”

For the first time that night, I had the feeling that she thought there was something wrong with me.

We walked up the road to the asylum and entered through its huge gates of rusted iron.

As soon as we got into the building, we could hear the rats, thousands of them, their scampering claws reverberating through the empty wards.

“Let’s go right to the warden’s quarters — they’re on the top floor. Can you walk up twenty flights? Can you walk up twenty flights in an insane asylum … naked? ” I asked.

She gave me that look again.

“What’s the difference? Twenty flights are twenty flights, naked or clothed. What’s wrong with you?”

We climbed to the top floor of the asylum. There was a utility room across from the stairway. We walked in and I strode directly to the refrigerator and opened it.

“Look, Patricia,” I said, pointing to a harmonica in the freezer.

She took it in her hands. And she put her full lips on the ice-cold harmonica and she blew. A plaintive arpeggio echoed throughout the building and thousands of rats began making their way toward the top floor.

“You knew exactly where that refrigerator was … how did you know that?” Patricia asked me, trembling.

I put my arm around her shoulder and led her to the warden’s quarters.

“Patricia, look.”

I pointed to a crudely lettered sign above the door.

It said, “Green Isle.”

She began screaming.

And so did I.

“Oh wow, Mark, that was great! And it was so spooky the way you read it!”

“I’m really glad you liked it, Baby Lago. It’s called ‘The Warden of Green Isle’ by Imelda Kabakow, one of the premier genre-restricted authors in North America. I hope it doesn’t give you nightmares.”

“Oh, I love nightmares!”

“Listen, it’s late, and I have to be up pretty early in the morning.”

“Oh yeah, they’re filming that commercial tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah. Baby Lago, I wanted to thank you for all the work you did in Tokyo negotiating the lease on that 500-story supersky-scraper headquarters for Team Leyner Nippon. You did a great job.”

“It was fun!”

I bowed.

“Good night, Baby Lago-san.”

“Iguess you could say that I like things ‘natural.’ By ‘natural’ I mean ‘naturally selected’ as in Darwin, i.e., organisms with advantageous mutations are likely to outcompete the original forms, gradually outnumbering and replacing them in the population … that sort of thing. Sure I have my tender moments — I like the silent white dawn after a night’s heavy snowfall, sometimes I like to say something sarcastic to the person making my submarine sandwich or to the person slicing meat for my gyro just to see them smile — maybe it’s their first smile of the day — but basically I’m pretty contemptuous of people, because most people are weak and I find weakness pretty sickening. I like my men, my women, my coffee, my cocktails — I guess everything in my life — STRONG. That’s why I can offer my unequivocal endorsement of Armor-Guard High Security Barbed Wire Fences. The choice of maximum security institutions across the country, Armor-Guard fences feature substantially longer barbs with additional barb points for superior intimidation and entanglement capabilities—”

“Cut! Cut! Hold it, Mr. Leyner.”

“What’s the problem?”

“We’re getting a weird glare off that section of barbed wire over there … why don’t we take a break and we’ll adjust the lighting over there.”

“OK, babe.”

“Hi, I’m Mark Leyner. With my reputation as a tough guy and best-selling author, I’m asked to do commercials — well, as you just saw — for all kinds of ‘tough’ products like penal fencing, cattle prods, bulletproof vests, etc. But when it comes to my family and my friends and my fans — those I cherish most dearly — I can be a real ‘softie.’ That’s why when Becker Surgical Devices asked me to tell people about their balloon angioplasty equipment, I said I’d love to. There’s nothing good about ‘tough’ stenosed arteries. When plaque accumulates, inhibiting the flow of blood to vital organs, the life of someone you love, perhaps even your own life, may be threatened. And I don’t know about you, but I love life.

“Some people are preoccupied with the symbolism of their dreams and with who they might have been in past incarnations and with where their souls are going after they die, but I never think about any of that shit. I just love this earth. I love the morning. When the first morning light hits my eye, I feel like a new appliance that’s been unpacked and plugged in for the first time. But my life is beautiful. Perhaps that’s why I love the morning light. I have money. I have a voluptuous wife. And I have fans. People who have ugly lives often hate the morning; it means the beginning of all the pain and the toil and the flashbacks all over again, and they try to bear the unbearable until twilight, which comes on slowly with the physical sensation of a warm barbiturate liquid, and of course the black silent night — phone off the hook, doors bolted — is the full-blown anodyne. That’s the circadian saga of the ugly life, in brief. When I awaken, I go outside naked. The sun — the perpetual hydrogen bomb — is my shower, and it galvanizes me, it freaks me out. A pirouetting monster emitting guttural expressions of ecstasy in the radiance of the sun …

“What’s a typical day like for me?

“It’s the late afternoon, a married woman in her forties pours the heavy syrup from a can of peaches over her breasts and looks at me. I’m sitting on a chair across the room, critiquing her masochistic poetry. When I say good-bye to her later, it’s night. Under her hot halogen lamp, oil oozes from the pores of her ‘T-zone.’

“ ‘Why wouldn’t you fuck me?’ she asks.

“ ‘I’m married. And I don’t fuck the women I counsel. You asked me to take my clothes off so that you could see my body and I did that. Why don’t you fuck your husband when he gets home?’