“We… are… the same.”
“Tell me about your monster family, Dylan. I want to hear it.”
“We… are… the same.”
“Did they find you? Or did you crawl out of the garbage and find them?”
“What… did… you do?”
“Huh?”
“Did… they… find… you? Or did you crawl… out of the garbage… and find them?”
“I’m just trying to understand.”
“Understand… what?”
“Exactly.”
“If you don’t… let them go… Clyde… you know… what you have to do.”
I take a drag on my cigarette, let the smoke get in my eyes. I consider offering Dylan a drag but he has no lips to suck the smoke in. And even though he’s my brother, I don’t think I could stomach the idea of his mouth touching anything of mine.
“What, Dylan? What do I have to do?” I finally ask.
“We… know… the same… things.”
“You spent most of your life upside down, someone gripping you by the toe.”
“Yes.”
“What do I have to do, Dylan?”
“Let… them… go…”
“But if I don’t?”
“Skin them alive… and hang them… over the wall… as a warning… to… others. There must never… be… any… others.”
“That’s what Momma always says,” I tell him, breathing in the last of the smoke, which lets me feel OK with all of this. I flick the cigarette butt into the darkness of Dylan’s Den and it simply disappears.
“Why… did you tell them… more monsters are coming?”
“Because they are. They are. The monsters were always coming.”
“Why?”
“To destroy my Kingdom. To destroy my…”
“Clyde… there are no… monsters.”
“That’s what Momma always says.”
“I… know,” Dylan says.
After Church with Dylan, I strolled my Kingdom studying the wall. I do want that breech in the wall at Monster Island open, but I knew it’d be a bad idea to have more. So, I checked the wall thoroughly, which worked out fine as it gave me an excuse to stay away from Home for a few hours. Of course, I had asked Sam to check the wall recently but he’s not the most observant giant. For instance, Joyce and I had to explain to Sam that Joyce was pregnant. That she was gonna be a Momma. He simply didn’t notice the ballooning belly or that goddamned glow they say women have when with child. It’s either glow or nausea or radiation poisoning. But there’s definitely a glow! When we explained to him, he still seemed confused. I pointed at Momma’s woo-hoo and told him a baby is gonna come outta there and be his new brother. Then Sam got real excited. His big old face lit up and blushed and his grin was wide enough to crack his face in half. He ran around, loping like a horse gone rabid, smacking his own haunches and yelping. Apparently he’s very much looking forward to having someone to play with at The Used Car Lot. He also said he can’t wait to show him how to hunt and patrol King Clyde’s Kingdom. He said he’d show the little baby how to find the rats and rabbits, just like Terrance taught me. I nearly smacked him at the mention of Terrance’s name but didn’t have the heart to sap his sudden exuberance.
So I checked the walls expecting to find the hole Dylan crawled through, though I know Momma doesn’t like it when I stay away too long. Joyce thinks I spend too much time away from the family. She says I’ve been doing it more and more, but I haven’t noticed. In any case, I checked the walls after Church with Dylan and didn’t find any breeches. It’s strange to me. How did Dylan get in? That one hole in the wall was sealed off for years until recently.
A few days later, I come back to camp (it took more than a couple hours to inspect the wall thoroughly and I often find myself sleeping in the backseat of a car at The Used Car Lot these days). Sam’s nowhere to be seen. I pop my head into my shelter and see Momma sleeping soundly on that lumpy mattress set atop a mangy old rug. I watch her sleep for a while, the warm breeze brushing past me, the yellow light pushing around glittery dust. Joyce’s round tummy rises and falls gently with her sleep-breaths. Her face hides in shadow, free of worry. She’s beautiful and I realize I love her. I mean, of course I love her. I know I love her. I’ve always loved her. She nurtured me. Protected me. And now, here we are.
Joyce wakes from her slumber and her eyes fix on me. She doesn’t smile and doesn’t get up. She just stares at me. Her face a complete blank.
She’s very beautiful right now.
I pat the doorframe of the shanty and say, “The monsters are coming,” before heading back out into my Kingdom of Trash.
“I… think you… should eat them,” I hear Dylan whisper into my ear. I’m groggy and unable to understand what he’s doing in mine and Momma’s little shanty, so I just accept it. “You… should eat them.” His breath is ragged and torn, as usual, making speech difficult for him. Talking is not something he had much opportunity to do out there in The Great Beyond. “You… should… cut off their arms… and legs… and eat them,” Dylan says, his blistered mouth pressed right against my ear. “Eat them… just like… you ate… Joyce’s little girl… Grace.”
I lash out, suddenly awake, swinging at thin grey air to silence it, the darkness of early morning encircling me. Dylan’s gone, having evaded my lethal strikes.
Joyce sleeps soundly. As always.
30
“What were you doing in my quarters this morning?” I ask Dylan as we shuffle around The Used Car Lot. I’m cupping a handful of pebbles and absentmindedly chucking them at the cars.
“I… was not in… your quarters, Clyde,” he tells me, his orange skin opening up all over in oozing, yellow and purple sores. He lumbers alongside me, leading with his left foot, his right practically dragging. He’s hunched over, but still much taller than me, despite our age differences and how much more of a man I clearly am.
“You were there. You told me to do something horrible,” I say sternly, throwing a pebble especially hard at this rusty orange hotrod.
“You are… only… human…” he gasps.
“What?”
“You… are… only… human. You like to… punish… yourself.”
“You’re crazy. You must get that from Momma.”
“You… get that… from everyone… that came… before you,” Dylan says, scratching at sores on his forearms.
“Can you hop over that wall?” I ask, pointing at the grey western wall adorned with a crown of thorns. A big blue sky hovers miles and miles above it.
“No.”
“Can other monsters?”
“I… am not… a monster. I am… family.”
“What’s the difference?” I ask, flinging all the pebbles left at the wall.
“You… tell… me.”
“OK, forget it. Can other… people like you… you know… that look like you—can they hop over that wall?”
“Brother… has anyone… ever hopped over that… wall?” he asks, scratching his other forearm.
I shake my head. He’s got a point. I have the urge to slug him in the shoulder, friendly like, but think better of it when my eyes pass over his festering flesh.
“Tell me this,” I say. “If you’re missing your pecker, how can you even be my brother?”
“I am—”
“Because as far as I know, brothers have peckers. Furthermore, my dear brother, how do y’all procreate without peckers and woo-hoos?”
“Woo… hoos?”
“Yeah, you know… pussy.”
“Pussy?”
“Goddamn, sometimes it’s like talking to Sam.”
“Tell… me… this,” Dylan says, a hint of a smile pulling at his lipless mouth.
“What?” I ask.
“If you… have… a pecker… why… aren’t you… a man?”
“Fuck off,” I say.
“No… tell me… what… you think… the… answer is.”
“I said fuck off.”
“It’s because… you… are trash.”
“Funny. You’re a real smart one, Dylan.”
“Trash… you see… does not have… a… gender.”
“I get it. Shit.”
“We know… the same… things.”
“And I’m trash. I get it. I’m worthless.”
“Worth… less… than… what?” he asks with a little gurgle, which I guess is a laugh for him.
“I don’t like it when people make fun of me, Dylan. But… you’re family. You should know that’s the only reason I’m letting it slide.”
“You… can… hate me.”
“I can hate you.”
“Because you… hate yourself.”
“I hate myself.”
“You are… making… progress. You should… be proud.”
“I’m proud.”
“Good.”
“I’m just glad to have a family member around to talk to. Momma hasn’t paid me no mind in years.”
“I’m… family. Then… Clyde… why am I not allowed… to meet Joyce and… Sam?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Have you seen yourself?”
“I… have seen… myself in reflective… surfaces. Many times. Yes.”
We’re walking right alongside the wall now. Brown and green weeds grow at its base.
“You know, I bet if you really tried, you could hop this wall. I’m sure if a monster tried hard enough, he could definitely hop this wall,” I tell Dylan.
31
“I’ve got a book,” I say to Sam after he asks what we’re going to do about the birth of my son. Momma is along with us, for a change. We’re strolling the perimeter. Not far away, the shiny and unpolished edges of unnamable refuse surge from the earth in long, almost intricate mountain ranges. The sun’s just set behind The Swill Alps and The Night’s First Eye (also known as Venus) is already blinking. I named it right away, that first night after Terrance’s terrible passing, when the sky opened up, breaking the fifth wall that had always rested overhead. I saw that tiny twinkle ignite on the horizon, following the rise of the great Mother Moon, and I named it, knowing the power I had to make things real—to make them last.
“You’ve got a book?” Sam asks with his thick voice, confused. “Will you read it to me?”
“It’s not that kind of a book, big guy. But, yeah, I’ve got everything under control,” I say and pull Joyce close to me, my arm around her middle, which has thickened and is very satisfying to slip my arm around. It’s nice to have her out of that shack, walking and taking in the fresh junkyard air. She’s been so bed-ridden lately. I worry about her. She needs to stay mobile. I worry she won’t be able to run away when she has to.
“A book?” Joyce echoes with a little chuckle. Her blue eyes aim upward at me, smiling. “And what does this book say about childbirth, Clyde?”
“It’s mostly pictures, actually,” I say.
“Mmm… pictures,” Sam says, his big feet shaking the ground beside us with each step despite his hobbling stride.
“Well, what do the pictures have to say?” Joyce asks.
“I don’t know, actually. I don’t really like looking at them. They’re pretty gross.”
“Terrific. I guess I have nothing to worry about, then.”
“You could leave, you know,” I offer, automatically.
“Leave?”
“Yeah. Maybe you’d be safer having the baby out there in The Great Beyond. So long as you don’t get struck by lightning, I guess.”
“What about the monsters?” Momma asks and I can tell she was joking at first but by the time she finished the sentence she was dead serious.
“Never mind. Don’t worry. I’ll find another book without pictures and I’ll study it real good.”
“Listen, Clyde. It’s you that doesn’t have to worry,” Joyce says.
“Why?”
“I’m having the baby. You don’t have to do anything.”
“I have to do something. That’s my son in there,” I say, pointing at her belly.
“No, seriously, Clyde. I do all the work. You just have to catch the damn thing.”
“Catch it?” I ask.
“Play catch,” Sam says and smacks his fat hands together, releasing a dust cloud in front of us.
“That’s right. Just be a man and let the woman do all the work,” she says, and I sense she’s trying to be playful but I don’t like it. Before I can get real mad, though, Sam’s hopping up and down then galloping away toward The Used Car Lot, suddenly full of youthful pluck, yelling at me to “come and play,” so I give Joyce one good squeeze around the middle and run off to play Flying Cars with Sam.
“Clyde,” Momma says in the middle of the night, startling me. She sleeps so much now, and so soundly, I’m taken aback.
“What?” I ask, sleepily. “What is it? Are you OK? Is the baby—”
“Everything’s fine, but…”
“Then what is it? What are you doing awake in the middle of the night? It’s probably not good for the baby.”
“What the fuck would you know about it?” she mumbles.
“You can’t stay here forever,” I tell her.
“Yes. We can.”
“Do you really want to raise a child in a junkyard?”
“Have you seen what else is out there? What am I saying? Of course you haven’t.”
“You came from out there.”
“Are you really—fuck you, Clyde. Fuck you!” she yells, slipping from the mattress and standing. She paces back and forth in the tiny shack, the dim firelight from outside shaking her shadow.
“What?”
“You’re telling me you want me to leave… now that I’m fucking pregnant? When I said you didn’t have to do anything I didn’t mean it quite that literally.”
“I can’t be a father.”
“Well, you are. It’s not like there’s a lot of other candidates, for fuck’s sake.”
“No, I mean… I can’t be.”
Shaking her head, she asks, “What are you talking about?”
“I’m a monster.”
“A monster?”
“I couldn’t possibly make a human baby.”
“Well maybe I’ve got a monster baby kicking away inside me.”
“Don’t say that.”
“You really think I should go?”
“Yes. No.”
“What is it?”
“You and Sam would be better off. I’m no King. I can’t protect you. There’s… monsters…”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve left behind that king bullshit. It wore thin pretty quickly.”
“I’m not good, Momma.”
“You know how I love it when you call me Momma.”
“I’m not good. I should have been tossed into Hades the second I was born. Just like Dylan.”
“Like who?”
“My brother.”
“What brother?”
“It doesn’t matter. He went straight to Hell, like I should have. But now he’s back.”
“You have a brother. And he’s back?”
“Yes. No.”
“You are having a hard time sticking to your convictions, Clyde.”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure you don’t mean no?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s gotten into you?”
“Trash.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Clyde, you need to pull yourself together. Not just for yourself. But for the baby. For me. Even for Sam, for fuck’s sake.”
“You all need to get out of here.”
“I don’t believe this,” she says, yanking a blanket off of me. She walks to the curtained doorway. “I’m going to sleep in Sam’s shack. Smoke a damn cigarette and get your head straight.”
“You all need to get out of here,” I say once she has disappeared through the curtain.
32
“You… are… a specimen,” Dylan says, a
s we sit in the candlelit glow of Dylan’s Den.
“A specimen?”
“You are… a fleck… in God’s Petri dish.”
“And what am I doing in God’s Petri dish?”
“In… fecting.”
“And what are you doing in God’s Petri dish?”
“I am not… a part of… God’s plan.”
“God has a plan?”
“For… you.”
“And who is God?”
“We know… the same… things.”
“Who is God?”
“What happened… the day the sky… turned blue?”
“My Kingdom became a lot shinier.”
“Is… that all?”
“No. I guess not. Our sightlines became a lot clearer.”
“Did your… Momma… love you?”
“No. Yes.”
“Did your… Papa… love you?”
“No. Yes.”
“What do you… make… of the world?”
“Other than it’s square and it’s flat except for the garbage mountains?”
“Yes.”
“I once thought trash was beautiful.”
“And now?”
“I only see myself.”
“You saw… something… other than… yourself, before?”
“No. Yes.”
“What… did you… do?”
“I killed a little girl.”
“What… else?”
“I don’t know.”
“What… happened to… Papa?”
“I don’t know.”
“What… happened to… Momma?”
“I don’t know.”
“What… happened to… Terrance?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know! Just stop, already! I don’t know!”
“You… don’t… know.”
“No. Yes.”
“Then… you are… absolved?”
“Yes.”
“You know… what you… have to… do,” Dylan says, blowing out the candle, erasing himself with darkness.
33
“They’re here,” I tell Momma, poking my head through the curtain of our shack. She’s asleep, as usual. It’s goddamned midday, the sun is warm and life-giving, and she’s sleeping, sleeping, sleeping. When she should be running.
The Sun My Destiny Page 16
