by Schow, Ryan
The liquids inside me churn and boil—they’re rushing for all available exits. I’m already on my knees in front of the toilet with my hair pulled back. I’m already sweating, dreading the inevitable. The rush hits my throat, explodes out my mouth.
Convulsion after skull-splitting convulsion compacts my body. Breakfast hits the toilet water along with splashing blood. My nose is dripping red. The edges of my vision blur and throb. After like ten minutes and four or five post-puking dry-hurls, I’m certain there’s nothing left inside me. I flush the toilet and that’s when a sharp, foreboding growl erupts from my colon. Like a rabbit stuck in a sock. I yank down my pants, hop my skinny ass on the toilet and it’s like hot liquid violence. I’m watching beads of sweat pop out of my shins, trying not to cry because the pain in my legs hurts all the way up my spine.
As much as I hate Gerhard, the way things are rapidly deteriorating, I absolutely have to call him. I don’t want to, but I’m so scared and in so much pain that I really don’t have any choice.
Throughout all of this physical trauma, a squeezing pain in my left breast takes hold, nearly crippling me. It’s like it’s being manhandled, wrung out. The pain has me moaning out loud, slumped over in sheer and utter agony. Then the pain passes and I just sit there sobbing, terrified. Finally I flush the toilet, but not for any reason other than the entire bathroom has become a hazardous waste zone.
If I’ve learned anything here today, it’s that my transformation just might be too good to be true. Is it now my time to suffer for letting someone else play God with me?
The Slide of Flesh from Bone
1
Someone calls my cell phone while I’m in the bathroom pulling off my shirt and freaking out. I mean, on a scale of one to ten, my brains are turning to goop behind my eyeballs. My cell phone rings again in my bedroom. I hear it from the bathroom, but because I’m half naked, I’m not exactly rushing to answer it. My eyes won’t stop seeing the horror that’s becoming my new body. My left breast is definitely drooping below my right breast. Again! And even worse, either the right nipple is shrinking or the left nipple is growing. I can’t really tell. Either way, they’re definitely becoming a mismatched pair.
“How is this even possible?” I want to scream.
I take off the rest of my clothes, inspecting myself thoroughly. Gigantic marble-size tears wash down my face as I turn around in the full length mirror and find my perfectly sculpted butt—the kind of butt most girls would step on baby puppies for—with dents. Two very unreasonable dents.
I start thinking of what I ate, but I didn’t eat anything of note, certainly nothing that would begin transforming my butt into the surface of the moon. Is it the stress of moving? No, that would make me skinnier.
Unable to stomach the sight of myself, I hurry into my clothes then cry for two hours straight before checking my caller ID and seeing it was Netty who called.
I finally dial her number, wait three rings, then heave a sigh of relief the moment she answers. The bawling starts back up. I tell her the whole story of my body in fits and runs, trying to get it all out, trying to at least sound intelligible. Then, and this sounds so pathetic, I ask, “So how’s things with your dad?”
“First of all, you need to call that doctor guy.” Then she adds, “Even if you hate each other.”
“I think I can’t talk about me anymore,” I say, sniffling. If I stop thinking of my body, maybe I won’t be so scared. Maybe it will fix itself. Denial, I decide, will be the key to my salvation. “I want to hear about you. How’s your new job?”
“Are you kidding me right now?” she says, incredulous.
“Distract me,” I plead. “Please, Netty. Please.”
“Okay, fine. My job…at first I loved it. I mean, you know how much I enjoy books. But then I got overwhelmed with everything I want to read. My brain hurts thinking about all the books I haven’t bought yet. I can’t even keep track of them all!”
“So what’s going on with your dad?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says too quickly. Now we’re both treading on each others’ shaky ground. “Are you going to start using your new name?”
The thought of being an Abigail starts me bawling all over again. First I was ugly Savannah, then pretty Savannah who still felt like ugly Savannah inside, and now Abigail Swann who looks like new Savannah but feels like old Savannah. And now I’m going to be disfigured Abigail?
“I’m sorry, Savannah. It’s just, with my dad…”
“You should tell me,” I say.
“I’ll talk about that with you, but only after you call that doctor.”
After a long, brooding moment, I finally issue a defiant, “Fine, I’ll call.”
“How’s things with Margaret?”
A groan escapes me.
“That awful?”
“Mostly it’s sad,” I say, my eyes like two exposed wounds. “I think she’s realizing that even sober, she’s still never going to be happy. Or maybe one day she will be, but she just can’t see it yet.”
“I know,” Netty says. “It’s like my dad, how he…crap, I gotta go. He’s calling me right now.”
We hang up the phone and suddenly the distractions are gone and I can’t stop thinking about how—if things keep going this way—I’m going to be the pig sloth again, and soon.
Or maybe not. If things go from bad to worse, I promise myself I’ll call Gerhard.
2
The next day that tall glass of muddy water, Jacob Brantley, comes over to the house to apologize. He looks friendly and very put together, and he’s wearing a cologne I’m certain the neighbors will say is the reason for a sudden, chemically soaked breeze. I frown, put a hand on my hip and breathe an audible sigh. It all seems to work because suddenly he’s looking nervous.
“I came over because I feel like we got off on the wrong foot yesterday and I want to say I’m sorry.”
“You being who you are,” I say, “is you getting off on the wrong foot all by yourself.”
“I just think you should maybe get to know me before you judge me,” he says. His genial look is withering fast. I’m thinking, this is the jackass who bullied me? This is my first crush?
Pathetic.
“Guys like you think your looks entitle you to things other people have to earn or may never get. Like popularity, and maybe the pretty girl.”
He strikes a GQ pose and, with a sumptuous grin I fight to ignore, he says, “Ask anyone and they will say being rich and good looking entitles you to more. It’s vain and arrogant for sure, but it’s also an inescapable truth.”
“There it is,” I say. “Your inner douchebag coming out.”
“I’m not trying to be rude,” he says, clearly frustrated, “I’m just being practical.” All the GQ confidence starts to fade. Signs of insecurity bloom.
“You want to know what I think?”
“I’m not sure anymore,” he says, cautious. “Maybe?”
I step back and slam the door in his face so hard it shakes the frame.
Half of me still hates Jacob, but more of the reason I feel like being this rude is because there’s something wrong with me and it feels pretty good taking it out on him. Aside from the left side of my face starting to droop and my lady parts changing, I feel a kind of aggression I’ve never felt before. I can’t decide if this is a mental problem or a physical problem. Or is my new DNA somehow tainted? If hostility and bad language is suddenly my new thing, I’m not sure I can handle the embarrassment of being me.
And my freaking belly!
It looked so much flatter last night. That was after my stomach and my colon turned themselves inside out. I suck my stomach in, let it back out, then feel the invading desperation as it makes its way into every single cell inside me.
3
The following day the doorbell rings and I’m in my pajamas with my hair kind of put together. It’s Jacob and he’s at it again. He’s unrelenting!
Sucking in my gut
—which hasn’t grown or shrunk—crossing my arms over the fraternal twins that are now my breasticals, I say, “You don’t give up, do you?”
“I want to, but no. I’m a glutton for punishment, I suppose.”
I make a big production of sighing and letting a grin loose, then I say, “Alright, but I need to shower first. Can you come back in an hour?”
He’s all smiles. Like he just won a free iPhone or a new car. “I can. Maybe you can let me buy you lunch.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,” I say. It’s cruel of me to give him hope, but really, he’s bringing it on himself. Paying for the past, so to speak.
In the hour it would have taken me to get ready, I gather up all the liquid food I can get a hold of: salsa, milk, tapioca, some kind of meaty stew my father made that was so good I feel bad for wasting it, jalapeños in a jar of their own juices, mustard, and at the last minute for filler, my hot urine. I know, it’s so Julie Sanderson and revolting, and it’s nine times worse than unladylike, but it’s either this or puke and I’m fresh out of puke.
When Jacob knocks on the door again, I lean out my father’s second story bedroom window and, from ten feet above, pour the mixed contents of the bucket on his head. It hits thick and multicolored on his perfectly combed head, then explodes like a blooming flower in all directions over the stamped concrete entryway. He wipes his eyes and looks up, horrified, and that’s when I say what’s really on my mind.
“That’s for making fun of my friend Savannah Van Duyn, you stupid asshole!”
“That fat pig’s your friend?” he says, pawing more slop off his face and out of his eyes. “No wonder you’re so goddamned…anti-social!”
I yell, “I wouldn’t go out with you if I had AIDS and you were the only person on earth willing to hump me!” Yeah, I said hump
I slam the window just as my father clears his throat. He’s standing in the doorway. Oh my God, can’t I do anything in this house under the radar?!
“You have Netty over without asking, then you insult our new neighbors, and now you dump whatever the hell was in that bucket on that boy’s head? I told you, Savannah. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Crossing my arms, I say, “I’m not afraid of Margaret.”
“You’re not going to your mother’s house.”
“What are you going to do? Send me away again? How far now? London? Russia? Is that far enough this time?”
“Your aunt’s house in the city. That’s where you’re going.”
“In that case, I’ll take Russia. I hear Siberia’s nice this time of year.”
“You’re going and that’s final. And when I figure out what the hell we’re going to do about—you know, who we are—I’ll let you know. And maybe I’ll come and get you.”
“In the mean time you’re sending me to San Francisco, is that it? Because no one knows me there?”
“Be whoever you want down there, I could care less. Just don’t be Savannah Van Duyn.”
“Would it matter to you that something’s wrong with my body? That I’m having problems on the outside that might explain these emotional problems I’m having on the inside?”
“Like what?” he asks.
Great, now he’s concerned?
I explain the problems I’m having, embarrassing as they are, and thankfully this distracts him from my punishment. I can’t stand my aunt. She’s as much of a bitch as Margaret is. Maybe worse.
“We should contact Dr. Gerhard. I didn’t spend twenty five million so you could fall apart all over again.”
I dread calling, but my father’s insistent. And when I do, it’s worse than I expected.
4
“Hello, Dr. Gerhard, it’s Savannah Van Duyn.” The way there’s so much static on the line, you’d think we were disconnected.
Then, with a perfectly clear phone line, he says, “I thought I washed my hands of you. And yet here you are, on the other end of the telephone. Whatever did I do to deserve this?”
“I’m falling apart.”
“Naturally.”
The way he sounds with his German accent has me picturing him running the prison camps of the 1940’s. I have nothing against Germans, but when I think of Wolfgang Gerhard, the word Nazi constantly springs to mind.
“Naturally?” I ask. “What the hell does that mean?”
“If what you say is true, then this means I’m about to have the distinct displeasure of seeing you again.”
“You are.”
He blows a sigh right into the phone, then says, “I’m going to transfer you to Nurse Diederich now.”
Before I can say a word, bad “hold” music starts playing into the phone, and then Nurse Arabelle Diederich gets on the line and asks how she can help me. I tell her I need to set an appointment and the chill in her voice scrapes every last nerve. With her Slavic roots, it’s not hard to sound irritated, but she’s going above and beyond. Really giving it the old college try.
“Nurse Arabelle, I’m still reeling from the gigantic cold shoulder Dr. Gerhard threw my way, not that I blame him, but now you, too?”
I don’t really resent Gerhard for hating me. After all, I killed the hulking male lab experiment he called his war model, blackmailed him into fixing the non-triplets and giving Brayden free treatments and, oh, I shot him. Yeah, I don’t really resent him at all for hating me. Maybe I should feel lucky our conversation didn’t go worse than it did. At least he’s willing to see me. And Nurse Arabelle? Yes, I earned her disrespect as well, I suppose.
“Have you forget I have much upset for you taking purple eyes like mine?” she says. When she’s angry, her bad English gets worse. How’s she going to act when I see her? Or Gerhard when I see him, for that matter?
“Me taking your eyes was a compliment, Nurse Arabelle. It was love at first sight, and I just couldn’t see living my life without them. Honest.”
“What is your problem that you must see Wolfgang? I mean Dr. Gerhard?”
“My body is changing for the bad.” God, now I’m sounding like her, too.
“Like what?”
“Like, my face feels like it’s falling on one side, and one breast is sagging.”
“Lots of girls’ breasts are saggy.”
“Yes, but only one? And it practically happened overnight. Plus I’m throwing up blood and my nipples are either growing or shrinking but they’re doing it in opposite directions and it’s freaking me out.”
I hear her heavy breathing, like she’s thinking, or maybe feeling bad for being so mean. Yeah, right. Still, all this silence has me thinking too much about seeing Gerhard again. I shudder to imagine myself alone with him, showing him my naked, uglifying body.
“Come in tomorrow morning,” she says.
“What time? Ten o’clock?”
“Whenever.”
She hangs up, leaving me an empty line and no business address in the city.
“Unfreakingbelievable.”
5
When I first met Dr. Wolfgang Gerhard, with the space in his two front teeth and his heavy German accent, I got the kind of creepy vibe kids must get when they come into the presence of a pedophile, or a drunk strip mall Santa, or the dude who drives the ice cream truck and has a naked Polaroid of his obese Spanish wife taped to the driver’s side sun visor. Being around him when he’s unguarded, it’s like you just want to hide in a closet and wash away the memory of ever having met him. Now my body is forsaking me and I hate that I’m more desperate than ever for his help.
Looking in the mirror, the situation with my body is already worse than this morning. I’ve thrown up twice since I got off the phone with him and I’m getting pretty worried. I can’t wait until tomorrow. In fact, with the amount of blood I left in the bowl this last time, and the unrelenting sensation of vertigo plaguing me, I have to see him. Like right now! I dial his number for the second time that day. He answers right away.
“This is Savannah Van Duyn calling.”
“What a great displeas
ure it is to hear from you again.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” I say, my nausea worsening by the minute. “Trust me.”
He doesn’t say anything, and I’m struggling to hold my stomach down. Finally he says, “So you just called for no particular reason, or are you going to speak? I’m very busy.”
“I’m sorry, I’m feeling sick.”
“Take a two Tylenol and don’t call me in the morning,” he says. I can hear him doing things in the background. Like he’s not even paying attention to me.
I run a hand through my hair. I’m starting to feel manic. “Your science is failing me, Gerhard.” I pull my hand back and there’s like twenty or thirty strands of hair in my hand.
Great. Now I’m going bald.
I think I can actually hear him smiling at my pain. Knowing we’re sharing the same telephone it’s got hot bile boiling in my throat. Whatever he was doing to make all that noise in the background, he’s finally stopped.
“You are failing your scientist, my dear.”
“What?”
“If you’re sick, it’s because you’re talking. About the program, about the corporation. That is why you are falling apart, as you so eloquently phrased it.”
“I’m not talking to anyone!” I say, when really I’m thinking: Oh, my God, how does he know?
“What you are suffering are low dosage bursts of radiation designed to trigger cell mutations in your body. You DNA is being corrupted by your reckless actions.”
So he has an explanation for the pain, and my falling out hair? “What do you mean ‘by my reckless actions?’”
He gives a hostile little laugh. The kind of sound you would think of as a mean chortle. The sound is sickening. Worse than long nails on a dry chalkboard.
“You didn’t think you could blackmail me and everything would just be roses and sunshine, did you? I still have my interests and the interests of my employers to protect.”
