by Ron Miller
“You ain’t from around here, I can tell that.”
He was silent for a moment before replying. “I’m a Teratoma,” he said.
“That Greek?”
“I might as well tell you. It won’t make the slightest bit of difference now.”
So he told her a story; they all do, eventually, but she’d heard so many she didn’t pay any attention at all. She was anxious to get to the liquor store. It was too early for it to be open, though, at least another hour, so she had no choice but to listen. Or at least pretend to listen. She’d certainly put up with a lot worse things for a quart of gin.
“I’m a very rare individual,” he said, his voice like bubbles breaking in crude oil...as though he were trying trying to speak while swallowing a mouthful of Mazola. His tongue seemed to be too large for his mouth. She knew from experience that it was a rough, lumpy organ. “So rare,” he continued, “that doctors are only aware of a scant handful of like examples. And they’re usually destroyed immediately. There used to be many more of us, before modern medicine. You’ve heard of a fetus in fetu? No, I suppose you haven’t. Very, very rare. Almost unknown. Well, surely you know how identical twins occur? An egg divides shortly after fertilization, creating two identical fetuses. Sometimes this goes wrong. The egg doesn’t divide perfectly and one of the twins isn’t viable. The other egg enfolds and absorbs it. But it isn’t dead. It continues to live and grow, though it never has any hope for an independent life of its own. It’s a brainless parasite, drawing its nourishment from the healthy, normal fetus. In most cases this ultimately kills the normal fetus long before it comes to term. But on very rare occasions, the baby is born bearing its own twin within it.”
The woman had not been listening to a word of this and had no idea what the man had been droning on about. Nor did she care particularly. The heat was too oppressive and her head was swimming as it always did when she had gone too long without her gin. He had a twin? So what? Too bad for the brother, if he looked anything like this guy.
She had the only window wide open, but it looked out onto an air shaft. Nothing came out of it but the cold stale fumes from the Chinese takeout three floors below. This didn’t go well with her gin-deprived stomach. Rivulets of sweat ran down her flaccid, lard-colored body—like a cheese left in the sun. The droplets tickled like scurrying lice. There was a salty delta forming between her breasts. It was crusty and itched. The man on the bed glistened, but it didn’t look like sweat. He looked more like a slab of fatback rendering slowly in the heat.
“I had a sister once,” she said. “Wasn’t no twin, though. She was a coupla years older’n me. Ain’t heard from ‘er in years.”
“I don’t have a twin,” the man said. “I wasn’t done with my story yet.”
Jeezus, the woman thought. I might have known. She went back to the bed and sat on the edge of the stained, sheetless mattress. She lit a cigarette and sucked on it. She stuck out her tongue and picked a fleck of tobacco from it with the tips of her thumb and forefinger. She looked at the fleck, but couldn’t find anything interesting about it.
“No...it seems that many cases diagnosed as fetus in fetu were carcinomas—a special kind that is even rarer than the vanishingly rare fetus in fetu. They’re called Teratomas. It’s a Latin word that means ‘monster cancer’, in case you were wondering.”
She felt the bed bounce as the man stirred. He was sitting up and a moment later she could hear his feet padding on the bare linoleum floor. They made a squishing sound, like sponges. She didn’t want to turn and look at him, but he came around to her side of the bed and stood between her and the air shaft window. Goddam but he’s ugly, she thought for at least the twentieth time that week. His greyish skin hung in pendulous, overlapping folds, like melting wax. In places it was as smooth and glossy as fresh liver, but in others it had a crepe-like texture and in others it had what looked like scales and she wondered of psoriasis was contagious. Nothing matched. His arms and legs, even his fingers and toes all looked as though they belonged to a dozen other people. And from people who’d been glad to get rid of them, at that. He did not smell very good, either, and the fact that she noticed at all was saying a lot.
He had warts, too, dozens of them, scores, all over his body. They looked like small, grey, rugose meatballs. Most were half-embedded in his shiny skin but others hung by little isthmuses of skin, like tiny scrotums. They rolled back and forth as he moved.
“A Teratoma is a cancer, but a very special kind. Most unique. It develops from many different cell types derived from a variety of germ layers. As a result, they can form skin, hair, teeth, cervical tissues, fat and muscle. They are often mistaken for the kind of parasitic twin I’ve already mentioned. If I’d been born in this country in this century, I would’ve been immediately recognized for what I was and destroyed. I certainly wouldn’t be here today. But, fortunately, I was born in a place and time that worked in my favor. My mother said the doctor was horrified when he discovered me. He was little more than an ill-informed country physician who had never heard of a Teratoma let alone seen one and thought he was looking at a particularly grotesque tumor. He was in the process of cutting it from her womb in order to destroy it when...I squealed.
“I don’t think that would have stopped a doctor here.”
The woman looked up at the man dully. He turned and went to where he’d left the small brown bag he’d brought with him. He reached into it and brought out a bottle of clear liquid. It was only the cheapest gin, but to the woman it looked like a crystal decanter of morning dew.
“You been holdin’ out on me!” she cried, nearly tumbling onto the floor as she grabbed at the bottle. “You know I need that bad an’ you held out!”
“Not any more,” the man said, unscrewing the cap and handing the bottle to her. She took two quick, deep swallows before lowering the bottle and wiping her bright red lips with the back of her hand. Her lips looked like two pimentos lying on her cheese-colored face.
“Jesus it’s hot in here,” she said, and took another swallow. She coughed and couldn’t stop and her lips became redder. She rose, went to the sink and spat into it. The phlegm was streaked with pink. She ran water to flush it down. “What’s it y’ been sayin’? Y’ got th’ cancer ‘r sumthin?”
“No, I don’t have cancer,” he said. “I am cancer.”
“I’m a Puh—Pisces. Makes no diff’rence t’ me. Y’ wanna have a lil drink with me? Make y’ forget how hot it is. Goddam, but it’s hot in here.” She waved a mottled hand vaguely in front of her face. “Jeezus, it stinks in here.”
She sucked on the bottle again and nearly half a pint disappeared before she lowered it.
“You need something to eat.”
“Don’ need nothin’ t’ eat. Got all I need right here.”
“That’s right, drink all you want. That’s what it’s for. There’s plenty of it and more where that came from if you want it. But you should have something solid. Otherwise you’ll get sick.”
“Don’ need t’ eat. Too hot t’ eat. Too goddam hot.”
She tipped the bottle again, which was now more than two-thirds empty. Her nose was running but she didn’t notice.
The man felt around on his stomach, as though he were satisfying an itch. His fingers dug deeply into his oystery folds with a squelching sound. He sat on the bed next to the woman. Her thin, spit-colored hair was plastered to her forehead. It hung in lank tendrils around her ears, like exhausted worms. Her dilated pupils were surrounded by yellowish sclera, threaded with red veins. She had advanced pyrorrhea and several of her tobacco-stained front teeth were loose.
“Eat this,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Whass that?”
“Something for you to eat. You can swallow it with your gin, just like taking a pill.”
“Don’t wanna take no pill.”
“Do it for me. I’ll leave if you do. I’ll give you all the money you want and I’ll leave. You’ll have plenty of money for
gin and you’ll never see me again. How’s that? Just swallow this and you’ll have all the gin you could ever want and never see me again.”
“Thass...thass okay. Soun’s okay t’ me.”
She took what the man had in his hand. It looked like a little meatball. She decided that whatever it was she’d swallowed worse in her time for less payoff. It was slippery in her mouth and went down easily. She followed it with a mouthful of gin. It’d had no taste of its own, though. She looked at the bottle which was now nearly empty and made an indescribable moué of disappointment.
The man grunted and rose from the bed. As he went to where his clothes hung over a ladder-back chair, she saw the warts that swung on his body like little ornaments.
“Jesus!” she sputtered, wiping her mouth. “Jesus! Is that what y’ bin tellin’ me? Is that it? Y’ bin tellin’ me y’ got a cancer? Y’ give me a cancer, y’ dirty rotten bastard!”
“No, of course not,” he said, pulling on his pants. “Nothing like that at all.” There was little concern in his voice. The alcoholic woman would be unconscious in a few minutes. When she awoke—hours from now, maybe even the next day—she would hardly remember him and she’d certainly remember nothing of what he told her. “Of course I didn’t give you a cancer. I gave you a son.”
MY FAMILY
by Wanda Fescu
When Miss Tillotson told us we had to write a Essay about our familys I got worried. I did’nt think our Family was interesting enough to write a Essay about. Everyone all ready knows we are Blood farmers so what more else could I write about? My Father told me that without all the Blood farmers in the world everyone in the world would starve and die so Blood farmers are maybe the most important peopel in the world but that sounds very concieted even if it is true (it is true) so I figure that maybe because I am the only one in the class that lives on a Blood farm and because maybe no one has ever visited a Blood farm that maybe I would tell what life on a Blood farm is like.
My life on a Blood farm is not very interesting. It is mostly just hard work and that is not very interesting. At least I do’nt think it is very interesting. I have to get up very early in the morning to do my chores before school. In the Summer I have chores to do all day, so it is more hard work than when I have to go to School. When I was little I did’nt have to do very hard chores because I was too little. I just helped out mostly by helping to keep the Blood pens clean. Bloods you may not realize are not very clean animals and have to be kept very clean or they will get sick and maybe die. So they have to be washed every two or three days though some farmers only wash their Bloods once a week but they get lots of sick Bloods that way so my family always washes our Bloods at least twice a week and sometimes three times.
I also help feed our Bloods which is not very hard to do so I like to do it. Bloods will eat anything so long as its got all the right vitamins and things so you can feed them real cheap stuff and they will like it just fine. Since our farm has so many Bloods we put the dead Bloods in a machine that makes Blood food which I think is pretty disgusting but the Bloods do’nt know any different and it saves Father lots of money.
When I got older I got to take care of the young Bloods. You may not know it but Bloods are not like other animals that have young like cows or horses. They are more like cats or dogs how the female Blood has to take care of the young Blood for a long time before the young Blood can take care of itself. So when a female Blood has a young one we have to put them in special pens for maybe half a year before the young one can be weened and put in the special barns we have for young Bloods. This means that the all the females who have had young are not making blood for the farm but we end up with more Bloods in the long run so its OK. Some Blood farmers take the young away too soon after they are borned but this only makes more work for them to do so our family does it the Old Fashioned way which seems to work OK.
Now I am old enough to help with the bleeding which is more interesting and not so much hard work though it is very boring to have to do it every day. Every morning all of the Bloods go to the bleeding barn and that is where the Bleeding is made and the blood put into big tanks. The Bloods know when it is bleeding time because the forman blows a big whistel on the roof of the barn and when the Bloods hear the big whistel they know it is time for bleeding and they all get in line and go to the bleeding barn. All of the Bloods have little stalls they have to go in that are very small so they ca’nt move much because if they moved much the needles would come out and that would maybe loose a lot of blood. So my first job is to make sure each Blood is in its stall the right way and then my job is to make sure the needles are put in the right way. They have to be just right or maybe no blood will come or maybe the Blood will get hurt and have to go to the Vet. Our farm has many many Bloods so I am not the only worker in the morning we have many many peopel who help too. Little pumps send the blood to big tanks made of glass and when they are full trucks come to empty the tanks and take the blood to the place where it is put into bottles and cartons and that is where the blood comes from that you drink every day even in the school cafiteria.
Our Family farm is a very very big one and though it sounds concieted to say so it is almost the biggest one in the State. Our farm has almost 15000 head of Blood which is more than any other farm in the state except for another one that is only a little bit bigger. Taking care of that many Bloods can be very tricky and very hard work. Father has made a very special breed of Blood he calls Fescu’s Fancy and it is the best breed of Blood there is in the world. They make lots more blood than any other and are also very easy to take care of. They are also not so dumb as other Bloods so Father can use them to help with all sorts of chores which makes them useful besides for making blood and that also saves lots of money. They are very strong so they can pull things and lift things and carry things which would be hard and tiresome for a person to do. Mother has even trained some of the females to help around the house and it is very cute to see them kneading bread duogh or doing the laundery or carrying a tray to the dinner table. This is good Economy my Mother says because a female Blood who is nursing a young one can be put to good use until it can go back to the bleeding pens again instead of just sitting around doing nothing but suckling its young. A good Blood can understand lots and lots of words so you can tell them what to do and they can even speak too but of course they are just copying what peopel say like parrots do and do’nt really understand what they are saying.
When I was a little girl I used to like to dress up the house Bloods in our old clothes and they would look very cute that way almost like real peopel if you did’nt know they were really Bloods and not real peopel after all. But my Mother made me stop doing that because she said it Was’nt Right though I do’nt know why because they really did look very cute.
I wanted to write all about how Father breeds our stock but Mother said maybe I should’nt because it would’nt maybe be proper even though I think it is very interesting and Educational.
But just because most Bloods are usually very dumb does not mean that they are not very tricky and very mischivous like cats or monkeys. They are always getting in trouble if you are’nt careful and do’nt watch them carefully. Some farmers have tried to breed a new kind of Blood that do’nt have fingers but that also messes up something so they do’nt make very good blood either. My Father told me that some scientists have tried to make Bloods that have no brains at all but it costs a lot of money and they are so hard to take care of that it hardly seems worth the trouble. My family likes to do things the tried and true Old Fashioned way and when the young Bloods get to the right age we just prune the fingers from one paw. This does’nt hurt them at all and they can still feed themselfs but they can no longer be so mischivous.
But Bloods can still get into big trouble no matter what because they are maybe pretty dumb but they are clever and sneaky and very mischivous. I know everyone saw on TV what happened this Summer but maybe you have never heard an Eye Witness tell about what happ
ened this Summer. I am that Eye Witness!
It is only because my Family is honest and has raised me to be honest too that I admit that maybe it was our fault what happened but I personally do’nt think so. Most Blood farmers keep their Bloods in many barns with maybe only a hundred Bloods in each barn. But when you have so many Bloods as my family has this means that there would be too many Barns which would be much trouble and cost a lot of money. It is said that too many Bloods together can get into a lot of trouble but our Family has never had any trouble with its Bloods and my family has been Blood farmers for a very very long time even my Grandfather and my Great grand father before him. But sometimes there is a very bad Blood who is smarter than most Bloods and when you get a Blood like that you are sure that trouble will come sometime.
One night I was awoke to terrible sounds and when I rushed to my window I saw all the lights on and everyone running around and everyone making lots of noise. I rushed downstairs (after first making sure I was decently dressed, of course!) and when I asked what was going on my Mother told me that someone had let all the Bloods out of their stalls in the big barn and everyone was afraid that all of the Bloods in the other two big barns might get loose too. And I can tell you that 5000 Bloods all going crazy is bad enough but that 15,000 Bloods going crazy would be pretty terrible! You would never think that even one Blood could do much harm seeing how they only have fingers on one paw and are usually pretty fat and lazy and everything but Boy! I can tell you that you’d be wrong to think that! They broke down the barn doors and broke through the fences and were just all over the place making the most awful noises and all kinds of terrible mischive. They hurt a lot of the hands mostly by biting and you never want to let a Blood bite you because even though they do’nt have very sharp teeth or anything they’re bites are almost like poisin and almost sure to make you sick. Their little claws are’nt much either but they can still hurt if they scratch you. But Bloods are just as big as peopel and like I said sometimes a lot fatter so they can really hurt if they jump on you or something. Anyway, they were running around all over the place thousands and thousands of them and it was just an awful mess but Father and the hands finally got them all rounded up again even though there were lots and lots of dead Bloods left all over the place. There were males and females and young and it was kind of sad to see all the dead young ones because like I said they are usually very cute.
