The Orange Eats Creeps

by Grace Krilanovich

  I peeled off those two pieces of dried scotch tape like two corneas, opened the tiny shutters to a new world. The plastic coating was removed so I saw out of two twin coins gleaming thousands of miles into the future. Only two small pieces of scotch tape as the barrier of the girl and the world. And they leaked so.

  The girl hid a small wooden doll in the folds of her dress. Her hair remained unwashed and she sat under the eves of a battered tent with poisoned lurkers milling all around the camp, waiting to die. The doll remained hidden inside these long winter months that they have spent cracked out of their skulls on hunger and a malaria-like depression icecloud. They were trapped on a mountain pass for the duration of the winter. An overland journey gone awry. No one knew how to save them. One day the story of what happened here would be dug up, but until then the girl kept a kind of mental log of the trials that had befallen her family. The wooden doll kept a journal of its own to chronicle the mortifications of the journey that had dropped them here. The girl’s doll spoke softly and in soothing tones, recording the sins of the day in soft lead on swollen strips of tissue paper. Labored day and night by the light of dying embers at the fire pit. The little wooden doll in her dress owned the girl, kept her host alive —

  The girl grew accustomed to speaking through the small wooden doll hidden in her dress. It carried its own magic like everything else in this hell. The bodies piled up and with it the doll’s meticulousness, which grew and grew until it raised the ire of the whole camp. She would wake in the middle of the night to hear the muted scratching of the doll’s pencil lead on tissue paper. Most of the waylaid emigrants spent their days tucked away in the craggy rocks, stowing themselves in the economical pose of hibernation. The girl spent her days prodding around in the ice for roots and leaves and the scratching in her skirts continued. She reprimanded the doll but it was her voice that replied with a chronicle of the day’s morbidities. The list of regrets filed out of her mouth as she tried to clamp it shut. She wrapped the doll tighter in the folds of her dress but the sounds of the pencil in the diary continued. It was describing their doom. She threw the doll against the side of the wagon in a half-waking rage. No one could sleep. The picture it made was so clear — as if they could each hear the horrors that surrounded them described with the precision of one who was describing it and therefore making it so. So clear was the doll’s voice that it sounded like it was coming out of the future, not out of the folds of the girl’s dress. The doll’s fervor threw it against the confines, the doll strained and labored against its taut calico swaddling. The tiny wooden doll hitting pencil to tissue paper made her shout, “Stop! Stop describing what you see! You’ll kill us all!” But the incapacitated prattle on, braced against a whiff of truth so large it blanketed the state with an appealing urge to smother it, rough up the throat, the hiccup-screams — same thing.

  No pleasures escaped the strange stain of longing that colored the whole night. At first light of morning the men went out and tried to locate where all the sleep wanderers had gone during the night. They dug feverishly at the base of a tree while the snow burned their blackened sticks for legs. All the men in the camp had so fascinated the doll. They laughed and its wooden bodice swelled and they screamed and the wooden doll shut its eyes tight. The girl regarded the doll as a small-g god. Sleeping in the folds of the child-bride’s dress, electrified and embryonic.

  We followed the path of the banished girl through the forest. We saw evidence of a disruption in a waterlogged pile of leaves. There were bite marks on all of the trees. She’d sampled everything. Half-chewed rodents littered the trial. Charred bone fragments sizzled in the dirt. Jellied blood clung to leaves. Throbbing, tiny berries. A family of small rodents dozed in the pocket of a cast-off, crumpled apron. My family structure was one where no one really belonged to anybody else, yet contained fully, body and soul within a contract that kept us there and created a “cash flow.” Not to be cynical but it sucked.

  I entertained the idea that they could really be my parents, and Kim could really be my older sister, but it just fell apart when I tried to stretch it over my conception of how the past had been. Our origins… I think when my body began to change into something more deadly, capable of dying so infinitely, I suddenly had no origins other than that day. I had no past other than what I could see billowing smoke in the road in front of me, I had no family other than the bag of bones jiggling around in my pocket. I’d lost it all. The spell was broken when I left the house for the last time in the night and walked toward the grave of my sister.

  My house mom’s sense of doom was so finely tuned that she’d been weaving together supplies to get us all through the winter for ages now. Her own imagined fate involved stockpiling enough weapons on her person, stitched into her clothing like spare buttons, to last these long weeks of trudging along. She was a knife sheathed in buttercream, out there wandering aimlessly. Of course, any man who saw her walking down the street, alone with suspicious bulges sewn all around her body, would think she was a prostitute. But even if they pulled up alongside her and heaved the door open they’d have her homemade artillery to look forward to. House Mom’s weapon-in-the-skirt routine never failed to gain the attention of the militant throngs of unshackled roaming animals in survival wear, public servants gesturing wildly in favor of speaking, their cheeks full of wet naps. Any veil of decency would have been worn to cobwebs by the time she’d gotten that far down the road. Binding the bodies would take all the rope she had on her person. She wove fragments of their clothing and hair into the textured garment she wore around her shoulders as a cape, stringing it up on small trees to escape the weather so she could rest. The textures of many warrior men who tried to rape or talk to her mottled the garment and told the story of the whole town. When she wrapped herself in it she promptly disappeared.

  Waking up after sleeping for two days I ran straight to Safeway. “S’up, caveman…”I crouched in the back, guzzling from a bottle. It could have been a bottle of fuckin anything. I ran across the street to another supermarket. Creeping into the employee bathroom I locked myself inside. I spit up repeatedly in the sink: spit spit spit. I fell asleep, despite the knocking. My legs have been asleep all day. I can’t feel pain in them, which seems dangerous. Walking across the empty parking lot-slash-field I didn’t even realize I had been slicing my skin along blades of pampas grass. It’s the cold I guess, the rain. It all feels equally empty.

  I left a trail of blood that alley cats licked up as they followed me to the edge of town. In the middle of the night, at the coldest point in the wet black city several yards from my rail yard hideout I gaze upon the field next to a gutted farmhouse. Across huge spans of history this is the field where a thousand girls have buried their pets. It’s a loaded scene with an unearthly dinge, hanging low over the blighted grasses carpeting the soft wooden hills. To pass the time I dreamed up a make-believe coat of arms for myself consisting of a lichen-covered pepper tree flanked by mating deer. A circle of stars hung overhead, a simple, direct barn owl stared from a hole in the center of a busted barn’s hayloft. I felt sorry for the members of my clan, who had all died without seeing this representation… Circling the site, tracing a path down a steep mossy hill, I encountered a river running with Drano, framing the expanse. Bordering the piles of trees above the county dump, it seems close enough to where I grew up. My wool stockings felt tight and as I rolled them down I noticed pink impressions of vertical lines running down my legs. I ran over to the river and plunged a handful of fern leaves into it to test its strength. The leaves came back white and jellied pearl. I dropped a stone in the creek water, it made a splash that smelled horribly of corpse’s breath and dissolved completely. Then I got in the water. I sank deep and found a furrow for my body, recounting the loud noises and wild visits in the night that brought me here. I fell darker and imagined a whole world opening up to me, like a tree slowly uprooting itself, and felt around for the various objects and species stashed away. I felt the cat-rat bones r
attling around in my apron pocket and got two thin white matchstick ones out. The two objects clicked together again and again, then dashed off, leading me out of the polluted creek, up the gravel road a mile and a half to a house that was unlocked. I crept inside, back to one of the small bedrooms. Crumpling to the floor I found a bunch of handwritten notes under the bed, and a short while later more by the desk chair. Bits unearthed everywhere until I pieced together the story of the whole room… She ran away from home. It was a snowy day and she walked deep into the woods. She sat down under a tree far off the walking path and waited to die. Snow drifted around her. A rabbit approached and wrinkled his nose in her direction. At twilight, people came searching for her and she bit her hand to keep from calling for help. She grew numb from the cold and could no longer move her legs or arms. Watching the starry winter sky she fell asleep. Her hair grew flat and brittle and grew endlessly, curling out through her fists, unable to contain it. Her hair fell in among the plants and fallen leaves that blanketed the forest floor, worming its way through the earth and taking root as new plants, tiny shafts stuck in dirt cracks like melted pins — translucent beings yearning for the light. Her eyes closed and she died in all her dreams. She sat up, holding her hand in front of her face she watched as the nails grew long and unwieldy, curling around and around her hand, freezing it open. She had two traps for hands —

  In another dream, she laid her head down under a willow, its branches arcing against the sky, each dipping down across the night sky to net her with great glowing fingers. Her hair fell in among the weeds, wormed its way in among them. Taking root as glassy stalks, spires signaling the coming dawn. All kinds of animals howled around her. The closer the dogs got the quieter they became, falling into whispers as they touched nuzzle to her ear. She could hear hot animal breath in her ears as they sidled up next to her, settling in for the night. The dogs whispered deathly quiet. Not a stir. Hot breath churning her hair as it fell as if some great glowing tree on the top of a hill was speaking to her. Silence all around. Stupefying. Her eyes grew huge and sparkled at night, bigger and bigger as the alpha dog whispered in her ear. Pristine darkness, engulfing shadow, the grass yielded below her weight, tiny blades spared by the contours of her body humming under the tree, truly alive.

  Living on boiled eggs from the gas station. Not much coffee… I’m driven by the most pointless things. That bird squawking over my head knows what I’m talking about. He lives with a dozen other parrots somewhere on the edge of town. They’re all escaped pets and by now they have forgotten how to talk human. Instead, when they’re in the air flying a weird gurgle reverberates through the flock, an echo of an echo filtered through a parrot throat. Mocking the mocker. It’s the sound of aliens, just unreal. Those motherfuckers fly upside down!

  The 7-Eleven man screamed at me. Wounded, I ran away despite my lame foot, into the forest. Moths descend on me in the middle of the night. In the morning I wake up with tiny white bites over most of my exposed flesh; their poison liquor colors my whole day. Now I don’t know if what I’m doing or saying is for me or for my moths. I knew there was a tiny comfortable place for me at the center of these ruins and it was an intensely comforting thought. I fingered small pieces of wood in my apron pocket as I walked through the forest, counting out the prayers of our shared language. I buried myself deeper, light seemed to vanish completely amid heavy dark clouds of wet bear fur hanging off low branches. Gore collected at the bases of trees. I was a pathetic organism, pressed to the wall of its orgone cabin of mud and tar, insulated at the cold center of the earth. I had a feeling I would be there forever —

  I approached a cabin in the dark. I got too close was pulled inside and experienced a horrible dream.

  I went looking for a cat among some I found at a shelter in my foster parents’ yard. Brown pelts lay in small stacked chicken coops in the backyard. Cats slept everywhere. I’d stoop down, call out, and one would emerge from under the porch. After my dream cat started freaking me out I stooped down only to see a slithering cat snake (calico fur) uncoiling under the porch. The thing is, in my waking life I wouldn’t have been afraid of the dream cat. I would have had pity for it, of course… Last summer Kim broke away from the gang and left Peetie, Ronnie, and Rick out of the loop completely — and they withered and died. I’m not even sure if they ever existed. They left no trace.

  Dust gathered along strands of my hair, I shook it off. Each piece fell like stars down to the swamp below. I may have stared because I hadn’t seen you in a long time but was wrenched from this gaze by muffled cries from outside. At our camp on the edge of a Portland rail yard a pile of shredded sleeping bags sizzled on top of an extinguished campfire. I could hear a bunch of hippies screaming in the distance under a winter sky that was almost brown. Out here it was turning into late morning. Tight ropes of frozen drool hemmed us inside the camp. Icy fields surrounded us, hanging silently at our feet. I looked down and saw marks made in the mud where a naked old stoner covered in blood was dragged sleeping along a trail. There they were cavorting like so many octopi in the midst of this pungent morass, the men here obscure its waters with their tentacles. Only one of them, a big redhead, dared to plant himself naked in front of me, laughing in my face. His huge balls bounced up and down as he laughed. The sight of the red he-devil disgusted me.

  Everything has been a waste. Wasted breath. Leaks sprung, flows away. She’s wet around her eyes and around the corners of her mouth. Drafts of air chill her tears and stain her collar, more than usual. She lies alone on a low stage in the rear of a loud, dark room downtown. Lying there all these years, waiting for me to discover her. Moping around like a real teen… realizations settle down at the table to take care of the girl who had actually once been one. An alarm went off, she aired out the fireplace, smoky air swishing around on the linoleum, finding residue sticking to the windows she licked at the side of the house, bladders of mineral-rich salt foam in the shiny letters by the front door. Mineral deficiencies made her weak, anemic, sleeping most of the day, scooping up particles of food, tonguing bits of cream out of the palms of her hands. House Mom brought her bits of material to build up her nest. Carpet swatches, rolls of awning material picked clean. She tells her that she will get very sleepy… in a dream she tells herself that her sleep is old and worn and unrolling like a wise scroll. And that if she is able, she should tell her dreaming self to read what’s written on it… Inside I fell asleep and dreamed that I went to select a cat in a Kitten Center. All I wanted was a black and white one that looked like the cat at the top of the ravine, but the only cat that kept coming up to me was freakish and weird. Nauseating. It was small and grey-brown with a weasel head. Probably very sweet if I had given it a chance, but I didn’t want to be close to it at all. This dream cat kept coming up to me, biting my fingers with its toothless mouth and all I felt were cold gums. It was blind with tiny holes on either side of a big wet nose that was black and not at all shiny. I ran away but the cat would follow me everywhere, always underfoot, and just as suddenly I began to notice other cats everywhere, partially decomposed carcasses half-buried in the sawdust. Kicking up tufts of fur and sawdust I knelt down to a low utility vent on the side of the house and saw a huge calico cat-fur snake uncoiling in the darkness. Endlessly unraveling to reveal no end in sight.

  Walking through town, there’s no limit to what I want and take. I take items from every corner, at every turn there are goods I seize and use up on the spot. I use up men’s bodies. I leave them hollow and sad on the side of the road. I leave them so fucking bummed it’s not even funny. But it’s very very amusing, I’ve come to find.

  In the morning I arose from lying face down in the sand. I took myself away from where a series of dogs were tied with ropes, baying at seagulls, and where the people were speaking softly to each other on top of thousands of sandmites milling around their large brown reed mats. Only at Oregon hippie beaches were parking lots more like mall foodcourts in the early afternoon dead hour… I grit my te
eth as I passed through the cloud of smoke before me, veering off the rural highway, passing various wrecks on the side of the road, passing the rail yard with dogs swirling around in the dark. I made my way into town as the sun began to rise over the brick retaining wall between the Safeway and the alley on the other side. I dug around in their garbage, rifling through some papers stuck in the corners of a big bread rack. Slipping into the back storage room I disappeared into one or more aisles. Pointedly I yanked down displays around me, breaking cardboard staffs over my knee. “Anything you could imagine,” I yelled, pointing at myself… There were a series of moments at the end of an encounter where the guy fell into a soft tone, his hands became massage flaps and he showed a little of his sensitive side in an effort to get the girl to think of him as not all bad, a nice guy y’know, just a soft public radio voice swathed in corduroy — not gonna hurt anybody, not interested in rape — a grownup, into the give-and-take of love; in his hands a potential white flower that opened under an adoring attentive sun.

  I sorted through a box of his mom’s old knick-knacks while he tried to rub my shoulders. If only he could see the expression on my face… but I could see his, in the window (that’s one thing they always forget, say, as you approach a set of automatic glass doors to a business or store: I can still see you, Mr, your reflection, looking at me as I walk away from you.)