The Wilds

by Julia Elliott

  “Humans, robots, and humans with robotic limbs pine for carnal satisfaction in Elliott’s impressively inventive, often macabre collection, animated by her characters’ outsize appetites for sex, knowledge, faith, and kindness.”

  —Booklist

  In a South Carolina nursing home, a lost world reemerges as a disabled elderly woman undergoes newfangled brain-restoration procedures. At a deluxe medical spa on a nameless Caribbean island, a middle-aged woman hopes to revitalize her fading youth with therapies that combine cutting-edge medical technologies, holistic approaches, and the pseudo-religious dogma of Zen-infused self-help. And in a mill town, an adolescent girl is unexpectedly inspired by the ravings and miraculous levitation of her fundamentalist friend’s weird grandmother. These are only a few of the scenarios readers encounter in Julia Elliott’s debut collection, The Wilds. In these genre-bending stories, Elliott blends Southern gothic strangeness with dystopian absurdities, sci-fi speculations with fairy-tale transformations. Without abandoning the tenets of classic storytelling, Elliott revels in lush lyricism, dark humor, and experimental play.

  Copyright © 2014 Julia Elliott

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact Tin House Books, 2617 NW Thurman St., Portland, OR 97210.

  Published by Tin House Books, Portland, Oregon, and Brooklyn, New York Distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West, 1700 Fourth St., Berkeley, CA 94710, www.pgw.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Elliott, Julia (Fiction author)

  [Short stories. Selections]

  The wilds : stories / by Julia Elliott.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-935639-93-0 (ebook)

  I. Title.

  PS3605.L4477A6 2014

  813’.6--dc23

  2014011906

  These stories appeared, sometimes in slightly different form, in the following publications: “The Whipping” in the Georgia Review and Best American Fantasy 2007; “Rapture” in the Georgia Review; “Jaws” in the Mississippi Review; “Organisms,” “The End of the World,” and “Feral” in “Conjunctions; “Regeneration at Mukti” in Conjunctions and The Pushcart Prize XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses; “The Wilds” in Tin House and Fantastic Women: 18 Tales of the Surreal and Sublime from Tin House; and “LIMBs” and “Caveman Diet” in Tin House.

  First US edition 2014

  Interior design by Diane Chonette

  www.tinhouse.com

  FOR MY PARENTS

  CONTENTS

  Rapture

  LIMBs

  Feral

  Jaws

  The Wilds

  Regeneration at Mukti

  The Whipping

  Caveman Diet

  Organisms

  The Love Machine

  The End of the World

  Rapture

  Brunell Hair lived in a lopsided mill house with her mama and her uncle and her little withered-up critter of a grandmaw. In honor of her eleventh birthday, she was having a slumber party, but so far, only my best friend, Bonnie, and I had showed. Our mothers had had some kind of powwow, during which they’d smoked cigarettes and worked themselves into a tizzy over how vain and selfish we were getting, finally declaring that sleeping over at Brunell’s house would be just the thing to “teach us a lesson” about how fortunate and spoiled we were. Truth told, we wanted to see Brunell in her natural habitat. We wanted to see the creepy troll-child’s lair, witness the antics of her Jesus-freak mother, spy on her uncle, who’d appeared in several television commercials, and see her Meemaw speak in tongues.

  Brunell’s mother, who wore hideous dresses and sported an old-fashioned mushroom cloud of hair, was making hamburger patties. The other two family members were holed up in their rooms, Meemaw praying for the soul of her gay son, the uncle just sitting up there enduring the prayers she threw at him, sighing every five minutes over the man in California who’d broken his heart. According to Brunell, ever since Meemaw’s husband died, the woman did nothing but pray and eat candy and watch the TV she’d won at a church raffle. According to Brunell, although her mother could spit her share of prayers at the sins of the world, she stayed busy while doing it. She kept a spotless house, vacuuming their pink wall-to-wall carpet three times a week and scrubbing their kitchen until it gleamed.

  Huddled out back behind a clapboard shed, smoking the cigarette butts that Bonnie and I had stolen from our mothers, we tried to teach Brunell to French inhale. Scrunching her angelic frog-face, Brunell blew out a smoke cloud that’d definitely not laced her lungs.

  “You’re not really smoking,” said Bonnie.

  “Smoking is a sin.” Brunell tried another puff.

  “Whatever,” said Bonnie. “Where’s your uncle?”

  “He’s in Mama’s room. Mama’s bunking with Meemaw. I can’t take her sleep talk. Gives me nightmares.”

  “What does she talk about?” asked Bonnie.

  “The Rapture,” said Brunell.

  “The Blondie song?” I said.

  “The end of the world, stupid.”

  Though I knew about the book of Revelation, I’d never heard the end times referred to as the Rapture before. Now I couldn’t help but picture Jesus cruising down to Earth on a glittery gold escalator, his white robes spattered with disco light. Two angels hovered above him, twirling a mirrored ball. Down in the pulsing city, Debbie Harry waited in a red convertible Corvette. All decked out in ruby spandex, she winked and blew Jesus a kiss. The Son of God hopped into her car and they drove off toward the beach, the wind mussing his hippie hair into a wild, Mötley Crüe mane.

  While her mother slaved over a skillet of french fries, Brunell played her uncle’s commercials on the VCR he’d brought from California. We watched Uncle Mike, named for the archangel Michael, make out with a cheerleader in a Big Red commercial. We watched him carve into a bar of Irish Spring soap while perched on the back of a black stallion. We sighed as Brunell’s handsome uncle portrayed the dangerously masculine essence of Oleg Cassini cologne: he drove a Rolls-Royce, played polo, flew his private jet to an exotic beach, where he dallied on a yacht with a chick in a French-cut bikini.

  “Goddamn,” said Bonnie, who liked to make Brunell cringe. “He’s fine as all get out.”

  “He’s gay, so he wouldn’t look twice at you.”

  “Maybe he hasn’t met the right woman.” Bonnie tossed her hair.

  “First of all,” I said, “a training bra doesn’t make you a woman. Secondly, when you’re gay, you’re gay.”

  “Who said?”

  “My mama.”

  “He might be bi,” said Bonnie.

  “Brunell,” I said, “is he gay or bi?”

  “He’s gay, but Meemaw’s been praying for that to change. She’s been praying for a good Christian woman to come along and lead him down the path to holy matrimony. If her prayers worked only halfway, I reckon they’d turn him into a bisexual.”

  “I do hope the Lord has answered her prayers,” said Bonnie. And she solemnly walked over to the picture of Jesus that hung above their TV. She knelt before the handsome, blond Messiah and pretended to speak in tongues.

  There he was, Uncle Mike, the epitome of male hotness and urbane stealth, curled on his bed like a panther in repose. We crowded around the keyhole, fighting each other for a decent look. Whereas Brunell was a sickly little bug-eyed thing with splotched skin and crazed blond frizz, Uncle Mike was dark and piratical, his hair a fountain of black silkiness, his lips pouty yet strong. How was this creature sibling to Brunell’s homely mama? What was he doing in this podunk town? He was God
’s Gift to Women, yet queer as a three-dollar bill. And now the demigod rose from his bed to pace around the room in tight black jeans and a flowing shirt. He sneered at himself in the mirror. He plucked a magazine from a stack and then tossed it haughtily onto the floor. Rummaging through his suitcase, he pulled forth a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

  Bonnie giggled, and Brunell pinched her. Through the open hall window I could hear a mockingbird going to town. Every year spring came to Whitmire, South Carolina, with its riot of flowers and bees, promising a larger world. For a while, summer would live up to this promise. But soon the dog days would descend and trap you in a bubble of gaseous heat. Amnesia would set in, wiping out all dreams of escape until autumn pricked you out of your stupor.

  We sat before our hamburgers, awaiting the appearance of Meemaw and Uncle Mike. A Garfield cake, positioned center-table, depicted our favorite obese feline reclining pasha-style on a sofa, a thought bubble betraying his cynicism: So it’s your birthday? Big deal.

  Brunell kept glancing at the presents stacked atop the refrigerator. We sneaked french fries every time her mother turned her back, even though the food had not been blessed by the sanctimonious Meemaw, who, Brunell had informed us, possessed mysterious powers. Meemaw could, for example, “talk off a wart.” When a pea-sized growth had sprouted on Brunell’s thumb, her Meemaw had cut a potato in two and set the pieces down on her Bible. She’d mumbled some holy gibberish over the spud, rubbed her grandchild’s wart with one half of it, and then buried the untainted piece in their backyard. Two days later, Brunell’s wart turned black and fell off.

  According to Brunell, her grandmother’s powers had grown stronger after her husband died. Meemaw could stop bleeding and scare the fire out of burns. Meemaw had put a hex on Uncle Mike’s boyfriend just last month, causing him to run astray. Because the faith-healing power passed on to the firstborn child, Meemaw had summoned her eldest to her bosom. And there he was now, Uncle Mike, strolling into the kitchen in a black dress shirt that probably cost a hundred dollars. It was as if some sexy nocturnal creature from a Night Flight video had crawled out of the TV into Brunell’s humble abode.

  “The birthday girl,” he said, tousling Brunell’s weird hair. “And who are these lovely ladies?”

  “Lil and Bonnie,” Brunell said, casting a sour look at our beaming faces.

  Uncle Mike acknowledged our sophisticated maturity with a nod. Then he sat down at his place and removed the meat from his bun.

  “Trying to lay off the red meat,” he said to Brunell’s mother.

  “It won’t hurt you,” she said.

  “I’ll just have some lettuce and tomato on mine.”

  “That don’t make sense. Mama said you look too skinny. Mama said you might be sick.”

  “Mama hasn’t been reasonable since Daddy died,” said Uncle Mike, “and you know it.”

  According to Brunell, Meemaw’s husband had been a gambler and a drinker, a handsome man who’d doted on her. According to Brunell, he was clever with his hands, built sweet little birdhouses and hand-carved chests, planted five-acre vegetable gardens and raised bees. Meemaw had kept his corpse in her house for three days before Brunell’s mama dropped by for a visit, discovered what was up, and called the hospital.

  “Well, speak of the devil,” Uncle Mike said.

  There she was, the infamous Meemaw, a scrunched piece of woman in a tangerine pantsuit of stretch polyester, a gleaming black brooch pinned among the ruffles of her lime blouse. She sported a Washingtonian cap of white hair, which gave her tobacco-cured face a stately quality. A few gray whiskers twitched around her fuchsia lips as she smiled.

  “Happy birfday, Brunell,” she said.

  “We were waiting for you to say grace.” Brunell’s mama eyed the food. “The fries are getting soggy.”

  Meemaw gazed heavenward and swayed on her black Reeboks. Then she closed her eyes in prayer.

  “Heavenly Father, bless this child on her eleventh birfday. Give her the strength to resist the loins of Satan. Lead her not into the snarls of temptation, to citified evils, the stink of cigarettes, booze, and fornication . . .”

  “The food, Mama,” said Brunell’s mother.

  “Thank you Jesus for sending my son back to my bosom. Thank you Lamb for washing away his vile, polluted sins with your blood. Thank you for cleaning the stinking sulfurous slime from his nasty . . .”

  “Mama, please.”

  “And thank you for these victuals. We thank your heavenly self for these hamburgers and french fries, ketchup and mustard, lettuce, tomatoes, and buns. We thank you for the sweet tea and Mr. Pig. We thank you for all the . . .”

  “Mama.”

  “In the name of Christ’s ruby wounds, amen.”

  Meemaw sat glaring at her hamburger, took a dainty bite off a french fry, and placed the rest of the morsel on the edge of her plate.

  “You got to eat more than that,” said Brunell’s mother.

  “Not too hungry. Just came down for the fellowship of loved ones. Don’t know how much longer I’ve got on this earth.”

  “Really, Mama,” hissed Uncle Mike. “Cut the melodrama. I saw the candy wrappers in your trash can.” Turning to Bonnie, he said, “She gorges on sweets all day and spoils her appetite.”

  “Candy’s about the only thing I can keep down.”

  “You ain’t go die, Meemaw,” said Brunell.

  “Everybody’s go die, sweetheart,” said Meemaw. “And I will rejoice to join my dear departed husband before our Messiah’s golden throne.”

  They went on like this the whole supper. Uncle Mike rolled his eyes while Meemaw described obscure aches in her heart, intestines, and joints. Uncle Mike snorted when she suggested that he join her adult study group at the Greater Zion Tabernacle. Uncle Mike fumed as she rhapsodized over the godly beauty of Tonda Lark, an unmarried woman at their church who craved the firm, guiding spirit of a man’s Christian love. When Meemaw whipped out her pocket Bible and read—thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination—Uncle Mike threw down the wadded-up ball of his napkin and fled the kitchen.

  While “Love Is a Battlefield” blared from Uncle Mike’s fancy boom box, I flew across Brunell’s carport on wheels of fire. Uncle Mike had moved the cars to the road so we’d have a place to skate, and the gorgeous man stood under the dogwood looking sad. He toked on a Benson and Hedges, took sips from a flask when he thought we weren’t looking. He brooded and sighed as the wind had its way with his dark mane. Though the angle of the sinking sun brought out his crow’s feet and made it obvious that his hair was dyed, Uncle Mike resembled an ageless warlock, and I wondered if it was true that he was heir to Meemaw’s powers.

  “How old is your uncle?” we asked Brunell for the hundredth time.

  “Older than he looks.”

  She smiled like a possum and told us about her great-granddaddy, the hexmeister from Dutch Fork who’d worn a badger-tooth talisman and could control the wind and rain. His fruit trees had buckled from the weight of their yield. His hens had laid two eggs a day. The hexmeister had died at age 106 with a scalpful of raven-black hair.

  Brunell whipped around on the new roller skates Uncle Mike had bought her in California, bragging about her great-granddaddy. Her old skates were those strap-on doohickeys from the 1960s, and her new ones were nicer than ours. But Bonnie and I strutted our stuff in Gloria Vanderbilt jeans while Brunell sported Kmart Wranglers. Whereas we wore authentic Izods, Brunell donned the sad dragon insignia from Sears. We flipped our stylish home perms, sculpted with electric rollers and frozen to perfection by generous gusts of Aqua Net, well aware that Brunell could barely run a brush through the clumpy flaxen afro she called hair.

  Poor Brunell. When she’d unwrapped those skates, she’d nearly gone into a conniption, emitting a series of demented rodent squeals. She ignored her mama’s gift (a butt-ugly corduroy jumper) and didn’t look twice at Meemaw’s (The Rainbow Study Bible, its passages color-coded to highlight spec
ific themes, and every spoken word of God underlined in gold). I’d gotten her the “Sweet Dreams” single by the Eurythmics, which had shot to the top of the charts that year, but the girl had no record player. She did, however, spritz herself all over with the Love’s Baby Soft perfume Bonnie’d bought.

  And then she slipped on her new skates and rolled out into the spring air, the sky a pink mess of ruptured clouds, two beams of light reaching down to Earth like the headlights of God’s Cadillac.

  “Meemaw can see into the future,” said Brunell. “She claimed Uncle Mike would arrive home on a Thursday, and he did. She said two young harlots would come to my slumber party, one redheaded and one brunette, and here you are. On a rainy Sunday morning three years ago, she dreamed that a flaming arrow pierced my Pawpaw in the heart. That night he died of cardiac arrest.”

  We’d rolled our sleeping bags out in the living room, even though it was only 8:36 PM, and we planned to stay up all night. We’d turned off all the lights except one lamp, which enveloped Brunell in an otherworldly glow. In dim lighting she looked almost pretty, like some big-eyed elfin princess who lived in a cave. We were girls, without breasts or blood, huddled in a cloud of Love’s Baby Soft. Hyped up from too much sweet tea, we whispered of supernatural mysteries, hoping to spook ourselves into an exalted state of fright.

  “Meemaw’s got Uncle Mike trapped in a spell,” Brunell rasped.

  She looked oracular, kneeling on her Holly Hobbie sleeping bag in a white nylon nightgown, and we wanted to believe her.

  “How?” we breathed in unison.

  “I’ll show you,” she said. “At nine o’clock, Meemaw’ll go to the bathroom to do her thing: take out her teeth, wrap her hairdo in toilet paper, clean off her makeup with cold cream. We can sneak into her room, but we’ll have to be super quiet.”

  “What about your mama?” said Bonnie.

  “She’ll be in the kitchen, working a Bible crossword.”