Mama was another source of disturbing ideas. Sometimes we saw her squinting at us, as if at a strange glyph that had suddenly appeared on a slice of sandwich bread. To her we were never simply Blanche and Nora, we were a message, though her readings were multiple and expedient. “It’s because she has two mommies,” she was capable of telling Max, goo-goo eyed, while to the local Aglow representative she declared, earnestly, “One body, two souls. Holy holy. It’s a reminder to choose spirit over flesh.” To Papa: “‘Two-headed Girl, Example of Too Great a Quantity of Seed.’ Ambroise Paré. 1573. What do you think of that, Pops?”
She flipped through lists of auguries, reading bits aloud to us. “Ha! Take a look at this. ‘When a woman gives birth to an infant that has a bird’s beak; the country will be peaceful. That has no mouth, the mistress of the house will die. I got lucky! That has no nose; affliction will seize upon the la-de-da. That has a head on the head; the good augury shall enter at its aspect into the house.’ What is ‘at its aspect’?” She banged the book shut. Sometimes she made up her own auguries to suit her mood. “Watch your step, young ladies,” she’d say. “When a woman gives birth to a two-headed, back-talking little girl, the kingdom shall fall into ruin!” Or, more jocularly, “When twins steal the mini marshmallows out of the mixing bowl, they shall not receive any Heavenly Hash!”
THE SIAMESE TWIN REFERENCE MANUAL
Siamystic Meanderings
Two worlds so similar no one could tell them apart, yet subtly different in every particular. Were the gods to wedge them together at an angle ineffably off true, a new world would open up in four dimensions (or five or six—one more, anyway, than we’ve got now). A world rounder than round, in which the far would be farther, the deeps deeper, now even sooner, and forever foreverer. A world replete with itself, double-dipped, twice as nice. How thin our one-ply world will feel beside that Land of Cockaigne!
Two photographic vignettes, rectangles with arched tops, their hand-colored details fading with age, are printed side by side on a long stiff card. They appear to be identical twins. Each depicts a stocky, shapeless girl in chopped-off bangs, wearing nothing but a pair of tap pants, rolled stockings, and some sturdy shoes with drooping bows at the instep. But fit the awkward eyepiece to the eye, and see: her eyes brim with amusement, her daubed cheeks glow, she thrusts the puffy points of her breasts into three dimensions. One leg, stretched out toward the lens, so we can see the scuffed sole of her shoe, juts alarmingly out at, almost into us, appearing supernaturally solid and vital. In the stereoscope, two visions, each flat in isolation, form a third so real its sideways depths seem to tilt and open beneath your feet like a chasm. What magic transforms paper into flesh, a figured surface into room to breathe? The subtle but significant difference between not quite identical twins.
The stereoscope has gone the way of the zoetrope and the magic lantern, but you may be old enough to remember that inheritor of the stereoscope, the Viewmaster, through which a generation peered wondering at a jewel-hued world of light. Two fers are our new Viewmasters. They possess the binocular vision of the soul. Through them, and only through them, we can glimpse this new world.
Oh my America, My New-Found Land! Join us in heralding this coming world. It is no accident that it is only now, as we approach a new millennium, that a new people has stepped through the very split they are destined to heal: twofers. From among their ranks, a new Columbus will raise two heads, screen four eyes with two hands, and shout Land-Ho—pointing in the one direction we forgot to look: inward.
URANIUM DAUGHTERS
My mother called. “Did you get the newsletter? Isn’t it a doozy?”
“Doozy is just the word I was looking for.”
“Things are getting interesting around here. The whole country is trying to send us their radioactive garbage. I’m not talking about hospital gowns and booties from X-ray labs, but the serious stuff, plutonium, americium, the uranium daughters. It’ll be travelling at night, on empty roads, in unmarked trucks, driven by truckers we can only hope are sober and drug free. Refused by fifty states, it’s homing in on Nevada, figuring that since we’ve already been bombed to kingdom come, we’ve got one foot in the grave already. But guess who’s taking a stand? Your father!”
“Uranium daughters?”
“What uranium breaks down into. Elements in its decay chain. Radium, radon. The daughters are even more dangerous than the parent, more volatile. That won’t be any surprise to you, Nora.”
“Why don’t they just leave it where it was?” I took the phone to my bed. “What isn’t radioactive nowadays? Trey’s therapist keeps a Geiger counter under his couch. It clicks when he talks about his mother.”
“Where it was, it’s not staying, whether they move it or not. Shallow pits, soggy cardboard boxes, rusted crates—leaky vessels.” I thought about all those half-dead daughters, whose remaining half-lives would be considerably longer than our whole ones. Pictured them rising rotten out of their shoddy graves. Rubbing their phosphorescent eyes, yawning, trying to remember their dreams.
“They want to try deep-geologic burial this time,” she said, “two thousand feet underground, in a salt bed. Entombed, they like to say, to make it sound like forever. But what lasts forever? Water dissolves salt, salt water corrodes metal, corroded waste emits gases, gases build pressure, pressure cracks rock, and substances under pressure eventually bust loose. For example, your father. Papa goes to town every day to try to mobilize public sentiment; I’ve never seen him like this. It’s a delayed reaction, of course. I don’t dare tell him I’m divided—some of us Siamists believe we should revere the waste, and the Penitence Ground and the trinitite and the fallout and even the AEC, as the sacred relics of the birth of the new world. And it’s true that without them I wouldn’t have you. Though I think it’s going a little far to revere a melanoma.”
“What kind of delayed reaction?”
She hesitated. “Well, you know, his father died of radiation poisoning, though no doctor would diagnose it. Granny fought for years to get some kind of apology. And then…” Her voice trailed away.
Graves are incontinent; the dead are restive; no interment is forever. The cracked pots of bygone Shoshone potters will be reassembled and placed in an atmosphere-controlled case in a desert museum funded by the Nuclear Power Commission. Hot dust blows across borders, slurry seeps into aquifers, radioactive deer drop radioactive pellets on your lawnlet, bees abuzz with cesium dabble in the red hairy heart of the blossoms on the barrel cacti in the Example of Water Conserving Garden Design Practices outside the Community Bank in downtown Grady.
Secrets are the one thing you can’t keep, these days. They are silent, they are invisible, but they’re passing through, scrawling their initials in our DNA. There is no tombstone so heavy that a ghost cannot lift it, there are no locked houses, there are no sealed lips, there is nothing pure in this world.
“Mama?” I said hesitantly.
“Oh, no! It’s Shoot-out at Noon time! I’ve got to get my gunbelt on!”
I cuddled the receiver, now mute as a doll, wondering if I would really have told Mama about Lithobolia. For one wild moment I had thought I might. For all her tiresome striving to be a good mother, she had missed the moment when it came, or deliberately brushed it aside.
I closed my eyes.
Pebbles jitter, then hop in place. It is horrible to see them. I think, I should have known this would happen, I should have prevented it. The snakeweed whispers.
It whispers again, louder. “Nora. Nora!”
I opened my eyes. “Isn’t it a bit nippy for that outfit?” Trey said. There was a cold wind whipping around my bare legs. All I had on was a pair of boxers. I was standing among the yuccas on the traffic island in the middle of Market Street, having passed scatheless through the traffic. Taxis and streetcars hurtled by on both sides.
“Thank you, Trey, I am a little chilly.” I crossed my arms across my chest. “Do you think I could borrow your sweater?”
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He draped it over me. “Let’s drop into Mulligan’s. There’s a bottle of Jack in the Pewter Eternity Urn. That’ll warm your cockles.”
Mulligan’s Funeral Home took up half a block on Market, rivaling the Mission Dolores for beige square footage. They had not taken down the giant vinyl banner they had slung across the stucco facade for Pride: Twofers Welcome. “Am I the only one who finds that a tad morbid?” Trey said.
I balked at the door. “Look what I’m wearing! Look what we’re wearing. What is that you have on?”
“This,” he said, “is a male unbifurcated garment.”
“A skirt.”
Hand in the small of my back, Trey pushed me in. Cold stone kissed my bare soles. A young black man in a suit, his back to us, was just ushering an elderly male couple in matching black leather cowboy hats and vests through a velvet curtain into an adjoining showroom full of caskets. He looked around, did a comedic double take for Trey’s benefit, resumed his pious expression, and drew the curtain behind him.
Trey went around behind a glowing glass vitrine full of urns and slid open its back panel. A hand, silvery in the fluorescent display light, appeared among the urns. He selected one of two pewter models, took the top off and drew out a bottle—“Ta da!”—and, after plunging in his other hand, two shot glasses. Setting the glasses with twin clinks on the vitrine, he poured, movements measured and solemn as a priest’s.
“Let’s go back in there,” he said, jerking his head. “Can you get the door?” It opened onto a dim mission-style chapel with wooden pews. Trey stepped through, bearing the shots like lit votives in a gusty place, his face all concentration. “Have a seat, my child,” he intoned. I sat in one of the pews, closed my eyes. He handed me a glass, sat down beside me.
I sniffed the glass. “All at once, no sipping,” he instructed me. He watched me get my throat around it, then threw his back. “Hoo!” He shook himself.
I coughed creosote, alkali, the smell of ozone after a lightning storm.
“How are the cockles?”
Pebbles jittered. I laid my hand on my chest to stop them. “Were you for real about that doctor?” I asked, to my own surprise.
He sat back. “You wanna take a weight off your shoulders?” He smirked. “Affirmative, cap’n. Doctor Chop exists, we are 90 percent sure. Weird little dude with a prosthetic leg swore it up and down. Gave me his card.” He fished in one pocket, then the other.
“Were you talking about me?”
“Well. Mentioned you, maybe. Was that bad? Oh, here it is.”
There was nothing on it but a circle about an inch in diameter. I turned the card over. Blank.
“That’s peculiar,” said Trey. “Oh, well! It’s just a matter of tracking him down. He’s obviously some kind of nutcase, but what do you care? He was trained as a surgeon and supposedly he’s never lost a patient, unless you count the, uh, edited portion.” His mouth worked. He was coming down from something, I realized. “Which some unreasonable people do, go figure. That’s why he’s gone underground. But if he didn’t leave some kind of forwarding address, he wouldn’t get any customers, now would he?” He winked and nodded. I felt myself fitting into his world of futile, surreal entrepreneurism, of go-getterism without any going or getting. Trey didn’t exactly inspire confidence. If the enterprise had honor and a good chance of making it, that was a pleasant irrelevancy to Trey, who was fine with doing the wrong thing and even failing, so long as he thought he was working an angle.
He was still winking. “Stop winking,” I suggested.
“Huh,” he said, feeling his face. “No can do, apparently.” He pressed his fingers down on his eyelid. “Is this what it’s like to have a poltergeist?”
The young man was alone in the reception room when we came out. “Poppkiss, deputy funeral director and memory management consultant. You must be the gal with the ghost.” He glided toward me. His outstretched hand was piebald, chestnut and palest pink; it looked like a map. A diamond ring sparkled near Saskatchewan. “Welcome Chez Mulligan’s.” To Trey: “Think you could put the bottle away next time?”
He whisked back behind the vitrine and spanked the glass lightly with both hands, beaming at me. “Now. Since you’re here, can I show you my wares? An ever-younger clientele is growing wise to the need to secure funeral arrangements in advance. You’ve heard about our popular ‘do not go gently’ punk rock services on Gilman Street? Our goth fantasia with floating coffin? But, starting small…” Without lowering his gaze, he drew forth three ceramic urns of graduated sizes, lining them up on the counter. “Here are three attractive options: Eternitá, Infinitá, Immensitá. Depending on your price range, you might choose to customize a smaller urn with extra features—here’s one popular extra, lead lining for radioactive cremains”—he opened Infinitá and tilted it to show me the grey ring fit snugly inside the mouth—“but completely invisible once you seal the lid, and available in all three sizes—or, for only slightly more, invest in a real heirloom urn with many of these features built in.” He turned Infinitá over and shook it. A little packet tumbled out, and he flicked it across the glass to Trey, who pocketed it.
Tactfully, I bent my head over the vitrine. One of the remaining urns was no bigger than a pigeon. “What’s that one for, pets?” I said. I leaned closer, supporting Blanche, making two small clouds on the cold glass, and saw that the urn had a circle, about an inch in diameter, engraved on its breast.
“The ‘Circle of Life’ model. Well, you’d be surprised by how little we amount to, in the end: about six pounds of ashes in all. Sometimes families elect to keep only a portion, and scatter the remainder in a serene natural setting where legally permitted. And sometimes only a part of the deceased is recovered.” He produced a rag and, swishing it over the Circle of Life, managed to push it out of sight behind a cenotaph. Intentionally? I scrutinized the other urns: the green one shaped like a book was stamped with a pattern of interlocking rings. The leaping stone dolphins were suspended over intersecting ripples. Almost every urn had a circle, oval, or ring on it, I realized. Chains, too, were everywhere, coiled around rims, looped into handles.
“Thought about LifeGems?” Poppkiss said, intercepting my gaze with the hand I had already shaken. “Meet ‘Pops’ Poppkiss. Yep, this sparkling gemstone is made of Pops’ carboniferous ashes, purified and compressed under high temperatures into a precious keepsake. His misdeeds, mistresses, the “hitting stick” he kept behind the door, the odd stains on his collars, the gaping fly confirming that the piebald appearance caused by vitiligo does indeed extend to every part of the body, all cleansed and rectified in the hexagonal lattice structure of the carbon crystal known as a diamond. It only takes eight ounces, about a cup, for a memory you’ll treasure a lifetime.”
“How big a part does it take to make a cup of ashes?” asked Trey, intrigued. “A leg? A head?”
Something caromed off the marble mantelpiece.
“Gosh,” said Poppkiss.
“Looks like you just bought yourself Eternitá!” Trey said cheerfully.
OBJECTS THROWN BY LITHOBOLIA, CONTINUED
Three crutches duct-taped together
Soiled neck brace
Videotape of Night of the Living Dead
Toy watch clipped to a card labeled “Fine Watch For Gentleman” imprinted with a picture of a round-headed smiling boy in a jacket and shorts
Poster showing a girl’s awed face orbited by hair products
Very large woman’s underwire bra, teal
Vial of Essence Of Chicken Medicinal Product of Korea
Acupuncture model of cat
Bank of Hell Checks (for burning at Korean New Year)
Mandrake root
Hers-and-Hers monogrammed towel set
“Tranquillity” desktop water feature
Subliminal Self-esteem audiotape and pamphlet
Pride air fresheners in the shape of two interlocked smiley faces
“Pooing cow” key chain
; Pair of Halloween rubber horns with vial of spirit gum
Pair of brown plastic foot massage sandals (fastened together), men’s size 11
Vibrator (Good Vibrations floor sample, one of the Japanese ones, lilac-colored and translucent, with a rabbit mounted near the base, its ears vibrating so fast they blurred, while the head worked in slow circles. Finally one of the staff took hold of it. I admired her firm hand on the shaft.)
Half a veggie chimichanga (in foil)
Cat
Eternitá cremation urn
THE SIAMESE TWIN REFERENCE MANUAL
Mutatis Mutandis and League of Mutant Voters
Joint Position Statement
Radioactivity leads to mutation, mutation leads to The New Human (Twofer), the New Human will lead us to a peaceful tomorrow.
It is our contention that radioactivity is a property of language in an excited condition. The integral atom of the pre-atomic age corresponds to the pronoun, fixed in the lattice-like molecular structure of the sentence, whose rules are called grammar. These rules give rise to an infinitude of obedient instances, which may be compared to the wholesome cacti, jackrabbits and quails of a natural landscape.
These rules may of course be broken; their breaking, while not a crime, is associated with the criminal classes, the poor, and foreigners, and provides a convenient way of identifying them. Proper instruction in the rules does not simply hide but alter these conditions. The broken rule may be compared to a broken-winged bird, soon dispatched by the cruel hygiene of natural law in the form of a hungry coyote.
Half Life Page 11
