Half Life

by Shelley Jackson

  “I get an erotic thrill from touching a lovely lady’s neck stump especially wearing necklaces, chokers, pukka shells, also tight scarves in a lightweight fabric silk, voile, etc. etc. If any lady has had her twin head removed please contact the Neckman. Bonus points if you kept the skull and are willing to involve it in the Fun and Games! Even saying the word neck stump excites me! Are you this way too! I’m going to jerk off and think of…you! The Neckman.”

  “I am a twin woman age 23 and I have always been possessed with the need to self-stump. My twin does not know. She has her own problems and needs me so I can never fulfil my dreams. My fantasies are increasingly acute. I picture my head literally torn off, pinched off by giant pliers or forceps, gradually carved off in small slices, etc. If anyone can explain this need or share it please write. I am not suicidal, I just want to cut my head off. Stage an accident? Idle thoughts. Signed, Stumped.”

  MISSING SOMETHING

  Very gradually, the sense that something was wrong with us began to penetrate our savage solipsism. Of course, we had noticed that not everyone had two heads, but then not every one had red hair either, or painted fingernails, or a single breast. One day Granny took us to the Temperance Club pool where she swam laps twice a week. The attendant’s face became grave when he saw us. “Oh, dear,” he said. “Aren’t you cute! But I’m afraid we don’t allow”—he leaned over the counter and whispered—“plurality-challenged persons in the Natatorium. Our members…”

  “Oh-ho yes you do,” Granny broke in. “You just ask the NAFWP. The name’s Elizabeth Olney.” And she sailed past him. We ducked our heads and followed.

  “What’s the NAFWP?” Blanche asked.

  “Shhh. I made it up,” Granny whispered, and Blanche giggled. I was outraged. Like all liars, I fiercely condemned lying in others.

  A Natatorium was just an indoor pool. The long, dim room reeked of chlorine and sourer, more biological things. The blue water sloshed queasily up onto the concrete deck and sent a colorless wash toward our bare feet. There were no children or men. The old ladies glided back and forth across the pool in their flowered caps, with their heads carefully raised, as if they were divine cows transporting a precious burden between their horns. Those coming toward us regarded us with the amazingly sour expressions of the elderly. Granny dove in without hesitation, and then lay back on the surface waving us in with exaggerated gestures. She was not wearing her prosthesis; her chest was flat and bony on one side. We jumped, to stop everyone looking, and let ourselves sink. The water was warm as spit.

  The lifeguard, a blond young man with soft breasts, was languidly dropping a white nylon rope in swags on top of itself. Even underwater we could hear the repeated slap and its almost instantaneous echo. We stayed underwater as long as we could, wishing to disappear. We haunted the bottom of the pool like crayfish, pulling ourselves across it with our fingertips, which found rough spots between the tiles, also barrettes and rubber bands and once a ring that might have been gold. We investigated the drains. The old ladies passed overhead like giant, wounded birds.

  “Where’ve you girls been hiding?” Granny asked when we surfaced.

  “Nowhere,” I said, sullen, and dove again.

  In the locker room there was nowhere to hide. It was a painful place, full of sharp, echoing, three-dimensional sounds like metal shapes flying around my head. The tall lockers were like coffins stood on end. The windows were blind with steam. Discarded swim caps and bra cups lay on the benches, disconsolate and obscene. I disliked their intimate, rubbery textures, the slackness of their cavities. I tried not to look at the bare flesh all around me, especially at the places where the elastic pinched the skin into vengeful squints. There were too many plastic flowers (on flip-flops, on swim caps, on “straw” handbags made of plastic) with petals like stiffened tongues, and the cool puddle on the floor made me feel like I was stepping in something dirty.

  The old ladies didn’t say anything interesting, but they talked all the time, slowly and in exaggerated rising and falling tones, as if they were singing. All at once they would swing round and turn their attention on Blanche and me, and then Granny would sing back at them, and Blanche the diplomat would make polite replies. I would look at the floor. Once, I saw there—but I felt as if I had lifted it to my face in my hand, my attention was so filled by it in that instant—a huge cockroach. It seemed about the size of a badminton birdie. It was cow-dung-colored and docile, slowly working its feelers. Maybe it was stunned, but it seemed merely, grossly, confident. It showed itself to me, like a badge. It seemed to be saying, You’re with us, then? I seemed to have given a satisfactory reply, for it now went slowly under a locker.

  Some of the old ladies would not talk to Granny, and she would make faces behind their backs, unmindful of the mirrors everywhere. We might have accepted this as one of the ordinary mysteries of adulthood, but, “They think I’m un-American,” she said. “Probably imagine I whacked off my own breast.”

  Blanche and I exchanged dismayed glances.

  “You mean you didn’t?” she said.

  After lunch at Dinosaur Taco we went to the library, then the drugstore. Mama had decided that we should spend more time in the real world. Blanche gawked with indiscriminate greed at sunglasses, lawn ornaments, plastic ice cubes in the shapes of fruit. I let her steer and waited for the day to end. My pride was still smarting. It was sunset when Max came to pick us up. We were the only car on the road, straddling the dotted line so we didn’t run over the rattlers that came out onto the asphalt to soak up the warmth. Rabbits watched from the brush on the side of the road. In the shadow of the mountains it was already night, but the sky was still full of light.

  Then the sky split. We all ducked. The car swerved, Max’s hands tightened on the wheel. Already so far away they seemed unrelated to the noise, two jets played a silent game of tag, spilling sideways through the air, disappearing low behind the buttes, then sticking it to the sky in a sudden climb. Granny rolled down her window and shook her fist at them. “They fly low just to rile me,” she said. “Pull over!”

  The stretch of highway between Too Bad and Grady cut across the north end of the playa, a huge dry lake. It was flat and white as paper. Like most of the kids in Grady we had learned to drive out there, where there was nothing to run into. Granny took us out in the tow truck and laughed while we bucked and stalled in our own private cloud. Twice in my childhood, after especially heavy rains, it briefly became a lake again: one inch deep, miles wide, and as flat and reflective as a mirror. The whole town went out and splashed barefoot in the sky. Wondering vultures circled our ankles, and the teenage girls wearing skirts pinched their knees together and giggled.

  Even in dry weather, the hot air reflected like water. Trucks rode their own reflections across the valley. I wondered if the drivers ever imagined sinking through.

  The playa was so extravagantly white it made people want to write on it. All along the highway there were words pieced together from rocks and beer bottles stuck neck down in the crust. You could just read them, if you turned your head as you passed.

  TRIXIE + HENRY

  JEHOVAH

  I MISS YOU AL

  I MY HOT DOG

  UFOS: PLEASE HURRY

  Max braked, and Granny jumped out of the car. “Come on, girls, find me some rocks.” We assembled part of an exhaust pipe, a ballpoint pen with a rusty clip, and three shreds of a truck tire. Granny found a crow feather and a stiff red rag. Max was the only one who found any rocks. (It turned out she had requisitioned HENRY.) Granny wrote:

  STOP THE SADNES.

  Max said, “It’s missing something.”

  “So am I,” said Granny. “So am I!”

  They croaked with laughter.

  O

  The headline was “Severed Head Puzzler: Where’s the Body?” I clicked on it. The story was missing, but in trawling for it, I found a blogger’s tidbit:

  ‘Unity’ Surgeon: Does He Exist? English papers are abuzz wi
th speculations about the mysterious doctor who offers “twofers” a service that is being dubbed The Divorce. Real, or one of those nightmares that periodically burbles up from the collective unconscious? Skeptique inclines to the latter view.

  I ran a new search for “Unity Surgeon,” which led me to “Gillian’s Links of Supreme Weirdness,” where I found four interesting leads under the heading “Wiggy Doctors.” Three of them yielded a taunting “404 File Not Found,” the last took me back to Skeptique. Was I being led in circles? I stared at the ceiling, fingers jittering on the keys. When I looked down, I saw that I had typed:

  oooooooooooo o o o ooo o ooo ooooo oooo oooooooooooooooooooooo o oo

  I pushed back my chair and thought. Then I opened an image search page and typed “circle.”

  Moons rose: black, white, cratered grey. I scrutinized crop circles, drum circles, prayer circles, winners’ circles; circle graphs, the circle of fifths, and the Circle O Ranch, until my tired eyes began to blur them into a chain. There were over a million links; I couldn’t possibly test them all. I added “doctor,” which gave me a smaller yield, including Faustus conjuring Lucifer, some aliens, and the Circle O Ranch, again: they owned a prize cow named Mrs. Which Doctor. I spent half an hour examining the bandanna-draped shoulders of dudes grooming patient palominos before I decided the ranch offered no activities more dangerous than hayrides and horseback riding. I deleted “doctor” and typed “unity.” Mandalas, halos, yin and yang. I plunged past dolphins and whales deep into the chromosomal squiggles of mathematical formulae.

  In a well-plotted sexual fantasy there is an instant of giddy vertigo when speculation becomes knowledge, the forbidden is allowed, the impossible becomes possible. It is this, not the hump and grunt itself, that is the object of the sexual quest, hence the emphasis on thresholds, membranes, closet doors, and chinked curtains and the last quarter inch before contact, when the small hairs stand on end.

  Or the slow download of an image whose significance you recognize at once.

  It wasn’t a circle at all. It was a photograph of Chang. Or was it Eng? It didn’t matter, one of the two original Siamese twins. That was the point, you see: one of the two.

  Seeing double? Beside yourself? Don’t know which way to turn? We can take a weight off your shoulders. The Unity Foundation. Helping You Go It Alone.

  At the bottom of the page lurked an e-mail address, a sullen blue strand that blushed when touched.

  I closed the page immediately. A moment later I opened it again. I stared at that shy, poisonous little worm. What should I say; what could I say?

  Dear Unity Foundation,

  I am a conjoined twin whose dependent has become a considerable burden. Can you please tell me more about the services you offer? I am in good health, solvent and able to travel.

  Ms. O.

  I received an uncannily immediate reply. Of course it was just an automated response, but the speed made it seem as though it had come from someone impossibly close by. Either that, or from someone far away who had known before I did that I would find that page, write those words.

  Dear Interested Party,

  We have received your request for information. We will shortly be getting in touch with you concerning your search for the One Way.

  The Unity Foundation

  Days passed. I felt a great slackening. I even felt slightly disappointed, as if the thing had already happened but not turned out the way I hoped. Sometimes I looked at singletons and asked myself, Were they so much happier than me? No, they did not sail their singleton boats on solo voyages and sing songs about being happy alone; they huddled together and went on short trips to familiar places and often asked one another, Do you want to come too?

  Some people cling to what holds them back: they would rather live a bad life believing a perfect life exists than live a better life with no hopes and no excuses. Sometimes we are shored up by what we oppose. A constitutive dodge. A body of shirk. But I wasn’t like that. Was I?

  Two weeks went by, and then I received another e-mail.

  Dear Ms. O:

  You may visit our office, Rm 101, 22½ Holloway Rd, Holloway, London England, at 2 PM Thursday 17 September, for an initial interview. RSVP promptly.

  Sincerely,

  The Unity Foundation.

  I was as frightened by this banality as if it had come tied to a brick that had just shattered my bedroom window. For the first time I wondered if I were being led into a trap, though I could not see how. One doubt came belatedly to mind: Why had a search for “circle” brought up that page? I checked and confirmed that “circle” appeared nowhere on it, but Trey, who had dabbled in Web design, had once said, “There’s no such thing as a blank page,” so I checked the source code, and there it was. I found something else, too. Stuck through the tattoo-blue jacquard was an emerald needle with both ends sharpened:

 

  “Audrey,” I said, knocking on her door. The open window let in a breeze that ruffled the shirts hanging from the curtain rod. Audrey was at her desk. “I was just wondering,” I said. “Do you think a person could send e-mails to herself that looked like they came from somewhere else entirely?” I was not sure if this was really what I had intended to say.

  “Of course. You can do anything nowadays,” she snapped. After a moment she turned. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It seems I’m not very pleased with my life today.”

  If I had asked what was wrong, as I should have, she might have told me, and then I might have told her in turn, and everything might have turned out much differently, but I did not, and then her phone rang. “Audrey. Yes, Perdita. Mr. G.? Yep, I’ve got it right here. Diapers.”

  I sank down on the windowsill, then swung around to stick my legs out onto the fire escape. Was I disappointed or relieved? The shirts stirring above me brushed my forehead tenderly, the light came and went, the Mooncalf came up behind me and licked my hand. From somewhere nearby came the bright spanking of a basketball and the snarl of a badly recorded punk rock song. It was a rare, beautiful day, and at the end of it I decided to commit a murder.

  Hung Jury Perform: “Undivided”

  (FROM THE ALBUM B-SIDE)

  I was born with two heads on my shoulders,

  Which did my opinions divide.

  One head grew kinder, the other grew cold,

  And the cold loathed the sensitive side.

  So I cut one off

  I had decided

  I would be cold

  But undivided.

  I was born with two parts made for pleasure,

  With different ideas of fun.

  One part was shameless, the other was shy,

  And the shy loathed the libertine one.

  So I cut one off

  I had decided

  I’d be alone

  And undivided.

  I was born with two hearts in my ribcage,

  Which tore my affections apart.

  One heart was heavy, the other was light,

  And the light broke the heavier heart.

  So I cut one out

  I had decided

  I would be sad

  But undivided.

  And I insist

  When I was finished

  That I was not

  The least diminished.

  For a relief

  From indecision

  I recommend

  A small incision.

  You make the choice

  But I’ve decided

  I will be cold,

  And undivided

  Cold, sad, alone

  But undivided.

  PART TWO

  Boolean Operator: XOR

  TRANSITIONAL OBJECTS

  Dear loose, lose, low, lo, Lucia, loofah—oh crap. I’ll have to type.

  Dear Louche,

  I am planning a trip to London, of all things. I will probably find other lodgings before
long but I was wondering if I could requisition your sofa for the first few days. Nothing is definite yet, so don’t mention it to anyone, but let me know if it would work out.

  Nora

  PS That was my roommate’s “voice recognition” software ringing the changes on your name.

  I read it over and removed “don’t mention it”—I suspected that Louche could read between the lines of a blank page—and added:

  PPS: What is an “attitude dredge”? I might need one.

  Louche was teaching an interdepartmental, interdisciplinary, “inter-everything” practicum at a trade college in London. Though the class was in the Mechanical Engineering department, it was cross-catalogued as Expressive Arts Therapy, but it was not clear to me that Louche had the best interests of her students in mind. In her last e-mail she’d told me that a number of stinging ants had escaped from a hollow Plexiglas Interpersonal Cuirass and wreaked havoc in the student lounge, while in a test run of the Syntax Frappe a number of old metal typewriter keys had come unglued from the blades of an electric fan and strafed the room, chipping school property. Louche had given both projects top marks. It turned out that to fall apart and even cause a certain amount of damage was an important part of their destiny as Transitional Objects. “The Self must not expect to encounter the Other unchanged,” she wrote, “or vice versa.”