The New and Improved Romie Futch

by Julia Elliott

  “But our classification systems will probably seem just as ridiculous to generations down the road,” she said.

  I agreed, nodding my head enthusiastically, not crazily, I hoped.

  We discussed The Archaeology of Knowledge, Borges’s The Book of Imaginary Beings, krakens and lizard men and Sasquatches, which naturally brought us around to the subject of quasi-mythic GM hogs—particularly the fresh crop of monsters that had recently been sighted in the Blue Horse swamp area near Yemassee, spawning a whole new swarm of conspiracy theories.

  “Gives new resonance to the term ‘war pigs,’” said Beth.

  “I have a project in mind for these boars,” I said. “Well, it’s not exactly a project yet.”

  “Go ahead and call it a vision.” Beth winked. “Why the hell not?”

  I described Hog Hell: the sounder of phosphorescent pigs spinning in the sterile air of a vast gallery space, bewildered art patrons ducking and shrieking as the swine swooped toward them, Trippy’s thunderous music assaulting them from multiple speakers.

  When the waitress set down steaming plates of food, we both blinked, stunned. Had we forgotten where we were? My giddiness thrummed in the silent space around my ears. Beth’s smile seemed suddenly forced.

  We ate. I became self-conscious again: about my overstuffed mouth, my bestial chewing, my desire to probe with my tongue to remove a masticated morsel from the hollow between my gum and upper left canine.

  This woman was a passionate polymath, too good to be true, the recipient, she claimed, of a postgraduate degree about which she was cynical, and also a compulsive Googler. A shadow of suspicion darkened my mood. What if she’d had BAIT downloads? What if she was a robot flunky, programmed by Dr. Morrow, or some other species of BioFutures affiliate, sent to ensnare me?

  I remembered the hipster in the corner, whom I’d forgotten in my excitement. There he was, settling his bill. There he was, standing up. There he was, exiting through the faux-mahogany door with ostentatious aloofness, vanishing into the ether of afternoon. Or perhaps he was posted outside the door, communicating with Dr. Morrow or Beth or other obscure agents who had some stake in my poor overdetermined brain.

  “Romie.” Beth put down her fork. “I admire your work tremendously. I think it’s pretty damn brilliant, in fact. But I was wondering if you’ve ever thought about taking a more active approach.”

  My stomach flipped. I glanced toward the window. Thought I saw the jumpsuit-clad cool guy slouching outside in the summer haze. But no, it was something else. A greyhound leashed to a bench. I turned back to Beth.

  “A more active approach to what?”

  Beth sat stiffly in her chair. She scanned the room. She leaned forward.

  “GenExcel,” she whispered. “BioFutures. Find out how it all fits together.”

  “Funny you should say that because . . .”

  I was about to tell her about the Center, the BAITs, my recent brush with Future Solutions United. I was about to let it all spill obscenely like a spew of shiny coins from a slot machine, but I caught myself. I studied her face, detecting nothing in the way of mood, tone, intent. She took a cautious sip of coffee, as though it were piping hot—but it had long cooled.

  “I’ll be frank with you,” she said. “I kind of came to recruit you.”

  “Into what?”

  “I don’t want to say too much about it here.” She glanced around again. “Why don’t you take a little trip out to the swamp with us?”

  Us. I imagined goons in military garb stationed along the sidewalk outside, buff action-figure types positioned in front of Hobby Horse Craft Hub, Cut-Ups Kids’ Salon, and Pal-Med Diabetic Supplies.

  “There you go again,” I said, “with the sinister royal ‘we.’”

  “Actually,” she said, “there are some people I want you to meet. We aren’t an official organization, just some like-minded people I’ve met through the Internet—progressive outdoorsy types, organic farmers, environmentalists with a penchant for meta-drama, writers, filmmakers, the kind of people who could put together a pretty convincing exposé. But I’m saying too much in this particular context.”

  “Are you really a schoolteacher?”

  “Yes.”

  “A hog hunter?”

  “Not as badass as my online profile conveys, I’ll admit, but I’ve bagged my share.”

  She smiled again, creating that nose dimple, which humanized her. If she had goons waiting in the parking lot, why would she admit it? Wouldn’t she just lure me out into the swamp with her feminine wiles and laugh as they crawled from the forest and bonked me in the head? I saw myself getting the business end of a bludgeon and dropping into instant unconsciousness.

  “Why me?”

  “You’re obviously smart,” she said. “Politically, ideologically, you get it. You know your way around a forest, know how to use fire-arms safely, are clearly capable of brave acts, and last but not least, as the slayer of a legendary GM monster of regional fame, your celebrity would make a killer PR tool.”

  She smiled again. Her flattery went to my head like a hit of nitrous oxide, unmooring logical thought, making my cheeks burn.

  The possibility that she was a bona fide revolutionary enhanced her attractiveness by a factor of ten. I pictured us decked out in camo, sneaking through night forests, climbing barbed-wire fences silvered by the light of the moon. I saw us relaxing after an exploit, enjoying a few brews at the secret hideout, which in my imagination resembled some kick-ass Robinson Crusoe–style tree house complex.

  If she was telling the truth, if she could be trusted, she would help make sure Dr. Morrow was out of business for life, perhaps ensure a future unmolested by the tinkering of a mad scientist.

  “Why don’t you at least come outside and meet a couple of my friends,” Beth said, “and then see how you feel about it?”

  I nodded. I would go out into the parking lot and take a look, but I would be careful, make sure there were plenty of cars around, people out and about.

  Beth insisted on splitting the check. We walked outside. I slipped on my aviators and surveyed the parking lot.

  Summer was coming into its own—the sky a giddy pilot-light blue, cicadas thrumming in the mammoth pines, the air balmy, smelling of car exhaust and mown grass. Butterflies darted over green hedges. A girl whizzed by on a bike. A toddler sat down on the sidewalk and chortled, evoking the kind of carefree effervescence that often preceded the first appearance of a killer in a horror film, festive carnival music underscored by the dark minor chords that viewers would soon recognize as the psychopath’s signature theme.

  Now Beth was waving at someone. Now a Subaru Outback with a kayak rack was cruising toward us, a thirtyish shaggy-haired guy at the wheel, a black woman riding shotgun, dreads spilling out of her orange batik head wrap—the kind of people who haunted health-food stores and parks where bright Frisbees whirred through the air.

  “Hey.” The guy stuck his hand out of the open window. “I’m Andrew, and this is my girlfriend, Althea.” We shook.

  “Nice to meet you, Romie,” said the woman in a Brit accent.

  Was Andrew’s Patagonia tee a bit much? Was Althea’s British accent fake? Did the script read Enter innocent hippies? Did they have stun guns in the glove compartment? Did they possess micropads bearing my brain’s most intimate coordinates, my CC levels, the enigmatic symbology of my genome map? There was a cooler in the backseat, an empty Cheetos bag, a small character lapse that gave me hope.

  “What do you think, Romie?” Beth said. “Are you up for a hike today?”

  Making a visor of her left hand, Beth shielded her eyes from the sun. She smiled. Her teeth were nice but not blazing white. She had a dimple on her chin that matched the elfin indentation in her nose.

  I saw myself walking away from her. Saw myself driving back to my house, making my rounds through the cluttered emptiness, opening windows to let the summer day wash over me as I lounged on the couch, wondering if I’d made the
right choice.

  “Why not?” I said, already working the door handle. I climbed into the backseat. Beth slid in through the other door. I tried not to stare at her as she leaned forward, instructing Andrew on the best route out of this town.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Although this novel began years ago as a short story that was too big for its britches, I retrieved it from a remote computer file after reading my cousin Carl Elliott’s essay “Guinea-Pigging” (originally published in the New Yorker), which chronicles the subculture of clinical-trial research subjects. Carl’s compassionate and trenchant piece inspired me to invent the fictional Center for Cybernetic Neuroscience, which serves as the engine of transformation for Romie Futch. I’d like to thank my wonderful agent, Denise Shannon, for championing my fiction and also Kelly Malloy, the novel’s very first reader, whose boundless enthusiasm gave me the confidence to let Romie and Hogzilla run loose in the world. I’m forever indebted to the kickass crew at Tin House magazine and books, some of the most friendly and visionary folks in contemporary publishing, helmed by Rob Spillman and Win McCormack. My brilliant editor, Meg Storey, deserves to have her name and picture on this book, not only for putting up with me but also for whipping my hog-wild narrative into shape, patiently prodding me until I coughed up a beginning and ending that made the book tick. Nanci McCloskey has to be the hardest-working publicity genius in the book biz, performing miracles to get my prose noticed while also answering my numerous annoying e-mails. For the second time, Diane Chonette has designed a stunning cover for my book, but this round, she graciously endured my obsessive-compulsive font-color anxiety, and for that I must apologize. I would like to thank Talal Gedeon Achi, one of the readers at Tin House Books, who gave me invaluable feedback, and also Thomas Ross, Michelle Wildgen, Tony Perez, and Meg Cassidy. I am grateful for the University of South Carolina, which has just granted me a sabbatical, and also the Rona Jaffe Foundation, which generously supported this endeavor. I couldn’t function without my in-laws, John and Sybil Dennis, or without all of my friends, particularly the weirdos, arts people, and my colleagues at USC. The Elliott clan has nurtured and inspired me since I began my freakish existence, particularly my father, Joseph Elliott, and my late mother, Francis. Stephen Taylor is not only one of my oldest friends, but he also designed (and continues to redesign) my beautiful website. My honorary sister Libby Furr is always there when I feel a nervous breakdown coming on, willing to endure hours of deranged chatter. Finally, my husband, Steve Dennis, and daughter, Eva, not only bear the burden of my love but also get to see my numerous monster faces. It may seem strange that I dedicated this mock-macho book to my three-year-old daughter, but I wrote most of the first draft when she was in utero, kicking me from the inside, prodding me onward.

  PRAISE FOR The New and Improved Romie Futch

  “The New and Improved Romie Futch not only marks the arrival of one of the funniest, smartest, and most unnerving novels you’ll read this year, but also a vision for Southern literature that could only have sprung from Julia Elliott’s wild, devastating, and wholly original imagination. Consider me a fan for life.”

  —LAURA VAN DEN BERG, author of Find Me

  “This novel reminds the cynical, seen-it-all reader [that] sometimes strangeness is enough. Elliott’s work, in its own snarling and unruly way, contains brilliance.”

  —Kirkus

  PRAISE FOR The Wilds

  Named a BEST BOOK of 2014 by

  Kirkus

  BuzzFeed Books

  Book Riot

  Electric Literature

  And a New York Times Editors’ Choice

  “Elliott makes us hear contemporary English in a new way.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “Remarkable . . . [Elliott’s] dark, modern spin on Southern Gothic creates tales that surprise, shock, and sharply depict vice and virtue.”

  —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “Robots may search for love, but there’s nothing wilder than human nature in this genre-bending short story collection from debut writer Elliott . . . This book will take you to places you never dreamed of going and aren’t quite sure you want to stay, but you won’t regret the journey.”

  —Kirkus

  “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

  “This is wacky, bizarre content, but with a nice dose of realism even in the most absurd points. If you like Karen Russell, this is a good choice for you.”

  —Book Riot

  “[Elliott’s] work is unique and haunting, often drifting into apocalyptic and dystopian territory, but in many ways rooted in reality. I could not turn away from her tales. At the end of my time with The Wilds, I was completely devoted to Elliott’s dark depictions of the world.”

  —The Rumpus

  “Elliott’s inventive first collection is replete with robotic limbs and levitation—but also grit and force. A dark piece of magic that glows in the reading.”

  —Flavorwire

  “Often using dystopian and fantasy elements, Elliott’s writing is imaginative, her characters are often strange, and the whole collection is a dark treat you simply can’t put down.”

  —New Pages

  “Part whimsical fairy tale, part technological exploration, fused with biological ruminations you won’t be disappointed by this vivid collection.”

  —True Reader Reviews

  “Readers who grew up loving that fizzy, edge-of-the-lake feeling of diving into a tale will adore Julia Elliott’s The Wilds. Elliott’s worlds are fully imagined and wholly immersive; her sentences unfurl in the most surprising and glorious ways. These are tantalizingly strange, eerie and funny and unpredictable tales of transformation.”

  —KAREN RUSSELL, author of Vampires in the Lemon Grove

  “Julia Elliott’s magical debut collection, The Wilds, brings together some of the most original, hilarious, and mind-bending stories written in the last two decades. She journeys deep into mythic terrains with an explorer’s courage and a savant’s wit, and the reports she sends back from imagination’s hinterlands are charged with a vernacular that crackles with insight. Angela Carter, Kelly Link, and Karen Russell are similar visionaries in the short story form, but Elliott is very much her own irrepressible voice—and it’s one well worth heeding. The Wilds is simply a milestone achievement.”

  —BRADFORD MORROW, author of The Forgers

  “Julia Elliott’s stories—which thrive beautifully somewhere between the lyrically haunting works of Barry Hannah and the retrospective works of Lewis Nordan—offer nothing but the great, beautiful, dark regions of the human heart. These are stories to be cherished, taught, and brooded upon. These are stories in which to bathe oneself.”

  —GEORGE SINGLETON, author of Stray Decorum

  “Julia Elliott’s stories are an endangered species—vital, poignant, and rare. Readers should send themselves recklessly into The Wilds, for they will emerge spellbound, all the better for it.”

  —KATE BERNHEIMER, author of How a Mother

  Weaned Her Girl from Fairy Tales

  “The Wilds [is] a very well-written book of short stories that are creepy and weird in the good way. In the title story, a girl wearing a homemade crown of bird skulls tells of getting taken prisoner by a feral pack of boys, known as the Wilds, who live nearby. ‘Their chests glowed with firefly juice. They had steak knives strapped to their belts and some of them wore goggles.’ How can you go wrong with that setup?”

  —ARTHUR BRADFORD, author of Turtleface and Beyond

  © THOMAS ROSS

  JULIA ELLIOTT’s fiction has appeared in Tin House, the Georgia Review, Conjunctions, Fence, and other publications. She has won a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award, and her stories have been anthologized in Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses,
Best American Fantasy, and Best American Short Stories. Her debut story collection, The Wilds, was chosen by Kirkus, BuzzFeed, Book Riot, and Electric Literature as one of the Best Books of 2014 and was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. She is currently working on a novel about hamadryas baboons, a species she has studied as an amateur primatologist. She teaches English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, where she lives with her daughter and husband. She and her spouse, John Dennis, are founding members of the music collective Grey Egg.

  The New and Improved Romie Futch

  Copyright © 2015 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 by W. W. Norton and Company

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

  Elliott, Julia 1968-

  The new and improved Romie Futch : a novel / Julia Elliott. -- First U.S. edition.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-941040-15-7 (alk. paper)

  ISBN 978-1-941040-16-4 (eBook)

  I. Title.

  PS3605.L4477N49 2015

  813’.6--dc23

  2015016030

  COVER IMAGE CREDIT:

  Illustration from Greek Myths. Illustration copyright © 2010 by Sarah Young. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, on behalf of Walker Books, London.

  First US edition 2015

  Interior design by Diane Chonette

  www.tinhouse.com