Everybody Scream! (17 page)

At seventeen Helen ran away from home. She had the parasite removed with Pearl’s financial help. She could now never go home again, killer of her own red-haired twin named Violet. She had married at seventeen, divorced, now lived with a man. She had been fixed so that she would never have children of her own.

The other child, Eve, was unluckiest. Four parasites of various development and sentience shared her tormented host body. She was insane, and lived in a special bedroom at home.

Pearl had left home around the same time as Helen, at twenty-one. Her dream was to become a singer. Pearl’s mother was a wonderful singer, had often sung the pretty blonde child to sleep with lullabies…

It was in a brothel’s lounge that Del and Sophi Kahn, having come down south last fall with the carnival, saw Pearl Handles, as she was called, sing on a little stage. They were impressed.
Del
was impressed. The husband and wife conferred, and approached Pearl Handles after her performance.

Pearl hadn’t stripped, although she was by now a prostitute to support her gold-dust habit, which in turn, ironically, was destroying her voice. She did, however, while performing wear a lace black bra and skimpy panties cutting into her succulent white flesh, a garter belt and stockings, heels. The parasite wore similar panties, stockings, and miniature heels, other times a ring or a frilly red garter band. But when Pearl came to meet with these strangers backstage she folded herself away inside a black satin cloak. Del had been disappointed, but tantalized.

After Del had introduced himself, Pearl recognized him, God bless her. At their offer she wept. Del had to pay off the slimy brothel owners but it was a good deed, not that he expected Pearl’s singing to double the carnival’s take. Del brought along Mitch and the KeeZees–that helped keep the owners’ greed in check.

Del and Sophi had been great friends this past year, so supportive. They had sent her to a therapist. She’d quit dust, cut down on weed. Not since leaving the bordello had she given in to accepting money for sex, though some had tried. For sex, however, she had to take stimulating drugs in order to feel aroused.

Life had been good, of late, but now she was apprehensive, afraid. This fall and winter she would start doing nightclub shows. Sophi’s people, and Del and his of course, had lined some up for her already, for a slight agent’s fee. But she had grown accustomed to the open air of the carnival stage, to seeing old people and children, people who didn’t want to fuck her, fuck the parasite hidden inside her dress, unrevealed. Now it would be back into dark rooms of adults in the night. Drinking. Lust curling up from them like cigarette smoke. But never the stockings, heels, red garter again…never. Only once had Mitch asked, and he wouldn’t dare again, though he ached for it, having also caught her old bordello stage act. Never would Pearl
Mason
humiliate herself and her sister, baptized Betty by her parents, again.

Because, despite running away, despite her horror at what her two sisters had experienced at home, despite leaving the church, despite becoming a prostitute, Pearl could not bring herself to have her parasite removed. She hadn’t kept the parasite in order to join Tragic Beauty, the name of the so-called “freak whorehouse”…without Betty she might have just as easily, being white and blonde, joined a “straight” brothel. Whatever notions, beliefs, prejudices she had rejected when she left home, she couldn’t cut away the idea, the
feeling
, that Betty
was
her sister. “No,
might
have been,” some would say. But Pearl would lift a bent, stunted leg. “This isn’t might have been. This
is
. This is as much Betty’s leg as if she was a Siamese twin. She’s my retarded sister. She’s my sister in a coma. But she’s my sister.”

Garnet grunted loudly as he ejaculated, pumping hard. Sometimes Pearl would climax massively twice; this time she didn’t. She had stretched out on top of her twin at the end, but taking the pressure off by leaning on her elbows, her head down and eyes shut. Finally Garnet rolled off her, lay panting on his side. His eyes closed, now Pearl lifted her head and opened hers. She stared at him. Just how fixated was he on her parasite? It couldn’t be more than he was on her natural vagina, or breasts and ass, which he lavished attention on. She wouldn’t rather that he be repulsed, would she? It was just that his tongue or penis, or hands or eyes, kept magnetizing back to it, again and again. Am I paranoid, or what? she would wonder. She did now, because of his prodding with his curious dissector’s scalpel, eager to pierce the freak. Every man’s dream–the extraordinary in a jaded world, the extra-endowed. Two vaginas in one body, two women in one, with only one head, one mind to trouble with–what a deal!

Except that this was Pearl’s sister Betty, and though she couldn’t really say she loved her–despite the fact that sometimes she cried and stroked her (feeling the sensation herself), thinking of the blonde twin that had almost escaped her–she did try to respect her sister. And yet she had broken down and let Mitch copulate occasionally with the parasite. With Betty, who had no say, could make no protest. Pearl felt it, and it felt good (though not great), so it was
her
body too, wasn’t it? Her vagina, her nerves linked eventually to her brain? Betty had no brain. But Betty was her sister regardless of all. And Mitch had made love to Betty, also. Sometimes it made Pearl guilty, ashamed. Sometimes it made her feel something very close to angry jealousy. Cheated on. As if her natural body,
Pearl’s
body, wasn’t enough.

But maybe–since in a way Mitch made love to Pearl when he made love to Betty–Mitch made love to Betty even when he made love to Pearl. They were two and yet one. It was easier to let Mitch kiss, touch, even occasionally penetrate Betty than for Pearl to fully break up where she left off and Betty began.

All she could hope, staring at Mitch, was that he would have loved her even without the extra body, the extra vagina; he had grown furious when once she questioned this, but people could fool themselves. She hoped he truly loved her, as hard as it was to hope through the jungle of her fears and doubts and bitterness, because in the face of all this, even against her will, Pearl loved Mitch. Maybe it’s Betty’s will, she thought bitterly. Perhaps jealous again.

The day was well along. The progressively slanting goldenness of afternoon light, a warm flowing honey, gave the carnival a mellow nostalgic mood, metal and glass picking up the radiance and twinkling orange. Bern Glandston was a little bored but had kept himself occupied; there was a long, straight dirt track with full bleachers on either side and lined with walls of standing people, and for a while he had sat and watched a variety of activities. Tractor robots pulled great weights, spinning their wheels–an award given to the robot that dragged the heaviest load. A few farm robot tug-o-wars were quite amusing. The robot displays ended with a robo-demo derby, the garishly painted and numbered old machines going at each other with a mad, murderous mindlessness that was almost frightening, but comical, the arena crowd cheering the mechanical gladiators. Dust clouds swirled spore-like in the gilded light. The machines crashed and clanged, adding to the whole mechanized heaving pulse of the carnival.

Bern moved on, found the restroom shack and urinated, checked his spill of moussed spikes, with a damp paper towel wiped the dust from his scaled slippers. Under the door of the stall behind him Bern could see that a man was on his knees in front of another man. He casually listened while he wiped his shoes. It gave him a subtle deep crawling. Bern had gotten off with other boys at school a few times–no big deal. It was a chic treat, it delineated his sophistication. He thought he should quit looking so much, detached, and befriend some girl or girls around here. He had a touch of dust and a few iodine joints on him for added incentive. He’d seen quite a varied parade, didn’t know which way to turn–they came and went so fast, a storm of butterflies and he a befuddled collector with net in hand.

He was tempted to snort some dust but forced himself to resist, save it, stepped out into the fresh air, a relief after the badly ventilated shack reeking of waste from dozens of varieties of life forms combined into one miasmic stew. The blood and brains had been mostly hosed off the partition. Bern set to wandering. He utilized his proud, confident walk. His dirty blonde hair, his blank blue eyes and blank good looks were taken in by girls he passed; peripherally he saw a young Choom girl look over her shoulder as he went by her. He didn’t do Chooms, though.

He bought a candyfloss from a tall, pretty young woman and chatted with her flirtingly. “Don’t you ever come out of that box?”

“No. I don’t have any legs.”

“Can I come in there and find out?”

“Ah, I don’t think so.” She smiled cautiously at his freshness.

“Come out and take a break–come
on
.” He leaned across the counter and lowered his voice seductively. “Come and have a smoke with me…what’s your name?”

“Toovish. Too.”

“Come and smoke one, Too. Make your night go by easier.”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Aww.”

“Sorry, I don’t. Thanks anyway.”

“You don’t smoke. What’s the world coming to, Too?”

After a little more fruitless flirting Bern drifted on. It wasn’t evening yet and he still had plenty of time before Pox showed up. So his sauntering stroll was as calm and confident as ever.

Eventually he came upon a ride which was novel and intriguing but he couldn’t participate because he didn’t want to undress or wear a shower cap, though he did observe it from the outside for a while, and what he could see of the line of people entering it. Grinning, he lit a cigarette. He wasn’t alone in watching; this was a display in itself.

Noelle and Bonnie had joined Pearl Mason’s audience late and left early, at Bonnie’s insistence. “Borrr-ing,” she said out of the corner of her mouth, leading Noelle away. “Life is too short to stand around listening to a pregnant woman sing mindless sugar songs. I tell ya, girl, you step out of the skyscraper shadows and you’re in hicks up to your neck.”

The ride called Jonah’s Whale compelled them; compelled Bonnie, anyway, Noelle being a little timid, squeamish maybe. The great aquatic mammal lay on its belly, high and long, awesome and a bit scary to approach despite its trance. All this building-like bulk was one body, one life? The black, dully shining hide was dry, a little cracked in certain places, with some parasitic lesser animals still affixed but long since turned to a crust. Great white patches, also, from long-dead sea fungi. Kids had spray-painted on the whale creature in a few places, this graffiti yet to be cleaned off. Also, someone had stuck bumper-stickers on its hide, something about an animal rights organization. These were often peeled off, but stubbornly returned.

The cavernous mouth loomed open, toothless–Noelle wondered how they got it to remain that way. Two little boys drew near the mouth, the older of them suddenly pushing the smaller one inside. He screamed. The older one dove in after him, the huge mouth dropped shut and Noelle flinched, giggled nervously.

A balloon-like C-shaped structure lay parallel to the whale on its far side so as not to obstruct it, one end of the C at the mouth and the other at the end of the funnel-like tail. The line gradually advanced enough that Bonnie and Noelle could enter the balloon. Inside, a man gave them each a gym bag containing a shower cap and a plastic pair of disposable swim trunks. He chewed gum, bored, drew a curtain. Bonnie stripped down naked, tucked her hair inside the shower cap. “I’m not wearing the diaper–I’m not squeamish. Or shy.”

Though rather less enthused, Noelle undressed, zippered her clothing and shoes inside the gym bag. She put on the shorts, their three openings elastic banded to keep out liquid. Bonnie drew back the curtain and passed the bored man their bags. Noelle wondered if she should have tucked her wallet in the trunks.

They stepped out of the balloon-like changing station and waited at the whale’s closed mouth, in the plain view of those gathered about. A few whistles, two teenage boys applauded and hooted. Noelle hugged her chest, took two steps back into the balloon building’s doorway. A few boos. Bonnie clucked her tongue at her.

From the massive animal came odd rumbling sounds that seemed to make the very ground vibrate, deep muffled gurgling noises like the simultaneous flushing of numerous toilets. Noelle’s eyes followed some thick cables which ran from the animal’s body back into the balloon, where the bored man stood. There had been a control panel, and monitor screens showing strange things happening inside the whale, which the machinery kept alive out of its watery environment. The machinery also kept the animal comatose, activated and manipulated its inner functions. The whale was a gigantic living, or semi-alive, puppet.