We Live Inside You (20 page)

MH: Sure, chief. However you want to call it. It spooked me because I was still under the weather. But I pegged that up in my mind as booze-related immune suppression. All those sauced little white blood cells getting bitch-slapped by the bugs in my system.

SEE SEPARATE DOCUMENT INSERT RE: Viability of ethanol [or variant] ingestion as chemical deterrent to life cycle of [un-named parasite/parasitoid CASE: F-DPD0758].

CS: So when did it become evident that Claire and Myra were still… unwell?

MH: [Prolonged sound of gulping.] You want to hear the rest, you get me a loaded shotgun. I promise I’ll only fire it once.

CS: Not an option, Matthew.

MH: Okay. Fuck it. I better get the truth out before the goddamn crawler starts telling my story. [Pause/sound of shuddering exhalation.] I knew they were still unwell when I found their tongues. Claire’s was in the bed, tucked under a pillow. Dried up already, like jerky. And Myra’s…

CS: Please, Matthew.

MH: Myra’s was in her crib, next to her favorite pacifier, the one with the orange dolphin on the back. And I’ve got to tell you, chief, between my half-sick, half-drunk stupor and lack of sleep, I felt like I was dreaming. So I did what seemed like the right thing. I threw the tongues in the garbage and kept on tidying the apartment. Like I could organize away what I was seeing. Like I could clean up reality.

SEE SEPARATE DOCUMENT INSERT FOR RELATED DIRECTOR ORDER: DPDx forensic detachment to attain SW Sanitation schedule/potential combing of landfill [use of trailing dogs authorized]. Retention of tissue from Subjects 3 and 4 Top Priority, presence/absence of eggs to be communicated ASAP.

MH (continued): So I had the place pretty spruced, and I was waiting for them to come home. Claire wasn’t answering her phone. And my nerves were on four alarm blaze, so I had some bourbon close by, just to keep things mellow until I could figure out what was going on. I’d call her phone. Five rings. Voice mail. Nothing. Take a swig. Five rings. Voice mail. Nothing. And they still weren’t home by 9:00pm.

CS: Records show you called Claire’s mother.

MH: Three or four times. But she never picked up. And I thought about calling the cops, but I knew my speech was slurring by that point. What would I tell them? There was no crime, and they’d probably guess it was just another wife bailing with the kid, leaving the stew-bum behind.

CS: But their tongues? That must have…

MH: Can’t see that impressing the cops either. Just a way to induce them to pack a straitjacket. Besides, if I mentioned finding their tongues… I’d been on a steady drunk trying to bury that detail, hoping I was just losing my shit.

CS: So when did you next see Claire and Myra?

MH: Never again. I think the night they came home from the doctor’s was the last time I really saw them.

CS: Matthew, the chronology we’ve established shows the three of you were in that apartment for almost two days before we…

MH: Before you decided to bust into my place and stop me from finishing my work? Listen, chief, this is hard enough to talk about. So let me lay it out for you without all of your interjections and then we can clear up your questions later.

CS: [Long pause.]

MH: That’s more like it. So what I’m saying is that I saw Claire and Myra again, but they sure as shit weren’t my Claire and Myra. At some point that night I’d finished my bottle and given up on my phone crusade. I remember thinking, “She finally left me.” And I remember feeling so relieved. No one would expect anything from me after that, you know? I’d cop some menial job, enough to service a studio apartment and child support. I’d push for a few weekends a month with Myra, just enough to not feel guilty when I show some stripper a picture of my kid. I think I’d been waiting for a long time for a chance to fall apart.

CS: Matthew, I need to know more about your wife and child, and time is a factor. We have a staff psychologist you can speak with later if you need to get more familial issues off your chest.

MH: Courtesy is a short-lived thing around here, huh, chief? All right then, shitbird… So I passed out on the couch, if you can believe it. Noble. Noble guy. And when I woke up they were sitting at the foot of the couch, both of them, very quietly and… holy shit… and Claire was nursing Myra, and her head was tilted, and she was staring across the room at nothing, like she was back on Paxil, and they both had those goddamn seaweed eyes. And Claire had both of her breasts out and the one that wasn’t in Myra’s mouth was… it was kind of lumpy, like it had been stuffed with tapioca, and the nipple looked raw, just red meat raw, with these blisters around it, some popped, some filled up with the same dark green that was in her eyes, and…

CS: Hold on for a moment please, Matthew.

SEE SEPARATE DOCUMENT INSERT RE: Confirmation of multiple gender-specific intra-species transmission methods as seen in CASE: F-DPD0674. Student population under Sector 6 Quarantine should immediately be grouped same sex for confirmation/testing of all fluids for presence of concurrent microparasites.

CS: Okay, we’re back, Matthew.

MH: [Garbled/indistinct vulgarity.] My tongue is starting to feel numb. [Sound of coughing/spitting]. Aw, Christ, chief.

CS: I’d suggest drinking some water. We need you to finish your account.

MH: Yeah, well… suggest in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first. [Sound of laughter/sound of gulping/sound of empty bottle set down on table.] What you have to understand is that I thought I was dreaming, seeing Claire and Myra like that. Between the guilt and the hooch, that kind of nightmare fits right in. But then Claire put one of her bony bird hands on my ankle and she turned toward me and smiled. And I swear to God, these two wiry antennae uncurled from in between her teeth and started swaying in the air. So of course I lost my shit. I rolled onto my side and chucked out my guts on the shag carpet, and it’s just bile and bourbon and I get that post-puke rush where things feel okay for a moment and I’m thinking I’m awake now and then I turn back towards Claire. [Long pause] She’s still smiling at me and this voice comes out of her mouth and says, “Empty. Feed.” And she’s got her other breast cupped and I swear it’s dribbling this shit like fucking wheat grass juice. [Pause] And Myra… Myra pulls off the other breast, or at least her lips move away, but there’s something else pushing out of her mouth, something with those same feelers wiggling, and it’s latched on to Claire, right on her tit, and it’s got these two tiny claws pinched on and its body is pulsing and hunching, and these plates on its back are clicking together and I can see through this thing’s belly, where the skin is clear and its guts are filling up green. And Myra’s eyes look almost black, but I can still tell they’re rolling back in her head…

CS: Claire could speak?

MH: They both could. But Myra… she didn’t have any words yet, so she would smile and her lips would pull back, but all that came out… Have you ever seen that footage of dolphins being massacred in Japan? And Claire’s voice was different. There was a lisp, like her mouth was too full, and there was a sort of hissing to it, like cricket legs or… [Pause] And the smell that came from them filled up the room. It was like being stuck in the dumpster behind a seafood wholesaler on a hundred degree day. Made me throw up again.

CS: So why didn’t you call 911?

MH: Are you listening to me, chief? This strikes you as a rational response fucking situation? I had no bearings. I asked Claire a question, thinking that this time she’d give me a normal answer in her old, sweet voice and I’d be all the way awake, but it came out with no authority and just made me feel smaller and detached and more alone. But I told her I was worried and that I wondered where she was yesterday and she smiled again… I’m thinking that’s the only way the thing could move around in there… and all she says is, “Work. Feeding.” And I say, “You were at the daycare?” She nods and says, “Feeding. Growing. Most will be born.” Then she looks down at Myra, and her nose curls up like she’s disgusted, and she says, “This one is dying. This one is too small.” [Long pause/sound of soft crying.]

CS: Matthew, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But the more detail…

MH: Details, chief? Go fuck yourself. I did what I did. I tried to save them. I tried to fix it. To fix them before anybody would have to know… But it was too late. I could barely stand, but Claire was always pretty frail, and this fucking bug thing had wiped her out. So I tried to help her first and it wasn’t too difficult to get her hands belted behind her, but that thing… that thing had teeth or mandibles or whatever and Claire started to shake and even with all the lamps in the room turned on my head kept making a shadow over her face and Myra was squealing and stomping her heels down where I left her on the carpet and I couldn’t tell where the thing in Claire’s mouth ended and the rest of her tongue began and when I cut in with the box knife it started bleeding so bad… But for just a moment Claire was looking straight at me, and even with the green lace it looked like her old eyes and then she spit right in my face. Right in my face, and she meant it. And her mouth was half-filled, and I noticed the blood from the thing and my wife wouldn’t quite mix, so there’s your details chief. Then her lips pulled back and the eyes were still Claire’s eyes and she said, “You did this to us.”

CS: Matthew, she…

MH: She was right. She was right. Even after I managed to finish cutting through, and I’d pulled the goddamn thing out of her face and smashed it under my foot… You want more details? The shell of the thing started changing colors and it hissed and sprayed a yellow mist out of its mouth after I set it on the floor. What the fuck does that? Even after I got the thing out of Claire she still had her eyes trained on me, just bullet-eyes, and she couldn’t have hated me any more. And I couldn’t fix her, because she was already weak and I don’t think she could stop from choking on all that blood. But I thought that Myra… [Long pause.]

CS: You didn’t try to remove the “crawler?”

MH: I didn’t want her to bleed like Claire. So I thought if I could just kill the bug that maybe it would just detach and… and I was thinking of how they cook lobsters, and I tried to keep the water in a tin can and hold her over it, but the steam was making everything slick and I couldn’t get her mouth open at the same time and… so I thought that the burns would heal, you know how they say that the inside of your mouth can heal so fast, and then at least she’d live, and I didn’t put the sponge in there for more than twenty seconds, but the thing was hissing and it tried to curl in on itself, and Myra started shaking and making fists and then her eyes were open and they were looking right at me, right into me, and…

CS: Matthew?

MH: They were right. There’s nothing… [Sound of empty glass bottle being shattered.]

CS: Matthew, please. There’s no need to…

MH: I did this. I did this. I… [Sound of Subject 5 collapsing on floor. Sound of wet coughs/exhalations. Faint sound of specimen clicking/squealing from interior of Subject 5. Sound of door opening/boots shuffling/Subject 5 moved to stretcher.]

CS: Goddamn it, [REDACTED]. I said plastic bottles only. Triage?

DPDx: Subject 5 at ISS 75. Both major sources of blood flow to brain severed, trachea punctured. He was committed.

CS: The specimen?

DPDx: Significant damage. Suggest immediate retrieval attempt.

CS: Agreed. Prepare for transfer to Surgical Theater 8, movement protocol in place.

DPDx: Confirmed. [Brief pause.] Director?

CS: Yes?

DPDx: If I didn’t know better, I’d think this dead fuck was grinning right at me.

CS: Could be a symptom of the parasite attempting to exit the damaged host. Stay far from his mouth until we’ve assessed specimen mobility. And let’s keep it moving. Perhaps Matthew’s got a second chance at fatherhood.

DPDx: [Muffled laughter] Yes, sir. Rolling out.

END TRANSCRIPT

The Caller ID reads “Unknown” but the man on my phone says he’s with the Thurston County Coroner’s Office in Washington. I know precisely zero people up north so I peg the call as a prank or a particularly grim dialing error.

Darry is travelling on business, but I spoke with him this morning. He was fine.

Mistakes like this happen every day, right?

I can smell my breath on the phone, stale hints of cinnamon toast and mimosas light on the orange juice. The voice on the other end continues to intrude into my lazy afternoon, verifying my name is Elloise Broderick, and the sunshine coming in through the kitchen window suddenly feels too hot on my skin. That heat and the tone of the voice create a flash-fever in my belly that spreads quickly to my fingertips. I can imagine flowers wilting next to that warmth, petals curling, dropping.

Delirium. The blood in my head whirlpools down, a tornado spinning out of existence, rendering me transparent. So when the voice on the phone says, “I’m sorry to inform you that your husband has been in a fatal traffic accident,” it’s easy to imagine that the “you” being addressed is someone else, maybe someone standing directly behind me, someone older, someone who has three kids and a half-paid mortgage.

Not that the statement regarding the death of that other husband will hurt that person less. But it would seem, at least, appropriate. More real. Because my husband’s not dead. Can’t be. I’ve only had him two years since last October. The expiration date for a guy like him is so far off that I can’t even conceive of it.

“You” could, though. The “you” being addressed on the phone has had her share of life, with its troubles, even its deaths. She isn’t the one with weekend bar-hopping plans and a yellow plastic cell phone in her hand that feels sweaty and toy-small. She isn’t the one getting nauseous, eyeing the distance to the kitchen sink because her belly might evacuate its contents. “You” understands mortality, may even have found some strange peace accord.

Mistakes like this, I’m sure they happen all the time. That’s why I ask the misguided voice on the phone if I can see the body.

Static, then a hesitant, “Yes… actually we are required to have someone, family or friend, identify the body, to satisfy coronial procedure. But you may not want to be the one who does this. The accident was high velocity, and the body… ”

Then he’s telling me about the condition of this body that’s not Darry’s; how useless the dental records will be in the absence of, you know, teeth. He details the projected speed of impact, the rain on the roadway, the delayed response from authorities that allowed physical evidence to be dispersed by passing traffic.

Even finger-printing is a lost option. The poor bastard that they think is Darry tried to shield his face on impact. His delicate, thick-veined hands are as much a part of the interstate landscape as his well-bleached enamel.

Crow’s breakfast, all of it.

His teeth now tucked in SUV tire treads, chewing up pavement.

If he didn’t have his mind on the road before, well…

I’d caught a bad case of gallows humor during my short-lived stint at the Windy Arbor elder care facility. An old man named Percy Heathrow caught me weeping in a storage closet, sorry little red-faced me unable to handle the sight of all these intentionally forgotten people slogging away their last years. He called me over. I came forward, chugging back snot and wiping the corners of my eyes with the inside of balled fists. He didn’t say anything, but his knobby hands floated down to his waistline and lifted up his shirt. I thought I was about to get perved on. Instead I saw a fresh colostomy bag hanging from the side of his belly, “SHIT HAPPENS” written on the plastic in black felt-tip.

That got me through the week; that moment where Percy and I were in on the cosmic joke. Since then my humor’s veered obsidian black. So somehow my face harbors a misplaced smile even as this coroner dumps details.

The kind of wreck Darry’s been in is called a “rear under-ride.” This is what happens when a car hits the back of a semi-trailer and keeps going. The Freehoff trailer Darry didn’t brake in time for acted like a guillotine on tires. Darry’s death would have been instantaneous.

Because it’s not really Darry we’re talking about, I laugh quietly at this part. The voice on the phone said “instantaneous” like auto-dealers say “zero down,” like it’s a blessing. Like this guy they think is Darry died so quick, he might just come back.

This information is conveyed in the programmed, caring polite-speak of someone who talks death all day. It’s me applying the realities, putting sauce on the steak. I remember a semi-snuff video Darry had me watch with him, how at the moment this hapless Russian girl got hit by a train she turned from a moving, breathing person to a flying sack of tissue and bones and nothing else. I’ve seen that side of death. I’m de-sanitizing this whole affair. Easier work for the brain than coming to grips.

“There are a few tattoos, Mrs. Broderick, that we believe could assist in the identification process.”

I pictured Darry, home from getting his second tattoo, showing off the still-bleeding black cursive lines between his shoulder blades. There it is, stuck under his skin, my name marking him forever, more than any ring—Elloise. I’d run my fingers through the soft, warm ointment coating it and felt the abraded ridges where his skin had been torn by needles. This feeling, I think of it later, months later, while I’m masturbating. It helps me finish.

I prefer those tattoos that look like Japanese tapestries—dragons and whirlpools, ornately-scaled fish. But I couldn’t argue with the intensity of seeing my name trapped under his skin.

His first tattoo, some random black tribal band encircling his left arm, he had that before we met. The kind of mark that binds you to the Tribe of Other Dudes Who Think That Shit Looks Cool.

His phrase for it was, “Purely aesthetic.”

My response—“But it
looks
stupid.”

We never spoke on it again. Verboten, you could tell from the silence following my comment.

Yes, I know his tattoos.

I ask for the address of the morgue before the voice can say anything else about identifying ink. The address is in Olympia.

Darry’s “Introduction to Data Marketing” conference was in Olympia too, downtown, just off the water. Maybe I’d visit him at his hotel
after
I told the people at the morgue that I’m sorry I couldn’t be of assistance. Wish them the best of luck, offer telegrammed sympathies to “you.”

They’ll want to apologize for the worry they’ve caused me.

They’re used to apologizing, I’m sure. Mistakes like this…

Sweat beads along my hair line. If it runs I’ll get hairspray in my eyes, like some cosmetic company test rabbit. My stomach is not altogether in the right place now. It’s plastic-wrap tight around a belly full of nothing, relocating acid to the back of my throat.

The phone call has had the necessary effects.

It’s the
unnecessary
effects that have me so goddamn confused.

Moments after I hang up the phone I get this feeling—warm, sweet molasses spreading down the inside of me from underneath my belly-button. That’s the start. Then fullness, a subtle pressure as I expand against the fabric of my underwear. Then my heartbeat heads south, steady, filling me up, exposing my nerve endings.

The phone call’s natural response should be crying, right? Even with my textbook denial there should be tears at the rims of my eyes, waiting to run down my cheeks.

No tears. And I need to get off.

I try to rationalize. This sudden urge is a biological sidekick to mortality. It has nothing to do with Darry. I’m not a whore, not sick. We oppose death by fucking. It’s our weapon.

But Darry can’t
ever
know how the false news of his death has triggered this need…

He can’t know how much his death makes me want to fuck. More precisely, how I have never before, not in the recorded history of Elloise, so desperately wanted
to be fucked
.

These responses, my denial, my instant want… I can see them for what they are, but I can’t shake them. So I stay in motion. I start packing bags for the drive up to Oly.

The new focus—grabbing my toothbrush, deciding which gas station will have the best mocha for the road, not looking in the mirror, not getting my vibrator out of the closet, picking my favorite towel because I never like hotel towels, wondering how long my sandals can go without falling apart, remembering that Darry is still alive, remembering that mistakes like this are commonplace, getting the gummies out of the corners of my eyes, putting fresh saline solution in my contacts case, not calling Darry’s gorgeous friend Peter, not even thinking about how big Peter’s hands are, not even letting this stream of thought go any further…

STOP!

Deal with the problem.

I flop onto our bed and catch a quick whiff of Darry’s sweaty sleeping-boy smell, soaked into our lumpy old goose-down comforter. I’m so used to Darry’s smell that my nose won’t pick up the scent for long. An accepted part of my life. No need to process.

I undo the top button on my pants. I can’t separate the buckle of my belt quick enough. Reason has vacated this moment.

My fingers do their work, tracing the paths of familiar sense memory, making my back arch and my stomach tighten. I can’t remember the last time I was this wet.

I can’t remember the last time I felt this good.

Slow circles turn to pressure. I close my eyes and there’s Darry’s friend Peter, watching me, lying next to me, sliding one of his huge hands up and down my belly. I can feel the calluses on his hands, an accumulated roughness that Darry’s data marketing job would never give him.

I’m close to coming and Peter turns into the checker at the grocery store, the one with the jet-black hair and blue eyes, the one that told me about the detergent coupon. His breath still smells like black licorice.

Behind my closed eyes, far from my desperate hand, parades of men are waiting for their turn with me.

Hips are lifted, calves are squeezing tight. So close. My body drops back into the comforter and stirs up another wave of boy-smell.

I smell
my
boy. My Darry.

I can’t come.

The wave crashes that quickly.

Fucking Darry.

I try again, try to climb the peak, but now I’m numb. I’m only touching myself now, meat on meat, no sacred shock of nerves. Just a sudden guilt, virus-quick through my system, flushing me with heat. Staring at the ceiling with my right hand cupped against pulsing warmth. Thinking about the last thing I want to acknowledge.

Darry and I have been together so many times in this bed. Too many times, I guess. That’s why I’ve needed more lately—my fantasies, the images that I’ve transposed onto Darry’s body while he’s inside of me.

I don’t think he’s caught on. Even with me always turning the lights off beforehand, and asking him not to make noise, and asking him to come in from behind. Even with all my delicate fantasy preparations—these little tricks that allow me to screw another man when I’m married and faithful to a fault—he hasn’t seemed to notice.

The thing making it easy for me to ignore who he is while he’s inside of me—his weakness—is that he loves me too much. I guess his love is
my
weakness, too, because the love itself—his fingers running through my hair at night, his hand soothing my sore belly after I developed my first ulcer—is wonderful. His type of true, warm affection is more suffocating and alluring than any hotel fling or office tryst.

The idea that this lust, even now creeping back through my skin, is suddenly upon me because Darry’s dead and now I’ve got a chance to be with other men… it worries me because it feels true. And knowing that it’s wrong hasn’t given me power over it.

If he is dead, I’m sick. Sick and alone.