American Monsters Read online

  All of the muscles in her body have tightened. She is clenching everything, you can feel it from inside her. You wince with a discomfort that borders on agony. The space inside her is getting smaller and smaller. You must get out, you must get out, she is doing something inside, something is happening inside! You begin to pull your hips away, you tug at your pelvis. She won’t let you go. She is still staring at you with those violet eyes, she’s daring you to get out, the bitch is daring you. You violently yank your pelvis, as hard as you possibly can, pushing off of her chest for support.

  The sound of your penis ripping from your body echoes through the trees and ricochets in your ears. That grotesque sound, the burning heat of your loins transformed into an amputated pain. Now it is you who lies supine, tears streaming from your eyes. She gets up and stands over you, one foot by each of your ears. She bears down on her hips and spits a chewed lump of flesh into your face. You scream and try to turn away as blood and mucus stream into your mouth, your eyes, your nose. There is a cunning smile in her violet eyes.

  ― Was it as good for you as it was for me?

  She walks away as you choke on your very big mistake.

  —EXHIBIT NO. 3—

  THE RAVING TWINS

  The twins are sitting and talking in a trashed living room, their sparkling tops revealing the expanse of flesh where they are joined at the hip. They wear huge baggy pants that might almost be mistaken for skirts, beaded bracelets halfway up their forearms, sparkling glitter faces, and huge bags under their eyes from having been up for the last two days. SugarBear contentedly gnaws on a pacifier. SnuggleBear sucks a grape Blow-Pop while reading a psychedelic fluorescent flyer for an upcoming rave. The twins have been smoking marijuana since their return from a gathering early this morning.

  ― SugarBear, oh my God, we have to go to this party on Halloween! We totally have to go, it looks so awesome.

  ― Wait, which one is it? The Motel Chain one?

  ― What? No. This one is called FULL LUNACY. It’s a full moon party in the city, they, like, never have those.

  ― Yeah dude, that’s the one that the crazy Motel Chain guy is throwing, at his mansion house on a hill in Hollywood! It looks so twisted!

  SnuggleBear looks very confused. She also looks really stoned.

  ― [SugarBear exhales sharply.] Ugh. Don’t you keep up with this scene? From what I’ve heard, the Motel Chain guy is totally whack. He’s bitter because he made bank off of all his Motel Chain, but no one knows who he is or anything ...

  ― What’s his name again? [She is so stoned]

  ― I don’t know. [Looks at her funny] Dude, you are so out of it. He made that Motel Chain, I don’t know what his name is, why would I know what his name is? I mean, it’s a pretty lame thing to have a motel chain be your life accomplishment, you know. I’d probably be bitter enough to buy a hill in Hollywood, which is what he did.

  ― You can’t buy a hill in Hollywood. There have to be laws against that or something. Either I’m just really faded or you’re making it up.

  ― Money has more power than God, you know [in her know-it-all voice]. He apparently gave all the people who were living on this hill all kinds of money, and it was enough for them to have a reason to leave, so then he bulldozed over all their houses and he’s been building for, like, ever. Years and years! It’s crazy, dude, I heard that the house is on top of the hill and he’s been growing a labyrinth that leads up to it, with car paths and walking paths!

  ― No shit! Like that movie with David Bowie and the girl who has to solve the labyrinth to get her brother back from goblins and creatures ...

  ― [As she waves her sister’s words away] No, it’s like the woods in Twin Peaks and the Blair Witch Project. It’s a labyrinth of trees. It’s so huge and intricate they’re going to give out a first map at the gate to the hill so you can even get to the house, cuz you wouldn’t be able to otherwise. And then at the door of the house you get a second map because inside it’s all fun-housy, with different carnival rooms, and tunnels and secret passages and crazy shit like that! Pretty freaky, huh? It’s going to be so huge

  ― Oh right on, [looking at the colorful piece of glossy paper] the flyer says “Curiosity killed the cat.” What the hell does that mean?

  ― Oh my God dude, I bet he’s so fucked up. He probably has children locked in the basement, or he beats his wife and has her locked in the basement or maybe he has them all trapped in iron maidens like that Johnny Depp Sleepy Hollow movie! Mad amounts of children and babies and women and stuff he has down in there. Dude, you have to wonder about these things. It’s pretty weird to buy a hill and then throw a party there. No one wants even wants us having parties, why would he build a house with that sole purpose?

  ― Well, considering the fact that hostility fucks you up, man, I mean, maybe he just wants to get in touch with the youth of today, seeing that if anyone will remember him for anything, it’ll be us. We’ll be around for a while longer to spread the word about how cool he is and how incredible his party was.

  ― But what if it’s something else. Something more. [She giggles] Like, what if he’s working with the police and the government and it’s a plot to kill all the party kids! He might be planning on catching us all in there so we can be wiped out in one fell swoop!

  ― Or maybe [giggling] the house is alive and must be fed every few years!

  ― No dummy he just built it! [She gives her a “duh” face and even thumps the side of her hand against their chest to punctuate.]

  ― How do you know that the hill doesn’t have something about it? [Defensive tone and posture] Maybe people go missing every year and no one ever finds them. Maybe he knows there is something supernatural about the hill, maybe that’s why he bought it. [Totally defensive] Or maybe even the hill is a burial ground of some sort and needs sacrifices to the unrestful dead.

  ― Oh, good one! You know that could be possible. I’ve heard this city, this area, used to be all Native American lands until priests came and killed everyone who wasn’t Spanish or who wouldn’t convert to Christianity and now I bet there are a lot of angry spirits out there. Wandering around, looking for revenge. Payback! Hell yeah! Maybe they made Mr. Motel 6 buy the hill and build the maze and the house because they are the ones that want to kill us!

  ― So you want to go?

  ― Fuck yeah! Halloween night, baby! [A thoughtful pause] What are we going to wear?

  —EXHIBIT NO. 4—

  DR. JOHNSON, THE DENTIST

  You vividly remember the day you first saw your mother naked. The shock of her castrated body was so traumatic for your five-year-old mind that you instantly diverted your gaze to her mouth. You wonder sometimes whether your decision to become a dentist was somehow motivated by that accidental sighting. But the thought of that, like the thought of your mother naked, is too much for you to bear.

  You brush it out of your mind, like always.

  When your parents sat you down afterwards to explain your mother’s body — that she wasn’t missing a widdler, she just had a different place inside of her, a place where babies are made — well, you weren’t listening. You were staring at that mouth, the teeth, the voice, the little drops of spittle that sprayed into the air as she spoke. You weren’t listening because you already knew where her widdler was: it was hiding inside her body. And like her tongue that kept snaking out in her nervousness to lick those lips, her widdler comes out of her. And like those teeth it is very sharp, and you began to feel scared for your father. Scared of what your mother could do to him.

  You remember, also, seeing a horse at pasture. A big huge horse, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere it seemed, its widdler emerged, huge and throbbing and ultimately the most terrifying sight to enter your mind as you imagined your mother’s widdler, creeping out of her body, looking for prey, wanting to devour anything in its path.

  You became a dentist because you decided that the female body is wrong, and you know you aren’t the only one. Y
ou saw a movie, Dead Ringers, about two gynecologists who also believe that the female figure must be fixed and they invent all manner of tools for operating on women/mutant monsters.

  At this point, where we find you now, you believe all women to be mutations, with their retractable widdler. The big secret they keep from all men because then, one day when you least expect, it it’ll slide out and cut you to pieces!

  You never got to the end of the movie, though, when you would have seen that the grotesque tools were not for fixing mutant women, but were instead for separating Siamese twins. That wouldn’t have changed your views on this mutant women subject anyway. You are convinced (and afraid) that women are killers by nature, and so you decide to kill them first.

  You opened your first dental practice 30 years ago and you change location every few years to keep people from figuring out what you do to your different female patients. If anyone had followed up on any of them they would have found a string of incredible sicknesses, unfortunate mishaps and many a suicide, but none of which directly relate to you, Dr. Johnson, and your practice. It’s just icing the cake to make a new start every few years. Indeed, it is a sacrifice, the loss of spatial stability, but one that you are willing to make for the sake of a greater cause.

  You have ways to make the female body correct, as it should be in nature: dead or so deformed the only place that women could call home would be the sideshow freak tent at a circus carnival. Either way, life will be woman-free. You have the poisons and the diseases and an amazing cornucopia of substances that, if mixed correctly, can create just about any desired effect, or dis-effect, rather.

  It doesn’t matter that no one knows about the service you provide by relegating these monsters to the lower echelon of society where they belong. You are a man, you have the real widdler, the one that doesn’t hide and trick and manipulate. Women have killer widdlers. Kill the widdler.

  You stare into the splayed mouth, head resting on your black leather chair. Number 87. You will have to make a note of it later. She looks at you with her eerie gold eyes and you feel nothing but fear. You tell her to open wide, that this will help the bleeding in her gums after brushing. In your hand you have a vial of bright pink liquid. If you look close enough, you’ll see that the bubbles travel downwards. You’ll see that the liquid is making its way up the glass vial: It wants out.

  ― Here rinse your mouth out with this.

  She complies and that gold stare is averted for a tiny reprieve that makes you realize you have almost been holding your breath.

  ― Now spit.

  ―EXHIBIT NO. 5―

  LILY’S MOTHER

  TIME: 20 years ago

  PLACE: The Dentist’s Office

  THE PLAYERS: Dr. Johnson, The Dentist; Lily’s Mother

  A tracking shot surveys The Dentist’s office. Like most, it is immaculately clean. Sparkling, like the teeth of his clients. There is a door leading to the waiting room, and another door leading to The Doctor’s medicine cabinet: a plethora of odd shaped bottles and herbs. The room is spare of decoration, save The Chair in the center of the room.

  Lily’s Mother enters. She is one month pregnant and she glows, fluorescent green eyes sparkling.

  Dr. Johnson is waiting. He is nervous and stays as far from her as possible. She’s been here before, she’s used to his quirks. There is never the polite chit chat of other doctors. He gets right down to business.

  Dr. Johnson:

  Have a seat. Lean back please. Open. Hmmmm. Aaaaaah.

  Lily’s Mother:

  Just a sec. Um, you know, I’m pregnant and I’m wondering if there is anything I would need to do to from your side to make sure my baby is healthy? I mean, I’ve been seeing a gynecologist and everything and they said to take vitamins, I don’t know, I just figured since I was here I would ask if you had any recommendations.

  He recoils on the word pregnant as if she had bitten him instead of speaking. The camera picks up the beads of sweat that appear on his forehead.

  Dr. Johnson:

  Yes. I have something. Wait here.

  He is increasingly agitated. He mutters under his breath. “Kill the widdler, kill the widdler,” a mantra, his calming technique. He enters his medicine cabinet and begins reading the labels until he comes upon this one:

  If administered within the first trimester this lily will prevent the brain from splitting into two lobes.

  “Perfect,” he mutters. He’s not actually killing the widdler this time, but he’s never tried this medicine. If she’s having a baby it might as well be a monster.

  He snickers to himself but quells it. Sometimes when he comes in here he thinks about his quest and he finds it hilarious, he loses control. This is no time to pass out from hysterics. He removes the bottle from the shelf, replaces the glass bottle with a plastic medical standard.

  He exits.

  When he returns Lily’s Mother smiles with her kind viridian eyes.

  Lily’s Mother:

  Did you find something?

  Dr. Johnson, wincing at the sound of her voice:

  Uh, uh, yes. Of course. Here, lie back. This will help the child’s uh, teeth and gums. It is an herb I have uh, heard to be uh, effective at uh...here. Drink this. Okay, rinse. Now, let me uh, take a look in here...

  His voice drones on, punctuated by “uhs” and the occasional wincing start as Lily’s Mother speaks or moves. She feels the medicine burning her stomach. Something is not right.

  CUT TO:

  A hospital delivery room. Lily’s Mother is screaming in pain. The doctors wheel her into the room. She’s flushed, sweating, and not taking any pain medication. Her screams get more and more intense as her contractions get shorter. Her usually fluorescent jade eyes have turned a forest green where the irises have almost disappeared from pain.

  Finally, it’s beginning. She’s dilated, the baby’s head is visible, coming through, coming through, screaming all around, and there she is: Lily, covered in blood and tissue. Her mother continues to scream as the afterbirth is expunged.

  Quiet now. The nurse gasps and almost drops the baby. Lily’s Mother is faint from pain, the nurse takes the baby away when her mother passes out.

  A day later and Lily’s Mother is still recovering from the birth. The doctors tell her there are some complications with the baby and she can’t see it yet. They use that word: “It.”

  Lily’s Mother:

  But my baby, I just want to hold her for five minutes. Please, why can’t I hold her.?

  Doctor:

  I’m sorry but it’s not stable, there are complications. You must understand. The child must remain where it is.

  Lily’s Mother screaming:

  Why? Why? I need her, I need her right now. Bring me my baby! NOW!

  Doctor:

  Nurse, I need some sedatives. Calm this woman down.

  He leaves. Lily’s Mother never sees him or her baby again. The nurses tell her the complications were so severe that her daughter died in the night. Her daughter.

  Her eyes never return to their fluorescent green. They remain clouded with a forest pain until a year later, when cancer closes her eyes forever.

  —EXHIBIT NO. 6—

  LILY, THE CYCLOPS

  TIME: 15 years later

  PLACE: The Sanitarium

  PLAYERS: Lily; The Supervisor

  You never knew your mother. They told you that she didn’t want a monster child and gave you away, but you have a feeling that is a lie. You’ve dreamed about her. She sings to you. You know she’s watching over you somehow. And she seems like a really nice lady. Sometimes, though, when you look in a mirror you understand why what you tell yourself could be the lie.

  You are a 15-year-old standing an inch shy of six feet, with your one huge eye, a fluorescent aquamarine. You don’t know how you manage to live with yourself.

  Well, actually, you don’t mind yourself too much. What you mind is how people look at you: with fear and hate and anger and disgust
at the sight of your existence. That the world would be perfect without you. They blame you for being ugly, they blame you for being a freak, and being in anyone’s space makes them aware of how different you are, and they hate you. They hate you so much sometimes you think your heart will shrivel up from their poison revulsion. It chokes you. You refuse to speak. You sit in the corner with your head down, always down so you never make eye contact. But it’s no use, you can feel their eyes on you.

  You feel surrounded. You feel trapped. The only person that says even a word to you is The Supervisor. But he frightens you. When he forces you to look up you see something dishonorable in his eyes. Something mean and nasty. You hate looking at him more than anything. The worst part is that you don’t know well enough to know exactly what it is in his eyes as he looks you up and down. You don’t know. You don’t understand.

  As you sit in the corner, tears fall from your green eye. This is your ritual, to sit here and let the tears catch in your regulation blue tunic. You make up stories of the patterns your tears create. Stories where you have a mother and a family. Stories where you are happy. You sit in the corner until bedtime and then you lie in bed and cry. You can’t remember the last time you slept, you don’t feel safe. But you just don’t know why. You are so young.

  The Supervisor comes up to you, touches your head, and asks you what’s wrong.

  ― I’m just thinking about my mother, you say as tears continue to streak your tunic. Do you know what happened to her?

  ― Well, not off the top of my head, little darlin’, but I’m sure with a bit of askin’ I could find out for you.

  Your green eye turns a sage color and lights up; for a moment the tears stop.

  ― Are you serious? I would do anything, anything to know where she is.

  ― Well, you know it’s quite a bit of work. Eyup, it’s a mighty big bunch of extra effort for me, I’m a busy man. What’ll you do for me?