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By KateC (Katec) on Thursday, March 21, 2002 - 11:29 am
On the day Al�s mother killed herself, I was at his new apartment on a sunny afternoon. The same thing always happened. We would lie in the sun, I on a chaise longue, and he would bask on the hot wooden planks of the deck. As I became more and more lethargic in the heat, wondering how in the world I�d ended up in a romance with a giant skink, Al would become more active. His eyes would fix on me like I was some sort of prey. Al was plump but not squishy, firm and turgid. He would begin his mating display, a frantic series of pushups and head bobbing, then he would be on top of me in one sudden, slithering, speedy lunge, biting my neck and flipping me over onto my back. Afterwards I always felt swollen with eggs. This time, he had barely gotten started when the phone rang. �Leave it,� I said. �No, it might be my mother.� Like her son, Al�s mother was a ground skink. All of Al�s romances, even the same-species ones, had to be carried out in secret because of her. If she even suspected that her slithery child was not devoted to her alone, she would rampage, smashing furniture with the furious lashings of her whiplike tail (all his fault), usually culminating in a dramatic staged accident. Al had just gotten his first apartment, and every day the old skink called, pleading with him to move back home. But it was not his mother this time. It was the police, regretting to inform him that a large skink, his mother, had been fatally squashed by an automobile in front of Sears Roebuck. I�d obviously never had the opportunity to meet Al�s mother, but I imagined her as an enormous crocodile, not a ground skink. And it wasn�t the first time she had stepped out into traffic. Usually the cars would stop in time, and she would say, �I could have been killed�look what you do to me, making me so upset I can�t even see where I�m going.� Recently, her tail had come off, leaving her all stumpy on that end. This time, she had misjudged. Al cried a little after the phone call. �Oh Kate, Kate, Kate. I wish you were my mother!� Then he pulled himself together, his head bobbing aggressively. �Get in the car. I�ll drop you at your place on my way to the funeral home to make arrangements.� Still wearing my bikini, my clothes clasped to my chest, I got in the car. Al slid into the driver�s seat. Thrust between the front seats, sprawled untidily on the back seat, his tail quivered and twitched. Right hindfoot on the brake pedal, long scaly toes splayed on the rubber surface, Al yanked the gearshift into drive. Hands gripping the seat upholstery, eyes on the claws moving to the gas pedal, I swallowed several times. The speedometer climbed at an alarming rate. Radio blasting, windows rolled down, we careened through the neighborhood. Tires screeching, the car overshot my apartment building by half a block. Al put the car in reverse. �That�s okay--I�ll walk.� I flung the door open and jumped out. The car accelerated again, running up over the curb before straightening out. I was not invited to the funeral. A few days later, we were having dinner at Al�s. He feasted on crunchy mealworms and larva medley. Al smacked appreciatively over a particularly delicious worm. He had fixed me spaghetti, which is the closest thing I�m willing to get to a plate of worms. He eyed my plate with contempt, a sneer on the lipless crack of his mouth. �Processed food�predigested pap. You�re so American white bread, I could regurgitate. Humans in other cultures eat insects�where�s your sense of adventure?� It was his sarcasm that had attracted me to him in the first place, and there was no doubt that he was savoring his wriggling morsels more than I was enjoying my meal of overcooked pasta with a can or watery stewed tomatoes dumped over the top. Al was eyeing me predatorily. �Now that my mother is no longer an obstacle, we can get married. At last you can take her place, as I have always dreamed.� The proposal took me completely by surprise. �Married?� I was in shock. �We�d never be able to have children.� �That�s all right. The skink population is thriving. I feel no need to add my little wrigglers to the gene pool. What a relief not to have to sneak around anymore. You�re not like my mother�you�re tolerant, and I can count on your not throwing yourself in front of traffic when I visit my paramours.� �What? No way would I put up with that!� �Why would it matter to you as long as I keep you satisfied?� �That is not marriage. At least not to me.� He stared at me as if I�d suddenly mutated into a new, alien species. �You�re a romantic! My, my, my.� He got up and began to dance, swaying back and forth like a Komodo dragon, tongue flickering in and out. The squat, turgid legs began to prance, lifting the clawed feet high. �Marriage is for love, marriage is for keeps,� he sang in a high falsetto. All the while, he was growing larger, puffing up with air until I thought he might explode. I had an instantaneous moment of clarity, as if I�d just woken up. �It was fun, Al,� I said calmly. �But there comes a time for all good things to end. I�m sorry about your mother. Perhaps you can find your idea of marital non-attached bliss with one of your own species.� The air whooshed out of Al. Deflated, he sank down on the shabby wall-to-wall shag carpeting. �But you don�t understand,� he whined. �The females are all exactly like my mother�ferociously possessive. It�s a species thing.� �Goodbye, Al.� �But I NEED you!� he wailed as the door clicked shut behind me. The phone calls afterward�just like his mother. I let the machine get them. When I started seeing elongated, skink-like shadows lurking behind trees and in the parking lot at work, I decided to take my vacation early and go to Canada. When I returned 2 weeks later, I opened the refrigerator. Some things would need to be tossed after my spur-of-the moment departure. But the smell wafting up could not be explained by a moldy hunk of cheddar and a few wilted vegetables. It smelled like somebody had died in there. Then I noticed the large cottage cheese carton sitting on the bottom shelf. I never, ever eat cottage cheese. Curious, I took out the carton and lifted the lid. Yes, this was the source of the horrible smell. A folded piece of paper was inside. �You have given me no choice but to follow my mother�s example. You have robbed me of every reason I had to go on living.� Under the paper, on a soggy bed of cottage cheese, lay Al, shriveled and small and very dead. The once turgid body was now flaccid and limp, like a deflated balloon. I�d had no idea he would fit in a cottage cheese carton, but there he was, a shrunken version of himself. It must be a species thing. I turned on the cold water tap and flipped on the garbage disposal. I dumped the carton out in the sink and let the water wash everything down. �Goodbye,� I said as I dropped the empty carton into the trash can. |
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By Eithne (Eithne) on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 09:15 am
The weirdness of this is so great! I love all the vivid repeted words like turgid and skink. The repeted syntax isn't awkward at all, in fact I had trouble finding it. |
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By Sarah (Sarah) on Thursday, April 04, 2002 - 10:38 am
Kate, this piece is absolutely wonderful! I really got into the wackiness, and loved how it was first impossible to tell who, if anyone, was human since Al could have been a skink or he might have just been compared to one. I also really loved that once it was made clear that Al was not human and that Kate was, the surreal feel was enhanced through Kate's bland acceptance of the situation. The story's weirdness culminated wonderfully in Kate's refrigerator. All of the descriptions of Al and his behavior were great. Oh! I also really enjoyed the conversation they have about marriage and children. Much fun! |
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By AlmaDea (Almadea) on
Saturday, April 13, 2002 - 09:58 pm
This is certainly one of the strangest pieces yet. I really liked that it was silly and disturbing. The repetition of Al's firmness, his inflating and deflating and eventual shrivelling in the end was both very skink-like and effective for the character. Very fun read! |
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