Blood & Gristle Read online

  Clean, restored, balanced, empty.

  There is nothing now, but a smooth, ethereal hum.

  Click.

  Perfect silence.

  I

  Today language is sweet. All words sound like love and pulse like lust. Warmth becomes fog, blanketing everything, even the uniform frigidity of the kitchen sink, even the gnashing void at its center.

  Al circles his arms about Sybil’s waist and together they sway. They dance happy-headed, cleaning and cooking, sipping wine from mason jars. Al, the klutz, spills a bit of his drink. Sybil laughs and eager to nurture, cleans the mess with a sponge. She turns on the faucet and leans into the sink, rinsing away the intoxicating residue while Al blubbers an apology followed by a dirty joke and then hugs her from behind.

  From below they are practically indivisible. Al’s bulky form obliterates all light and what’s left of the loving couple are two shadowy, jiggling blobs.

  The fermented liquid comes splattering down – behind it an absolving blast of water.

  The blade hitches, tenses, readies, but nothing more…nothing more.

  Above, the lovers resume getting their kitchen in order, shadows in motion, chattering, busy light, busy dark.

  Muted shuffling, shifting, offloading, scraping, eventually leads to a few fists worth of waste. The food (as always) is pliant, squishy: pale pasta worming through soft, green-gray broccoli florets, roping soggy bread. Already mush, not much work really, but a divergence nonetheless. A full chamber nonetheless.

  Their cleaning, clattering, comes to a halt.

  Laughter.

  One of them attempts to go for the switch, but is interrupted by the other’s embrace. Their giggling softens, buzzes, and then turns to erratic vibration. The dark shapes blot out the light yet again. They twist and moan and carelessly forgo that quick, easy flip of the wrist.

  By the time one of them gets around to throwing the switch it’s been a full twenty-four hours and the waste has congealed completely. The spin, the devastation: totally useless. It all goes down with nothing more than a weak slurp

  II

  True despair and confusion stings the shape of all things.

  Sybil cries into the sink. Tears and mucus fall and clump.

  Al’s hair sticks up in juts, he’s been pulling at it, nervous, nervous, nervous.

  Their conversation is nothing but sound, empty, registering, impacting upon the eardrum, but failing to reconfigure within the brain.

  He speaks.

  She speaks.

  Nothing is ever said.

  There is both life and death in Sibyl’s veins now. Al winces when he thinks about the tiny, particles of flesh and bone that circumnavigate the undersides of her skin. He does not speak this aloud, rather he lets this thought live and die within his head. He refuses to think about it too hard and wishes there was some hope for atonement. But what can be done?

  His fingers itch and he scratches them with his teeth. Inside a small void has begun. It grows with every malign thought. Guilt is fuel. And she suffers doubly! And the guilt grows! And he is fully aware and he longs to shoulder the excess hurt, but it is out of his hands. There is nothing to do, but stare and soothe and try not to crumble. This is his job, his duty, his binding obligation, his strength. He must stand tall even when he feels like caving. Al must become Unbreakable Support.

  Oblivious to things like Duty and Obligation and Strength, Sybil clutches her stomach. She looks at Al and registers disgust. DISGUST. Disgust, her brain ready to let loose and scream…

  Mutuality, she reminds and then feels disgusted with herself for feeling disgust toward Al.

  But then, it isn’t fair, is it?

  His insides remain firmly intact, no jostling or probing or sucking for him. No trauma for him.

  But then, still, she can see some damage has been done. His skin, for instance, it is at least two, three shades lighter. It’s paler than it’s ever been and even better, it is always slick. No hurt for him. No. No physical terribleness. No hell. No…

  But then, ghost skin and nonstop sweat from that moment onward, and well, that’s something…

  She shrugs and makes a pair of futile fists.

  Mutual decisions?

  No matter how RIGHT a particular decision sounds, especially when seconded, it still brings about consequences.

  So the aftermath: desire out of whack, strange cravings, inequality. Sybil feels her guts roiling. No matter how sorry or broken up inside Al claims to be, he can never be as broken up or as sorry inside as she.

  Never.

  It is physically impossible.

  Sybil balls and unballs her fists.

  Just look at Mr. Sensitive over there – big blue eyes soothing, promising things will be Okay when they can never be Okay, testifying with all the faith of the maddest of zealots, righteous and crazy for repair, earnest, open, understanding…STUPID?

  In a sick way it is unfortunate he will never know what she knows.

  He will never hear what she has heard, or feel what she has felt and when he dreams he can go other places, he can go warm, safe places because it is not inside of him, not truly, not inescapably. It is not tied to his biology or rooted in his flesh. It is not in his brain, front to back, back to front. And for this Sybil cannot help but to begrudge him. She wouldn’t wish this on him, not in a million years, but she cannot help feeling more than a little cheated by the notion of Mutuality.

  Her memory bank loops: whirring, cracking, obliterating, sucking, screaming, emptying, and then bringing it all to an end, a resounding click!

  She pukes into the sink.

  Below, in the chamber, the wrenching is magnified. Grunts and groans and gags echo. They bounce about, wild, near solid. Sound to almost waste. The blade itches. The dull ball-pins shift. Salty water and gummy slime are quickly eradicated in a wash of bile.

  Chunks.

  Solid.

  They, these people, these lovingly estranged lovers, are mostly vegetarian: pasta, cheese, fluids, bread, an occasional chicken, fruits, vegetables, seafood. They prefer yielding substances. Red meat comes near too never. Today is different. Today, however, earlier, before the tense standoff, Sybil on one side of the sink, Al on the other, she ate a double cheeseburger.

  Wrapper crinkles.

  Dead giveaway.

  Suspicion bending metal toward the source.

  Desperate?

  Meat?

  Yes, for meat, desperate.

  Bits of tomato, onion, that telltale grease drip. Teasers. But now, finally, full on validation, as the whole mess rains down.

  They waste no time in flipping the switch.

  Al, the larger of the shapes scrambles for it.

  Manic. Life. Manic. Satisfaction, ripping, shredding, cleaving, some of it going down solid, stocky passage, that rare experience of roughage through the ring and then out with a whoosh!

  Done in seconds.

  Too, too fast, like all things enjoyable.

  Joy?

  Equalized humming, long and loud, spinning without obstruction. Burning. Shaking, vibrating the sink above, shifting its contents.

  A small paring knife gets caught in the mini-quake and falls toward the drain. It slides through the rubber mouth and is slammed by the free spinning blade. The knife tumbles and then wedges itself against the chamber’s gummy, cylindrical walls. The blade pushes and pushes, wedging the knife tighter into a fixed position.

  Obstructed, the blade strains.

  Completely stopped, its motor whirs and whizzes.

  The entire mechanism emits a small, unbroken hum.

  And above, they are holding each other.

  Once again, indivisible shadow.

  A long time passes before they separate and drift away to other parts of the house. Neither of them notices the arrested disposal.

  III

  Al’s stomach goes round and round. He hasn’t eaten since yesterday and he pictures a snake eating its own tail. His brain imitates
this, thinking in quick, frustrating circles. He wants so badly to give a part of himself, to reach common ground and understand Sybil from her perspective.

  At night he can sleep.

  At work he can function.

  Watching TV he can pay attention and laugh or flip the channels or become appropriately absorbed.

  She has trouble with all these things. Everything is a reminder and Al wonders if her brain is forever changed, forever doomed to hone in on and shape anything and everything into reminders. Will she ever be able to let it go?

  These things frighten him because he loves her with all of his heart. Her suffering eats him up and occupies a tremendous amount of brain space, but still, he is able to function. He hopes she will recover or at least find a safe place to set up camp. There is a soft, warm place like that in her brain somewhere. Al has told her this. He has told her that the human spirit is unbreakable; it’s all about personal outlook. People have survived some awful shit, near starvation, forced cannibalism; war, wrecks, fires and still these people carry on. Life continues on. If only he could find a way to prove this. At times Al wishes they could trade places.

  Sybil hasn’t eaten either, but her thoughts center upon Al’s wedding ring. She stares at its gleaming arch and the play of light as Al shifts his hand this way or that. It is a size too big and it performs loose, lazy circles every few moments. What she has hoped to be a mutable shift in mood is turning out to be something closer to a permanent state of being; she feels ugly from the inside out.

  At first there were spiritual concerns, but Sybil sifted through those rather quickly. This had nothing to do with God or some other divine idea. She hadn’t broken any celestial contracts because she had never made any in the first place. This was between her and her viscera. This was about flesh and betrayal.

  The notion that things will never be right again scares her. When she looks into Al’s eyes or stands before a mirror and looks into her own she sees something different, alien, as if events had killed away what they used to be. Her eyes used to smile continuously, gloriously, no matter her anger or sadness or fear. Al always claimed it was impossible to stay mad at her or feel sorry for her because her eyes refused to play along. But now, he didn’t seem to have any trouble feeling sorry for her.

  Staring, staring, that’s all they ever did, as if there were sacred truths to be found, as if long, unfettered vision brought about reparation. Sybil couldn’t take it any longer. She became instantly and incredibly infuriated by Al and his quiet staring, his sweet, stupid face, his earnest condolences. Something ferocious erupted inside her. She wants, no, needs Al to feel what she felt. Only then can they be cleansed. Uneasy tension crawls from the small of her back, spreads upward and outward. Everything goes red. Before Sybil realizes what’s happening she is in his face.

  A sharp, sloppy jab bloodies his lip. Al yelps and then struggles to subdue his attacker. He gets his arms around her just as the anger begins to cool. Sybil goes soft and falls against him. The cold, hard, porcelain lip of the kitchen sink digs itself into Al’s tailbone. He pushes her gently, moving away from the kitchen counter. Seeing that she is serene, once again controlled and rational, he begins to whisper calm, sweetly massaging her shoulders. Sybil moves with the kneading. She closes her eyes and tries to make things in her brain align, but rage swells hyper quick. Her arms jump violent. Al is caught off guard. His arms are knocked wild. The wedding band slips from his finger and clanks down the drain.

  “Shit!” Al chases after it, fingers down the drain sifting through the damp muck.

  The chamber goes stiff.

  Pink, thick, warm.

  Pink, thick warm.

  Meat pushes away dormancy. The urge is back. The knife is still jammed tight. A power saving feature has internally dismantled the motor. Fingers dislodge the knife and resume searching for the lost trinket. They involuntarily turn the blade. Power begins its slow, steady return.

  The air is charged: fights, yelling, bombast, tears, whispers, erratic like the ocean, but now it intensifies, it becomes electric, practically igniting with static.

  Pure excitement.

  Every edge, corner, groove, rounding, coil, axle, crease, crevice, limb, bone, tissue, every surface, gone blurry, hazy.

  Metallic salivation.

  Organic longing.

  There is a strange vibe, a kinship formed amongst the hungry trio.

  They haven’t eaten. This is fair, for a change. Now they know what it is to be empty. But what is it to be full?

  Al is concentrating too hard to notice or feel anything, but there is a blind anticipation, something buried, subconscious, something begging and pleading. Sybil is caught up in the moment as well, focusing on the retrieval, but a deep and dormant part of her also makes desperate appeals.

  Here is the moment of epiphany, a perfect opportunity, a completely unexpected chance. The three of them, though not entirely aware, have been waiting for this. Not the inevitable pain and sacrifice, digestion and passing, not these fleeting sensations, but the long term benefits, the quenching of wonder, the equalization, the healing.

  Al’s dark form obscures any view.

  The blade tenses.

  The motor pulls taut.

  Cravings without wit: what is it to be full?

  The unimaginable daydream, the crushing, cracking, splintering of austere bone, the congealing of soft, gushy marrow, the flayed flesh and fat, the vein, the tendon, the color, shape, texture, the complete experience.

  Finally, the complete experience.

  The unimaginable dreams of plastic, metal, rubber, oil, water, electricity.

  Above, reality comes full circle. The air hums.

  Whirring.

  Cracking.

  Obliterating.

  Sucking.

  Screaming.

  Emptying.

  And then bringing it all to an end, a resounding Click!

  Somehow, all around, for everything and everyone, a sense of balance has been achieved.

  A perfect silence sets in.

  WALLS OF GLASS

  When he was eight years old, Freddie learned that he had been born in a test tube. Not actually born, but conceived. Though at the time his winged, juvenile brain didn’t know the difference – born, conceived, conceived, born – as far as he was concerned they were one and the same.

  The knowledge of his freakish inception came on quite by accident, a purposeful slip on the part of his elder sister, Margie.

  Fourteen, caught in the choleric throes of adolescence, and angered by stupid Freddie’s predilection for stupid eavesdropping, Margie simply couldn’t help herself. Well, she could if she wanted to, but then, it was her duty to humble her big headed brother and put him in his place, so, just, like, that, she told him everything she knew about his unconventional birth and what she didn’t know she made up.

  As cruel as she could be, Margie didn’t mean any real harm, yet, once those facts sank in, once she thoroughly convinced her stupid, little brother he wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill freak, but a freak by design, stupid, little Freddie panicked. He stared at himself in the mirror for hours on end, pinching at his skin, looking deep into his pupils, crying away gathering esteem. Mad scientist goop danced behind his wide eyes and overtones of Frankenstein methodology chilled his bones.

  And though she was genuinely sorry, Margie couldn’t take back what she said. Had she known the petty jab would haunt her little brother for the rest of his life she would have probably made fun of his overbite instead.

  When their mother got home, Margie clued her in and then hurried off to a friend’s house for a nail painting session.

  Freddie’s mom, Maddy, registered the violation with a face that undermined her maternity. Fucking Margie, she thought with clenched teeth and a tremulous sigh. This Raising Children Shit was tough business and it was showing big time within the spider web of wrinkles lining her once, porcelain smooth forehead. Her husband, their father, liked to joke, The lit
tle bastards are wearing us down, Maddy.

  Maybe, she thought with another sigh, this one flat and thick and anything but tremulous.

  Freddie’s cries came muffed through his bedroom door. Maddy composed herself quickly, effortlessly, so that her moment of maternal disheartenment went unnoticed for all eternity, and then ignoring the STAY OUT signs messily taped at chest level (eye level for Freddie), she entered the room and went about the near impossible task of explaining fertility to an eight year old.

  She sat him down on his bed and told him that the circumstances surrounding his birth were as natural as could be. She used words like Ovulation, Dysfunction and Insemination. Freddie didn’t understand any of it. He sniffled and stared and watched his pretty mom’s mouth move up and down.

  Explained out, Maddy gave up and wrapped her loving arms about her baby boy and kissed him on his forehead. Whereas the words did nothing but thicken his dilemma, the hug helped tremendously. The womb like comfort of those arms, the soul expanding whispers soothing worry away, making assurances that he was nothing less than one of God’s Special Miracles, set little Freddie at ease.

  And while he couldn’t make heads or tails of how Artificial Insemination worked, or how exactly he came to be, even better, his mom clarified that he wasn’t a malformation, but a distinctive marvel, one that should have never been, but through the grace of God was. Freddie beamed with a power-mad sense of elitist pride. He wasn’t a freak. He wasn’t a science experiment. Like all of God’s children, he was born, and he was normal, but unlike everyone else, God, the God, the all knowing, all powerful maker, didn’t just go about business as usual, no, he had a special hand in Freddie’s birth, he had to step in and make sure things went as planned. This boggled his eight year old mind. He couldn’t wait to rub it in Margie’s stupid face.

  And he did, and like with everything else she didn’t care (dumb teenagers).

  Oh well. Freddie told anyone else who’d listen and he walked around with his head held high. After a while, his mom and dad told him to tone it down. “Nobody likes a bragger,” they warned.