A Self Made Monster (13 page)

Sweat coated his face. He pecked Holly’s cheek, as if she were his grandmother.

“Let’s spool, Ed.”

Edward’s eyes bugged.

“But I don’t want to marry you. Roll on a shower cap.”

“Roll a what?”

“A life jacket, a rubber, a condom, a prophylactic. Whatever you want to call it. Just roll it on.”

Edward disentangled himself from her and ran into his bedroom. He peeled off his clothes, did battle with the uncooperative condom, then looked at himself in the mirror, red-faced. He groaned at his reflection: a pasty, bowlegged pear with an erection.

He took a deep breath and turned around. He nearly collided with Holly.

“That looks very nice.” Holly smiled, looked down at Edward’s erection. She was clothed, and Edward felt ridiculous. He covered his erection with his hands.

“Don’t you want to spool?” Holly asked.

“Obviously.”

“Good. If I let you spool me, will you do me a favor?”

“What’s the favor?” Edward stared at her gym shoes.

“Write a term paper for me.”

“A term paper?”

“It’s the buddy system,” Holly soothed. “You do something for me, I do something for you.”

 
She pulled Edward’s hands from his penis. It was sagging. “You’re getting a flat.” She massaged his penis, and it was erect in three seconds.

“What’s so wrong with helping each other out?”

“Nothing at all…if I spool you once a week.”

“For an ‘A’ paper?”

“Of course. I don’t write McPapers.”

“Okay. But the paper comes before you do.”

Edward again covered his erection.

“I need to have the paper in hand. An ‘A’ paper. Then we spool.”

“Then we spool,” Edward nodded.

“Got any pop? Maybe a Coke?”

“I don’t think so.” Edward awkwardly stepped backward, wondering what to do with himself.

“That’s OK. I’ve got to get back anyway.”

“Already?” He draped his jacket over his lap, loincloth fashion.

“Hope to see that paper soon, Edward.”

“You will, Holly, and then we…”

She was already gone.

Edward and Holly sat in the student union. For different reasons, both pondered their performance on Alex’s midterm. Edward had earned an “A”. Alex had even scrawled, “Well done. Your answers are well-detailed and direct” on the test. Though Edward was used to “A“‘s, he was euphoric. The praise from a Once Respected Author was exciting.

Holly had crumpled her test into a ball and tossed it in a wastepaper basket. She had expected to do poorly, but Christ! Failing the test unnerved her. Walking to the union, she remarked casually that she had done “OK.” She hinted that the test maintained her “B” average. In fact, she now had a “D” average. Getting a letter of recommendation would be impossible without an “A” on both the term paper and on the final exam.

Edward did not want to gloat, so he asked about Holly’s spring break plans.

“I don’t have the money to go to
Florida
this year,” Holly said, “so I’ll just stay home and look for some new athletic shoes. Probably a pair of Lambruscos.”

Edward wondered why Holly needed new shoes. Her current pair was impressive enough. They looked less like shoes than sports cars: cherry red, with neon blue trim along the uppers’ dynamic lines.

“Do those shoes come with a tachometer and four on the floor?”

Holly rolled her eyes: Edward was such a loser. “Anyway. What exciting things are you doing during break?”

“I’m staying here.” He leaned forward and spoke with a lowered voice. “I’ll work on the term paper.”

“What will it be about?”

“What would you like it to be about?”

Holly dismissed the suggestion with a wave of her hand. “Just make it good, and make it look like I wrote it.”

Edward enjoyed the irony of her demand. “Your paper will be about…oh…” His fingers drummed the tabletop. “How about Dylan Thomas?”

“Who’s she?”

“He. He’s a poet. We’ll read him after spring break.” Edward allowed himself a boast. “I’ve worked ahead of schedule, so I have some ideas. Besides, he’s so obscure that you can say just about anything.”

Holly nodded, briskly gathered her books. “Well then. See you after break.” Then she whispered: “I’ll need all of that term paper done when I get back.”

Edward blinked.

“All or nothing,” she said as she turned away.

Edward bought another coffee and meandered into the deserted TV room. He stretched out on a couch and watched the news. Despite the coffee, he soon nodded off, the TV’s light flickering on his face. He woke at seven thirty and trudged across campus toward the parking lot.

At the corner of the Academic Center, Edward ran into something.

Edward found himself on the ground, watching exploding red and blue bubbles circle his head. He wondered how he had managed to run into the wall. Then he saw Alex Resartus standing over him.

“Sorry, old sport,” Alex apologized. He pulled Edward to his feet.

The collision had sprung Alex’s briefcase, and Edward winced at the moat of papers that encircled him. Then Edward noticed that Alex was wearing sunglasses in the waning moments of twilight.

They stood looking at one another for an awkward five seconds: Edward staring at the sunglasses, and Alex smiling with the sprung briefcase hanging from his hand. Bothered by Alex’s silence and curious smiling, Edward squatted to gather the papers. Alex simply stood there, allowing Edward to do the work. Edward arranged them into a crude pile and handed them to Alex. Alex balanced his open briefcase on one palm and shoved the pile inside; the briefcase bulged and barely locked.

“Thank you,” Alex said with incongruous cheer. “Great to see you. And have a good break.” Alex nodded and continued on his way. His gait was tentative, as if he walked on ice.

Edward watched Alex until he disappeared from view, then headed to his car. He pondered the odd behavior of writers. Edward guessed that many writers cultivated their eccentricity, as a rocker or a rapper cultivates arrogance or as a salesman cultivates aggression. Alex’s oddity, however, seemed genuine.

These musings were interrupted when he kicked something and heard a soft pinging sound. An amber prescription bottle rolled off the sidewalk and onto the grass. Edward took it inside the
Academic
Center
to examine it.

The bottle contained a half dozen gelatin capsules filled with something rusty brown. The bottom of the bottle was dusted with the same brownish substance. Edward broke open a capsule and shook out the contents. At first, Edward guessed it was paint. He smeared the stuff across his finger, and it became a shade redder.

It was blood.

Must be part of a fraternity hazing ritual, Edward thought. He had heard many stories about frat hazing: pledges keeping a pickle in their anus for a day, pledges gluing beer mugs to their foreheads, pledges wearing giant diapers over their normal clothing. And now capsules of blood. It got weirder each year. Edward tossed the bottle into a wastepaper basket.

Alex studied his face in the mirror. The reflection was unflattering. The cluster headaches were returning, and so were the red patches. The right eye twitched and watered as if an invisible pin were jabbing it. Adding to the eye’s odd appearance was a bloom of long eyelashes:
Sandy
‘s eyelashes.

Alex needed blood immediately. He rummaged through his briefcase, cursing. That little shit Edward Know It All, Alex thought, running right into me, scattering papers all over the place, me standing there like an idiot with sunglasses to hide a mutating face.

And now the precious bottle was gone. Alex threw the briefcase across the room. It chipped the wall and papers scattered across a dusty pile of books. The missing bottle contained Alex’s final supply of blood.

The blood dated back to last year when he had come across a man changing a flat tire. It was three thirty in the morning, a misty moon on highway 7, eight miles from Pokena. Alex had pulled off the road behind a jacked up pick up.

“Bad night for a flat,” Alex remarked. He ambled up to the truck, gloved hands in pocket.

“Damn right it is.” The man, a stout six-foot and a half, wiped sweat from his forehead.

“Thought you might need some help.”

Alex’s cold grin spooked the man. He picked up the tire iron and twirled it like a baton. “Not really.”

“Let me help,” Alex insisted.

They stood looking at one another for a long moment, then Alex lunged. The man took a step back and struck Alex’s shoulder with the tire iron. Alex slipped and took another blow on top of his head; the iron rang like a giant tuning fork.

The steel-tipped toe of the man’s boot arced toward Alex. The kick cut his lower lip, and the man cocked his leg for a second kick. Alex grabbed the leg and pulled. The man waved his arms like a tightrope walker to keep his balance, but Alex’s second pull brought the man down.

“I don’t have no goddamned money!” the man yelled.

“Join a labor union!”

Alex smashed the man’s head against the road, and the impact produced a dull
thwop
, like a hollowed pumpkin dropped on asphalt. Blood erupted from the head’s every opening, and Alex lapped the face clean. The blood was rich and slightly sweet.

The body was worth bleeding.

Alex put the corpse in his trunk. When he got home, he hung the body in the attic and slit the throat. The blood dripped into a bucket. Alex spent a week putting the blood in gelatin capsules. Though not as good as fresh, the blood was Alex’s pick-me-up. He used the capsules as others use coffee.

Now, as his headache worsened, Alex resorted to the crude painkiller of a pint of whiskey and a dozen sleeping pills. But his sleep was marred by odd dreams. In one dream, he tracked a victim for hours. When he finally cut open the victim’s stomach, empty gelatin capsules tumbled out.

In another dream, his lungs were housed in his forehead, his ribs under his cheekbones, and his anus under his chin. The face throbbed with the erratic pulsing rhythm of stop action photography. His dead brother David, rotted flesh dangling from his radius and ulna, gave him a jar filled with lithium.

“How did you recognize me?” Alex managed to ask. His mouth was in his right armpit.

“Medicine time again,” David said. “You’re getting worse. Crying because your pop lost its fizz is one thing, buddy. This disguise stuff, though, it’s too much. You’ve lost your center.”

“I don’t like—”

“Stop whining.”

“But I don’t like—”Alex wept at the futility of explanation. “I can’t be around you people, any of you people! Leave me alone, the medicine reminds me that there are people!”

“C’mon, buddy. You can’t live in your closet another week.”

Alex raised his arm and pushed in the lithium. The shifting of bones and muscle in his face slowed. When David nodded approval, Alex ripped the last of the flesh from David’s arm.

Alex woke. He had been sleeping with his head raised six inches above the pillow. He had often slept like that as a teenager, so the pillow’s singing would not wake him.

He examined his face with both hands. Now the eyelashes of both eyes had grown. He trudged to the bathroom mirror and laughed.

The eyelashes were half an inch long. His Roman nose was tipped several degrees to the left, as if made of modeling clay. One eye was blue, the other brown. His right earlobe was larger than the left; it was pierced to accept an earring.

“Losing your center?” Alex asked his reflection.

“Very quickly,” the reflection agreed.

His condition was declining rapidly, and he wondered if he would grow breasts in another week. He needed a victim in the next day or two. The victim must, Alex thought, be male. He must be about six-foot tall, have dark brown or black hair, and he must be healthy.

Alex stuffed a suitcase with clothes, knives, rope, and rubber gloves. He decided to drive north until he hit
Michigan
. He had not been in
Michigan
for several years. Maybe, he thought, my luck will be better there.

Claire Sweet was often told that her name matched her personality. She was good company. She was industrious and smart, tall and pretty. Her words were kind, and she put the needs of others before her own. So she did not complain when her seven-year marriage ended. First, Claire figured that most people were busy with their own problems. Second, they would not understand how Claire Sweet could become entangled in such a debacle. They would not understand at all.

Claire locked the door to her apartment and hurried down the stairs to the driveway. Mrs. Tandy, the landlord, happened to be looking out the front window.

Mrs. Tandy rapped on the window and waved. “Off to the library?” she called loudly enough to be heard through the window.