Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread

  I say how the Wonder Wet Wiper constitutes a whole entire floor-enhancement system—

  “Do you have an elephant?” she says. “I mean, do you drive to work on a real, alive elephant?”

  The queue, the average call time, the floor supervisor. And I say, “Yes.” Breaking script, I say, “A five-year-old Indian elephant.”

  She says, “How cool is that?”

  I say, “Named ‘Sinbad.’ ”

  The girl says, “I love that!” She says, “I have a cat, really she’s an ocelot. I mean she’ll be an ocelot when she’s full grown, but her name is ‘Pepper.’ ”

  The floor supervisor is looking, walking my way, close enough to overhear.

  “My parents adopted me,” the girl says, “when I was a baby in Zaire where my adopted dad was in the Peace Corps. They’re nice and everything, but it’s weird being the only African American girl in, like, a whole place.” She says, “Do you know what an ocelot is?”

  Writing her phone number on my scratch paper, I ask the girl if I can put her on our callback list for some other night. We can talk some more about the Wonder Wet Wiper.

  “Yes, please,” she says. “Samantha. I’m Samantha, but my birth name is Shamu-Rindi.”

  And I terminate the call.

  That week at school, I walked up to a black girl during lunch and asked, “Are you from Zaire?” And she just looked at me. She tossed her shoulder at me, turned, and walked away.

  Another day, I asked a black girl, did she have an ocelot?

  And she said, “A what?”

  “It’s a little-sized wildcat,” I said.

  And she rolled her eyes, saying, “I know what an ocelot is!”

  Another day, I walked up to the last black girl in Thomas Jefferson High School and asked, “Is your real name Shamu-Rindi?”

  This girl blinked her eyes, slow, looking back, waiting.

  So I asked, “Samantha Wells?”

  And the girl lifted one hand, slow, and pointed a fingernail at a girl across the lunchroom. A white girl. With long blond hair. Wearing a cheerleader outfit.

  On my callback, Samantha “Shamu-Rindi” says, “…no one likes the music I like, that kind of tribal, global world-beat techno stuff. Or the organic, natural food that’s the only kind I can eat. I mean, my taste is so beyond their limited experience…”

  I don’t say anything.

  “A good example,” she says, “is summertime, around here, the humid weather makes my hair all nappy…”

  I don’t say anything.

  She says, “How’s your elephant?”

  Good, I say. He’s fine.

  “Sinbad?” she says. “Right?”

  I ask if she wants to buy the Wonder Wet Wiper.

  And Samantha says, “If I buy one, will you call me again, tomorrow?”

  My next night at work, a man with a Yakima area code says, “Right this moment,” he says, “what I want to know is how come our taxpayers keep feeding you billions in financial aid and you never get better? You’re always getting AIDS or having a famine!”

  The floor supervisor steps up beside my chair. Shaking her head, she draws a finger across her throat.

  And I terminate the call.

  On another callback, Samantha says, “…I love the fact you’re East Indian.” She says, “That’s so sexy.” She says, “Or are you Pakistani?”

  I ask if she wants to buy a fifth Wonder Wet Wiper?

  And she says, “Wait, while I sneak my dad’s credit card.”

  That next week at Thomas Jefferson High School, I walked up to the blond cheerleader and said, “Hey.” I said, “Are you Samantha Wells?”

  And she said, “Who’s asking?” Her voice, the same as over the telephone. The girl with almost a dozen Wonder Wet Wipers, but no ocelot.

  Me, the make-believe elephant boy, I say, “Would you like to go out, sometime?”

  And Samantha said, “I’m kind of involved right now.” She said, “He doesn’t go here.” Fake whispering, leaning close, in her cheerleader sweater, her blond hair pony-tailed down her back, she says, “He’s a Hindu.” She says, “We have this romantic long-distance thing…”

  I say, “What’s his name?” I never told her my name.

  And shaking her head, Samantha says, “You wouldn’t know him.”

  So, I ask her…

  I ask, how can you date somebody who doesn’t believe in the one true Christian God?

  Standing here, my hair and clothes and dreams, everything about me coming off the same assembly line as her, just another clone, I say, “All those Hindus…” I say, “Hindus are fags…”

  And she says, “Sorry,” and turns, her ponytail swinging, and starts to walk away.

  And after her, I’m yelling that she’s white. I’m yelling, she’s a girl of the white race. She needs to be dating white Christian guys…Not hooking up with some colored homo, halfway around the world, making godless half-breed babies…

  I yell after her, “I’m Bill.” I yell, “My name is Bill Henderson.”

  Only by now Samantha Wells is all-the-way—gone.

  THE TOAD PRINCE

  Mona Gleason has a little tattoo of Mickey Mouse on her butt cheek so Ethan decides to start with that. He kisses it and says, “Imagine the first caveman,” whispering the words against her skin.

  Mona says, “Don’t.” She says, “No tickling.” But she doesn’t turn over.

  Again, he kisses her mouse and says, “Imagine a caveman getting poked with a burned stick. The soot sticking under his skin, and the caveman realizing his black spot is never going away…”

  This is after Ethan’s already tagged first, second, and third base. Mona’s in his room, the two of them on his bed with one long afternoon before his folks get off work. It’s been a battle to keep his blue jeans on. Mona’s clothes are all over. Her T-shirt and skirt. Covering his desk, covering everything but her. He’s squeezed her titties and inched off her underpants. Her tattoo’s someplace her folks will never know it’s there. That’s the idea. Mona’s so wet to go all-the-way. She’s whimpering and dripping on the sheets, but Ethan doesn’t want to repeat his recent, past disasters.

  Unlike the first tattooed caveman, he wants history to give him credit for his discovery.

  He puckers his lips and sucks, giving Mickey Mouse a nasty purple face. He says, “Check it out: Hickey Mouse.” Stretched out on her stomach, Mona twists around but still can’t see, not without using a mirror.

  Ethan asks, “Imagine that first caveman making his black spot bigger?” Ethan describes the soot and a sharp shard of bone and somebody jabbing himself until he’s covered in blood. How crazy that must’ve looked to other cavemen. How what looks cool later on always looks crazy at first. He pinches the Mickey Mouse skin and says, “Imagine the first cave lady who poked an earring through her ear?” He says, “Whatever it was, a fish bone or a cactus thorn, she didn’t even know it was an earring.”

  Mona giggles and rubs him through his pants.

  “You ladies are bulletproof, anymore,” says Ethan. “You’re all vaccinated against HPV, and you’ve got a million ways to not get pregnant.”

  Her eyes twitch back and forth between his crotch and his face. Mona wets her lips.

  Ethan describes the practice of “pearling,” invented by natives of South Sea islands. A native, he makes a little cut in the skin along the top of his penis. He implants a pearl just under that top layer of skin and sews the cut closed. Probably he doesn’t do this himself. It probably takes a football team of Tongans to hold him down while some witch doctor does it. But if it heals right, they do it again. They bury pearls, a line of pearls, all along the top of his dick. That way, when he’s hard, those pearls, those hard little lumps, they bump just-right against a lady.

  Hearing this, Mona’s rubbing but not as hard. She looks at his pants and asks, “Is that what you’re not telling me?”

  “No,” Ethan says. He lets her think it’s nothing that bad.

/>   The trick will be to get to the truth in baby steps. From the tattoos to body piercing, next: pearling. After that, he describes saline inflation. How people, guys mostly, will make a little nick in the skin near the top of their scrotums. He stresses the plural, saying “guys” and saying “scrotums,” to make it sound less like the isolated pastime of perverted circus sideshow freaks. A guy inserts a sterile tube into the little nick and fills his scrotum with liters of saline. A guy’s sack swells to the size of a basketball, and he tapes the incision to heal.

  Listening to this makes Mona quit hunting for his zipper. She looks a little green, but that’s part of the plan.

  “Ladies do it, too,” Ethan explains. To their breasts, from underneath, with a big needle like for giving blood. If it’s breasts or a scrotum, it stays big for a couple days before the person’s body absorbs the water. “I’ve seen pictures on the web,” Ethan says. “It makes your titties all big and pushed together like a Victoria’s Secret water bra, only without the bra.”

  The image makes Mona cross her arms over her chest.

  Ethan chose her, not just because she’s hot. He thought she’d be more open-minded. Not like Amber Reynolds or Wendy Finerman. He’d found Mona Gleason in Advanced Placement Microbiology. During a section on virology. He loves her because she loves viruses. Theirs is a match made in heaven. Something stirs in his crotch like a baby ready to be born.

  “Body modification,” he says. Every age embraces some fashion trend that looks ridiculous from any other point in history.

  Now he can tell that Mona feels two ways about getting into his pants. She’s revved up. But all his talk has taken the edge off her hot and horny.

  “The way I see it,” he continues, “a person has to sacrifice his life to something.”

  He notes that she’s put some empty bed between the two of them.

  Ethan asks, “Have you ever heard of Brothel Sprouts?”

  Mona, she says, “Brussels sprouts?”

  Ethan repeats, slower, “Brothel.” He says, “Like in a whorehouse.”

  Now, Mona looks wary. Her forehead wrinkles like she doesn’t really want to connect the dots.

  He asks, “How about ‘speed bumps’?”

  The worry lines disappear off her forehead. She nods.

  He asks, “You know ‘corn-on-the-cob’?”

  Mona rolls her eyes. Looking dopey with relief, she says, “Of course.”

  Ethan shakes his head. “You don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.” He looks to make sure the window is shut. The door is locked. He listens for the sound of anybody walking by within earshot. When he’s sure the coast is clear, he continues, saying, “That’s what the streetwalkers call them.”

  “Hookers?” Mona asks.

  Ethan holds up a finger to correct her. He says, “Prostitutes.”

  “Corn-on-the-cob?” Mona asks.

  “Just listen,” Ethan tells her. He describes going to the east side of town. Sneaking out of the house and riding the bus over to the east side late at night. Other times, on weekends. It was for research. It didn’t cost much.

  Hearing this, Mona makes a face like she knows where he’s going.

  “I wore latex gloves,” Ethan says, to defend his methods. His scientific protocol. He describes how he stole sterile cotton swabs from the nurse’s office at school and petri dishes from the Chemistry lab. He cultured the samples right on the desk in his room.

  Mona looks at the desk, cluttered with books. Textbooks on virology. No petri dishes. She asks, “You had sex with prostitutes?”

  Ethan winces. “No,” he says. “All I did was I swabbed them.”

  To judge from her expression Mona is picturing someone mopping. Sailors on a ship swabbing the deck with mops and buckets of soapy water.

  To clarify, Ethan explains, “I asked each subject about the history of her infection. How long ago it first manifested. How fast it had spread. Questions about the discomfort and any negative symptoms.”

  The way Mona looks now, she’s ready to find her clothes.

  To stall for time, to calm her down, Ethan says, “It’s not what you think.” He says, reassuringly, “If you’ve been vaccinated, I promise you’re not in any danger.”

  Mona starts to reach off the bed. She’s reaching for her phone, but Ethan reaches it first. He holds the phone away from her at arm’s length while he reiterates, “Remember how crazy the man with the first tattoo must’ve looked?”

  Mona’s eyes stare back at his.

  Ethan’s telling her this because he wants her to understand. He’s not a lunatic. It’s not that he’s a prude, either; some things he just needs to keep under wraps. He wants her to know what to expect when he drops his pants. He’s an artist. He’s a groundbreaking pioneer. He’s telling her so she won’t scream when she sees.

  He climbs to his feet, standing over her. He prompts, “Remember the first cave lady to put a bone through her nose?” Now, he’s reaching for his belt. Reaching to undo the buckle. He tosses the phone over his shoulder. He flops open the belt.

  He doesn’t want her to scream the way Amber Reynolds screamed for help. Or to dial 9-1-1 the way Wendy Finerman tried.

  Ethan’s the missing link that doesn’t want to go missing. He says, “I’m what comes between human beings and what comes next.”

  Mona’s no longer revved up. But she’s no coward. She’s hooked by curiosity. She backs into a crouch on the bed, her knees tucked under her as Ethan stands there. She rakes the hair back from her face. Her titties, the nipples have gone flat. He pops open the top button of his jeans.

  Ethan says, “I’m not the first scientist to serve as my own guinea pig.” As he pulls down the tab of his zipper, he can read Mona’s expression. This isn’t going well. He’s started so slow, made his case so gradually, but what she sees has wiped all scientific rationality from her face. Her eyes go round. Her mouth sags open. The only sound she makes is a tiny jerking spasm of gasp.

  “My method,” Ethan tries to explain, “was to make tiny pinpricks and to infect each with a different sample.” He struggles to stay reasonable and not react to the look on her face. “Like in Biology,” he says hopefully, “like Gregor Mendel with the peas?” He says. “I’m my own test garden.”

  This is how the first tattooed caveman must’ve felt. Or even Prince Albert, with everybody in his high school locker room staring, thinking he’s a crazy freak, not knowing Prince Albert’s a brilliant trendsetter and a few years from now everyone will want the same deal. No, every stupid football player probably gaped at Prince Albert the way Mona is gaping, with all the blood drained out of her cheeks.

  Despite how carefully he’s prepared her, Mona does nothing but stare between Ethan’s legs. Mute. Her face freezes like a silent laugh as he tries to explain his scientific method. Like pearling, like so many forms of body modification, his aim has been to heighten sexual sensation. All the ladies are vaccinated so what does it matter if a guy is infected? He’s planted his test rows and watched to see what would sprout. The pinpricks weren’t much. They were easier than a tattoo. Less painful than a piercing.

  When the first results had burst from his skin, they made a track of little buds. Cute, almost. Like Old MacDonald’s Farm. Running the length of him was a delicate trail of tiny baby nubbins too small to see except with a magnifying glass. When those little buds had started to grow Ethan could see why they were called Brothel Sprouts. After all the rows were up and getting bigger, rows of bulbous little bulbs going all the way around his junk, then he understood why their other name was corn-on-the-cob.

  Mona kneels at his feet, glancing at the window. At the locked door. Standing spread-legged, looming over her, Ethan says, “From a scientific standpoint you have to admit they’re fascinating.” Some were red. Others, pink. Bright pink drippings of flesh. Others looked darker, lavender eruptions bursting from purple eruptions. A few were pale white, growing larger, telescoping outward. In Microbiology, they’d studied h
ow a virus was neither alive nor dead. Not technically. Science wasn’t sure what a virus was, other than a particle of nucleic acid coated in protein.

  It goes without saying that he has to sit now to take a leak.

  It’s another safe bet that Mona’s lady parts have dried up.

  More and more, his dad tells him he’s too smart for his own good, but this time he knows that’s not the case. Once he can perfect his process he’ll patent it or copyright it or whatever, and it will make his family rich. Ethan has invented the one safe and effective way to grow and customize a guy’s junk. The world will beat a path to his door.

  The problem is Ethan’s garden has kept growing. Even now the garden is still swelling. No longer is it corn-on-the-cob. It’s a field of corn. It’s not just a test garden, not anymore. It’s a forest of nodes and nodules. Down there are clusters of warts so purple they look almost black. Fat skin tags spring from sprouts and branch like tendrils until they form a jungle that hangs halfway to his knees.

  These hanging gardens, dangling between Ethan’s legs, they look shaggy, bristling with bumps that drip from the backs of larger lumps that dangle from shapeless mounds of lank flesh. They form a tapering cluster of stalactites, slack and flopping tissue that hangs like a heavy curtain. Out of this rich fringe of aberrant cellular growth slowly descend ropey strings of seminal drool, colorless as spider spit, which any motion or breath or thudding heartbeat set to gently pendulum from side to side.

  And somehow this, this drooling jungle, it can sense Mona. It smells her titties, feels the heat of her bare skin. The way it had sensed Amber and Wendy. And it’s growing, stealing the blood that normally would go to Ethan’s cerebral cortex. It’s usurping his nervous system. And growing, it’s becoming a beast that continues to flop out fleshy stalks and feelers until the rest of Ethan, the original Ethan, begins to wither and shrink. The beast expands, nodules blooming from warts, puffing up, ballooning from renegade spurts of inflating flesh. It expands with blood and lymph until all that remains of Ethan is a wadded, shrunken vestige perched midway down the red-dappled, wart-pebbled back of the beast.