American Monsters (6 page)

In magic, to throw a glamour is to create a false image of yourself, an image that is so convincing that the watcher actually believes what they are seeing is true.

You grew up with an amazing ability to blend into situations you were uncomfortable with. You remember your mother hysterical and screaming your name as she searched frantically through the house looking for you. You were in trouble, and you were hiding, but your incredible skill at blending into the furniture, the rugs, the walls even, caused your mother to believe that maybe you had run away from home. When you finally emerged from the woodwork, quite literally, she cried and cried and promised to never get angry with you ever again. She always kept her promises, but this one you think she kept out of fear, because she knew that if you ever really wanted to disappear without a trace, you could, no question about it.

This particular night, your friends have dragged you to a fraternity party on your college campus. Usually you would be out at huge all-night gatherings, but you are low on funds this weekend and figure it’s best to just chill out for a weekend. You went to the salon today and had them refinish your three inch black acrylic nails since you wouldn’t be going out and getting them all chipped and messed up. You kind of wish you had just stayed home and rented a movie, that new Oliver Stone film about football just came out on video and you’ve been curious to see it. You are irritated that your friends managed to talk you into going to this stupid party, and you’ve been the wallflower all night, just watching, making sure you’re friends are okay — which is very important, but this is getting really fucking boring. You venture upstairs to just lie down for a while. Surprisingly enough, you find an empty room, lie down to take a nap, and once you have fallen into the first stage of sleep, you become indistinguishable from the blanket covering the bed. You rest and begin dreaming about three strange men.

Frat Guy

Did you give her enough?

Sport Guy

I put in like half of the bottle.

Drunk Guy

That’s way more than we usually give them.

Frat Guy

Are you sure she’s out, man?

Sport Guy

What the fuck, dude. You want to do this shit? Cuz I’m fucking tired of you telling me shit to do.

Drunk Guy

Calm down man, fuck, dude. Fuck. Man I’m drunk. Where is she? Hurry up.

Sport Guy

Jesus Christ, you fucknut. He’s fucking holding her, dude. What’s the matter with you?

Frat Guy

Hurry up man, I think I need to puke.

Sport Guy

For fuck’s sake, get your shit together. Do you want to do this shit or not? Fucking pussy. You didn’t even drink that much. Just shut up

Drunk Guy

Fine. Fucking asshole. (He continues to slur muttered expletives under his breath. You can’t catch all of them.)

You curiously watch the three guys and the comatose woman in their arms. What a bizarre dream. But dreams like this are not uncommon for you. You are known for having the craziest dreams among all your friends. It’s sometimes a wonder that you can manage to sleep at all.

Frat Guy

Dude, this is one ugly bitch. Where did you find her? Fucking lesbian. Jesus Christ, man, get some taste or something.

Sport Guy

Fuck you, asshole. Next time you get the fucking girl. She’s the only one who would take the drink, what the fuck do you want me to do about it?

Frat Guy

Get some taste man. Just get some fucking taste. (He belches loudly enough to wake the dead.)

Is this a dream? That burp sounded real, like the dreams when you hear your alarm clock and you think it's in the dream, but then you begin to wake and realize that it has been screaming at you for an hour. You can even smell their reek of liquor. Oh my God, they stink! This is not a dream! What? They begin to undress her, meanly. Sport Guy leans over and kisses her, bites her lip and makes her bleed.

Sport Guy

Fucking ugly bitch. She’s so out. (He licks his lips.)

Frat Guy

Let’s do it.

Drunk Guy

Fuck yeah.

The three guys begin to undress at the same time. They are looking more and more like lurking hyenas sneaking up on an already-dead prey. They creep over the bed. Drunk Guy is running his hand up her leg, Frat Guy and Sport Guy touch each other’s legs as they swarm. The blood continues to run from her mouth. Frat Guy leans over and begins sucking at the red drops that at any moment will splash onto whomever’s pillow. This isn’t a dream. Holy shit.

Maybe it was from being in a slightly altered state, or maybe it was your incredulity at the cojones these pigs had to even think they could do something like this, but all of a sudden you feel rage burning at the pit of your stomach. It burns like acid and spreads through your limbs. She’s bleeding! They drugged her and now she’s bleeding. You are so enraged, absolutely furious... This will stop. Right... Now.

You give a huge YOWP and sit straight up in the bed. At first the Three Guys don’t see you and look down at the naked bloody girl beneath them, thinking she’s woken up. As you focus yourself you raise both arms and your three inch acrylic nails grow and grow and grow, right in front of your eyes. You swing your arms with a double smack, slash and tear open their faces. They stumble back from the bed, not understanding where you came from, drunkenly thinking the naked woman has attacked them.

Their bodies begin unzipping. It starts in their faces where you have scratched them, then travels down as if an invisible hand is opening their bodies up for display. You watch as the skin falls off around them like snakes shedding, piling up around their feet, until even their feet have disappeared. Their grotesque boil-covered underneath begins exploding pus balls at the touch of oxygen. You watch, curiously, as they screech and melt into a sticky white puddle on the floor.

You exhale sharply and begin to dress the still comatose woman. Your nails resume their normal three inch length, retracting somehow back into your hand. You use the blanket to mop up some of her blood. You gently pick her up and carry her out of the room. You close the door behind you, find your friends and leave the party.

You don’t see the white sticky mess, slowly, resume its original male shape. The three guys, unmarked and fully formed, shake their heads as if they have just woken up. They look at each other, nod, and walk out the door, slamming i
t rudely behind them.

Much like Diane Keaton’s character in the free love wake-up call
Looking For Mr. Goodbar
, you spend a lot of time in bars reading. Every so often, in between novels, you write in your journal, over a Red Bull and vodka and the seventies funk music that you favor when deciding on a prowl night. You used to go to raves, but you stopped once you realized how predatory the scene was, full of rude men, groping and slobbering. You got yourself into some hefty trouble at a few of those, but luckily the men were too embarrassed/afraid to press any charges. These days, you enjoy bars as they afford you private time and anonymity. Also there is the added bonus of people watching, but you are taking a night off from people tonight.

Ironically, tonight is one of the busiest nights, with Halloween around the corner, and all the weirdoes have begun emerging from the woodwork. What is it about Halloween anyway? You’ve already had two drunken louts interrupt your journal writing to ask what a pretty girl like you is doing writing at a bar. So rude. Usually they avoid trouble by leaving when you ignore them completely. Most times they get nervous by the way you seem to look right through them, but Number Three, who has just sa
t down next to you, is not of the easily dissuaded camp.

― What are you doing? His voice is a slur, gusting alcohol onto your face.

You give him a crushing look and return to your journal. You can still feel his eyes on you. It doesn’t bother you and you continue ignoring him.

― What’s that tattoo say there on your back?

Scratch, scratch, scratch goes your pen across the sheet of paper like a crow rapping at a window.

― Do you speak English?

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

― So my name’s David. What’s yours?

You finish your Ketel One and Red Bull and call the bartender over for another.

― Hello... hello? He grabs your arm.

― Don’t fucking touch me.

― Look, lady. You’re sitting in a bar. I come over to talk to you, I mean who writes in a bar, you know?

― If you don’t mind I’m busy and completely uninterested in speaking with you. Fuck off.

You turn your back to him, irritated. But the bit of alcohol you’ve drunk has piqued your appetite.

― Okay, I’ll go if you tell me what your tattoo says.

You look at him, sizi
ng him up.

― You want to know what my tat says, huh? Why don’t we go back to your place and I’ll show you what it says.

― Right now?

― Now or never.

You finish half of your fresh drink. You pay your bill, pack up your journal into your large purse, and walk out of the bar with him. You head back to his apartment, which ends up being right down the street from the bar.

Thirty minutes later you leave with a little Ziploc baggie, bloody from where you removed his testicles, your mouth watering for a spicy meatball sandwich. You haven’t had this delicacy — a favorite of yours — in quite a while. Tonight was a minor indiscretion, and from the rumbling in your tummy you certainly needed this little pick-me-up. He, the unlucky john, is passed out inside from the valium you slipped him, an ice pack on his mutilated crotch: Surprise, surprise for a rude boy in the morning. You flag down a cab from Santa Monica Boulevard and hurry home before your spoils, well, spoil. You get home and open a bottle of Chianti to enjoy with your meal. Ah, life’s simple pleasures.

The land remembers everything. The hill where the Motel Chain Mansion perches once belonged to indigenous people. They were raped by Christianity, and the mission culture that planted mustard seeds in the wake of their white dea
th and violence. The spirit of history is alive in these trees, and in the earth that continues growing, fueled by a rage older than Western civilization. But what is that civilization other than the pillage of greedy hearts, the commodification of life, humanity transformed into consumption? It is in this context that The Mansion creates itself.

Mr. Motel Chain is curious sometimes about his monstrous project, this unruly mansion. He likes to think it was his money that created the structure. He likes to think his billions of green sheets birthed this massive entity. But while his back is turned, the house reproduces, it changes, it grows, feeding on rage and hate, the murders that incessantly stain the land with blood and semen. There are pockets where, if you were to wander, a spirit of the past would hijack your soul, leaving you to aimlessly drift through the woods.

Mr. Motel Chain pretends that he planted this forest. He imagines that its presence was called by him, the creator, and it is at his beck and call. He has been marked by these woods. One wrong step and he will be trapped with all of those sentient beings engulfed within tree trunks.

The mansion itself is as imposing as Rebecca’s Manderley, red ringed with poinsettias, rhododendrons, poppies, and anthuriums, with their poison stamens. If you look closer you’ll see the elegant oleander, nicely off-setting the red flowers with its white, toxic petals. Oleander is known to kill those in love who ingest her pale petals, so guard your fingers and your heart. Herbs and hallucinogens line the red circumference of the mansion. Deadly nightshade (which witches say can be seen growing at night), belladonna, datura, psilocybin mushrooms, jimson weed, mandrake, thorn apple, henbane, manioc, and bangala, otherwise known as poisonwood. The odd assortment can produce a variety altered states. Ingesting can be followed by mild hallucinations, a deeper understanding of nature, man and self, or, in the case of the manioc (containing trace amounts of cyanide) and the bangala (causing pus-filled sores to erupt all over the body, including the eyes) a person could go mad from sensation. The Mansion knows that often it is not the spirits that take the living human beings, but it is the plants which repatriate a body to a soul, transforming one essence to another.

As you peek through the windows you are baffled by the architecture. As in Escher paintings, the rooms do not adhere to any logical structure. One window appears to look into three different rooms simultaneously, while each individual room seems completely detached from its sisters. The Mansion is a shifting shape as Mr. Motel Chain watches it. Moving, remaking itself. His hand touches the stone wall, and it appears warm, and throbs at his touch. He can feel the constant thrumming of energy around the building, and wonders what it feels like inside the stonework. He feels peaceful, in tune with the land around him. He does not feel threatened.

He should.

Underneath his feet, the Mansion roils in preparation. Above him, the smoggy sky is contracting in anticipation. Consolidated energies are twisting and turning, waiting for the apocalypse. A battle is about to be waged, and lost.