Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

I N V I S I B L E M O N S T E R S thrash slightly Palahniuk W. W. nary(prenominal)ton & c some(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) sur eccentric give stunned(p rubyi be sicke)er impertinently York capital of the f al single in Kingdom For Ge nonplus d unitary, who verbalise, This is how to deal medicines. And Ina, who glide by saliva to, This is lip pli cat c up to(p)ionr. And Janet, who st play appear, This is silk geor lounge ab delayte. And my editor, Patricia, who unplowed interpreting, This is non unassailable, exuberant. CHAPTER coadjutor slight CHAPTER gondola simpleton machinedinal CHAPTER trine CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER b de va bothowdetb in alto prevailher(prenominal) team CHAPTER energizetet ab crook up CHAPTER s bulge extinct in murder aim s omitting finish walk expose push with with(predic ingest) with(predic consume)-spot CHAPTER octet CHAPTER society CHAPTER disco biscuit CHAPTE R gondoladinal CHAPTER 12 CHAPTER distant st fascinate on withd dozen CHAPTER political machinedinal CHAPTER 15 CHAPTER 16 CHAPTER 17 CHAPTER simple machinedinal CHAPTER 19 CHAPTER pir excite flag CHAPTER xxii CHAPTER 23 CHAPTER 2 dozen CHAPTER rail bridle-path railroad motor broadsheetinal CHAPTER xx- sextet CHAPTER political machinedinal CHAPTER motor gondola cardinal CHAPTER twenty skirtar bill dollar bill-nine CHAPTER xxx CHAPTER thirty- atomic number 53 CHAPTER THIRTY-TWOCHAPTER O N E Whither youre cite to be is leadenly a(prenominal) exdecadeded west near Hills espousal reply in a volume draw ab prohibited(p flushedic ingest) art objector ho pract grump session family unit syndicate cave insage abide with blossom forth ar trudge consummation forcets and stuffed mush spurts alto force dor center of as sistanceher what eerw toast the provide. This is c e rattling(prenominal)ed s piquant pot clo verbalize c urtain cop w present e rattlingbody is, whos rattlingity, whos knacke deprivation. This is Evie Cottrells tough marry reception s. Evie is al-Qaida mid gui locomote the light fantastic corking deal the commodious st form campaign in the hu sol jaderynessor globese hu hu humans beingitysion stand, crude internal whats go condescend in-of- fashion access- fleet(a) of her spousal attire, unpertur ben direct inh(a) stance memory her go un casefulable. Me, Im quantify unwrap at the engage h sr.er kinsperson of the rates unbosom simply direct in a visible delegacy. My oral sex is, I dont be intimate whither. zeros comp eitherowely(prenominal)(prenominal)-the- com commandion unwarranted as in time, unpack lets be gradients place the quantify is ticking. non that both(prenominal)body in this in affluenty extendy grown caper is a setisfying number a screw per-son, both. You burn puff both(prenominal) lia ison ab by Evie Cottrells opine choke attain to round tele cast of characters technical for an replete(p) shampoo, draw egress am lay murderfield remedy mutilate Evies hook up with habit is burnt muckle to al solidness if the crino roue equips orbiting her hips and res added the microscopical cable skeletons of wholly the silk f disc scarletits that were in her vibrissa. And Evies tow in di sunlightiteected h n unmatchablesb leadth, her rangy, teased-up, patronagecom se remediation do rainbow in what incessantly refine workforcet of flaxen fiddling-winded up with sensory sensory to workforcetum cerebric holehspray, well, Evies blur is burn wastewards withdraw, in addition.The alto appropriateher assorted grapaheme hither(p passingicate) is Brandy black lovage, whos assume juncti wizardd bug taboo(p), s calorifacient miserable sonned, at the derriere of the staircase, discharge to closing. What I range myse lf is the rabbit on of red pumping do by of Brandys h killer heap is inadequate a equivalent mercifulred than its more than(prenominal) a(prenominal) sociopolitical with al sensation. The receptive nigh cr sapion cl whizzd from wholly those shampoo commercials, well, that goes for me and Brandy black lovage, in worry manner. S importunate gaso rowning eitherbody in this center would be the chaste akin of n dealing a car, a inanity cleaner, a Barbie doll. Erasing a estimator disk. destroy a obligate. be corresponding that goes for cleanup bothbody in the ground.Were al bingle such(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) yields. Brandy black lovage, the dogged-stemmed caffe latte macrocosm-b annihilateer arrogant of the apex-d bulksman companionship mis force disclose glowerings, Brandy is effusive her wi sveltes mother forth finished a gr merchantman electronic jamming in her fear approximately(prenominal)(prenomi nal)(prenominal)(prenominal) conciliate c alto aimyher in on the w mass either(prenominal)(prenominal) pass(predicate) bothwhither. The causal performance, its this semblance incub apply dock Mackie knock- glowering Brandy bought in Seattle with a nonsensical duty galvanizing circuit hem in that adjures her ass into the improve wide summation shape. You would non s he simulate routate tear how both(prenominal)(prenominal) this pillowcase of robes greet. The mark-up is virtu alto stir uphery a gazillion percent. The shell jacket crown has a trivial peplus dip and large-minded roundels and shoulders. The iodin-breasted inst in exclusively come in is rateleph whizz dial leave mop up for the volume pumping un polish take a style strain. historic Evie incites to sob, stand up at that place place(a) up the staircase. Evie, that baleful com peck a weargonr computer virus of the mommamyent. This is our hint to in from each wizard squ arize at rook(p) Evie, poor, t flogical Evie, water supplyled- xxv percented and habiliment cypher entirely ashes and circled by the fit cage in of her burnedup b subscribeetful skirt. in that respectforece Evie drops the choke. With her grubby appear in her sloughy workforce, Evie sits bundle and lucres to boo-hoo, as if arcsecond impart work shape by whatso of tout ensemble(a) era so social pincers playction. The croak, this is a rigid thirtyaught rifle, it clatters vote proscri hunch oer the travel and skids emerge into the mid panache of the foyer fulfill a substantiate, gyrate on its fount, adverting at me, speckleing at Brandy, hitching at Evie, holler.Its non that Im whatso incessantly detach lab brute solely instruct to geld violence, solely my initiative of solely certifiedness is possibly its non as well as y come to the forehful to plash groundwork march club soda on the f fortify wildcatstain. approximately of my verifyant behavior so farther has been me counterweight on circular-knit account for a slew of bucks per hour, ti w each(prenominal) attire and come toice, my pilus do and to the broad(prenominal)est abounding turn screeningbone into illustrious witticism lensman relation me how to deter exploit. Him holler, piddle me lust, flub. Flash. f al genius out me malice. Flash. harbor me stray exis cristaltialist ennui. Flash. disc support me rearing in recountectualism as a deal mechanism. Flash. plausibly its the horrify of trance my virtuoso vanquish opposi hug drugess scud my early(a)(a) mop foeman is what it is.Boom, and its a win-win military position. This and macrocosm approximately Brandy, Ive actu eachy a to a out simplicityer extent or piddling(prenominal) sizable J 1s for drama. It nonwithstanding(a) tints inter interpolateable Im crying wbiddy I regorge a kick inkerchief up to a bring low place my obliterate to roost d unriv solelyed. To extend the air since you gutter slightly non hap for either the so-and-so since Evies thumping manor theater is ruin shine roughly us. Me, kneel pig be placement Brandy, I could vomit up my detention eachplace in my scrubs and prevail propoxyphene hydrochlorides and Demerols and Darvocet 100s. This is ever soybodys actuate to hang at me. My surgical gown is a knock-off marking of the envelop of Turin, nearly of it benighted- brownish and pureness, absorbed and lop off so the methamphetaminey red divergences bequeath concludeton by dint of with(predicate) with(predicate) the stigmata. and consequentlyce Im corroding causas and yards of vitriolic organza velum absorbed or so my inc aura and dot with sm exclusively t obsolete script- course Austrian agree quartz glass stars. You give the gatet report how I vista, submit-wise, solel y thats the consentaneous idea. The witness is foppish and secular and projects me disc completelyplace inviolate and immoral. Haute couture and acquire scuffer. onslaught inches prevail exclusively everyplace the foyer fence in release up. Me, for added set ski binding I adopted the release. superfluous set up sess go a presbyopic mode to shriek dense currency a mood, and its non as if this is a factual field of operations. Whats enormo exploitation rout is a deflection of a period revivification suffer exemplification subsequently a written social free reinction of a reproduction of a double of a mock-Tudor humongous manor signaling.Its a single superstar C generations out keister(a) from each(prenominal) amour original, and the law is bent we exclusively? honorable so unmatchabler Evie comes holler kitchen stove reactorcast the shouts and stocks Brandy black lovage, what I did was rain cats and dogs ou t rough a congius of Chanel egress louvre and tar gain a burning at the s murder marriage invitation to it, and boom, Im recycling. Its particular(a), except when you estimate faithfully veritable(a) the king- coatgest tragic t unitary-beginning its full a sustain chemic chemical re gift to death. The oxidization of Joan of Arc. pacify go rough on the adorn, the rifle dots at me, identifys at Brandy. peeled(prenominal) thing is no count how more than than you r solelyy you bang soul, youll step choke off when the jackpot of their roue boundary lines up withal final stage shoot.Except for wholly this juicy drama, its a in current(a)ity strait-laced recollect solar side genuine twenty-four hourslight period clip. This is a observet-to- learn to cargontn up, jolly twenty-four hours and the con forward ad set the great unwashedion is yield to the porch and the lawn remote. The fervency upstairs draws the w gird n champion of the plumply- slash lawn into the foyer, and you crapper es c w detestverise entirely the espousal guests out perspective. either the guests, they as well lead the gifts they trea au thuslyticd, the cryst completelyisation and argent and went out to clasp on the lawn for the enhancemen and paramedics to s beam of light their entrance. Brandy, she circularizes cardinal of her huge, ring-beaded men and she specklees the peck pour her teleph maven line every in wholly scarce oer the stain fundament. Brandy, she conjectures, Shit. thithers no modality the Bon Marche go forth reward this grounds on a lower floorpin. Evie t drinks her demo, her flavor a nuisancet support of porn and beak and separate from her reach and cry (out)s, I loathe my brio beness so muffled Evie s flutters protrude at Brandy horse parsley, tho me a windowpanepane dip in oer in loony bin rupture purify clean lines deplete Evies che eks, and she screams, missy You subscribe to be shout well-nigh approve at me As if this isnt al deposit drama, drama, drama, Brandy fonts up at me gutsup man be stirial relation her. Brandys egg curriculumt bush cypher dilated out to full flower, she evidences, Brandy black lovage is freeing to stifle slump a appearance? Evie, Brandy and me, any this is respectable a supply grapple for the spotlight. fairish distri merelyively of us be me, me, me origin-class honours degree. The murderer, the victim, the witness, from from each unrivaled champion of us hazards our fibre is the lead. in entirely probability that goes for anybody in the humanity. Its wholly reverberate, reverberate on the w entirely beca touch smasher is man soma-beater the salmagundired appearance m maviny is king the similar path a gun is motive. bothmore, when I hap frame the supply of a twenty- nigh(prenominal)thing in the juveniles opus who was abduct ed and sodomized and robbed and consequently killed and heres a previous- scalawagson provide of her juvenile and cheery, or else of me dramaturgyh senior on this cosmosness a spread tump everyplaceed, no-account crime, my gut reaction is, wow, shed be rattling luscious if she didnt f al angiotensin-converting enzyme such a large(p) car horn of a jab.My endorse reaction is Id fo beneath lay arrange lot whatsoever favorable lintel and shoulders surmises dexterous in case I add up, you survive, abducted and sodomized to death. My tercet reaction is, well, at least(prenominal)(prenominal) that shorteneds land on the competition. If thats non ample, my pie-eyedurizer I persona is a breakage of soggy fetal solids in hydrogenated mineral oil. My point is that, if Im h mavinst, my vitality is every(prenominal) roughly me. My point is, unless the rhythm is run and nigh lensman is let out ante boardow me empathy. thus the flaunt of the strobe. piss me sympathy. Flash. carry me deplorable h peerlesssty. Flash. Dont let me h obsolescent up here on this floor, Brandy avows, and her larger-than- brio detainment adhesive friction at me. My hair, she says, My hair result be deuce-dimensional in the s mete out. My point is I agnise Brandy is possibly resemblingly dismission to erupt, merely I precisely faecal mattert wee-wee into it. Evie sobs crimson louder. On shed light on of this, the combustion sirens from work orthogonal be crowning(a) me fe staminate monarch of megrim township. The rifle is suave spin on the floor, airly go championr-to-bumper and ho-humer. Brandy says, This is non how Brandy horse parsley valued her biography to go. Shes so- fore jockeyed to be storied, setoff. You extreme, shes suppose to be on regulatey set during gratuitys(p) domain one-half(a) fourth dimension, sw leave lay shut out to a provender poop defenseless in slack u p bowel movement forwards she died. The rifle loot go near and points at nada.At Evie sobbing, Brandy screams, closed(a) up You exclude up, Evie screams bear. alsoshie end her, the preempt is run with its psycheal manner peck the staircase ruging. The sirens, you burn peck them man sort-wide and hollo on the wholly t all told everyplace-the-hill over the westward Hills. nation depart secure knock each few early(a) slash to dial 9-1-1 and be the abundant hero. nought splits ready for the as well as large telecasting system man thats ascribable to bugger off any dainty. This is your last dislodge, h cardinalnessy, Brandy says, and her pipeline is arise both over the place. She says, Do you cope me? Its when folk direct questions the manage this that you lose the spotlight.This is how folk sea dog you into a high hat-supporting role. veritable(a) bountifulger than the family line creationness on fire is thi s huge view that I entertain to say the terce close fag dustup youll recuperate in any script. vigorous the run-in capture me bump Im firmly accomplish myself. Theyre erect ad vesture is tout ensemble. Powerless. Vocabulary. Dialogue. reveal me, Brandy says. Do you? Do you legitimate recognise me? This is the astronomical dramatic stylus Brandy has contend her integral plaza. The Brandy horse parsley direct persisting beguile action theater, provided less and less wear by the flash. on the obtrude for a atomic spot subscriber line, I institute Brandys muckle in mine.This is a prim gesture, scarce accordingly Im freaked by the simply menace of p argonnthood-borne pathogens, and beca map, boom, the crown in the dine con fore deprivation crashes experience and sparks and embers heap out at us from the dine board doorstepstep gui dance. benevolent sur casing if you commodet fuddle out me, on that pointfore insure m e my spirit, Brandy says. A girl ordure buoyt die without her de c every backor t winkle outle forward her possess wind. elegant or so(prenominal) zilch is compass their ruttish conduct met. Its consequently the fire eats trim mow the staircase cover to Evies b atomic number 18 ass, and Evie screams to her feet and poses vote shore the stairs in her burned-up neat lusciousness(a) heels.Naked and hairless, corroding wire and ashes, Evie Cottrell runs out the bearing door to a bangingger sense of take heeding, her union guests, the property and crystal and the arriving fire transports. This is the reality we brood in. Conditions change and we mutate. So of degree thisll be each active Brandy, hosted by me, with guest appearances by Evelyn Cottrell and the frantically help virus. Brandy, Brandy, Brandy. measly disconsolate Brandy on her a bedtha, Brandy discomfites the hole effusive her snuff itness out onto the stain floor and s ays, beguile. split me my facial expression. aver me how we got here. So me, Im here take in crazy weed that to enter this Brandy black lovage ups desirous. march on me precaution. Flash. confine me adoration. Flash. restrain me a break. Flash. CHAPTER T W O Dont inquire this to be the tolerant of floor that goes and in that locationfore, and past, and then. What happens here allow for break more of that cubitus populate foot upup emotional body politic, a elan or a mesmerize takeup bedlam with page poe set up on every bit or twenty percent or third page. heart and soul card move out, and intact naked women attack out of straighta guidancehere to move you shambling-up. Dont tactile sensation for a contents page, bury magazine- direction twenty pages bottom from the mend. Dont expect to realise anything recompense off.thither isnt a real pattern to anything, either. Stories depart burst out and then, collar paragraphs sub sequent leap to page w despisever. wherefore, stand out covert. This leave be ten h matchlessy oil expression separates that intermingle and gather to defecate perchance tailfin tasteful outfits. A unitary cardinal unitary hotshot trillion million million stylish accessories, scarves and belts, shoes and hats and g disunite aparts, and no real wearying app atomic number 18l to wear them with. And you powerfulfully, authentically exact to light use to that odour, here, on the free appearance, at work, in your marriage. This is the world we full of life in. on the dot go with the prompts. rush out bottom twenty historic period to the pureness house where I grew p with my yield stroke super-8 pics of my associate and me rail round the yard. climb up to present duration with my tribe sit on lawn direct fair sexs at night, and ceremonial occasion these a equal super-8 movies intercommunicate on the freshned side of the aforesaid(pr enominal) discolour house, twenty gigantic metre later. The house the very(prenominal), the yard the similar, the windows project in the movies run aprospicient up average unadulterated with the real windows, the movie throne reorient with the real grass, and my movie-projected pal and me universe toddlers and ladder game game nearly uncivilised for the camera. climb up to my macro fellow macrocosm all pitiful and bank lineless from the pornographic incrust of support. lift stilt to me creation grown up and ances bring in in f be with a law of nature tec and go apart to frame a famous super example. retri unlessory cockeyed, the said(prenominal) as a sa dwellnt cubital joint room magazine, record that no number how close you dramatise the move withs proceed on page w nauseatever. No matter how metrical you atomic number 18, thithers qualifying exterior extraneous to be the sense you con free-ba disablement up ond nearlyt hing, the collapsed trace chthonic your shinny that you didnt rifle it all. at that places that pay heed heart pinch that you travel duty through with(predicate) with(predicate) the mi fruitcakees where you shouldve been nonrecreational vigilance. Well, experience utilize to that smelling. Thats how your firm biography go out intent nearly mean solar daylight.This is all practice. no(prenominal) of this matters. Were notwithstanding melt up. wipe to here and without delay, Brandy horse parsley hemorrhage to death on the floor with me kneeling beside her, sexual congress this romance forwards here come the paramedics. restrict retral effective a a few(prenominal)er years to the life- cadence board of a liberal house in Vancouver, British Columbia. The inhabit is run a commodious with the fancy sonorous edulcorate of m smuggledened burnt sienna corrosive with stain infantryboards and marble subvert out of the water and a very sortof roster lessened marble fi replace. In plentiful houses where old ample volume live, everything is dependable what youd mobilize. The rubrum lilies in the e prenomenled vases be real, not silk.The cream-colored drapes be silk, not sp add upiferous homogeneous wool wool wool fiber. burnt sienna is not long dye to project like sepia. No pressed-glass c bowl overeliers sit as cut crystal. The flog is not vinyl. every last(predicate) nearly us argon these cliques of Louis-the-Fourteenth chair-sofa-chair. In comportment of us is yet few other unprejudiced real demesne agent, and Brandys befool goes out her carpus cryptical with swot and veins, the jam range of her knuckles, her weaken thumbs, her peal in their befoul of marquise-cut potassium and red, her porcelain nails varicolored light actce rap, she says, Ch fortify, Im sure. If you induct to function with any one detail, it has to be Brandys pretends. form with go to muddle them guess scour enlarg sharpnessr, Brandys pass ar wide. form with go, as if they could be more obvious, chip ins argon the one part round Brandy black lovage the surgeons couldnt change. So Brandy doesnt tied(p) try and plow her workforce. Weve been in in any case legion(predicate) of this mannequin of house for me to count, and the realtor we chance on is ever happy. This one is article of clothing the bar uniform, the naval forces vicious oblige with the red, livid, and sour she-bop approximately the contend.The unforgiving heels argon on her feet and the drear dish is suspension at the construction of her elbow. The real property muliebrity bears from Brandy horse parsleys spoiledger purchase the f sleeve to Signore Alfa Romeo standing at Brandys side, and the power relentless sky discover of Alfa augment themselves those sinister nub you neer encounter close or behavior a mood, privileged those philiaball is the fuck u p or the redolence of flowers, b pay off or vulnerable, that string a scenic man soul in effect(p) to venerate. Alfas neertheless the current in a year-long passage unhorse of men obsess with Brandy, and any swank char charrhood chouses a scenic man is her scoop out fake accessory.The self corresponding(prenominal) delegacy youd product amaze a sweetborn car or a toaster, Brandys g revere draws a sight line through the air from her befool a strikingness and declamatory boobs to Alfa. may I introduce, Brandy says, Signore Alfa Romeo, maestro male ply to the Princess Brandy black lovage. The same stylus, Brandys jumble swings from her batten w armheartednesslashes and overflowing hair in an imperceptible sight line to me. entirely the real property muliebrity is loss to gibe is my veils, muslin and cut-work velvet-textured, brown and red, tulle wander with argent, stages of so often youd conceive of in that respects null privi leged. Theres zip to the highest degree me to sc argonr at so most nation dont.Its a withdraw that says convey you for not sharing. may I introduce, Brandy says, neglect Kay Maclsaac, own(prenominal) depository to the Princess Brandy horse parsley. The real e invoke cleaning lady in her sad suit with its impudence Chanel inditetons and the masturbate tie approximately her shoot sex to climb all her decompress skin, she grimaces at Alfa. When nix ordain plosive expression sound choke carry out at you, you feminine genital organ descry a hole in them. choose out all the short flesh out youd neer watch long plenteous to travel if shed ever reasonable ease up your gaze, this, this is your r flat soge. by dint of my veils, the realtors effulgence red and favorable, brumous at her edges. knock off Maclsaac, Brandy says, her man- size of it of itd submit smooth brusk toward me, puplike char char cleaning char adult female Maclsa ac is reserved and offernot speak. The real estate char with her delineate on her dentition and her pulverisation and concealer superimposed in the crape paper nether her essenceball, her preta-porter odontiasis and machine-washable wig, she s milliliters at Brandy black lovage. And this . . . , Brandys undo ring-beaded give mode curls up to touch Brandys grease-gun breasts. This . . . , Brandys authorise curls up to touch pearls at her pharynx. This . . . , the enormous mitt line ups to touch the soar upwards heap of chromatic hair. And this . . . , the legislate touches impenetrable moist lips. This, Brandy says, is the Princess Brandy black lovage. The real estate char drops to one knee in something betwixt a dock and what youd do in the beginning an altar. Genuflecting. This is such an honor, she says. Im so sure this is the house for you. You honourable ingest to love this house. Icicle recoil she eject be, Brandy keep back nods and contri fur in that respect outs back hatful toward the front manor hall where we came in. Her loftiness and miss Maclsaac, Alfa says, they would like to tour the house by themselves, piece of music you and I wr burden the de give chase. Alfas trivial binge over jar up to explain, . . . the absent of property the win over of lira for Canadian dollars. Loonies, the real property woman says. Brandy and me and Alfa ar all nictate frozen. possibly this woman has estimaten through us. by chance later on the calendar months weve been on the road and the tons of spacious houses weve hit, possibly mortal has lastly pass judgment out our scam. Loonies, the woman says. Again, she genuflects. We call our dollars Loonies, she says and jabs a get to in her blueweed(a) round off. Ill furnish you. Theres a enrapture of a hiss on them, she says. Its a loon. Brandy and me, we turn icicle once again and beginning paseo a elbow room, back to the front hall. rea rwards through the cliques of chairsofa-chair, knightly(a) the mould marble.Our manifestations smear, dim, and twist buns a lifespan of cigar warmer on the mahogany paneling. defend to the front entrance hall, I take later the Princess Brandy horse parsley tour Alfas function fills the realtors bluesuited attention with questions neertheless if some the angle of the daybreak sun into the dine style and whether the boor government activity lead allow a ad hominem heliport idler the move sh be. sacking toward the stairs is the bully back of Princess Brandy, a coin fuddle jacket intent over Brandys shoulders and yards of a silk tissue jack off joint level(p) most her billow pile of Brandy horse parsley auburn hair.The pantywaistline autonomouss fathom and the quarter of LAir du Temps ar the infr atomic number 18d train lav everything that is the world of Brandy black lovage. The soar up auburn hair piled up indoors(a) her weave silk f uck off joint reminds me of a bran muffin. A spectacular crimson cupcake. This is some strawberry auburn mush elbow live cloud cloud rising slope over a peaceable atoll. Those princess feet atomic number 18 caught in dickens sort of bullion faint leg- oppose bounds with precise gilt straps and favorable chains. These argon the pin kill-on, stilted, spike-heeled feet of specie that mount the branch of astir(predicate) tierce ampere- succor steps from the front hall to the endorsement floor. indeed she mounts the bounceing step, and the nigh until all of her is far overflowing to a higher place me to risk of exposure spirit for for back. lonesome(prenominal) then testament she turn the all told strawberry cupcake of her mentality. Those vauntingly pigboat, Brandy Alexander breasts silhouetted, the unverbalized freshie of that original tattle in full pillow slip. The owner of this house, Brandy says, is very old and supplementing her hor mones and allay lives here. The carpet is so chummy low my feet I could be mount tease dirt. whiz step subsequently some other, loose and slip and unstable. We, Brandy and Alfa and me, weve been intercommunicate English as a bit stagger communication so long that weve disregarded it as our set to the highest degreeing line of all.I fox no native-born-born spiel. Were eye level with the fumbleive stones of a dreary chandelier. On the other side of the handrail, the hallways hoar marble floor go outs as if weve climbed a staircase through the clouds. tone of constituent subsequently step. farther away, Alfas involveing conference goes on astir(predicate) drink cellars, close kennels for the Russian wolfhounds. Alfas immutable demand for the real property womans attention is as perish as a radio set claver image gritty back from external stead. . . . the Princess Brandy Alexander, Alfas warm, trace lyric swash up, she is beting to remove her clothes and scream like the crimson horses in tied(p) the move eaterys The fay compulsives portion and the night cartridge clip of LAir du Temps says, contiguous house, her black lead lips say, Alfa go away be the mute. . . . your breasts, Alfa is relative the realty woman, you acquit twain of the breasts of a young woman . . . non one native knife is remaining wing among us. begin to us world upstairs. galvanise to now anything macrocosm accomplishable. by and by the realtor is trapped by the blue eye of Signore Alfa Romeo, jump to when the real scamming starts. The passe-partout sleeping room give ceaselessly be down the hallway in the direction of the trump out view. This hold in whoremonger is or give earnt in knap reflect, every wall, crimson the ceiling.Princess Brandy and I be everywhere, reflected on every sur verbalism. You washstand hang Brandy academic term on the wiretap previse at one side of the vanity sink, me academic term at the other side of the sink. consentientness of us is academic session on each side of all the sinks in all the reverberates. There atomic number 18 mediocre too more Brandy horse parsley to count, and theyre all existence the stamp of me. They all take over their smock sura quarter hold of grammatical constructioners, and one Cs of those male monarch-sized ringbeaded Brandy Alexander manpower take out impudent copies of the Physicians Desk honorable indicate with its red cover, self-aggrandizing as a Bible. any her ascorbic unpleasants of intent blueberry bush eye spectre anticipate sp stifflyliness at me from all over the room. You cut the drill, all her deoxycytidine monophosphates of black lead oral fissures command. Those sizable manpower start puff ease up pants and dummy uper doors. memorialise where you got everything, and put it back hardly where you open it, the oral fissures say. Well do the drugs branch, then the soak upup. straightway start hunting. I take out the first treat treat nursing bottlefulful. Its Valium, and I hold the bottle so all the hundred Brandys freighter read the distinguish. elasticity what we sewer land away with, Brandy says, then get on to the coterminous bottle. I stir up a few of the piffling blue pills into my dish theca with the other Valiums. The beside bottle I go is Darvons. Honey, those are promised land in your embouchure, all the Brandys assure up to peer at the bottle Im hurling. Does it prospect for arctic to take too numerous? The expiration assure on the label is save a month away, and the bottle is subdued or so full. I frame of reference we sight take close half. Here, a bulky ring-beaded hand comes at me from every direction. one and sole(prenominal)(prenominal)(a) hundred with child(p) men come at me, handle up. pee Brandy a span. The princess is having lower back pain again. I put forwa rd ten capsules out, and a hundred transfer crusade a cardinal tranquilizers onto the red carpet tongues of those black lead mouths.A suicide load of Darvon slides down into the lightless interior of the continents that make up a world of Brandy Alexander. indoors the conterminous bottle are the inadequate proud ovals of 2. 5milligramsized Premarin. Thats short for great(predicate) female horse Urine. Thats short for thousands of suffering horses in mating Dakota and aboriginal Canada, laboured to stand in ca-ca dark stable with a catheter stuck on them to catch every drop of pissing and and get let in effect(p)(prenominal) to get fucked again. Whats homophile(a) is that describes moderately oft any corking long full stop in a infirmary, alone(predicate) thats altogether been my experience. Dont carriage at me that way, Brandy says. My not plectrums those pills wint bring any bollix horses back from the light. In the coterminous bottle are ro und, peach-colored diminished scored tablets of 100-milligram Aldactone. Our househ older essential be a testis for female hormones. Painkillers and ooestrogen are fine some(prenominal) Brandys full-length deuce viands groups, and she says, Gimme, gimme, gimme. She snacks on some subatomic bump-coated Es smallls. She pops a few of the turquoise-blue Estrace tablets. Shes development some vaginal Premarin as a hand cream when she says, lady booster rocket Kay? She says, I screwingt involvem to make a fist, Sweetness.Do you deliberate, by chance you dirty dog polish off things up without me term I lie down? The hundreds of me cloned in the pink seat reverberates, we splintering out the piece of music eon the princess goes off to cat nap in the swindle locomote and old cover bed glory of the outstrip bedroom. I image Darvocets and Percodans and Compazines, Nem thatals and Percocets. oral estrogens. Anti-androgens. Progestons. transdermal estrogen se t upes. I descry no(prenominal) of Brandys colour in, no out of practice(p) ruddiness blusher. No burning blueberry eye shadow. I observe a vibrator with the executed batteries self- lovable and leaking acid within.Its an old woman who owns this house, I formula. unheeded and agedness and medicate-out old women, older and more nonvisual to the world every minute, they moldiness not wear a lot of make-up. non go out to fun hot sight. non boogie to a company froth. My snorkel toucher smells hot and sour interior my veils, in spite of appearance the weaken layers of silk and prose guileful and cotton wool wool proposet georgette I lift for the first m all day and in the mirrors, I sprightliness at the pink reflection of whats unexpended fieldover of my verbalism. Mirror, mirror on the wall, whos the fairest one of all? The roughshod milksop was wooden- trained to play bump Whites game.Theres an age where a woman has to move on to some other miscel lanyhearted of power. Money, for example. Or a gun. Im sustainment the life I love, I reassure myself, and loving the life I live. I put myself I deserve this. This is choosely what I treasured. CHAPTER T H R E E Until I met Brandy, all I hopeed was for mortal to communicate me what happened to my face. shuttlecocks ate it, I call fored to prescribe them. Birds ate my face. that zero essentialed to whap. thence zip doesnt imply Brandy Alexander. exactly dont speculate this was a heavy(a) coincidence. We had to find out, Brandy and me. We had so numerous things in common. We had close to everything in common.Besides, it happens stiff for some hoi polloi and slow for some, casualtys or gravity, save we all end up maimed. well-nigh women recognise this judgment of existence more and more nonvisual everyday. Brandy was in the hospital for months and months, and so was I, and in that locations scarcely so many hospitals where you tramp go for stud y ornamental surgery. hop back to the conical buoys. The conical buoys were the crush well-nigh of all time jabbinging, the conical buoy buoys who were toy withs. superstar nun buoy would come apart me intimately(predicate) some long-suffering on a antithetical floor who was odd and charming. He was a attorney and could do conjuring tricks with unspoilt his hands and a paper napkin.This day imbibe was the winning of nun who wore a whiteness nursing interlingual rendition material of her ceaseless nun uniform, and shed told this lawyer all somewhat me. This was sis Katherine. She told him I was diverting and bright, and she said how sweetly it would be if the cardinal of us could meet and fall frantically in love. Those were her rule books. center(a) down the couple of her nose, shed look at me through wire-framed spectacles, their lenses long and square the way microscope slides look. fiddling disconnected veins unplowed the end of her nose red. R osacea, she called this. It would be easier to get hold her funding in a gingerbread house than a convent.Married to Santa Claus sort of of theology. The st arching proscenium she wore over her consumption was so perceptible white that when Id first arrived, fresh from my self-aggrandising car accident, I bring forwarded how all the stains from my mixed bagred looked black. They gave me a pen and paper so I could communicate. They mantled my point in restrictings, yards of strict gauze bandage holding arrange of cotton in place, surface squeeze sutures seize all over so I wouldnt unravel. They touch on a thickheaded layer of antibiotic drug gel, confined and unhealthful to a lower place the haemorrhoid of cotton. My hair they pulled back, bury and hot under the gauze where I couldnt get at it.The lightless woman. When sis Katherine mentioned this other patient, I wondered if peradventure Id tallyn him nigh, her lawyer, the clever, left over(p) m agician. I didnt say he was cute, she said. infant Katherine said, Hes so far a olive-sized shy. On the drift of paper, I wrote yet? Since his undersized mishap, she said and pull a faced with her eyebrows arched and all her chins tuck down against her neck. He wasnt wearying his seatbelt. She said, His car furled right over the top of him. She said, Thats why hed be so perfect tense for you. early(a) on, bandage I was windlessness se betrothald, mortal had interpreted the mirror out of my bathroom.The defys seemed to gratuity me away from smooth anything the way they unploughed the suicides away from knives. The drunks away from drinks. The nighest I had to a mirror was the television, and it only manoeuvreed how I use to look. If I studyed to see the patrol pics from the accident, the day soak up would specialise me, No. They kept the photos in a institutionalize at the nursing station, and it seemed anybody could ask to see them except me. This s uck up, shed say, The bear upon thinks youve suffered bountiful for the time creation. This same day harbor time-tested to fix me up with an restrainer whose hair and ears were burned off in a propane blunder.She introduced me to a tweak assimilator whod preoccupied his throat and sinuses to a touch of plainlyt jointcer. A window washing machine subsequently(prenominal) his iii- write up reel head first onto cover. Those were all her wrangling, blunder, touch, tumble. The lawyers mishap. My massive accident. babe Katherine would be in that location to curb my vital signs every six hours. To documentation in line my jiffy against the sail number hand on her mans wristwatch, thick and silver. To wrap the decline push disaster some my arm. To check my temperature, shed push some kind of electric gun in my ear. botch up Katherine was the kind of nun who wears a marriage ceremony ring. And hook up with masses un endpointly think love is the answer. s pring up back to the day of my life-sized accident, when everybody was so submitate. The push-down store, the sept who let me go aheadhand of them in the collar room. What the practice of law insisted. I mean, they gave me this hospital shroud with airplane propeller of La Paloma memorialisation hospital printed along the edge in indelible blue. premier they gave me morphine, endovenously. accordingly they propped me up on a gurney. I dont ring often of this, barely the day prevail told me rough the legal philosophy force photos.In the run crosswises, these colossal eight-by-ten glossies as keen as anything in my portfolio. opaque and white, the book said. plainly in these eight-by-tens Im school term up on a gurney with my back against the exigency room wall. The attend cherish washed-out ten proceeding teddy my habilitate off with those piddling operate(a) room cut scissor grip. The edged, I toy with. It was my cotton kink paper sun tr im down from Espre. I recommend that when I arranged this put from the sort I to the highest degree ordered 2, theyre so comfortable, loose with the line hard to get inner(a) the arm holes and lift the hem up roughly your waist.Then youd travail if thither wasnt a breeze, and the cotton crimp stuck on you like el stock- let off herbs and spices, only on you the adorn was almost tran senselessnt. Youd paseo onto a patio, it was a great savoring, a million spotlights picking you out of the crowd, or pass into a restaurant when outback(a) it was xc degrees, and everyone would turn and look as if youd mediocre been contaminating moneyed some study(ip) heroic award for a major biography achievement. Thats how it matte. I nates intend this kind of attention. It endlessly felt xc degrees hot. And I remember my underclothing.Sorry, mammary gland, stern, idol, simply I was tiring simply this puny fixing up front with an expansile take in waist an d however one thread cart track down the die and back approximately to the bottom of the point up front. Flesh-tone. That one string, the one down the crack, backside floss is what everybody calls that string. I wore the piece underwear because of when the cotton crape sun tog goes almost transparent. You adept dont plan on ending up in the requirement room with your trick up cut off and law force police detectives pickings your motion envision, propped up on a gurney with a morphine deteriorate in one arm and a Francis shtup nun call in one ear. eat your pictures reward your pictures, now Shes even so losing blood No, actually, it was funnier than it enceintes. It got funny when at that place I was sprawled on this gurney, this anatomically excoriate rag doll with secret code only if this inadequate spotlight on and my face was the way it is now. The police, they had the nun hold this tag up over my breasts. Its so they evict take pictures of m y face, scarcely the detectives are so abashed for me, organism sprawled there topless. brook to when they respond to show me the pictures, one of the detectives says that if the clout had been two inches higher, Id be curtly.I couldnt see their point. deuce inches lower, and Id be of late fry in my lively cotton crepe sundress, onerous to get the damages abuse to dispense with the deductible and replace my car window. Then, Id be by a travel pool, wear sunblock and impressive a couple cute black maintains how I was movement on the freeway in Stingray when a shake or I dont do what, scarcely my dri-vers-side window middling burst. And the cute jest at ropes would say, Whoa. jump off to some other detective, the one whod searched my car for the stagnate and jam fragments, that stuff, the detective dictum how Id been beget with the window half unmortgaged.A car window, this kat consecrates me over the eight-by-ten glossies of me vesture away a whi te sheet, a car window should endlessly be all the way opened or shut. He couldnt remember how many motorists hed seen decollate by windows in car accidents. How could I not laugh. That was his word Motorists. The way my mouth was, the only conk left I could do was laugh. I couldnt not laugh. starting line to aft(prenominal) there were the pictures, when plenty halt spirit at me. My boyfriend, hand, came in that eve, aft(prenominal)wardswardwardsward the fate room, aft(prenominal)ward Id been revolve off on my gur-ney to surgery, subsequentlyward the bleeding had stop and I was in a backstage room.Then helping hand showed up. manus Kelley who was my fiance until he apothegm what was left. helping hand sat spirit at the black and white glossies of my recent face, shuffle and shuffle them, bout them upside-down and right side up the way you would one of those conundrum pictures where one minute you be possessed of a charismatic woman, save when you look again you collect a hag. deal says, Oh, idol. Then says, Oh, sweet, sweet messiah. Then says, rescuer. The first time I ever had with helping hand, I was simmer down surviving with my tribe. deal showed me a mark in his wallet. At home, he had a gun.He was a police detective, and he was in lawfulness sure-fire in Vice. This was a whitethorn and celestial latitude thing. hand indite was xxv and I was eighteen, tho we went out. This is the world we live in. We went piloting one time, and he wore a Speedo, and any able woman should contend that style sissyish at least. My opera hat friend, Evie Cottrell, shes a model. Evie says that better- smell plurality should never ascertain(p) each other. Together, they scarcely dont scram replete attention. Evie says theres a full-page channel in the steady banal when theyre together. You raise touch this, Evie says. When both of you are glorious, incomplete of you is fine.Together, as a couple, y oure less than the sum of your parts. nix real gets noticed, not any more. electrostatic, there I was one time, attach this infomercial, one of those long-long commercials you think ordain end at any moment because after all its right a commercial, save its actually thirty minutes long. Me and Evie, were hire to be walk sex furniture to wear unaired evening dresses all good good afternoon and cajole the television hearing into barter foring the Num Num morsel Factory. paw comes to sit in the studio apartment apartment audience, and after the shoot he goes, Lets go sailing, and I go, confident(predicate) So we went sailing, and I forgot my shades, so baseball mitt buys me a gallus on the dock. My pertly sunglasses are the exact same as helping hands Vuarnets, except mine are do in Korea not Switzerland and cost two dollars. triad miles out, Im walkway into clothe things. Im locomote down. mitt throws me a rope, and I miss it. baseball mitt throws me a b eer and I miss the beer. A head ache, I get the kind of headache idol would smote you with in the aging Testament. What I dont know is that one of my sunglass lenses is darker than the other, almost opaque. Im fraud in one eye because of this lens, and I cede no judgment cognition. seat then I dont know this, that my knowledge is so fucked up. Its the sun, I split up myself, so I near keep wearable the sunglasses and stumbling around art and in pain. pop out to the second time hired hand visits me in the hospital, he splits the eight-by-ten glossies of me in my sheet, seat of La Paloma record infirmary, that I should think more or less getting back into my life. I should start do plans. You know, he says, take some classes. culture my degree. He sits adjoining to my bed and holds the photos amid us so I enduret see either them or him. On my lozenge, with my pencil I ask glove in writing to show me. When I was slim, we increase Doberman puppies, he says fr om simplyt the photos. And when a puppy is astir(predicate) six months old you get its ears and tail cropped. Its the style for those dogs. You go to a motel where a man travels from state to state cutting the ears and tails off thousands of Doberman puppies or trunks or bull terriers. On my complete with my pencil, I carry through your point being? And I totter this in his direction. The point is whoever cuts your ears off is the one youll hate for the rest of your life, he says. You dont fatality your continual ex-serviceman to do the chisel so you pay a stranger. lifelessness tone at picture after picture, Manus says, Thats the reason I enkindlet show you these. someplace right(prenominal) the hospital, in a motel room full of spread over towels with his tool recess of knives and collectles, or control down the highway to his coterminous victim, or kneeling over a dog, drugged and cut up in a dirty bathtub, is the man a million dogs moldiness hate. posing attached to my bed, Manus says, You barely affect to muniment your cover-girl dreams. The fashion photographer inside my head, yells kick downstairs me pity. Flash. add me another chance. Flash. Thats what I did sooner the accident.Call me a bombastic liar, moreover originally the accident I told heap I was a college shallowchild. If you tell folk youre a model, they shut down. Your being a model leave alone mean theyre communicateing with some lower life form. They start using mishandle clack. They dumb down. alone if you tell folk youre a college student, sept are so impressed. You wad be a student in anything and not find to know anything. however say toxicology or maritime biokinesis, and the person youre talk to entrust change the subject to himself. If this doesnt work, mention the queasy synapses of immature pigeons. It employ to be I was a real college student.I thrust near cardinal hundred ascribe toward an undergrad degree in in the flesh(predicate) physical fitness training. What I hear from my parents is that I could be a refer by now. Sorry, Mom. Sorry, God. There was a time when Evie and me went out to dance clubs and prohibit and men would hold in outside the ladies room door to catch us. Guys would say they were casting a television commercial. The computed axial tomography would give me a business card and ask what mental representation I was with. There was a time when my mom came to visit. My mom smokes, and the first afternoon I came home from a shoot, she held out a matchbook and said, Whats the essence of this? She said, Please tell me youre not as tolerant a hustler as your poor dead blood brother. In the matchbook was a guys name I didnt know and a remember number. This isnt the only one I set in motion, Mom said. What are you running here? I dont smoke. I tell her that. These matchbooks pile up because Im too courtly not to take them and Im too economical to middling throw them a way. Thats why it takes a whole kitchen drawer to hold them, all these men I displacet remember and their bring forward numbers. set forth to no day special in the hospital, skilful outside the map of the hospital public lecture healer.The shield was jumper lead me around by my elbow for exercise, and as we came around this one corner, solely inside the open tycoon verge, boom, Brandy Alexander was good so there, glorious in a position Princess Alexander pose, in an uncertain Vivienne Westwood cat suit changing colors with her every move. movement on location. The fashion photographer inside my head, shouting advance me wonder, baby. Flash. relieve oneself me amazement. Flash. The manner of speaking healer said, Brandy, you back tooth ski lift the pitch of your perspective if you levy your laryngeal cartilage. Its that bump in your throat you feel going up as you sing upgrade scales. She said, If you can keep your portion-box raised(a) high in your thro at, your voice should get in the midst of a G and a middle C. Thats approximately one hundred sixty Hertz. Brandy Alexander and the way she looked saturnine the rest of the world into practical(prenominal) reality. She changed color from every naked angle. She cancelled reverse lightning with my one step. rose-cheeked with my beside. She glum silver and funds and then she was dropped bunghole us, gone(p). Poor, sad misdirect thing, child Katherine said, and she spat on the concrete floor. She looked at me craning my neck to see back down the hall, and she asked if I had any family. I wrote yeah, theres my human brother precisely hes dead fromAIDS. And she says, Well, thats for the outgo, then, isnt it? stick out to the hebdomad after Manuss last visit, last nub final, when Evie drops by the hospital. Evie looks at the glossies and dialogue to God and Jesus Christ. You know, Evie tells me crossways a pack of Vogues, and transport magazines in her lap she b rings me, I talked to the style and they said that if we re-do your portfolio theyll consider pickings you back for hand work. Evie means a hand model, cast cocktail rings and rhomb tennis bracelets and shit. ilk I expect to hear this. I cant talk. each I can eat is liquids. zippo forget look at me. Im occult. each I pauperization is psyche to ask me what happened. Then, Ill get on with my life. Evie tells the stack of magazines, I privation you to come live with me at my house when you get out. She unzips her prove base on the edge of my bed and goes into it with both hands. Evie says, Itll be fun. Youll see. I hate living all by my lonesome. And says, Ive already travel your things into my spare bedroom. even in her bulk, Evie says, Im on my way to a shoot. Any chance you accommodate any agency vouchers you can lend me? On my domiciliation with my pencil, I compile is that my pinafore oure article of clothing? And I twine the launchpad in her face. Yeah , she says, but I k radical you wouldnt mind. I compile but its a size six. I spell out and youre a size nine. Listen, Evie says. My call is for two oclock. wherefore dont I stop by some time when youre in a break away mood? talk to her watch, she says, Im so sorry things had to go this way. It wasnt all of it anybodys fault. every(prenominal) day in the hospital goes like this Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. child Katherine fall in mingled with. On television is one network running goose egg but infomercials all day and all night, and there we are, Evie and me, together.We got a raft of bucks. For the snack pulverization thing, we do these thumping laurels spokesmodel smiles, the ones where you make your face a big space heater. Were wearing these jewelled dresses that when you get them under a spotlight, the dress flashes like a million reporters pickings your picture. So glamorous. Im standing there in this twenty-pound dress, doing this big smile and dropping animal wastes into the plexiglass funnel shape on top of the Num Num sting Factory. This thing respectable poops out unforesightful canapes like crazy, and Evie has to wade out into the studio audience and get folks to eat the canapes.Folks provide eat anything to get on television. Then, off camera, Manus goes, Lets go sailing. And I go, Sure. It was so dull, my not astute what was casualty all along. heighten to Brandy on a sheepfold chair sound inside the home of the course healer, geological formation her fingernails with the chump pad from a book of matches. Her long legs could squeeze a cycle in half, and the healthy lower limit of her is cower wrapped in leopard-print arrival terry cloth well(p) scream to get out. The dustup healer says, concord your glottis partially open as you speak. Its the way Marilyn Monroe render expert birthday to professorship Kennedy.It makes your breath get around your vocal chords for a more feminine, bewildered quality. The entertain leads me past times in my cardboard slippers, my unshakable bandages and dusky funk, and Brandy Alexander looks up at the last possible flash bulb and winks. God should be able to wink that good. corresponding mortal taking your picture. implement me joy. fuddle me fun. put crosswise me love. Flash. Angels in heaven should blow kisses the way Brandy Alexander does and lights up the rest of my week. Back in my room, I economize who is she? No one you should exhaust any truck with, the nurse says. Youll construct problems enough as it is. but who is she? I bring out. If you can recollect it, the nurse says, that one is person different every week. Its after that sister Katherine starts match qualification. To save me from Brandy Alexander, she offers me the lawyer without a nose. She offers a mountain go up dentist whose fingers and facial features are eaten down to unforesightful hard glossy bumps by frostbite. A missioner with dark patches of som e tropic fungus save under his skin. A artisan who leaned over a stamp battery the moment it explode and the acid left his lips and cheeks gone and his white-livered dentition m petition in a permanent snarl.I look at the nuns matrimony ring and pull through i guess you got the last genuinely furbish guy. The whole time I was in the hospital, no way could I fall in love. I effective couldnt go there yet. pipe down down for less. I didnt indirect request to extremity through anything. I didnt want to pick up any pieces. overturn my expectations. pay back on with my less-than life. I didnt want to feel break-dance closely being inactive alive. bring compensating. I undecomposed treasured my face fixed, if that was possible, which it wasnt. When its time to reintroduce me to solid sustenances, their words again, its pureed cowardly and forced carrots. deflower foods. Everything mashed or powder or down in the mouth.You are what you eat. The nurse brings m e the personal classify ads from a advancedsletter. infant Katherine peers down her nose and through her glasses to read Guys quest slim, sporting girls for fun and romance. And, yes, its true, not one single guy specifically excludes fearsome maimed girls with ontogenesis medical exam bills. baby Katherine tells me, These men you can salve to in prison dont need to know how you in reality look. Its middling too frequently trouble to try and explain my feelings to her in writing. sister Katherine reads me the single columns fleck I spoonful up my roast beef. She offers arsonists. Burglars. assess cheats.She says, You in all probability dont want to date a rapist, not right off. cryptographs that desperate. betwixt the lone(prenominal) men foot interdict for armed looting and second-degree manslaughter, she stop to ask whats the matter. She takes my hand and duologue to the name on my charge plate bracelet, such a hand model I am already, cocktail rings, fictile I. D. bracelets so beautiful even a bride of Christ cant take her eyeball off them. She says, Whatre you feeling? This is hilarious. She says, Dont you want to fall in love? The photographer in my head says move on me patience. Flash. Give me control. Flash. The situation is I construct half a face.Inside my bandages, my face fluent bleeds petty small spots of blood onto the scads of cotton. cardinal specify, the one making rounds every break of day who checks my dressing, he says my appall is keep mum weeping. Thats his word. I silent cant talk. I fool no career. I can only eat baby food. Nobody exit ever look at me like Ive won a big prize ever again. no(prenominal)ntity, I draw up on my pad. nothings wrong. You attainnt mourned, sis Katherine says. You need to withdraw a good cry and then get on with your life. Youre being too calm about this. I preserve dont make me laugh, my face, I print, the doctor sez my contuse allow for weep.Still, at least somebody had noticed. This whole time, I was calm. I was the picture of calm. I never, never panicked. I byword my blood and hooter and teething sprinkle all over the facia the moment after the accident, but delirium is hopeless without an audience. Panicking by yourself is the same as express joy alone in an complete room. You feel really silly. The instant the accident happened, I k newly I would die if I didnt take the next exit off the freeway, turn right on nor-west Gower, go cardinal blocks, and turn into the La Paloma memorialisation Hospital touch path place lot. I lay. I took my keys and my bag and I walked.The glass doors slid aside onwards I could see myself reflected in them. The crowd inside, all the state delay with humble legs and strangling babies, they all slid aside, too, when they saw me. later that, the intravenous morphine. The tiny operating room manicure scissors cut my dress up. The flesh-tone pocketable patch panties. The police photos. The detective, the one who searched my car for cram fragments, the guy whod seen all those concourse get their heads cut off in half-open car windows, he comes back one day and says theres nothing left to find. Birds, seagulls, peradventure magpies, too.They got into the car where it was parked at the hospital, through the conf utilize window. The magpies ate all of what the detective calls the loco tissue evidence. The bones they probably carried away. You know, miss, he says, to break them on quavers. For the marrow. On the pad, with the pencil, I write ha, ha, ha. track to besides before my bandages come off, when a actors line healer says I should get down on my knees and give thanks God for passing my tongue in my head, unharmed. We sit in her cinderblock office with half the room make full by her trade name desk between us, and the healer, she teaches me how a ventriloquist makes a knocker talk.You see, the ventriloquist cant let you see his mouth mo ve. He cant really use his lips, so he presses his tongue against the pileus of his mouth to make words. quite a of a window, the healer has a poster of a pussycat cover in spaghetti above the words accentuate the supportive She says that if you cant make a certain sound without using your lips, modify a similar sound, the healer says for instance, use the sound eth rather of the sound eff. The linguistic context in which you use the sound forget make you understandable. Id rather be thishing, the healer says. hen go thishing, I write. thank you. And then I ran away. This is after my new cotton crepe sundress arrives from Espre. infant Katherine stood over me all morning time with a change surface iron out until my hair was this big butter creme frappe hairdo, this big off-the-face hairdo. Then Evie brought some make up and did my eye. I put on my spicy new dress and couldnt retain to start sweating. This whole pass, I hadnt seen a mirror or if I did I never cog nise the reflection was me. I hadnt seen the police photos. When Evie and infant Katherine were done, I say, De bodge iowa mist geoff. And Evie says, Youre welcome. babe Katherine says, tho you safe ate lunch. Its clear enough, nobody understands me here. I say, Kong wimmer nay pee golly. And Evie says, Yeah, these are your shoes, but Im not bother them any. And child Katherine says, No, no accouterments yet, but we can write to prisoners after youve had your nap, dear. They left. And. I left, alone. And. How bad could it be, my face? And sometimes being mutilated can work to your advantage. all(a) those masses now with piercings and tattoos and brandings and scarification . . . What I mean is, attention is attention.Going outside is the first time I feel Ive helpless something. I mean, a whole summer had unless disappeared. every those pool parties and cunning around on metal-flake speed-flesh-tone lumps of ice in the deep-freeze bin. I nose around until I find the biggest flop, and I sinew it up baby style in its sensationalistic plastic netting. I haul myself up to the front of the store, right through the check stands, and nobody halt me. Nobodys even flavour. Theyre all study those tablet newspapers as if theres mystic favourable there. Sejgfn di ofo utnbg, I say. Nei wucj iswisn sdnsud. Nobody looks. EVSF UYYB IUH, I say in my best ventriloquist voice. Nobody even talks. peradventure sightly the clerks talk. Do you charter two pieces of I. D.? theyre asking people writing checks. Fgjrn iufnv si vuv, I say. Xidi cniwuw sis sacnc Then it is, its right then a boy says, meet Everybody whos not looking and not talking clams breathing. The inadequate boy says, nip Mom, look over there That monsters steal food Everybody gets all shrunken up with embarrassment. completely their heads drop down into their shoulders the way theyd look on crutches. Theyre reading pill headlines harder than ever.Monster little girl Steal s cheery vacation Bird And there I am, deep deep-fried in my cotton crepe dress, a 25 pound misfire in my arms, the turkey sweating, my dress almost transparent. My nipples are rock kind is wearing this fruitless Versace kind of army tank dress with this seasons overcome feel of despondency and corrupt resignation. dead body conscious yet humiliated. blessed but crippled. The sprite supreme is the most beautiful anything Ive ever seen so I sound movement there to watch from the doorway. Men, the healer says, evince the adjectival when they speak. The therapist says, For instance, a man would say, You are so attractive, today. Brandy is so attractive you could whoop her head off and put it on blue velvet in the window at Tiffanys and somebody would buy it for a million dollars. A woman would say, You are so attractive, today, the therapist says. at a time, you, Brandy. You say it. straining the modifier, not the adjective. Brandy Alexander looks her glowing blue berry bush eyes at me in the doorway and says, constitute girl, you are so Godawful ugly. Did you let an elephant sit on your face or what? Brandys voice, I barely hear what she says.At that instant, I just enjoy Brandy so much. Everything about her feels as good as being beautiful and looking in a mirror. Brandy is my instant violet family. My only everything to live for. I go, Cfoieb svns ois, and I pile the cold, wet turkey into the address therapists lap, her sitting pinned under twenty-five pounds of dead warmness in her roll-around leather desk chair. From juxtaposed down the hallway, Sister Katherine is yelling, Yoohoo Mriuvn wsi sjaoi aj, I go, and cycles/second the therapist and her chair into the hallway. I say, Jownd wine sm fdo dcncw. The speech therapist, shes smiling up at me and says, You dont stomach to thank me, its just my job is all. The nuns arrived with the man and his I. V. stand, a new man with no skin or crushed features or all his teeth bashed out , a man whod be perfect for me. My one true love. My misrepresented or mutilated or ghoulish prince charming. My deplorably ever after. My horrid future. The unspeakable rest of my life. I drub the office door and lock myself inside with Brandy Alexander. Theres the speech therapists notebook calculator on her desk, and I pussy it. save me, I write, and fly high it in Brandys face.I write please. terpsichore to Brandy Alexanders hands. This always starts with her hands. Brandy Alexander puts a hand out, one of those pilary pigknuckled hands with the veins of her arm displace and squeezed to the elbow with bracelet bracelets of every color. Just by herself, Brandy Alexander is such a shift in the smash stock(a) that no one thing stands out. not even you. So, girl, Brandy says. What all happened to your face? Birds. I write birds, birds ate my face. And I start to laugh. Brandy doesnt laugh. Brandy says, Whats that so-called to mean? And Im be serene laughing. was ride on the freeway, I write. And Im assuage laughing. someone shot a 30-caliber poke from a rifle. the heater tore my entire visit off my face. Still laughing. i came to the hospital, I write. i did not die. Laughing. they couldnt put my reprimand back because seagulls had eaten it. And I stop laughing. Girl, your handwriting is terrible, Brandy says. Now tell me what else. And I start to cry. what else, I write, is i rich person to eat baby food. i cant talk. i strike no career. i mystify no home. my fiance left me. nobody leave goating look at me. all my clothes, my best friend finished them.Im still crying. What else? Brandy says. give notice (of) me everything. a boy, I write. a little boy in the supermarket called me a monster. Those glowing blueberry eyes look right at me the way no eyes assume all summer. Your perception is all fucked up, Brandy says. alone you can talk about is spyglass thats already happened. She says, You cant base your life on the pa st or the present. Brandy says, You open to tell me about your future. Brandy Alexander, she stands up on her flamboyant lame leg-hold trap shoes. The queen supreme takes a grace conjure out of her traction bag and naps the extort open to look at the mirror inside. That therapist, those black lead lips say, the speech therapist can be so stupid about these situations. The big gemmed arm muscles of Brandy sit me down in the seat still hot from her ass, and she holds the narrow so I can see inside. kinda of face powder, its full of white capsules. Where there should be a mirror, theres a close up photo of Brandy Alexander smiling and looking terrific. Theyre Vicodins, dear, she says. Its the Marilyn Monroe school of euphony where enough of any drug pull up stakes cure any disease. She says, debate in.Help yourself. The thin and unremitting goddess that she is, Brandys picture smiles up at me over a sea of painkillers. This is how I met Brandy Alexander. This is how I found the cogency not to get on with my former life. This is how I found the heroism not to pick up the same old pieces. Now, those graphite lips say, You are going to tell me your business relationship like you just did. economize it all down. split up that business relationship over and over. give out me your sad-assed tosh all night. That Brandy queen points a long impecunious finger at me. When you understand, Brandy says, that what youre telltale(a) is just a story.It isnt fortuity anymore. When you brighten the story youre say is just words, when you can just split up it up and throw your past in the trashcan, Brandy says, then well figure out who youre going to be. CHAPTER F O U R take a hop to the Canadian frame. Jump to the ternion of us in a rented capital of Nebraska Town Car, delay to drive reciprocal ohm from Vancouver, British Columbia, into the joined States, time lag, with Signore Romeo in the drivers seat, waiting with Brandy next to him i n the front, waiting, with me alone in the back. The police boast microphones, Brandy tells us.The plan is if we make it through the tolerance, well drive south to Seattle where there are nightclubs and dance clubs where gogo boys and go-go girls will line up to buy the pockets of my purse clean. We have to be quiet because the police, they have microphones on both sides of the throttle, unite States and Canadian. This way, they can take heed in on people waiting to cross. We could have Cuban cigars. strong fruit. Diamonds. Diseases. Drugs, Brandy says. Brandy, she tells us to shut up a mile before the border, and we wait in line, quiet. Brandy unwinds the yards and yards of rocade scarf around her head. Brandy, she shakes her hair down her back and ties the scarf over her shoulders to shroud her torpedo cleavage. Brandy switches to simple gold earrings. She takes off her pearls and puts on a little chain with a gold cross. This is a moment before the border guard. Your natio nalities? the border-guard guy sitting inside his little window, behind his estimator depot with his clipboard and his blue suit behind his reverberate sunglasses, and behind his gold tag says. Sir, Brandy says, and her new voice is as savourless and drawled out as grit without table salt or butter.She says, Sir, we are citizens of the United States of America, what used to be called the greatest bucolic on macrocosm until the homosexuals and child pornographers Your names? says the border guy. Brandy leans across Alfa to look up at the border guy, My husband, she says, is an costless man. Your name, please, he says, no inquiry looking up our certify plate, purpose its a rental car, rented in Billings, Montana, three weeks ago, perchance even decision the truth about who we really are. by chance decision bare after bulletin from all over western Canada about three nut cases take drugs at big houses up for ale. perchance all this is spooling onto his computer screen, perchance none of it. You never know. I am married, Brandy is almost yelling to get his attention. I am the married woman of the clergyman sea scooter Alexander, she says, still half situated across Alfas lap. And this, she says and draws the invisible line from her smile to Alfa, this is my son-in-law, solidification Thomas. Her big hand travel toward me in the backseat. This, she says, is my daughter, Bubba-Joan. few days, I hate it when Brandy changes our lives without warning. Sometimes, twice in one day, you have to live up to a new identity.A new name. untested relationships. Handicaps. Its hard to remember who I started this road trip being. No doubt, this is the kind of filtrate the endlessly mutating AIDS virus must(prenominal) feel. Sir? the border guy says to Seth, at a time Alfa Romeo, erstwhile dock Manhattan, one time Nash Rambler, at a time well Fargo, erstwhile Eberhard Faber. The guard says, Sir, are you bringing any purchases back with you into t