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The novel I'm writing continued with chapters 4-6 added. Review Please! |
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Chapter 4 The Chinese once said that good things come in twos, but do they really? And when referring to twos were they talking about pairs? Yes, yes you’re sitting there thinking to yourself, “…life would be different without pairs. I don’t know if I could live one day without a pair of socks to match my pair of pants and my pair of sunglasses which are all the same color sea foam green.” Or maybe you’re saying, “Daddy just bought me the cutest pair of pearl earrings that I plan to wear on my double date with Rick, Cindi, and Patrick. OMG.” And I’m sure this little spoiled brat thinks that her pair of earrings makes the world go round, until she wants something new, because daddy will buy this future slut anything to keep her from becoming an alcoholic adulteress like mommy who never comes home unless she needs money. Again, that is a story for another day. For a moment put yourself in Mary’s shoes or maybe you know a twin, put yourself in his or her shoes. The nouns shoes being mildly ironic because shoes also come in pairs, go figure. Do you think they like being constantly grouped together as a thing, being referred to as another one of your pairs. “Here are my pairs of shoes, and my pairs of earrings, and my pairs of sunglasses, and low and behold my pair of twins.” My guess is no. They long to feel as if they have an identity, a heartbeat; they long to feel loved as an individual. And this is part of the reason that Mary has a huge problem with pairs because she, honestly, feels as though she relates more to a pair of shoes than to real humans. But Mary is different from other twins, which brings us to the beginning of Mary’s tragically cathartic story. I, Marilynn Marie Haunter, was born on February 27 of 1984 in Nashville, Tennessee at Memorial Baptist Hospital. People have always thought it unusual that I can remember back to the very day I was born. I can honestly say that I’ve never given it much thought; I guess I always figured that it was a twin thing. Anyway, I was born with an unusual circumstance. I was born as a twin but without a twin. They call my abnormality a Parasitic Thoraco-omphalopagus, which is where Siamese twins are born connected from the upper to the lower chest. Unfortunately the parasitic part means that she didn’t form completely. In reality she is a lump of cells connected to my side which I have to lug around every day, a molar mass. Compare it to the analogy of Santa’s sack of toys being fused to his back. He still has to deliver to all those kids just with a however many ton pound bag weighing him down. In my case, Cara, I named her, is my sack of toys. We share a heart, liver, and digestive tract, so the chance of finding a doctor that will separate this sad sack of lard from my side is slim to none. At first I loved her, but that was at first mind you. I recently went back to that hospital; it’s been run into the ground by some company that bought it out. They say that pretty soon there’s going to be a new hospital nearby to replace the old one. I’m just lucky I got there before that happened. Chapter 5 February 28, 2002: Mary was finally an adult, yes she was still technically a teenager but an adult nevertheless. In her mind her eighteenth birthday had always been the climax of her novel, the peak of her story. She had reassured herself since childhood that once she turned eighteen life would turn around for her and things would begin to look up. Needless to say she didn’t feel the way a biker feels after a 10K or a performer feels after a Broadway show is complete on her birthday. She felt the same as every other day. Yesterday had been her last day at the orphanage and she had left with a trail of bitter sweet goodbyes and some money which was a customary gift for orphans when they turned “of age.” She had used almost all of her money to stay in a motel that night. The nun’s at the orphanage had promised her that she would always have a place to stay if she ever needed it, but she was young, stupid and in a state of denial. Aloud she said, “You need to get your bearings; you have to get a feel for the real world if you’re ever going to live in it.” That was just her juvenile way of saying I have money for the first time in my life and I’m eighteen; I’m going to do what I want. The hotel she picked was christened Drake Motel with the tag line “Stay Where The Stars Stay.” One look at the dump and Mary had serious doubts as to whether any star had ever even considered staying there, but she wasn’t a star and didn’t have much money. Under the circumstances, this abode of stars was a god send for her at fifteen dollars a night. Sure her door didn’t lock, there were stains all over the bed spread, there was a noose in the closet covered with some sort of sticky clearish, white liquid, and she had to share a bathroom with her neighbors, but what can you expect at fifteen a pop. If you’re wondering, this isn’t where Mary’s OCD started. It along with her obsession with the number two and things that come in pairs was rooted to her childhood at the orphanage. And no this is not where Mary became the cold hearted callused bitch that you met at the hospital; she worked her way up to that. The one that kicked Nurse Whoever in the face; yeah that one. Her first night in the real world and nothing was looking up, it was more like looking down. She had climbed her Mount Everest just to get to the top and realize that she wasn’t even on Mount Everest, but on some insignificant hill in the back woods of Kentucky. At least that’s what she felt like. She stripped the grungy old hotel bed of all of its bedding and flipped the mattress just to find that on the other side was a huge blood spot. Either someone pushed out a baby on this bed or someone was shot here; take your pick. Need I say that she didn’t sleep there? Instead she slept in a chair at the table in the far side of the room. Here she felt semi-safe. She was far away from the unlocked door where at any minute someone could walk in and rape or kill her and far away from the AIDS infested bed. From inside she could hear the occasional screams and gunshots, the most comforting things to hear on your first night alone in the real world. Trying to calm her frazzled nerves Mary turned on the T.V. only to find that the abode of stars only offered the best selection of adult movies, something that she had never had any inclination to watch. With nothing else to do, Mary closed her bloodshot baby blues and tilted her head back. It helped to reflect she thought to herself. Reflection always yielded the answers to life’s problems. She had to prioritize. Where would she go; what would she do with this new found freedom in this new found world? As she was beginning to drift away into the swift current of her thoughts, she began to feel someone’s hot foul smelling breath upon her face. As she slowly opened her eyes, there was a very manly woman whose lips were almost touching hers. She was wearing very large pants that slowly fell as she walked with a wife beater tank top and a purple bandana around her faux hawk spiked hair. Smiling, “She’s alive!” “Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?” “Hi. I’m Charlie and this is my girlfriend Sherry,” said the manly woman pointing to a very pretty woman who was leaned over the back of Mary’s chair looking straight down at her scalp. The woman was wearing a burnt orange cocktail dress with a orange boa and orange high heeled shoes. “She has bad dandruff. Can you say Selsum Blue?” The woman began to scratch at Mary’s scalp with the tip of one long French manicured nail. “Hey. Don’t touch me, Okay? I’m not looking for trouble. I just came here to stay for one night!” insisted Mary nervously. “Don’t worry baby. We ain’t gonna hurt you; maybe we’ll just rough you up a bit,” said Sherry. “Please, Please. Don’t hurt me. I’ll give you all my money. Whatever you want, take it.” “Don’t get your diaper in a wad baby; Sherry’s just giving you a hard time. Ain’t that right Sherry, Sherry baby. Sheeerrrrry. Sherry baby. Shheeeeeeerryy Baaabbby. Sherry Baby. Sheeeery Can You Come Out Tonight?” They both began hysterically laughing while Mary just stood there puzzled. “What’s so funny? Are you laughing at me?” Mary asked. “Sweetie that’s the song ‘Sherry’ by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. You know, Frankie Valli? Why would we be laughing at you?” “Don’t act like you don’t see it. It’s obvious that there is something wrong with me. I’m a fucking deformed freak.” “Babe we don’t judge. We all have something that we are ashamed of,” said Sherry in the most sincere voice that Mary had ever heard. “What do you have to hide, “inquired Mary. As if waiting for a cue Sherry pulled up her dress revealing a big bulge in her panties. “Well for starters I’m a man and I’m ashamed of it. That’s why I dress like this.” It had been the beginning of a beautiful friendship and after that Mary never made the mistake of staying at the Drake motel again but visited often to see her only friends, besides her sack of toys-Cara. Chapter 6 Coming to with a jolt, Mary was back in her drab room at the hospital where her face was the color of Barney and the size of a balloon. Everything felt as if it had been repeatedly rolled through a meat processor, much like that book “The Jungle” about the cleanliness of food production during the Industrial Revolution or something like that where a person gets ground up in the meat, it’s funny because I wouldn’t be surprised if people in today’s society where being served human meat. What do we really know about the things we are being served when we go to fast food restaurants other than the fact that it tastes good? It’s sad that people in the Industrial Revolution cared more about what they were eating than we do in today’s advanced society. But that’s a story for another day, a story for another book. Right now it’s about Mary who was feeling massive amounts of pain and having a revelation simultaneously. Her reflection had brought her to the answer that she was looking for. She had to go visit Sherry and Charlie. She had a plan and only they could help her follow it through. |
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