Attached Chp. 7-9

Chapter 7

That next day she arrived at the hospital at ten a.m. on the dot. She hadn’t slept a wink the night before and desperately needed a cup of coffee before she did anything. She had stayed up all night with Sherry and Charlie talking. They had told their life stories one by one and then shared secrets while watching the sun rise. Things were looking up, it seemed. Charlie and Sherry had advised Mary to go back to Memorial Baptist Hospital and seek out the nurse or doctor who had delivered her. Then she could ask questions about her family and maybe see records, specifics. She knew it wouldn’t be too hard to find the person who had delivered her seeing as it isn’t every day that Siamese twins are born in Tennessee, especially where one is alive and one is an incomplete mass of cells and puss and blood sucking like a vampire on the surviving one.

Mary was accustomed to the looks of repulsion and disgust at the sight of her grossly abnormal body with some sort of continent branching off the side. But she was apparently deceived when she thought that a hospital would be different; she had convinced herself that they would be different, that they were used to misshapen little shits like her. But then again how many times are Siamese twins born in the state of Tennessee, yeah that’s why they’re all staring. It’s not usual that you see a young girl connected to a fat unformed baby complete with dangling tentacles that were once meant to be limbs just swinging with the rhythm of her hips. As you pass you have to sneak a glance just to have a story to tell about the thing you saw while leaving your yearly doctor’s check up. But Mary acts accordingly and keeps her eyes on the floor so that people can look at her all they want. It’s just easier if you look at the floor. When you acknowledge that you know they’re staring it gets even more awkward, and discomfiture is something that Mary tries to avoid at all costs; even if she must sacrifice her own dignity to do so.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity, Mary reached the front desk. Behind the desk sat a woman of about seventy years old, one of those plastic surgery granny whores who tries her best to look younger than her granddaughter. What isn’t plain to see is that this old bag of Collagen and Botox has been sleeping with her son in law. He’s actually been staying with her at her condo in the inner-city while his wife stays home with their three children thinking that he is at an important business merger in Florida. Don’t worry. This grandma she’ll get what she deserves. Not from Mary but from her own daughter who will strap her mother to a chair in her basement and pump those chemicals into her body until it just can’t handle anymore. The very chemicals that dearest mother so enjoyed will be the very chemicals that enjoy the very last of mother. As for the husband well that’s a story for another time and place. “How may I help you?” says the old bag, her mouth so tight that it looks as if the corners of her mouth could at any moment split up to her cheek bones. “Yes I hope so. I was born here eighteen years ago and I was given up for adoption. And I was hoping that you could help me by telling me some information about my parents and maybe give me the name of the nurse who delivered me?”

“No can do. We aren’t allowed to share patient information. It’s a part of our patient doctor confidentiality agreement,” stated the bag of Botox all holier than thou. “Well can I at least have the name of the nurse who delivered me? I have some questions for her,” stated Mary politely. “No and no more questions. I’m tired of wasting my energy talking to you when it’s getting nowhere.” Mary defeated, began to start the long journey back to the front lobby of the hospital where she would then have to call a taxi. “Don’t let her talk to you like that. Don’t let that plastic bitch who probably can’t even feel pain anymore unless it’s in the shape of a Botox needle talk to you like you are worthless. Go back and demand it. And if she still resists then you’ll have to give her something to complain about,” ranted the voice in Mary’s mind, Cara’s voice. This wasn’t the first time she had heard this voice, she had heard it countless times. It was in a way the devil on her shoulder except instead of standing on her shoulder Cara was a lumpy slimy mess of flesh connected to her body. No it wasn’t the first time she had heard it, but it was the first time she listened. “Excuse me, ma’am. I think there was a misunderstanding or we got off on the wrong foot or something. I really need the name of that nurse so that I can begin my life. I really need to find out who my family is. Please,” begged Mary. “Listen, you homeless sack of horseshit, go back to your family at the freak show. If your parents gave you up for adoption what makes you think that they’ll wanna see you now that you’ve grown up and gotten…nastier.”

“Yeah you’re right. One thing, this cheek, the one on your left, it’s looking a little bit baggier than your right one. You might wanna check on that,” Mary said with a façade of care, finally beginning to hit her stride.”Oh shit. I just got these done yesterday. Excuse me for a moment.” As the old bag of bones and skin walked to the ladies room to see if her cheek had sunken in like a soufflé Mary snatched her I.D. card off the desk and walked down the hall through the door marked “Authorized Personnel Only.” Normally someone would have stopped her to see if she was lost but who would question Mary? No, no one even looked at her for longer than a few seconds, just long enough to realize what she was. When Mary found the elevator she got on and went straight to the basement where she guessed they kept the records. She was right and after a few minutes of searching she found her file. Inside was a copy of her birth certificate but neither her mother nor father had signed it just the nun who took her into the orphanage who had given her the name Marilynn and signed on as her legal guardian until eighteen. Sifting through the rest of the papers she found the name of the nurse who had delivered her and she then began to search for the nurses file. She strolled through aisles and aisles of alphabetized records and medical jargon, much like looking for a needle in a haystack. Finally after hours and hours of non-stop searching she found her file, Nurse Peggy Canter. Putting the file in her purse, Mary got back on the elevator and prepared for the long journey to the front lobby of the hospital. “Good Job,” Cara whispered as Mary walked by the front desk, the mummified bitch still examining her reflection in her computer monitor.





Chapter 8

Mary opened her eyes as if in slow-motion. She hoped against all hope that the scene before her eyes would be something other than the monotonous hospital lodging. Slowly, slowly, slowly she opened her eyes with such gradual increments that she was somewhat startled when before her lay a scramble of blue diamonds spiraling in all different directions upon the hospital sheet, immediately shutting them with such force that the skin beside her eyes wrinkled into a mess of mountains erected on her temples. In the dark void of space that lay in front of her obstructed vision, blue diamonds seemed to taunt and tease her appearing, disappearing, waning, and waxing.“I can’t wake up one more day in this godforsaken place. I have to get the fuck out of here,” gradually opening her eyes. Mary had lost track of time long ago; whether she had been in the hospital for one week or one year she didn’t know. All she knew was that her face was back to its normal shape and color and her bruising was getting better every day. She still had two broken ribs, a broken wrist, and a broken collar bone that had to heal before she could begin what it was that she had finally realized was the solution to all of her problems. She felt like a discarded and diseased Thanksgiving turkey. On the outside she was fine, getting better every day, but inside, if someone were to cut her open, all that could be found would be broken bones, blood, and maybe a hemorrhage or two. No room for stuffing in there and no desire for a lost cause turkey. That’s what Mary was…a lost cause turkey.

Her mind kept referring to that idiom that they teach in grade school, the one that says, “if it isn’t one thing, it’s another, and another.” Mary just kept thinking how big of a fucking lie she had been told. Those stupid old hags in elementary school, she thought, using that phrase as if things happen one after another. Hell no they don’t. Why was it that all of her “one things” had hit her at the same time? She didn’t have any time in between to prepare for the next big shit show; no, it all just hit her in the face at once, both literally and figuratively. The head pains had been more frequent lately. Not only that, but Cara was talking more and more often, with more intensity than usual. When a new nurse entered Mary’s room Cara began another powerful discourse telling Mary to take command, to take charge, to kill, resembling that of a preacher giving one of those infamous speeches. The ones that begin with Jesus’ sacrifice and end with you burning in Hell if you don’t except and love him for that sacrifice. Yeah that speech that made you sweat when you were young sitting on the front row of the church sanctuary, so close that as the pastor’s voice rose and fell you could feel kernels of wet, sticky saliva hitting the sides and front of your face. A sprinkler of religious terminology and testimony making your sausage sized fingers turn purple from the pressure of your hands squeezing each other so tight for some sort of comfort. Your breathing so stifled by the bible-beating old woman’s perfume sitting to your right that you have to struggle and rise a bit off the back of your seat to get any satisfaction within your lungs. So uncomfortable yet so guilty that throughout the course of the sermon you looked all around to see if anyone was looking at you, noticing that you were red handed. But no one was focused on you no one except the preacher who oddly enough always seemed to land right on you when scanning over the crowd of countless people, yeah one of those gazes that seems to pierce right into your soul. Yeah it was one of those speeches, not even a speech at all but more of an elegy, a speech that contains so much passion and pressure that you feel as if you will either die from stress or be guilty for the rest of your life if you don’t follow through. Yes, it’s safe to say that Cara had an insatiable craving for blood it seemed. That vampire that was once sucking the blood and life from Mary was now also sucking the life from life itself through Mary.

Damn, the tables sure do turn fast. One day you wake up in full control of your life, and the next minute your dead twin meatball of flesh that’s connected to your side is running everything, running all your shit through you. Mary was a whirlwind of emotions residing somewhere between frightened and scared shitless leaning more toward the latter of the two. She was going to get out of that hospital, even if it killed her. What did she have left to lose anyway, she was already half way there. But she knew she could do it, she knew she had to do it, for herself, for Sherry, and for that sad sack of shit that was there through it all. If she wanted to get back at that bastard she had to leave sooner than later. Sooner being the only feasible option.































Chapter 9

I can remember after I was born there was a long period of time where no one stood over my crib in the hospital nursery. The other kids would cry and someone would immediately come to the rescue, but if I cried no one came. I learned quickly that crying wouldn’t get me through life. Sister Nancy Lee was my savior. She rescued me. Even as a baby I can remember feeling extremely lonely in the nursery. So many people around but none of them showing me any attention, any love. After I was brought back to the New Haven for Hope Orphanage I was cared for by many loving, motherly women. I remember one time when I was growing up, around the time when I had just learned to speak and could walk a pretty good ways without falling to one side weighted down by the anchor of flesh on my side, Cara, I cried when one of the sisters put me to bed for the night. I tried and tried to get out of my crib and finally succeeded, the whole time calling for my mama. When I finally found the sister that I thought was my mother she took my little tan and pink palm and swatted it two good times with a ruler. That was my punishment for getting out of bed. Never again did I call her mama. It was that moment when I began to associate the word mother with pain. I don’t think that I could ever have possibly imagined the amount of pain that my own mother would cause me in the future.

As I grew older I became aware of my fucked up situation and so did everyone else. In Kindergarten I didn’t have any friends, not that were real anyway. Like any young child I made my own fantasy world, complete with imaginary friends and Cara, Cara was always there. In my imagination Cara and I were two different individuals no longer connected half way down our bodies. Yes, we were still twins, but she was just as different from me as she was in the real world, her being a dead ball of decaying flesh and me being a living, breathing human being. Even as a child Cara was a controlling bitch, just another ridge of contention that arose between us. But as a child I let things go by without much contemplation; it wasn’t until I was a great deal older that my secret hate for Cara began to arise, like vomit chunks and stomach acid arising in your throat in one of those nasty burps that leaves a sour, rancid taste in your mouth. I still recall, like it were yesterday, that Cara eliminated every one of my imaginary friends, one by one she got rid of them all except for Ellen; I still don’t know what she did to them, she probably killed them, trying to wipe them from my memory forever. There was something about Ellen that made her strange, different, but despite Cara’s fucked up little assassination attempts Ellen always stuck around. That drove Cara over the edge and during that time I couldn’t get one moment alone. I believe with all my heart that if she had gotten the chance and had had the means she would have gotten rid of me to, but that little bitch couldn’t. Without me she would be nothing, have nothing.

One day Cara and I were gonna collide, and when we did it would be bad, really bad, like that one kid. You might have heard of him, he was on the news right after it happened- quite tragic really. He had made his best friend a birthday cake on a regular Friday morning right after Christmas, complete with four layers. One of those really nice cakes that looks like it came from a baker, but, to clarify in his memory, it didn’t; he made it. He had slathered on the vanilla frosting; he had even added pink icing to the edges of each tier as a sort of decorative boundary. All of this he had done for his friend in order to make it the best eighteenth birthday ever. If only he could have gotten there in one piece. On his way he was jamming out to some of the bass pounding hip hop that today’s generation enjoys so and was cut off on the interstate by a semi- truck. He had veered into the other lane to avoid hitting it. Unfortunately he ran into a hummer that, in turn, collided with the middle interstate barrier. He could have survived all of this if what follows had not happened. Sadly seven other cars added to the accident before all the damage was done. When the wreckage was cleared all that was left of him was a bloody mess of limbs and cake bits. It had been nearly impossible to make out what was blood and what was icing as the paramedics searched through the leftovers to see if anything was left to identify the victims by. When his parents got the call, they were devastated. The only possession that the paramedics had found was his class ring covered in sticky pink icing still surrounding his limp, dead middle finger. The parents had wanted it that way, had wanted his finger to remain within the golden band that had all of his accomplishments scrawled upon it. And every year after on the anniversary of his death they brought a cake to the site of the accident. Yes, stopping in rush hour traffic to place a white and pink rimmed cake along the edge of the interstate, food for the homeless, homage to the dead. We, they didn’t continue the tradition for every year after because additional tragedy hit the family in other ways as years went by. The remaining members got torn from each other, torn from themselves, and torn from life, but as I’m sure you already know, that is a story for another day.

As the years trudged along I grew and so did Cara. If I grew taller she grew wider and more stretched out. Sometimes I would stare at her lifelessly rotund body covered with stretch marks and half believe that I was connected to a zebra fetus. But no, a zebra fetus would have been more interesting and less of a burden than Cara, and I was simply not lucky enough to have had anything as miraculous as that. At least that would have made people want to be my friend because let’s face it, who doesn’t want to be friends with the half zebra, half human girl? However, instead, I received the brunt of all the jokes, the worst being in second grade…