Vanity Kills, page 6
15
“You’re in great hands,” Tate says reassuringly as she guides Jack to a cushion on the couch in the main room. “Walsh is a miracle worker. I’ve known him a long time. My mother was a volunteer in one of his oncology trials about twelve years ago. The doc, he cured her cancer. Stage four. Complete remission. We got another seven years with her because of it.” She strains to set him down safely and stands back up. “She passed away from pneumonia a few years back.”
“What kinda cancer did she have?” Mick asks bluntly.
“Adenocarcinoma,” she says, adding for clarification, “colo-rectal.”
She watches Jack strain to sit. The majority of his face is wrapped in bandages and he winces a little at the discomfort as he settles in.
Mick taps Jack on the knee with the back of his gloved hand. “Hey Invisible Man, promise me you’ll put two between my eyes if my chocolate starfish ever revolts and tries to eat my body.”
Jack’s snicker turns into a painful hiss as he relaxes into the seat.
“Ms. Iris, I believe you’re the last one, hun.” Tate smiles. Iris stands and joins her, never taking her eyes off Jack.
“You guys know the drill by now. I’ll be next door if you need anything. I’ll come back tonight to check everyone’s vitals, freshen any bandages and administer more pain medication if anyone requires any. Make sure you guys write your journal entry for today, even if it just says ‘nothing new to report.’”
Mick salutes her. “Aye-aye, cap’n. ‘Da mummy over here’s in good hands. Don’ you worry ya’ pretty lil’ head, sha.”
16
Fisher stares into the mirror, inspecting the bandage on his elbow. He brushes a tattooed hand over it, tamping his fingers against the plastic exterior. He stares at his reflection and fluffs a spike of thinning, styled hair so that it looks fuller around his gaunt face. His body is bone thin and bird-like. His fragile figure doesn’t have an ounce of fat to spare. He glances over his skin, no longer seeing the individual tattoos that grace the majority of its surface, crawling up his neck to his jawline like black, blooming watercolor paint splotches.
He lifts his shirt to examine his dwindling waistline and wonders how many more meals he can miss without the others noticing. Wonders if maybe he should make a big show of something he won’t mind tasting twice and then excuse himself to scurry off and purge. He runs his hands along his ribs, feeling them like a xylophone beneath the thin barrier of skin, and smiles lovingly at his emaciated form before flicking off the light and heading out.
In the main room, several of the others have gathered, chatting among themselves. Fisher plops down on the couch beside Chase and stares across at the perpendicular couch. It seems like Alan is staring right at him, glaring with unblinking, hateful eyes. Fisher cocks a brow.
“Something I can help you with?”
At the sound of his voice, Alan whips his eyes to the opposite side of the room and it is then that he realizes Fisher hadn’t been the target he was locked onto. It was Chase.
Ignoring the interaction, Angie pulls her long locks to her milky cleavage and looks at Mick.
He waves his hands in a black fabric flurry. “I ain’t got all day, sweetheart. What it gon’ be?”
“Dare,” she sighs, “I guess.”
He claps his hands together in excitement, rubbing the fabric together as if he has some dastardly plan in mind. “Eitha’ ten push-ups, facin’ me, or fi’teen jumpin’ jacks.”
Iris swats him with a pillow, laughing. “You’re a pig.”
“She said dare. I gave her a simple dare. C’mon now.” He crosses his arms.
Angie’s cheeks turn red. “I’ll do you one better.” She stands, tugs her tight tank top down, revealing even more skin and smooths her short skirt. She stands in the middle of the gathering area and proceeds to do fifteen jumping jacks, kicking her feet wide, bountiful breasts bouncing. She punctuates the end of the final one by dropping straight to the ground in a full split. Everyone cheers.
Mick clutches at his heart comically and then fans himself. He claps hard as she stands, proud of herself.
“Cheer captain, y’all. Three years.” Angie bows deeply and her red hair fans in a wildly colorful display.
“Well done, girl. Well done, indeed. Yo’ turn.” Mick can’t stop clapping, impressed that she went the extra mile to show off instead of bowing out shyly.
Angie looks around the room and stops at Fisher. “Ahh, you haven’t gone yet. F-man, truth or dare?”
“Dare. All day, baby.”
She thinks for a moment and perches on the couch near Mick. “I dare you,” Angie looks around, “to show us the weirdest thing you can do with your body.”
He scoffs. “Pffft, shit. I thought it was gonna be something hard.” He stands in the middle of the groups and wrenches his wrists backwards and forwards far beyond where they should go. Some of them wince and groan, but he’s not done yet. He hooks his hands together behind his back and wriggles both elbows into wildly opposing angles, crinkling the taped-on bandages covering his elbows and forearms.
“Eww, that double-jointed shit freaks me out!” Angie covers her eyes and shivers visibly at the grotesque, but painless, sight.
He stares down at his feet and pops his knees backward like some sort of alien being.
“Oh, hell no.” Chase cries out, looking away, physically affected by the hyperextension of the joints. Fisher squirms until they snap back outward like a normal human knee.
“I think I’mma barf, dude.” Mick exclaims, staring off into the distance, dazed.
“Shit, that’s nothing. Wanna see something wild as hell?”
No one answers. Fisher, grinning, pulls off his shirt revealing his undernourished torso, pale white beneath the overhead hanging fixture.
“What, you got a third nipple or sum’n?” Mick still doesn’t want to look.
“Naw, I want to introduce y’all to my brother.” Fisher cups a hand under his right pectoralis and tugs on the muscle revealing several strange, hardened lumps beneath his skin with a stretch mark outline defining a soft edge. “His name is Hector.”
“What am I… what am I looking at here?” Iris tilts her head sideways.
“What is that? Looks like a tumor,” Alan adds with all the charm of a used toilet brush.
“It’s called a parasitic twin. He’s my little bro. My body absorbed most of him in the womb. See that?” He pokes at a fleshy lump divided by a straight indention. “That's his eye.” He pokes at the nub beside it. “There’s his little nose–”
“Alright, I officially hate this fuckin’ game.” Mick says rolling off with a dazed look on his face.
“Why isn’t it bandaged?” Angie seems totally confused.
“What do you mean?” Fisher is being genuine. “He’s not why I’m here. I told y’all what I’m here for.”
“Oh, I just figured if this stuff works, why wouldn’t you want to heal it all?” Her voice is quiet now.
“Because,” he looks around and then back at her, “just because you can change something, doesn’t mean you should. That’s why all these people are out here fucking their face up with plastic surgery in the pursuit of perfection, making themselves look like bizarre walking-nightmares. Hell, I don’t even recognize Renee Zellweger any more.” He chuckles. “Sometimes those are the things that make you unique. These all tell a story. The shit on my arms, it's just shredded canvas, accidents. To me, they don’t mean anything, so if I can get paid for letting them fuck around with that stuff, fine. Cool. Can’t hardly bend my arms ‘cuz that shit is so tight from the damage. But this,” He pokes his chest hard enough that the release leaves a little white fingerprint in his already pale skin, “this is part of who I am. Something that makes me unique. People are so obsessed with looking the same. Normal. I don’t give a fuck about looking normal. Some people put form over function and they annihilate everything that makes them unique. I don’t know about y’all, but I don’t want to look like some mass-produced Ken doll.”
After a long silence, with nothing more to add to his tirade, Angie looks up at him. “It’s your turn to pick the next person.”
“Oh, uh, Iris, I guess.”
She sits back in her seat and smiles. “Truth.”
Mick hollers, “Aww, I fuckin’ knew it! Lame!”
17
Iris shoves open her door with her right hand, a small bowl of rocky road ice cream in her left. She flips the light switch on to see an origami flower in the shape of a Siberian Iris on her bed, made out of purple construction paper.
Iris knocks lightly on his open door, fidgeting with the symmetrically-folded flower.
Jack is hard at work on a fleet of various-color origami boats. He turns and grants her his full, groggy attention. The whole left side of his face and neck are swathed in gleaming white bandages, secured with straight runs of medical tape. A similar wrap covers his left hand, a small amount of blood stippling through to the outside. The edges disappear beneath his clothing.
“It’s beautiful.” She looks down at the paper flower twirling between her fingertips. She tucks the taped-on paper stem of it behind her ear.
“I went for a walk this morning to try to hunt down a real one,” his voice is repentant, “but all I ended up finding was poison ivy and some weird brown bug the size of a golf ball, so I had to improvise.”
“Awww.” She smiles, then it fades. She rubs something on the floor with her socked toe. She thinks about how long he was in Walsh’s clinic and wants to ask about it, but feels strange bringing it up. Instead, she plucks the flower out from behind her ear and holds it up. “Well… Sweet dreams.”
He smiles and nods, “Yeah, you too.” He watches her walk away and grins for a moment before turning back to folding more paper with his bandaged hands.
18
Mick rolls through the living room of the larger cabin, the one he’s staying in. Moonlight slices through the window blinds patterning his cheeks with uniform, blue slivers. All is quiet in the main area. Everyone’s settled in their rooms for the evening.
He drags the landline phone off the cradle, examines it for a minute. He hasn’t seen a real phone in God-knows-how-long. He dials and fishes a glove-full of candies out of the pockets of his corduroys, ones he pilfered from a jar in the kitchen. As the person on the other end answers, he pops one into the air and catches it in his mouth.
“Hey, man. It’s Mick.” He utters through sloppy chews.
The other voice is frantic, furious.
He tries to calm him down. “No, man. I can’t. I asked. Hell, I begged. I don’t get paid ‘til after the trial.”
Another long pause.
From the squeaky echo of the other voice, it's obvious he's getting his ass chewed by another male.
“You have ta’ give me a grace period or somethin’. He wouldn’t gimme any of the money upfront! I jus’ said ‘dat! It’s three weeks. You can wait three weeks.”
Mick listens to the man’s response intently, reddening skin crawling up his cheeks as his blood pressure rises. He finally responds again, livid. Yelling now, talking over the other person.
“I’m in a goddamn chair! You think I’m raking dough on disability? I ain’t exactly wiping my crippled ass with hundreds. I’m letting these assholes use my body like a fuckin’ lab rat just to pay y– What?! Cut me a fucking break.”
Silence. The calm before the storm.
“No! You know what, fine. Shove that place up your ass, you goddamn slum lord, piecea’ shit!”
Mick slams the phone down several times and tosses the cradle onto the floor. It smashes into the hardwood with a ringing DING!
19
DAY TWO OF TRIAL
Patient Journal Entry provided by the St. James Parish Police Department.
Evidence Item #SJPD-11288C
Criminal Case #: 7-23-mu-187462-OB
Translated to digital transcript by Mary J. Stearns
Subject Name: Iris REDACTED
Date: 6/28/REDACTED
Written Journal Entry: This morning I feel hopeful. I guess that’s not exactly what this form is for but it is called a journal, after all. The site where my incisions were made is tender this morning, as I would expect it to be.
I slept pretty rough because I can’t roll over onto my right side. I also had a nightmare about the night I was attacked. I’m not sure if that's a side-effect of the medication so I’m mentioning it just in case.
I don’t want to sound like a big baby but I suppose this is a private journal so I should be honest. Emotionally, the procedure was a bit traumatic for me. It didn’t just feel like my wounds were literally being opened up. It felt metaphorical too.
Yesterday’s incisions made me wish I had better access to therapists in the years since I was attacked. I could’ve really gone for a zoom call with my regular one in NOLA yesterday.
Time Symptom Started: Middle of the night.
Time Symptom Cleared: When I woke up.
Location on Body: Mind.
Severity: Not severe.
20
Chase leans over the edge of the wrap-around balcony railing, enjoying sunrise on the nearby water with a steaming cup of coffee. A pelican and her offspring splash playfully in the murky brown liquid nearby. He watches it with the intensity of a riveting television finale.
A man approaches. His untied boots drag through the thick grass of the property with a hiss. He’s a fiery ginger with a short shock of hair and a far-too-scrawny frame for his height. Chase can see his ribs jutting out through the low cuts in his homemade tank top, which appears to once have been a t-shirt. On the worn apparel, a bald eagle clutches a weathered American flag. A cigarette hangs out of his pursed lips. One with an ash a mile long.
He nods up at Chase. “‘Sup? Mick around?”
After a moment of sizing up the emaciated guest, he takes a longer sip of the piping hot liquid and nods. “Yeah, he’s rollin’ around here somewhere. Might be getting his little morning checkup right now.”
“Can you tell him Eddie’s here to see him?”
Chase beckons him with a nod toward the house. “Come on up and tell him yourself. We won’t bite.”
21
Walsh takes a blood pressure reading on Mick. But Mick is entranced by a large flat screen monitor on the far side of the doctor’s L-shaped desk. On it, the checkered black and white squares show a live security feed of various areas throughout the cabins.
“You do realize the whole Big Brother security camera thing is super creepy, right?” The Cajun twang strikes Walsh as humorous and he looks over his shoulder at the feed.
“I don’t even watch it. They made me put it in. In order to afford to host this trial, I had to do it outside of a commercial facility. But in doing that, the legal team said a multi-camera system was non-negotiable for liability reasons.”
“Is there one in Angie’s room?” Mick sounds hopeful. He leans forward to get a better look at the monitor over the doctor’s shoulder. Walsh frowns. He releases the blood pressure cuff and bashes a knobby finger against the power button, turning the security feed black.
“Alright, Mr. Adams, everything looks good here. Vitals are excellent. No sign of infection in the scored wounds. So, it is time for your daily dose.” Walsh pulls the set of retractable keys from his belt loop and unlocks the pharmaceutical vault, a small, cream-colored desk safe.
Mick watches Walsh interact with the safe, with a far-more riveted intensity than he’d used on the security feed. His curiosity was piqued.
Walsh uncaps a carefully-chosen bottle, notates something on his legal pad, and pours two pills into a disposable paper cup. He hands them to Mick, along with a cone-shaped cup of cold liquid from the small water cooler in the corner.
Mick toasts him. “Bottom’s up!”
He swallows the pills with a grin.
22
“How are you this morning?” Iris sounds chipper.
“Meh.” Angie shrugs, tosses a handful of her red hair over the shoulder of her terrycloth robe and takes the spot at the second bathroom sink next to Iris. She pulls the mauve lipstick out of her bag and starts to apply it in the mirror. “Slept for shit.”
“Missin’ your hubby?”
There is a pause. Angie frowns and then speaks quietly. “He and I split a few months ago.”
“No!” Iris gasps, matching her tone to Angie’s, as if they are sharing secrets. “Why?! Are--are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just pretty fucked up.” Her shoulders slump.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Nah.” Angie says quickly and then wiggles a little in her spot, “okay, yeah. I don’t have a lot of girlfriends.”
“Me either.”
“This has to stay between us. Promise?”
“Swear on my life, girl.”
“Well,” Angie pauses, “last year, I was pregnant.”
Iris gasps.
Angie holds a hand out to stop her in place. “Don’t get excited. Eight months in the oven she died.” She rubs the scar on her belly through her robe.
“Oh my God! I’m so sorry.”
“I still had to deliver her and everything. Her name was Alexa. Or, it was gonna be--”
Just as Iris is contemplating how ridiculous it is to name a child after a common, electronic device, she realizes Angie has stopped applying her makeup. She is now fanning her scrunched face, trying not to burst into tears.
