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EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

Story
by Alissa Nutting


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    There was a slight delay in meeting the sister.
    After eating a mushroom crepe, CT’s stomach was getting a little torn up and he requested that Fractyl Clymber stop the bus for a defecation walk.
     “Not here man,” said Fractyl, “right here is too close to that,” but after about twenty minutes Fractyl did pull over.
     We all got out and practiced yoga behind the bus while CT walked ahead. Shortly after he squatted, a sports car screeched up and the man inside the car jumped out pointing a gun.
     On CT’s defecation walks, he wanders until the universe gives him a sign that he is in the right place to go. Unfortunately, this time the universe had directed CT to relieve himself in the same place where the man from the car’s mother and wife had been hit and killed by a drunk driver. The man kept pointing the gun at two white crosses with “MOTHER” and “WIFE” written on them, and a large plastic floral bouquet with pictures and ribbons.
     CT was trying to explain himself. “No, like, I detected that this was a sacred place, bro. That’s why I stopped here; it was like, the earth was saying Here, Worship Here, like, I mean this is like a shrine.”
     “You were shitting on it,” the man with the gun screamed.
     “Do you like, hierarchize organic matter?” asked CT. “Because I don’t think that’s the right way to go about things, man.”
     Just then a policeman pulled up, and several minutes later a lot of photographers showed up too. Tim walked over to me while CT was enlightening the cop regarding the back-and-forth of earth and man, and how colons and third eyes have more than shape in common.
     “You should probably call your sister,” Tim said, “we’re just barely going to make it to Dallas in time for the show.”
     I decided to call her and figure out exactly what to say while the phone was ringing, but Sis picked up on the first ring.
     “Sis,” I began, “there has been an unfortunate detour. You’ll have to meet us at the arena. Tell them “HASHISH69" when you go to the backstage area. That’s our code word. They’ll totally let you in.”
     “I’m not going to your boyfriend’s concert and I’m not saying that phrase. What do you mean, detour?”
     Just before the police had showed up, everyone except Tim and CT, who were already talking to the man with the gun, had been forced to run back into the bus and ingest any and all products that might complicate an already precarious situation. We divided them equally according to body mass, meaning Fractal Clymber and I took the least, but it was still a pretty heavy load. The bassist had already freaked out and said he was going inside the bus to lock himself in the closet and masturbate.
    The words coming out of my mouth were like a canoe at the tip of a waterfall. I saw what was ahead but was unable to stop it. I am always for truth but with Sis sometimes it has to be dressed up a little bit, not hidden but wrapped in a way that makes it better, like a Christmas present. The sweat on my tongue made me very chatty though, and it all just poured out.
     “CT took this dump on this grave, and now all these people are taking my picture.” The flashes from the paparazzi’s light bulbs were very bright and painful but I couldn’t help staring at them and even moving a little bit closer. “I’m like a moth or something right now,” I told her. She started crying and then Tim grabbed the phone and told me to get a full-body cape for CT from the bus closet. CT was so into sharing the truth of the Worm Eternal that he had not yet proceeded to tie up the bottom and fly of his leather suit.
     “But Guff’s in the closet masturbating,” I told Tim. “He’s really freaked.” Tim sighed and nodded.
     “I’ll get it,” he said.

                                                                       *

     When we finally arrive at the arena, the noise of the crowd doing the Howl of the Wolf is deafening. Their pack call drowns out the opening band, a metal experimental group utilizing electric bongos.
     The arena’s head of security approaches us shivering with fear. “You’ve got to get out there,” he pleads to CT, voice trembling, “I never seen a crowd get this crazy, and I’ve worked this arena for almost thirty years.”
     CT throws off his cape and uses his arm to make a sweeping motion, like he’s clearing a bunch of stuff off a table really quickly. “No problemo,” he says, “this is my gig, man. Don’t even worry about it.” The fly of his leather suit is still open as he walks onstage; he tends to forget about things like that, but there is no time. Also, since the crowd is already worked into such a violent rage, what better to satiate them than the sight of CT’s loveworm? It is like his music: hard yet soft.
     CT’s voice bleeds through the loudspeaker.
     “People of earth: I come to you as an ambassador...from the planet of ROCK!”
     With that Guff slams the base and the drums are off and running like a wild, hungry dog.
     Let me tell you about the sound of Wolf Rainbow.
     It is loud but it is a harmonious loudness. It is like the most beautiful woman in the world beating you up with her hair.
     At the concerts of Wolf Rainbow, I lay on the cold floor backstage with my cheek pressed against it, like I’m trying to keep myself from vomiting. But what I’m really trying to do is hold on. When I hear CT’s voice going up through the clouds and then back down and up again at a dizzying rate, like an airplane showing off, I can’t help but feel that I’m suspended on the edge of a cliff or somewhere similar where the beauty before me comes with the price of danger attached. A lot of people who know about the view from the tip-top of a bridge or tall building are dead, because they climbed up in order to jump off. And sometimes I wonder if they truly planned on jumping or if the view was just so beautiful that they realized what a wide big net beauty is, and they wanted so badly to be caught by it. That’s how I feel about Wolf Rainbow–I’m afraid of falling into it, becoming the music but losing myself.
     There is a short kick at my ribs. Sis. She must have said HASHISH69.
     “Do you need a doctor?”
     I shake my head and get up, attempting to hug her.
     She steps backwards and covers her torso protectively. “Please stay away. Let’s just get this done. What a complete nightmare. Do you know the paparazzi have my cell phone number? No matter how many times I change it? Normally I only pick up for people I know, which is, well, you, and doctors, but this time I answered every call. “Yes,” I told them, “I do have a comment on the latest fiasco: you and your boyfriend are crazy and I am publicly disowning you.”
     “We got married,” I said. “Remember?” I had wanted to invite Sis to the wedding but there hadn’t been time, because I didn’t quite learn about the ceremony until after it had happened. Mescaline is crazy that way, but Tim showed me a video. It was great; CT and I were slathered with divine jelly and rebirthed together as twins from the Womb of the Worm.
     Sis stretches out her arm, handing me a manila folder with a pen attached. “I’ll show you where to sign.” Suddenly she cringes and rubs her temples. The band is starting in on a particularly heavy number titled Reign of the Pig Women. “My God,” she whimpers, “Do you have some aspirin, some water?”
     The Worm Eternal is wise and sneaky. He will leave you on autopilot and then suddenly come back and help you when you’re least expecting it. “Yes, one second,” the Worm Eternal told me to say to Sis, and then I went over to Zapruder, one of the road crew, and asked him did he have anything, and he said I was really lucky because he’d just scored five minutes ago, a great score since our entire stash had to be replaced due to the cop incident.
     Deep down, I suppose I hadn’t really been dealing with the fact that Sis wanted to break contact at all; in fact I was in denial right until the second the Worm Eternal slid into my brain. “This is your last chance,” it told me. “You might never see her again if you don’t do something drastic.”
     I return with a glass of ice-cold water. “Here Sis,” I say, trying to seem nonchalant. I’m worried my voice sounds robotic since I’m being so careful with my words. I drop two pills into her hand. She’s still holding her temple and cringing but when she sees the pills she cringes even more.
     “Are these aspirin PM or something? I just want regular aspirin; I don’t want to feel drowsy.”
     “It’s regular,” I tell her, “it’s just from Europe. Most generic pills in Europe are neon green with a pagan star in the center.”
     She swallows them and opens the folder and clicks the pen above the line where I need to sign.
     “OK,” I nod. “I just want to read it first.”
     I pretend to look at the words for several minutes until she leaps up off the couch, a very high leap. “Is it warm in here?” she asks. Her face and body have flushed an alarming but expected bright orange color and her pupils look like giant Kalamata olives. “It is,” I reply, and she removes her shirt.
     That’s when I see that she is only wearing one breast.
     I open my mouth to say something, something loving that also expresses my utter grief at her loss, but she’s staring up at the loudspeakers. “This is a really great song,” she yells, which is a totally shocking thing for Sis to say. “Oh yes,” I reply gingerly, “this drum solo will last for approximately forty minutes.” Sis suddenly seems so changed; I’m not sure whether to talk to her in the careful way I’m used to or if I should just open up.
     “Lets go watch them,” she says. It is almost a squeal and is all the confirmation I need to know that she is most certainly in a Wormhole and I need to jump in with her. So we go to the curtain and I yell to Zapruder that she is my sister, and he checks out the still-inflated side of her bra and gives me a thumbs up.
     A few hours later we are back on the bus driving to Nevada, and Sis is more talkative than ever. She has told us all about her breast cancer and the mastectomy, and when Guff says she is still totally doable they start flirting and take off her bra so Guff can draw a nipple over her scar tissue with a Sharpe marker. She thinks it’s hilarious. It’s so good to see Sis smile.

                                                                         *

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