I watched the shiny white fat tremble on Bo’s arms and neck as he yelled, “Arugula!”
In the lavender-scented bathroom I puked — searingly aware of the bile as it passed upward through the caverns and passageways of my body — until there was nothing left, and then I wished I could puke some more.
There was a knock.
“Oh, pardon me.” A civilized British accent contrasted unbearably with the petite capillary-laced package that stepped graciously aside when I opened the door.
They sent me away kindly, solicitous words emerging from their hideous mouths, advice to drink ginger tea and watch romantic comedies; I’d always been well-liked. As they spoke, I tried to focus on the clean, empty space above their heads. It was a relief to step outside.
Yet the streets offered no respite.
A squirrel without skin or fur or bushy tail, demonic; a dog stalking down the sidewalk like a creature from a nightmare, all its organs revealed.
Upon passing a playground, I had to hold my face in my hands for some minutes. Skipping and hopping, pumping on swings and hanging from bars, unaware of the appalling interplay of their tissues and blood vessels. I witnessed an ice cream sandwich descending a child’s gullet.
I attempted to take shelter in the pure white dressing room of a clothing store, but pulling a shirt over my head it occurred to me that probably one of them had tried on this selfsame shirt, had yanked it over the repulsive intricacy of the face, the gut.
On the bus, an infant drowsed in its mother’s revolting arms; the infant slightly less terrible than everybody else, as one is accustomed to newborns looking bloody, almost transparent, when they emerge.
* * *
At home there truly was respite. I stood in front of the mirror, naked, breathing deeply, calmer with each second I spent gazing at a normal human being. It wasn’t that it was my body (sure, I appreciated the familiarity, the undeniable appeal of the breasts and nipples), but just that it was a body. With skin.
I cried for joy. Up until then I’d never believed people could cry for joy.
Then I touched myself and soon cried out for joy, bending over the dresser as I lost myself to it.
I closed my curtains. I got out all my glossy photography books, models and famous people, and enjoyed them, their skin and facial features and the unity of their bodies.
Did I think it would pass?
I must have believed it would.
Calling in to take a week off work; scuttling out to the corner store to buy provisions (pickles, bread, milk, canned peaches, peanut butter, spaghetti, tomato sauce), barely enduring the sight of the cashier’s ligaments as he handled the groceries; sending friends lilting, dodgy texts in response to their phone calls — nobody could actually plan to live this way.
Then Mom called to say they were making the two-hour drive down to the city this weekend, wanted to whisk me away to a nearby beach for the afternoon. This was quite normal, happened every few weeks in the summertime, and was one of my life’s little delights; unlike most people, I really couldn’t think of anything fraught to say about my parents.
I asked Mom not to make the drive this weekend, maybe next weekend or the following, but I went about it the wrong way, overly casual in a way that struck her as not casual at all. She became instantly suspicious and worried, more insistent than ever about visiting.
“Okay,” I was finally forced to whimper, “okay, okay.”
It would be best not to go to the beach. Too much skin, or lack thereof. Staying in the city would be better. Brunch, followed by some kind of passive activity that didn’t involve the removal of any layers of clothing. How about a dark movie theater? But I knew my parents would never agree to watch a movie when they could be spending time with me. We can go to the movies any old day! they’d say jovially, showering me with love.
I thought hard about the ideal location for brunch. A crowded diner might be good — plenty of distractions — but could I stand a roomful of noisily eating bodies? I could make brunch at home, which would be simplest, but there were numerous problems with that — firstly, that I refused to buy food anywhere except the corner store; secondly, that being alone with my parents’ skinless bodies sounded devastating; thirdly, that the apartment was my one respite.
Ultimately I decided on a picnic in the park. Other people, but not too many. And Mom would enjoy putting the picnic together. Indeed, when I called her back to suggest this, I could hear the muscles of her mouth pulling back into a smile. The fact that I could hear this sound did not bode well.
I did — of course I did — entertain the hope that my parents wouldn’t appear skinless to me.
* * *
On Saturday, there was a fraction of an instant of optimism when I opened the front door of my building, a promising glimpse of Mom’s jeans and Dad’s baseball cap.
Gently, I refused to let them come upstairs into the apartment, raving about the beauty of the day and how eager I was to get to the park. My mother — my dear, veiny, bony mother — had packed a splendid picnic, and we sat on an actual red-and-white checkered tablecloth by the lake. Hard-boiled eggs, grapes, seltzer, et cetera. My parents, birdwatchers, talked about the swans and the ducks and the red-winged blackbirds and even thought they glimpsed a heron; birds, as you can imagine, as elaborate and disconcerting as human hands.
Dad! Why did he have to wear those damn khaki shorts?
It bothered Mom that I wouldn’t eat the tuna fish salad sandwich she’d made sans mayonnaise especially for me. Sans mayonnaise, she kept repeating that, and passing me clumps of grapes gripped in the web of her finger bones. Furtively, I placed the grapes in the grass behind me. I tried to focus solely on my parents’ irises, which were less dramatically affected than everything else.
But it was exhausting, and soon enough I couldn’t help but shut my eyes, and lie down on the picnic blanket, and pretend to sleep. Resting there with my eyes closed, listening to my parents’ voices, I could almost believe they weren’t a pair of capillary-encrusted skeletons. When they were sure I was asleep, they talked about me. Nothing they said offended me. They were sad I didn’t have someone to love, they hoped I wasn’t dissatisfied with my life, they were proud of what a sensible and self-sufficient person I’d become. When I “woke up” they said they’d enjoyed watching over my sleep, just like when I was a baby. This comment would have made me feel cozy if it hadn’t been emerging from my father’s uncanny mouth.
It took a lot out of me to muzzle my scream when Mom removed her sweatshirt, her flowered T-shirt lifting for an instant to reveal her midsection.
It was bad enough to see strangers and acquaintances this way. But to see your own parents. To be forced to acknowledge the architecture of their bodies, the chaos of their blood vessels, the humility of their skulls. To know that this vulnerability was the place from which you arose.
After that I was careful to avoid looking at them at all. I controlled the shiver of disgust I felt when Mom hugged me good-bye; when Dad hugged me good-bye, the disgust transformed suddenly to pity, which was, alarmingly, far worse. I implored them not to come upstairs, I’d had people over last night, the kitchen was a disaster, I was ashamed.
Upstairs, alone in my very clean, quiet kitchen, I washed my hands and arms and neck and face, trying to scrub off every place where they’d touched me. Then I ran to the bathroom and stood under the shower and cried at the delicacy of my parents. Then I went to stand in front of the mirror and enjoy my skin. But I got distracted by the silence of my apartment. It had become the most silent place in the world.