Kindheart

She was seven when she first knew she wanted to be a body horror artist. There was no singular epiphany moment because the idea of a career in body horror was not something anyone ever sold to a kid. It was a weird thing to be into. Her classmates wanted mostly to be veterinarians or astronauts, which was typical, but, actually, abjectly more horrifying than working in gore, special effects, costuming, and camp. Being a veterinarian wasn’t all cuddling kittens, no, it was putting old things and sick things out of misery, and shoveling feces. Being an astronaut was not feasible and, even if it were, it probably meant dying in a void, a death mask, a silent scream.

She was seven and she wanted to be a body horror artist.

Her cousin—older, irresponsible, black-sheepish, but kind to her—had all these tapes in the basement. When her family went to visit him out on Staten Island, across the yawning tube of the Verrazzano Bridge, he would put on cartoons for her, would sit and watch for a while before going out to bike around with his friends. He had organized the tapes into piles against the wall, had even drawn little pictures on the labels so she could have an idea of what was on them before she learned to read fluently. If she saw Scooby or Daffy, Baby Nella or Smurfette, she was good to go.

“You might like these movies, too,” he indicated the stacks in the middle. “They’re funny but scary. You know. Fair warning.”

He put Casper in the VCR and went out. She sat in the musky La-Z-Boy with her legs straight on the footrest. Sometimes her grandmother brought her down a bowl of Cheetos or a can of Sprite.

Possible epiphany moment: the thrill of crouching in front of the tapes, seeing her cousin’s approximation of a puffy white ghost, red line across its torso. This one was from the middle stack so she knew it would be scary but not too scary. Almost immediately the movie showed slime and faces distorted by claymation. It was the best thing she had ever seen. She had nightmares for weeks.

Her parents were supportive of her dreams and ambitions, but she didn’t tell them about wanting to be a body horror artist. At that point, she didn’t even know there was such a job. She knew only that she was interested in goo and fake blood. She kept it to herself because, in school, the tides were turning. There were socially distinct, strictly enforced rules about boys and girls and where they were supposed to place their interests. These laws did not come from the teachers, though the teachers did nothing to help. The children dictated taste on their own.

Here was what the boys were into during fourth grade: Mets vs. Yankees, Goosebumps, wrestling, whoopee cushions, Nintendo.

Here was what the girls were into: horses, makeup, Spice Girls, Lisa Frank.

She was often accused of wanting to be a boy due to never wearing pink. She didn’t think she wanted to be a boy, though. The reason she never wore pink was because her mother said blue brought out her eyes. That kind of wisdom flowed freely at the time.

It’s not like ooze and stitches were the only things she cared about. She liked stuffed animals and Polly Pockets. She even had a couple Barbies in her toy chest, though she never really played with them.

Adolescence bludgeoned her early. Tall to begin with, she shot up so quickly it sometimes felt like her joints were unhinging. Her forehead became luminous. Her hair darkened and her skin blotched. The smells and cramps and stains were incredible when she was able to wrangle her brain into a state of objectivity. Mostly, though, she was angry. Thank heaven for death metal. She rode the subway to school in Manhattan scribbling anarchy in notebooks, disc-man shoved in an extra-large hoodie pocket.

“This isn’t forever,” her mother repeated. “And you’re beautiful no matter what.”

Well, duh.

Eventually, her friends discovered weed and things stabilized a little. They hid out in whatever basement or bedroom was least supervised, giggling madly, watching tapes, darkening their nails and eyes.

The Exorcist was oddly soothing.

Why, though? She wondered as she watched a demon curse and spew.

Her family still went to church every Sunday. She said she couldn’t stand it, wrote screeds about atheism, moaned about having to be up early on a weekend, but secretly she liked sitting in the pew with her mother, father, little sister, and grandmother. She almost always wore a periwinkle cardigan.

It goes without saying she was a theatre kid. This was how she learned, finally, what a body horror artist was. They made the gore possible. They could make an audience shriek in legitimate terror or laugh with revulsion. She did special effects for the school’s production of Titus Andronicus, which was almost censored by a repressed English teacher. She rallied the students to protest the tyranny of censure and the play was staged with all her buckets of blood and guts intact.

Post-show, closing night, her father asked about the detached tongue, which had flopped across the stage of its own volition, no strings visible. She explained casting the rubber mold and the animatronic device surgically pulled out of a backflipping plush dog purchased from a stand in Chinatown. Her father said she was talented.

She was nervous to start college, even though campus was only a few miles outside the city and she could catch a train home any time. Her mother convinced her not to show up on orientation week with a bulging, veiny eyeball glued to the center of her forehead.

“It’s an all-purpose piece,” said her mother. “I’m sure you’ll have many occasions to wear it. But let people get to know you in, let’s say, layman’s wear before you try to scare them off. I promise you there will be nice people if you give them a chance.”

There were. The school was full of budding artists and she was absorbed almost instantly by the late night cabaret group.

At the end of September, she met Jack.

The first thing he said to her was, “you have a kind heart. I can tell.” She’d seen enough movies to respond with something along the lines of, I bet you say that to all the girls, but this made his face crumple as though she’d slapped him. She found herself taking it back, floundering for words. They were at an off-campus party full of theater geeks. Somebody had gotten a hold of several cases of this syrupy mulled wine so that was what everyone was drinking. She and Jack were under the light in front of the garage as the air cooled. Moths and mosquitoes still ruled the outdoors.

She found herself quashing the urge to apologize to Jack. She knew she hadn’t said anything wrong. Instead she asked directly—after stammering for only a few seconds—why on earth would he bring up the kindness of her heart, first thing out of the gate? 

“It just seemed like you should know,” he said. He went back inside, leaving her alone with the massing insects.

Her friend Daniel, who regularly wore glittery violet slippers and played MC at the late night cabaret, said that Jack obviously liked her. She didn’t need to be told, but she was happy anyway. At least it was out in the open. Daniel never said anything unless it was on his own good authority. He was moon-faced and friendly, his hair buzzed short. “So, I guess, like, get it, girl. Assuming you actually want it.”

Sitting in a circle of chairs in the basement while the party frothed above, she and Daniel drank more mulled wine. She told him what Jack had said about her heart and Daniel cringed.

“Maybe you don’t want it, then,” he said. The basement smelled pleasantly of damp earth. She realized she would be content staying down here all night just talking to Daniel, avoiding Jack and any decision as to whether she wanted him or not. Sadly, there was a great thundering of sneakers on the wooden steps and the soccer team arrived to start a game of beer-pong.

She drifted like a specter around the party putting the innocuous side of her appearance to use. She was wearing a blue sweater and jeans. She had on no fake wounds or horns or milky contact lenses. Jack was in the backyard under a tree, the tip of his cigarette red in the dark. He had a beard and wore a sweatshirt. He was a member of the soccer team, but he wasn’t with them playing beer-pong in the basement. A point in his favor, she decided. She crossed the lawn and told him she thought, maybe, he had a kind heart, too.

“What does that even mean?” he asked with an edge to his voice she hadn’t at all anticipated.

Again, she was bewildered. You said—

Earlier—

“I’m kidding,” but he didn’t sound kidding.

Before she knew it, she was drawn to him.

“Blame it on the mulled wine,” said Daniel, the day after at brunch in the dining hall. “Speaking of which,” he stood up, placed a hand delicately over his mouth, and dashed out of the room. She prodded her scrambled eggs with a fork, went over to the buffet and filled a plate with grayish sausages. Back at the table she arranged the glistening meat gutlike on top of her eggs. She had come straight from Jack’s bedroom to meet Daniel for brunch and her hair was oily and tangled. Jack had been gone when she woke up, but there had been a note that said, “soccer practice, sorry!” with a drawing of a green heart. She left the note on the desk, considered snooping his things for only a moment before sneaking back to campus, letting the door click behind her.

Daniel returned from the bathroom chewing on a mint. “That’s vile,” he said of her sausage-stomach concoction. “I love it.”

Together they decided Jack was a one-time thing.

But then he texted while she was trying to read King Lear hungover in bed while her roommate did yoga across the room.

How are you said his text.

She waited the appropriate minimum of ten minutes during which time she read none percent of Lear and watched her roommate’s ass rising and falling on repeat.

She texted back she was well and how was he.

He was silent for two hours. Then he asked if she wanted to take a walk.

She ended up being the only one who did any walking, though, because after she got dressed and crossed campus to his dorm, he invited her in and kissed her without preamble and then she was in his bed for the second time in twenty-four hours.

“I wanted to do it right,” Jack said, coming up for air.

She had no response. She was trying to decide if she had actually wanted to go on a walk with him or not. This was less typical, at least. She could go on walks anytime. Jack was more focused and attentive now, but still she found herself wishing for some mulled wine.

He fell asleep, but it was light outside and the weekend still existed as a promising concept, so she slithered around him, out of bed, recovered all her clothing except for one sock, which might have been under his body, patted herself back together in silence, and stood in the middle of the small room taking shallow breaths, deciding. The notepad on which he’d drawn the green heart sat blank on his desk. She considered a few words, maybe something mysterious or teasing to build up his interest. Maybe a green heart of her own, one with a bit more realism to it; some ventricles and pencil shading. Instead, she just slipped out quietly. Better this way: the humiliation would have been too great if he had opened his eyes while she was composing a missive.

Maybe I have a boyfriend, she thought. She had never had one before, not in the adult sense. There had been boys, of course, and sometimes even sex, and sometimes she would spend enough time with someone where it would almost shape up to a relationship, but she had never put an official stamp on anything. In her mind, a relationship was more like what you saw on TV: two people cooking a rotisserie chicken together, or smoking in bed. There was something mighty sick about that, she thought.

It was a stunning fall afternoon as she crossed campus yet again. The leaves were turning, but the sun was warm. Dreadlocked white dudes whipped frisbees at each other. People looked pretty reading library books outside. Some of them glanced up and waved her over. She had friends. She liked her classes. Even her roommate situation was decent. Getting a double-room as a freshman was a rarity. Most people were crammed into triples for their first year. And now maybe she had a boyfriend napping in his bed after sex. Things certainly were looking swell. There was something mighty sick about that, too, she thought.

Jack was not her boyfriend. He proved this by failing to respond to her texts, sometimes for days. When he did get back to her he always apologized and said he was swamped.

At late night cabaret rehearsals held in the warmly lit Skop Lecture Hall, she looked around for other men to date. All the guys were goofy, scruffy, and wore T-shirts with the Ghostbusters logo or Monty Python quotes. They were fine, she guessed, but she couldn’t picture holding hands with any of them.

Daniel was able to commiserate having recently been dumped by a guy. Or it had been Daniel who dumped the guy, or it had been a mutual decision that Daniel had very much instigated. She had heard the story many times and it was never clear. Daniel said he was writing an essay about it, which would explain everything.

“When love doesn’t come through,” he said. “We thrust ourselves into our work, reinvesting our passions in the realm of tropical artistry. Now, who said that?”

She guessed Shakespeare.

“No, dear,” said Daniel. “I said that. Heed my words.”

She heeded, did reinvest herself in the realm of tropical artistry, which meant creating a giant, prosthetic prop anus for a student film with the unsubtle title, Shock Values. The film was intended to be a campy throwback, a sort of demented Pee-Wee’s Playhouse from hell, with ambiguous social commentary. It was scripted and directed by a pair of turtlenecked graduate students who had discovered her work through the costuming she did for the late night cabaret and, also, her YouTube channel, which she didn’t know anyone watched, and which included a series called Medusa Makeup Tutorials where she made herself monstrous step by step for the camera. There was a budget, so she was paid twenty-five dollars an hour to work with foam rubber, acrylics, and the contracting mechanics, which would allow the prop anus to shit on cue. She made a couple hundred bucks and a giant butt suspended over a set. It was used in the climactic scene for predictably horrifying purposes. She was credited, by request, as “Master of the Ass”. She felt good about herself.

She hadn’t texted Jack in weeks. Finally, he realized she was losing interest. She knew this to be so because he caught up to her after filming wrapped one evening mid-November, clutching a DVD copy of ThanksKilling, still in its packaging.

“You have to see this,” he said. “You will love it.”

She told him she had seen ThanksKilling many a time and, yes, she did love it. ThanksKilling was, honestly, a little pedestrian in terms of spoofy, horror comedies, but she didn’t want to be cruel.

“Well,” Jack seemed completely thrown. Again she watched his face fall. He’s not used to this, she thought. So sensitive. He stammered for a moment. “Do you want to come over anyway?” he finally managed.

“No thanks,” she said.

Jack took the rejection in stride, sending only a couple whiny, “I just wanna talk” texts before backing off completely. Daniel had seen way worse. They were working together on the final late night cabaret before Thanksgiving break. Daniel needed a bloody puppet to burst from his chest a la Alien or Spaceballs. For her this kind of work was child’s play.

Home for Thanksgiving, her family drove from Brooklyn to Staten Island. Her mother, father, and grandmother asked endless questions about school, about the films she was working on. They seemed impressed when she mentioned the graduate students, how they were pitching their show to networks, how they said they wanted to hire her again. When her family asked to see her work, she said she didn’t have the footage. She didn’t feel ready to share all of her body horror artistry with them.

But, in fact, she did have a couple burned DVDs and, back in the basement with the older cousin and the younger sister, she showed off some highlights—fake feces, blood blisters, and even a candid camera sketch she and Daniel had made of her walking around the ritzy college town with her iconic third eyeball sticking out of her forehead.

“Yuck,” said her little sister, but her cousin was chuckling approvingly, hands folded across his chest.

Michael Giddings is a writer, cartoonist, and musician from Brooklyn. He studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College (BA) and Northern Michigan University (MFA), and was a member of Grubstreet's 2019/2020 Novel Incubator Program. A long time ago his short fiction appeared in Red Fez and Defenestration Magazine. His work is forthcoming from Pidgeonholes Literary. He is querying for his first novel while drafting a new book. Michael currently teaches toddlers of New York about literacy and cartooning.