Monstrilio

by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

Her son dies in a child-sized bed, big enough for him but barely enough to hold her and her husband who cling to the edges, folding themselves small so they fit one on each side of him. She savors the constant shifting and squirming needed to keep her in place. Her son was alive and now he isn’t. No thunder, no angels weeping, no cloaked Death, no grace; just his silent body, unbreathing, and the blunt realization that this is it.

“I had to hear this from Lena. I’m your mother. You didn’t even give me the chance to go see you. Be with you. With him.” At this last pronouncement, my mother’s voice cracked. I only realized then that she had lost a grandchild. Her one grandchild. How bizarre that someone so far away as my mother then seemed, in this large, sunny house in Mexico, with its terra- cotta floors, arranged flowers, and paintings in gilded frames, so far away from my son’s ashes, from the bed from which he never woke up, could feel his loss. Santiago was so mine, I could not fathom her feeling him gone.

Was I expected to find solace in these people? I felt alone, perfectly alone. So alone I felt divine. Divine like a lonely god unfathomable to anybody but herself. Perhaps I could believe in Santiago’s God, a God who existed but had chosen not to look over me.

Lena and I made faces at each other like bored children at an adult party we were not allowed to attend. We took turns trying to slap each other’s hands. We giggled.

I was tempted to pray for her, but God is a scumbag; he wouldn’t answer any prayers of mine. I wished instead, like one wishes on a birthday candle or a star.

The man hit the ground with his stick, but the monster didn’t flinch. The girl picked up another rock. “Don’t,” Magos said. “We’re professionals. Lena, tell them we’re professionals.” “What?” “We’ve come to take this animal away. Lena, tell them.” “We’ve come to take this animal away.” “Professional what?” the girl asked. The man with the stick stepped closer. “Step back,” I said, surgeon mode activated. I waved my net high in the air. “We’re professionals.” I elbowed Jackie, and she raised her shovel too. “Step back now,” I said.

My mother thought I was a monster and didn’t love me because of it. This thing, an actual fucking monster, was loved.

“Monstrilio likes you.” “Monstrilio?” “I can’t keep calling it Lung.” She was right; we don’t go around calling people Ovum. We fed Monstrilio raw meat, mostly leftovers from the butcher, beef, or pork, sometimes lamb. It wasn’t discerning as to what it ate as long as the meat was raw. I bought it a four-tiered cat tower so it would have something else to entertain itself with besides the hanging light and curtain rod. Monstrilio plopped on top of it and stared out the window. I often found it lying there, particularly when the sun was bright.

I turned to Magos. The same height as me. Her ponytail swung as she turned to me; the dark in her eyes sparkled. She had drawn a slight cat eye. I pushed a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. “I don’t want to talk about him, Magos.”

“So you’ll stay here alone?” Magos asked. “We’ll be fine.” “I’ll stay with you.” “I’ll stay too,” Joseph said. “Maybe we can clear this rubble a bit. Patch up the kitchen. It seems like the wall only knocked down some of the windows. Nothing structural.” Joseph picked up a rock, formerly part of the wall, and heaved it into the street. “Thank you,” Lucía said. She stared at the collapse with both hands resting on her cane. Magos put an arm around her. Lucía turned away from the debris. “Let’s make us some tea.”

Joseph said there was a bag of meat in the fridge that I should separate into five portions and distribute among the bowls spread out on Monstrilio’s patio. “He likes to feel like he’s hunting,” Joseph said.

<3

Joseph lifted his glass and looked at me through his beer, his face the color of sunshine. He smiled, his teeth in full view, even the crooked one to the side. I stuck my tongue out. He did the same, put his beer down, and excused himself to go pee.

Magos leaned back on her chair, took a sip of wine, and stared at the lamp, half a metal sphere painted in an acrylic orange. I was with Magos when she bought it at La Lagunilla, years ago, with Santiago in tow. He had observed each item with his hands held at his back like a tiny collector. I bought him a tin robot. He kept it on his lap when we drove back home. I told him he was allowed to play with it, but he told me the substances on his fingers might damage it. I remembered laughing. I loved his weirdness. I couldn’t remember seeing the robot when I packed away his things.

Santiago is such a vivid character

Joseph got on his knees and struggled to contain Monstrilio on his bed. I injected him. After a few seconds, he stopped struggling, whimpered, growled from deep inside, and went limp. “Is he okay?” Joseph asked. “Shouldn’t he be breathing? When he sleeps you can still feel him breathing and a whole lot of gurgling inside. I feel nothing.”

“Monstrilio is not Santiago,” I said. “You want to make him something he’s not.” “I know what Monstrilio is,” she said. “I made him.”

Magos was right. There was a person inside Monstrilio, at least anatomically. Joseph leaned forward, his nose almost touching the monitor. “That’s his heart, right?” “No.” I pointed to where his heart was. “Then what’s this?” “A lung. He has only one.”

Joseph rose. “She came to help me put Monstrilio down.” “Kill him?” “He can’t live like this, Magos,” Joseph said. “Look at him. Scared out of his mind.” “He’s adjusting!” “He’s lost all joy.” “He’s growing. Transforming. Of course he’s going to be disoriented.” “This isn’t confusion, Magos. This is despair.” Magos turned to me. Here I was again, trapped in this family.

“Get ready,” Peter said, and he ran to our bedroom.

Oh?

Peter had made me promise we’d go to my uncle’s later that day and announce our engagement. Peter’s family lived in Michigan, so my uncle was the one blood relative we—we, we, we, now it was always we—had in New York. “I should go by myself,” I said. Peter froze holding a spritzing bottle in his hand. “To Uncle Luke’s?” I nodded. His face twitched, all his arguments stuck in a grimace. Pipes gargled, something creaked, and a dog barked. He inhaled and with the same breath whispered, “Okay.”

Magos called him Santiago now, but I couldn’t.

Wtf :(

He wasn’t Monstrilio anymore, but he wasn’t Santiago either. Santiago was dead. There was solace in keeping his memory unchanged.

Uncle relished his summers with M, an understanding between the pair that surpassed words. Bonded, I suspected, by the unique bodies each had acquired, so different from their original ones. Uncle celebrated the part of M that was most monstrous, a belief in a pure freedom.

Sometimes I wouldn’t be able to contain a giggle and she would jump back into a sleeping position, her eyes shut tight with a big mischievous smile on her face.

A tourist boat made its way back to Manhattan, though it was a bit late for tourists. Perhaps it wasn’t a tourist boat, but one full of children on a school trip. I could be their attraction. “Look! A sad Brooklyn man,” their teacher would say. “Let’s cheer him up!” The children would wave and clap. Maybe the boat would sink, tipped by some inexplicable whirlwind. The parents of those dead kids would think it a bad prank when they received the news because it is other children who die, never your own. They would sue the boat company. They would sue the school. They’d hire divers to make sure their kid wasn’t one of the ones lying at the bottom of the sea; their kid had somehow been spared, somehow drifted onto a safe shore. They’d form a support group but soon grow to hate one another because what they needed wasn’t acknowledgment or empathy or closure; it was escape.

The tarantula stood in a ball, legs crammed into its body. I petted it, hoping to soothe it, but I only made it cringe more. I tipped the container to let the tarantula out, tapping the bottom to make it slide. It froze, balled up on the concrete slab. My hair dripped with all the drizzle it had accumulated, but I couldn’t leave, not without knowing that the tarantula would live. Slowly, it unfurled one of its legs. Once this leg felt safe enough, it began unspooling the rest, a slow stretching out onto the slab until it stood fully at ease. Then, with a speed I couldn’t have guessed, it scuttled away into a tiny cave, so fast it gave me goose bumps.

Unlike Santiago’s, M’s lung worked fine. We just forgot sometimes.

“Is Peter mad?” “He’s a little upset.” “Because of me?” “No, not you. He’s upset with me.” “Did you tell him? The Monstrilio part?” I shook my head. “He wouldn’t understand.” “Do you?”

Papi and Peter hug. A hug with pats and a lot of distance. Papi gets in. Uncle Luke grunts. It’s fine, Papi says. The taxi starts. I like saying, It’s fine. It’s a lie that seems smaller.

I pretend my time as Monstrilio is hazy. Muffled sounds and blurred colors. I say I remember warmth. But I don’t say I miss my fur. I don’t say I’m hungry because my hunger is what makes everyone scared. They are happy to believe I forgot how they maimed me.

My knitting project is a scarf. Mami said I should hang it across trees. Make it outdoor art. But I like it better purposeless.

Santiago once saw a werewolf on TV that scared him. Hairy. Eyes red. Long crooked arms and legs. Lots of snarling. Santiago howled at the moon to fool the werewolves into thinking he was one of them. Werewolves don’t hurt their own kind, he believed. I massage my stump. I had an arm-tail once, I tell Santiago. This is where it was. I think you would’ve liked it.

Mami and I have the same cheeks, high, the same eyes, large and a tad wide-set. My nose is long like Papi’s, but its shape is wider, like Mami’s. I’ve surveyed my face a thousand times to make sure these traits are real. Not details I invented to be their son.

I take extra copies down to the basement. A rat lives there. Shoo! It wiggles its nose. Do you want me to eat you? It scurries away.

My jaw is already unhinged. I only have to stretch my mouth back. Let my fangs out. I wish I had claws. Something to fork the half cow in place while I bite. I use my knee instead. Gnaw and rip with my mouth. It tastes good. Not great. The taste of fear has gone. Also, it tastes like cow. Nothing wrong with cow. But a cow doesn’t dream. Not really. And if it does, it dreams of grass. Maybe open skies. A human dreams crazy dreams. Horrible dreams. Great dreams. Like flying. Or teeth falling. Or people long forgotten who pop up as if they never left. They dream of what they were and what they could become. And the dreams seep into their meat. Like a delicious marinade.

I thought you were together. We tried. I don’t think it can work. Why not? Why am I responsible for making her stay, Joseph? You’re not. It’s just … we were all here. The rest of us are still here. What is she leaving for? We’re her family. Uncle Luke grunts.

We need to get rid of it. All of this. Dumpster? Papi asks. Uncle Luke grunts. Of course not here, Papi says. Maybe we can drive it to New Jersey.

Lol