Geek Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

bodies have fallen back from me. The college girl, dumbfounded, is still pumping away with her mouth open, her knees and arms still following an old order to dance, as her mind is pummeled by what I am, and what they have done to me, and wondering if I am in on it. The crowd is standing up and beating the tables. The laughter is fierce and the band is loud, but barely loud enough, as I lift my thin arms and waggle my huge hands and bob to the light, and my knees begin to shift in what my body calls dance, waving my hump at the crowd, the light warming my scalp and burning into my unprotected eyes. My big shoes thump at the ends of my little legs, and I am proud with my arrow tits flapping toward my knees, and the fat lady standing on my coat is staring, with spittle across her cheek, and the fat man with his electric G-string pumping at his invisible crotch and laughing, and the shouts coming up, “Christ! It's real!” The twisting of my hump feels good against the warm air and the sweat of my bald head runs down into my bald eyes and stings with brightness and the spirit of the waggling hump moves over the stage and catches red pants, hairy bellies, and all, while I stamp on my buttonless blouse, slide on the tangled elastic harness, and open my near-blind eyes wide so they can see that there is true pink there -- the raw albino eye in the lashless sockets -- and it is good. How proud I am, dancing in the air full of eyes rubbing at me uncovered, unable to look away because of what I am. Those poor hoptoads behind me are silent. I've conquered them. They thought to use and shame me but I win out by nature, because a true freak cannot be made. A true freak must be born.
     
    There wasn't any graceful way to end it. The band stopped, the bald man shouted, “Let's give 'em a hand, folks.” There was a surge of catcalls. We all scrambled around for our clothes, clutching them to our chests as we hurried down. Of course there was no dressing room. The restroom was on the other side of the club, so we huddled down in front of the stage tugging awkwardly into clothes. I slid my blouse on inside-out, as I discovered later, put on my coat and wig and glasses immediately, and stuffed the chest harness into a pocket.
    The bald man was doling out five-dollar bills like stale cookies. He handed two to me. The shame had already started icing up my valves, and those five-dollar bills were the clinchers. It had been a long time since I had blushed, not since Arturo, maybe. But the hot blood scorched me then.
    “What's your name? Can we get you to come down regularly for audition nights? That's a lot of potential you've got. We could work up a nice set using you. We'd up the ante a bit, make it twenty bucks for a turn. We do two auditions a night between the regular acts. You could pick up an easy forty.” He was being perfectly pleasant about it. My wig wasn't fitting and I couldn't make out why. I kept pulling at it until I noticed that it was on backward. I turned it around and made for the door. Sidling through the crowd, I crammed my brain with static to prevent myself from hearing what they were saying. Run hide quick, I thought, scuttling down the street.
    I paced and thumped up and down my room all night. I couldn't lie down at all for fear of Arturo and Papa and my own terrible pride.
     

Geek Love
    3
     
    Meltdowm, Diving into
    Teacups from the Thirteenth Floor, and
    Other Stimulating Experiences
     
     
    Miranda is talking on the phone as I come in from work. She lolls against the wall, one long bare leg jutting out through her green kimono. She has a towel turbaned over her fresh-washed hair and she hangs up the receiver as I close the door behind me.
    “Hi. Got time to come up for tea?”
    “No. Thank you.”
    Miranda is a student at the Art Institute. Her aim is to illustrate medical texts. She wants me to pose for her drawings. I never accept her offers of tea. I proceed toward the stairs while scrabbling to hang on to