Invisible Monsters

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jump way back to the last Christmas before my accident, when I go home to open presents with my folks. My folks put up the same fake tree every year, scratchy green and making that hot polyplastic smell that gives you a dizzy flu headache when the lights are plugged in too long. The tree's all magic and sparkle, crowded with our red and gold glass ornaments and those strands of silver plastic loaded with static electricity that people call icicles. It's the same ratty angel with a rubber doll face on top of the tree. Covering the mantel is the same spun fiberglass angel hair that works into your skin and gives you an infected rash if you even touch it. It's the same Perry Como Christmas album on the stereo. This is back when I still had a face so I wasn't so confronted by singing Christmas carols.

My brother Shane's still dead so I try not to expect much attention, just a quiet Christmas. By this point, my boyfriend, Manus was getting weird about losing his police job, and what I needed was a couple days out of the spotlight. We all talked, my mom, my dad, and me, and agreed to not buy big gifts for each other this year. Maybe just little gifts, my folks say, just stocking stuffers.

Perry Como is singing "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas."

The red felt stockings my mom sewed for each of us, for Shane and me, are hanging on the fireplace, each one red felt with our names spelled out, top to bottom, in fancy white felt letters. Each one lumpy with the gifts stuffed inside. It's Christmas morning, and we're all sitting around the tree, my father ready with his jackknife for the knotted ribbons. My mom has a brown paper shopping bag and says, "Before things get out of hand, the wrapping paper goes in here, not all over the place."

My mom and dad sit in recliner chairs. I sit on the floor in front of the fireplace with the stockings by me. This scene is always blocked this way. Them sitting with coffee, leaned down over me, watching for my reaction. Me Indian-sitting on the floor. All of us in bathrobes and pajamas still.

Perry Como is singing "I'll Be Home for Christmas."

The first thing out of my stocking is a little stuffed koala bear, the kind that grips your pencil with its spring-loaded hands and feet. This is who my folks think I am. My mom hands me hot chocolate in a mug with miniature marshmallows floating on top. I say, "Thanks." Under the little koala is a box I take out.

My folks stop everything, lean over their cups of coffee, and just watch me.

Perry Como is singing "Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful."

The little box is condoms.

Sitting right next to our sparkling, magic Christmas tree, my father says, "We don't know how many partners you have every year, but we want you to play safe."

I stash the condoms in my bathrobe pocket and look down at the miniature marshmallows melting. I say, "Thanks."

"Those are latex," says my mom. "You need to use only a water-based sexual lubricant. If you need a lubricant at your age. Not petroleum jelly or shortenings or any kind of lotion." She says, "We didn't get you the kind made from sheep intestines because those have tiny pores that can allow the transmission of HIV."

Next inside my stocking is another little box. This is more condoms. The color marked on the box is Nude. This seems redundant. Next to that, the label says odorless and tasteless.

Oh, I could tell you all about tasteless.

"A study," my father says, "a telephone survey of heterosexuals in urban areas with a high incidence of HIV infection showed that thirty-five percent of people are uncomfortable buying their own condoms."

And getting them from Santa Claus is better? I say, "Got it."

"This isn't just about AIDS," my mom says. "There's gonorrhea. There's syphilis. There's the human papilloma virus. That's genital warts." She says, "You do know to put the condom on as soon as the penis is erect, don't you?"

She says, "I paid a fortune for bananas out of season in case you need the practice."

This is a trap. If I say, Oh, yeah, I roll rubbers onto new dry erections all the time, I'll get the slut lecture from my father. But if I tell them, No, we'll get to spend Christmas Day practicing to protect me from fruit.

My dad says, "There's tons more to this than AIDS." He says, "There's the herpes simplex virus II with symptoms that include small painful blisters that burst on your genitals." He looks at Mom. "Body aches," she says.

"Yes, you get body aches," he says, "and fever. You get vaginal discharge. It hurts to urinate." He looks at my mom.

Perry Como is singing "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."

Under the next box of condoms is another box of condoms. Jeez, three boxes should last me right into menopause.

Jump to how much I want my brother alive right now so I can kill him for wrecking my Christmas. Perry Como is singing "Up on the Housetop."

"There's hepatitis B," my mom says. To my dad, she says, "What's the others?"

"Chlamydia," my father says. "And lymphogranuloma."

"Yes," my rnom says, "and mucal purulent cervicitis and nongonococcal urethritis."

My dad looks at my mom and says, "But that's usually caused by an allergy to a latex condom or a spermicide."

My mom drinks some coffee. She looks down at both her hands around her cup, then looks up at me sitting here. "What your father's trying to say," she says, "is we realize now that we made some mistakes with your brother." She says, "We're just trying to keep you safe."

There's a fourth box of condoms in my stocking. Perry Como is singing "It Came upon a Midnight Clear." The box is labeled . .. safe and strong enough even for prolonged anal intercourse... .

"There's granuloma inguinale," my father says to my mother, "and bacterial vaginosis." He opens one hand and counts the fingers, then counts them again, then says, "there's molluscum contagiosum."

Some of the condoms are white. Some are assorted colors. Some are ribbed to feel like serrated bread knives, I guess. Some are extra large. Some glow in the dark. This is flattering in a creepy way. My folks must think I'm wildly popular.

Perry Como is singing "Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel."

"We don't want to scare you," my mom says, "but you're young. We can't expect you to just sit home nights."

"And if you ever can't sleep," my father says, "it could be pinworms."

My mom says, "We just don't want you to end up like your brother is all."

My brother's dead, but he still has a stocking full of presents and you can bet they're not rubbers. He's dead, but you can bet he's laughing his head off right now.

"With pinworms," my father says, "the females migrate down the colon to the perianal area to lay their eggs at night." He says, "If you suspect worm activity, it works best to press clear adhesive tape against the rectum, then look at the tape under a magnifying glass. The worms should be about a quarter-inch long."

My mom says, "Bob, hush."

My dad leans toward me and says, "Ten percent of the men in this country can give you these worms." He says, "You just remember that."

Almost everything in my stocking is condoms, in boxes, in little gold foil coins, in long strips of a hundred with perforations so you can tear them apart. My only other gifts are a rape whistle and a pocket-sized spray canister of Mace. That looks like I'm set for the worst, but I'm afraid to ask if there's more. There could be a vibrator to keep me at home and celibate every night. There could be dental dams in case of cunnilingus. Saran Wrap. Rubber gloves.

Perry Como is singing "Nuttin' for Christmas."

I look at Shane's stocking still lumpy with presents and ask, "You guys bought for Shane?"

If it's condoms, they're a little late.

My mom and dad look at each other. To my mom, my dad says, "You tell her."

"That's what you got for your brother," my mom says. "Go ahead and look."

Jump to me being being confused as hell

Give me clarity. Give me reasons. Give me answers.

Flash.

I reach up to unhook Shane's stocking from the mantel, and inside it's filled with crumpled tissue paper.

"Keep digging," my dad says.

In with the tissue, there's a sealed envelope.

"Open it," my mom says.

Inside the envelope is a printed letter with right at the top the words "Thank You."

"It's really a gift to both our children," my dad says.

I can't believe what I'm reading.

"Instead of buying you a big present," my mom says, "we made a donation in your name to the World AIDS Research Fund."

Inside the stocking is a second letter I take out.

"That," my dad says, "is Shane's present to you."

Oh, this is too much.

Perry Como is singing "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus."

I say, "That crafty old dead brother of mine, he's so thoughtful." I say, "He shouldn't have. He really, really shouldn't have gone to all this trouble. He needs to maybe move away from denial and coping and just get on with being dead. Maybe reincarnate." I say, "His pretending he's still alive can't be healthy."

Inside, I'm ranting. What I really wanted this year was a new Prada handbag. It wasn't my fault that some hair-spray can exploded in Shane's face. Boom, and he came staggering into the house with his forehead already turning black and blue. The long drive to the hospital with his one eye swoll shut and the face around it just getting bigger and bigger with every vein inside broken and bleeding under the skin, Shane didn't say a word.

It wasn't my fault how the social service people at the hospital took one look at Shane's face and came down on my father with both feet. Suspicion of child abuse. Criminal neglect. Family intervention. It wasn't any of it my fault. Police statements. A caseworker went around interviewing our neighbors, our school friends, our teachers until everybody we knew treated me like, you poor brave thing.

Sitting here Christmas morning with all these gifts I need a penis to enjoy, everybody doesn't know the half of it.

Even after the police investigation was done, and nothing was proved, even then, our family was wrecked. And everybody still thinks I'm the one who threw away the hair-spray. And since I started this, it was all my fault. The explosion. The police. Shane's running away. His death.

And it wasn't my fault.

"Really," I say, "if Shane really wanted to give me a present, he'd come back from the dead and buy me the new wardrobe he owes me. That would give me a merry Christmas. That I could really say 'thank you' for."

Silence.

As I fish out the second envelope, my mom says, "We're officially 'outing' you."

"In your brother's name," my dad says, "we bought you a membership in P.F.L.A.G.

"Fee-flag?" I say.

"Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays," my mom says.

Perry Como is singing "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays."

Silence.

My mother starts up from her chair and says, "I'll go run get those bananas." She says, "Just to be on the safe side, your father and I can't wait to see you try on some of your presents.”