Hardboiled Leboyer Method
(a loss of innocence, part ii)
read part 1 here
[Warning: this passage contains graphic accounts of consensual violence and autocannibalism that may not be suitable for squeamish readers or dullards]
MADAME (in throes of delighted anguish) Start scooping!
Stanovich begins gouging out Madame's abdomen, hewing out hoary spoonsized hunks of uterus and flinging them across the kitchen floor. In ritual, the cats purr, devour, and dance orgiastically around the histological sacrifice.
STANOVICH I'm at the womb!
CATS (clutching one another ecstatically) He's at the womb!
STANOVICH (exhausted) But I can’t get through. My arms have grown tired.
CATS Then EAT your way through. Go thou EAT!
STANOVICH But I can't aff—
CATS Then we'll FEED YOU! (a cloth napkin is tucked into Stanovich’s collar)
MARIA THE CAT (lifts the first spoonful to his mouth) Just a taste. Now be a good boy, Stanovich. Openwide.
Enervated, Stanovich barely moves his jaw. A spoonload is released into his mouth, fetal discharge oozing down his chin. Mouthload after mouthload is dropped in.
MADAME (lifting her head with concern) Now make sure you eat all of it, Stanovich. Remember, if you don't eat all your food then the devil will come and befriend you. Every little bit of it (drops her head back down).
MARIA THE CAT There's too much amniotic fluid here.
She takes a straw and plunges it into what remains of Madame's belly. Any leftover maverick gases sputter out in a fetid jet. She places the straw in Stanovich's mouth while gently stroking his baldscorched head.
Now drink up sweetie.
CATS Yes, quaff quaff!
Stanovich suckles at the straw. The doorbell rings. A cat answers it and returns with a portrait artist.
MADAME (looks up, pleased) Marvelous of you to make it, sir, especially on such short notice. Perfect timing. Please make yourself comfortable.
PORTRAIT ARTIST (looks around, impressed) Fabulous. And what would you like me to paint, Madame?
MADAME This scene would be just fine.
PORTRAIT ARTIST Gorgeous. If you all can just hold that pose for two hours.
STANOVICH (sputtering up wads of cervix) Two hours!
PORTRAIT ARTIST Patience, Stanovich, patience. Just relax. Try to be natural.
In pose, Stanovich forces a pathetic smile, a glistening strand hanging viscously between his mouth and the spoon. The portrait artist sets his easel up in the far corner of the kitchen and completes the portrait in under two hours. He displays the final product.
MADAME (clutches her organtorn bosom) Oh it’s grand! We will frame it and put it over the fireplace. It’s a stately work! When did you first begin your craft?
PORTRAIT ARTIST As a young man.
MADAME Keep it up. I see you have much ahead of you.
PORTRAIT ARTIST Thank you ma'am. Goodbye now (bows, exunt)
MADAME (turns back to Stanovich and Maria) Okay, let’s try wrap this up, it’s getting late. By the way, I want my child born by Leboyer method.
A vat of warm water is brought out.
STANOVICH Aha! I see something. (Yanks the napkin from his neck and reaches his hand inside the womb. He pulls out a chalky speckled object.) Congratulations. It’s an egg.
General applause, three cheers, possible gifts are pondered.
(Without delay, Stanovich softly releases the egg into the vat of water) A wonderful idea, Madame. Soothe its entry. You are the first lady in the Upper East Side to have birth by Leboyer.
(Ten minutes pass. Stanovich reaches in the water to pull the egg out.) Oww! (the color drains from his face) This water is almost at boiling temperature! (He quickly plunges his hand in the water, retrieving the egg. He carefully examines it.) Madame... tragic news. Your child has been hardboiled.
MADAME (leans up, stricken) Are you sure the yolk isn’t runny?
STANOVICH (unshells the egg, and with careful incision, separates the egg yolk from the white) Firm.
MADAME (extends a waiting palm with melancholy) Please hand me the yolk. (Stanovich hands her the yolk)
STANOVICH And the white?
MADAME Can that which hath no savor be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?
(tosses yolk in her mouth) He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. (masticating) Mmmm I've always had a softspot for the yellow. (suddenly collapses) Pain in my stomach! Another one coming! No Leboyer this time!
STANOVICH (quickly tucks the napkin back into his neck and valiantly excavates into the womb) I see something... hold on... Got it!
He rips the napkin away from his neck, triumphantly holding up a brownspeckled egg. Wrapping it in babecloth, he hands it to Madame. Congratulations. It’s a twin.
General applause, three cheers, possible gifts are pondered.
MADAME (gushing with motherly joy, cradling it with boundless devotion) Oh, I've always wanted an egg! (pauses briefly) Stanovich, my dear, could you do me one last favor. Could you hatch the egg for me? All you have to do is sit on it. I would if I could but I can’t so I won’t.
STANOVICH (altruistically) Whatever serves the greatest good. (gently lowers himself on the egg.) Oh, I feel something! I definitely feel something!
The cats gather round, looking on the egglayer supportively.
CATS (feline chests heaving) back back back back BADRAACK back back back back BADRAACK back back back back BADRAACK...
STANOVICH Oh, oh oh!
A crack. A golden baby chick wobbles precariously out from under Stanovich, feebly pipsqueaking. Tenderly raising the chick in the mammoth envelopment of his palm, Stanovich passes it over to Madame.
CHICK (peeps) Alovo
MADAME (aghast) What! A chicken! But I wanted a goose! (looks down at the yellow foofball in her hands) It's ugly! (she hurls the chippering chick out the window)
BLACKROBED PRIEST (materializes, whispering) Μα τα κανε με την κοτα?1 ADios.
(dematerializes)
STANOVICH (shocked) But Madame, that was your child.
MADAME (truculently raises herself on her elbows) What's that McKeedes? Did you call me a chicken? (jabbing a wizened finger at him) You calling me chicken? (falls back down) I feel weak.
CATS (screeching) Food! She needs food! Someone! Take a littl cheecken, throw it in the ooven with some potaaato and a little alovoil!
A chef appears wearing striped baggy pants under his chef's apron.
CHEF Waan Gree Saalah! Waan mbaymbee ngreeee!
MADAME No, I want chicken!
CHEF Waan Chicke Saalah... goood mahdame gooood.
He makes a chicken salad and hands it to her.
MADAME (pushes it aside, nobly) Give me grizzle or give me death.
Rinds of fried chicken skin amid quivering nobules of blubberous greaselard are handed to her in a hubcap. With glistening fingertips, she crunches bones, slurps up gizzard guts. Licking the hubcap clean she throws it against the wall. Tropical birds chirp.
mmmm MMMMM that was hobolicious!
BLINKING-EYED CAT She is bleeding profusely. (turns to Stanovich) How can we stop the bleeding?
STANOVICH (sagaciously scratches his sac, pondering) I have a plan.
He makes a diagram with Xs and circles connected by lines. Stanovich motions over four cats. The cats interlock forelegs over shoulders with each other in a huddle around Stanovich who shows them the diagram.
All right, each of you to a different bathroom. Muster up all the toilet paper you can and we meet back here on the downy. Any questions? (stares each one in the eye) Good. (puts his hand out on top of which the cats stack their paws) One two three, HEUHH! Go get 'em gents! (with manly stoniness, he slaps their hinds as they dash off)
In thirty seconds the cats return with twenty rolls of toilet paper. Stanovich gives a lucid succinct toilet-paper stuffing seminar then steps back, looking on proudly, as the hundred or so cats nimbly pack Madame's abdominal region. In five minutes they are finished, nineteen cardboard cylinders scattered around her.
STANOVICH (hands out beers) Good work, cats. Smoke if you got ’em.
Cats lean sore worked bodies against the side of the kitchen wall in rich, satisfied silence. Stanovich rolls himself a cigarette. He places it in his mouth and retrieves the matchbook from his pocket. With one hand he bends one of the matches back till his thumb is pressing the tip against the strike strip. Once he is certain that eyes are upon him, and with cigarette dangling from his mouth, he casually strikes the match. The flaring match separates fortuitously from the matchbook, catapulting in an orange arc and landing on
Madame’s paper-packed belly, which erupts in conflagration.
EVERYONE Fiya!
Ghost stories are narrated, marshmallows are roasted on twigs, drums are beaten, painted bodies stomp, couples embrace, wet socks are placed to dry, fire walking is attempted, and hushed voices allege she wouldn't have wanted it any other way.
translation from Greek: “But, did she do it with the chicken?”
As soon as I recover I’ll opine.
Well ... heaven knows I'm mytherable now.
Also ... WHY?! Do you not like us?
Also ... I might start using 'fiya'. Just to irritate people.