Invisible monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

Author:Chuck Palahniuk [Palahniuk, Chuck]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780393319293
Publisher: W.W. Norton
Published: 1999-02-14T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Jump way back to a fashion shoot at this junkyard full of dirty wrecked cars where Evie and me have to climb around on the wrecks wearing Hermaun Mancing thong swimwear so narrow you have to wear a

"pussy strip" of surgical tape underneath, and Evie starts in with, "About your mutilated brother . . . ?"

It's not my favorite photographer or art director, either.

And I'm going back to Evie, "Yeah?" Busy sticking out my butt. And the photographer goes, "Evie? That's not pouting!

The uglier the fashions, the worse places we'd have to pose to make them look good. Junkyards. Slaughterhouses.

Sewage treatment plants. It's the ugly bridesmaid tactic where you only look good by comparison. One shoot for Industry Jeans Wear, I was sure we'd have to pose kissing dead bodies.

These junked cars all have rusted holes through them, serrated edges, and I'm this close to naked and trying to remember when was my last tetanus shot. The photographer lowers his camera and says, "I'm only wasting film until you girls decide to pull in your stomachs."

More and more, being beautiful took so much effort. Just the razor bumps would make you want to cry. The bikini waxes. Evie came out of her collagen lip injection saying she no longer had any fear of hell. The next worse thing is Manus yanking off your pussy strip if you're not close-shaved.

About hell, I told Evie, "We're shooting there tomorrow."

So, now the art director says, "Evie, could you climb up a couple cars higher on the pile?" And this is wearing high heels, but Evie goes up. Little diamonds of safety glass are scattered on everywhere you might fall. Through her big cheesy smile, Evie says, "How exactly did your brother get mutilated?" You can only hold a real smile for so long, after that it's just teeth.

The art director steps up with his little foam applicator and retouches where the bronzer is streaked on my butt cheeks.

"It was a hairspray can somebody threw away in our family's burning barrel," I say. "He was burning the trash and it exploded."

And Evie says, "Somebody?"

And I say, "You'd think it was my mom, the way she screamed and tried to stop him bleeding."

And the photographer says,

"Girls, can you go up on your toes just a little?"

Evie goes, "A big thirty-two-ounce can of HairShell hairspray? I bet it peeled half his face off."

We both go up on our toes.

I go, "It wasn't so bad."

"Wait a sec," the art director says, "I need your feet to be not so close together." Then he says, "Wider." Then, "A little wider, please." Then he hands up big chrome tools for us to hold.

Mine must weigh fifteen pounds.

"It's a ball-peen hammer," Evie says, "and you're holding it wrong." "Honey," the photographer says to Evie, "could you hold the chainsaw a bit closer to your mouth, please?"

The sun is warm on the metal of the cars, their tops crushed under the weight of being piled on top each other. These are cars with buckled front ends you know nobody walked away from.

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