MicroHorror

It was May and the rough winds did shake the buds of Castroville’s artichokes. That beautiful member of the thistle family was empurpling all of Monterey County, and we were in for horror. It was 1948 and the world was speeding up–already we had seen Gandhi shot, the Big Bang proposed and the formation of the Hell’s Angels and it was only May. But we didn’t know about the dangers of Cynarin. The Italians knew, because they made Cynar, artichoke liquor, but they didn’t tell us. Maybe they were still missing Mussolini.

We just knew we had to get Americans eating these damn artichokes. If you can grow artichokes and most of your fellow Americans have no damn idea what an artichoke is, money is not flowing your way. So we would whet the appetites of our countrymen with cavalcades and county fairs. We had it all–horses of course–can’t have a cavalcade without horses; it would be etymologically incorrect. We had etymological correctness in those days, and the Bomb. We had artichoke ice cream, yellow and lovely, and we had Norma Jean. She was the prettiest thing to have ever come out of California (even if she did have six toes on one foot). She was to be our first Artichoke Queen.

And we had Cynarin. It’s the naturally occurring drug in every artichoke. It stimulates bile production, or in layman’s terms it makes everything taste better. Professor Whit Bissell Frankenstein had refined a pure Cynarin pill that would instantly make all things seem tasty. He intended to market his little purple pills as Savorin.

The big day came, as is the disappointing habit of big days. The cavalcade made its way down Merritt Street, and we all threw purple artichoke blossoms beneath the horses’ hooves, then the silver and black uniforms of the Condors, then Dr. Frankenstein’s flatbed truck. His lovely daughters with their magenta hair tossed out sample packets of Savorin. People began popping the purple pills like candy as visions of artichoke-derived wealth danced sugarplum-like in their heads. Bile began flowing, hunger growing, and a strange rumbling sound arose from the stomachs of the Castrovillians.

Then we saw her. Norma Jean Baker.

Beautiful like pure sex and vanilla ice cream, surely like the flesh of the apple that the Serpent had offered Eve. Sweet smelling like the gamy scent of your first girlfriend’s vagina, like a perfect Thanksgiving dinner, like Chanel No. 5. Our pupils dilated, our nostrils flared, thick strings of saliva hung from our chins like lead foil icicles on Xmas trees. And we became wolves, locusts, vampires, and piranhas. We ran to pull her out of the open car. We tore her flesh, sank our teeth into the white skin, cracked her bones, and sucked out her eyes. She became almost a red mist over us all. We may have eaten a few of the horses that followed as well.

Hours later, as the Savorin wore off, we knew we had screwed up the artichoke festival. We would permanently. It was Dr. Frankenstein’s fault. We grabbed torches and stormed his laboratory that night. He told us not to fear. He told us to send him the ten most beautiful high school girls, and erase their records.

He cut and sawed and he stitched. They screamed, and we turned up our radio and listened to Peggy Lee’s “Golden Earrings” and Perry Como’s “Ramblin’ Rose.” He made her. Marilyn Monroe. The combined beauty and sex of all American women. No one need ever know that we had eaten Norma Jean. He warned us that the model would not last long. It would doubt its identity and eventually end its life.

It is our shame and our glory.