The American Standard for Frankensteins

The hardest part of creating life is choosing its star sign.

I decided to bring Christopher to life on July 8, the anniversary of the poet Percy Shelley’s drowning. His death was a second life for our inspiration Mary Shelley. Without the scientific achievements of that second life, free of her feckless husband, we would not be holding this exhibition. 

This makes Chrisopher a Cancer - passionate, sensitive, and hungry for sensation. An inner tempest for a tormented, misunderstood monster. The perfect birthday for one of Mary Shelley’s revenant grandchildren.

If only I could get him to stop playing with the bolts in his neck.

I know you hate them, my love. But this is how things are in America. The judge needs to see a high forehead, green skin and electrical contacts jutting out of the sides of the neck. Omitting the neck bolts would mean disqualification and scandal. Sharp words would be penned in Monster Fancy magazine, perhaps even a few lines of satirical verse in iambic pentameter.

Christopher has a champion’s ferocious spirit, but I can’t let him sabotage our hard work during the show, so I have him strapped to the operating table in our trailer. As a further precaution, I have him on low voltage, just enough for a threatening shamble around the course, but not enough to impulsively rip off anyone’s arm. I know a lot of creators use a cattle prod with disobedient monsters, but I find they scorch the flesh, and the distress it causes the monster tends to make them more unruly, not less. I couldn’t do that to my boy.

This trailer is our mobile workshop, the venue for any last-minute rhinoplasty, liposuction or purification of sperm in a gourd glass. I studied my craft in this trailer when I was only as high as my father’s patella. My father let me fetch and hold his tools, and in time I helped with the sawing, stitching, and amplification of DNA samples on the thermal cycler. It was natural that I was bitten by the bug for unfolding to the world the deepest mysterious of creation. What can I say? I’ve always been daddy’s girl. Naming me Victoria sealed the deal.

My father worked in the traditional Shelley standard, where enormous emphasis is placed on the eyes, which must be a precise shade of dull yellow. Perhaps in reaction to that, the Hammer standard is indifferent to the eyes, provided the face is sufficiently gruesome. In the Reanimator standard, of course, eyes can be omitted or abundant, depending on the mad scientist’s preference. Likewise, the American standard does not hold strong opinions on the eyes, as long as the monster looks exactly as it did in a movie the judge saw when they were eight.

The skin colour in the American standard is no end of trouble. Yes, you can get green from putrefaction, but it’s not worth the foul smell or bloating, and the finish is inconsistent. I find that copper oxide rubbed into the skin gets the best results, because you can apply it evenly, and the blue-green combines with the natural yellowing of dead limbs to get just the right effect.

There is still a little time before our event, so I decide to examine the course.

The toys are on parade, mincing killer dolls in frocks waggling kitchen knives. Always popular with spectators. An assortment of observers are ogling from the grandstand, both monster aficionados in slasher t-shirts and strapping country folk who have wandered over from the cattle show. One tall man is even displaying their hype by wearing a plastic Frankenstein’s monster mask.

The painted sets are evocative, if faded from years of touring - your standard haunted castle on a cliff, generic cosy shack with kindly blind man, typical graveyard with despoiled tombs, eccetera. I will lead Christopher in the rally event, where he will perform exercises against these sets. Lurch like a blind man, mime strangling a child, cower at fire… Thus demonstrating conformation with the rigorous American standard for a shambling undead melange of organs and sinews.

“Victoria?”

Oh dear. Terrance.

I don’t exactly dislike Terrance, except that I don’t seek out his company, or want it to go on for very long.

True, we collaborated in an act of intimacy on my father’s grave, but that was an indulgence from my gothic romance phase, and anyway the main thing I remember from it is hitting my head on the tombstone. But as is often the case with men, one squishy fumble is interpreted as purchase of a minority share in the corporation, where even if they do not have voting rights, they are permitted to offer unsolicited comments at stakeholder meetings.

“Terrance. You’re showing a monster as well?”

“Oh, yes. I’m trying out this new method where you grow the body in a vat, very expensive of course, but you can program the computer for any appearance you want. Cuts out all the surgery fuss. And the result is movie perfect, down to the scars. Are you still… resurrecting?”

“Digging up graves? Yes.”

“You wouldn’t prefer getting a few of the bits from catalogues? Less dealing with muck. Better for the skin, I imagine.”

Ah, yes. The expectation that my appearance be immaculate even when elbow-deep in grime and horror. Nobody ever told Doc Brown or Einstein to comb their hair.

“What can I say? I like the old ways, and may not have your budget. Tell me about your new creature, Terrance. What’s their name?”

“Oh, well, you go through so many failed attempts, it doesn’t make sense to name them… You’re always grinding them up to recycle the protein… But I’ll be entering GX134.”

“What’s their star sign?”

“I don’t know about that stuff.”

“Well, what date did you bring them to life?”

“GX134? Uh, I think it was completed… early September? Sorry I’m not more precise, the experiments blur together.”

Most likely a Virgo, then. Precision and control. What a dull choice for a monster. A true monster needs anguish to spur them on.

“Oh, Victoria, have I shown you the remote?”

“No?”

“It’s another innovation. You know I don’t have your affinity for training. It’s something you’re born with, I suppose, like being able to handle pets or children. This device here. The computer programs the monster with a range of pre-set motions, and I command them with this. Takes all of the doubt out of the rally. Unless the batteries in the remote die! Ha ha.”

“Hmmm. As I said… I prefer the old ways.”

I dismiss Terrance, and go to prepare Christopher. I unbind him, and give him his favourite lobster toy to play with. He bites off its head. Good boy. That’s a winner’s mindset.

It’s not about the money, but the cross-country travel for these shows is an investment, never mind the entry fees. A ribbon here and we claim points towards a Chiller Certificate. That will bring in monster repair work, perhaps even sponsorships and endorsements. The real money, of course, is always in plastic surgery for people who want to look like monsters. But you need a Best in Scare to attract that clientele. I think we can pull it off. This is for you, Christopher. No more organs from the pauper’s graveyard. We will be able to afford the finest lungs and livers from extreme sports fatalities.

And it’s for Mary. This is her legacy - science masquerading as fiction, revealed after her husband’s death. The founding of her anatomy school in London. The published lectures. Her creations, some still alive and taking interviews. I must show all these shallow pretenders to her legacy that the spark of being is safest cupped in a woman’s firm hands.

The judge is elfin, stern and wears immaculate Georgian attire. Points for style.

The first activity goes well. Christopher lies on the ground, dead to the world, and then twitches to life. He groans as he stirs, and clambers onto mooncalf legs. A smattering of applause from the spectators greets this strong start.

Then he must strangle a child, represented here with a doll. Christopher gives its throat a good squeeze, then shakes it, alarmed it does not move. He lays it down gently, and strokes its hair in remorse. I can see the judge is impressed.

This is why he had to be a Cancer. All the feelings.

It goes wrong at the graveyard scene. He starts to fiddle with one of his bolts. I give him a stern look. He defies me, and begins to pull on them both. The crowd gasps. One wrench, and he yanks them out.

Then his head falls off.

Needless to say, this does not endear us to the judge. Instant disqualification.

Terrance helps me carry Chrisopher’s pieces to the trailer. He admires the legs, and offers to buy them. Money for the trip home. I assume he thinks he’s helping. I sit in the trailer doorway and chug straight from the whiskey bottle.

That is what happens to failed creatures - they “stud”, dismantled into components that might have better fortune as parts of other monsters. I don’t want to do that to Christopher. But if he won’t listen to orders, what choice do I have? Perhaps I need to stop getting so attached to my creations - stop trying to see the soul's burning and potent star, and restrict my engagement to the neutral facts of hydrogen and helium. Pledge myself to matter, not magic. Let a computer do all the work, and confine my role to pressing buttons on a remote.

One of the spectators strides up to me. The tall one wearing the plastic mask.

“I admired your child’s demonstration.”

“Thanks. The judge didn’t.”

“These contests diminish both monster and creator. Monsters are born to show their power, not languish in chains. Our souls are wild things, built for extraordinary places and experiences.Your son has spirit, the daemon that drives us to ecstatic extremes, whether it is to the chill peak of Mont Blanc, or the desolate ice flows of Antarctica. I remember all the rage and confusion of my time as a newborn. How I tormented my mother! But in time, the fire blows out. We forgive the world, and our parent. For that to happen, however, we must spend our wrath. Only then can we honour our creator for the gift of life.”

In the slits of his mask, I can see eyes of a precise shade of dull yellow.

I know what I must do. I reattach Christopher’s head. No bolts this time. While I’m at it, I embed step-up transformers at strategic locations to increase voltage. I forget my manners in the frenzy of the work and when I am done there is about as much viscera in my hair as there is in my monster.

For the next part, I need more power than my trailer’s generator. Alas, there is no storm for a convenient blast of lightning. Fortunately, the other scientists are busy drinking champagne at the post-show celebration. I am sure they won’t mind my borrowing a few of their generators - for science.

Normally, I would not endorse connecting multiple generators in parallel to produce a cataclysmic burst of power, but it gets the job done if you’re fine with them bursting into flame.

I’m sorry I won’t be here for the event, and regret abandoning a trailer with so many memories.  But I can’t be sure Christopher will be discriminating in how he spends his first moments of power and freedom. I start the machinery and drive away from the exhibition grounds, leaving a letter for my son:

Christopher, you didn’t ask for life, but it is yours to do with as you choose. There are men here who think they can control you, and your kin. I know you will relish reminding them what power really is, one leg and arm at a time. After that, who knows? You may want to share that lesson with more people, or retire from human society to reflect on life and the world. Whatever you decide, I know your existence will be free, for I have ensured you will be unstoppable. If you seek me out, you will find I have been hard at work making you new brothers and sisters, true monsters, untrammeled and glorious in their capacity for vengeance. Let us show the world that creating life is not a polite game one can control, but an untamed and magnificent storm of blood and madness!

Love, your mother.

XXXOOO