(Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface is an amorphous blob who looks exactly as her name describes. She has been to her fair share of family reunions and understands my anxiety about attending an event that will surely be miserable.)
I tell Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface that I am traveling nearly two thousand miles by car with family and she laughs and turns a mirror around to face her buttocks. [Evidently, you hate yourself, Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface says and yanks a Japanese beetle out of her ear canal.] She flings the shelled creature on the floor and grinds her heel against its carapace, pulverizing it. [And whom are you visiting, she asks.] I look at my wrists. The veins are overly visible today. Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface clears her throat. She wriggles her eyelids. [Family, I say.] [Family, Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface asks.] [Distant family. I did not know them before today, I say.] She nods her head and opens her mouth. Her throat stretches. [Look into my bowels, Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface says.] [It's dark in there, I say.] She bites my palm. [That's exactly what you'll feel surrounded by strangers. Are there palm trees, she asks.] I shake my head. Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface rubs her back against the mirror. She streaks the glass with a pale blue fluid. [Windshield washer fluid, she says before I can ask.] [You keep it in your spine, I ask.] [No, no. Just in the small of my back. It helps the joints along, she says.] Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface licks the stains off the mirror. Her eyes roll around her head until they lodge behind her nose. [No palm trees, Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface whispers. What is a tropical reunion if there are no indicators of perpetual warm weather? No feather fronds? No coconuts dropping onto estranged relatives' heads? How boring.] She scratches her hips and pulls out several stacks of raw steaks. [Bring these with you, she says.] [They'll fester in the car. We'll be driving for nearly two days, I say.] [And you don't want to smell raw meat, she asks. It'll be better if it's in hot confines. It helps melt the fat away. Or do you want meat that will clog your veins, Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface snaps.] She turns in a circle, twisting her spine up. Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface becomes a spiral staircase. [What will you eat, she asks.] [Grass, I say.] [E. Coli, she says.] [Then mixed salads, I say.] [With a mayonnaise base, she asks.] [Yes, I say.] [Food poisoning at your beck and call, Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface sighs. Have you ever vomited in the middle of a hundred degree day? The waste festers quickly. It attracts flies. There will be maggots coming out of your pores.] Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface breaks a clock and a watch and a computer. [Are you worried about time, she asks, yanking the hands out of a compass.] [Slightly, I say. There is a definitive schedule.] [No there isn't. There's only time to get eaten by a shark. Or to get lost in the midst of a sandbar. Or to stare out a ceiling to floor window and pretend to jump into a bay in the middle of the night, Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface says.] [It is family, I say.] She spreads her jaws wide. She pushes sticks inside. [Exactly right, Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface says. That is what family expects from you. Make sure you bring along laminated emotions. To ensure that they think you are crazed. Every family must have that black sheep body running between their legs. Embrace your role.] [Won't you come along. They'd like to meet you, I say.] Mrs. Snaggletooth Mouthface gives me her liver. [You'll be fine, she says. Record your neuroses in the toxins.]