Sugar Shack

I’m a soul-maker of sorts. I used to pour that liquid silicone into the iron mold and watch it take shape. It would fill in those preposterous curves and motionless arms– the open mouth. Then, I’d slip the wigs onto their heads and paint their lips with a light, rosy pink. I gave life to those lifeless forms. With every stroke of my brush, I saw them come to be. It was finished when I slipped those glass eyeballs into their plastic sockets, and suddenly, they could see.

They’re trying to say that I should receive life in prison. And yet, I have been on and off of trial for years with no true verdict. Know I am no adversary to life. This crime was on the matter of my appreciation of life, not of my disdain for it.

Four days after Kennedy was shot, I imagined him as one of my dolls. I drew him as one and everything; I even considered pitching the idea to Joe Gingall, the very head of operations at the factory. But there were two factors that I knew would surely stop the production of a doll like that. One, we didn’t make male sex dolls. Two, an assassinated president sex doll wouldn’t sell very well. 

Yet, there was another issue that was more prevalent, and is the very reason I write this confession; because one must understand why this issue caused such a stir within my fabricated soul. Working on a factory line, painting the frozen expression of luxury pleasure dolls, I was not meant to grow connected to my work. Instead, I was meant to feel an alienation from the product altogether. But despite the fact, I didn't feel that way. Those dolls were my livelihood.

Mr. Gingall told me to meet him at a Chinese restaurant in the city. There, Sugar Shack Pleasure Dolls was hosting its annual Thanksgiving dinner for the more prized employees: investors, stockholders, managers. I was a bit surprised they still planned to hold it while America was mourning. But what did they know about mourning, about feeling? What did these people know about my art? They were so distant from it, so detached. They sat in offices while I hunched over the factory line, carefully taking the plastic faces in my hands and giving them souls. All those men knew were silicone girls in boxes shipped away for a hundred dollars.

I went anyway, because I knew my cause. I had a concern about a new method of production that I wouldn’t stand for. It ruined my work, and I simply couldn’t have that. In my pocket was my prepared speech in English, for I knew very little at the time and wished to say everything I needed to. 

The restaurant was somehow humid and filled with the murmur of conversation– an alphabet soup. Its red, patterned carpet was dirtied from the mud the patrons brought in; and I watched a young boy in an apron get on his knees to begin scrubbing. Every once in a while he stopped to look at the paper lanterns strung across the ceiling.

“Lucy?”

The ring of that familiar voice immediately brought a stillness to my stride. I stopped and my back went tense. Sometimes, I forgot that my own biology had been written for me. It was not anything I could change or create with enough sculpting or plastic eyeballs. So, against my better judgment, I remained frozen. 

I only turned when he said my name again, and I saw him clearly. Next to the coat rack, an average looking man with an average set of spectacles and an average-pressed shirt. 

“Mr. Pershick… hello,” was all I could say. My English left me then. 

“Forgive me.” He released a nervous laugh. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I…” I thought very hard about the words. “I am here for… to talk to Mr. Gingall.”

His nervousness always made me jumpy. A neighboring worker in the factory had said it was because he was only twenty-two and was thrown into a managerial position in distributions. She’d also said that the young man was presumably stricken with a crush, to which I told her I was married, a mother, and twelve years his senior. Nor had I ever found myself in a true conversation with the young man, due to the language barrier and his inability to hold one.

“I hope you’re doing well in light of the circumstances.” He swallowed. “With President Kennedy.”

“Oh, yes. President. It’s sad… very, very sad.” I nodded, though I didn’t care all that much. I wanted to leave him. “Mr. Gingall? Have you seen?”

“Indeed, indeed,” he said quickly as if remembering. “I can bring you to him. But first, could I speak with you outside?”

My body internally recoiled, making my throat dry out like I’d swallowed sand. I couldn’t speak to him. I couldn’t bring myself to.

“Rain,” I said. “It’s raining… yes?”

“Oh.” He laughed again. “Funny enough, I’d just ran to Madison Street for a pack of cigarettes and soaked my coat. I can’t believe I forgot it’s raining.”

I nodded, not knowing what else to say, but unable to leave. 

“Could we speak at the coffee shop next door instead?”

“Mr. Gingall,” I said, hurrying by him. “I need to talk to Mr. Gingall.”

He grabbed my hand and stopped me in my tracks. It was swift and could be missed from a distance, and he quickly let go when I turned to face him.

“I’m sorry.” He slightly backed away. “I just really feel I need to explain myself.”

My mind became a paralyzed collection of words and phrases and feelings. My blood became putty, and I imagined myself imprinted on a newspaper to be a reflection of nothing but headlines. Without another forced pleasantry, I left and continued my journey, ignoring the tightness all through me. The feeling was forced out when I cleared my throat. 

I’d turned around the large pillar decorated with streamers, finding a long table of some faces I’d recognized. My task surfaced in my mind again. Mr. Gingall. I had to speak with him, express my grievances. I’d been working at that factory for ten years, longer than my son had been alive at that point. So I approached the table of young women in pastel shift dresses and bobbed hair, elegant like Tippi Hedren. The men in their pressed suites, more casual than the ones I’d seen at work. 

“Mr. Gingall… excuse me?” I said quietly.

A few heads turned until one of the women tapped Mr. Gingall’s hand. He looked around before settling on me.

“Lucía…”

“Flores,” I finished for him.

“Lucíe Flores.” He clapped once before pointing at me. “We have a quick meeting, don’t we?”

My focus shifted to the woman at his side. Brunette, hair so shiny it looked synthetic. She was talking to another woman across the table in a great, big smile. Gloved hands. A small bit of red lipstick over one of her front teeth. And her eyes were somehow glossy; I figured to be from plastic contact lenses which had been growing more mainstream. I was stuck there, finding such familiarity in her eyes.

“Mrs. Flores?” Mr. Gingall said. He had been calling my name for some time now. I hadn’t even realized he was standing next to me, offering an arm.

I was led to a small booth in the neighboring room. Mr. Gingall went on about a movie he presumed I had seen, though I hadn’t. All the while, I was clutching my paper speech in my hand; but all he did was talk and talk, tipsy from the earlier contents of their night. I couldn’t stand it after a while. I glanced down at the paper in my lap and read quickly.

“I have a grievance,” I said, louder than expected.

Mr. Gingall stopped talking, raising a thick brow at me. He leaned back in his seat. “Forgive me. I ramble. Go on.”

I looked back down at the paper, but found that whole sentences were smudged from the rain. “Eh… My grievance is…”

He waited, not appearing impatient, only a bit disinterested. 

I sighed, shoving the paper back into my pocket. “The rain.”

He laughed slightly. “Your grievance is the rain?”

“Eh, no!” I said quickly. “It’s the teeth.”

“I don’t think I’m understanding.”

Taking a breath, I closed my eyes, trying to gather the words that had become thick in my mouth. When I opened them, I imagined his eyes to be of plastic, and suddenly I could think clearer.

“You ask of me to… take the teeth out of the heads of the pleasure dolls,” I said carefully. “The old dolls. Your new way is to send them back down the line. And… you ask of me and others to take the teeth out. Why do you ask this of me?”

It had been going on for that entire month. I was put on a new line, watching as dolls I had already perfectly crafted came back towards me. I’d be forced to place a gentle hand on their silicone cheek before shoving pliers into their mouths, yanking out the plastic teeth until they were oddities. Then, I’d press the button, sending them away. I couldn’t stand it. If I could not truly give them souls, the least I could do was give them teeth.

He nodded as if he had run into this question. “Ah, I see. Removing the teeth of models that no longer sell makes an entirely new product that can be charged as a specialty item. Buyers say that the teeth feel strange and would do better without.”

My body grew hot with frustration. “No. They need teeth. No teeth and… they’re strange. They don’t look right. I make dolls that look right.”

“It’s materials gone to waste if we don’t change the model,” he said, matter-of-fact-like. “Removing the teeth provides a more pleasant sensory experience for the buyer.”

“Eh… say that again?”

He was speaking too quickly for me to fully understand. 

“They’ll sell better without teeth. Our Daisy Mae model has too much of a vintage look, reminds buyers of their mothers, you know? We give it a new wig and take out its teeth and then we’ve got a new sale. Understand?”

How could he not understand? How could he send those girls off without teeth? All they had were teeth. Composed of soft silicone, silky hair, and lacy undergarments– all I could possibly give them were teeth. 

“Mr. Gingall, I cannot take out their teeth.”

“Unfortunately, that means you would have to find another job, Mrs. Flores.”

I remained still at that, at the fear of being anywhere but at Sugar Shack. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave, but simultaneously I couldn’t change the fact of what I had to do. I was put in a situation where I couldn’t make a single change, a spot I’d often found myself in.

And no matter how much I stumbled over my words to convince him, he only offered me a drink as a resolution. Come have one. Take a seat, there’s fortune cookies. Break one open. See the future. And soon, I’d followed him where he led me. Accepting drink after drink until I could scarcely understand a word that was being said.

I had ended up in a quietly resentful state. I’d been content making the pleasure dolls. I was a soul-maker. I could give them teeth, and suddenly, I was their demise. I betrayed them in a way that almost made me feel like I could hear them. I could feel phantom touches, gripping my arms, firm and relentless, holding me there.

Sitting at the long table, I couldn’t pull in a breath, reminding me of the corset I’d worn on my wedding day. I reached to loosen strings that weren’t there; instead, just grabbing at my chest in an attempt to breathe. The lights were too bright, the conversations too loud. Everything was too close. I shot up from my chair and rushed towards the back exit, finding myself in a desolate Chicago alleyway in sideways rain.

I wanted it to wash everything away. I wished I could be placed in an iron cast and boiled to be made anew. But all that could be done was my stillness. I stood there, taking in the sound of rain and distant car horns.

“Lucy, what are you doing in the rain?” Mr. Pershnick rushed outside with his coat over his head.

He came close by and held it over me, restricting the rain from dizzily washing me. I shook my head.

“No. No, I want rain,” I said, stepping away from him, back into the water.

“Please come back inside. Or let me take you home at the very least–”

“No, no, no,” I mumbled, stepping backwards. 

The world at that moment was swaying beneath my feet, bringing me to tip over. I grabbed onto the wall and closed my eyes, wanting to melt down the drain along with the dumpster water.

“Please, just let me apologize,” he said, speaking a little louder with the sound of the rain.

“No, no, no,” I mumbled again, shaking my head as if that would stop the swaying. “Go away. Go now.”

He grabbed hold of my arm, presumably to keep me upright, but I pulled away. 

“Stop it!”

And he did. He remained still, only staring at me in my sideways state.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it!” I shouted, though he was no longer touching me. 

A silence fell between us and I put my face in my hands, hiding. Like a child, if I couldn’t see him, he wasn’t there.

“I got carried away,” he said. “I shouldn’t have been so… I just got carried away. I’m not typically like that. And I didn’t know you were married, I swear I didn’t. I didn’t mean to complicate things or… I know I went too far–”

“Go away!”

“Stop yelling,” he quickly said. “I’m so sorry, Lucy. I got caught up and I was drunk and…”

His words sounded as if they were coming in through a tunnel. It was possible that we had actually been in a tunnel, because I hadn’t realized that it was night. I couldn’t get a grasp on the passage of time through that evening, or the fact that his coat was dropped on the ground in a soggy mess.

I couldn’t catch my breath, and he only grew closer, trying to console me– or get me to stop being so loud. I backed up and my head thumped into the wall, bringing the world to press into me even harder. Everywhere there was weight. Over my chest, in my lungs. My flesh was as thick as silicone and my blurred vision was like looking through marbles. 

He took another step and I cried out. I screamed as if he had stuck a butter knife straight through my chest, because that’s what it had felt like. His presence. The existence of him and the smell of his Brut cologne. My hands shook and I screamed, frightening him. He quickly stepped towards me and brought a hand over my mouth.

“Lucy! Calm down!” his hush command was frantic. “Let’s just talk. Can’t we just talk it through?”

I didn’t quite know where or when I was. I felt half stuck in the memory of a backseat, drunk in the same way I was in that moment– if not more so. In a split second, my body charged with the remembrance of being there all but two weeks prior. It only brought me to panic more, and I flailed against him as he tried to calm me down. I flailed, and I remembered. Even with the fog of my mind, I found myself lost in the remembrance.

I cried out from the depth of my belly against his hand, almost sounding akin to a rabid animal. And like something rabid and mad, my body acted against what my mind decided. 

I bit.

Clamping my maw on the flesh of his palm, he pulled away in pain, but I couldn’t let go. I held onto him by my teeth until he pulled so hard that he was free from my grasp, skin opened by my canines.

We stood in opposition, silent in our stares at one another. 

There was only the sound of rain tapping against the metal dumpster and the remaining taste of his metallic blood on my teeth.

“Lucy,” was all he said, and I couldn’t decipher how he felt– maybe a bit afraid.

I was slightly leaning to one side, though I don’t know why. I must’ve appeared like a creature then, staring at him without a semblance of emotion on my face. Or maybe there was an emotion there: realization. Some kind of epiphany over my features flushed from the alcohol. A dragged my tongue over my teeth, and it came to me like a vision from the beyond.

A witness in the police report claimed to have seen me like an alley cat. She had been walking home from her sister’s apartment, only paused by the sight of a woman hunched over by the dumpsters of a Chinese restaurant. She squinted through the rain, finding that the sight only became more hazy and confusing.

“Ma’am? Ma’am, are you alright?” the witness called into the alleyway.

She only grew closer when there was no response, finding the scene of a woman looming over the body of a young man. Torn. Bitten and peeled by teeth.

I don’t remember this moment, nor do I remember how long I had been there mumbling to myself. When asked in her statement, the woman wrote down the two words she heard me mumbling over and over again.

The teeth.