his first name was ANOMALY – that was what doctor nichols christened him, as the crowd in the only delivery room in the village of sleat marvelled at the cluttered rows of small, sharp teeth.
they keep the pair in the shabby hospital ward to determine if he’s a miracle or oddity, and soon the nurses have their own unspoken names for him, when they learn that no amount of mother’s cooing or rocking or lullabies hummed in the wee hours could stop the boy from producing the most legendary, ear-splitting wails.
the only thing that could was meat.
so the family priest, consoling the infant’s wounded mother, silently bestows upon him his second title, DEMON.
to the family he was known as the SECRET. he grows and his appetite grows with him. his tastes become more urgent, more impatient, more furious, until one day steaks and chops don’t seem to be enough anymore, and the toddler won’t stop that infernal screaming unless mr. o'malley lines the pockets of tommy reynolds, who everyone knows goes nowhere without his deer rifle, and who twice a week parks his truck full of cold, wet, lumpy packages in their overgrown backyard and hauls them into the cellar one by one.
the children at school taunt him with cries of HOG! – because of the thick musk that no number of hot baths can strip away, and how he acts when twelve o'clock rolls around and they all herd into that narrow lunchroom. he’s unable to use a knife or a fork, not for lack of learned etiquette but out of sheer desperation to get as much inside of him to chase away the hunger as fast as possible. they are repulsed by him. his sisters, who each receive their own share of condemnatory looks, are fiercely envious of their schoolmates. they do not need to live with him.
yanked out of his chair by his stained shirt collar in the middle of sunday dinner, he earns the name BEAST from his humiliated father and a night spent out in the dark with the other animals. the dogs, rattling in their chains, cower in his presence; the latest stray being doted on by ms. fitzgibbons down the street sees no reason to. driven to unspeakable acts to fill an endless void, he gives himself a name of his own.
MONSTER is determined to have a face his mother can press honeyed kisses to. MONSTER knows his father never locks the shed at the end of the yard and the rust on the pliers doesn’t scare him. his mouth has welcomed much worse.
he clamps down and thinks of his mother. he slowly twists his wrist and sees his father’s decade-long grimace in the dark space behind his eyes. he remembers safety-in-numbers sneering in the schoolyard and silence as soon as he steps into a room and doors that slam and words that cut and the terrifying unattainable normalness of everyone around him, and he pulls and he pulls and he pulls.
and his heart shatters as white heads poke through the bloody sockets within minutes, and he realizes it’s about to begin all over again.
the effect puberty may have on his sickness is a daunting prospect for the village. soon MONSTER’s existence is confined to a draughty attic bedroom, where schooling comes in the form of books left in piles in front of his door alongside heaps of those cold, wet parcels.
MONSTER loves his books, especially those that tell of what happened before – disasters survived, evils conquered – and the vcr brought to life with boxes full of television recordings. he takes a particular interest in shows hosted by the likes of carson and letterman, marvelling at how effortlessly it seems for these men to make friends with perfect strangers. he conducts make-believe interviews with the aid of a tape recorder, playing dual roles, and he learns to endure the interruptions in the form of rocks thrown at his window, though he never forgets the way they run when he answers these malicious calls.
years pass: the illness persists, the hunger is bottomless.
one dry, dusty evening in his sixteenth summer, when the parcels are one too few, and the call of the wood that borders the village, grimshaw, is as compelling as it has ever been, his senses are piqued by a scent like no other. it’s just too bad his father forgot to fix the latch on his window and the branch’s girth can bear his weight. he is discovered at the scene of the crime with his nose pressed inches inside of a man’s slit stomach, rooting around like the pig he is.
fortunately, he is discovered by the criminals.
the group responsible for the murder is the morrow family. they are quick to realize the fortune found in the tall, gawky boy whom they call their GIFT, offering to take him off of the o'malley’s hands – for what use do they have for the world’s most flawless garbage disposal system? so MONSTER comes to live in the first and only home to show him some semblance of affection; diligently and eagerly cleaning up their messes in exchange for a listening ear, he entertains them with stories, fabricated but rapturously told. many luckless individuals’ last moments consist of being an audience for an acne-ridden seventeen-year-old with ugly teeth practising his stand-up routines.
talk about dinner with a show.
the matriarch’s eldest son, titus, is enamoured with MONSTER’s ceaseless appetite. his intensity frightens the boy. it’s from titus he is given the apt alias of VULTURE, and a dour vision for what the future may hold for them both when titus takes over the family business.
in the ensuing years, the morrows provide the young man with a sanctuary where his critical need is always met. their love for him is conditional, but how could a MONSTER know the difference?
a burden is only a burden if it cannot be useful, his surrogate mother tells him. MONSTER wants nothing more than to always be useful to his family; he is keenly aware that acceptance depends on his being useful. yet he has one rule he insists upon and protects at all costs: that he should never be tasked with tasting the flesh of the living.
they comply for the sake of keeping him in their good graces. but when MONSTER falls out of line, even he isn’t immune to punishment; on those days, the morrow’s matriarch insists on butchering the corpses herself. on those days, his meals are unmistakable in origin.
the morrow’s only daughter, camille, marries into a family specializing in entertainment. shortly after, a beloved television presenter steps down from the revered late-night slot, leaving enormous shoes to fill. the head of the LIBERTY BROADCASTING COMPANY, mr. vegas, scrambles to find a suitable replacement. a hotheaded newly-appointed executive thinks the new generation needs something totally radical. someone younger, fresher, and zanier. something no one’s seen before.
to her, camille suggests an unknown who had cracked them all up at their last dinner party: her playful, talkative and well-mannered adoptive brother.
it’s an incredible risk, ma says – but her beloved titus sees an opportunity to ensure VULTURE will always belong to them, and they couldn’t possibly mind the additional revenue he’ll surely bring in once they get their hands on his contract. they pull some strings – and fingernails – and, dream-like, the role opens up for MONSTER.
but MONSTER doesn’t want it handed to him. he wants to earn it.
so he auditions with the rest of the shortlist, despite the naysayers. mr. vegas, the most vocal of these, concedes defeat when the lanky geek pulls in the highest audience ratings out of any of the candidates. he phones MONSTER with this news, and christens him anew: PROMISING YOUNG MAN.
with the help of an upcoming producer called montague thornton, a team of talent both old and new is assembled to bring to life a vision of a talk show so unlike what came before. they soon discover aspects of the job that no amount of industry know-how could ever have prepared them for.
now, in the year 199-, north america has crowned him THE PRINCE OF LATE NIGHT.
but to you and me, he’s CONRAD O'MALLEY.
