My mother was a crack whore. My father was a space alien, or at least so she always claimed. More likely he was one of the numberless, faceless johns she used to cruise for outside the Lincoln Tunnel, just behind the Port Authority Bus Terminal. So far, a normal childhood, right?

When I was twelve years old, my mother left me with my “Uncle” Ramon and “Auntie” Lourdes in the South Bronx. “Now you be a good girl, Justine. Mommy’s gotta step around the corner to buy some, er, um, cigarettes. That’s it! Mommy’s gotta go buy some cigarettes.” I never saw her alive again.

“Don’t worry, little pollita,” Uncle Ramon said, patting my ass. “We take very good care of you.” He was a big, fat, sweaty, baldheaded man who walked around the apartment all day in his boxer shorts and undershirts. His main forms of employment were drinking malt liquor and arranging  cock fights.

Auntie Lourdes—equally fat and sweaty, although always buttoned up to the neck—was an intensely religious woman: on Sunday mornings she went to Mass and on Saturday nights she sacrificed Uncle Ramon’s losers to Santería. “Aieee! There are demons everywhere! There are demons in the air we breath, demons in the television set, demons on the Oprah Winfrey show! Beware lest demons get inside you!” Then she would writhe on the floor, froth at the mouth, speak in tongues, and flagellate herself with a cat o’nine tails to keep the demons at bay.

 One night Uncle Ramon came home in a particularly celebratory mood: his birds had won three matches, and he had spent all his winnings on St. Ides. He stripped down to his underwear and crawled into my bed.  “Come here, my little pollita! Time to spread your wings and learn how to fly! Here comes the big red gallo! Cockadoodledoooooo!”

I felt a burning pain inside me as Uncle Ramon pierced my plumage. If this is what cock fighting is like, I thought, I want no part of it. Afterwards we lay together in bed: I was too stunned to move, and Uncle Ramon was too fat.  He absent-mindedly offered me a cigarette, even though I was too young to smoke. That’s when Auntie Lourdes walked in. 

“Ai! She is possessed by demons!” Uncle Ramon cried. “She crawled into my bed and seduced me! She is a succubus—I was helpless to resist!”

“A succubus, huh?” Auntie Lourdes said, reaching for her cat-o’nine. “Fortunately I know how to deal with hellspawn.”

I spent the next several days locked in a closet. There must have been particularly potent demons inside me, because Auntie Lourdes’ repeated vigorous ministrations failed to dislodge them. And in between beatings, Uncle Ramon kept succumbing to their allure.  I probably would have died in that closet if not for the cockfighting: the ASPCA raided the back of the abandoned school building where Uncle Ramon staged his palea de gallos; in exchange for leniency, he ratted out Auntie Lourdes. I was found in the closet, naked, emaciated, dehydrated, and covered with welts and feces (both mine and hers).

“What do we do with the kid?”  the junior ASPCA officer asked.

The ASPCA captain shrugged. “I dunno. She’s not a pussycat or puppydog. It’s not  our jurisdiction.”

I was placed, eventually, in a home for wayward girls run by the Sisters of Ellen DeGeneres. They were an order of nuns all named Ellen: Sister Ellen Highwater, Sister Ellen Ahandbasket, Sister Ellen Origby...

 “You’ve been through such a terrible ordeal, dear,” Sister Ellen Backagain said. She was a kindly, sympathetic, middle-aged woman, although she did have a bit of a mustache.  “I’ll help you get oriented. Then perhaps after supper we can have a little fun in the rec room.” She showed me around the convent:  there was a well-stocked library, beautifully tended flower and vegetable gardens, and several softball diamonds. (The “Ellions,” Sister Backagain proudly informed me, were first in their league last season.)

All during supper, a surprisingly hearty meal of sausages and potatoes, I  observed how affectionate the nuns were with one another: they kept whispering, giggling, and holding hands. When one of the older Sisters would drop a piece of silverware on the floor—this happened often—one of the younger initiates would immediately scurry under the table to retrieve it. Perhaps at last I had found the warm, supportive, nurturing, empowering environment I had always longed for.

After supper, Sister Backagain took me aside. “Let me show you the rec room. It’s where we Sisters go to unwind after a hard day of praying for the sins of the world.” Trustingly, I followed her. She led me through a secret passageway, hidden behind a portrait of Pope Joan, into an underground catacomb. There was an alter in the shape of a pentagram carved into the living rock. A huge black crucifix hung over it—upside down.

I started to suspect something wasn’t kosher. “What kind of rec room is this? Where’s the billiards table?”

 “This is where we hold our initiation ceremonies,” Sister Backagain said huskily, putting her arm around my waist.

 “But I’m not quite sure I’m ready to become a Bride of Christ,” I said, trying to pull away.

Sister Backagain laughed merrily and started to unbutton my blouse. “Oh, Hades no!  You’re not going to become a Bride of Christ.  You’re going to become a Bride of Baphomet, the Goat God.”

The rest of the Ellions filed in wearing long black hooded robes and carrying big black dripping candles. Baphomet, or at least his earthly surrogated, was led in on a leash. I was stripped naked and tied spread-eagle to the alter.

“Baaaah!” Baphomet bleated. I tended to agree; it seemed like I was always winding  up in positions like this.

The Ellions circled around the alter, chanting “One of us! One of us! One of us!” and doing things to each other with the candles you never saw at Mass. Baphomet was apparently familiar with this ritual; without prompting, he clambered between my legs. I felt his spirit and his flesh enter me. I must say, for a goat he had good technique—certainly better than Uncle Ramon. Well, when with lesbian Satanists, do as the lesbian Satanists do. The ceremony was about to reach its climax, when there was a violent pounding on the “rec room” door.

“THIS IS THE ASPCA! THE PLACE IS SURROUNDED! PUT DOWN THAT GOAT AND COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!”

Once again, the ASPCA inadvertently came to my rescue; they seemed to dog my steps wherever I went. The Ellions were loaded onto a prison bus bound for an all-women’s penal institution; for some reason, they didn’t appear to particularly mind. Baphomet was sent to a petting zoo.

“What about this one?” the junior ASPCA officer said, hooking his thumb in my direction. I was trying to cover myself as best I could with a uniform jacket he had lent me.

“I dunno,” the ASPCA captain said. “She was contributing to the delinquency of a goat.  If the goat was transported across state lines, then the FBI will have to get involved. I say lock her up with the rest.”

They were about to snap the cuffs on me and ship me off with the rest of the Ellions, when a patrol car screeched to a halt  and a police officer jumped out. “Are you Justine Candide?  We think we found your mother. Or at least what’s left of her. Would you like to come down to the morgue and view the badly decomposed remains?”

***

The coroner, a small, nervous little man, was apologetic. “We may not have all the pieces. It’s hard to tell. As far as we can determine, she was stabbed, shot, strangled, bludgeoned, axed, set on fire, run through a wood chipping machine, and raped—in that order. Fortunately, we were able to identify her from old dental records. Did you know your mother used to be a part-time dental hygienist?”

I shook my head sadly no.

The coroner lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Just between you and me, we have a suspect, but he’ll never be charged. He’s got connections—he’s a member of a powerful political family from Massachusetts.” He winked at me broadly.  “Ah, here we are. Voila!” He yanked out a steel filing drawer.

There wasn’t much to view. Do you remember that scene in Jaws where Roy Schneider inspects the remains of a victim of a Great White attack? It was something like that, only less recognizable. I turned away, disappointed. I had always hoped to be reunited with my mother some day; to meet a pile of hamburger was a bit of a let down.

The coroner stopped me.  “This was found among her possessions. Or at least in the wood chipper.” He handed me an old, crumpled, dubiously stained piece of paper.  It appeared to be a shopping list: “Milk, eggs, crystallized cocaine….do something about the little bitch. Rat poison?” My heart leapt in my throat: “little bitch” was my mother’s pet name for me. So she really did care about me! I was in her thoughts moments before she died. At long last, I knew I was loved.

Love has amazing transformative powers: it turns despair into hope and tragedy into lucre. If I couldn’t help myself, I would help others by serving as a bad example. I “borrowed” a word processor Sister Backagain used to publish the World Weekly Wiccan News and set to work. The words seemed to just flow naturally out of me, as if I were divinely inspired or had el tourista.  Two weeks later, I sent the completed manuscript—all five hundred pages of it—to a publishing house, Random Violence, that specialized in personal tales of triumph over adversity. And waited.

And waited. And waited. When there was no response, I went directly to their address and forced my way into the editor’s office. “Why  won’t you publish my memoir? It tears the veil of silence, breaks the cycle of pain, and allows the healing to begin. It’s full of brutal truths, terrible honesty, and unblinking facts. In short, it’s all about me getting screwed—literally and figuratively.”

The editor gave me a pitying look. He was a thin, cadaverous man with enormous bags under his eyes, as if he had been ill for a long time, or was having his precious bodily fluids drained by a much younger woman. “Look around you, honey,” he said with a faint British accent. I looked: the office was stacked to the ceiling with padded mailers, photocopies, galley proofs, and reviewer’s copies.  “The  victim fiction market is saturated. Even Oprah won’t have them on her dinner party any more—instead last month she had this trained goat that performed the most amazing tricks...It seems like everyone and her aunt has been sexually abused as a child. I myself when I was growing up in Manchester had a second uncle twice removed who once…but enough about me.” He shoved a thick bundle of papers towards me; it was scrawled all over with purple crayon. “Here, this arrived across the transom just this morning. The author’s undergone past life regression therapy. She’s had twenty-seven different incarnations, and she was sexually abused in every one of them, going back to the time she was a handmaiden in King Tutankhamen’s court. Can you top that?”

I had to admit I couldn’t; the editor called security and had me gently escorted from the premises.

That was the last straw: it was one thing to be raped, tortured, and humiliated every day of my short life; it was another to have my book proposal turned down. If I couldn’t be honored in my own time, I would achieve fame posthumously.

I climbed to the top of the Port Authority Bus Terminal and looked down. If I aimed/timed my leap correctly, I would land smack dab in the middle of Route 495, then immediately be run over by the Number Nine bus—the same bus that probably transported my biological father from New Jersey, through the Lincoln Tunnel, to my mother’s own well-traversed thoroughfare, and brought me into this misbegotten world. My manuscript was duct taped to my body, neatly sealed in a Ziploc bag to prevent it from splattering when I did.

At the last moment I hesitated, looking for some sign that I shouldn’t commit this final, desperate act. A well-dressed young couple walked by.

“Look! That poor girl is going to kill herself! Shouldn’t we do something?”

“I don’t want to get involved. Besides, we’re late for the PETA rally.”

I jumped.

For a moment I just seemed to hang there, suspended, like Wile E. Coyote after another doomed attempt to catch the Roadrunner. Then there was a bright shining light. I seemed to float heavenward, ascending, not falling. If this is dying, I thought, I can live with it. An angel appeared in the sky to conduct me to my final reward. The angel looked just like a huge flaming wheel. Or a flying saucer.

***

I awoke in a room full of blinking lights, strapped naked to an examination table. Uh oh, here we go again. A strange creature was bending over me; it looked like either a little gray wrinkly old man or a big gray wrinkly old penis. It spoke into one of those Star Trek communicator thingies: “Can you understand me? Good! Foolish human female! Why did you seek to discorporate? Don’t you know the Higher Levels are already overflowing with those Hale-Bopp nutcases? It’s a good thing I was hovering around at the time, or you would have been road pizza.”

“I don’t want to live,” I moaned.

“Ah, but you must live! I am Zontar, although my friends call me Elvis. Men are from Mars, I’m from Alpha Centauri. I have been secretly observing human reproductive patterns in the region you call Times Square. Basically it seems to involve exchanging pieces of paper and strips of plastic for exploring various orifices with various appendages.” It started exploring my various orifices with its various appendages. I started to struggle, but then thought Why bother? Might as well get this part over with.

“Of course, nothing beats first-tentacle experience. Eighteen years ago—strictly in the interest of science, of course—I interfaced in a similar manner with a humanoid female behind the structure you call the Port Authority Bus Terminal. I am pleased to discover from my DNA sampling that you are the progeny of that union, proving my theory that interspecies reproduction is possible.”

“Daddy!” I exclaimed just as it thrust its largest appendage deep into my most intimate orifice.

“Of course, scientific results must be reproducible in order to be verifiable...”

Then it started exploring  my oral and nasal orifices as well, and I lapsed into unconciousness again.

***

The rest, as they say, Oprah, is history. I was found wandering naked and confused outside the Lincoln Tunnel. After I was released from Bellevue (the attendants put me into a straightjacket and had their way with me—but that’s another story), I went back to the editor from Random Violence. He was skeptical at first, but then he saw the sonogram. Then came two years on top of the New York Times best sellers list, the Pulitzer Prize, and the guest appearance on The X-Files. (There is no truth to the rumor David Duchovny and I are an item—we’re just good friends.) And then of course the blessed event itself. I named her Ellen Lourdes Elvis-Candide. Wave to the audience, honey! Isn’t she cute? She’s got her mother’s eyes and her father’s tentacles. I’ve started a memoir for her—you know, sort  of as a trust fund. I’ve already written the first two lines: “My mother was a best-selling author. My father was a space alien...”