Great-Granmother Head ain’t have the abortion like she was supposed to.

Rainwater down the steps to the drain clogged with mounded skin flecks, stray fur, burgundy sanitary napkins—a few inches of it they stepped in or over before it found their inside. The very small basement place in the city, or what it was then. A place to stretch out, interrupted by the cold wall. The blanket very damp.

Fungus causing blotches if anyone looked close enough at Granfather Head’s crotch. He preferred blanched shrimp from a can, but was left with Great-Granmother’s mash made from the moisture she had to give.

Great-Granmother called the salesmen puss-eaters. She fucked the wide-assed butcher. He left his purge-stained apron on the edge of Granfather’s bed.

Granfather was briefly taken somewhere for his degeneration, browning of his teeth, his prolonged tonic reflex of his fingers, his bent legs.

Great-Granmother used ejaculate to cream her coffee. She lost a tooth and it did not sit well. She blamed fever on the algae or what-was-it that coated the bricks of their walls.

Other Granfather Head roiled on the dirt floor for a bit after he was birthed.

Granfather kept track of the stink across the days and months of the year.

A wooden kit placed on the bed. Rubber tubes. A ceramic clamshell to funnel, mix, and drip tinctures, cloudy mixtures, compounds from perhaps poisonous vials of silver and blue. Atoxyl derivatives. “606.” Canary rock salt crystals carried in a manner of communion, gentle stir. Sweet touch of God and His Angel of the Night.

Granfather did indeed like the taste of a lick from the pads of Other Granfather’s feet. He laughed, too. Sleeping places now cordoned off with ruddy towels. Wet coughs.

Great-Granmother always removed the sausage casing before she placed them in a row along the grilles of the space heater. The oil-taste lived perpetually within the walls of their mouths. “Don’t itch, you goat dicks.”

Another Granfather Head did not live very long.

Tin utensils with very sharp tines hung from hooks above their designated sleep places. Where else.

Other Granfather didn’t seem to hear very well. He rubbed his ears like they hurt. He said he felt the inside on the outside. He made very little noise. Great-Granmother made sure they made very little noise.

The sun met them sometimes. Granfather smelled turpentine. Small organisms grew out of the floor and the Boys Head hid them. “See? They live.”

“Eat.” The sausage no longer had any casing to remove.

Brown leather girdle, worn-in. The landlord offered a sweet deal.

Great-Granmother overdid it with the mercury cream. Her gums swelled around her still-there teeth.

The Last Granfather Head nuzzled the placenta as they warmed each other within an aluminum bowl. The Boys Head wiped him clean of amniotics with their hands and sucked each other’s fingers clean. Great-Granmother’s perineal laceration bled for very long. Granfather would later say that her cunt was never the same.

Someone delivered cheese three times a week, but nowhere to keep it; it went rotten on the table. Rubbery, head-stink. Washing went undone. Hygiene, what you make of it. After long, their smell was what it was. “Body odor is God’s seasoning.” Great-Granmother said they couldn’t wash anyway, because of the memories it would extinguish.

Great-Granmother’s portrait smeared on its glass with effluent. She made them lick it clean as they could.

Other Granfather wandered in his sleep. While then, the Last Granfather masturbated from a very early age. “No, no. This is how you play with yerself.”

Great-Granmother cupped and lifted her breast. Granfather huffed within the crease. She had forced him there. Likened it to his smegma. She felt him rise and meet her side.

This was the Last Granfather’s first time administering the treatment. Piston rings one-by-one into the canal, just below the cervix. Thus the membranes unfastened.

The shears used for everything. Veins bulged as they pinched the steel through milky copper gunk and pubic hair. Dipped the blades in leftover puddles supplemented by their saliva. Rub dry.

“Pindicks.”

Great-Granmother gripped Granma Head around her crown. Then a grand, mighty yank. They could tell the scent of lochia. They could tell the look of it by its streaks of mucus. They could deftly differentiate it from sanguineous drainage, menstrual fluid, products of hematesis, products of hemoptysis. The Boys Head whispered to each other when its free flow transitioned from rubra to serosa to alba. A sixth sense for moisture.

Granma found the family skull and claimed it as her play-thing.

Their space no longer held what they needed it to—themselves, what was contained in their family. “Leave yer soul behind.”

“Who lives there?” Maybe made of leftover materials from what. Went in because they thought they could. Procedural, room by room. Fridge light bulb, under-voltage in a mild green tint on the boarded walls. Everything looked dipped in substance. A long table where it could happen, in the dining room. Granfather used a smooth brick on the wall to sharpen the kitchen knife. Just like the floor before. Cover the stains up with whatever. The must was good for something. Spread him. Huff the stale piss stains on his under jockey. Great-Granmother finally showed them. “It’s warm.”

Great-Granmother thought the outhouse was dignified. “Ya don’t shit where ya eat.” The Boys Head thought that was funny. Lime chalk circles every so often to mask the smells. Chicken carcass detritus, as it appeared. Gizzard suck-off.

Meals arrived by delivery every Thursday. Microwaveable, eaten cold. “Shit meat.”

Grass overgrew in the backyard. Partially covered, the headstone with the name BITCH. Took the kids long to carve with the kitchen knife.

Translucent ass-worms wriggled out of their pores while they slept. Too much rolling around with the pig bones in the dog yard. Scab on a scab.

There was a plastic funnel they had found once on a walk down the alley. Granma squatted in the blood corner, the landing at the top of the staircase under a picture of Jimmy Carter. Burgundy dimples on the soft palette of the Boys Head’s mouths. Slightly cratered from their sucking.

Other Granfather was the one who woke Granma and Last Granfather was the one to do it first.

“Assgoat.” Other Granfather was ended with a mallet to the temple. Skull fragments into the brain, but it’s okay.

Great-Granmother used blood they kept in resealable bags to slather on Granma’s belly and keep the skin well.

“Okay, so, you see, like, a cow freezes—what’s it called—yeah, paralyzed—from the ass down after the calf slides right out, and ‘cuz of that it can’t clear itself out, you know, the afterbirth shit, so, what we do, I’ll show you, suffocate the motherfucker—no, wait—just enough, put yer hands over the nostrils, scare it a bit, make it jump, think it’s headed to death, just so it stands up and the body starts again, starts to cleanse.”

Mother Head covered in petechiae. “Fucking smells. Shove it back in yer hole.”

Great-Granmother Head was all dried up.

J. Billings is the author of The New Utopia (CLOAK, 2023) and Dissolver (2025), as well as a book of experimental film criticism forthcoming from Index Press. His writing can also be found in 3AM, BRUISER, ergot., Propagule, and Beyond the Last Estate, among other places. He lives in Hilltop, OH. You can find him on X or Instagram @jjb08281219.