Foodchain (10 page)

DAY FIVE

Frank finally woke around noon, still slumped in the front seat of the truck, steeped in sweat that smelled bad enough to bring tears to his eyes. It felt as if he’d spent the past few months jammed tight inside a greasy garbage can. Gingerly rolling the kinks out of his neck, he crawled out of the sweltering cab and shielded his eyes from a merciless sun that hung directly overhead. After spending a few moments unpeeling the suit from his damp skin, he realized that he was alone in the auction yard parking lot. He was glad the clowns had let him sleep, even though the inside of the truck had become an oven.

Thirst hit him like a sledgehammer. He found a coiled hose along the wall, but the water that came out was damn near scalding. After a few minutes though, he got to the water that had been waiting under the heavy stone foundation, and it gradually turned crisp and blissfully cool. Frank tried not to gulp at it and in the end just held it over his head. To hell with the expensive suit. It wouldn’t take long to dry in this heat; besides, he knew he would have to find some new clothes soon.

The cold water shocked his system like lightning striking Frankenstein’s monster, causing him to gasp involuntarily and left him with a big, stupid grin on his face. He kept chugging the water, alternating with letting it cascade down his skull and his back, until finally, he was afraid that if he drank any more he’d just vomit it all back up.

A long deep howl, from somewhere deep in the building, rose into the still air, then silence.

Frank put the hose back and went looking for the clowns.

* * * * *

He didn’t have to go far. They were sitting in front of their trailer, under the awning, at a wooden picnic table that the clowns had stolen from the rest stop. A couple of neon beer signs hummed listlessly in the still air, hung against the trailer between cheap mirrors that bore large cigarette logos. The duct-taped cooler was stowed in the shade under the trailer. Jack was the only one moving, methodically building a pyramid of charcoal briquette in a round BBQ.

“Thought you might be half Indian, way you were sleeping in that cab like it was a kind of sweat lodge,” Pine said. It sounded like he was trying to be friendly, but it came out flat and tired.

Frank grabbed a beer. He sat next to Chuck, decided he couldn’t wait for Jack to finish building the fire, and ate a raw hot dog. With the cold beer, it almost tasted good. “So what’s happening?”

Jack shrugged. “Nothing. We got the animals inside and locked up. Sturm said to let you sleep. We’re supposed to meet him at the fairgrounds, soon as it’s dark. Just to make sure the animals were safe and sound, and to hang tight.”

Pine spit into the dust. Frank watched the saliva roll into a dusty glob and quiver like Jell-O. Heat made the gravel shimmer and dance. They drank slowly, making the beer last, and waited silently. Even Chuck kept his mouth shut. The men watched the shadows slide across the ground, listened to the big cats hiss at each other, and did their damndest to move less than the lizards.

* * * * *

Frank had never seen anything like it. Sturm had invited the entire town, even the Gloucks, out to the fairgrounds where he barbequed the lioness that had died on the journey. At least a hundred people showed up, all carrying something. The women carried food, most of it sacks of potatoes, while the men lugged coolers full of chicken and beer. The children brought water pistols and homemade get-well cards, flaking glitter and raw macaroni shells. Sturm had paid the carnival to stay open an extra day, and so the air was filled with clanking rides, happy shouts and screams, the sickly sweet smells of cotton candy, and wisps of sharp smoke from barbequed meat.

Everyone gathered around a gently curving string of wooden picnic tables under canvas awnings that covered cool concrete slabs. Beyond the shallow semi-circle of tables was a dry creek bed, maybe thirty yards across; useless farmland, overgrown with star thistles, lay on the other side.

The monolithic BBQ, built of solid, blackened brick, rose at the far end of the strip of tables. Sturm had built the fire at dawn, using a combination of eucalyptus and oak at the beginning, building a massive bed of glowing hardwood coals, and added green apple branches, four inches thick, just before the meat was slapped onto the chain-link grill.

Sturm saved the heart for himself and Theo, frying it up in butter in a cast iron skillet and eating it with biscuits and gravy. Everyone else at least got a taste of the rest of the animal, either leg muscles or ribs, served along with the food that the town had brought. Food like blackened chicken legs, breasts, thighs, wings. Boiled hot dogs. Gallons of baked beans. Giant tubs of coleslaw and potato salad. Enough French bread to build a fence around the picnic tables. Sturm even cut the tail off the lioness and gave it to the Mexicans for stew.

Frank hadn’t eaten much in several days, and he wasn’t about to pass up this chance. He loaded his plate with chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy with chicken drippings, potato salad—made from baked potatoes, onions, mayonnaise, sweet pickle relish, black olives, and hard boiled eggs—and fries from a deep fryer. Even a corn dog, just for the hell of it. Sturm set aside a special cut of the lion for Frank, something resembling a filet from the chest. It was the only thing he didn’t enjoy; it tasted sour, overcooked.

* * * * *

When everyone had eaten, and the crowd had thinned, drifting off to the carnival rides and games, Sturm and Frank sat together in the gathering twilight, watching the glowing coals slowly fade. Frank felt the heat from fifteen feet away. Sturm instructed Theo to bring him an envelope from his pickup.

Sturm handed it to Frank. “You earned it, son. This is a hell of a thing here, thanks to you.”

Frank murmured, “Hell, happy to help,” as he glanced inside the envelope. His heart tripped over itself for a second. “Wait…there’s more…more than we agreed on.” He quickly added the bills, guessing there was nearly ten grand in the envelope.

Sturm grinned as the rolling, spinning lights from the carnival reflected in his eyes. “Yep. I know. Figured you deserved it.”

“Hell, I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything, son. Like I said, you earned it. Use as best you see fit.” Sturm glanced back at Frank. “I know you got yourself some pressing personal problems, and I understand if you have to keep moving. But here’s the thing. Our vet took off last winter. If you want it, there’s a position available here, for as long as you want. I could use a man like you. Got some plans for them animals. We’re gonna have some fun. This, this here,” Sturm gestured at the tables, the stands, the carnival. “This is just the beginning.”

Frank sat back, feeling something close to warmth in his chest as he watched the women cleaning up all the food, the knots of men, smoking and drinking, the children running about in the dark with flashlights and glowsticks. He felt strangely affectionate toward all of them, as if they were all animals in his care and they needed his guidance, his skills, his love. He was surprised to find himself smiling.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’d like that.”

Sturm clapped him on the back and said, “First thing in the morning, we’re gonna have to get you some decent working clothes.” They both laughed, and sat for a while, sipping from their beers, watching the people, and enjoying the slight cool breeze that had come up.

* * * * *

Sturm saw Petunia first. “Hell’s that damn dog doing here?” he muttered, crumpling his tenth or eleventh beer. Frank glanced over, saw the dog nimbly hop up onto the top of one of the picnic tables and help herself to the leftovers. The three people still at the table suddenly found some urgent business somewhere else.

The Gloucks followed Petunia.

They came out of the darkness, a ragged, seething group of boys, ebbing and flowing around the two mothers in a surging amoeba of bodyguards. The two women, the two mothers, Edie and Alice, walking purposeful and unhurried, headed straight for Sturm, chins up, like the proud, sticklike birds with dagger beaks that strutted through the flooded rice fields. Folks got out of their way.

Two girls, holding hands, trailed the group. One was seven years old, the same little girl that had hollered at the two deputies from the dead tree several days earlier.

The other was nineteen. Her name was Annie.

Frank saw her immediately. She wasn’t plump exactly, just filled out; lots of curves in all the right places and she moved like a racehorse, smooth, graceful, strong.

The boys spread out in feral, scuttling movements, spilling around Frank and Sturm and fading back toward the tables. They wore long baggy shorts, oversize basketball tank tops, hats turned sideways. They’d been watching too much MTV off that gigantic satellite and were doing their damndest to look like wannabe hip hop thugs that carried nine millimeters of handgun next to their dicks. But instead of nine millimeters, these kids were packing air pistols and BB guns and slingshots.

Alice extended a flat dish that steamed in the cool air, a gift for the potluck. She stopped just short of giving it to Sturm as Edie shouted back at the boys, “Git that dog off that fucking table. We’re guests, goddamnit.” She gave them a meaningful look. “There will be no ruckus here tonight.”

The boys nodded. Annie smiled, gave her sister’s hand a squeeze.

The mothers turned back to Sturm, still pissed at their boys but at the same time, deferential and respectful to Sturm, ignoring Frank. The food was a thin, burnt husk of something. It smelled of BBQ sauce, onions and garlic, maybe some Tabasco, and something else, some kind of meat, something different underneath.

“Well, thank—” Sturm started.

“We’ll need that dish back,” Edie said. Her left eye seemed glaringly fake, a ping pong ball or something, some kind of cheap movie monster from the ‘50s, staring at the stars somewhere over Frank’s head. She fixed her good eye on Sturm, moving her head as if on a thousand ball bearings, utterly smooth, like a rattlesnake on opium.

Alice leaned in, smiling, and bumped Sturm’s chest with the potluck dish. Sturm tried to talk, to take the dish, anything, but couldn’t manage anything but licking the inside of his lips. “Uh, well…”

Frank stepped in, very smooth, very diplomatic, and took the dish.

Sturm finally managed, “Thank you,” and stiffly held up his hand, shook Alice’s hand. The mothers were very pleased. They all stood around grinning at each other as if they’d been friends for years. Finally, Sturm couldn’t take it anymore and gestured at the tables. “Please, please, make yourselves welcome. Eat.”

The boys hit the tables like crabs going after a dead whale. “Thank you very, very much.” Alice took Sturm’s hands with both of hers. She bowed her head and the mothers descended upon the tables, a couple of egrets joining the crabs.

Frank wasn’t sure if the dish in his hands was supposed to be meat, pasta, or vegetable. It smelled scarily of fish. He put the dish on the table in the center of the half circle of tables, between a carrot cake and cookie sheets heaped with blackened chicken. The mothers watched him.

Edie coughed.

“Hell, son,” Sturm said. “Don’t be shy. Go on ahead. Try some.” He tapped his skull and gave a sad smile. “I would, but…afraid the doc’s got me on a restricted diet. Smells delicious, though.”

Frank reluctantly tried to scoop out a little piece, but snapped the plastic fork instead. He took a nearby spatula and had a hell of a time cutting himself out a few bites. He dumped a few crumbs on a paper plate, got a new plastic fork, and scraped a little into his mouth and just as he realized it was the worst thing he’d ever tasted, he heard Annie’s voice from somewhere close. “You like it?”

The bite from the potluck dish tasted like a deep fried turd. Frank tried to swallow, turned, tears burning his eyes, his gag reflex threatening to explode.

Through the stinging tears, he got a closer look at Annie. She wore cutoffs; white, dangling threads accentuated her strong, tan legs. Her flip-flops were nothing more than flat strips of rubber that used to be neon orange, smudged with grime. Silver toe rings glittered. One of them bore a grinning skull. The bottom of her feet were black, darker than dirt. The white halter top had risen, revealing a sliver of a round brown belly. Heavy, full breasts strained the fabric; the raised buds of nipples were clearly visible in the night air. She had straight black hair that hung just past her earlobes and a round face made for smiling.

Frank swallowed the bite of potluck without tasting it anymore and nodded dumbly, head itching maddeningly under his long hair, suddenly hyper-aware of his surroundings, of everyone around him, as if a brilliant spotlight had focused on his lanky frame, and he was the center of attention, stared at by the mothers, Sturm, the clowns, even the quiet gentlemen somewhere deep in the shadows. “S’good,” he said, but couldn’t quite suppress the coughed gag that escaped from his mouth.

Annie’s smile just grew wider. The dimples grew deeper. “You want to go on a ride with me?”

The creek bed and scrub beyond exploded in light and for the briefest moment, Frank wondered if he had died. But it was just the massive klieg lights that had powered on with an impact that made everyone jump in mid-conversation. The smart ones were expecting it, and already had their shooting glasses on, tinted yellow, gold, or blue.

Shotguns appeared. Frank followed the curve of the tables that weren’t only meant for eating; now he could see that they were arranged around a shooting range. In the harsh glare of the field lights, there was a square concrete bunker that even now had started flinging clay pigeons out into the sky above the farmland. Shotgun blasts split the night with flat, booming thunder.