There Is No Wheel

by James Maxey

“You let her in the shop?”

  “She has a cage. I don’t let her roam free. She steals meat and gets aggressive.” As Kidd said this, he noted how clean the kitchen was. Jason must be a germ-freak.

  “Gertrude is housetrained,” he said.

  “Oh,” said Jason, in a tone that indicated the question hadn’t been on his mind.

  Jason looked down at the butcher’s block, seeming to gather his thoughts. He took a deep breath. “Did I tell you last night that I’m . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Dying,” said Kidd. “What of?”

  “Ennui,” said Jason. He grinned. “That’s my little joke. Brain tumor. I have six months.”

  “Or longer,” Kidd said. “People beat these things.”

  “I’m not doing chemo,” said Jason. “Or any treatment.”

  “Oh,” said Kidd.

  “It’s counterproductive to pollute my body.”

  “Counterproductive?”

  “Have you thought much about dying, Mr. Kidd?” Jason asked. “More specifically, have you thought about what will happen to your body after death?”

  “Not really,” said Kidd.

  “I have. You might say it’s become an obsession of mine. Last year, I visited the Body Works exhibit, in Berlin. You’ve heard of it?”

  Kidd gave a non-committal shrug.

  “There’s an artist who takes human cadavers and plasticizes them. Turns them into works of art. Not long after my visit, I learned I had a brain tumor. It made me think. I’m young. I don’t have kids; I have no real legacy to leave the world.”

  “Did you contact Body Works? See if they can use you?”

  “Here’s the catch,” said Jason. “Due to the nature of my tumor, they won’t accept my donation. They’re overbooked with donors anyway, but, even if they weren’t, the fact I have something wrong with my brain means they can’t accept my donation.”

  “So donate your body to a medical school,” said Kidd. “The tumor’s a plus.”

  “I’ve considered it,” said Jason. “It isn’t quite the same. It lacks . . . artistry. The bodies in Berlin—they’ve transcended the status of corpse. They’re art.”

  “You’ve given this some thought,” said Kidd. “I think I see where you’re going with this.”

  “You’re the best butcher in North America,” said Jason.

  “Aw,” said Kidd. “Shucks.”

  Cassie rubbed her wrists, which felt naked without the ropes. Kidd wouldn’t make eye contact.

  “You do have a secret, don’t you?” she said. “Something awful. You’re afraid of it.”

  Kidd turned away, leaving the bedroom. Cassie paused for a minute, afraid to follow. She dressed slowly before walking into the kitchen. He was standing in front of the coffee maker, nude save for the leather gloves. His nakedness while she was dressed gave her a feeling of power.

  “It’s only an act,” she said. “The dominance. The confidence and control. You aren’t even in control of your emotions.”

  Jason left town empty handed—Kidd had treated the whole thing as a joke. Still, Jason had seen the gleam in Kidd’s eye. Kidd may not have agreed with his words, but his eyes told Jason that Kidd was already planning the menu.

  Jason kept a notebook where he recorded all the evidence. It was full of pages of his sister’s poetry. It had a Polaroid taken sometime around their father’s death. He knew this because Cassie was constantly updating her pen tattoos, and the artwork in the picture was what she’d displayed in the sleeveless black gown she’d worn to the funeral. In the photo, she was blindfolded, tied to a bed, and covered with red bite marks. The photo was frustratingly barren of further clues—the only background was the white sheet.

  On the page opposite was a poem entitled “Devoured.” It praised her “Master of Meat.” Jason wasn’t sure how much more the sheriff needed spelled out for him.

  The RV was wired with spy cams and tape recorders. He knew in his gut that Kidd had killed his sister. All that was left was to get Kidd to confess. Or, failing that, to get Kidd to agree on tape to kill him. Get irrefutable proof Kidd was capable of the crime.

  The rest of July, and through the hot, endless August, Jason haunted a trailer park an hour away from Hog Station, closer to the ocean. He spent his days wandering the small towns near the Carolina coast, quaint tourist destinations like New Bern and Elizabeth City. He sent Kidd postcards, not mentioning what they’d discussed, but making sure Kidd wouldn’t forget him.

  As September rolled around, he gave Kidd a call.

  “Change your mind yet?” he asked.

  “I admire your persistence,” said Kidd.

  “Is that a yes?”

  “No. Labor Day’s this weekend. I’m up to my neck in special orders. Call me when I’m not so busy.”

  Jason hung up the phone, satisfied. There was only one reason Kidd would ask that he call back.

  Kidd turned around, holding two cups of coffee. He offered Cassie one, she took it.

  “I control the world,” Kidd said.

  “Tell me one thing,” she said. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.”

  “I told you I left home when I was 17 and hitchhiked around the world.”

  “That’s not a secret,” she said. “That’s bragging. But you can’t be perfect. There must be something you keep hidden, some dark secret.”

  “We’re in a B&D relationship I won’t let you talk about. You are my dark secret.”

  Cassie sipped her coffee. His dark secret. The words gave her a buzzy, electric feeling in the small of her back. These were the most romantic words she’d ever imagined.

  “If that doesn’t satisfy you, how’s this? When I was nineteen, I ate a man.”

  Cassie rolled her eyes. He had broken the mood. “A gay encounter? This is your embarrassing secret?”

  “No,” Kidd said. “I devoured him.”

  “You devour me,” she said, raising her hand to touch her purple hickey.

  “I mean I cooked him, chewed him, swallowed him, digested him. He was delicious.”

  A week before Halloween, Kidd met Jason on Highway 70, thirty miles from Hog Station, where people were less likely to recognize him. It was a chill day. The sky hung gray and low.

  They drove out to Atlantic Beach. They didn’t talk much. When Jason tried to go over the plan one last time, Kidd said, “I know the plan,” ending the conversation. Even Gertrude was quiet.

  Jason was frustrated. Kidd always did this—he would never say the words Jason needed him to say: “The plan is, we fake your suicide, I bring you back to the RV and kill you with your homemade electric chair, then I butcher you and sell the meat in my shop.”

  Of course, the homemade electric chair was a fake. Once he had Kidd on camera pulling the switch, he would pull out the gun hidden under the seat and make a citizen’s arrest. He was tempted to cut to the chase and use the gun to force Kidd to confess to Cassie’s murder, or even at least to knowing her, but he suspected that might not stand up in court.

  Night had fallen by the time they reached Fort Macon, at the tip of the island. The parking lot was empty. Together they dragged out the inflatable boat. They waited in the mist as the electric pump filled the rubberized canvas with air. Gertrude pressed against the windshield, watching them work. When the boat was fully inflated, they carried it down to the sand.

  It was high tide. Waves churned in the inlet, as the water of the sound rushed into the Atlantic. A boat launched now would be carried out to sea.

  Jason dropped his suicide note into the boat.

  “It says I only have weeks left, that I don’t want to still be alive when my mind goes.”

  Jason bent over the boat and produced a box cutter. Silently, teeth clenched, he ran the blade across his open palm. A line of blood bubbled up. He touched the canvas, leaving a bloody handprint. He shook his hand, sending blood drops all around the boat.

  “No one will ever know the truth,” he said.


  Jason waded into the waves. He stood there, in water up to his waist, as the current carried the boat away.

  Jason turned and waded back to the beach. He said, “So far, things have gone pretty well.”

  Kidd didn’t answer. It was dark save for the headlights. As Jason trod back onto the shore, Kidd was little more than a silhouette.

  Jason walked to him, looking at his hand. “This really stings.”

  He looked up. Kidd loomed over him, his left arm raised. He held a cleaver from his shop, big and heavy, its sharp edge gleaming. With a grunt that made Jason cringe, Kidd swung.

  “His name was Big Mike. He was an Eastern Islander, making a living as a bush pilot in Alaska. I bummed a ride with him, trying to get to Kaktovic, a little village as far North as you can get. I got a little nervous when Mike lit up a joint ten minutes into the flight, but figured he was a pro. Except he wasn’t. He crashed the plane into a valley. We were lucky to survive. The first couple of days, we kept thinking rescue might arrive any minute. After a week, we knew no one was looking for us. He’d been kind of lax filing flight plans. We made a little shelter out of the plane fuselage—and there were trees around, so we had a fire, and melted snow for water. But we were hungry. Big Mike kept making these crazy jokes. He weighed, like, 300 pounds, I weighed maybe 130. I was going to go before he did. He said that when I went, he’d eat me. Said among his people, they called the white man ‘long pig.’

  “So I killed him. Then I ate him. I confessed to the park ranger who found me a month later. He said he saw no reason either of us should ever mention it.”

  Cassie shook her head. “If you can’t be serious, I’m wasting my time.”

  Kidd shrugged. “If talking doesn’t work for you, we could always go back to bed and tie you up.”

  Cassie sighed. “Okay.”

  It was Halloween morning when Kidd got the mail. It was postmarked from a week before. Inside was a letter and a videotape.

  “Kidd,” the letter began:

  If you are reading this, something went wrong with my plan. Perhaps I’m dead. You haven’t won. I know what you did to my sister. You’ll rot in Hell for what you’ve done.

  More immediately, you’ll rot in prison. I never had a brain tumor. I’ve been playing you like a violin, Mr. Kidd. I’ve videotaped every visit. I’ve recorded every phone call. You’ve been slick and evasive, but I still have an impressive body of evidence. All that evidence is now in the hands of the sheriff and the FBI, who’ve received identical packages. With luck, I’m still alive, and have delivered even more evidence to them. If I’ve not been lucky, and somehow you’ve killed me, I take comfort in knowing that my sacrifice will lead to bringing you to justice.

  Checkmate, Mr. Kidd.

  Kidd set the letter down on the table, went back into the kitchen, and resumed work on the slab of meat resting on the antique butchers block. He had a ton of work to do in preparation for tonight’s festivities. Kidd chuckled as the full impact of Jason’s scheme sank in. What a melodramatic little prick.

  “You’re pretty skinny,” Kidd said, studying Cassie’s naked body. “Some decent meat on your legs, but, really, you’re mostly bone. I guess I could fry up the skin. Make cracklins. Use the rest of you for sausage and stew.”

  “You wouldn’t use me for barbecue?” she asked, pouting.

  He stroked the skin below her tiny breasts, feeling the ribs. “Not enough fat,” he said. “You’d be too dry.”

  “I feel so wet,” she said, arching her back as he knelt over her. “Promise me you’ll eat me when I die.”

  “I’m going to eat you right now,” he said, rubbing the edge of the knife along her cheek without cutting her.

  Her breath caught in her throat, and she shuddered with pleasure.

  Doc Law eased his cruiser down Main Street, enjoying the spectacle. Stanley College frowned upon Halloween festivities. This led the students to put extra care and effort into their masks. For one night a year, Hog Station reminded Law of Brazil’s Carnival.

  Law pulled his cruiser next to the dumpster behind Kidd’s Meats. A half-dozen girls gathered here, smoking Lucky Strikes at the base of the ladder. They sported elaborate masks decorated with fur and feathers, and nothing else save body paint. Earlier in the night, he could tell, the women had been jungle cats—the orange and tan paints that covered them had been decorated with broad black stripes and spots. Now, the paint that covered their breasts and buttocks was smudged into a muddy gray. Law tipped his hat to them as he passed.

  “Ladies,” he said.

  On the rooftop, Doc Law found a jungle. The tiki torches along the roof’s edge lit dozens of potted banana plants, their broad green leaves casting strange shadows.

  At the rear of the roof sat a bamboo shack. A crude sign on a board read, “Cannibal Kidd’s Manburgers.” Kidd stood next to an enormous iron pot, big enough to hold at least two missionaries, perhaps three. The stew within bubbled over a propane burner, giving the night a meaty, peppery odor. Kidd wore a palm frond skirt and a bone through his nose. Gertrude hung from the roof of the shack, greedily eyeing the stew.

  “This might be the least politically correct display I’ve ever seen,” Law said, approaching Kidd.

  “I’d offer you a manburger,” said Kidd, “but the tigresses cleaned me out. Business has been brisk. I’m down to stew, mostly.”

  “That’s fine,” said Law. “Smells good.”

  “I know,” said Kidd. “Still, I might have something better suited to a man of your refined tastes.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Last July, when you were eating the pig’s head—did you get any of the eye? Or did the mayor finish it off?”

  “The mayor devoured it quicker than I could react,” said Law. “He has the table manners of a wood chipper.”

  “Step back here,” said Kidd.

  Law followed Kidd behind the bamboo shack. On the edge of the roof was a small brazier, the charcoal within glowing red. Kidd knelt to a styrofoam cooler and opened the lid. Resting on the ice were two eyeballs, the meat still attached.

  Law felt a little queasy as Kidd stuck a bamboo skewer through each eye, then placed them over the coals. The eyes sizzled as they touched the hot iron, and the smell that filled the air instantly banished all queasiness. Law searched for words to describe the smell, but words failed. It wasn’t beef, exactly, nor the smell of pork. It was something different, more substantial. His mouth watered.

  After a minute, Kidd sprinkled a pinch of salt and pepper as he flipped the skewers by hand. The eyeballs deflated, the jelly within dripping onto the charcoal, giving the smoke a richness and complexity that again robbed Law of vocabulary.

  “You shouldn’t overspice these,” Kidd said, wiping his hands on his grass skirt. “The meat speaks for itself.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Law said. “If I don’t put that in my mouth soon I might go mad.”

  “Patience,” Kidd said.

  After a long minute, Kidd lifted a skewer, testing the meat with his finger. He smiled. “They’re done.”

  Kidd offered Law a skewer. Law took the meat and raised it to his trembling lips.

  The taste was explosive—salty, smoky, greasy. The flesh of the eyeball was charred and crisp, crackling between his teeth. The meat around the eye—it defined meat. This was meat. All that he’d ever eaten before paled.

  The meat melted on his tongue. Law closed his eyes and groaned, savoring the moment, swaying. He felt himself dissolving. He could no longer remember his name. He grew aware of his transcendent connection to everything. He was the spoke of a grand, ceaseless wheel, where the sun rose and fell, rose and fell, warming the carnivores of the world as they devoured their trembling prey. He was the center, holding. The moment stretched on, his body vibrating, until he heard a crunch.

  He opened his eyes to find Kidd chewing the other eyeball.

  As Kidd swallowed, Law watched his throat with a hungry gaze. Kidd’s eyes were closed and Law studi
ed his face. It seemed radiant, beatific—even holy. Law focused on Kidd’s mouth—his youthful lips full and pink, gleaming with the grease of the now vanished meat. A few flecks of black pepper rested on the lips, and a single, shining crystal of salt sat at the crease of the mouth, tempting, enticing. Law wanted to lean forward, to place his lips on Kidd’s lips, to run his tongue along the grease, the pepper, the salt, to suck out the echo of the eye that lingered in Kidd’s saliva. Alas, there are social norms that render certain actions taboo, and these taboos are mighty, mightier even than eyeball consumption euphoria.

  Law broke the uncomfortable intimacy by mumbling, “So much for you being a vegetarian.”

  Kidd slowly opened his eyes, returning from whatever heaven the meat had transported him to. He stared blankly at Law as he processed the words. He smirked.

  “I said mostly.”

  “Hey Kidd,” a voice called from the other side of the shack. “Is the stew self-serve or what? I see your damn monkey’s been sampling it.”

  It was the mayor—his brash voice was instantly recognizable.

  “Help yourself, Mayor,” Kidd said.

  Kidd looked at Law. “You want some stew?”

  “After what I’ve just had, I fear it would only disappoint.”

  Kidd looked hurt.

  “I mean no offense,” said Law. “You are a cook of incomparable artistry, and I have no doubt that the stew is pure ambrosia. It’s just . . .”

  “No need to explain,” said Kidd. “I felt the same the first time I tasted it.”

  Law nodded. A long second of silence passed between them, then another. There was something that needed to be said, but neither of them wanted to go first.

  In the end, it was Kidd who risked the question.

  “So, did you get . . . ?”

  “Yes,” said Law. “This morning.”

  “Watch the video?”

  “Yes. He put some work into this.”

  “And?” Kidd asked.

  “They found a boat washed up on Shackleford Banks,” said Law. “It held a suicide note. If the blood tests as his, the case is closed in my book. And the FBI isn’t going to waste time on some nut-job’s delusions.”