Foodchain

by Jeff Jacobson

  Sturm laughed delightedly. “Goddamn. Goddamn! Look at them teeth. That’s something.” He cocked his head. “Those canines, oh boy, they’re bigger’n your thumbs. That’s something all right.” He glanced back at Frank. “Did you see them teeth back in my office?”

  Frank thought of all the picture frames that surrounded the large window and shook his head.

  “When we get back, I’ll have to show you ’em. Just got a whole set of Moray eel teeth. Goddamn needles. Vicious. Mean, you know? Not like these.” He nodded at the lioness. “These are…I don’t know. Honorable. Proud.” He stepped back and replaced his hat. “You can tell everything about an animal by its teeth. How it lives. What it eats. Anything.” Sturm was excited. “They tell us everything about evolution. God’s plan. Those with the biggest teeth dominate. See, you being a vet and all, you oughta understand this.”

  “Her teeth are bigger than mine. Yet she’s in a cage and I’m out here.”

  “Don’t mean shit. Her being in a cage. That’s missing the point. Physically, she has bigger teeth, yes. But I’m talking about the bigger picture here. Your opposable thumbs there, those’re nothing but longer, sharper teeth.” Sturm nodded again, then shrugged. “We’re nothing but predators. That’s all there is to it. We’re nothing special. We’re just like them. Oh sure, we’re at the top. But it’s a tenuous hold, make no mistake. Long as we got our thumbs using tools, we’re set, but take those tools away, and we ain’t shit. Makes me sick sometimes, the arrogance I see. People thinking that humans are some kinda’ higher life form. That we’re meant for some kind of enlightenment. Bullshit. We’re just efficient eaters. That’s all. And we’re just gonna keep eating and killing every goddamn thing until something else comes along and takes our place at the top.”

  Frank wondered just how big that tumor in Sturm’s head had gotten.

  The cell phone rang. It was the clowns, and they were on their way.

  DAY FOUR

  “That’s one big pussy,” Chuck said when he saw the tiger.

  Sturm was giving everyone the grand tour. The three clowns and two other drivers, quiet Mexicans that worked at the auction yard as well, had brought damn near every truck in Whitewood. Frank counted three semis with livestock trailers, plus Chuck’s pickup. Frank was kind of surprised it had managed to make the entire trip. They even brought the tow-truck, just in case. The only large vehicle that Frank could think of that wasn’t here was the ancient fire engine that rested in the park in the center of town.

  While the two Mexican men smoked cigarettes and kept an eye on all the trucks that were parked along the narrow, twisted road that ran through the center of the zoo, Sturm introduced the clowns to all of the animals, providing a running commentary on the strengths, predatory instincts, and pretty much anything else that popped into his mind. Frank was impressed with the depth of Sturm’s knowledge. Those books back in the office hadn’t been just for looks.

  Sturm had even found places in the zoo that Frank hadn’t seen. Frank was surprised and sickened to find out that two chimps also lived at the zoo, locked away in a cinderblock storage shed. The door was a length of chain-link fence, stretched sideways. Black shit coated the walls. The two chimps huddled together in the far corner and watched the men through heavy-lidded eyes. Much of their hair was worn down to white skin pockmarked with seeping, open sores, like infected blisters that had finally popped.

  “Shit, Chuck. So this is where you been hiding them sisters you keep telling us that you fucked last year,” Pine said.

  “That’s fuckin’ funny. Absofuckin’ hilarious, cuntwipe.” Chuck leaned over, peering at Pine’s piss poor excuse for a mustache. Unlike his chin, Pine’s mustache was sparse, sprouting in embarrassed fits and starts. Chuck kept going. “Considering whatever the hell that is on your lip there. Fuck is that? Pubic hair? Looks like you’re the one’s been smoking monkey dick.”

  “Ape dick,” Sturm corrected, and nobody was sure if they should laugh or not. “Those in there are apes, not monkeys. Monkeys got tails, see?”

  * * * * *

  In addition to being educational, Sturm had also been thinking ahead. He instructed the clowns to bring raw hamburger and bananas. During the ride, Pine had injected Ace into the bananas and soaked the hamburger in the drug. And as they’d wandered through the zoo, they’d doled out the hamburger to the cats and bananas to the monkeys. When they walked back, they found the monkeys dropping out of trees. The clowns went around picking them up by the long, sinewy tails and dropping them into gunnysacks.

  The whole loading process didn’t take nearly as long as Frank had expected; once the tour was over, he was impressed with how serious the clowns acted. There was no horsing around, no calling each other names, no laughing, and no drinking. The animals were sluggish after their extra meal, and the tranquilizers didn’t hurt. The cats got most of the drugs. They tied the sleeping cats’ front and back paws together with duct tape, and wrapped it around the cats muzzles for good measure. Then two of them would hoist a cat onto their backs and walking stiffly, legs moving in unison, they carried the cats out to the cattle trailers and laid the unconscious animals gently in the thick straw. It took four of them to carry the tiger.

  As the sun rose, Frank got the rhino into the first truck by himself; he held a flake of hay and loaded the majestic, sad creature into the trailer. The head, bigger than an engine block, swung towards Frank and she heaved and puffed for a while, before taking a step forward. It took the old girl a while to make it up the ramp. Sturm said, “Son, you take all the time you need with that animal. It’ll be something special, to put this one down.”

  Before they left, Frank set the zookeeper’s house trailer on fire.

  * * * * *

  He rode in the truck that carried the rhino. Jack was driving. They were second in line, just behind Sturm’s pickup. The other three trucks followed, with Chuck and the tow truck bringing up the rear. Although it was now early morning, the sun was already hot and hellish.

  Sturm reached the front gate, got out and opened it. As he drove on through, the CB crackled with his voice. “Chuck, close that gate behind you. No point in advertising nobody’s home.”

  As Jack eased the massive semi through the narrow gate, Frank caught a glimpse of a dark smudge, far down the highway. “Hold it,” he snapped and jerked the binoculars up.

  But instead of a squad car, Frank stared at a turd brown station wagon that had been manufactured sometime during the Carter administration. Someone had jacked it up into a four-wheel drive, and now the doors sat nearly four feet off the ground. It looked like some six-year-old’s idea of a really cool Matchbox car. Frank was suddenly acutely aware of the black smoke he could see in the semi’s side mirror. The smoke bled up into the nearly white sky, growing thicker and darker by the second as flames consumed the cheap insulation and pressboard of the house trailer. “Shit. Somebody’s watching us.”

  “Who? Cop?” Jack asked.

  “No. Some kind of four wheel drive station wagon.”

  Jack snatched the CB from the cradle as Sturm pulled out away from them, picking up speed on the blacktop. “We got a problem here, Mr. Sturm. Don’t know how, but them fucking Gloucks followed us. They’re watching.”

  Brake lights flashed on the back of Sturm’s pickup.

  Pine’s voice broke in. “Those fuckers. Let’s go say howdy.”

  Jack nodded slowly, watching the car, maybe a mile distant. “Might be a good opportunity here, take care of that goddamn family once and for all,” he said into the mike. “Nobody’s around.”

  Chuck agreed. “Fuck yes. Let’s go settle them right now. Nobody’ll know.”

  But Sturm voice came back, quick and harsh, “No. Leave ’em be. We got these animals to get back home. Worry about them people later. They’ll get what’s coming to ’em. Don’t you worry. Now let’s go home.”

  And with that, the pickup accelerated, and slowly, slowly, the convoy followed, gathering speed as the
y rolled through the desert. For the first time, the zoo was quiet, empty except for the alligators. Frank hoped the starvation took a long time, until they finally started to turn on each other, boiling the tank in the frothing madness of hunger and blood.

  * * * * *

  They followed the highway north, along Frank’s original route, without incident. Once, they had spotted a sheriff’s car, coming the opposite way, but it had sped past without slowing. Frank was glad once they hit I-80, because of the extra traffic. A few semis with livestock trailers would blend in with the blur of all of the other trucks. Around noon, Sturm’s right blinker began to flash, and the convoy took the off ramp, pulling into the same rest stop where Frank had cracked the trucker in the head.

  “Why are we stopping?” he asked, keeping his voice level and unconcerned.

  “Can’t cross the state line in daylight,” Jack said. “We’re gonna have to stop here and wait it out. Soon as its dark, we’ll cross.”

  They parked all over the place so as not to make it obvious the trucks were traveling together. The place was busier than last time, full of semis, tourists squeezing in one last trip of the summer, and students headed for college. Frank hoped the tranquilizers would hold; he didn’t want some family in a minivan getting curious and one of the big cats chewing off a toddler’s groping hand.

  Frank got out to stretch. He slowly walked along the line of rumbling semis, easing the kinks out of his back and shoulders. There was a sharp, twisting pain in his right side and he wondered if he’d pulled something while whipping the fence post over his head. It didn’t feel serious, but it was enough to make him catch his breath.

  He squatted in the thin shade of a few dusty trees and looked back at the semi. Heat waves danced on the trailer’s roof. Frank realized the temperature inside the trailer had to be over a hundred and ten. Maybe a hundred and twenty.

  He found Jack eyeballing a carload of sorority girls. “We gotta cool these animals down somehow,” Frank said. “They’re gonna cook.”

  The girls giggled and cast tentative glances at Jack, eyes full of lust and fear. Jack never looked away from their car. “Then take care of it. You’re the vet.”

  Frank couldn’t argue with that. He should have known better. He walked the length of the grassy area on the outskirts of the parking lot and found what he needed. After grabbing a wrench, a hammer, and a screwdriver from Sturm’s toolbox, he had the automatic sprinklers on in under a minute. Like machine guns, the sprinklers spit arcs of water out in precise bursts, first spraying the grass, then the trucks once Frank adjusted their aim.

  The cats weren’t happy. Still not fully awake, they pressed themselves into corners, turning their faces away from the water. Except one. It lay sprawled near the back and never flinched even as drops of water rolled down the matted fur. Frank watched the sharp ridges and valleys of the cat’s rib, but it wasn’t breathing. “Shit,” Frank whispered.

  He went looking for Sturm and saw the poster instead.

  It was up near the vending machines, tacked up over the maps. Frank recognized the trucker’s face from over fifteen feet away. Glancing around, he saw that the posters had been put up everywhere. Something cold grabbed at his heart. People pushed past, ignoring the poster and Frank. He went and stood next to it, pretending to study the map. Above the stark red “INFORMATION WANTED” was a grainy, black and white picture of the trucker’s face, apparently from his driver’s license. Below, it read, “Please contact the Nevada State Police with any information regarding the death of Randall James Stark, 32, murdered on August 13th.” There was a phone number, but Frank had turned away, ice spreading throughout his body despite the sizzling midday temperature. Three men in three days.

  When he finally looked up, he saw Sturm, on the far side of the rest stop, taking down one of the posters, carefully folding it and stowing it safely away in the inside pocket of his duster.

  * * * * *

  Someone yelled. Frank heard honking and saw a woman wave a chicken nugget towards one of Sturm’s trucks at the far end of the parking lot. The two chimps were scrambling across the top of the trailer in their swaying, bowlegged run. They swung down from the exhaust stack, nimbly scurrying away from a diving tackle from Jack, and darted across the parking lot before disappearing behind another truck.

  Frank half-jogged through the vehicles and met up with the clowns. The chimps had taken off in a loping run through the sprinklers and across a dry field beyond the rest stop. Chuck burst around the corner of the trailer, panting, holding a rifle. He jerked it to his shoulder, but Sturm stopped him with a sharp whistle. They turned, and saw Sturm standing at the edge of the parking lot, maybe thirty yards away. He shook his head, patted the air in front of him.

  Chuck mumbled, “Shit,” under his breath and lowered the rifle, looking around to see if anyone had seen him. But everyone’s attention was focused on the bounding figures, now just hazy specks in the distance.

  Frank inspected the trailer doors. One was slightly ajar, but the rest of the monkeys were still sleeping soundly, bound in their canvas sacks. He had no idea how the chimps had managed to get the door open, and he wondered how pissed this would make Sturm. And even if it did affect his final payment, Frank was glad the chimps had escaped. He wished them luck as he refastened the wide doors. Pine didn’t waste any time jumping in the cab and pulling away, just to avoid any questions. He’d wait for the rest of the trucks farther down the road.

  The rest of the afternoon and evening passed quietly. Sturm went and picked up some burgers and fries and brought them back for the clowns. A flask was surreptitiously passed around, scratching the itch in the back of Frank’s throat. He even managed to forget about the poster of the dead trucker in Sturm’s pocket for a while.

  * * * * *

  Around ten that night, they started leaving in fifteen-minute intervals. Somewhere before the border, the trucks left the freeway and followed a series of dusty gravel roads that cut through farm fields. Frank felt exhaustion creeping through him, filling his pores like spongy seaweed that was revealed at low tide after the high, surging adrenaline-filled waters had receded. He stared out at the moonlit fields, watching the sprinklers, giant wheels, each connected by a long, thin axle, slowly rolling across the alfalfa fields, feebly spitting out warm water, turning slower than the second hand of Sturm’s pocket watch. Frank’s head bobbled with the rhythm of the dirt roads, and he finally fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, sleeping even through the twisting, turning logging roads where the trucks crossed over the mountains.

  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 buildi
ng, 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.