Foodchain

by Jeff Jacobson

  The driver was barefoot. The pavement was hot enough to sear pork chops, yet he acted like he was walking on cool evening grass. He wore black leather pants. A safari shirt. A safari jacket the color of an egg gone bad in the sun. With fringes.

  “Y’all have an accident?” He had an accent, maybe Texas or some other southern state, all of the words smeared together in an easy drawl.

  “Nah. We were just tickling this Caterpillar to hear it laugh,” Sturm said. He faced the man from the other side of the highway crack, black boots wide, Carhart jeans tucked into the boots, held up by red suspenders, hands on his hips, shoulders square, black Cowboy hat secure.

  “Looking fer a Mr. Horace Sturm,” the man said.

  “You’re talking to him.”

  The man smiled. “Name’s Girdler. Talked to you a while back. Believe you mentioned something about a hunt.”

  “Believe I did, yessir.”

  “Well then, I’m ready for some shooting.”

  * * * * *

  Sturm and Girdler drove the RV back up the highway to the locked gate, going the long way into town, while Frank drove Chuck back to the vet office. Chuck whimpered with every jolt and bump, barking out at one point, “Are you fucking trying to hit every goddamn hole?”

  Frank hoped it wasn’t obvious. “Hell no. Sorry.”

  Frank half-dragged Chuck into the hospital and left him on one of the waiting room chairs. He prepared a syringe of morphine and sunk it deep into the vein in the crook of Chuck’s elbow, just to shut him up for a while. Frank thought about breaking the needle off in Chuck’s arm, but figured that might be pushing things too far. Chuck gave a long, satisfied sigh, “Ah fuck yes…” and limply slid off the chair onto the floor.

  Sturm and Girdler came in the back door, laughing and shouting as if they’d been pals for years. Sturm immediately grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge. Frank met them in the back examining room.

  Sturm grabbed Frank by the shoulders, hugging him close, beaming, saying, “Like you to meet one of my most valuable employees. This is Frank, our vet. He’s taking care of all our animals; hell, he knows these cats inside and out.”

  “Hi.” Frank stuck his hand out.

  “Howdy,” Girdler extended his own paw; it felt like grabbing a leather glove wrapped in badger hair bristles. Up close, Frank could see that hair covered nearly every inch of Girdler’s skin. The man had hair down to his cracked, yellow toenails; actually the hair surrounded the toenail, growing right down to the callused bottoms of the toes. Girdler’s mother must have been raped by Bigfoot.

  “Let’s go meet my girls,” Sturm said.

  Frank held the door to the middle section open for Sturm and Girdler. Sturm strode briskly past the first four cats, simply saying, “These here will be available to hunt very soon. We’re getting ’em healthy. Later, if you wish, you can have your pick. But these two, back here, these are my girls—Princess and Lady.” Frank blinked, unaware that Sturm had already named his pets.

  All of the lionesses lay in the far corners, but where the other lionesses seemed bored, if not downright sleepy, Princess and Lady were alert, anxious, as if a hot, vibrating wire had been laced through their spines. Sturm explained, “They haven’t eaten in two days. Saving ’em for something special tonight. The evening’s entertainment, you could say.”

  Frank expected Sturm to launch into the usual bullshit about his magnificent predators and the pure essence of nature and all that, and was surprised when Sturm asked Girdler, “Will this facility adequately address your needs?”

  Girdler shook the corner post of the cages, noting how it was set into the concrete. The cats recoiled, folded into themselves, flat against the concrete. They didn’t seem to like looking at the hairy man. Maybe it was his scent.

  Girdler’s tongue came out and found an errant lock of beard at the corner of his mouth, pulled it back in and sucked on it for a while. “Don’t know rightly. Gonna be tight, that’s for sure.” He bit down on the lock of hair, chewed on it for a while, and spit out the pieces, like dark flecks of tobacco. “Maybe…if it was just a night. But hell. I may just be here a while. A week, maybe more. Providing you got plenty else to hunt.”

  “Oh we got plenty to hunt, that’s for damn sure,” Sturm said. “Your barrel’ll melt ‘fore you run out of things to shoot. If this place won’t hold it, then hell, we’ll just have to find something that will. And if we can’t find something, then we’ll just have to build something. That simple.” He glanced at Frank. “Mr. Girdler’s got his own animal to hunt.” His voice got proud, awed. “Wait until you see it. Big as a goddamn mountain. A genuine grizzly bear. In my town.”

  “Kodiak, technically. Same damn thing as a grizzly really, just a tad bigger, from an island off the coast of Alaska,” Girdler clarified.

  Frank’s hoped the bear wasn’t a relative of Girdler’s. “Is it out in the trailer?”

  “Yup. Got him doped up so he’ll be asleep for a day or two.”

  “When he does wake up, we’re gonna need some more tranquilizers. No question. How big is this animal?”

  “Around eleven hundred pounds,” Girdler said, pride coating his voice like warm syrup. “And over ten feet long.”

  “Then yeah, we’ll have to figure some other place to keep it. No way it can stay here. It’ll go through this chain-link fence in a heartbeat,” Frank said. “We’re taking a hell of a chance with keeping the cats here as it is.”

  “He’s not dangerous, not really,” Girdler said. “I’ve had him since a cub. I call him Bo-Bo,” he said sheepishly, then got defensive. “Well, he was just the cutest damn thing. Bought him off a zoo in Kansas. They couldn’t afford to feed him. Hell, I can barely afford to feed him. He eats 80 pounds a day in the summer, mostly blueberries and squash. He loves salmon. Thank the good Lord he sleeps most of the winter.”

  Sturm looked at Frank. Frank knew what he was thinking. They had just about cleaned out the meat from the freezer behind the barn, and Frank wasn’t sure where or how Sturm was going to find more. He was wondering how in the hell they were going to scrape together 80 pounds of vegetables and berries. Forget salmon. The bear could eat lamb or hamburger just like the cats or it would go without meat. And that 80 pounds, that was just for one day. Sturm was wondering how they were going to feed this thing for a week or more.

  “Bo-Bo’s just like a big ol’ puppy dog. Throw him in a corral. He’ll be just fine.”

  “No disrespect intended here, but there’s no goddamn way I can just let an eleven hundred pound grizzly bear wander around my town,” Sturm said. “At least, not until you’re ready to hunt.”

  Girdler pulled on his beard like he wanted to make sure it was still attached.

  “You sure you want to shoot this bear of yours?” Frank asked.

  Sturm shot him a warning look, but Girdler said, “Sure as I’m standing here, son. Shit, I would’ve shot him long time ago, but I wanted him to get as big as possible for the hide.”

  “And the teeth,” Sturm added.

  “Hell yes. The teeth too.” Girdler found some more hair to chew on. “Just couldn’t bring myself to shoot him in the pen. Didn’t seem right somehow. So when I heard about this particular hunt you folks got going here, I thought…well, this was just what I was waiting for.”

  Sturm finished his beer. “Then we need to find a place to keep it. Let’s get my girls moved—I want them awake and hungry for tonight. Then we’ll go for a ride. See what we can find.”

  * * * * *

  By noon, Lady and Princess were sleeping safely inside their distorted, bulging cage that grew out of the back of Sturm’s barn like a cancerous spider web. One door opened into the barn; the other into a large corral. Before they had left, Jack and Pine had drilled iron poles into the posts and lined the whole corral with hog panels, creating a square cage, nearly a quarter acre total, with walls over eight feet tall.

  But this corral, this new cage, this wasn’t for the grizzly. It had bee
n built without Frank, so Frank could only guess that it was some kind of exercise yard for Sturm’s new pets. Frank wondered if he should mention that eight feet of fence wouldn’t hold the lionesses. Hell, if Lady and Princess had a mind to, they’d be over that fence in less time than it took for Sturm to spit.

  Frank kept his mouth shut. Sturm probably already knew this, and besides, Frank was still pissed. And more than a little scared. He couldn’t read Sturm, couldn’t see how the pressure built. Yesterday still made him feel like a loyal dog who’d been kicked for no apparent reason by a previously kind and considerate owner.

  He practiced his smile more and more.

  * * * * *

  Theo drove Sturm’s pickup, windows down, one arm out the window. He took the trip slow and easy, as Sturm and Girdler were in the back, sitting on ice chests full of beer and ice. Neither one paid the heat any attention, just told jokes about niggers, politicians, beaners, fucking stupid Polacks, Kikes with their money, and dumb cunts. They’d laugh and fling their bottles at street signs, the few cars left, and the buildings.

  Theo drove so slow there was no breeze. Frank wished Theo would roll up the windows and turn on the A.C., but Theo wouldn’t even look at him, let alone speak to him. Even though the back window was open, so Theo could hear his father, the afternoon air slid over Frank’s skin like a slug, leaving a sweaty slime.

  First stop was the taxidermist, so Sturm could show off the tiger’s hide.

  Theo pulled up and parked in the middle of the street. Before the pickup had fully stopped, Sturm jumped out, hollering, “Didja know—” and stumbled. His boots stuttered along the asphalt and he fell heavily onto his knee and hip, like a chair leg had just collapsed on him.

  Girdler laughed.

  Frank flinched. He couldn’t decide if he should run over and help Sturm find his feet, just like at the vet hospital, but if Sturm had actually gone and had too many beers, it might make him mean. And the last goddamn thing Frank needed was to piss off Sturm.

  But Sturm just laughed too and found his feet in a rolling motion, said, “Didja know a chink girl’s pussy is sideways, like their eyes,” and laughed along with Girdler. Giggles burst out of Theo like snot bubbles.

  The taxidermist shop smelled bad. Worse than bad. Like a freezer full of meat after the power had been out a week. Frank wondered if it was the taxidermist himself. He was wearing the same spotless faded overalls, the same rigid white long-sleeve shirt. Frank wasn’t sure if this was simply the man’s uniform, if he had a closet full of identical clothing, or if this was the actual clothes he’d been wearing a week ago.

  He poked around the shop while Sturm and Girdler inspected the striped hide, and realized that most of the smell was coming from a large bubbling pot in the back, where the taxidermist was boiling the tiger skull.

  * * * * *

  The next stop was the town pool. When Sturm told Theo where to go, just north of the high school, Frank was surprised a town this size had a town pool, but didn’t care one way or another. He was seriously considering jumping into the water, clothes and all, but when they unlocked the gate and went inside, they found the pool quite empty, just an echoing hollow husk of concrete, surrounded by a ten-foot chain link fence.

  “Think this’ll hold a grizzly—sorry, a Kodiak?” Sturm asked, standing at the lip of the deep end, his voice booming off the blue painted concrete.

  The deep end was certainly big enough. Over 30 feet wide, the flat bottom gently sloped down from the shallow end, leveling out at fourteen feet beneath the pool deck. Stagnant, green water waited at the very bottom.

  The problem was obvious to everyone. The bear could just walk up into the shallow end, a larger rectangle set at a right angle to the deeper part. They would have to construct some kind of wall; otherwise the bear would simply stroll right up and tear through the fence like a fork through toilet paper.

  * * * * *

  The auction yard was next. Sturm led them to a large room with a high ceiling where they’d kept the original lioness that Sturm had fought and killed. It had one door. The floor was concrete, with two drains set into it. Tiles covered the walls four feet up, giving way to a series of small windows covered in thick wire.

  “This’ll work,” Frank said. “This’ll work just fine.”

  “You sure you don’t have, I dunno, someplace outside?” Girdler asked.

  Frank said, “We’ll put some straw down for him, make him as comfortable as possible.”

  “Frank’ll make sure your bear is comfortable,” Sturm said. “He’s a regular goddamn Florence Nightingale for these animals, believe me.”

  “It’ll just be for a few days, right?” Frank asked.

  “Guess so. Just wanted him outside, in the sun, for as much as possible…before the end,” Girdler said. “It’s a matter of respect.”

  “Of course,” Sturm said, reaching up to pat Girdler’s shoulder. “I understand respect.” He was silent a moment, then said, “Let’s get out of here and have ourselves another beer.”

  * * * * *

  On the way back to the ranch, they stopped at the gas station. Theo stayed outside and filled up the truck. Frank wished the Glouck boys would fire some BBs and rocks at Theo, but the dead tree was empty.

  “How’s business, Myrtle?” Sturm said.

  The woman with the shocking red hair shrugged in her kingdom of cigarettes and lottery tickets. “Kinda’ slow, Mr. Sturm.”

  Frank stopped and waited just inside the front door, hands in his pockets, head down, bill of his cap obscuring his face. The place was even more cramped and hotter than before. Girdler hit the end of the first aisle, found a few beers in the cooler, and Frank realized that between the two coolers, in the left corner of the of the ceiling, perched a round, concave mirror like the Glouck’s TV satellite’s younger cousin. Myrtle’s curving face appeared in the distorted mirror, staring right at him. Hatred haunted the lines in her face.

  Frank had killed her cat. It was that simple.

  Sturm leaned on the counter. “That’ll be changing soon. Can I count on you to be here?”

  She took her glare off the mirror. “Of course. I’ll be here, open ‘til close.”

  Sturm nodded. “Good, good. Can I trust you?”

  Myrtle looked as though Sturm had just asked her to drop her jeans and shit in the cash register. “I don’t know quite what you mean, Mr. Sturm.”

  “What I’m getting at here, is this. I’ve got men coming into town, they’re gonna be needing gasoline and beer and liquor and snacks and all kinds of shit, and I need someone I can trust to run this place. I don’t know the characters of these men. I don’t know if I can trust them, so I need someone to keep ’em honest, do you see what I’m saying?”

  Myrtle thought Sturm’s question was as clear as mud. But she smiled, said, “Yes.”

  “So what would you do if some kid came in here, slipped a candybar in his pocket?”

  “I’d get up and stand in front of the door.”

  “Okay. He tries to run.”

  “I’d grab that little pisser by the back of his shirt or hair, whichever’s easiest, with this hand,” she said, demonstrating by vigorously shaking her metal stool that she sat upon, hour after hour. “And I’d get the merchandise with this one.” She gave the stool a good shaking, and slapped it once.

  “So what if two vehicles pull up, and the far one, the one you can’t see, that vehicle pulls away with out paying. What would you do then?”

  “I’d be on the phone before they made it ten feet. I’d have the license number and a description of the occupants.” She set the stool down. Crossed her arms. “I am a very observant employee, Mr. Sturm,” she said, eyeballing the Glouck house across the street.

  “Welcome aboard,” Sturm said, and shook hands with Myrtle.

  “I’ll take all them beef jerkeys you got,” Girdler said, shambling up to the counter. “And these beers.”

  “Tell you what, Myrtle, you ring up this gentlem
an on my tab. Whatever he needs. This time.” Sturm looked directly at Girdler. “From here on out, you pay your own way.”

  “Sure,” Girdler said, cracking a beer.

  Myrtle’s fingernails kept track of everything Girdler carried. Frank opened the door for Sturm and Jack. When it closed, Frank saw Myrtle staring at him through the glass. Frank looked at the pavement. He felt bad. Again, but just for the barest blink, the voice, suggesting the solution to her pain. It could be over and gone.

  He turned and went to the pickup. Before him, the Glouck house sat quiet, but smoke slowly rose from the kitchen. Sturm said, under his breath, “Crazy goddamn old bitch,” and Girdler laughed. Theo slowly pulled away in the crackling heat and Frank blinked the sweat out of his eyes.

  * * * * *

  A big flashy Cadillac Escalade was parked in front of Sturm’s house.

  “Okay. We got customers. Look sharp.”

  The three new hunters waited out on the back deck, marveling at the giant cross in the corner of the yard. Frank could tell right off that none of these three ever did anything without the other two behind him. He just knew these fuckers were executives somewhere, late twenties to early thirties. They probably worked together, played fucking golf, got their haircuts from the same barber, same goddamn fraternity. Frank suspected they didn’t do much of anything at their work, neither making decisions or lifting something heavy. This would be one of their hunting trips, their version of an adventure.

  They gave their names, but Frank immediately forgot and just named them Asshole #1, #2, and #3. He shook all their hands, smiled his smile, and immediately went out back to the lioness cage. He wanted to stop by Jack’s truck for his bottle, but decided he needed to see the cats first. He went quickly through the deepening shadows and curled his fingers into the cage at the back of the barn.

  The tranquilizers had worn off hours ago, and Sturm’s girls were irritable and hungry. Lady was busy tearing ragged strips of hard black rubber out of the tires while Princess hulked in a corner, motionless except for her tail, which slapped at the flies. She hissed when she saw Frank, deep, vicious, and pissed.