Foodchain

by Jeff Jacobson

  A stainless steel box, at least six feet long and four feet high, hung on the edge between the low and high diving boards from a series of ropes and pulleys. The box was nearly solid, with only a single row of holes the size of quarters along the top; it was tilted at such a steep angle that the line of holes pointed up at the high board. A separate rope led to a catch on the gate.

  Fourteen feet below, the bottom was covered with six inches of murky water, choked with algae. And even that water was disappearing fast. When Frank, Sturm, and Girdler had visited, the water was around two feet deep. Next week there would be nothing but algae, spread thin and dying under that relentless sun. Week after that, dust.

  Someone threw a bottle into the deep end. It shattered and Frank saw the previously hidden Komodo Dragon tear away from the corner up near the shallow end and zigzag across the thin pool of water, moving faster than Princess and Lady going after a sheep. It circled around in the corner under the high board and sank back into the water.

  Sturm hit the record as he burst out of the doorway of the front office, sending the needle skipping and tearing across the vinyl.

  The guy was looking up at the speakers and joking with his buddies and had no idea Sturm was about to come down like a hammer striking the primer of a shell. Sturm went in low and jerked the guy’s boots out from under him with his left hand while grabbing hold of the guy’s belt with his right and pushing down. All the guy really felt was his legs get yanked from under him and the gritted surface of the pool deck smash into his face, shattering the cartilage in his nose, cracking the bone above the eyes, and breaking his upper two front teeth.

  Sturm was so mad he jerked one of his pistols out and shot the guy’s hand. “Throw another fucking bottle!” he hollered, letting everyone around the pool hear him loud and clear. He clicked the hammer back in the sudden quiet and aimed at the back of the guy’s head. “What’s that? What?” Sturm tilted his head.

  The guy whimpered something.

  “You’re sorry? You fucking ought to be.” Sturm eased the hammer up and put the pistol back in its holster. He stepped up to the edge, let his voice bounce around the hollow concrete. “Anybody else feel like interfering with this fight? This establishment has rules, and anybody thinks these rules don’t apply to him, then he’d best be thinking hard about this decision. In fact, he best be thinking about it so hard he leaves. Right fucking now.”

  Frank trailed Sturm at a distance as men crowded the edge, climbed up on the roof of the front office, hung off the two lifeguard towers. The clowns sat along the high board, the best seats in the house, except for the shallow board, which was reserved for Sturm and Theo only. Frank slowed, watching faces, clothes, gestures.

  And there was Mr. Noe, still in his white suit, one leg hooked around the ladder bars by the deep end’s lifeguard tower, taking pictures with a cheap, disposable camera.

  Frank wished he hadn’t left the shotgun in the car.

  * * * * *

  Sturm climbed up on the low diving board and everyone cheered. He let the applause build, then nodded to Jack. Frank figured he must have missed all the speeches, because Sturm wasn’t wasting any time. Jack swiftly pulled the gate up, releasing the tiger. It came out backwards, clawing at the smooth metal of the box in a blur of white fur. But it couldn’t catch hold, and slid along the wall all the way down, splashing into the water, turning the white coat quite green.

  The Komodo watched the tiger for a moment, tongue sliding greasily in and out as it tasted the air, and turned back to clawing at the wall. The tiger scampered out of the water and coiled itself at the edge of the shallow end, near the chicken wire. After that, the two animals refused to look at each other.

  Frank didn’t want Sturm to see him, so he kept his head down and worked his way around behind Sturm. Men shouted, screamed at the tiger and the Komodo Dragon, but neither animal moved much. Frank overheard someone say, “I’ve seen better fights at my son’s school, and he’s in fucking third grade.”

  Frank eased his way around the diving boards, avoiding Jack and Pine, who were lowering the tiger box and dragging it back away from the edge. Billy was right there, saying, “Maybe it’s still cold. Shit, I dunno.”

  “Thought you said it was mean,” Pine said.

  “Oh it is, you betcha. But this, this I dunno,” Billy said.

  Frank hung back, near the fence, and rounded the corner. Mr. Noe was still taking pictures. Frank slid between men until he was directly behind the white suit. He let his eyes flicker up to Sturm, who was busy stomping back and forth on the low diving board. Frank knew Sturm was looking for him, wondering how in the hell to get these two animals to fight. Frank didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was hunched over in front of him, clicking away at the bottom of the pool.

  It was easy. He waited until Mr. Noe leaned out one more time to take a picture, peeled Mr. Noe’s hand off the ladder handle and simply pushed at the same time. Gently. In the small of the back. Mr. Noe’s center of gravity shifted unexpectedly, and almost in slow motion, before he realized that he was too far out, before his balance had a chance to sound the alarm bell, he slowly toppled over and fell.

  He shrieked, an anxious, desperate bleat. Frank wished he had seen the man’s eyes when he had finally realized that he was about to fall into the empty pool, but Frank was already slipping backwards through the cluster of men.

  Mr. Noe, for some reason, held onto the camera the whole way down. He landed on his shoulder in the water and the flash went off. The impact cranked his head sideways and forward; if he’d hit a slightly different angle, if his head had gone backwards instead of crushing his chin into his chest, and the fall would have snapped his neck instantly. But Mr. Noe wasn’t that lucky. His ribs collapsed into his collarbone and his pelvis settled over his face, leaving his bony legs jutting limply into space, like trees that had snapped in half in a high wind. They flopped back and forth, eventually slapping against the edge of the wall, not five feet from the Komodo Dragon.

  Frank caught Sturm staring at him.

  The men laughed, cheered. Everyone had simply assumed that Mr. Noe had leaned out too far, and lost his balance, but Sturm knew better. Frank met those ice-cold eyes for a moment, and shrugged. Sturm nodded imperceptibly, telling Frank that they would be speaking later.

  The tiger’s ears swiveled and froze as they locked onto Mr. Noe, and it collected itself, lowering the front shoulders and tensing its rear haunches.

  The Dragon’s tongue shot out, retracted.

  Mr. Noe struggled to lift his head out of the water with his good shoulder, the left one, since the right shoulder and upper arm had been broken in the fall, just enough to grab a breath. He pushed himself around and managed to wriggle over to the edge of the water. He still hadn’t seen the Dragon yet, and this brought him even closer, to within a yard of the giant lizard.

  “When’s the last time that lizard of yours ate anything substantial?” Sturm asked.

  “Last week,” Billy asked. “Fed it a pig for a show down in San Jose.”

  But no one else moved. No one wanted to be seen as interfering in a fight.

  The Komodo, making no sudden movements, moving almost lazily, clamped half-inch teeth on Mr. Noe’s upper arm, puncturing the triceps and biceps like wood screws through jello, and jerked him sideways.

  Mr. Noe’s shriek echoed around the bare cement walls and into the sky. His right arm splashed uselessly in the water as the Komodo Dragon dragged him deeper in the water. It sank its claws into his chest and pulled at the left arm. Mr. Noe’s scream came out in bubbles as the teeth shredded the muscles from his upper arm down to his wrist, like ripping off a wet sock. It bit down harder and pulled, taking the middle finger as it tore the flesh away.

  The tiger crept forward.

  The dragon went after Mr. Noe’s armpit. His legs scissored frantically, like a fly whose wings had been pulled off. The Komodo held him down and kept tearing at the soft flesh under his arm. Bloody s
watches of the white suit floated in the algae. After a while, the legs stopped moving.

  The tiger finally settled down and just watched the Dragon eat.

  Frank wished it had lasted longer.

  * * * * *

  After the Komodo Dragon had gorged itself on Mr. Noe, there wasn’t much left. A few scraps of ragged muscle and bone left in a trail, with a few larger chunks inside pelvis and the skull, but not even enough to bury him in a child’s coffin. The Komodo Dragon was an especially efficient killer and scavenger, and broke off chunks of bones and joints and swallowed them without any trouble at all. It kept Mr. Noe’s ribcage and backbone with it as it skittered along back to its corner, ignoring the white tiger. When it had become obvious that nothing else was going to happen, the men had drifted away on their own.

  Sturm watched the Komodo Dragon and Siberian white tiger for a while. The tiger had moved in and taken the pelvis and leg. Most of it was mostly just bone and ligaments; the Komodo had focused primarily on the other leg. But there was some tissue left, stubbornly clinging to the bone down near Mr. Noe’s toes, and the tiger happily settled into place and gnawed on the bones.

  * * * * *

  “Where were you?” Sturm demanded. Except for Sturm and the clowns, the pool was empty. Billy and Theo waited near the pool entrance.

  Frank had stayed. Sturm had seen him, and Frank didn’t see the point in hiding; he knew he wouldn’t make it out the valley without one of the clowns or even Theo tracking him down and shooting him in the back. Frank stood. “I was tending to a wounded animal.”

  “And what animal was that?”

  “Petunia. The Glouck’s dog.”

  “The Glouck’s dog.”

  “Yeah. She’d been wounded. I thought it was my job to take care of wounded animals. After all, I am the vet in this town.”

  “Let’s go for a ride,” Sturm said.

  * * * * *

  They went out to Sturm’s pickup and Theo handed his father a blanket. Sturm wrapped it around his shoulders, and climbed up into the pickup bed. He settled into a La-Z-boy and gestured for Frank to climb up and sit on the wheel well. Jack followed Frank and Theo slammed the tailgate. Theo hopped in the front, started the engine, and drove slowly through town.

  The town now knew it was dead. Bullet holes pierced every bare window. All the streetlights had been shot out. The few cars still left on the streets were riddled with more holes than a colander. They passed a pile of blackened husks of hyenas, still smoldering in the intersection of Third and Main Street. The strip of dried blood from the sheep appeared almost purple in the headlights.

  “You ever read much about the ancient Egyptians, Frank?” Sturm asked.

  “In school. Long time ago,” Frank said, resting his elbows, scanning the town on his right while keeping an eye Jack and Sturm.

  “You ever read about how they buried kings?”

  “In the pyramids. The tombs.”

  “Exactly,” Sturm cried, delighted, as if Frank was a dog that just learned not to piss on the floor. “And what did they put in there with them?”

  “Treasure,” Frank said. If Sturm wanted to play a game, Frank would play along.

  “Yes! All of it buried, supposedly forever. But not just wealth, slaves too. And animals. They took everything with them on their journey across the river of Death. Everything. And they weren’t the only culture throughout history. Look at the Indians. They were buried with weapons, tobacco, everything they needed once they reached the other side.” Sturm reached out to the cool rushing air, cupped a little of it, let if drift threw his fluttering fingers. “This town, this is my tomb. And all of this, this destruction, this sacrifice…it is mine.”

  Frank looked up at Sturm. “Are you saying that you are taking all of this,” Frank let his fingers flutter in the air for a quick moment, coming dangerously close to the edge of mocking Sturm without actually going over. “Everything, over with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’d say you oughta have your head reexamined.” Frank gave his crooked grin.

  Jack punched him once. It was fast. He was smart, and came in under Frank’s left jaw, where the vision wasn’t the best, snapping Frank’s head back so far he almost fell out.

  Frank spit blood; Jack’s punch had pinched the left side of his tongue between his teeth.

  Jack sat back just as quickly. “You mind your manners. You weren’t born here. You don’t know shit.”

  “I thought you might understand, having been so close to death, yourself,” Sturm told Frank. He sounded genuinely hurt. “To get that close, to peer into the abyss…well, it makes ideas that you may have once sneered at seem suddenly possible. Maybe even hopeful.”

  Frank didn’t say anything. He was done playing. He wasn’t worried about himself. Pain didn’t matter anymore. The only thing he was doing was keeping Sturm and the fellas occupied, giving Annie and her mothers a chance to get out to Sturm’s barn and take the whole damn safe.

  Theo stopped at the southern edge of town, where Main Street officially turned back into Highway 61. Frank’s long black car was parked on the side of the road, Pine behind the wheel and Chuck in the passenger seat.

  “Son, I’m afraid I have no choice.” Sturm stood and looked at the stars while Theo let down the tailgate. “I hereby terminate this contract we have here. Your services are no longer needed.”

  Frank slowly climbed down, followed by Jack, joining Pine and Chuck in the wash of the red taillights. Sturm looked down at Frank. “I think you’re smart enough to understand a few things here. I don’t have to let you go. Shouldn’t be a big surprise that Theo wanted to feed your ass to the cats, after what you did. Fact is, nobody here wanted to leave you alive.”

  Pine and Chuck looked at the ground, but Jack met Frank’s stare with an intensity that dared Frank to challenge him. Theo jumped up and sat on the tailgate, next to his father’s feet and happily swung his legs back and forth. He nursed a beer; he didn’t like the taste, but wanted everyone to see him drinking.

  “But, for some goddamn reason,” Sturm continued, “I like you. You got yourself a gift there. Never seen anybody handle animals the way you did. But on the other hand, never seen anybody with a talent for dealing out death quite like you. You were one handy motherfucker to have around for an operation like this. But you fucked up and cost me money. Let your emotions get in the way. You embarrassed me tonight. So you got two options here. You can leave, and never come back. Or you can stay here and suffer the consequences.”

  “What about my money?” Frank asked.

  Pine stepped close and jabbed Frank in his lower back, just above the right hip, a vicious, powerful, unseen punch that sent tendrils of curdled pain shooting through Frank’s groin. Frank took a half step to his left, recoiling from the blow, and Jack brought his fist around in a swinging, roundhouse blow, driving his knuckles into the soft tissue under Frank’s left ear.

  Frank went to his knees.

  Now they could use their boots as well. Frank fell sideways and curled up, protecting his face and head with his arms. He pulled his knees into his chest and pressed his heels into his haunches as hard as he could, covering his balls with his feet. His body shuddered under the onslaught of punches and kicks, but most of Frank’s mind had retreated down into the darkness, hiding out in the raw, wild place that had been sealed and secure until it had been ripped open when he kneeled in the dirt yard with Annie. He thought of her now, and his only wish was that she had gotten the safe out of the barn and was taking the whole damn thing far, far away from this town.

  Sturm let the clowns kick at Frank for a while. “Jack was right. You weren’t born here. This land is my land. This land is my family’s land. It sure as shit ain’t your country, son. My Great-great grandfather worked his way out here with the goddamn chinks on the railroad. He saw how much this valley had to offer, chased the fucking Indians out, and my family has been here ever since. And will continue to be. Long after my bon
es are gone, long after this town has dried to dust and blown away, the ground will replenish itself, and when Theo returns as a man, all of this will be his.”

  He realized that Frank wouldn’t or couldn’t make a sound. “That’s enough.” He jumped down off the pickup and lifted Frank’s chin. One eye was swollen nearly shut. Blood ran from his hairline. Frank’s lips had been split like overripe tomatoes. “This was for your own good, son. It was your own damn fault. Understand this, I spared you. I’m giving you a chance. Leave. Now. You got a full tank of gas. Hell, I’ll even leave that box of liquor with you, just so you understand there’s no hard feelings. But let’s make one thing very, very clear. You get to thinking you’re man enough to come back here, you’ll force me to pull the trigger. So help me God, you’ll be down at the bottom of the town pool with Dr. No back there, keeping that goddamn lizard company.”

  Frank spit blood on Sturm’s boots. His tongue found a few alarmingly loose teeth. He took a deep breath and winced at how his ribs seemed to be stabbing into his lungs. Still, he found enough strength to sit upright and look Sturm full in the face with his good eye. “What about my money?”

  “You just don’t give up. Sometimes, that’s admirable. Sometimes, it’s just fucking stupid,” Sturm said. He stood. “Theo. Bring me that envelope on the dash.” He looked down at Frank. “Boys didn’t want me to give you this. They wanted to split it between themselves.”

  Theo came back with a manila envelope and handed it to his father.

  Sturm knelt down, tapped the thick envelope on Frank’s skull. “There’s two months of wages in here. However,” he said, slapping Frank in the head, hard. “I subtracted payment for not fulfilling your duties. If I were you, I would consider this amount to be extremely generous, given the circumstances.” He tossed the envelope into Frank’s lap and stepped back. “You’ve got a full tank of gas. Use it. I’d head north, I were you. Get yourself a job on a ranch somewhere and just enjoy breathing.”