Omnivores

by Lydia Millet

  She confronted Bill in the dining room, where he was chowing down on a super-duper macaroni meal, his old standby.

  “Where is she?”

  “Your mother has gone on to a better place,” said Bill haughtily, orange powder on his chin. He ate the cheese powder straight from the package, without bothering to melt it.

  “Where? What better place?”

  “Details, details,” grumbled Bill, but coughed up the name of a clinic in Fort Lauderdale.

  “It’s very nice here,” said Betty when Estée reached her by phone. “I get pedicures, and a specialist comes in to give me hair-replacement treatments. I highly recommend it. They have shuffleboard, but I don’t play.”

  Estée broached the subject of postsecondary education, but Bill would not hear of it. He prevented her from applying by refusing to sign the forms stating she’d had a tutor. She dropped the idea and planned only on escape: eighteen in December.

  “We are seceding from the Union,” Bill announced a week later.

  “Excuse me?” she asked.

  “What I said,” said Bill. “I am starting my own country.”

  “Don’t you have to have a revolution?” asked Estée. “You can’t secede just like that. We’re in California, not Texas.”

  “I will use whatever means necessary,” said Bill. “It will make the tax situation difficult, but I will talk to the lawyers.” He appointed her his second-in-command.

  “I do not wish to participate,” said Estée stiffly, to no avail.

  The new regime, Bill decided, needed first a flag; next, a declaration; then citizens, laws, and a military force. Estée had a change of heart about involvement: she would play along, hoping he’d be remanded into police custody as soon as he crossed the line. She envisioned him sending armed patrols into the neighborhood, there to rob and pillage, and planned to bring in the authorities as soon as this occurred. She looked forward to the instant of triumph. With Bill incarcerated and Betty institutionalized, she could strike out for foreign parts.

  Bill was not artistically inclined, so the flag was a stumbling block. He hit upon the notion of using the Velut arbor ita ramus banner, but dismissed it owing to the alien connotations of the moth language. “Aliens will not be allowed into the country,” he told Estée, “except as emissaries or slaves.” Eventually he decided to rely on the family name and had the word Kraft, cut off a mac & cheese box, silk-screened in bold hues onto a giant sheet of cloth. This he flew from the roof on a mast built onto the TV antenna. He forgot to tell the silk-screeners to customize the logo, so the flag read “Kraft” in blue block letters surrounded by a red border, and beneath this, to the right, ®.

  He put up a customs booth at the front gate, employed three security guards who wore Kraft crests on their breast pockets, and instructed them to halt all incoming traffic and demand passports. On the first day of this regime the maids were turned away; the next day Bill corrected the oversight by issuing special entry visas. These were Bill’s handiwork and consisted of a piece of paper stating, “Enter One Alien into the United State of Kraft, sined, Commander in Cheif Bill Kraft.” Bill’s orthography had not improved with his new status.

  The maids did not read English and were under the impression, Estée learned from a guard, that the measures were purely for household security. Bill was delighted to have guards. He found himself well suited to be commander in chief. Drawing on stock capital, he expanded his forces, hiring eight additional security guards to live in full-time. They were his private army, well paid. They wore tailor-made Kraft uniforms, complete with Kaiser Wilhelm helmets. The helmets were heavy metal and hard to breathe in; the troops griped until Bill gave them salary hikes.

  Estée watched Bill hold debriefing sessions in his war room and observed the men’s unconcerned silence. At the back, they exchanged the sports section under their seats; one did a crossword puzzle while another flicked dirt from beneath his fingernails. Corporal Martinez, Bill’s favorite, confided in Estée after a rigorous drill under Bill’s command, “I save up—¿cómo se dice?—for one dry-cleaning business with my brother, I clear out when I got enough. Is a secret, okay?”

  Bill had given up science and embraced the political life. He eradicated every trace of the laboratory and the moths and concentrated on preparedness. He outfitted his army with weapons from his blooming homegrown armory and supervised target practice. The constitution took a backseat to might: “Before you know what to do, you gotta be able to do it,” he strategized to Estée.

  She herself was busy with affairs of state, since Bill had nominated her for the post of United State of Kraft attorney general. She played the role of private secretary to the chief. Bill dictated letters to state senators and members of the House of Representatives in which he outlined his plan to secede. He stated that he was a property owner and entrepreneur: he owned his property outright, and should thus be allowed the privilege of self-government. “I bought up the place,” he dictated to her for the form letter, “it’s mine. No one owns it but me. Why does a guy pay taxes? So other guys can shuffle papers in Washington? I don’t need the service, so why should I pay for it? If war comes we in Kraft will defend ourselves to the hilt with no help from the U.S. of A. Let’s face it. You don’t need us, we don’t need you. This camper isn’t going to keep paying out one-third of his income just for garbage collection.” He announced his intention to discontinue the custom of paying out monies yearly to the Internal Revenue Service.

  Sure, he conceded: while the matter of his secession was pending he would continue to disburse funds to the income tax pool. Once it was approved, however, he would expect a full refund from the treasury, including accumulated interest at the prime lending rate. In his letters, he included no return address, signing Bill Kraft with a magnanimous flourish.

  “They’re not going to say yes,” Estée warned him.

  “I’ll take it into my own hands,” stated Bill. Estée kept her smugness to herself, awaiting the rebellion that would settle his hash. She was careful with the letters she typed up and inserted, here and there, an occasional veiled threat of bloody uprising. Bill did not read over the communiqués sent in his name, so she had license to exaggerate freely, making frequent reference to Bill’s private army and reservoir of munitions. She became a clock-watcher, waiting for the bomb blast.

  Commander Kraft, who decorated himself with five stars, was cautious when it came to stockpiling defenses. He moved his armory from a coat closet into a room in the basement that was hidden behind a concealed door. His guards were issued their guns and ammunition at 7:00 a.m., and after the armaments inspection at night the guns were impounded. Each round of bullets used in practice was counted. Guards who did not perform well at target practice were assigned special tasks and forced to shoot more often. Bill had standards.

  He discovered Estée’s collection of salvaged rodents three weeks after he’d built his customs booth. She left her bedroom door unlocked when she went to the bathroom and when she got back Bill was squatting by the row of cages.

  “What are these aliens doing here?” he asked.

  “They’re from before,” she told him. “I keep them in reserve. In case their country needs them.”

  “Hmm,” said Bill. “Unauthorized.” But he was not displeased. A country should raise its own livestock. “Self-sufficiency Esty. You don’t wanna pay for imports. Need a trade surplus there on your agriculture.” Since the hamsters, guinea pigs, and rabbits were not fit for breeding or herding, he would appoint them foot soldiers in the ranks of his reserves. “Uniforms, Esty. That’s what these men need.” He exited and returned with lengths of string and Kraft crests. “Hang these around the boys’ necks. Identification, Esty. Dog tags we call ’em.”

  “They won’t stay on.”

  “Inspection every morning at eight,” said Bill. “When you get up.”

  Estée took hold of a struggling guinea pig and tied a string around its neck. It defecated.

 
; “Hey Esty, see that? Its shit looks like its food.”

  Next Bill decreed that she would be his information minister. Without information, how could they make laws? Kraft was a nation with only two human citizens, plus a third who was currently on foreign sick leave, and a standing army. Estée’s job was to gather facts for the purpose of establishing written statutes, as insurance against a future in which the citizenry might expand and grow disobedient. “You can see the news for two hours per day,” he stipulated, “and I will relay its message to the troops.” The Kraft triumvirate, including its honorary first lady in absentia, would serve as the liaison between the common men of the armed forces and the world outside.

  “We will watch it together,” said Bill, thumbs through his belt loops, rocking back on his heels, “and I’ll say the important parts to you, and you can be my speechwriter. Every night after weapons detail I will address the rabble. I will give them the news of the day.”

  Excited by the chance to expand her horizons, Estée agreed to the proposal.

  “The United States consumed eighty thousand petajoules of energy this year,” related a toupeed newscaster.

  “Write that down!” said Bill, clapping a hand on her thigh. Estée wrote it down.

  “This is equal to the total consumption of Africa, South America, and Europe combined,” continued the newscaster, and turned to greet his co-anchor cheerfully.

  Bill dictated his report on the item while counting bullets and reshelving .357s.

  “The U.S. has consumed the energy of Africa, South America, and Europe,” he stated.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Estée.

  “You can’t say mumbo jumbo to the common people,” said Bill. “Got to make it easy on ’em. You heard the man Esty. That’s the news.”

  The next day Bill delivered a speech on the importance of sound foreign policy. “We gotta do like they did in the Persian Gulf War,” he said. “You go out there, you take what you need. We call it assistance. I’ll keep you posted on future developments, boys.”

  The troops listened slack-jawed and bored to these addresses, delivered by Bill from a podium in the war room. They snickered at the back, refused to participate in the Q & A sessions at the end of the lectures, and shuffled off to their quarters as soon as the last word was out of his mouth. Since they were an army of eight, their barracks fit nicely into spare bedrooms.

  “Commander,” said Estée after their second demonstration of indifference, “don’t you think we could just install a TV in the mess hall? Then they could watch the news while they were eating.”

  “Esty, Esty,” said Bill, “that would mean disaster. They’re not ready for that. We have to protect them.”

  During a speech on Muslim holy wars, Bill admonished his troops kindly to steer clear of Arabs. “You got your Hussanes, your Godoffies, your I-told-ya Coemanies,” said Bill. “They’re the worst kind of aliens, next to your Papists, your Protestants, and your dirty Wops,” said Bill.

  Murmurs of discontent arose from the fray and Corporal Martinez got up and left the room.

  The next day Estée inserted into a letter from Bill to the secretary of defense the sentences “I am going to kill them all. I have many guns in my house, including assault rifles.” It was the hour for bold measures. She licked a Love USA stamp and stuck it firmly on the envelope, writing Bill’s return address in the upper left-hand corner in clear capital letters.

  “The deployment of peacekeeping troops has been characterized as a strategic follow-up to the 1990 deployment in Saudi Arabia, which was the largest since Vietnam,” said a commentator. Bill sat forward on the couch beside her, eager as a Boy Scout. “Air force assets include F-15 fighters, F-16s, F-111s, and F-4s; also F-117A stealth fighters, B-52 strategic bombers, and A-10 tank busters.”

  Bill donned his blue cap with gold braid, commanded Estée to summon the battalion, and addressed them in his war room. “The United State of Kraft will be sending you to Kuwait, where you will join American aliens in a project to siphon all oil out of holes in the ground and bring it back here,” he announced proudly. He was removing kitchen funnels from a plastic bag when there was a rustle of disturbance in the ranks.

  “I’m quitting,” said Corporal Martinez, looking around at the others as he rose from his seat. “I had enough of this shit. You’re fucking crazy, man. I’m outta here. They should put you away.”

  His brothers-in-arms, shaking their heads and muttering, also rose from their chairs. Kaiser Wilhelm helmets dropped and rolled on the carpet.

  “Is this an insurrection?” sputtered Bill, clutching a funnel in his chubby fist.

  “We’re quitting,” said Corporal Randall. “We want our paychecks for this week before we go.”

  “A mutiny! You’re traitors,” said Bill, blinking rapidly, at a loss.

  “You’re bullshit,” said Corporal Randall.

  “You will return your weapons! And your uniforms!” squeaked Bill.

  “We don’t want your fucking lame-ass uniforms, buddy,” said a corporal with sprouting facial moles, and spat on the carpet as he quit the room.

  Estée stood by with arms crossed while slumping Bill, a study in defeat, watched the men file out.

  “Napoleon wouldn’t stand for this, Esty,” he said. “You’re my attorney general. They can’t do this. You stop ’em!”

  “There are always people to hire,” said Estée. “They have the right to quit.”

  “Oh no, oh no,” said Bill. “They’re defecting! You can’t quit the army.”

  Estée followed him as he scuttled out the door, clutching the plastic bag in his hand. He went upstairs to the barracks, where the men were throwing clothes into overnight bags, and ordered them to surrender their weapons. He waited, chafing his wrists nervously, till these were in a pile on the floor and then hefted one of the guns and waved it in the air.

  “C-c-court martial!” he stuttered, high pitched as a choirboy.

  “Fuck off, man,” said Corporal Randall, who had exchanged his uniform for jeans and a Budweiser T-shirt. He headed for the staircase, his compadres taking up the rear.

  “Halt!” quavered Bill, and fired one shot into the ceiling.

  Corporal Randall jumped at the noise and turned around.

  “You can’t do that, asshole. What are you gonna do, hold us hostage? We’ll call the cops on you. Serge, go call the cops.”

  Corporal Serge edged toward the dining room.

  “Stop!” said Bill, and fired into the doorway. Serge stopped. “They have no jurisdiction here! This is Kraft!”

  “Fuck off,” said Corporal Randall. “This is the U.S. of A., loony tunes.”

  “You shoot again, loco,” said Corporal Martinez, “and you could have some serious trouble.”

  “Commander,” said Estée, “why don’t you just let them go? What we need is brave, loyal men, which these are obviously not. We need soldiers worthy of the State of Kraft. We need to handpick them, not just call up some security company out of the yellow pages. It’s time to ring out the old, ring in the new, am I right, Commander?”

  “What can you expect from aliens,” conceded Bill, though his hand still shook on the gun’s molded grip.

  “I suggest we carry out an exhaustive search for non-aliens to serve in our military,” said Estée. “Get these guys out of here. What good are they doing? They were always layabouts. They were always slackers. Am I correct, Commander?”

  “You may have a point,” said Bill. After a pause he hiked up his belt around the tent of his slacks and motioned the corporals toward the door with his gun. Estée watched from the front door as he followed them down the front walk, out along the driveway to the customs booth in the yard. Gun in hand, Bill watched them disperse down the street to their cars.

  He was quiet for several days. “Diary, he’s left high and dry. He can’t mount the revolution now, which means I’m stuck with him. I folded under stress, afraid of casualties. I missed the chance to f
oil him. Another plan is needed to send him over the edge.” Bill’s mantle had been stripped off rudely, leaving him trembling. Restless, Estée gave him a pep talk.

  “Remember, those were Americans,” she cajoled over a Pop-Tart breakfast. Bill was consuming the whole box. “Of course they want to undermine you. They might even have been spies. They were jealous of your kingdom. You have to rise above it, Commander.”

  Bill poked pensively at a slab of microwaved bacon.

  “My reserves,” he said. “The furry pigs and those rabbits. Are they also Americans?”

  “Strictly speaking, no,” said Estée. “They are citizens of the world.”

  “The problem with the reserves,” said Bill, “is they can’t bear arms. They can’t take orders Esty.”

  “That’s true,” allowed Estée. “But not for lack of trying. I mean those reserves have their hearts in the right place, it’s just they don’t speak English and they don’t have opposable thumbs. They would if they could, I know that much.”

  “As an interim army,” suggested Bill, “they might be all right. Don’t you think?”

  “They would be fine,” said Estée. “Until you can find non-aliens, which might be a big job.”

  “Big? Colossal. I don’t know one person besides myself who’s not an alien. You can’t trust anyone. Your mother’s not cut out for governing. She’s not a leader Esty.”

  “You can trust me,” she said. “Can’t you?”

  “Okay,” said Bill, pushing his plate away, pieces of Pop-Tart floating in bacon fat. “Please assemble the reserves, in full uniform, in the briefing room at ten hundred hours. That will be all.”

  The guinea pigs and rabbits proved recalcitrant. They would not respond to leashes, so she carried them two by two to the war room, where she set them on chairs with food bowls in front of them. While waiting for Bill they gnawed at the green pellets and peed on the vinyl. Estée cleaned up with paper towels and kept the soldiers in their places. They wore their Kraft crests around their necks on string, but these were easily dislodged. She had to reattach the crests every few minutes, after surges in rodent activity.