Hog Butcher: 2nd Edition

by Andrew Sutherland

  Eric reached down and grabbed the duct tape. He looked at Bud and a tear ran down Eric’s face. “You’re right, Bud. It isn’t ours.” He wound two circles of duct tape around Bud’s mouth and stepped back. “Judgement isn’t ours, it’s mine.”

  Bud grunted and struggled against the tape, to no avail. Eric backed his truck out of the barn, got out, and shut the barn door. Bud heard the small truck pull away. All he could think of were his wife and Buster, and the fact he was going to miss the end of the whole thing. He tried to think of a solution, but his head swam, and before he could do anything about it, he was falling down a deep hole. He was falling into unconsciousness. He was late for a very important date that he didn’t particularly want to attend.

  67

  “Al, come in here. It’s fucking creepy.” It was Gill’s voice. Gill had become a new man since the ass-kicking in the park. It was like he found the piece of himself he was afraid to even look for. Al was giving a final check to the equipment he was going to take with him when Gill called.

  When they had gotten in the building, he had used compressed air to blow all the dust off one of the large tables in the scene shop. Edith had followed suit with another table. He had his large gym bag. Sunny had helped Edith load in all of her electronic gadgets. Al didn’t remember bringing that much stuff down to the car, so he guessed that Edith must have had some of that stuff in the trunk already.

  “Sunny, honey. Can you bring that power cord over here, plug a multi-outlet power strip in, and start charging anything that looks chargeable? If you don’t know, ask. We’ll have limited ability to charge on the drive to wherever, so we’re up against the clock.”

  Sunny ran to the middle of the shop. Shrek had the electrical on big retracting drums that travelled the length of the shop on overhead tracks. When you pulled one of the extension cords out of the round metal casing, it would start to unwind and, as more cord fed out, the drum made a clicka-clicka-clicka sound. Edith guessed it was like those things that you used to find at gas stations for air. Pretty slick.

  Al had heard Edith say “We’ll have limited ability to charge on the drive.” He didn’t like the sound of that. Al had bad luck bringing people into harm’s way. He had an even harder time forgiving himself when things went south. “Hey, Madame Tesla. What do you mean, ‘We?’ Ain’t no ‘we’ in this. There’s a good chance you’ll get lead poisoning tonight.”

  Edith didn’t look up from her three laptops. “Nah. Anyone shooting at us will be using something jacketed, don’t you think? No jacket, you get all that lead residue. I guess if you like to clean your weapon, it’s OK.” She looked up and made eye contact for a second. “Do you like to clean your weapon, Al?”

  Al couldn’t believe that Edith was not only doing well with the stress, but she seemed to be getting off on it. “You aren’t scared?”

  Sunny was listening to all of this and madly plugging in charger cords. “Al, I was supposed to die already. Twice. I’m not afraid of it any more. Waste of time. Now, shut up. I gotta think. Throw me your phone.”

  Al complied, lobbing his phone to Edith, who made a one-handed grab that was worthy of any he’d seen at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Then he shut everything out of his head. He opened his “go bag” and started to pull stuff out of it. He was working in isolation now. He liked being in his own space, in his own head. Time slowed and got calm. He pulled out a pair of tactical pants, a tac-gear shirt, socks, and a pair of Moto brand mercenary shoes. Everything was matte black. Shit, almost everything in the go bag was matte black.

  Al started to strip unconsciously. Sunny glanced over and looked at the heavily muscled and scarred body that was tastefully accented with a little ink. He move with a lithe style, but she could tell he could tear most people apart with his bare hands. It was both stimulating and frightening. After about fifteen seconds of staring, Sunny decided scary was predominant and turned back to Edith.

  Edith didn’t look up. She said to Sunny, “He’s something else, huh?”

  “I wasn’t…”

  “Sunny, I don’t give a shit.”

  “He’s such a smart nice guy, but he’s…he’s…”

  “Also a total animal. I love him.”

  “Wow.” Sunny’s head felt a little too heavy, like it was going to explode.

  “Al calls the shots, but I think we’re gonna want you here tonight. We need someone on ground control who is ready to call cops if needed, or run another car out, or whatever. Also, you don’t really want a huge piece of this. I’m not saying you’re scared, I’m just saying this isn’t your bailiwick.” She paused but before Sunny could answer she said. “OK. Up and in. What’s the password? Then I want you to plug that little satellite thing into that laptop there.” Edith pointed with her head. Sunny told her the password then went to get the satellite. It was about ten inches across, had its own stand, and had no brand names on it. As if she was reading Sunny’s mind, she just said, “It’s custom. Friend made it for me.” Then her fingers were flying around the keyboard so fast Sunny found herself speechless.

  Al had finished dressing. His clothes fit tightly but had enough stretch Lycra that he could move without impediment. His pants had several pockets, but they weren’t exactly cargo pants. He broke down and reloaded his Chiappa Rhino .44, then stuck it in a small holster that would go under his arm soon enough. He grabbed several speed-loaders and put them in his pockets. Speed-loaders allowed you to reload a revolver like the Rhino fast. You dumped in all the chamber at once, instead of pushing in a new cartridge into every hole in the cylinder. An automatic would be faster to reload, but he’d had one jam on him in a tight situation once, and it almost cost him his life. Then he grabbed the Walther PPK, broke it down, and put it back together. He’d give it to Edith. If she was coming, she was packing. He’d explain it to her while they drove. She was a quick study.

  The only thing Al had in his go bag that wasn’t black was a Bowie-style knife. It was a Szco Damascus Bowie knife--eleven-inch blade, stag-antler handle. His friend, Selly, from Portland, Oregon, used to carry it. He carried it until his right arm was vaporized in a hotel by a gunshot from a madman. He’d given it to Al to “hold onto.” Both of them knew at the time Al would carry it till he retired. The knife’s scabbard wasn’t very fancy, leather with a little fringe made by a leather craftsman who hailed from the Klamath tribe of Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest. The sheath was beautiful, and the knife was as sharp as a laser beam. Selly had buried all eleven inches of it in a man’s chest the last time he used it. It had gone through the man’s sternum. Selly had to brace his boot on the man’s chest and use both hands to pull it free.

  Al grabbed a small backpack out of the go bag. He went to Shrek’s tool room and grabbed a bunch of little hand tools. Just this and that. The first aid kit contained two BAND-AIDs and one capsule of smelling salts. Al grabbed the salts, three rolls of gaffer’s tape, and three rolls of toilet paper that happened to be sitting there. He dumped all the shit on the table and started to pack. Edith called to him, “Babe? How come the toilet paper?”

  “Field dressing if someone get shot and decides to see how much they can bleed.”

  “Cool. Good thinking. Can you grab a can or two of W-D 40 or spray silicone? We might need it. And bolt cutters. Not huge, but you know, just in case.”

  “Sure.” He dashed back into the tool room and was realizing that the people that were telling him to snatch up Edith were seeing something he had not seen; he had had no idea this side of Edith existed. He liked this side. She was a force of nature. It was when he got back in the scene shop with a can of W-D 40 and a can of spray silicone that Gill called him into the costume and makeup room.

  Al ran in and stopped. Sitting up in the makeup chair was an almost perfect copy of himself. The mask that had been made for his death in Macbeth had been taken apart, presumably by Sheena who was working like someone who did this for a living. She had seated it on Shrek, who sat passively through t
he process. Shrek kept his hair short, so shaving his hairline back was no sweat. She had done that, had removed the closed eyes on the mask with an X-ACTO knife, and attached the whole thing to Shrek’s big head. In this light, up close, you could tell it was makeup. If you put Shrek in regular light from ten feet away, you wouldn’t look twice. “God damn, Sheena. That looks great.”

  “No. It looks good.” She was messing around with an airbrush, madly mixing makeup to get the right tones for light, shadow, beard stubble and everything else. “Give me twenty minutes, and it’ll be amazing.”

  Al checked his watch. “How about fifteen minutes?”

  “Shut up and let me work. I may get close to amazing.”

  “Good. Yell if you need me. Gill, can I have a word?”

  They walked into the breezeway between the scene shop and the costume and makeup area. “You doing OK?” Al was looking for some pending lunacy in Gills eyes.

  “I could use a drink. I may need one to steady up. Been drinking pretty steadily for about two months. I don’t wanna cramp up or get the shakes. I’m good, though. I’m sorry. I’ve been a coward.”

  “There’s usually cheap vodka in costume shops. For stains, and you don’t need to apologize to me.” Al was about to head back to the scene shop.

  “I know. I need to apologize to Eric. If I get my chance, I will. Then, Al?”

  “Yeah?”

  “If I get a chance, I’m killing the fucker.”

  “If you beat me to it, you can have him. But you won’t.” He gave Gill a slap on the shoulder and went back into the scene shop.

  Edith called out, “You all set, Al?”

  “As I can be. You?”

  “Still working, but come here.”

  Al came over and was looking at what Edith had set up in the short amount of time he had gotten his shit together.

  Edith had three computers up and running. One was on the dark web, one on the regular web, and the two were connected to a third machine. Her hands were a blur. She was cutting, pasting, and then dragging shit onto the third computer from the two laptops online. She had enough information up on the third screen to fill four or five sheets of legal paper about, presumably, Eric Bannerman. “Jesus wept.” Al said a little breathlessly.

  “I know. She’s fuckin’ inhuman. I’ve never seen anyone work that fast.”

  “Caffeine is a food group.” Edith said in a trancelike voice. “Al, get on the third machine. Start at the top and read. Retention is the key.”

  “How much retention?”

  “One hundred percent. All four pages. By the time you’re done, I’ll have two more, now read.”

  Al blocked out everything else and started to read. It wasn’t all useful, but it sure as hell was interesting.

  68

  Bud’s consciousness was swimming with the currents caused by his heart pumping at least three different kinds of mind-altering substances through the caverns and valleys, and over the mountainous terrain, of his grey matter. He would be wide awake, then he’d be pushing Buster on the swings, or washing dishes in the kitchen while Bets sang the little prince to sleep. In one of these flights of subconscious fancy, Bud jerked violently, the way you do when you start to fall in a dream and your body, despite the reality of your bed, tenses for the impact.

  The sudden tension in his body threw his mind into a bleary wakefulness. And as his head broke through the drug and alcohol haze, he heard a distinct yet distant crack of wood.

  What the hell? It was the first coherent thought that had floated through Bud’s mind in quite a while. He was measuring time in the steady but constant pain he had building in his arms, chest, shoulders, and neck. Bannerman had done a great job weaving him into his new duct-tape jacket, but had paid little attention to the chiropractic wonders it would produce on a living subject. Bud knew he was already injured from just being suspended here. The compression of the tape was keeping him from estimating the total damage that had been done, but he thought it was heading north of two days in the hospital. That was his conservative estimate.

  He took the fragments of his rationality, bunched them together into a fist of the mind, and clocked himself as hard as he could. Think! Pal, if you don’t use your noggin, you’re gonna be dead as rat shit. What’s worse is you’ll be dead because you had a little faith in humanity. So stop mewling and think!

  His legs were bound together at the ankle, calf, and above the knee, but without completely entombing someone in duct tape, they would be able to move, at least a little. Bud wiggled and squirmed but only managed to get himself swinging back and forth. The hook that he was hanging from, and he was sure it was a hook or some other metal gadget, was digging deeper into the tape and starting to groove his skin. It wasn’t directly on his spine, but to the right of his spine about four inches above where his “nipple equator” would be. He grew tired and collapsed in his bonds. When he did, he heard that faint crack again.

  His body-weight distribution made looking up almost impossible, and the barn was dark except for the moonlight filtering in through the old wall slats. He craned his head back with all the force he could muster and saw that he was being supported by a single beam of wood. Wood could be broken. Old wood could be rotten or brittle. It was all good news. The next thought broke over these like a comber off the New England shore. That beam has got to be a five by five or six by six beam. His heart sunk. In actuality it was five and a quarter inch square. For only being a jackleg carpenter and looking up in the dark, it was a damn fine guess, though. Shit!

  But it cracked…

  Bud rested as well as he could and decided to try an experiment. He pulled his knees up to his chest, curling his hips as high as he could. It was like a hanging abdominal crunch designed by Satan’s personal trainer. He held the position, though his abs were burning. He dropped his legs as violently as he could, and the crack sounded again. Was that louder? He waited and regained as much strength as he could. He was so happy he’d had his deviated septum repaired at Betsy’s request. His snoring was killing her, and he’d seen a doctor about it. They decided to fix the nose that had been broken numerous times in his life, the result of being a man with a little too much testosterone and a corresponding deficit in judgement. The surgery had taken a little character out of his face, but had made breathing through his nose a snap. It was probably saving his life right now.

  He lifted his knees again, imagining a giant red beast in a sweat suit behind him yelling “Two, Marlon. Only five thousand to go!” He dropped his legs again. “Crack!” Well, fuck me gently with a two-by-four. He was now faced with the worst monster that a man can encounter. He was staring hope in the face, and that was good. Shit, that was great. It was hope’s buddy that was the real bastard. Hope’s best friend is expectation, and expectations are what break a person. Expectation breeds discontent. He hoped he could break the beam, but he’d have to steel himself for every try when the beam didn’t snap. He would have to figure out what to do if it snapped as well, but that was for later. A journey of a thousand miles begins with…five thousand demon crunches.

  Bud did it again. This time when his legs fell, there was no crack, but an intense burning pain in his lower back. It was OK, though. It was fine. He’d done three of these demon crunches. He only had four thousand, ninety-seven to go. Bud began to raise his legs for number four.

  69

  Bannerman was coming into Freeport hot. He needed to be back at his “official dwelling” for the next part of the game. He’d pushed the speed limit and had made good time, although he thought he was fucked for a period of exactly forty-eight seconds that felt like an hour to Eric. He had crested a hill and was punching his truck seventeen miles an hour over the speed limit. He was looking in his rear view mirror quite coincidentally when a set of red and blue flashers slashed the horizon line, making the night spray first arterial blood, then whip-corded veins around like Grey’s lassos.

  He had a gun; he was a felon. He couldn’t throw it
out. He could be searched at any time; it was part of the parole agreement. So Eric pulled Bud’s service revolver and put it on his thigh. He’d have to kill a cop, stash the cop car, and potentially be late to the party he was planning. He slowed and hugged the shoulder. The cop car got in the left-hand lane of the two lane highway. Lights and sirens loosed to their full extent, the prowler went screaming past Bannerman’s small pick-up. His car was pushed out and pulled back in by the vacuum caused by the cop car. The guy must have been doing one hundred thirty miles an hour. Someone picked tonight to fuck up and fuck up hard.

  Eric laughed. He laughed so hard, he had to wipe the tears away from his eyes. He looked at the stars as he sped along, now twenty-five miles over the limit and not a tense muscle in his body. He saw his future in those stars. He would win. It was written in the heavens for everyone to see. There was no doubt in his rapidly decaying mind. Some power, the patron saint of the beaten and abused, the saint who stood to accept boys raped in their jail cells, the saint who stood for the people who accidentally killed unborn babies. All of them were holding open the gates of reality, the gates of possibility, and the gates of the just.

  Eric made it back to the house with ten minutes to spare. He cooked four lamb chops rare. He ate them slowly, biding his time. He was in no hurry. He was about to release the rabbit and watch the dogs, lean and hungry, spring into their last suicidal sprint. It was lovely.

  70

  “Everybody! Shut it down. Time for a last-minute meeting, and then we should be getting a phone call. This guy will be punctual and we have exactly…” he looked at Sunny.

  Sunny pulled the stopwatch that lived nestled between her breasts, looked at it with an appraising eye and said. “Between four and five and a half minutes, Al. Best I can do.” She’d walked up in front of him.

  He smiled a big reassuring smile as he looked down on the small but intense woman. He kissed her forehead. “It’ll do. And Sunny?”