By staff writer NG Hatfield
November, 7, 2007
PIC readers. Truth be told, I’ve got what the writers call “block” and no matter how much Metamucil I drink, I still can’t do anything but violently shit out…uh.. shitty writing (as you can see). So, to get back into the swing of things, I figured I’d post my NaNoWriMo writing project for the next couple of weeks.
If you’re unfamiliar with NaNoWrimo, it’s a strange acronym for National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to produce a novel in a month of writing, no matter what difficulties arise from such bullshit.
I’m currently writing at the speed of a novella, but here’s about half of what I got so far, sans editing.
Hope you dig it. Lemme know if I should keep going.
Thanks for your time/interest/comments,
Gaudio
The Vulgar Ascent
A Liar’s Memoir
This is the Book I Will Write for You
being honest is being un
fair to every
Body and I wanted to
guarantee I was denying my
Self in this ironic
Martyrdom and not just
fucking
You.
So, I wrote
these truths to be self
effacing;
the intention of causing
Doubt and maybe
even
Dilemma.
The questions?
Firstly, “Is this man clinically
insane?”
Secondly, “Are we safe to live amongst him?”
And finally, “Is the News really that important? (At least in
books)?”
Mostly, I wanted water cooler talk concerning Chapter 22. I wanted bar jokes vis-à-vis Chapter 35. I wanted Smut Magazines to paraphrase Chapter 47 and Beautiful Geishas to memorize Chapter 89 for their English-speaking clients. I wanted your mother to love me for Chapter 44 and your father to hate me for Chapters 1 through 43 and the last half of 45 on up because page 38 has simply “disappeared.” I wanted shrinks and shrunks to analyze me for
it all!
I wanted to be told what I'm doing wrong and never, ever
change.
I wanted cigarettes and fame. That's
it!
I wanted Purchase Power; I wanted Poetic
Prestige.
I only
wondered if my insanity was genuine and then
I had my
Self to
corroborate my
concerns.
Now you are here
to hear
them too.
Part One: Suburbia
this could easily
be a con
spiracy
but maybe not
-Steve Dalachinsky
Book One: The Summer Slaughter
1
“Rich came in with a long, aluminum thing with an electric cord attached to it. Today's the big day, College.“
“Is this a winning hand?”
“Nope.”
A handful of peanuts are thrown at me, “Fuck.”
“Watch your mouth,” I said.
He crossed his eyes and pursed his lips, “I can't see it.”
I laughed. It was the little smartass comments like that that made me really love Hunter, my little brother; he was the only proof of my existence in a family that fucking downright hated smartass comments.
That summer, he was 11 and we lived in a part of town that only the decrepit Former Factory Workers called Home, so when I was back in Cumberland it was finally his time to play. So, of course, we did. One night until 2AM.
Poker.
It was his favorite because it was my favorite, and something about that made it more enjoyable than playing with my buddies back in Morgantown.
Hunter slammed the cards down on the basement's concrete and looked up from a pair of Blood Knaves from the turn and river, “That wins.” He had a hand—a Spade Jack and an Ace—that beat mine—a Club Jack and an Eight—but he hadn't bet in enough and I lost only a minimum amount: two crackers, an Oreo, and a small piece of a soft pretzel.
“Yes it does.”
He raked in the winnings and looked up at me, “Do you think those cows have ghosts?”
I told him yes, quickly so that he knew not to keep on the subject, taboo or maybe not. Then, before our last hand, I showed him that he had won the hand in cards but lost in theory. “You should've went in more,” I said.
“I would think they do too,” he said and thoughtfully took a bite of his winner's Oreo.
2
The next morning, I opened the big, ugly doors of a pre-dawn slaughterhouse and the air inside felt raw. The spirits, I thought, were blowing over my arms and legs—covered by a thin layer of blue jean. I told myself, “It’s just your nerves feeling the cold,” and, “It’ll be fucking 90 degrees by noon,” and forgot about it.
The big, gymnasium-type room was dark as it usually was; I kept most of the lights off and went about sweeping. It felt less like work when the fluorescents weren't beaming down on the dried blood and various scrapings of grass and hay that worked their way in from the pen. It was more of a demented hobby or a congenial war on little specks of blood. This was a short war: only an hour passed and some of the other guys finally showed up.
Though, before a soul was there, I had noticed that my cow—the cow I was to name—stood stupidly in the feeding line with a yellow tag on her ear.
“How the hell did you get up here?” I asked.
Except for that moment, I never expected her to respond with anything but a blank, dumb stare. But if Rich were to find her up there, I would’ve been hazed or at the very least, fired. In half a shake, I thought, Some alibi would be nice now, Cow and began guiding her back down the muddy path to the pen with a long prod that kept me out of the mud, on a concrete pathway that rolled cracked and hostile under a long, forest-colored aluminum pavilion.
“Don't like to get your hands dirty, huh College?”
I turned around and there was Junior smoking his characteristically little cigar, leaning against a fence post. He was a fat guy I had smoked weed with after work once—once only, because I got too high and his fatness made me feel sorry for him, and moreover, when I thought about it, pity The Fat in general. He was a few years older than me and still a virgin. It reeked from him like the sweat already circling the dimples above his armpits.
“No. That's not it.” I said.
“Sure thing.” He rolled over the gate and grabbed my cow by the ear. “Plenty more where you came from, College.”
I didn't know what he meant and it was too early for niceties; I nodded and lit a cigarette (one of the only perks of the place was a reasonably Open Door policy for smokers).
“You still don't got a name on her I see.”
“No.”
“There's about forty of them we gotta get done by the end of the week and you know Rich is gonna be pissed when you don't got a name on her.”
“I still don't know why he wants me to do that.”
Junior bent down, his fat formed a bulging wedge between his knees and his neck. He packed a little glob of mud in his hand and studied it. “You just can't,” he said, and chucked the wad at me.
“What the fuck was that for?”
“Exactly,” he said, and muddled over to his pack of cows, all marked with orange tags on ears and names in Sharpie on them.
3
A few days later I was with my cow, Bessie, who I named on a grudge when Rich asked me about it. We were in a room with large, grayish cylinders that spanned from wall to wall. It reminded me of a laboratory, only smaller, with more rust in the crevices. It was a narrow, aqua room and could've been a dentist's office before; the ceilings were awkwardly high.
Rich came in with a long, aluminum thing with an electric cord attached to it. “Today's the big day, College.”
“The Lord's day?”
“Yeah?” I asked.
Rich was a small man, smaller than the rest of the crew by inches and fat and I felt it easier to deal with him. If there was a fight, I’d have won it. Not only was he short, he was overtly religious and the slaughterhouse's stereo blasted his Christian Rock music most of the day. Though, when he wasn't around, the boys would bring in Iron Maiden or AC/DC or Bad Company and the slaughterhouse felt more like a slaughterhouse should.
After he made a little signal to close the door, Rich hunched over and plugged in the poker, “The reason I told you to give 'em a name is simple, son.”
“I don't care. I knew what I'd be doing when I put in an application.” And I did know, but I guess it's better to say I didn't; I had fed Bessie twice a shift, once at eleven with a quarter bale of hay that the other cows would sometimes steal and then again before leaving at six with this pale white chow that looked like watered-down chipped beef gravy. The guys called it Shit, which made it difficult to know what Shit they were talking about when it was feeding or manure-removing time. She was bigger than when we met a few weeks before. I was proud of her.
“You named her ‘cause they all get attached. Human nature, I guess. I know this, ya see,” he winked, “and I want to keep you from getting too attached.”
I nodded.
“Lots of death around here and you seem more sensitive than most. Death ain't easy in theory and it sure ain't easy in practice.”
The way he said sensitive was strange and I didn't know whether to be intensely insulted or thank him. Instead, I said, “I don't care.”
“Yeah, but did ya know they make this sound?” Rich stuck the poker to her neck and a squishy, electrical sound shot through the room. Bessie called out like I figured she would. A painful moo like you'd think a painful moo would sound. Then there was a thud and that was it. Bessie was ready for the cut-up.
“I see,” I said, and lit a cigarette.
“Go outside with that shit,” he said, and I left the room to carry a bucket of sloshing white bucket of Feeder Shit, feeling sarcastic and strangely happy.
4
The cut-up was a more personal experience. Bessie hung from a steel hook that took me, Rich and three other guys to get up the carcass up on.
“First, you wanna get the hide off,” Rich said.
“No shit?” I said.
Rich made a large slice down the body with a large, dull-looking knife. Not as much blood leaked out as I had expected and the process was then sinful—sinful in many ways with little blood, but then there were the guts. Pink and red and dark brown and worm-colored. They were guts. Slimy, sticky tubings. Organs of various sizes and sounds of wetness when they hit the floor. A bloody fucking mess.
The only thing I can remember wholly is pinching my nose shut to keep from the smell: a dull beef soup odor mixed with the thick stench of blood and fat.
By the time I vomited twice on a shift, Rich decided that I was again too sensitive to kill any other cows. I was sent to the shop front to slice and sell the meat. I hadn’t seen the shop front for my first weeks, and when Junior and the other guys talked about it, I figured it was an alright place. And, for the most part, it was. I could make things look pleasing there. The sheen of the cooler's glass reflected nearly everything and customers would cup their hands to their eyes and peep in, so I'd wash it off again and go back to the heaving, heavy handle of the slicer, which was also very shiny.
Junior was again behind me, breathing heavy and smoking another little cigar, “You know that things got an ‘automatic' option?” He said “automatic” like it was a scientific term.
“What can I get for you?” I didn't want Junior around. He killed the buzz of the cleanliness with his fat, dirty arms that were, for some reason, completely hairless.
“I'd think I'd like a roast beast.” He smirked and his cheeks protruded.
“Alright.” I turned around and grabbed a hunk of roast beef, the fat congealed on it like the purest white candle wax, “How much?”
“Four pounds.”
“Jesus Christ, are you making a sandwich or a Christmas dinner for your imaginary wife?” I asked him, then felt guilty again because of his fat.
“Hungry boys are healthy boys,” he said. “You're a skinny little bitch, ain't ya, though?”
It was the first time Junior had sworn around me and it was just enough to make me stop the slicer and turn to him with a slab of roast beef in my hand. Not enough to punch him like I wanted to.
“You going to do something about it, bitch?”
“What's your problem, Chubs?” I said, “Sick of jerking off to the bovines?'“ I said “bovines” like a scientific term.
He laughed and reached in his pockets. Another clump of mud fell from his hands on the floor, “I guess you'd better clean that up.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” I said.
“First, I think I'd like my roast beast.”
Continue Reading: Part II of “The Summer Slaughter” and Mr. Right »