Mother for Dinner Page 21

  They knocked on our doors in the middle of the night in the Old Country, he said, and they knocked on our doors in the middle of the night in the New World. They knocked on our doors in the middle of the night in Detroit, and they knocked on our doors in the middle of the night in Brooklyn. Whatever happened on Remembrance Day, wherever it happened, I assure you, it began with loud insistent knocks upon doors in the middle of the night. When Ford came for Julia, he knocked loudly and insistently on her door in the middle of the night. When the police came to inform me of my father’s death, they knocked loudly and insistently on my door in the middle of the night. They come with pitchforks, they come with torches, they come with guns, and they come with badges. And when they come, children, they knock, loudly and insistently, on our doors in the middle of the night.

  To commemorate this horror, it was a Remembrance Day tradition that all night long, Cannibals were to creep up to one another’s homes, bang loudly and insistently on the front door, and run away. It gave the children a terrible fright, as it was intended to, rousing them from sleep and making them run screaming for their parents’ room. Complicating the matter, however, was the fact that every Cannibal had a different idea of when Remembrance Day was. Some said it was summer and some said winter, some said March and some said September, the result being that all year long, without warning and without cause, at any time of any night, someone would creep up to their door and begin pounding on it, loudly and insistently, in the middle of the night. It left the children extremely anxious.

  Good, said Unclish. You should be.

  And so that night, as Seventh went to answer the University front door, he was filled with rage. Because it wasn’t just a loud, insistent knock on the door. It was yet another loud, insistent knock on yet another Cannibal door.

  And he was tired of them.

  And they call us savages, he heard Mudd say, as clearly as if she was standing beside him.

  He took a deep breath and pulled open the door, his jaw clenched, his face stone. He expected police, pickup trucks, pitchforks, torches.

  What he found was a small, tight, middle-aged woman, arms crossed angrily over her chest, a nasty scowl on her pinched little face.

  What are you doing here? she demanded, peering past him to get a look into the main hall. Who are you?

  Sometimes you had to fight asshole with asshole.

  What are you doing here? Seventh demanded, his fury boiling over. Who the hell are you?

  You need to leave, she said.

  No, you need to leave.

  What are you up to in there, burning tires? she asked. It stinks. I can smell it all the way to my house. You’re not supposed to be here.

  You’re not supposed to be here! Seventh shouted.

  He enjoyed watching her flinch, enjoyed seeing her fear. She became everyone who ever tormented his people, every damned Sherwood, every Oscar fucking Kowalski.

  This is our property, he said. Ours, you hear!

  First came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder, hoping to take over, hoping to settle things down. But Seventh pushed him away.

  Even this, he thought. Even this they won’t let us have; even this they have to take from us: a derelict building in the woods, and even this they want for their own.

  You’re wrong, he heard Mudd whisper in his ear. They don’t want it. They just don’t want us to have it, you see? They just don’t want us to have it. Get in the pot or get out—do you see now? Do you see?

  This building is abandoned, the woman said, trying again to peer past him. What are you doing in there?

  Seventh wanted to smash her face. He wanted to grab the Knife of Redemption and cut her bitter little head off, let her rot on the ground where she stood, unburied, uneaten, unredeemed.

  We’re Cannibals, he said. We’re here to eat our dead mother.

  The woman’s face fell and she took a delicious step backward.

  Jesus Christ, Seventh heard First mutter behind him. Seventh, what are you doing?

  It’s been a hard day for us, Seventh said to her, what with all the gutting and trimming. But she’s all cooked now, so you’ll have to excuse me. It’s dinnertime.

  You’re sick, she said, pulling her coat tightly around her and taking another step back. Sick!

  No, no, said Seventh, my uncle’s sick. Bit of a stomach thing, I’m afraid. She sat out a bit too long. The organic meat lasts longer, I find, don’t you? He’ll be okay, not to worry, but it does mean we’ll each have to eat more of old Mom than we were expecting.

  I’m calling the police.

  Oh, don’t leave, Seventh begged. We’d love to have you for dessert.

  Mudd laughed.

  You’re a sick, sick man, she said as she hurried down the stairs. Love thy neighbor—did you ever hear that? Love thy neighbor!

  I will, thought Seventh as he slammed the door.

  As soon as they love me.

  * * *

  • • •

  And then there was Miraculous Births, the most irritating trope of the Not-So-Great Something-American Novel. It was an ancient narrative technique, employed by storytellers as far back as the writers of the Old Testament. Pregnant geriatrics, virgin births—from Isaac to Jesus, so many founders of so many movements were born so miraculously that it seemed no one back then was born naturally at all. Miracles as plot devices have fallen out of favor in recent centuries, though, so today’s writers of myth and identity use Valiant Births instead—births during wartime, births under foreign occupation, births on rafts. It would seem the miracle of ordinary birth just isn’t miracle enough for some writers; ordinary births, they suggest, are for ordinary people. First, Mudd told Seventh, was born with his fist in the air.

  Fist-first he came out, she said. Angry then and angry now.

  It was an agonizing delivery, she said. Because his arm was raised as he emerged, his shoulder became stuck on her pelvic bone. The doctors tried to bend his arm at the elbow, but he was too angry, too strong. They tried every which way to twist and turn him, but he fought those attempts too. In the end, they had to cut Mudd’s perineum in order to get him out, a painful procedure from which she never fully healed.

  And he’s been a pain in my ass ever since, she said.

  Second’s birth was more routine, but tragically, the nurse who swaddled him was an overweight Jewish woman named Lipschitz, whom Second mistook for his mother. He buried his face in her cleavage, and screamed when they tried to pull him away.

  And he’s been chasing those damned Sherwoods ever since, Mudd said.

  Third’s was a tale more gruesome than the others, for Third, she said, emerged from her womb the size of most young boys when they emerge from middle school. She went into labor early in September, and Third didn’t fully emerge until late October. By the time his delivery was complete, she was plundered, her secret garden defoliated, and Humphrey never again showed any sexual interest in her. Third didn’t understand what sexual interest was (or the larger marital strife Mudd was blaming him for), but he wept to hear the story of his birth, and promised Mudd he would never hurt her again.

  Fourth emerged speaking in full sentences, capable, before the amniotic fluid was even wiped from his face, of reading and writing at the university level. The nurse clipped his umbilical cord, swaddled him, and took him in her arms, and Fourth, glancing at her name tag, said, as clear as a bell: My dear Nurse Wilson, whatever have I done to you to deserve your dragging me into this fetid cesspool of existence? If you would be kind enough to return me to the womb from which I emerged, I shall be indebted to you forever.

  The nurse, a gentle British woman, passed the infant to the obstetrician and promptly passed out, breaking her arm as she fell to the floor. She took a month off, decided nursing was too stressful, and took up pottery.

  Sued me for her broken arm, too, said Mudd. Lime
y bitch.

  Fifth’s birth was unexceptional, but the future psychiatrist’s first words were I’m sorry. He was twelve months old at the time, and Mudd was holding him in her lap, giving him his bottle, when the nipple slipped from his lips and warm white milk spurted across her blouse. Though he had never spoken a word before, he looked up at her, apologized, and wondered aloud if the white milk dripping down her cleavage suggested he subconsciously wanted to have sex with her. Mudd clopped him on the head.

  Don’t be stupid, she said.

  Sixth, of course, was born perfect. He arrived on the exact day the doctors predicted he would, at the exact time Mudd hoped he would, without a hint of pain or difficulty. There was no blood, no yelling, no fists in the air. Immediately after he was born, Mudd said, as the midwife laid him down to clean him off, he took the towel from her hand, gently cleaned Mudd’s crotch, and thanked her for bearing him so selflessly the past nine months. The nurses wept to see such a loving child, and agreed that he was better than any of the ones who came before.

  Eighth emerged carrying a dog-eared copy of The Guide, and though Mudd spent a few sleepless months recovering from the paper cuts it caused on her most sensitive regions, she was never more proud.

  How did a book get into your uterus? First asked.

  Don’t be stupid, she said. It wasn’t a hardcover.

  Ninth was born fearful, a trait Mudd attributed to his latent homosexuality. The midwife pulled and pulled, but Ninth refused to come out.

  Now he comes out, she sighed, when he later revealed his sexual preference for men. I should have left the son of a bitch in.

  Tenth was born a man, covered in muscle and pubic hair, a Can-Am tattoo on his shoulder, and a five o’clock shadow. He flexed on his way out and nearly split her perineum again. Eleventh and Twelfth were born fighting, each one pulling the other by the ankle in order to be first to enter the world. Mudd claimed this was because anyone would be excited to be born Cannibal, who were the best people in all the world. Eleventh and Twelfth, for their parts, claimed they were not trying to get out, but rather to stay in: They sensed they were in the wrong bodies, and suspected that perhaps they had not yet been fully cooked.

  Zero’s birth Mudd couldn’t recall.

  But Seventh’s, she said, was the most miraculous of all. For when Seventh was born, Mudd died.

  You died? young Seventh asked.

  Died, she said. During childbirth.

  Her heart had stopped, she said, and she ceased breathing. The doctors and nurses shouted their shouts, and they rang their alarms, and they placed an oxygen mask on her, all to no avail.

  But you, she said to Seventh, you wouldn’t let me die.

  And so Seventh, Mudd said, after delivering himself unassisted from her womb and severing his own umbilical cord, climbed up her belly, pulled the oxygen mask from her face, placed his mouth upon hers, and began to perform mouth-to-mouth. Mudd coughed, sputtered, and began to breathe.

  You saved me then, she said when she told him the tale. And one day, I know, you’ll save us all.

  Each child was told a different version of their births; in each version, the child being told the tale was the hero, the one with promise, the one with abilities and gifts while the others caused Mudd nothing but pain and sorrow. And that was why Seventh hated the Miraculous Births trope. Because it was fiction, but wasn’t just fiction. It was prologue. It was fate. It was chapter one of the narrative she had condemned him to. It was the foundation of the prison into which he was born. It was the lie that bound him to her altar.

  This is your story, she said.

  This is what you will become.

  This is who hates you and this is who you will hate.

  The End.

  Of choice, of freedom, of will, of possibility.

  The.

  Fucking.

  End.

  * * *

  • • •

  Or maybe it was this, Seventh wondered:

  Maybe the Ancients, in their great and inestimable wisdom, devised the Victuals with more than just two purposes in mind. Not just to prepare the body to be Consumed, and not just to prepare the family to be Consumers, but to coax the mourners, one step at a time, into committing something they never would have committed before.

  To move you toward the unthinkable, the unimaginable, the grotesque.

  And so they began with requiring a thing to be done that wasn’t a Doing at all—it was a Not Doing: Don’t call the police. Simple. No knives, no blood, no guts. Just don’t do that which you think you should. That’s where it begins. That’s how they get you started. Not with action, but with inaction. With mere acquiescence. From there, my child, is it really such a big step to Draining? If you’re not calling the police, you should keep her in good condition, shouldn’t you? Keep her from bloating, keep her from bursting? No major decisions here yet—no picking side dishes or deciding between propane and charcoal. Just simple maintenance, is all. Just hang her up and Drain her—it’s the least you can do. While you think about it. While you ponder it. While you discuss it. Suddenly, without doing much of anything, really, we’re up to Purging. And while you never would have considered such a thing two steps earlier, now it seems almost . . . reasonable. It’s not that much different from Draining, after all; the organs can foul her, spread bacteria. You don’t want to Purge her—you’re not some sort of hideous cannibal—but you really should finish what you started. And so you do. One cut, zip, and it’s over. She’s Purged. And there she is, no longer a she at all, no longer human—just a slab of meat you might see at the butcher. And just like that, it’s time to Partition. Now, if someone had suggested three steps ago you could Partition your mother, you’d have thought them mad. But is this really your mother? It doesn’t look like your mother; it doesn’t smell like your mother; it doesn’t bake you cookies like your mother or tell you it’s going to be okay like your mother. Is cutting this thing, this meat, really such a big deal? It’s meat—what else are you going to do with it? Does the butcher think twice? Hell, you’ve bought meat at the grocery store that looked just like this. And so you do. You cut it up. Flanks, tenderloins, ribs. It’s a party. And of course, now we come to eating. No! Never! you said when asked. The horror! But here you are, at a grill, with meat, and it doesn’t seem so unreasonable. You’ve eaten flesh before; you probably ate flesh this morning. You ate bacon from the back of a pig, you scrambled an unborn chicken. Take a bite, the Ancients urge. It’s just one bite. You can eat a bite of a cow, of a chicken, of a turkey, but you can’t eat this? And so you do. You take a bite of your mother. You’ve done the unthinkable, the unimaginable.

  What, then, Seventh now argued to his brothers, is the difference if we eat one bite or a hundred bites, a hundred bites or a thousand bites? Bite and a half or half and a bite—so what? We’ve already eaten one bite, haven’t we? We’ve already broken laws, we’ve already gotten blood on our hands. Why not, then, Consume however much Unclish tells us to?

  No, said First. No way.

  The brothers gathered at the front door, out of earshot of their uncle, to discuss the issue of their eating the required half and a bite of Mudd.

  It’s the rule, said Seventh. You heard Unclish. We ate one bite of her already, what’s a few more?

  A few more? said Ninth. It’s twenty pounds, Seventh—each. That’s a thousand bites. That’s ten thousand bites.

  I didn’t sign up for eating half, said Fourth. I have high cholesterol as it is; I’m not eating twenty pounds of meat.

  Rotten meat, Fifth added. Seriously rotten.

  Not all of it is rotten, said Seventh. We can find enough of it that’s okay, enough that isn’t spoiled.

  We have to get out of here, said First. If that neighbor calls the cops, if they show up, we are going to jail, kids. And not just for a night. This is felony shit, folks. Brooklyn family kill an
d cook mother, story at eleven.

  We didn’t kill her, said Seventh.

  I’m sure they’ll mention that.

  He’s sick, Eighth said to Seventh, regarding Unclish. I supported this in the beginning, more than anyone, but come on, Seventh: He can barely remember our names, let alone the rules. And the rule is a bite and a half, I’m sure of it. We’re going to sit here and eat half that woman, only to have him wake up an hour later and say we have to eat the whole damned thing.

  Okay, said Seventh, fine. Let’s do this, okay? Let’s sit him up, get some fluids in him, and ask him again. Clearly and succinctly. Once and for all. Whatever he says, goes.

  If he says done, we’re done, said First.

  Yes, said Seventh.

  Deal, said Second.

  Deal, said Ninth.

  No deal, Zero called out.

  She was kneeling beside Unclish, holding his hand in hers.

  Why not? asked First.

  Because he’s dead, said Zero.

  * * *

  • • •

  If the deceased has no offspring, declared the Elder Elders, it is incumbent upon their nephews and nieces to Consume them as they would their own parents. Anyone who does not is considered wicked in the eyes of our people.

  Let me ask you something, said the Elders.

  What?

  Why, asked the Elders, if there’s only one of each of us, are we referred to as plural?

  Because, said the Elder Elders, it is more important that we are respected than it is that we tell the truth.

  Well, then let me ask you another question, said the Elders.

  Shoot.