“You girls are friggin’ loons,” the manager said. “Get out of here before I call the cops.”
“You aren’t going to search her?” Eleanor asked.
The manager shook his head and started back towards his apartment.
“So you’ve moved up to real life stalking,” I said. “Threatening emails weren’t doing it for you?”
“You’re a serial killer,” she said. “I’m not going to stop until I see you strapped to a gurney with a needle in your arm.”
“Then you’d better get me a gig in Texas or something. Someplace with deep-fried green beans and cowboy hats.”
“I’m sure I can rent my own gurney.”
I had to roll my eyes at that. “Listen… I really have to go. We just got a new PVR and I haven’t had a chance to set it up to tape Jon Stewart.”
And that’s when she spat in my face. Her loogie tasted like smoked tofu.
If that’s the worst my newfound nemesis can do, I’d say I have things pretty easy.
It’s about time someone gave it to you straight about the world we live in. So many of us grew up watching McDonald’s commercials and that Simpsons episode with Lisa and the Gazpacho and the “You don’t make friends with salad” song… we live in this fantasy world where we let someone else do the butchering for us and we call the end result “barbecue”. It’s bloody disgusting… yeah… I meant to do that.
But don’t worry, my dear. Marie-Claire is here to preach the gospel, to let the truth set you free.
Eating beef is way worse than eating people. It’s not like cows fill out living wills before they’re shot in the head with a bolt gun. They’re not given a choice… no one asks them if they’re looking for a way out from the cut-throat world of feedlot cliques.
People just drag them into the slaughterhouse and make that choice for them.
That’s not something I’d ever do.
My parents introduced me to it, after coming back from an anthropology expedition among the Korowai of New Guinea. They’d both wanted so badly to get a taste of the forbidden long pig, but somehow they’d never gotten the chance. By the time they’d come back home they were completely obsessed with the idea.
Two days on web forums with all caps and blinking text found them a guy in Arizona who had just what they needed. There are some people pay big money to get frozen when they die. Other people want the same thing but can’t afford to freeze more than the head; that leaves a whole lot of surplus parts, most pretty old and tough but you can marinate the stringiness right out if you’re patient enough.
Now I’ve always been one of those girls who didn’t like trying anything new, but before long I wanted a bite of whatever mom and dad were eating. That’s the same way they got me to try asparagus for the first time.
And I liked it. The asparagus and the other thing.
But all good things come to an end, and the brownshirt fascists in Washington decided to override states’ rights once again and my parents and I were left without a supplier.
Mom and Dad got separated a few months later, and while the official blame was on taking opposite sides on something called the Yanomami Controversy, I blame the change in diet. You’ll get the same kind of crash if you dump carbs.
I rarely saw my father after that.
A few months after he left I had half-joked to my mother that we should try eating homeless people.
Her reply changed my life.
“There’s plenty of people who don’t want to live anymore,” she said. “Why don’t we just eat some of them?”
It’s been three years since she said that. We haven’t gone hungry since.
There’s a lot of traveling involved in my job, not only meeting up with the terminally despondent but also with transporting clients to my DIY chop and cremation shack just off Route 62. After the first half-dozen gigs I decided to buy an old school bus that had been converted into a camper, one with such musty old canvas that the smell of death would be a much-needed improvement.
In theory I could have lived in that bus, but I chose to stay at Mom’s place in Worcester. But I still ended up spending most of my time on the road.
My next gig was at an apartment just off-campus from Yale. I’d done my research by phone and Facebook, and I’d already gotten to know quite a bit about her, an existential Master of Fine Arts student with no urge to finish her studies.
They start with the light stuff, screenshots on Reddit with quotes from Ricky Gervais or Richard Dawkins. Then they move onto the hard stuff, full-on books from Hitch and friends. Some people don’t think a universe without any gods is a wondrous thing. Some of those people get depressed and lose their sense of purpose… and some of them see my ad for life-ending counselling. It takes a few weeks to weed out the rotten fruit, but it’s worth it in the end.
I parked the old school bus a good block away. She was supposed to be waiting at the door, but I couldn’t see her; it’s not unusual to get cold feet. I buzzed her and she asked me to come up. I figured it was probably around 70/30 that I’d be getting my money and meat tonight.
But then the door opened to four dreadlocked women armed with frying pans and duct tape. One of them was my precious Eleanor. It wasn’t going to be my night.
“Get her!” one of the women screamed as the others tried to corral me into the kitchen.
“Meat is murder!” another one shrieked as she tried to brain me with a skillet.
I ducked to the ground and somersaulted past them, coming up against the deadbolted door. As I made my way through the locksets I felt them grabbing me.
“I help people,” I said as I finally pulled the door open. “Please don’t hurt me.”
But they had me then, my arms forced behind my back as they started to tape me up.
“You don’t help people,” Eleanor said. “You were going to eat me, bitch.”
I wondered what they’d do with me, if they were going to beat me up and leave me in a dumpster, or if they were going to drag my bound ass down to the police station. Either way, I knew I wasn’t going to be reimbursed for mileage.
As they started to shuffle me out the door a stocky man appeared from the hallway, stepping alongside me. He was wearing a ball cap and carrying a square leather bag over his shoulder. He looked at me and smiled.
“Hazing?” he asked as he started to unzip the bag. “I love college girls.”
“We didn’t order any pizza,” Eleanor said.
“I’m pretty sure you did. Cheese and bacon.”
“We’re vegans, asshole.”
“I don’t judge.”
I took the opportunity and pulled away from my captors. I pushed past the delivery man and ran out into the hallway and down two flights of stairs, almost falling a few times since I couldn’t grab onto the railings.
By the time I reached the bottom, the pizza guy was right behind me. The vegans were nowhere to be seen.
I’d made it out.
“I’ll help,” he said. He started to tear at the tape and any of my attached arm hair. “My name is Michael.”
“I’m Marie-Claire,” I said between curses.
“It’s nice to meet you. Would you like to have coffee sometime?”
I felt like I owed him so I told him yes, despite his being at least thirty and oddly unashamed of being an overgrown pizza boy. And maybe because he was nothing like the men I’d dated before, by the end of our first date I knew I’d want to see him again.
So that crazy bitch Eleanor wanted to kill me and somehow that made me want to date a guy who delivers pizza as a career.
It’s funny how the universe conspires against you sometimes.
I dated Michael for three months before I told him what I did for a living. I figured by that point that if he really was husband material he’d be too comfortable with me to let an alternative lifestyle get in the way; I’d been more than open-minded about his foot fetish.