Feast of Carrion
The party does not end well – Chapter 8 of the Tenderness of Wild Beasts.
The Tenderness of Wild Beasts
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Chapter 8: Feast of Carrion
I somehow got my first impression wrong. The poster-covered street was not silent, I could actually hear a sound. The rattle of the paper flyers in the warm wind was pervasive and they surrounded me with their awkward belly dance. A feeling of faintness seized me and forced me to sit on the sidewalk, taking my eyes off the black and white photograph of the two children with their absent smiles. I did not know for how long I was watching it, but with the warmth and my empty stomach, I was starting to have black spots on my vision. I had a hard time admitting it, but it had been two days already since that damn wedding party. Not surprising the paper was peeling. Not surprising I was starving.
It was almost noon when I woke up that day. I had not moved from the motel bed since my return from the Morning Star Hotel. I had several frustrated male voicemail messages I had not listened to. A text on my phone screen said, “R u ghosting me?” Out of hunger, I had left the motel to go to the supermarket.
When I drew my eyes away from the flyer, I noticed that something else was new in the landscape. I had a good view on the State Park from there and I noticed some big black stains moving above the green heights. At first, I thought they were part of my fainting fit, but when I moved my head, they stayed in the same location. They were not helicopters looking for the Garrison children –the ones that had woken me several times during my two comatose days. They were too small and inconsistent with the nerve-racking peace. With my hand, I protected my eyes from the sun to get a better look and I recognized the familiar silhouettes of vultures. Indeed, half a dozen of them were gliding in circles above a precise spot of the forest, along with other carrion birds. My scalp started to itch and with my fingers, I followed the soft scar tissue of the large scratches hidden under my growing hair. The presence of so many scavengers in one place only meant one thing. A fresh carcass. Which is quite worrying when two children are reported missing. But what should I do with this observation? I knew too well. The sheriff’s office was just on the other side of the street. Well, I told myself, it was probably empty, with the search party going on. Or maybe it was not and the person I had come to see in Lucero would be there. This simple idea seemed to awake the contrarian in me and, suddenly, staying there was suffocating. I needed some fresh air, some exercising.
In my backpack, I had the food and water I just bought. I was wearing sneakers, pants to protect my legs and a hoodie. I was ready to hike and go check what was attracting these vultures. Probably just some dead deer. Probably somebody else already went to check. Maybe not. I preferred a carcass to entering the sheriff’s office.
Animals have filled my dreams before filling my professional life, but in those dreams, they were all dead. Once, I dreamt of a lobster stuck inside the bark of a tree. There were also zombie pigeons, with poisoned corn in their beak, that stalked me until I woke up in sweat, jumping off the bed because I was scared they could hide in the sheets. All my dreams were extremely creative, borderline eccentric. This is probably the reason why I started writing early. There is one specific nightmare that shaped my literary career –as well as my inner duality. It was set in a dark hospital where a mad serial killer on the loose was slaughtering people in the elevator. It was a recurring dream and, by day, I started filling the oneiric blanks. I was only seven when I first had it; what could have triggered these gory thoughts? I had only spent one night at the hospital for the removal of my adenoids, and I could not remember any trauma associated with this experience. Was it a glimpse of TV images unsuitable for a child? By then, I was not as attracted to horror movies as other kids my age were. So what? I simply accepted the fact that I accidentally stepped into someone else’s nightlife.
I had only one certainty, this person was a boy. Jack fully materialized when, at nine, I started writing his story. He was living in a very dark world, and looking for his biological father. Talk about some coincidence. His father, in the story, was partly inspired by Christian Slater, partly by the bus driver of my class trip to the Monterey Zoo (don’t laugh, but that driver looked a bit like Richard Ramirez). The wild animals of the zoo fascinated me. I stopped short in front of a vulture. He was massive, displaying feathers with subtle earthy shades as well as a dark energy. He looked at me with the most violent disdain I had even seen; I fell in love with him. If my classmates favoured giraffes and monkeys, I spent hours observing the nervous eyes of the birds of prey as well as the muscles of big cats, rolling under their fur like a deadly machinery. Hawks, owls, lions, wolves, tigers, etc. No delousing sessions nor soft strokes to learn from them. Social relationships were expressed with fangs and fights, getting cubs ready for reality. After the zoo, we went to the beach for a picnic, and I tried to convince Jud to play fight; she chose to write both our names in the sand, and she stated, “But we’re not lesbians.” I had no idea what she was talking about. She was really an alien to me.
Jack, on the other hand, felt eerily familiar, even if he seemed to come from nowhere. The ghost in my DNA. As I developed the plot of his story, the hospital became a prison where my hero was investigating strange murders. It also included the evil, ominous figure of an older man, and a seductive yet unreliable female character looking a lot like Judith. Was I too young to complete this literary project or was Jack reluctant to stay my inmate? I do not know, but the novel simply vanished from my young mind. Until it recently reappeared. We had switched places; I was the prisoner and Jack the dark lurking figure. Obviously, I had tried to lock Jack up only to realize I was the one stuck with him. Now, the question was: who was the genuine writer? Was it me, or was it Jack? And which of our characters is going to disappear?
You see, if I do not write, I do not know who I am, I do not own myself. If Bukowski had lived in Lucero, he would have said, “It keeps the peeling house’s walls from failing.” Without writing, I am only someone’s employee, someone’s friend, someone’s daughter… not an individual with their own purpose and existence.
Do you know that Dresden Dolls song, “Half Jack”?
“If you listen, you’ll learn to hear the difference between the halves and the half nots.”
In moments of struggle, the perception I have of myself can be shattered to a point a normal person –a non writer– would find completely overwhelming. This is what happened during those two days at the motel. In moments like this, Jack comes into play and threatens to take control, challenging the very foundations of my being. This sounds awfully like a madman’s message on the Overlook’s typewriter, don’t you think? Writing is the only thing that allows me to win the body and the mind back together. Yet, the concept of body is always vague for me, as if I were a floating spirit; the bruises on my legs can testify of that.
“Cause I’m not big enough to house this crowd.”
It takes me effort to remember that I am part of a material world sometimes. That is the reason why I love dancing. To remember that I am made of flesh and bones, and not only of unfinished novels.
The undergrowth was fresh and the smell of bark and humus reinvigorated me after my apathy of the previous days. The cracks of trees rhythmed the constant sound of running water and busy spiders. This part of the State Park did not perhaps rival with the breath-taking coast but I love it all the same. It is pandering to my taste for loneliness and secrecy. The forest is hiding some waterfalls, with their discreet pools. It is in one of those that the body of Tony Rankin was found, further north.
But if I felt relaxed, I was staying vigilant. A carrion could sometimes attract the curiosity of mountain lions, or even bears, and while jumping from one rock to another, I kept my ears open for rattlesnake’s sounds. This exercise reminded me of a video game I played on my Amiga 600 as a kid. At school, mathematics were my pet peeves so Mum bought me an educational game with a mermaid. If I did not solve the mental arithmetic on time, she would not reach the next rock and would drown. Whoever thought it was an appropriate game for kids was probably having serious mental issues. And there I was, jumping from one drama to another, terrified to drown in the abyss of my reality. How long could I keep pretending? As Oliver said, I was the one looking for it. But I had to get into the foam again, to say goodbye to the shore. I needed to focus on the possibility of new islands at the misty horizon. For now, my only compass was a voice, the one of Delia Garrison.
“So, you are a friend of Judith?” She asked me, during the party.
Nahuel was not paying attention to her, and, in order not to lose face, she started talking to me. I could see a bit of white powder in her nostrils, and some anxiety in her shoulders.
She insisted, “Were you like, close? I’ve always thought that Jud was bi or something, and you look a bit butchy with this hairdo.”
An intern at the Massachusetts General’s ER was the one to blame for it. But I know what she meant. I was a woman with a male shadow, and someone like Delia could see ambiguity. In high school, a girl asked me out, to my greater surprise. Once, a guy also asked Jud and I if we were lesbians; I denied promptly but she seemed more comfortable with the idea than she had been at the beach, when we were younger. Of course, I knew that girl on girl action was an easy lever for her to control men. And God knows she liked controlling. This is how we parted ways; when I started escaping her hold. Actually, this tom boy label slapped on me was probably Jud’s fault. She always gave me the role of the guy in our childhood’s games and her teenage attempt at moral corruption was another example of her will to control both my femininity and my sexuality, as if threatened by it.
“Joan likes real men,” confirmed my former bestie when she finally came out of the bathroom’s stall, a little excited. “I mean, come on Delia. The whole city of Lucero knows how naughty she has been.”
I started to hate that conversation. Luckily, the partying mother was not paying attention. She was too busy checking her social pages, putting hearts, watching videos, or sharing memories involving her children.
Lost in that memory of the party, I was startled when something quite big moved in the vegetation on my right. I stood up straight, ready to face the beast but it had already disappeared in the forest. I calculated that I was now close to the point where I had seen the carrion birds. I raised my head and my heart stopped at the sight of the repellent pink head of a California condor, flying over the crown of the trees above me. I thought about it as a bad omen and coming forward the probable feast of the scavengers, guided by the stench, I found out I was right.
In my ears, the feedback of the DJ’s microphone resonated.
“Hmm, sorry but I have an announcement to make… the babysitters noticed that two children were… well, missing from the children’s room… and they didn’t find them in the rest of the hotel either… they are… hmm, Fiona and Nathan… Garrison… they are dressed with…”
I also heard the odd scream coming from Delia’s throat again, as well as the words of comfort Judith gave to her. There had been a moment of hesitation but, probably thanks to cocaine, Sam went full throttle and, grabbing the microphone, he organized the search party. The crowd gathered in front of the DJ’s booth, clearing out the room.
This is how I saw him.
Paul.
He was looking at me with a piercing look that unsettled me. At this memory, I got goosebumps.
But the sight of two cadavers of children, cut up by the beaks of blood-covered birds made me puke the only food I had ingested in two days.
I also fainted.
(To be continued.)