trailers or put up A-frames, and drain their septic tanks into its arteries and veins.
Bob once saw stalking the night woods near his hunt club a ghost Indian whose face was so pocked with anger that it had festered. Black puss fell in globs from the rotted cheeks, and the eyes were bloodshot with rage. The Indian had walked right off into the sky, and Bob had heard a sound like a stone door closing.
He sat down now across from Jeal and tucked into a forkful of wobbly scrambled eggs. They filled his head, his lungs, his esophagus with fluffy flavor. Through his mind there flowed images of chickens, clouds of chickens, laying eggs to Eine Kleine Nachtmusick, ta ta ta bloof, dum dum dee. Bloof. And the clerks at their computers, hen number 11893, laying rate 4, weight 2.2 kg, cluck cluck went the disk drive, and the sausage and the bacon, and the howling pigs in the slaughterhouse, the sows and the hogs, the shoats going down the chute, the screams of terror in processing, the automatic clubber smashing ten thousand skulls a day.
They evolved without hands, the pigs, but bearing meat that looks, tastes, and smells just like human. Poor pigs, condemned to be at once reviled and loved by man. Sometimes, eating bacon, you almost remember something. Then you don't, you can't.
"What?"
Bob looked up. It was Jeal; he had taken his pipe out of his mouth and spoken, raising his coffee to his lips.
"Excuse me?"
"You said something about a pig."
Bob smiled. "I was thinking about—I used to—I mean, my father once took me to a slaughterhouse." He barked out a laugh. "Sorry."
"You just blurt out gobbledygook about pigs because you're eating bacon? This industry needs more people like you." Bitter, enraged, his words sharp, his voice thick with anger.
"What's the matter?"
"I spent the night as a guest of the goddamn Atlanta police. And I never figured out why. Some crazy story about me letting a dog loose in the hotel. I don't have a dog. My sister has a Lhasa apso, and I had a bulldog named Jane when I was growing up. They say this dog that was allegedly in my room wrecked the goddamn restaurant. What is this, a police state?"
"They had the Wayne Williams thing here, remember. Child murderer. The Atlanta cops are pathological about anything strange."
"A guy sitting in a hotel room in his goddamn underpants watching Arsenio Hall is strange? Now I've heard it all." He attacked a poached egg, slicing through it so that the yolk ran and the white collapsed. He cut furiously for a time, until the egg was pale yellow pulp. Then he knocked back a glass of prune juice like it was a shot of Old Crow. "There isn't a goddamn thing you can do. All of a sudden the door flies open and here comes a maid and about six security guards and a dozen cops. 'He put the curtains back,' the maid screams. The damn cops grabbed me. I was so startled I almost swallowed my pipe. As it was I blew the fire through the bowl and set one of the cop's hair alight. He was using this inflammable Georgia Peach goo they've got down here, and it took them a while to get it out. So off I went, booked for assault by a furious five-hundred-pound policeman with a wet towel wrapped around his head." Leaning close to his plate, he shoveled in the rest of the pulped egg.
"You were actually booked?"
Jeal regarded him with suspicious interest. "If I'm talking to a reporter right now, I want to say something real simple. You print a word about this, and I will kill you." He started on his toast, tearing at it with a jerk of his head. Bob realized that the man wasn't exaggerating. He wondered if Jeal had killed before. Vietnam, maybe. Bob had gone the professional student route to escape the war. Jeal did not seem the type to escape anything.
"Are you in any trouble?"
"Apple sorted it out. That coordinator honey was down at the precinct house the whole time. I don't think it amounts to much. It's just the goddamn abuse that gets me. I mean, a man is sitting in a hotel
Bob once saw stalking the night woods near his hunt club a ghost Indian whose face was so pocked with anger that it had festered. Black puss fell in globs from the rotted cheeks, and the eyes were bloodshot with rage. The Indian had walked right off into the sky, and Bob had heard a sound like a stone door closing.
He sat down now across from Jeal and tucked into a forkful of wobbly scrambled eggs. They filled his head, his lungs, his esophagus with fluffy flavor. Through his mind there flowed images of chickens, clouds of chickens, laying eggs to Eine Kleine Nachtmusick, ta ta ta bloof, dum dum dee. Bloof. And the clerks at their computers, hen number 11893, laying rate 4, weight 2.2 kg, cluck cluck went the disk drive, and the sausage and the bacon, and the howling pigs in the slaughterhouse, the sows and the hogs, the shoats going down the chute, the screams of terror in processing, the automatic clubber smashing ten thousand skulls a day.
They evolved without hands, the pigs, but bearing meat that looks, tastes, and smells just like human. Poor pigs, condemned to be at once reviled and loved by man. Sometimes, eating bacon, you almost remember something. Then you don't, you can't.
"What?"
Bob looked up. It was Jeal; he had taken his pipe out of his mouth and spoken, raising his coffee to his lips.
"Excuse me?"
"You said something about a pig."
Bob smiled. "I was thinking about—I used to—I mean, my father once took me to a slaughterhouse." He barked out a laugh. "Sorry."
"You just blurt out gobbledygook about pigs because you're eating bacon? This industry needs more people like you." Bitter, enraged, his words sharp, his voice thick with anger.
"What's the matter?"
"I spent the night as a guest of the goddamn Atlanta police. And I never figured out why. Some crazy story about me letting a dog loose in the hotel. I don't have a dog. My sister has a Lhasa apso, and I had a bulldog named Jane when I was growing up. They say this dog that was allegedly in my room wrecked the goddamn restaurant. What is this, a police state?"
"They had the Wayne Williams thing here, remember. Child murderer. The Atlanta cops are pathological about anything strange."
"A guy sitting in a hotel room in his goddamn underpants watching Arsenio Hall is strange? Now I've heard it all." He attacked a poached egg, slicing through it so that the yolk ran and the white collapsed. He cut furiously for a time, until the egg was pale yellow pulp. Then he knocked back a glass of prune juice like it was a shot of Old Crow. "There isn't a goddamn thing you can do. All of a sudden the door flies open and here comes a maid and about six security guards and a dozen cops. 'He put the curtains back,' the maid screams. The damn cops grabbed me. I was so startled I almost swallowed my pipe. As it was I blew the fire through the bowl and set one of the cop's hair alight. He was using this inflammable Georgia Peach goo they've got down here, and it took them a while to get it out. So off I went, booked for assault by a furious five-hundred-pound policeman with a wet towel wrapped around his head." Leaning close to his plate, he shoveled in the rest of the pulped egg.
"You were actually booked?"
Jeal regarded him with suspicious interest. "If I'm talking to a reporter right now, I want to say something real simple. You print a word about this, and I will kill you." He started on his toast, tearing at it with a jerk of his head. Bob realized that the man wasn't exaggerating. He wondered if Jeal had killed before. Vietnam, maybe. Bob had gone the professional student route to escape the war. Jeal did not seem the type to escape anything.
"Are you in any trouble?"
"Apple sorted it out. That coordinator honey was down at the precinct house the whole time. I don't think it amounts to much. It's just the goddamn abuse that gets me. I mean, a man is sitting in a hotel
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