Novel: 'Food That Eats You' 1. Kidnapped!

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1. Kidnapped!

Voice like a gremlin on the phone, pouring aural poison down the line: ‘Delivery of filth, four o’clock.’

‘Not for me, thanks, don’t bring it here.’

‘Delivery of filth, coming your way.’

‘If you bring it here, I’ll call the police. They were just here. We’re on speaking terms.’

Gremlin pauses. ‘Uhhh… Special delivery…’

‘I’m hanging up, and I think you should either stop drinking coffee or see a trachiologist, you may need some tracheotomical (sic) surgery. I saw a documentary on it.’

Hang up.

Tinkling at doorbell. Drag knuckles on ground over to edge of void. Fight tide of boredom well enough to focus on what people are saying.

Men with knight-sticks, coffee-stained lips. Scratch my leg and look lopsided. ‘What?’

‘Yes, ah, can we come in?’

‘I don’t know, can you?’

‘Well, may we?’

‘I don’t know, I’m kind of busy right now… I’m just watching television, its my only creative outlet.’

Inspectors notice my foodscraps, probably from hunger, envious of my exotic lifestyle.

‘Reports have registered from this region, they’re of a suspicious nature, regarding the life-force of a gentleman known only by his profession… What was it, Higgins, a dentist? A drunkard?’

‘Doctor.’

‘Doctor, recently deceased, as late as last night.’

‘There’s no dead doctors here.’

‘Oh, really? We’ve had reports there were… from a certain Maitre’D at a certain revolving restaurant.’

‘Listen, the doctor lives next door and he’s fine. I thought I might have piledriven him into a table but you can see for yourselves he’s fine.’

Begrudge myself out into the corridor. Rap tap tap.

No answer.

Turn, toothy grin. ‘Look, he’s in there; he’s just not answering – he tends to do that.’

‘I think you should come with us.’

‘No thanks.’

‘Yeah, you better.’

‘I’m right.’

‘Higgins…’

Men with badges smell of overripe coffee grains. Breathing heavily, I look over, coffee grains frosted to a shoulder-pad.

‘Hey, coffee...’

‘Shaddup.’

Bumbling Looney Tunes music sees us down the network of corridors. Something tells me there’s a Russian Caravan at our backs with a giant rolling-pin steamroller. Panic sets in.

‘Quick, it’ll smoosh us.’

‘Shaddup.’

‘I can feel it…’ Primeval howl of anguish… begins to crush my legs, I’m going under… Oh the humanity.

‘Higgins, club ‘im.’

Lights out.

+

On the radio a simulcast of a political rally: General Chemistry, drumming up support for the nothing he’s done. A whisper’s been heard thorough the eaves of the sooty city. The Journalist Factory have not picked up on it yet, but no-one tells them things anyway. Decree that all sport shall be heretofore played with metallic balls for General Chemistry’s ancient-roman pleasure. A mere distraction tactic from the unexplained weirdness of the food piles. Can’t solve one problem, create one you can. The boys don’t seem to care one way or another.

‘Do you ever just feel like wearing a neck-brace?’

‘What?’

‘To take the pressure off a bit.’

‘Um…’

‘From holding your head up.’

‘Not really.’

‘What would you know Higgins...’

Open my eyes. Lights up on a cage which keeps me from scratching out inspectors brains, if so inclined. Sitting waist-high in fast-food wrappers: all the best chains. For some reason shouting... From the place where I'm sitting... Caused by something in body or out, it depends.

‘Is this where you keep your conquests… YOU’RE SICK!’

‘Someone just got up on the wrong side of the cop car...’

‘You drive like a prisoner of war – GET A LICENSE!’

Inspector not-Higgins about-faces. ‘If you don’t shaddup I’ll make Higgins sit back there
with you – and you won’t like that.’

‘There’s no room – it’s like my apartment back here. GET A CLEANER!’

‘We wouldn’t need one if Higgins wasn’t such a pig.’

‘I shouldn’t have to clean, isn’t it enough I do the driving – I thought you agreed…’

‘No, I agree on this: I’m your supervisor, you obey my commands. If I say you do the driving and the cleaning, and appear in the TV spots, and shine my shoes, you’ll do it, and all at once, if the situation calls for it...’

‘Now you’re being unreasonable.’

‘I’ll tell you when I’m being unreasonable.’ Pause. ‘Not yet.’

Phone rings for the unnamed man, the one who calls the other one Higgins every five seconds.

The face starts twitching. The hands tied, so… can’t rub it better… Won’t stop. Can’t remember if I set it off, but its really swinging now. Gets worse more think about it.

‘Like ta help ya out thar, Chucksta, but already have goods en route… Hang on a tic, mate. Higgins, he’s pulling faces, take care of that would you? Sorry, mate.’

About faces… once, then again. ‘Oi, cut that out.’

Amble along. Not-Higgins continues his personal call to possible drug-courier business contact.

‘Are we on this weekend?’ Mean laughter. ‘Poco loco!’

Burble of static from receiver, not-Higgins reels back, winces.

‘Fucken thing.’

For whatever reason, this strikes me as hilarious, so cackle uncontrollably.

‘Higgins!’

About-face: ‘Shaddap-you...’

But I was off...

‘Right, that’s it – pull over, Higgins. I’ll take the wheel - you get back there.’

Higgins sits on my lap, supposedly to hold me down, and just follows non-Higgins’ directions. Non-Higgins is a far less competent driver than Higgins, so because of his anxiety over concentrating over-hard on driving, he gets rather slap-happy with directing Higgins, who stays poker faced while he applies his palm liberally to mine, painting it all kinds of purple, as I can see in the backwards mirror.

‘Don’t flinch!’

Tongue begins to loll, blubber some jibberish about overseas aid workers and the sexually transmitted disease AIDS, and the import-export flow from cuba to the United States during the Cold War. Just the kind of thing I like to jibber when I’m half-conscious.

Lights out again.

%

The next cage is worse: its no longer moving. Smells like a log cabin: pine, perhaps. Up in the mountains. Soft flushing of the bottom of a waterfall nearby, constant replenishing. Candles, chatter. A party is in progress. Just a candelit evening at the Higgins’ mountain retreat. Appears they live together: partners in the line of duty and life partners too. How cute. Some painters arrive – The Higgins’ offer them what they have: a game of chess, refreshments, a sneak peek at their latest acquisition. They have to come inside and open a door to get from the party to me.

‘When’d this come in?’

They eyeball me, dressed white with technicolour yawn. They sniff.

‘Smells like teen spirit.’

Higgins’ sniff.

‘So it does.’

‘I’m older than that.’

‘So you are.’

‘I’d really rather not be detained her so long without medicine, I have a condition you know.’

‘And what condition is that?’

‘The condition of requiring regular medicine.’

‘Just sit tight. You’ll enjoy tonight: we're having you for dinner.’

$

Roll me out on cross, naked, wet dishcloth for modesty.

‘Maybe I won’t stay for dinner…’ I say.

‘No, I think you should...’

Guests... Painted faces, jockeys, flying kites and ducking between the trees leering down the hill to a river… Take it all in… Possible escape route: river. Appears an entire postwar generation of middle-aged doctors and mothers on call are invited to the Higgins tonight for a show, a play of some kind. Tribal music plays: someone beats the drum. Floor is moving. Woozy… maybe drugged, maybe paranoia, maybe fatigue… A bass-player, for no reason, stands in corner, fag lolling on lower lip, smoke effusive in humid night. One of them mothers a prepubescent daughter… Lovely thing, I’m looking at the insignia on her dress… There’s some historical signal on there… Catch the mother’s eye: she’s caught mine, or thinks she has.

‘He was staring at my daughter – the filthy brute!’

‘I never.’

Could mention the insignia, the dress, but who'd care...

‘I thought he might,’ non-Higgins says. ‘You should learn to look ahead.’

Wags a finger. Paints my chin with a kiss.

‘Higgins, bring out the fruit.’

‘No Higgins…’ I try.

‘We’re here to feed you… Think of the starving kids… How can you refuse?’

They wheel out a buffet-table filled with the ugliest torture weapons you’ve ever seen: heavy, misshapen fruit with spindles, small ninja-star fruit, the largest unpeeled carrot you’ve ever seen, which must only have been grown for one purpose… Some seriously perverted hydroponics was going on in these hills.

As the pineapple needles dig into my flesh my mind wanders. Send out a mental task force to investigate the neighbouring fruit-stalls. Dust for great-ape and monkey fingerprints. Issue a few directives. If I were General Chemistry I’d have the state issue nutritional pamphlets decreeing proper hygiene, food preparation techniques, instead of the current state of gastronomical laissez-faire. I’ve a few questions for this General Chemistry, should I run into him – like, what kind of cereal-box military academy did he attend, and what decorations does he have to recommend him? Build in my mind a corrosive explosive all-doubts-forgotten get out of jail device; from a no frills beer top and a reserve of creative energy didn’t know existed. Joy! Implement the device quickly, footsteps outside, pausing to give thanks to whoever I inherited this particular deus ex machina from and vowing to forever cherish no frills products and campaign for their domination of the market. Only, what name will I put on the banner… Have to invent a logo… Hmm… Dear Mr Frill, writing to inform of heretofore unimagined use for your product…

I’m running, I’m free… Somehow it worked… No time to wonder now. My feet find the boards outside the log-cabin – please no splinters – bundle my sore bones downhill, sticky soles thicken with soil as I go. Short trip down, mini-preview of the rapids ahead…

Boatdocked, loosen rope, speed… Over shoulder voices ricochet zigzag from tree to tree. Higgins this and Higgins that. Ladybug – what’s she doing so close to the edge! Ahh – rope burn!

Weathered old boat ambles along waters; plinking sounds at contact points. Suddenly a tranquil moment to look back and smile, lay back and look up, think about things I’m grateful for - watching TV with dad – our favourite cop shows – Him showing me how to… Building um… I’m sure there were times when I learnt something useful from him, but… they escape me. River’s not the most conducive to that kind of thinking, maybe.

Pictures crop up from time to time, projected on the fog – just the news reel... Or are they real? Careers advisers. Curmudgeons. Men kneeling in bushes buggering, downstream more men night-fishing and a congregation of feminist nudists nightswimming. River swims ahead, lucky someone’s marked it with streamers for me, or I might drift off course. Someone knew I’d come this way. There’s only one river, but still. Leaving behind the city of dun, gradually, as the river develops from rapids to Sunday afternoon walks the scenery becomes sleepy and green.

Go to Food That Eats You's page.

Novel: 'Food That Eats You'

Introduction by the Author

THIS NOVEL REVOLVES AROUND FOOD AND WELLNESS IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE ALMOST LIKE THE REAL ONE. FOR THE NOVEL ITSELF, I'LL HAND OVER TO XAVIOUR, WHO TELLS IT IN HIS IMPATIENT MANNER...

Chapter 1.

I’m not supposed to know about the bucket of blood but somehow I do… In the men’s bathroom chewing my thumb-webbing… Thinking bloody murder… Tracing an invisible line on the ground… Might draw anything, a map of the train system under the floor for instance... No matter what I draw, its still invisible...

Something tells me I have to go outside. I have to walk under that doorway and I have to be bathed in pigs’ blood. Who knows… Is infection, blood-disease, a workers-comp risk? Certainly not a normal one… But is the blood clean… Will it make me clean?

Hand on the handle, about to open the cubicle when Jim and Joe come in, squeezing each others scrotums (figuratively… and literally… who can say, I’ve got no vision from this position…) talking shit about their superiors… Some people I don’t know, don’t care to know APPARENTLY are incompetent to such a degree that they can’t even piss for themselves… Discussion revolves around some punning giving of hands and kissing of asses that its not in my nature to repeat… I have a sense of propriety… But these guys aren’t worried… If they knew I was writing this stuff down, they’d think a bit first… Bit of forethought peeled back… Mighta kept them from pissing pants… A gust of wind comes in and blows them out…

Unlatch and unilateral movement, as always, out into the unstable outside… The Factory contains lots of rooms… Some have journalists inside, some have ghostwriters… Some have researchers, editors, photographers… The system of communication between these rooms is arcane and filtered through spying and guesswork… The final product is masterminded by the evil genius known as the Head Editor, who bangs on doors and yells at people hiding behind them, which causes these "people" to make creative guesses about what the other departments are doing through the walls on either side of them… They are aided by listening horns and gaps in walls… But each department generally believes it solely is responsible for the life of the paper, and so stubbornly trundles on with its own task, leaving it up to the one next door to copy down what they can overhear and make up the rest, adding their own component whether it be pictures or spatial organisation and omission of too obvious unfacts…

And in the engine room is the printing press… A pretty standard set-up for such a factory, of which there are only seven in the country. These seven, though, produce material which ripples wide and bleeds into the lives of every street-person and business-person alike, as long you read the paper it doesn’t matter what you do with it afterwards, throw it out the window or use it for a blanket…

The Factory Floor... "Where magic happens"... Darkened with animal blood. My upcoming experience is not a novel one here… Think most gophers are scared off in a similar way, when they’ve breached the limit of their superiors’ patience… Or, more likely, when the fucks have got a spare five minutes and get bored… Someone’s gotta be there when the bucket falls, and I don’t know if they even care who that sucker is.

Quiet here… In an obvious way. Littered around the office like forest critters, they peer out through nooks and crannies… Soundtrack to this scene is provided half by the evergreen photocopiers half by the idiots snickering at their own cleverness… Why do we have to work? Want to watch them back, want to tell them I’m brighter than they think I am, I have untapped potential…

But somehow, I know it isn’t true…

&

Nothing I like to do more after I’ve had a pigs’ blood bath – under duress - than to loll about at the Doctor’s place. Why, when its next door, should this feel like being ‘out’, who knows, but its more exciting than just lolling around at my place, I know that much. Doctor’s place is full of books he hasn’t read… I can’t prove this, because he’s always quoting me things, and it would involve more imagination to have made them up than it would to have just read them… So I don’t know what to believe… Just find it annoying. I call him the Doctor, but he’s not my doctor; I’m pretty sure he’s not a doctor at all. He seems to be still working on his thesis, of seven years, but he’s very protective of it… He’s one of these people that keeps his nickname going by asking people to call him Doctor, or Doc for short. It makes him happy, so I participate in this charade, even though I’m ninety-eight per cent sure there’s zero per cent of him that’s a doctor of anything.

What he is… Is resourceful.

Doctor comes… He’s carrying a kit. Never sure what’s inside it, probably a black hole, cause he seems to be able to pull out anything required for the occasion… Things as divergent as a band-aid, a lolly-pop and a street directory… So, a travelling glove-box.

Tends to begin the morning with something cheerful but absurd from his brain: like now, ‘Have you ever thought about wallpaper, Xaviour? Really thought about it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I embraced my wallpaper this morning. If nothing else, I’m grateful for its service: hugging away at the walls all day long, thanklessly playing its small part in the large organism of the world, blissfully ignorant of my thesis and all the great things of the world.’

You have to just look the other way when he says things like this. He doesn’t want you to say anything back. Suspect he wants you to squirm… But can not confirm… I like to change subject to something I know will make him squirm. We have a healthy relationship.

‘How is the thesis coming?’

‘Like a rocket. I wrote a million words this morning then deleted them.’

That’s the other thing he does.

‘Not again.’

‘They were too beautiful.’

‘You could have used them for something else.’

‘They were too beautiful to be read. I wanted them to stay beautiful.’

Doctor’s always saying things like this, and he’s usually sober when he says them, which makes it worse.

‘So where do you want it?’

Gives me my medicine. Hear his breathing. Heavy breathing: so heavy its almost obscene.

Doctor’s saying something about maybe weaning me off my medicine when suddenly occurs to me to dance. Rise like an old man the wrong side of a generation gap at a party and throw myself on the Doctor.

‘What are you doing!’

‘Look, we’re dancing – dance with me.’

Dance for a while, but don’t think he’s too keen because he just kind of stands there. I pull out and lie there, breathing heavily, dissatisfied. The doctor has a moon face and a secret contract with a television station to deliver them news. He’s trying to sleep his way to the top of the factory where I work, but he hasn’t been able to get past me because I’m an insomniac. He doesn’t know that I know this, and it gives us both something to do. I’m pretty sure he supplies me with medicine with the intention of extracting information from me, but I don’t know any information, so I’m not bothered.

‘Let me take you out to dinner, we never go out anymore.’

‘I don’t eat in front of people.’

‘Nonsense – you won an eating competition.’

‘I never. You made that up.’

‘You’ve still got the pendant up on the wall. Its right there.’

Look over, it says ‘orange eating competition’ which was supposed to be a pun on ‘aren’t you eating.’ Small-town humour. Date now seems a million years ago, location looks to be the long-buried city of pompeii, depending on how accurate my eyes are today. See Doctor eyeing the walls.

‘Get your eyes off my wallpaper.’

Smirks bashfully.

@

Drunk and oblivious at the revolving restaurant and its not even dark yet; most likely one of us will not get to fully digest their revolving meal. If its me, I hope the doctor, in his revolving generosity, is paying.

‘Hey, what time is it?’

‘Don’t worry about that.’

‘Not past five again is it – think I was supposed to work today…’

‘Come on, you’re an errand boy, they won’t even notice you’re gone.’

‘I play a certain role at the factory... I do my bit.'

‘Oh, I’m sure its very significant, you’re an important guy.’

‘I am! I’m the reason bestiality is illegal.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Don’t know – been happening a lot lately, think there might besomething wrong with me?’

‘Forget that… let’s go back to what you were saying, big shot.’

‘Listen to me, think I might be coming down with dementia.’

‘You’re not coming down with dementia. I should know, I examine you regularly for it.’

‘Still, its something to look forward to.’

‘If you’re worried, maybe you could write to General Chemistry, I’m sure in his wisdom he’d know what to do.’

‘Yeah… bet he would.’

‘I was kidding – surely not.’

Whenever he thinks I’m drunk enough to give out information, the doctor imagines himself the host of his own TV show.

‘So tell us some gossip from the factory – what’s up with General Chemistry and those food spills?’

‘I never go into work, I don't know anything, I don't even know how to work. I only got that job cause of who my father was.'

‘Why do I waste my life plying you for information, and even worse, why do they keep employing you – do you have an answer for that?’

‘I don’t question it, I just sit back and enjoy it.’

‘Why don’t you tell me everything you know about your milksop boss Henry Tenderloin?’

‘He’s a great guy, really, a card-shark, a supermodel, a wine drinker.’

‘You’re making that up!’ (Ridiculous jaw-chewing fake laughter)

‘You got me.’

‘Well why don’t you tell us something true... About you. Something revealing.’

‘I’ve been to your apartment a million times and I’ve never found your medical certificate… And I really look...'

‘He’s a card this guy!’

‘What does that mean?’

(Shares a joke with audience – think this guy’s crazy?)

‘Uh, help me out here friend, it means you’re some character!’

‘Who’s clapping – stop that.’

‘There’s no clapping, Jimmy.’

‘Don’t call me Jimmy.’

‘We’ll go to a break and we’ll be right back!’

Doctor leans in close and breathes heavily, ‘you gonna give me some information, Useless?’ and suddenly I pull back and its like I’m watching myself from above...

Xaviour vomits in the good doctor’s face and lifts him up in a wrestling manouver and brings him down on the edge of the table hard. He brushes the foodscraps off: a whisker of cabbage on his cheek, a tomato stain on his piano necktie, and laughs. ‘Was that fun or what?’ Doctor doesn’t answer. Xaviour nudges the doctor, but he’s slumped over the table and his neck is broken.

‘You’re going to pay for that.’

It’s the waiter.

I look down at the bag of bones.

‘That? I didn’t do it.’

‘I knew you weren’t on the list. You two gentleman have been trouble since you came in. Come on, get out, and take your doctor with you.’

‘He’s not that kind of doctor.'

Suddenly we were outside on the pavement, and the doctor was up, brushing himself off.

‘You!’

I quiver, rear away from him.

Curls his arm round shoulders and says, ‘sometimes you just have to look at yourself and say: if pain persists, please see your doctor…’

$

At his finery-filled hovel, not six feet from my food-wrapper filled hovel, Doctor and I familiarise ourselves with some bad chemicals.

‘You ever look at the sun?’ Doctor wonders.

‘Plenty a times.’

‘It can burn holes in your retina, ya know. Since I heard that every day I can’t help myself – its like, cause I know I’m not supposed to, I can’t help looking. And its up there the whole time – temptation’s endless!’

‘Move to the arctic. Night all day.’

Ponder the doctor’s dilemma, suddenly overwhelmed.

‘Whoa, too much information here… Finding it hard to keep track …’

‘The remedy for that is a good dose of television.’

‘No!’

But its too late. My medicine’s in me and I feel my mind return to its usual mushy state. Eyes begin to droop, questions of life or death leave and I’m free.

Strange happenings on the outskirts of town, the report runs. We’ve heard strange tales from children’s television shows, but this is the strangest that’s actually happened around here. Everything was normal for two centuries as far as we remember, nothing much happened, then suddenly this: bacon rind. (They mustn’t have heard about the caffeine yet, I guess). Bacon rind. A great big pile of it. Yep, experts claim we’ve got no idea where it came from or what we can learn from it, but experts say we better not buy bacon for a while in case there’s some evil force living in it. Back to you Bob.

They would have driven to the outskirts of town today in their people trucks and makeup trucks and food trucks. They would have round-tabled the strange phenomenon of the over-sized pile of bacon-rind and come up with a series of happy alternatives, then decided which was more interesting. Of course its more likely that the rind had fallen off the back of a truck belonging to a bacon manufacturer, transporting its off-cuts in an unncessary cross-country mission; but they’ve gone with that old adage: the most tantalising explanations explain nothing...

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