Eating Mammals

By early evening things had picked up a little. Groups of twos and threes wandered aimlessly about, still the crusty hankies, still no zlotys. Something had happened to the town, its former dour, humourless expression had turned to certain misery. A young man, eager to engage me in conversation to practise his English, explained that several local factories had been scaled down or closed altogether after a spat between the local administration and the central government. Times were hard and, as the young man said, with a curious boisterousness: ‘Nobody love to give her sausage you now!’

I pondered my ill fortune. What would Mulligan have done? No sausage, no zloty. No zloty, no go anywhere. In the past I had always managed to wangle a tankful of petrol during my brief excursions behind the Iron Curtain. It was far cheaper there, and the fairmen seemed to have access to it. For that reason I had left German soil and meandered through northern Czechoslovakia with hardly enough fuel to get me halfway back to the safety of the West. I feared what might happen to The Machine if I couldn’t make it quickly back over the border, for these Polish folk had always impressed me as harbouring an imprecise shadow of cruelty within their deep-throated laughter. Had I known then just how cruel, I most certainly would have left the Iron Curtain securely drawn across that particular place.

So, dreading the idea of what might become of me if insufficient raw material found its way into my stomach that evening, I threw Captain Gusto into a bold display of self-publicity. As you might imagine, drumming up business for an eat-all sideshow without the aid of language was as trying for the Captain as it was puzzling for those onlookers whose attention I managed to catch. Not quite sure of what exactly was written on my sign, I nevertheless did my best to reflect the description of my act in a comical mime. Everything within reach I pretended to eat, from my own shoes to the caps of half a dozen onlookers. Confused yet intrigued, people shuffled up closer, read the sign, and fell into disgruntled conversation with their shrugging companions before wandering off, apparently none the wiser. The boy was right, nobody loved to give me her sausage now.

The night closed in, and slowly the crowds grew. I persuaded a young couple to part with a bagful of toffee wrappers, but it was a vain gesture, and as I gobbled them down straight from the bag, without even bothering to grind them up, they looked on with expressions of pure bewilderment, as if to say, Why would you do such a thing? As they walked away, embarrassed I think, I wanted to chase after them and make them read my sign. But I was too shy. Mulligan would have marched up to the young man and broken the sign over his head, whereas Captain Gusto was simply left there looking ridiculous.

Drunks hobbled by, the odd group of teenagers stopped and giggled, and one or two small offerings were accepted, ground and ingested. For pitiful amounts. After several hours of this I had garnered barely enough coins to run my idle fingers through as I waited, hands in pockets, next to The Machine.

Then a straggle of men approached. They were all middle-aged, dressed in rough, old donkey jackets, and each one had a cigarette hanging from his bottom lip. They eyed up my sign mischievously, and from the way they bundled and shoved into one another I could tell they were interested in a bit of fun.

‘At last!’ I said to myself, breathing a long sigh of relief as I prepared to launch into the long ritual which Mulligan, on hearing of my fairground style, had once mockingly named The Belly Auction. Proudly, I strutted up and down in front of The Machine, stroking my stomach with feigned pride, and began to sip from a beaker of the orange liquid which I always carried with me. Then I strode arrogantly up to them and held my sign in front of their noses. They were a dirty-looking bunch, and the smell which radiated from them I can recall still, a damp, earthy mixture of raw pastry and tobacco. But I knew how to get the best from a bunch of drunks. So, choosing the man with the shortest cigarette stub poking from his lips, I stepped up to him, plucked the smouldering butt from his mouth, snubbed it between thumb and forefinger too quickly to be seen, and popped it into my mouth. As usual, it provoked mild amusement, and also caused each of them to re-examine the extravagant claims which my sign announced. They went into conference and I, well accustomed to the inevitable course of the little drama, withdrew a couple of yards and resumed my boastful prowl.

At last one of them was pushed forward by the group, a look of confusion on his ugly face. In one hand he held a pencil, and in the other a single coin. I made as if to mock the item and, snatching both the pencil and the coin from him, returned to The Machine to commence grinding. In half a minute the thing was ground up and swallowed down, along with one or two drafts of my sweet, lubricating liquid.

By now a modest crowd had gathered, attracted by the noise which the drunken men made. I strutted more outrageously, working hard at a look of contempt which, in truth, I never felt quite comfortable with. But it worked. Another impromptu conference, and one of them, having been pressed with sundry coins, offered his cap. The cap in question was not an inconsiderable thing in itself, and I began to think of large payments and early to bed. However, the palmful of coins which came with it was, even by my desperately low standards that night, insufficient. In any case, I thought I might be able to improve on it. So I took the cap and tossed it back in the chap’s face, making my dissatisfaction with the money evident. The growing crowd around us burst into laughter, although my would-be clients themselves found the act rather less amusing. Instead of augmenting their offer, they seemed to lose interest.

As they were about to leave, I grabbed the cap again and, waving my arm around as if boasting about the size of a fish I had allegedly caught, tried to indicate that my appetite was altogether more substantial than anything the size of a mere cap would satisfy. The crowd seemed to get it, for a range of encouraging and humorous-sounding comments came from all directions.

The middle-aged men themselves suddenly burst into activity. Whilst two of them made exaggerated gestures that I was to stay where I was (as if I was about to move), the others rushed off.

‘Oh, a couple of cabbages! Let it be vegetable!’ I wailed inwardly, rejoicing in the easy way that I had ensnared the lot of them, and already thinking of leaving the miserable place. Or turnips! I would have settled for half a dozen turnips, in whatever condition. The pulp of a rotting turnip is far less trouble that one might imagine.

There were by now something approaching a hundred people gathered there watching me, and each one appeared to have an opinion as to what the men would bring for me to eat. I kept up the strut as best I could, but this was not a comfortable moment, for as the anticipation grew so too did the difficulty with which I might be able to refuse any item proffered.

Then a few of the men returned, empty-handed, and a murmur went around the crowd as they began to circulate, whispering in ears and grinning stupidly. From where I was stood I could just make out the furtive gestures of money changing hands, and I realised that the men were collecting a coin or two from everyone present. This went on for several minutes until, when the collection was complete, a hush fell over us.

The other men now returned. They pushed their way through the crowd and strode up to me, a dark tarpaulin suspended between them. They dropped it and stood back. One of the money collectors stepped forward and on the tarpaulin he placed a cap heavy with coins. I got to my knees and weighed the cap. It was very heavy. Keen to maintain the tenor of the performance, I admired the money extravagantly. Then I pulled back the top of the tarpaulin.

A dog. A dead, half-rotten mongrel. Something between a Yorkshire terrier and a Labrador pup. Eyes dull and sunken, its flanks matted with the dried blood and pus of recent decay. Just for a second I tried to believe that it was a fake, part of an elaborate joke. But I touched the carcass, and it was real enough. It had begun to stiffen, and odd patches of fur had fallen away, revealing grey-fawn skin already dry and tight around hardening flesh.

The men drew closer. Their faces twitched with pride as they smiled their satisfied smiles at me. I stood, sickened more at their grotesque faces than at the sight of the dog, and spoke out over their heads.

‘You people are too foul and loathsome to throw me your cruel orders!’

An attempt at something Mulliganesque. But I was wrong. I had heaped too much derision on these poor, dispossessed people. And derision cannot be withdrawn, especially not when one has no words with which to do it. I was condemned, in the plainest sense, to the consequences of my own actions. So I ate the dog.