Chapter 44 - Tries to Cook and Eat Girl

Dawn. Sometime in November. Unable to sleep, writhing onmy futon, still in a suit, my head feeling like someone has lit abonɹre on it, in it, a constant searing pain that keeps both eyesopen, utterly helpless. There are no drugs, no food, no liquor thatcan appease the forcefulness of this greedy pain; all my musclesare stiʃ, all my nerves burning, on ɹre. I'm taking Sominex by thehour since I've run out of Dalmane, but nothing really helps andsoon even the box of Sominex is empty. Things are lying in thecorner of my bedroom: a pair of girl's shoes from Edward SusanBennis Allen, a hand with the thumb and foreɹnger missing, thenew issue of Vanity Fair splashed with someone's blood, acummerbund drenched with gore, and from the kitchen waftinginto the bedroom is the fresh smell of blood cooking, and when Istumble up out of bed into the living room, the walls arebreathing, the stench of decay smothers everything. I light acigar, hoping the smoke will mask at least some of it.Her breasts have been chopped oʃ and they look blue anddeɻated, the nipples a disconcerting shade of brown. Surroundedby dried black blood, they lie, rather delicately, on a china plate Ibought at the Pottery Barn on top of the Wurlitzer jukebox in thecorner, though I don't remember doing this. I have also shaved allthe skin and most of the muscle oʃ her face so that it resembles askull with a long, ɻowing mane of blond hair falling from it,which is connected to a full, cold corpse; its eyes are open, theactual eyeballs hanging out of their sockets by their stalks. Mostof her chest is indistinguishable from her neck, which looks likeground-up meat, her stomach resembles the eggplant and goatcheese lasagna at Il Marlibro or some other kind of dog food, thedominant colors red and white and brown. A few of her intestinesare smeared across one wall and others are mashed up into ballsthat lie strewn across the glass-top coʃee table like long bluesnakes, mutant worms. The patches of skin left on her body areblue-gray, the color of tinfoil. Her vagina has discharged abrownish syrupy ɻuid that smells like a sick animal, as if that rathad been forced back up in there, had been digested orsomething.I spend the next ɹfteen minutes beside myself, pulling out abluish rope of intestine, most of it still connected to the body, andshoving it into my mouth, choking on it, and it feels moist in mymouth and it's ɹlled with some kind of paste which smells bad.After an hour of digging, I detach her spinal cord and decide toFederal Express the thing without cleaning it, wrapped in tissue,under a diʃerent name, to Leona Helmsley. I want to drink thisgirl's blood as if it were champagne and I plunge my face deepinto what's left of her stomach, scratching my chomping jaw on abroken rib. The huge new television set is on in one of the rooms,ɹrst blaring out The Patty Winters Show, whose topic today isHuman Dairies, then a game show, Wheel of Fortune, and theapplause coming from the studio audience sounds like static eachtime a new letter is turned. I'm loosening the tie I'm still wearingwith a blood-soaked hand, breathing in deeply. This is my reality.Everything outside of this is like some movie I once saw.In the kitchen I try to make meat loaf out of the girl but itbecomes too frustrating a task and instead I spend the afternoonsmearing her meat all over the walls, chewing on strips of skin Iripped from her body, then I rest by watching a tape of lastweek's new CBS sitcom, Murphy Brown. After that and a largeglass of J&B I'm back in the kitchen. The head in the microwaveis now completely black and hairless and I place it in a tin pot onthe stove in an attempt to boil any remaining ɻesh I forgot toshave oʃ. Heaving the rest of her body into a garbage bag—mymuscles, slathered with Ben-Gay, easily handling the dead weight—I decide to use whatever is left of her for a sausage of somekind.A Richard Marx CD plays on the stereo, a bag from Zabar'sloaded with sourdough onion bagels and spices sits on the kitchentable while I grind bone and fat and ɻesh into patties, and thoughit does sporadically penetrate how unacceptable some of what I'mdoing actually is, I just remind myself that this thing, this girl,this meat, is nothing, is shit, and along with a Xanax (which I amnow taking half-hourly) this thought momentarily calms me andthen I'm humming, humming the theme to a show I watchedoften as a child—The Jetsons? The Banana Splits? Scooby Doo?Sigmund and the Sea Monsters? I'm remembering the song, themelody, even the key it was sung in, but not the show. Was itLidsville? Was it H. R. Pufnstuf? These questions are punctuated byother questions, as diverse as "Will I ever do time?" and "Did thisgirl have a trusting heart?" The smell of meat and blood cloudsup the condo until I don't notice it anymore. And later mymacabre joy sours and I'm weeping for myself, unable to ɹndsolace in any of this, crying out, sobbing "I just want to beloved," cursing the earth and everything I have been taught:principles, distinctions, choices, morals, compromises,knowledge, unity, prayer—all of it was wrong, without any ɹnalpurpose. All it came down to was: die or adapt. I imagine my ownvacant face, the disembodied voice coming from its mouth: Theseare terrible times. Maggots already writhe across the humansausage, the drool pouring from my lips dribbles over them, andstill I can't tell if I'm cooking any of this correctly, because I'mcrying too hard and I have never really cooked anything before.