Darrell Schweitzer - Full MoonCity

Why? I just wanted to show them what I thought of it. That’s all. Besides, I wanted them to have to talk to me. Which they did, and brought me a bucket and a mop and made me clean it up. It gave me something to do. Two of them tried to twist my arms the first time, and it scared them. That was the most fun I’ve had since I got stuck in here.

Oh, I’m strong, real strong. Take my hand, Father, and I’ll show you.

All right, but I would not have hurt you bad. I had this cellmate. His name was Paul, only I do not remember his last name. Really I have had eight or maybe ten. Can I tell you what they do here? How they use me?

Well, suppose they want to put somebody in solitary, but they know he has this good lawyer. He’s got money, right? So if they do, that lawyer will go to a judge and try to get him out. Well, what they do is put him in here with me. In a couple of days he will be begging them for solitary.

Oh. Yeah. I guess I think of all these guys as Paul because Paul was the first, the kid the rat bit. He was bleeding pretty good and naturally it made me hungry, so I said don’t you know rats are poison? I got to suck out the poison or you’ll die.

He let me. I got it in my mouth, and it was the best thing I had ever tasted. Man, it was so good! So I kept drinking and drinking until Paul said you never spit the poison out. I said yes I did. That was a mistake, because he knew I hadn’t. He got mad and jerked his hand away, and I bit his neck.

That was where I started learning about meat, right there in the dump. Meat doesn’t really go bad as fast as people think. It depends on a lot of things, like can the sun hit it. I didn’t know about that then, but I knew that if I left my meat there in the dump, the rats would get at it and it would be no use coming back for some the next time I got hungry.

Well, Father, there was this old factory near there where nobody worked anymore. It was supposed to be locked up, only Paul and me had found a way to get inside. We thought there would be a lot of rats in there, but there wasn’t because there was nothing in there for them to eat.

So I went in there and the basement seemed like the best place. It was dark down there, and nobody would see my meat unless he went poking around down in that basement with a flashlight. So I left it down there and went home.

The next day I came back and there were rats, so I got some rope and hung it up where they couldn’t get to it. It was dark and cool down there, so I felt like that would be a friendly place for me. It was, too. My meat lasted down there until I had eaten just about everything. I’d come back every day or maybe every two days. Or twice a day, sometimes.

No, they thought he’d run away. The police do that a lot, say he has run away, because then they don’t have to look.

What you really need is a good freezer, but if you don’t have one, there is still a lot you can do. You can rent a locker, too. That is what I did for a while. I knew how a butcher would wrap meat. The paper they use and the tape. I got a guy at work to tell me.

So I got some. And when I had meat I would cut it up and wrap it neat and everything. Then I would take it to my locker and people would think that I had paid for a side or killed a deer or something.

But like I said, I still had a lot to learn about meat. Old people are not good, did you know that? They are not. Younger is better until you get down to about ten, Father. After that, younger is just smaller.

You take this old guy Paul, or Bradley or whatever his name was. He was my foster father for a while, and I never did like him because he was generally mad about something, and I swear, Father, I could taste his pipe tobacco. I got some ketchup from the supermarket-just taking it you know because I didn’t have much money then. I put that on the meat because it was a pretty color and I thought it would cover up the taste. It didn’t, and he was the only one I ever put anything like that on.

Sure. All of it because I didn’t want to waste him.

Well, they put me in a different foster home after that, because with him gone the lady had to go to work. Only I remembered the old place and came back for this one girl. She was really, really sweet. It started me wising up. Younger was better, and girls were better than boys. They are not so tough, they don’t have that boy taste, and the fat runs all through everything. That’s the good way.

No, I have never felt sorry about it the way you mean, but I kind of missed a few of the people afterward. Then, too, when it was somebody that I knew the police would come around sometimes and say when did you see her? Was there any reason for her to run away? All that stuff. It always made me kind of nervous, because I knew they would never understand. So it was better if it was somebody I did not know at all.

Of course, that was the trouble with Paul, the guy who used to sleep in that bunk. He was locked in with me, so they’d know right off. Besides, I’d only get one meal off him before they took the meat away.

Yeah. Sometimes I would get up when the moon was coming in through the window. I would stand beside his bunk and just look at him. How would this part taste and how would that part taste? Would it be better to boil the hands and feet? I knew I couldn’t do it, but it was fun to think about just the same. Some nights I would think yes, and some nights no. Just eat the fingers, chewing up the bones.

Only some nights he’d wake up and get mad about me being there, and then I’d have to shut his mouth for him.

No, it’s not so bad being alone. I walk up and down the cell, three steps this way and three steps that way. It drives them crazy. Then at night I yell out the window and listen. Nobody has ever yelled back, but if somebody ever does, I’ll get out. I don’t know how, but I will. You watch.

Oh, sure. I know all about those psychologists. They bring one in because they want to get rid of me, only I do not want to get sent where I will be with crazy people all the time. So I smile and answer all their questions right; what day is it and why am I in here and all that. It’s all the same, and by now I know it better than they do. No, I don’t ever hear voices, doc-only sometimes I wish I did. Well, doc, I’m me. I give them my name and tell them about foster homes and going to vocational school and all that. Only not about Paul, or Nancy, neither. After that I explain how I am innocent and it is all a big mistake anyway. By the time I’ve finished with them I know they will say, “Dull normal” when they get out.

Well, I am not a child molester no matter what the screws say. All right I guess I am a murderer, maybe. That part is probably right. Only not a child molester. No way!

Sure, I went to school. My middle school grades were not so good, so I went to Braciola Vocational. They had meat-cutting. It was really big there, and it was what I took. The teacher said I was a natural, and I’ll tell you, Father, if my old teachers at the middle school had seen my grades, they would not have believed them. I got out pretty close to the top of my class. Only I used to see this one little girl.

You know where Braciola is, Father?

Well, it’s right next to Glazier Elementary School. So when we went out to play softball or anything I would see the little kids playing there on the other side of the fence. If my team was at bat, I’d have plenty of time to look at them. There was this one girl, pretty and filled out nice without being too fat. You know what I mean? She looked tender, but she looked solid, too. I kept thinking how nice it would be to follow her home. Not close, you know, but just keeping an eye on her. See where she lived and all that. She’d be heavy, but not so heavy that I’d have trouble moving her around. I could even pack her in this one duffel bag I had. That’s how I thought while I was still at Braciola.