John Barlow - Eating Mammals

‘Gentlemen,’ he shouted, twirling the chair effortlessly in one hand like a toy, ‘although I am twice the man of anyone here today, my teeth are my weakness. Once, in Torquay, I no more than nibbled on a hatstand, and got a cracked molar for my troubles.

‘But,’ and here he swept away the red velvet, revealing what on first sight perhaps most resembled a pygmy combine harvester, ‘I will swallow this chair tonight …’ (chuntering and some giggles from the floor), ‘… wood …’ at which he snapped a leg off with his hands and tossed it to me, ‘… seat …’ ripping a little of its fine gold braid from the edge of the chair’s cushion, ‘… and screws!’ flicking with his fingernails the tacks which held the seat’s ancient cloth in place (only brass, quite thin). Gasps from the floor at the word screws. Many hands dropped down to feel the girth of chair legs; half a dozen men scrambled to put on their glasses and, having done so, stared all the more urgently at Mulligan, and then at the chair they were sitting on. The short, fat man, utterly mesmerised by Mulligan, slipped down from the table, never taking his eyes off the stage, and procured himself a vacant chair from the side of the hall. He retook his place at the table, lit himself a cigar, and settled back for the entertainment, apparently believing that his own ordeal was over – in this he was correct, for Mulligan was no bully – and in addition feeling perhaps just a touch proud of himself.

‘You will, I trust, allow me a little light refreshment?’ Mulligan asked, pouring himself a pint of orange liquid from the Egyptian jug and taking a sip. With that he gave me a nod. I dropped the chair leg into the funnel and cranked the long iron handle. At first nothing happened. The series of gears transposed my efforts into a slow, menacing rotation at the bottom of the funnel, but as fast as I might wind the handle, nothing happened. Then, little by little, the leg in the funnel began to move, turning and twisting, slowly at first but then with more animation, bobbing and dancing in the teeth of the grinder. The handle stiffened as the sound of cracking, splintering wood filled the hall, and the chair leg began its long, painfully slow journey through the mechanism. I worked frantically at the cranking handle, and even from the stage I could sense that there was not a single movement anywhere else in the place, all eyes on the top of the chair leg, which poked up above the rim of the funnel, but was gradually disappearing from view.

Wood moved steadily through the various crushers and grinders, but with more wood always entering from the top the job became harder, and soon I was lunging at the crank handle twice, once to wrench it up towards me, and again to push it back over for another revolution, throwing my body halfway back round with it.

Mulligan laughed out loud.

‘Some day,’ he said, turning to the dumbfounded men before him, ‘this young man here will be as strong as an ox. But it will require work, oh yes, and a very special diet.’

Then he was off again, regaling his audience with more stories: of the time he had eaten a beehive, comb, honey, bees (fried), the lot; and the occasion on which, purely as a party trick in Hollywood, he drank the bathwater of a certain film star’s six-month-old baby.

Was all this true? Was any of this in the least possible? You may well wonder, and from time to time, as I recall the great man’s orations, those most expansive, most outrageous, most boastful claims, I too sometimes wonder. But there, in front of forty-odd men of sound mind, with Mulligan’s sweet, hypnotic voice, and the low grinding of The Machine as it crunched, splintered and powdered solid wood, ready to assuage the gargantuan appetite which this extraordinary man proclaimed of himself, in those circumstances, in that hall, no one doubted a single word he said.

And I ground and I ground.

At last it arrived, the slightest trickle of powder, although really it was more a dry, gritty pâté, which dropped from the pert sphincter of the big, iron digestive tract like pale, crumbly mouse droppings. Only then did I notice where it dropped: on to a large platter, a gleaming oval of fiery, crimson-hued gold, which was positioned directly beneath the grinder’s nozzle. (A present from an ecstatic maharaja after he had witnessed one of Mulligan’s regular appearances in Paris.) The platter was a part of the stage set which he kept concealed until the appropriate moment. On the large shining oval the pile grew fractionally. Feeling somewhat ashamed at my own performance, I redoubled my efforts, and before I knew it Mulligan had thrown another leg into the funnel, to resounding cheers from the floor. However, the cheers soon fell away to nothing as, pulling a golden spoon from his pocket, he stooped down and collected a sample of the chair dust, inspected it for colour and aroma and popped the loaded spoon into his mouth. There he remained, crouched and absolutely still; without thinking I stopped cranking, my incredulous eyes, like those of everyone else besides, on the great man. (Later, he commended me on this little detail, which, I have to admit, did add somewhat to the drama of the moment.) He moved his jaws in a slow, ruminating fashion, and then, after an appreciative mumble, smacked his lips and sprang to his feet. Taking a quick drink, he announced: ‘The chair, gentlemen, is exquisite!’

Shrieks and hoots greeted the announcement. Mulligan held up his hand for silence.

‘Compliments to the chef,’ he said, turning and giving a solemn bow in my direction.

More howls, and great applause. I returned to the crank handle, and Mulligan set to breaking up the rest of the chair. By the time he had got down to the seat, I had ground a tolerable amount, perhaps something more than a whole legful, and the pile of sawdust had grown to a dusty pyramid which covered half the platter.

He indicated that I stop grinding. With plate in one hand and spoon in the other, he shovelled the stuff into his mouth. He made as if to masticate for a moment, then put down the spoon and took a long draught from his glass of liquid. And swallowed. The audience chuckled, as if to say, Yes, yes, that was funny, you really did swallow a mouthful of the stuff. But he followed it with another mouthful, and then another, eating greedily, swilling it down with the sickly orange liquid, until nothing remained on the golden surface but a powdery film, turning the warm glow of the metal dull.

I recommenced grinding, and he, after refilling his glass, strolled amongst the tables in the hall, exaggerating, boasting, joking, until the next course was ready.

By the time he came to his fourth plateful, both his eating speed and the enthusiasm of his audience were on the point of waning. A true master eater, though, is not simply one who can swallow, but one who can make that swallowing an entertainment. So, he descended with his golden platter into the audience and offered some of the fare to a tall, elegant-looking gentleman near to hand. The man declined, but the one next to him dipped his tongue in, and through his expression alone confirmed that it was indeed no more nor less than sawdust. Another gallant offered to eat a whole spoonful and, attempting to follow the example of Mulligan, poured a full glass of port into his mouth to accompany the dust. He chewed and chomped, and with great industry tried to swallow the mixture, but to no avail; the whole lot came back out and was deposited into a large, white handkerchief which, curiously, he stuffed straight into his jacket pocket. Another, less sober individual thought he might upstage Mulligan’s comic performance, and took a pinch as if it were snuff, but succeeded only in half choking himself.

Then we had the evening’s tough. Permit me here to indulge in a little amateur psychology. I have, over the years, observed many gatherings of men (women, for some reason, are seldom to be found in great numbers at these events), and it is unquestionably the case that whenever groups of men congregate there is a tendency for one man to emerge as the tough, the hard type. Unlike the playground tough-boy, the adult version is seldom the leader of the group, and never at the centre of things. He may in fact say and do very little. Often he is neither the richest nor the most powerful; neither the most respected nor the most heroic; he is in fact more often than not the dullest, and his presence is only ever really valued if trouble erupts and reliable fists are needed. Anyway, in the company of Mulligan, even in sight of him, the local tough would often disappear from view completely, receding further than normal into the anonymity of the group. However, over the course of an evening, these types invariably sought some means of proving themselves in face of a seemingly harder, bigger, greater man. Let us say that in this respect Mulligan, quite without wishing it, constituted an unfortunate stimulus-to-act for these men.