Butcher

excremental inspection of his anal aperture. (Talk about your scut work! But in these matters no stone could be left unturd.) A record of the occupant's feces production and wiping patterns was seriously kept and examined. It was known colloquially as the log log. Rectal, nostril, oral checks, and routine examinations of Bunkowski's head, armpit, and pubic hair were made by unlucky correctional personnel. They parted his toes, looked up his nose, and made him spread his rose looking for ... well, anything. He found their efforts embarrassingly amateurish.

No one considered that anything of practical use could be hidden under a mountain of surplus gut. After all, he was constantly subjected to metal detectors, and, frankly, if anyone had looked the experience would have been traumatizing in the extreme. The beast was careful never to wash there, cultivating a moldy green scum of toxic tummy-jam that gave off a powerful stink when exposed to air. Sewer shit, sour diapers, and gas line breaks were Chanel No. 5 by comparison to the paint-peeling, stinging, blindingly odoriferous nightmare of Chaingang's belly-slash stench. By the time Dr. Hodge returned, the mini-grapple and line were neatly lucked away under the mastadon's rubbery truck-tire-sized fat apron.

'Well now, where were we? Oh, yes, Dan, we were discussing your mother—” The doctor jumped at a loud sound escaping through the biter mask. It sounded like a lanyard being pulled on a chainsaw, the startling noise that Bunkowski made in lieu of a human laugh. He couldn't help himself. The bound, shackled inmate was amused at the thought of catalog number V-C-1238 arriving. He wished he could have sent Dr. Hodge the practical joke item from Illinois Novelties, Inc. It was fun to imagine the good doctor opening a package, finding Chaingang's “gift donor” card, and then the “realistic bloody heart.'

36

Clearwater Levee Road

A kind of unusual thing, not a bad thing, but certainly out of the ordinary, surprised Keith Glenn and his father Thursday night, the twenty-third. They were watching a Goldie Hawn movie Keith had seen before but his dad hadn't, and he was mildly annoyed to hear the doorbell, till he discovered it was Doc Royal. Surprised, to be sure, because there was no sound of a vehicle out in the road.

“Hey, Doc! What-chew doin’ out here in the rain?'

“Evening, Keith,” the older man said, in his friendly tone of voice.

“Doc Royal?” came a loud call from behind the young, bearded man. “Get yourself in here, man. Keith, get outta the way!' his father bellowed cheerfully.

“I can't. Let me stand here. This heat feels good.” He took off his rain hat and hung it up on one of the pegs by the door, taking a handkerchief out to mop his face. “I love a good old wood stove.'

“Come on in here!' J. G. Glenn extended his hand and Royal shook it. The man put his arm around Royal as if he weren't wearing a dripping raincoat. “Gladaseeya! We didn't hear your car.” He pulled the doctor into the living area.

“I'm down the road a ways.” Royal gestured vaguely.

“Come in and watch TV with us,” the son said.

“I can't, Keith. My boots are muddy and—'

“Get yourself in here. Keith, get that blamed thing off.” J.G. hopped around turning on lights, pushing a chair over. “Sit here. Get outta that coat.” The man issued an incessant stream of orders to anyone within earshot, as was his habit.

“Go on and watch your program. I thought I'd drop in just for a second. Don't let me interrupt. Keep your program on.'

“We wasn't watching nothing,” Glenn the elder said, scurrying around putting water in a pot and setting it over the flame. “Keith, get in here and scare up something for the man to eat.'

“I'm not—'

“How about some Girl Scout cookies? Daddy just bawt ten boxes off of Andy Henry's girl and ain't no way in hell we gonna eat ‘em all. Here, take a box home.” He placed a box of unopened cookies in front of Royal on the nearby table.

“You two been doing all right?” the white-haired man asked, hoping the answer would not be drawn out. He was rather in a hurry to go about his business.

“We been getting along fine, me and the boy,” J.G. Glenn said.

“Time helps heal.'

“It surely does.” The man got moist eyed as he talked about Myrtle Glenn, who'd eventually died from a number of debilitating diseases including disseminated sclerosis, for which Royal had treated her the last eight years of her life. It was easy for the doctor to commiserate. He'd shared the loss.

There hadn't been a day of those years she'd been entirely free from severe pain, and this expert in manufactured anguish, this man who knew and comprehended the complexities of the nervous system and the mysterious codes of the brain, had made her into a pet. Watching, measuring, testing, savoring her days of tremors, killing headaches, pneumonia, paralysis, and finally the death that came to mercifully claim her.

Mistaking his motives and never knowing his secret brutalities, the men thought of him as a saint, who'd given of his time selflessly to help their loved one.

“J.G., I wonder if I could impose on your kindness?'

“Whatcha need, Doc?'

“I know this is a big imposition, but I was wondering, could I ask Keith to give me a lift into town?” He could as easily have asked to borrow five hundred dollars, the man's best suit, anything imaginable, and the answer would have been an immediate, unconditional yes. They'd both told him often enough how they would appreciate it if he'd ask for something—anything—to help lessen the sense of debt they felt toward Doc Royal.

Even as he made his gratuitous thank-yous he was being escorted to the truck, helped into the front seat, a cup of coffee and a box of Girl Scout cookies in his hands. Keith was putting the key in the ignition and J.G. was yelling instructions and orders from the front door.

“Say, by the way,” he added as a smiling afterthought, “don't say too much about me being around here at night like this. I get yelled at by everybody when they find out I drive after dark.” Both men chuckled knowingly.

“You come here any time, Doc, night or day,” J.G. hollered, giving a big stage wink, a clowning co- conspirator, “and we won't say nothin!' They waved a fond good-bye and Keith Glenn pulled onto the darkened blacktop. “Don't be so long before you—” he could hear the man still shouting from his doorway as they drove off into the wet night.

37

Bayou City

Ray Meara came across the levee road slower than usual, trying not to think about the water that seemed to draw closer by the hour as he splashed through the punishing potholes. But what would he do? If he lost this crop he'd owe for last year and this one as well. It took thirty to forty large just to get fifty to sixty back. How could he make it? He'd end up going to the man and putting his farm up. Wouldn't that be a bitch? Gamble with his ground just to pay debts? What was the point of thinking about it? He flipped the radio on.

“—woman looking through a trash bin in north St. Louis found the body of her twelve-year-old daughter this morning, according to police. The mother of the girl had found a trail of bl—” He flipped to a station playing music, and mashed the gas medal.

He supposed he could do something with Sandy. Make a major move of some kind. The mere suggestion of it jabbed him in the guts.

He went about ninety all the way to town and pulled up across from the bank in an awful mood, shaken from angst and his own driving. He was in an even worse mood when he came out of the bank, and decided he might as well go in Pete's Hardware next door and take care of that, too. He could look at all the tools and mellow out.