Reading with Rasta: The Cannibal’s Guide To Fasting by Dana Hammer
Igor is a huge, scary looking man. Standing six feet, six inches tall, encased in bulges of muscle, he attracts attention everywhere he goes. Ropey veins snake beneath his taut, tanned skin. A spider web sprawls across the left side of his face, a tattoo choice that has not endeared him to potential employers or dates, and one that he regrets deeply.
He is not the type of man one can ignore. He is also not the type of man who one confronts about breaking the park’s “no picking wildflowers” policy. He carries an old-fashioned woven basket, which is filled with bluebells, daisies, and a few shy violets he managed to find hiding behind a rotten stump. He picks wildflowers regularly. It is zen as fuck.
There was a time, not so long ago, when he would have mocked such a pursuit. There was a time when he turned up his nose at botanists, botany, and plant-based careers in general. He’d thought of them as glorified gardeners, hobbyists puttering away in the dirt. Those days are long gone now.
He gasps and slaps at a mosquito that tastes his neck. He always kills mosquitos if he can. He knows that his virus can’t be transmitted via mosquito bite, but the thought makes him panic all the same. Too many rumors and fake news articles have done their damage, and he can no longer be bitten without fear. That’s why he has covered himself in a long-sleeved T-shirt and long pants, despite the hot day. He doesn’t want to risk it. Infecting another person is his worst nightmare.
It’s been six months since he was released from the rehab center that purported to cure him of the urge to eat human flesh. The program itself was lengthy, and long on religion, but since his graduation he has managed to stick to a socially acceptable diet, and so, he supposes, the program was a success. He’s stuck with it and kept himself out of trouble. That’s more than many of his friends can say.
It’s getting too hot. He needs to get his flowers home and get them pressed between the pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica he purchased from a garage sale a few weeks ago. After they are pressed, he will categorize them, label them, and add them to his growing collection of pink, glittery scrapbooks. Igor does not understand why all scrapbooks are designed for basic eleven-year old girls.
He also needs to tend to his vegetable garden; in this heat, the plants will dry out and die, and then where will he be? It’s hard to get fresh, good-tasting produce nowadays, so he has to grow it himself. It’s either that or give in to temptation and eat the stuff he really wants to eat.
A family on a nature hike stares at Igor. He’s sure it’s not often they see a man like him, especially not out here, especially not with a basket of flowers, but their rudeness irritates him all the same. Igor glares at them.
“You got eye problems?”
The parents put protective hands on their children’s shoulders and scoot them away from the dangerous man. Igor rolls his eyes. “Douchebags,” he mutters as he walks past them.
He is tired of being stared at, tired of being an outcast.
He is tired of everything.
Igor’s home is a single-wide trailer in a “community” that the government has set up for former cannibals. Decent, lawabiding, non-infected folks do not want man-eaters to live in their neighborhoods, but they won’t go so far as to demand executions for the infected, and so the forced cannibal community was born.
For a time, the infected were held in prisons and jails, until those became too overcrowded, and the state was forced to find other solutions. Now, the official plan of action is this: identify the cannibals, send them to a treatment center, and then house them in secure, guarded communities with their own kind.
Igor’s community is one of the nicer ones. The trailers are small but clean, and the neighborhood is kept tidy and quiet. Each trailer even has a small patch of lawn, for residents to use as they please. Igor uses his for fruit and vegetable gardening. Some other people plant flowers, and some of them plant nothing at all, but fill their yards with furniture or above-ground pools.
Other communities aren’t so lucky. Igor is grateful for his home, despite the security guards who occasionally take their jobs a bit too seriously. Despite the constant scrutiny of the inspectors, despite the fact that his ID lists his address as “High Risk Containment Center” and that any time he has to show that ID to anyone, he gets glares or looks of disgust or flat refusals of service. He is grateful, because without it, and without a job, and without anyone willing to take him in, he would likely be homeless.
He enters his trailer and takes a deep breath. He immediately turns on the air conditioning, glad to have it after his hike. His flowers are already wilted; he hopes he got them home in time.
He flops on the couch, needing to cool down before he does anything else.
knock knock
“Shit,” he whispers, throwing a forearm over his eyes. Who would be bothering him now? He is not expecting company.
He opens the door and there’s Jud, standing there in his trucker hat and baggy jeans, looking squirrely like usual. Jud was in rehab with Igor. In fact, Jud was there long before Igor arrived, and he kind of took the newcomer under his wing and helped him get adjusted.
Igor is grateful for all the help Jud gave him in those days. But now that they’re both out in the real world, sometimes Igor finds Jud’s company a little bit much. Like, why does the guy always come unannounced? Would it kill him to call first? And he doesn’t ever want to do anything fun, he mostly just likes to bitch about the government and how the infected have been royally screwed by it.
He thinks it must be hard to live in Jud’s head. Igor gets exhausted just listening to him for an hour.
“Hey Jud. Come on in, man.”
Jud strides in quickly, like he’s in a big rush.
“Whoa buddy. You ok?”
Jud runs a hand over his trucker hat, patting. “I don’t know man. It’s been a weird day.”
“What do you mean? Sit down, let me get you a beer.”
Jud sits down on the couch, leans forward onto his knees. The couch screeches in protest; it’s old and the springs are desperate to retire. “You know your brother, Karl?”
“What about him?”
“I think he’s feasting again.”
Igor hands Jud a beer and sits down on the other end of the couch. It shifts beneath his bulk. “What makes you think that?”
It’s true that former cannibals often relapse. In fact, some studies show that upwards of 90% of them are feasting again within five years. But Karl isn’t the type. He’d been one of the program mentors when he was in rehab, helping out the new guys, teaching them how to control themselves around human flesh, all that.
“It’s these guys he’s hanging out with, dude. I saw him in town yesterday, at the grocery store, and he was with these guys…they were buying Clamato.”
Well, that doesn’t sound good. Everyone knows that human meat tastes best with Clamato. Nobody knows why, but it does.
“That…doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Maybe his friends genuinely like Clamato.”
“Nobody likes Clamato, Igor.”
Igor shrugs. “I don’t know, dude. I don’t think it’s time to panic, not over that. Did you talk to him? How did he seem?”
“He seemed like he was feasting, that’s what I’m telling you. He was all happy and glowing and like, dizzy. So were the guys who were with him.”
Igor sits back and closes his eyes. He remembers that part all too well. The lovely, thrumming buzz you got when you ate some human. How good it felt, like you’d just defeated all your enemies and fucked the most gorgeous girl on the planet.
Igor has never killed anybody. He isn’t one of those guys. But… there are other ways to feast. Ways he doesn’t like to think about too much.
“So what are you gonna do? You gonna talk to him?”
Jud shakes his head, looking down at his feet. “I don’t think I can, man. Those guys, if they’re feasting — and I think they are — I can’t be around that shit anymore. If they’ve got any on them, or if they happen to mention where they get it…it could really fuck up my abstinence.”
Igor presses his lips into a tight line. Now he sees where Jud’s going with this.
“You want me to talk to him.”
“Aw, man, would you? It would mean the world to me, dude. You know I’d do it myself if I could, but…”
“Say no more, Jud. I’m happy to help.”
Igor is not happy to help. He and his brother aren’t close, mostly because being around him brings up bad memories. Also, the idea of being around guys who might be feasting makes him clammy and sick. After all, he’s not superhuman. He has the same fucking urges Jud does, for Christ’s sake.
But he owes Jud. Jud’s been there for him lots of times, and it’s not as if Igor is overwhelmed with friends at the moment. And how bad can it be, anyway? He just has to find Karl and check up on him, make sure he’s still abstinent, then report back to Jud, make him feel better. And if Karl is using again, well…he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it.
“Where’s he staying? Can you get there ok?”
“He was assigned to Containment Center C, out by the river.”
Igor has been out there before, but it’s been a while. “Alright. I’ll go check up on him.”
“Thanks, buddy!” Jud pats Igor on the back, friendly and thankful. He stands up.
“You leaving already?” Igor is amused. Jud isn’t even pretending he didn’t come only to ask for a favor.
“Yeah, I gotta get down to my sister’s. She thinks she might have a job hookup for me, so that’d be awesome.”
Igor is impressed. It’s almost impossible for a cannibal, even a reformed cannibal, to get a legal job. Nobody wants to hire an employee who might snap and literally bite their heads off. Igor understands. Really, he does. Still, it sucks for guys like him.
“Is that a basket of flowers?”
Igor, startled, glances to where Jud is looking, where he’d abandoned his flower basket on the floor.
“Yeah. So?”
Jud chuckles, nervous. Like most people, he is slightly afraid of Igor, even though Igor has never given him any real cause for fear. Usually, this frightened response annoys him, but Igor doesn’t want to hear any shit about his hobby. Collecting wildflowers is zen as fuck, and it helps keep him sane. He is glad that Jud is uncomfortable.
“No, no reason. Anyway, thanks for checking up on Karl, man. I’ll call you, alright?”
“Alright.”
After Jud leaves, Igor presses his flowers, smoothing them patiently between the pages of an encyclopedia. He likes to use an M word, something in the middle of the alphabet. Today he chooses “masticate.”
Igor would like to head to Containment Center C right away, to get it over with, but the CanCare inspector is scheduled to stop by today, and if he isn’t around when she shows up, she’ll be in a pissy mood when she comes by next time.
CanCare is a lot like Medicare, except it’s for those infected with the virus, rather than old people. Since most of the afflicted are unemployable, and cannot afford medical insurance, the government provides them with taxpayer funded healthcare. In theory, this is a humane and sensible program designed to take care of the less fortunate, to make sure they are taking care of their health. In reality, the CanCare inspectors are meddling, annoying, and often downright abusive. When you get an inspector who hates the infected, it can be a real pain in the ass.
Igor’s inspector is a woman named Helen. She doesn’t exactly hate cannibals, but they clearly make her uneasy, and she would obviously rather be doing anything rather than hanging out in Containment Center trailer parks trying to make sure the inhabitants are maintaining their abstinence.
Helen is afraid of Igor, and her evident fear makes him intensely uncomfortable. Once, he tried to cover up his spider tattoo with an old girlfriend’s face makeup, to try to make Helen less skittish, and not only had he looked goddamn ridiculous, she hadn’t been reassured in the least.
He goes through his refrigerator and cupboards, looking for offending items. According to the “guidelines” issued by CanCare, those infected with the virus should keep a meat-free home. The idea is that consuming animal meat is a slippery slope, and it could tempt the infected into flesh eating. Once Igor had a can of tuna fish in his cupboard, and Helen found it. He will not make that mistake again.
In addition, rehabilitated cannibals are encouraged to avoid alcohol, nicotine, and “other stimulants” that can alter the brain chemistry and create an “excitable state” wherein they might go crazy and murder their neighbors for their rump roasts. Igor removes his beer from the fridge and hides it in a particularly lush tomato bush. Helen never bothers checking outside his home. She’s not that great at her job. He prefers her to the last inspector he had, a grumpy, angry man who liked to preach about how the virus was a punishment for Igor’s sins. He used his position as an excuse to make Igor take off his shirt and ogle him, ostensibly to give him a “medical exam” but really just because he was a dirty, sexually repressed old man.
Igor was not sad when the inspector got bitten by one of his clients and was forced to retire.
He flips on his little TV and goes through his TiVo, deleting any recordings that might be construed as “too violent” for his tender, barely rehabilitated psyche. He wonders if he should record a few episodes of Wheel of Fortune or The Bachelor or some simple shit like that, but decides against it. It’s one thing to pretend to follow the rules, it’s another thing to pretend to be a pansy.
By the time she arrives, Igor’s home is tidy, meat- and alcoholfree, and ready for inspection. She looks around his place with her usual worried, tired face.
Igor looks at her and clenches his fists. She’s such a tiny, pretty thing. He hates that she sees him in this ugly little trailer. He hates that she sees him as a threat. He hates that she sees him as part of a job that she despises.
“Come in, sit down,” he says, trying on his best manners. “Can I get you anything to eat? I’ve got some great blueberries, fresh from the garden.”
If she finds his gardening abilities impressive, she doesn’t say so. She’s looking at his Encyclopedia Britannica, the books stacked up in a tall tower next to the TV stand.
“What are you doing with these?” For the first time, her face doesn’t look scared or upset. In fact…she looks sort of amused.
Igor isn’t sure what to say. He could tell her about the wildflowers.
It’s not against the rules. But he doesn’t want her to think he’s a pussy. It would be too much, on top of what she already must think of him.
He decides to stick with a partial truth. “I got them from a garage sale a few weeks ago.”
“I haven’t seen a set of these in years. We always had one in the house when I was growing up, but we got rid of them once we got the internet. God, that makes me sound old, doesn’t it?”
Startled, he smiles at her. “Not at all. Hell, I’m the one who still has a set, right?”
She laughs a little, a sound that makes him light up inside. How long has it been since he made a pretty woman laugh? He wishes she’d known him before, back when he was somebody.
She walks into his bedroom, which he was careful to clean and deodorize before she came. She sees his mat and free weights. “Still doing the weightlifting I see?”
She frowns. CanCare doesn’t like it when its patients participate in sports, body building, or anything that could be construed as aggressive. They would rather everybody do yoga or Pilates or synchronized swimming. And that’s all fine, but not for Igor. Igor would be lost without his weights. It’s all he’s really good at anymore.
He nods, curtly. He doesn’t want to have this discussion again.
She takes out a little notebook from her jacket and writes something down. Igor scowls. Was he just thinking she was pretty? Had he really cleaned his room up for her? He wishes he hadn’t. He wishes he’d left his stinky, sweaty socks on the floor, so she’d have to pinch her dainty little nose against the smell.
Irritated, he turns around. “I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.”
“You know, I used to lift,” she says, suddenly.
He whips back around. He was not expecting that. “Really?”
She smiles and nods. The smile changes her whole face, and the effect is breathtaking. “Back in college. I gained the freshman twenty five, and so a friend of mine took me to her trainer, to help me lose the weight. I was pretty into it for a while. I still do it a little. Just for fun, not competitively or anything.”
He cocks his head and looks at her, appraising. She can’t be more than five foot two. He can’t see much of her underneath her big, boxy, professional getup, but he guesses she might have some good tone under there. He wonders about that and starts to get a little stiffy.
He changes the subject.
“So you need to take a look at my cupboards? No tuna this time.” His weak joke doesn’t land. She looks sort of put out, and he can’t tell why.
“It’s alright. I think I’ll just go.”
“Alright. I’ll show you out.”
He holds the door open for her as she leaves. He watches her go, eyes lingering on her shapely, elegant calves, smiling a little at her clumsy, old-grandma shoes. He wonders why she wears such clunky shoes on such lovely legs. Maybe she needs orthopedic shoes, because of a foot injury. Maybe it’s hard on her feet, walking around all these trailer parks all day. Maybe she just likes ugly shoes. It can’t be a money-saving thing. CanCare inspectors make excellent money; it’s why most of them get into it.
He wishes he could ask her. He wishes he could take those shoes off her poor feet and set them in his lap, and rub them while she tells him all about her day.
He shuts the door. He has to get ready to go to Containment Center C.