Page 5 of Long Pig
Blood in the Sink
Larry
Larry’s earliest memory was his father scrubbing his hands in the mudroom sink after he came home from work each day. He used an old, bristled brush to get beneath his fingernails. The soapy water ran down the drain in slow rivulets as his father meticulously cleaned himself.
“Always wash your hands before leaving the shop each day,” he’d say.
The hand scrubbing was a ritual, but at age six, Larry knew nothing about rituals. He only knew that he loved standing and watching his father’s painstaking attention to detail as he rewashed his clean hands. There was, however, a metallic odor mixed with the sweetness of death that clung to the man. It was a scent Larry loved.
Clyde, his father, was a butcher, and owned the most prominent butcher shop in the city. Slyme Butchery gave them a good income that allowed for an upscale home. Larry wore nice clothing, and even though he went to the local public school, he ran with the rich kids. Or rather, they ran with him. Larry was not a follower.
His mother was another matter; religion filled her days and nights. She spent hours at church seven days a week.
“The world is an evil place, and you were born in sin,” she would tell Larry. “Satan has hold of you and your father, and you will pay with your soul.”
She seemed to hate Clyde and anything that had to do with the butcher shop. It wasn’t righteous enough for her. It was a place for sin to dwell.
Because of her, his father entered through the back door of the house after long hours at work. She wanted the unclean stink washed away before he entered her holy presence. Clyde kept a change of clothes in the mudroom, and always changed after scrubbing his hands.
Larry was the exact opposite of his mother when it came to the family business. He loved everything about the butcher shop. The smells gave him comfort. The dead carcasses hanging in the freezer gave him a sense of peace he found nowhere else, especially not at church.
His earliest memories of his mother were her yelling about the sins of the flesh and his foul soul. She preached when his father was at work, and Larry couldn’t get away. Most of the time, he had no idea what she ranted about.
“Did you touch yourself?” she asked when she caught him leaving the bathroom one morning.
“No, ma’am,” he’d said, though he wasn’t sure what counted as touching himself. He needed to pee, and he would be in trouble if he sprayed urine on the toilet rim.
She backhanded him, and he fell to the floor, his lip bleeding.
“It’s a sin to touch yourself and masturbate,” she cried. “I see you. I know what you’re doing.”
He was glad someone did, because he had no idea what she meant. He tried talking to his father about it.
“God has strict rules for us, son. When you don’t obey the rules, you are punished. Your mother wants you to go to heaven. She knows men and boys touch their private parts because it feels good. That is a test from God. It makes us dirty. Obey your mother, and she won’t have cause to punish you.”
Larry learned that his penis was filled with sin. He did his best not to touch it, other than when it was necessary. It didn’t stop his mother from punishing him, but nothing really did. She ranted against a sinful world, filled with sinful people, and her own sinful family. He hated being alone with her.
Once a month, Clyde took his son to work. They were the best days of his young life. Though his father was religious, he didn’t preach like his mother.
The butcher shop held complete fascination for Larry. His unending questions ranged from how to cut the carcasses to where the dead animals came from. His father answered each patiently.
“Someday you will inherit the shop,” his father would say. “You are getting older, and soon I will teach you everything about the business.”
In Larry’s mind, the shop was already his.
Seeing death and imagining a sharp knife stabbing into flesh and bone were the highlights of Larry’s young life. It gave him a strange thrill. Touching himself was not on his radar. Death was.
When he spoke about the shop to his school friends, they didn’t understand. They gave him strange looks when they thought he wasn’t paying attention. Larry learned to keep his darker thoughts private.
Through the years, he learned that privacy was paramount to hide the monster inside.
Chapter Three
A Snake By The Tail
Willow
Willow reached the top of the ridge and heard Daisy barking before she saw Dale. He had a relatively large snake by the tail. He grinned when he noticed her, a look of gleeful delight in his expression.