Chaingang

His bloodlust had grown to such proportions that he almost choked on his own saliva flow as he popped one of the rodents into his mouth, chomping it in two and crunching it as if it were a piece of popcorn. It tasted foul and he spat it out, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and flinging the murid hors d'oeuvres away from him.

Why would he—this lover of animals—try to eat a baby mouse? Because he was so fucking hungry, is why. It was a fierce thing that tickled his throat and made him slightly faint.

The early darkness settled around him. He took a deep breath and gathered up his belongings, waddling up out of the slough toward the isolated house.

He knocked at the door forcefully. Rang a silent doorbell. No reaction. In the distance a dog barked, but it was across the field from him. He penetrated the flimsy lock and closed the door behind him.

His powerful flashlight's beam stabbed into the blackness, illuminating a room full of genuine American antiques. Chaingang, whose disinterest in monetary values—not to mention aesthetics—was organic and complete, registered the possessions in his computer.

Swiftly he moved through the house, first determining the downstairs was empty, then negotiating the stairs in measured, surprisingly quiet footsteps as he eased his massive bulk up to the second floor of the old home. Nobody home, as he'd surmised.

He began with the upstairs bedrooms, working his way through the closets, bureaus, and trunks, looking for those things that always piqued his interest. By the time he'd made his way back downstairs, he knew a bit about the house and who occupied it.

Berthalou Irby, 67, female Cauc, widow of farmer Everette Irby, lived here with their only child, a retarded forty-one-year-old daughter named Imogene. Mrs. Irby had kinfolk across the river in Tennessee, and a sister in Bella Latierre, Louisiana, where they had gone to visit. He gathered they would not be coming back within the week.

Counting insurance, farm proceeds after sharecropper deductions, Social Security payments, medical disbursements, certificates of deposit, bonds, and other income sources, Berthalou Irby was getting by on somewhere between sixty-five and seventy-five thousand dollars income per year, one tenth of which she tithed to the Holy Trinity Church of Waterton.

The heat had been turned down and the house was like a tomb. He kicked it up to roasting and removed his clothing, careful not to track excessive dirt on the fine antique rugs. He'd already decided not to trash the house, his usual MO, for a variety of reasons—all of them self-serving.

Nude, he took his massive fighting bowie, and went in and took a steaming hot shower.

Once, during a period in which he was institutionalized, he'd heard a conversation about a motion picture in which somebody is stabbed while taking a shower. He was not a stupid man, and a thought tried to enter his head to the extent that such a scene was now ready to be played in reverse should an intruder enter this bathroom. But the thought was too close to normalcy and he rejected it as superfluous.

He realized this house had pleased him, bringing him from a bad to good mood almost instantly.

Nude but for his bata-boots, the heat feeling wonderful on his body, he ventured down into the basement to find the best treat of all—Mrs. Irby's food pantry! The larder was incredible. This woman liked to eat.

The canned goods alone dumbfounded him. He stood, awestruck, trembling with pleasure at the gold mine of edibles.

One wall of the large cellar was wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling Ball mason jars of canned foods, every jar with a neatly printed label. No art lover walking through the MOMA or the Tate or the Louvre ever thrilled at the beauty of a masterpiece the way the beast filled with appreciation at the colors and textures of such a display of food. No cocksman ever eyed an eighteen-year-old starlet with more unbridled desire than Chaingang felt as he lusted for munchies.

The beauty and diversity, the symmetry and promise of pleasure, the sheer size of such a display—it was beyond anything in his experience.

What a picture it would have made, the gigantic fat slob of a killer, mother-naked except for his combat booties, standing in front of the rows of waiting food: baked apples and applesauce, stewed tomatoes and potatoes, green peppers and green beans, corned beef and beef roast, chow-chow relish and piccalilli, cabbage and cauliflower, lima beans and pinto beans, baked beans and black bean soup, ham and pork sausage, grape jelly and apple butter, blackberries and peaches, pears and juice, peas and carrots, asparagus and broccoli, okra and squash and turnips and corn—everything cannable from chopped beef in gravy to Mrs. Irby's chili!