Drowning in Gore

by Ledger,John

  A week later they received a note from the state about the default on the payment.

  Dear Foster Placement Providers,

  Due to unsustainable demand of funds the state will no longer provide the contracted amount previously stipulated for maintenance of foster children. Clothing, food stamps, education and daycare support is also terminated immediately. Medical care through the Medicaid program will also be ending at the end of this month. Please get the children in your care into their doctors and get their medicines refilled before then. Families are encouraged to put the foster children under their own personal insurance plans. If this is not possible, please utilize your local emergency rooms for any medical care the children need.

  We understand that these changes may make affording appropriate care of the children in your home difficult to manage. If you cannot afford to care for your foster children, a state run home is being arranged. Foster children will be able to be dropped off at the home for permanent transition beginning at the first of the month. If you have any questions, please contact your immediate foster case manager. I’m sure we all understand that these are not best practices in ensuring appropriate care of children who are wards of the state. We have no other feasible options at this time. State and federal resources have been exhausted. We are doing all we can to ensure we are meeting the immediate needs of our children.

  Thank you,

  Nancy Kraftwood

  Senior Management Coordinator

  Child Welfare Social Services Division

  St. Louis, Mo 63104

  “That state run home is nothing but an orphanage,” June said. “Those kids are just going to sit there and starve.”

  “There’s not much anyone can do about that,” Steve said. “We all know what’s been going on in this country. No money finally means no money.”

  “What about all those other kids?” June said.

  “There’s bound to be other families like us,” Steve said. “We wouldn’t think of putting Elijah in one of those homes. I doubt many other families will do the same.”

  “Can we afford it without the subsidy?” June said.

  “We’ll have to,” Steve said.

  ***

  “We are free to go?” June said.

  “Indeed,” The man said. “You put a hell of a show on for us tonight. You could stay. We could make a whole lot of money together. I didn’t know you had that killing streak in you.”

  “We’re going,” June said.

  “Have it your way,” The man said. “I doubt you’ll make it five blocks down the road. It’s a jungle out there. I dare say you’d be safer down in that bloody pit.”

  June knew he was right. Death was certain, but outside it was on her terms. She pulled her boy close to her, her Elijah, and walked past the man, out of the building and into the night.

  ***

  Two years had gone by since the State had eliminated the foster care subsidy program. Steve, June and Elijah had survived, thought not very well. There were many days where none of them got enough food. The state-run home for children was open and willing to take care of Elijah but Steve and June had heard hellacious rumors about the place and couldn’t bring themselves to leave Elijah there. If they knew the boy would have enough to eat and a safe place to sleep that may have swayed them, but from what they heard the home was a place where children went to die. Many foster parents that they knew weren’t allowed to see the children they left there after the state-run home opened.

  June was standing with Steve and Elijah in a long line outside the building with other foster families. Once a month the families had to check in with the social services building. This eliminated any home visits, meetings or court dates. All that the official needed to see was that the child was alive, then they would sign a piece of paper affirming that fact, then they would be free until the next month. June left Steve and Elijah in line to go speak with an older man that was crying a little away from the building. His body racked with sobs. She put a hand on his shoulder and he didn’t startle. He just looked at her.

  “Are you okay?” June said.

  “They won’t let me see my grandson,” the old man said. “I bet they just killed him. I never trusted this place and I had my daughter to thank for leaving him here. I would have taken him. I would have cared for him. This place is death to kids. It’s like an abattoir for children or something.”

  “Do you really think they actually kill children?” June said.

  “Nothing surprises me anymore,” The old man said. “I’ve heard that any parent that wants to drop their children off there, they can, no questions asked. I know someone who did this. She said that her kid was starving and she didn’t have a choice. She said the home promised to take care of their child. More than that, I’ve heard that they sometimes actually pay parents to leave their children at the home. Why do you think they do that?”

  “I don’t know,” June said.

  “I bet none of us really wants to find out,” The old man said. June gave the man a reassuring squeeze on his arm and turned to see Steve walking toward her. She was surprised to see him since they were still very far away from the front of the line. Elijah wasn’t with him.

  “Where’s Elijah?” June said. “Is something wrong?” Steve tried to meet her gaze but couldn’t. June began to panic. “Where’s Elijah?” She said. June could feel her stomach churn with acid and she almost retched. It had been weeks since she’d had a decent amount of food to eat. Her body had become bony and slightly bent from malnourishment. Steve had fared worse than her. She knew he was giving as much food as he could to Elijah so that the boy would live. Steve had spent the last several nights sobbing against her shoulder about not being able to provide for him or her.

  “Elijah is gone,” Steve said. He pulled a thick wad of dollars of out his pocket and showed her. “He told me that Elijah would be safe.” June looked at the money. There was so much, but nowadays it would be barely enough for a single day of food. The paper currency meant almost nothing.

  “You sold him to somebody!” June said. She slapped Steve in the face over and over. He grabbed her hands and held them to his chest.

  “He would die staying with us,” Steve said. “We can’t care for him.”

  “Better with us than whoever you sold him to,” June said. She shoved Steve away from her. He fell backwards to the ground. He had been so weak lately. There wasn’t much left of stature or power to the man she married, her high school sweetheart. June scanned the throng of people. She caught a glimpse of Elijah being herded with other children into the back of a cargo van. She screamed, but nobody paid attention to her. A small man closed the back doors of the van and slapped a palm on the glass window. The van drove off. June ran up to the man. She was screaming and waving her hands. Steve trailed behind her. She finally caught up to the small man and pulled him to her.

  “Where are you taking my son?” June said.

  “He’s mine now,” The man said. June raised a hand to strike him. “Hit me and I’ll feed him to the dogs in one of the preliminary bouts to warm up the crowd.” June stayed her hand.

  “The killing floor?” June said.

  “At your service,” The man said.

  “I want my son,” June said.

  “He’s mine now, bought and paid for,” the man said.

  “Maybe we can come to some sort of deal,” June said. The man looked at June and felt her strong hands gripping his shirt. He felt her depthless anger in her love for her child. He saw ferocity in her eyes. He looked over at her husband. The man looked like most of the others did now. He still lived and breathed, but there was no fire in him. He might as well have been dead already. The man looked back at the woman and felt hate in her glare.

  “Maybe we can come to some sort of deal,” The man said. “Have you heard about my business?”

  OLD DAVE DIES AT THE END

  Kent Hill

  “BULLSHIT!” cried Charlie as Old Dave continu
ed to spew out his tale in a voice fading beneath the brandy he sucked down like it was keeping the crusty gent from falling asleep.

  “There weren’t a bovine in sight that night, Chucky me boy; least not one relieving itself on the quarter deck. No – no, this night belonged to the wind and the dark and the waves that roared in like folks inching to see blood or a severed head at a highway collision.

  “I hate to rub salt in the pork, old fella, but it’s hard at this time of night – especially after all the brandy you’ve poured into your barrel, to take the story of a man with a tail seriously.”

  Those surrounding Old Dave at the mahogany all then grumbled in agreement at the words of the bartender Reginald. He had manned his post since his hair was black as the sky outside the windows, and now that it had turned to smoke he had heard, in that time, enough sea monster horseshit to write a book. And – he had, a novel that lay in a draw in the desk by his bed, written in longhand on the nights when his wife was not in the mood for love. A book that none of the barflies knew of and that was how he preferred it to remain – at least until it was published. Then he’d have something for show and tell.

  “I swear to one and all on me own departed mother’s six middle names – when the water crossed the deck and tickled the man’s toes he sprouted a tail.”

  “Ok, what then, Dave? Did he roll about in bread crumbs and squeeze on a little lemon finally crying out ‘EAT ME’ before those assembled?”

  “Laugh all ye like, Herman Beanerman, if one of the those slippery devils ever decides to come to your door I bet your face be turnin’ the color of the bath water after the horse you bed nightly steps out to towel off by the fire.”

  Old Dave never threw insults around. He wasn’t lying. Beanerman’s old lady was better suited for drawing Amish buggies, its true, but the fact the little old drunk had fired up enough to hurl abuse now had the drinkers perplexed and curious enough to hold their tongues while he finished his story.

  “Af ‘er he grew his gills he started carrying on and on. On and on he carried on about women. Did we have any aboard, were we close enough to a port that had a brothel, could any one of us throw the end of a mop over our heads and fashion a pair of breasts out of spoiled apples and make pretend we was feminine. On and on the merman carried on. Said it’d been ten moons to the hour since he’d felt the silk of woman’s skin, felt his sex parts rushing in, loved that taste of mortal sin – on and on he carried on. Then a second wave comes over the deck, violent and white. When the curtain came down he was less of a man and more like a fish; skin all scales and eyes bloated and seemingly afire.

  His tome to the glories of women at an end, he turned to me shipmates, one and all, and tore at their skin like the sky, now alive with white fire, ripped at our sheet as we headed into the wind. The deck ran red with the blood of sailors who’d survived the wind and the rain and the threat of sea monsters since afore their legs had forgotten the steadiness of the solid ground and the call of the ocean sang to them, as sweet as the wives and whores whose faces were the flames of candles in windows of homes on far off shores. The fish monster made short work of the crew and with the third wave he disappeared. Why he left me to do the tell I’ve no concept of. But here before you I sit and say that there be creatures in these waters that come to the world as men. And they be men of gallant standard and the type most women would throw open their legs to without second thought. But the kiss of the vast blue brings to the surface the colors of their make. Without the touch of the hidden flower between ladies thighs they are madmen and thirst then for the blood of any who cross them. The ocean washes off their thin mask and the devils they are stare at men as little more than my brandy on a bitter eve. Once you stare at them eyes, your soul of it can take no leave.”

  “And – there’s – no sea monster big enough, to ever frighten me - got a whale-of-a-tale to tell you, lads, a whale-of-a-tale or two, ‘bout the flapping fish and the girls I’ve loved, on nights like this with the moon above – a whale-of-a-tale and it’s all true, I swear by my tattoo of a little old chap fuckin’ me in the ass with a wet mackerel.”

  Beanerman had great timing and the barflies all laughed and hollered and praised his comic genius before they each threw back the remainders in their glasses and headed for the door. They all slapped Old Dave on the shoulder as they passed him and bid him good night. The old man watched them all leave before he followed suit.

  He was at the door and had one arm in his moth-eaten cardigan before Reginald called out to him.

  “You be right getting back to Olive, old son?”

  “Eye, Capon, she has waited for me to warm the bed for long enough. Be seein’ ya.”

  “Till the morrow, old man.”

  And Reginald watched the disheartened figure slip slowly out into the gloom. He knew the man long ago sought out eminence and ignominy but both had given way to a fulltime life which in his mind he wished to be free of, but in this heart he cherished and would now and never part with.

  ***

  Old Dave lived in a house with a white picket fence in a side street named Market Square, two blocks from Main Street to the west. The street was so named because of the way it broke off from the main arterial road (in the shape of a perfect square) and rejoined it further along forming neither a culde sac nor a dead end. The town planners were a troupe of fucking geniuses.

  Dave staggered his way on failing knees, along the garden path and stopped by his bedroom window. His wife Olive lay asleep and reverberating into her pillow like Big Bird. Her silver hair made a perfect accompaniment to the moonlight and the old man smiled in the stillness at the only woman who did, does still, and ever could put up with his innumerable idiosyncrasies. His need to be heard, his need to obeyed, his need to have a hot water bottle placed on the toilet seat before he took a shit on a chilly winter morning.

  Olive then ceased her snoring and turned over. As she did she reverberated in another way. Her bum-burp was of such magnitude that it momentarily lifted the sunflower-decorated sheets.

  Old Dave’s lust floated back to the ground floor with the sheets. Olive was more Angela Lansbury now than she was Helen Mirren and Dave found he became erect less and less when he thought of her. In fact his pencil was only at its sharpest these days when he’d watch the Catholic school girls line up at the end of the street for the bus. But he buried this longing as deep as it could be buried; that shit bought you a trip to the big house at the best of times and he didn’t have the wallet or a reasonable excuse to visit the backstreets of Bangkok.

  He sighed and carried on toward the garden shed where he took up his ugly-stick and night crawlers and headed slowly back past the house, down to the end of the street and back to town. More specifically, he was off to the quayside to cast a line.

  As he rounded the corner the wind picked up and for a second he though he heard his wife fart again in her sleep. He thought he could smell it and thus he groaned deeply, a mixture of pain and sorrow, as he painfully made his way.

  The sea was calm and the heavens were reflecting well as the old man struggled to his knees and then to his ass. He dangled his world-weary stilts over the end of the pier as he performed the ritual sacrifice and thrust a night crawler callously onto the hook at the end of his line. He made a good cast and soon he was content, or as content as he thought a man of his years should be. He had outlived his entire kin save for his farting wife and his hairdressing son. He’d seen the world survive the insanity of war and technology and had lived long and seen a little bit of everything. Now all he thought of was the gentle song sung by the breakwater and the flask of brandy in his pocket. He removed the sliver flask with his initials engraved upon it and took a long pull, long enough to make the flask half empty. But he was a half full kinda guy.

  Then, there was tension on the line.

  Dave quickly shoved the drink back into his pants and took a good hold of the rod. His opponent was strong but it didn’t start putting up much of a fight t
ill he started reeling it in.

  The old man puffed and panted and sweated like a Hippo in the desert as he brought his leviathan, as it played out in his mind that is, kicking and screaming and begging for mercy into the world where the monsters walked on two feet and would more likely sue your ass than beat all the rainbow-colored shit out of you like they did in the days when men fought with swords and refused to battle like dogs.

  One last mighty effort and the surface of the water broke. Old Dave felt the spray and tasted the salt and then turned to examine his prize. But that low sickness that visited him when he was awakened in the night by his darling’s trouser-coughs now came to him here at the end of the pier as he saw that all his labors had afforded him was a massive clump of glossy kelp.

  Dave dropped the line. The boulder of kelp went, KERRPLUNCK and Dave let fly with the customary, Awww FUCK!

  Then the cramp hit him.

  Down in the gut, no, below the gut, in that no man’s land between the underside of his beer-belly and the point where his cock had sprouted. The pain was sharp and it was enough to wind the elderly gent. The pain brought to his mind the Harry Nilsson song: ‘Oh I’d rather be dead, dead, dead then wet my bed.’ Dave needed a piss, now, and badly.

  He unbuckled his belt and lifted his belly and then he felt the warm release. These were the only other times when he was as hard as a Scottish winter and thus he had no need to grab his doodle to point and shoot as it were. During these times he was self-guiding and his cockhead computer’s aim was true.

  Feeling the moment pass Dave, still holding up his girth, began to wave his cock about from side to side like a blind man would with his cane.

  But he stopped when he heard another KERRPLUNCK. A KERRPLUCK he never expected to hear. The last KERRPLUNCK he would ever hear.

  The dark shape rose out of the warm ocean amidst the foam of salt and the only remnants of Dave’s piss. Dave’s face turned a whiter shade of pale, so white that it could, in a side by side comparison, make an albino’s nuts look tanned.