Mother for Dinner

by Shalom Auslander

  And that was when Seventh decided that he would do as his mother had asked.

  He would honor her last wish, and he would make sure his brothers joined him.

  Not because Mudd deserved it; he suspected she didn’t. But because their people were a chain, as she always told him, an unbroken chain stretching back millennia, and Sixth’s blood on the edge of that blade had reminded him of all the Cannibal men and women and children, generation after generation, wherever they were and whenever they lived, who had performed this sacred ritual in the face of threats, oppression, even death.

  It was up to them now.

  To continue the chain.

  To save their people.

  And that meant it was up to him.

  It was one thing to leave your home and people. It was one thing to say you no longer wanted to belong to them. But it was another thing altogether to be standing at the edge of their muddy grave, the cold shovel in your hand, deciding whether to bury them or pull them out.

  Mudd’s Consumption might be the last Consumption.

  Ever.

  It had to be done, thought Seventh.

  And it had to be done right.

  First was having none of it. As the others stared dumbstruck at the knife, First stood and began to button his coat.

  Well, team, he said, I’m out. When the old knife enters, that’s my cue to leave. It’s been delightful, really. Brothers, sisters, you throw a hell of a party. I’d have brought a cake, but it looks like Mudd ate them all. I mean, all the cakes, everywhere, on earth. Congratulations, family, or condolences, whichever you choose; I’m on the congratulations end of the scale, I think you know that already. So: mazel tov, salud, huzzah, hooray, and hosanna. Good riddance, Mudd, you miserable fuck. I’ll spit on your grave if they ever dig one big enough.

  He turned and walked out, slamming the front door behind him.

  Eighth turned to Seventh, worry on his face. He can’t leave, he said.

  I know, said Seventh.

  Meat, said Eighth.

  I know, said Seventh.

  Meat? asked Zero.

  Meat, Eighth explained. M-E-A-T. It’s an acronym. Must Eat All Together. If we don’t all eat her, it’s not considered a true Consumption. Seventh, he can’t lea—

  But Seventh was already hurrying out the door.

  * * *

  • • •

  Our people are a chain, Mudd told Seventh.

  A chain? Seventh had asked.

  A chain, she said, made up of many links. And you are the next link. So if you ever decide, Hey, you know what? I don’t want to be a Cannibal anymore, I just want to be myself, well, listen, that’s okay.

  It is?

  You do you, right? said Mudd. But before you do you, do me a favor, okay?

  Sure, Mudd.

  Do me a favor and imagine all those links of the chain of your people, hundreds of them, thousands of them, stretching back for miles and miles and miles, more links than there are grains of sand on the beach, more links than there are drops of water in the ocean, each one a life, each one a member of your people who put his people before himself, and I want you to turn to those links, and I want you to look at them—your parents and your grandparents and your great-great-grandparents—and I want you to say, Fuck you.

  Mudd? Seventh asked.

  I want you to say, Kiss my ass. I want you to say, I don’t care if you died for our people, I don’t care if you suffered and slaved, I don’t care. Because I’m too good to be a link. But remember this, Seventh: However special you think you are, a link by itself is nothing. It can’t hold anything, it can’t support anything, it can’t protect anything. And that’s what you’ll be without your people:

  You’ll be nothing.

  * * *

  • • •

  Each part given out during the Allocation or the Apportioning or the Assigning or the Disbursement has its own deep significance, but Seventh knew that to receive the skin of the deceased, as he had, was a particularly special honor.

  The skin, Unclish once explained, is the garment we wear as we go through our lives, the coat of our physical existence, a coat marked with the many colors of our lives—with our scars and bruises, our joys and our sorrows. Here, from childhood, the red patch on your knee from when you fell off the tire swing. Here, the brown scar on your abdomen from your midlife hernia. Here, the blue bruise on your arm from when, old and frail, you slipped and fell on the icy sidewalk.

  Brown-black birthmarks.

  Purple-gray wounds.

  To be gifted this vivid varicolored robe, Unclish said as he looked down at his own veiny skin, is to be given a whole life.

  * * *

  • • •

  Perhaps nowhere in the world is snow more welcome than in Brooklyn. The dirty browns and dead grays disappear beneath the gathering whiteness, the grime and filth erased, magically, if only for a few hours. On school snow days, Seventh used to watch out the front window, silently cursing the people who trudged down the sidewalk, ruining the untouched snow, and the hideous plow that barreled down the street turning the cheerful white back to depressing gray, laying waste to the new world that was just beginning to form from the darkness.

  Small flakes began to fall as Seventh and First stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the old brick house that had loomed so long and so large in their consciousnesses: the crumbling brick face, the loose shutters, the faded fake security sign. Seventh nodded toward the roofline, where the sagging rain gutter had separated from the house, causing the downspout to buckle.

  Remember when you threatened to jump? he asked.

  No.

  You did.

  When?

  Auntie Hazel, said Seventh. After she died. I was in the living room. Suddenly I hear Mudd screaming: You get down here right now, young man, and eat your auntie!

  The two brothers began to laugh.

  Hazel was huge, said First. Not Mudd huge, but big.

  No! Seventh shouted in his best Voice-Cracking Teenager. I’m not coming down until you say I don’t have to eat her! Say it! Say it or I’ll jump!

  The brothers doubled over in laughter.

  She weighed like two-fifty, said First. I was afraid I had to eat the whole thing.

  You were right on the edge, said Seventh, your feet dangling over the side. I really thought you were going to jump.

  She told me to, First laughed. Mudd. She said I better jump, because if I didn’t she was going to kill me herself. I stayed up there for a while, man. I won too. She backed down.

  Seventh shook his head.

  No, she didn’t, he said.

  She did. She said I didn’t have to eat her. You came outside and told me so yourself.

  I lied, said Seventh. I told you Mudd said you didn’t have to eat her. But I told Mudd you ate her.

  Bullshit, said First.

  Truth, said Seventh.

  Ever the peacemaker, said First. That’s a bad habit, brother.

  I’m trying to quit.

  So what’d you do with Hazel, then? Flush her?

  I gave her to Third, said Seventh. I swear he could’ve polished her off by himself.

  The wind whipped around them, scattering the last of autumn’s dead brown leaves. First lifted his coat collar around his ears.

  So why are you out here trying to convince me to eat Mudd? he asked. Let Third eat my share and be done with it.

  Must Eat All Together, said Seventh.

  I didn’t eat Hazel, said First. You didn’t care then—why do you care now?

  Because Hazel didn’t leave us a house in Brooklyn, said Seventh. You heard Mudd: If we don’t do it right, we don’t get the house. I could use that money. Publishing’s not what it used to be.

  Nothing is, said First.

  He loo
ked up at the house again.

  It’s a shithole, Seventh. It can’t be worth enough. Not enough to eat her.

  This isn’t the neighborhood we grew up in, said Seventh. The market’s an Apple Store. The playground’s a Prada shop. The house is a shithole, yes, but it’s a two-story semi-attached five-bedroom shithole in the hottest real estate market in Brooklyn.

  First pulled his phone from his pocket.

  Hey Siri, he said. What is the average price of a five-bedroom house near Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York?

  Seventh smiled at the old secrecy.

  Can’t even tell Siri where we are, huh? he asked.

  Old habits die hard, said First.

  I have found what you’re looking for, said Siri. The average price for a five-bedroom house in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, is one point three million dollars.

  First whistled.

  That’s money, said Seventh.

  Divided by twelve, said First.

  Still money.

  But First just shook his head.

  I’m sorry, Seventh. I’m not eating her, not for all the money in the world. And trust me, I could use some cash right now.

  I’ll eat your share, said Seventh. Just like Third with Hazel. No one will know. Just come back inside and say you’re on board so they think it’s legit. Eighth’s a stickler for the rules.

  Seventh knew that eating someone else’s share was a violation of the rules of Consumption, but he hoped that as they prepared her, First would change his mind. It was either that or he was going to walk away right now anyway.

  That woman was poison, said First. You shouldn’t be eating her.

  Maybe I’ll throw her up, said Seventh.

  First allowed himself a small grin.

  Will that count? he asked.

  I’ll check with Eighth, said Seventh. You coming back in?

  First looked up at the old house in front of him.

  Sometimes, brother, he said, it feels like I never left.

  * * *

  • • •

  One cold December afternoon long ago, Father took Seventh into Manhattan to see the Christmas windows at Macy’s, which were filled with wondrous displays of animatronic Santas that blinked their eyes and waved their hands. All the city smelled like roasted chestnuts, and joyful shoppers filled the sidewalks, laughing and caroling, brightly wrapped gifts in their arms.

  Cannibals don’t celebrate a winter solstice holiday like everyone else, and Seventh always felt terribly left out of the festivities. And so later that day, as he and Father trekked back to Brooklyn, Seventh decided to invent a Cannibal winter holiday, so that Cannibal children in the future would have something to celebrate too. It would be a joyful holiday, he decided, a day of presents and treats, a day that would combine the flickering candles of Hanukkah, the glistening string lights of Christmas, and the magical fireworks of New Year’s Eve. He figured since they already had a Remembrance Day to commemorate the very bad thing that had happened to their people—whatever that bad thing was and whenever that bad thing happened—his new holiday would commemorate all the days in history on which nothing bad happened to their people, the days on which Cannibals were not beaten, not raped, not chased out of their countries with pitchforks and torches. He named his new holiday Nothing Day.

  Two weeks later, the very first Nothing Day arrived. Seventh woke early, before the rest of the family, and got to work. As quietly as he could, he wrapped their gifts—a clay pot he’d made in school for his parents, a pack of baseball cards for First, and a dictionary he’d found for a dollar at a yard sale the week before for Second. For Third, who loved cardboard boxes, he filled a large cardboard box with a bunch of smaller ones, and wrapped the whole thing with a big red bow. He piled the gifts on the coffee table, strung Christmas lights from the ceiling, found some votive candles in the kitchen cabinet—they weren’t exactly Hanukkah candles, but they were close enough—and placed them around the room. The soft glow of the candles and the happy blinking colors of the string lights made him feel warm inside, and the spirit of Nothing Day filled his soul. Then, when everything was ready, he placed a frying pan on the living room floor, dropped a package of Red Devil Super Loud firecrackers into it, and set them on fire.

  BAM! BAM! BAMBAMBAMBAM!

  The loud explosions made Seventh jump with joy, and when his terrified family came racing down the stairs in their bathrobes and pajamas, he held his hands overhead and cheered, Happy Nothing Day!

  What the hell are you doing? Mudd yelled, her eyes wide with panic.

  It’s Nothing Day! Seventh said, holding her Nothing Day gift out to her. Happy Nothing Day!

  Are those my good candles? she demanded.

  Good candles? Seventh asked.

  Those are my Remembrance Day candles! she yelled. Who said you could touch my Remembrance Day candles?

  But it’s Nothing Day, he said. The day when nothing bad happened to our people. We give presents, see?

  Mudd slapped the gift out of his hands. Seventh could hear the pottery shatter when the box hit the floor. Then she grabbed a nearby vase, pulled out the flowers, and doused the firecrackers, sending a plume of white smoke into the air.

  A day when nothing bad happened to us, she said as she stomped back upstairs to bed. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

  Father held Seventh as he wept, and said that even if Mudd didn’t like Nothing Day, he did, and would celebrate it with him every year.

  Then the fire alarm began to wail.

  But maybe next year, buddy, he said, we’ll do the fireworks outside.

  * * *

  • • •

  It would be nice to be Siri, Seventh once said to Dr. Isaacson.

  Why is that? Dr. Isaacson asked.

  No family, no past. No parents, no people, no chains. No identity.

  Hey Siri, are you black?

  No.

  Jew?

  No.

  Arab?

  No. I’m nothing.

  You mean Other?

  No, I mean nothing.

  I’ll put you down as None.

  Perfect.

  Well, she is an Apple, Dr. Isaacson said.

  In a predominantly Android world, said Seventh.

  Lousy Androids. They control the media.

  They’re taking our jobs, said Seventh. Filthy animals.

  She’s female too, said Dr. Isaacson.

  Yeah, but you can change that in her preferences, said Seventh.

  So she’s gender fluid, said Dr. Isaacson.

  Yes, said Seventh. She’s a Gender-Fluid-iOS-Based-Non-Corporeal-American. I’m surprised Rosenbloom hasn’t published her memoir.

  They don’t have it easy, said Dr. Isaacson.

  It’s a struggle, said Seventh, and it was clear to Dr. Isaacson he wasn’t referring to Siri anymore.

  People like their boxes, said Dr. Isaacson. Even when they say they don’t, they do. They like putting themselves in boxes, they like putting other people in boxes. They think the boxes will protect them. They think the boxes are worth protecting.

  But my box, said Seventh with a shake of his head. It’s killing me.

  I know, said Dr. Isaacson. The good news is that boxes are fairly simple to climb out of.

  Then how come so few do? he asked.

  I said it was simple, said Dr. Isaacson, I didn’t say it was easy.

  No, no, the doctor continued. Not easy at all.

  * * *

  • • •

  Well, said Seventh, what’s it going to be?

  He had gathered his siblings around the dining table, much as they had gathered earlier around their dying mother’s bed. But the tension was higher now; death had come, and time was running out.

  Our mother has passed on, he said to
them. Now, some of us liked Mudd, and some of us didn’t. Some of us loved her, some of us hated her. We’ve never agreed on that, and we never will. But we don’t have to. All we have to agree on is what to do with her. Do we eat her, or do we bury her? Those are the only choices. Some of you may want to eat her for cultural reasons. Some of you may want to eat her for inheritance reasons—this house is worth a considerable amount of money. Some of you may hate her so much you don’t want to eat her at all. Love, hate, or money, it doesn’t matter. All we have to agree on is what we’re going to do. And we have to agree on that right now.

  He suggested they put it to a vote. All those assigned a part by Mudd for Consumption would have a say. Zero, therefore, would not.

  I’ll just sit here quietly horrified, she said.

  Seventh adored Zero, but he really didn’t need her negativity right now.

  I’ll go first, he said, raising his hand overhead. Consumption.

  For love, hate, or money? asked Fourth.

  For culture, said Seventh. Look, guys, this is it. We’re the last. I’m not doing it for her; I’m doing it for everyone who came before her. And for anyone who comes after us.

  Eighth agreed with Seventh. Consumption, he said.

  Tenth did too. This is larger than us, he declared. This is our duty.

  A heavy silence filled the small room as the undecideds looked from one to the other.

  Okay, said First. I’m in.

  You’re in? Second asked in disbelief.

  For money, no doubt, Tenth said with disgust.

  Absolutely for money, said First. I earned that money.

  You’re sick, said Tenth.

  Love would be sicker, said First.

  How much money are we talking about? asked Second.

  According to Siri, said First, the average price for a five-bedroom around here is one point three.

  Million? said Ninth.