Everything Has Teeth

by Strand, Jeff

  "I will never serve that sort of product. Hang your head in shame for even letting those words come out of your mouth. Hang it. All the way down."

  "What about celebrity endorsements? Didn't Jennifer Lawrence come in here once?"

  "Yes, but she purchased nothing. It angered me."

  "You wouldn't actually have to club a young woman over the head, you know."

  "Excuse me?"

  "You're assuming that we'd be the ones to kill the people we used for meat, but that's not necessarily the case. And they wouldn't have to be young women in the prime of their life. There are ways to acquire humans for the grinder without actually doing any of the luring or the clubbing or the dismembering ourselves."

  "You've researched this, haven't you?"

  "No, sir, I would never do something so evil."

  "You've run the numbers! You've created a spreadsheet!"

  "No, no, you falsely accuse me! It is not my fault if I absorb information without purposely seeking it! I know the length of the Amazon River. Have I ever sought this fact? I have not. But it was presented to me, and there it remains, lodged in my brain through no fault of my own."

  Klaus looked to the heavens. "He compares river length trivia to a sinister plan about feeding human corpse bratwurst to the public! What have I done to deserve this madness? Why can't my life go back to being simple, as it was before my employee started suggesting that we serve human flesh?"

  "We will not speak of it again," said Stefan. "My brother works at a fish market, and if Prechtel Bratwurst goes out of business I'm sure he'll allow me to clean fish for him. It is a noble profession, cleaning fish. You can't just cook them with their innards intact. That is disgusting and unsanitary."

  "Go home, Stefan," said Klaus. "I will finish sweeping the floor. Go home and regain your sanity. Return tomorrow morning with your mind free of the toxins that have polluted today's thoughts."

  Stefan nodded. "Yes, sir. I apologize if I caused offense and discomfort."

  Klaus watched Stefan leave the shop. He was a good boy. A hard worker. Klaus supposed that he was entitled to the occasional deranged idea.

  Perhaps a celebrity endorsement would work. There had to be a celebrity who had fallen upon hard times and would do it for very little money. Tonight before he went to sleep Klaus would make a list of actors who had not been on television for a while.

  The bell above the door tinkled as a tall, thin man walked into the shop. He was dressed entirely in black, from his hat to his boots. "Are you closed?" he asked.

  "It is past closing time, yes," said Klaus, "but I will happily sell you a bratwurst or two."

  The man smiled. "I am not here to purchase meat. I am here to help you. I have watched your store for several days. That may seem like the behavior of a creepy stalker who means you harm, but I assure you this is not the case."

  "You...you have watched my store?"

  "Not twenty-four hours a day. Only during business hours, and it's not as if I've been watching from morning until night. It's more like keeping an eye on the place. That's what I should have said in the first place: I have been keeping an eye on your place for several days. That sounds much less creepy. And do you know what I have noticed?"

  "What?"

  "Insufficient customers!"

  "I know this," said Klaus. "I don't need a stranger to walk into my shop and tell me that business is poor."

  "And why is business poor?" asked the man. "You have a perfectly fine location. Our great nation has not gone vegan. Your prices are above average but not unreasonable. And according to a random polling of the few customers you do have, your bratwurst is flavorful."

  "It's the best bratwurst in Germany!"

  "No, but it's pretty good. Your problem is that there's nothing new. Nothing to generate excitement. Nothing to make people say, 'I must drop what I am doing, even if I am bathing my child, and hurry over to Prechtel's before they sell out of their latest bratwurst masterpiece!'"

  "Have you been consulting with Stefan?"

  The man shook his head. "This is my own observation."

  "Then do you come in here just to insult me? To point and laugh? To say, 'Ha ha ha, look at the man whose livelihood is at risk! Soon he will be living on the streets! Perhaps a rat will defecate in his ear as he sleeps! Ha ha ha!'"

  "No, my desire is to stop that from happening."

  "And how can you do this?"

  "I have meat to sell you."

  "What kind of meat?"

  "Special meat."

  "Be more specific."

  "The most delicious meat in the land."

  "From what animal does this meat originate?"

  "Meat so succulent that it melts in your mouth. Meat that will have customers lining up for blocks. Meat that few have ever had the privilege of squeezing between their teeth."

  "But what kind?"

  "That is a discussion we can postpone until a later date."

  "Human flesh?"

  The man cleared his throat. "There are elements of this arrangement that don't need to be fully disclosed. Cow meat, pig meat, goat meat...once it goes through the grinder, it doesn't matter if it was a deer or a chimpanzee, right?"

  "I do not agree with that."

  "My meat is inexpensive and delicious. Satisfaction guaranteed. Your sales will increase by thirty to thirty-five percent in the first week alone."

  "Is it human flesh?"

  "You talk like a man who is obsessed with the subject. Human flesh this, human flesh that. We've known each other for perhaps four minutes and yet the subject has come up twice already. That's not normal. Let me worry about those inconsequential details; you focus on preparing it into the finest bratwurst in Germany!"

  "Human flesh bratwurst."

  The man in black was silent for a moment. "Yes. Yes, okay? I'm trying to sell you dead bodies. That's why I'm here. Are you happy now?"

  "No, I'm actually less happy."

  "Why is this a problem? Are these bodies contributing to society by just lying around? Can a corpse do volunteer work or hold public office? What good do they serve? Are they pleasant to look at? Think of how many things we could store underground if coffins weren't down there taking up so much space. Think of how much fire could be saved each year at our crematoriums, fire that could be used to cook food for the poor."

  "Cannibalism is wrong!" Klaus insisted.

  "'Cannibalism' is such an ugly word. I prefer to think of it as 'maximizing unconventional dietary resources.'"

  "I won't do it! I won't sell that to my customers! Get out of my shop!"

  "I understand your reluctance. It's not every day that you are asked to break one of the top five taboos. It's not an issue that has an equal number of supporters on each side. You don't hear people calling for its legalization. To a fundamentally decent person such as yourself, it's as if I walked into your shop and tried to convince you to commit incest."

  "That's not at all what it was like."

  "Are you sure?" asked the man.

  "Very sure. All of my family is dead."

  "Ah, so it was as if I was proposing two taboos at once!"

  "Leave my store."

  "Let me get right to the point. I have six dead bodies in the back of a truck. Do you want to buy them?"

  "No!"

  "They were all stabbed, so you don't have to worry about any bullets getting caught in your grinder."

  "I don't want them!"

  "Nobody will come looking for them," the man assured him. "They were killed three towns away."

  "Get out of here!"

  "None of them were likable. One was rude, one was conceited, one pandered to the lowest common denominator, one was loud, and two were unintelligent. They deserve to be sausage. In fact, I think the loud one may even have said something to that effect before I stabbed him. 'Lo, if I must die this day, please know that my last wish before I expire is to be used in bratwurst, the finest bratwurst in Germany!'"

  "Get out o
f here before I call the police!"

  "I'll give you a good price."

  "Absolutely not!"

  "Please? I've been carting them around for three days. I can't take it any more. I know they're dead but I still hear their haunting laughter whenever I close my eyes. I have to get rid of them. Make the laughter stop. Please, make the laughter stop!"

  Klaus grabbed the man by the back of the neck, walked him over to the doorway, and shoved him outside onto the sidewalk. The man put his hands over his ears, presumably to muffle the sound of his laughing victims, and ran off.

  How wretched. And how illogical of the man to assume that serving up human flesh in sausage form would increase business. If Klaus purchased some meat and later discovered that it had once been a living, breathing person, he'd be outraged. He'd demand his money back immediately, and tell all of his friends to stay far away.

  It was a vile idea. He'd never do it.

  Prechtel's Bratwurst was a respectable establishment. Yes, it had been a pit of disease when his father's cousin's uncle's son won it in the bet, but for the past thirty-two years it had sold nothing but the highest quality meat. How dare that man suggest that he taint his reputation of excellence? How dare he? Why, Klaus should throw him into the grinder, just to...

  Hmmmm.

  No.

  It had been a rough day. Klaus couldn't wait to go home, take a bath, and watch some television before bed. In the morning, he'd think of new ways to improve business—ways that did not involve cannibalism.

  Klaus walked over to the door, and just as he reached for the light switch, a man stumbled through the doorway. He wore tattered, dirty clothing, had a thick beard, and smelled like body odor mixed with booze mixed with inexpensive cheese.

  "Good afternoon, my dear friend!" said the man, extending his arms toward Klaus. Klaus stepped away and avoided the hug. "I am Michael! Do you have any beer? I would like a beer. You sell beer, right? I have no money but I would like to buy a beer."

  "My store is closed," said Klaus. "And I do not sell beer."

  "Don't sell beer? What insanity is that? Why would you operate a place of business that doesn't sell beer? What if people come in wanting to buy beer? What then? What then?"

  Klaus narrowly avoided another hug. "You need to leave."

  "Leave?" Michael braced himself against one of the display cases of bratwurst, leaving a dark smudge on the glass. "If I leave, then how will you sell me a beer for no money? It makes no sense! Nothing you say makes sense! You're nonsensical!"

  "Clearly you have had enough beer for one night," said Klaus. "I do not allow drunkards in my store. Please leave immediately."

  "If I'd had enough beer, why would I seek more? Again, there is no logic to your words! They just float in the air, swirling around in a senseless blur!" Michael suddenly put his hand over his mouth and doubled over.

  "Are you going to vomit?" asked Klaus.

  "No."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes."

  "Then stand upright."

  "I cannot."

  "If you vomit on my floor, I assure you, the consequences will be dire."

  "I am more than capable of gauging my need to vomit," said Michael. "I'm just resting."

  "Rest elsewhere."

  Michael stood back up. "I am so very dizzy. And my stomach wages war against me. I'm lucky to be alive. Please, can't you take pity on a poor dying man and give him but a dropper full of alcohol to get him through these next few minutes?"

  "I have none! I sell bratwurst!"

  "Oh." Michael glanced around the shop. "I guess you do. My mistake. Have you ever had a tragic accident where a drunken man lost a limb in your meat grinder."

  "No."

  "If you had, would you discard the meat or sell it?"

  "Discard it."

  "What if business was slow, and nobody would ever know what you'd done? You can get a lot of meat out of an arm. Obviously, I'm not so drunk that I'd accidentally thrust my arm into your grinder, but it's an interesting hypothetical question."

  Klaus grabbed Michael's collar so that he could throw him out of the shop, but it tore away and Michael staggered through the swinging door into the back room.

  "Stay out of there!" said Klaus, hurrying after him. "Your germs are unwelcome!"

  "Is that your meat grinder?" asked Michael.

  "No," said Klaus, even though it was.

  "What a wonderful contraption. Far better than trying to grind meat with a fork or with your teeth. So this is how bratwurst is made. I'd always thought that it came from a plant."

  "A plant?"

  "Or maybe just a farm with specially bred pigs. It's not a subject that took up a lot of my thinking time."

  Klaus grabbed Michael by the arm, but his entire sleeve tore off.

  "Could you show me how it's done?" asked Michael. "Maybe instead of wandering the streets in a drunken haze, I could devote my life to the art of making bratwurst. It's never too late to learn a new skill. I knew a man who became an attorney at the age of ninety-seven! Lost his one and only case, but still. An attorney! At ninety-seven! Have you ever heard of such a thing?"

  "I'm going to call the police," said Klaus, walking over to the telephone mounted on the wall. "I've been patient, but I can't have men with your scent in my food preparation area."

  "So how does it work?" asked Michael, inspecting the grinder. "Do you put the—ow! Ow! Ow!"

  "Get your hand out of there!" Klaus shouted.

  "It was an accident! Oh, the agony! The excruciating agony! I must turn the handle to reverse the process! Ow! That makes it hurt even worse! My arm is being ground into bratwurst meat! I cannot stand the pain any longer! Why won't you help me? Why would you let a poor innocent drunkard get his arm ground up like this? You monster! You inhuman beast of a monster!"

  Klaus pulled Michael away from the grinder. Blood sprayed everywhere.

  "Most of my arm is gone! Why has this happened? Why? What have I done to deserve such a fate? I never in my life imagined that such a vast quantity of pain would be mine for the feeling! The word 'ow' does not come close to encapsulating the sheer volume of unpleasant sensations that are coursing through my body at this moment! And I'm losing a lot of blood! How much blood can the human body gush before it ceases the primary functions of life, such as breathing or a heartbeat?"

  "You'll be okay!" Klaus insisted. "I'll call an ambulance!"

  "Thank you," said Michael. "Though you were a heartless bastard who denied me beer, I appreciate your offer to...oh, no, I think that if a mere four more fluid ounces squirt out of my wound, I shall...yes, that's it for me."

  Michael dropped to the floor, dead.

  "No!" Klaus cried. "He can't be dead! Not in my store!"

  He crouched down and pressed two of his fingers against Michael's neck. There was no pulse.

  Klaus had to call the police. Tell them what had happened. This man might have family that was frantically searching for him.

  He stood up. Bloody meat dangled from the grinder, and the metal bowl next to it now had some meat in the bottom.

  Human meat.

  Free meat.

  Klaus stared at it for a moment.

  No! He wouldn't do it! There was no possible scenario in which he'd say, "Yes, I certainly am glad that I served up bratwurst made from that drunk man's arm!" It was wrong on every possible level.

  In fact, the mere sight of it made him physically ill. He hurried out of the back room so that he could compose himself.

  Klaus had seen many horrible things in his life, such as a dolphin getting too close to a helicopter blade, but nothing compared to this. He could never un-see this. Even if he lived to be a hundred years old, and saw thousands of babies get cooked on thousands of skewers, this vision would never disappear.

  He cursed the heavens for bringing Michael into his shop.

  Then he apologized to the heavens, because Klaus believed in free will, so it really wasn't anybody's fault but Mic
hael's.

  Klaus turned toward the swinging door to the back room. "You're a scoundrel, Michael!" he shouted. "A loathsome scoundrel!" Was it evil to speak ill of the dead? Perhaps, but Klaus was too angry to care. "You've made a bad night even worse! I should put the rest of you into that grinder!"

  Hmmmm.

  No.

  Hmmmm.

  No.

  Hmmmm.

  No.

  No, no, no.

  Klaus would not use the existing ground-up human flesh in his bratwurst. That was his decision, and it was final.

  The bell above the door tinkled.

  "I really am closed," said Klaus. "I must insist that—!"

  "Do not speak," said the man in mauve. "If you speak, I will kill you."

  "With what?"

  "With the gun in my inside jacket pocket."

  "Show me."

  The man reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out a gun.

  "Damn," said Klaus.

  "Give me the money in your cash register. Now."

  Klaus walked over to the register. "You're going to be very disappointed," he said.

  "I told you not to speak."

  Klaus opened the cash drawer, removed the bills, and set them on the counter.

  "What the hell is this?" asked the man.

  "May I speak?"

  "Yes."

  "It's all of the money I have."

  "It can't be."

  "It is."

  "I heard that you make the best bratwurst in Germany!"

  "I do."

  "Then how is such low income possible? Did you already send an associate to the bank with a large pile of cash? Am I too late?"

  Klaus shook his head. "I can't explain it."

  The man scooped up the bills and shoved them into his pocket. "There's more. There has to be more. Where's your safe?"

  "I don't have one."

  "Liar! Take me to your safe, or I'll shoot you! Have you ever been shot?"

  "No."

  "Everybody should get shot at least once in their life, to see how it feels. Since you have not had that experience, I can assure you that it feels bad." The man held up his left hand. "Do you see how many fingers I have?"

  "Five."

  "Well, yes, five. But one of them was shot off and reattached! Do you see that scar?"