“Not vegetable ash,” Joseph said, taking another spoonful.
“Now that you mention it, it does have an almost sulfurous taste. I can’t pinpoint it.”
“This is going to drive me nuts,” Peter said, his soup nearly gone.
A SHARP CRACKLING NOISE filled the kitchen as raw skin hit hot grease and snapped away from the heat. Schauer had taken a strip of back fat off the beast and melted it into a dirty-blonde puddle in a large cast-iron pan. The odor was strong and dangerous, and he inhaled deeply, absorbing the scent of fish, salt, and fat.
In the pot, potatoes boiled, nearly done.
After turning the fish, he began spooning the liquid fat across the pink surface of the salmon. He hummed quietly, completely focused on the task at hand.
Behind him, the creature stirred, a shallow moan burning from its throat. Arms bound to both its sides and the table, torso split wide from chest to waist, it writhed in pain.
In his early studies of the beast, Schauer had found that stress positively impacted the taste of the meat. As such, he deemed it vital to keep the creature alive for as long as possible. In most instances, stress prior to slaughter increased the amount of glycogen and acidity in the meat, making it less tender, less flavorful. Schauer was surprised to find the opposite reaction in the grisly being strapped and splayed across the island counter. Surprised, and overjoyed.
He dumped the water and set the potatoes aside. Although he tended to serve boiled potatoes with boiled fish – not pan fried – he was feeling whimsical. A potato scoop would fashion the meat into small, perfectly round balls. Served with this would be cucumbers dressed with oil and vinegar, a slight callback to Noel’s Singapore supper, which he knew the man would appreciate.
Turning to the beast, he ran his hand across the creature’s skull, his palm coming away slick. The monster was feverishly hot, no doubt a side effect of Schauer’s grueling excavations. He was sure that the beast would be howling if Schauer had not had the foresight to sever its vocal cords. No shared language existed between them, of course, save for the excruciating roars of pain and misery that were common to all.
“OH MY GOD, THEY’RE so cute,” Laura said. Her blonde head bounced happily as she rolled one of the balled potatoes with her fork. “Sorry, I’m easily amused.”
“OK, that’s definitely salmon.”
“I’m getting ashes, again.”
“Yeah, but it’s more savory than that. Pork fat, maybe?”
“It does sort of have a bacony component,” Joseph said.
“I’m down for anything plus bacon,” Peter said.
“That’s not surprising,” Irene said.
Peter glanced down at his sizeable belly, suddenly self-conscious, his sausage-sized fingers wrapped around the stem of his fork. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Irene blanched, suddenly aware of what she’d said, too late. She stammered, suddenly feeling the alcohol daze. “No, I just mean, you sound like you’re from Texas. Isn’t everything all about bacon there?”
“We’re not supposed to talk about where we’re from,” Noel said.
“I’m sorry,” Irene said, meeting Peter’s heated gaze. “Really, I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Peter was fit to burst, his face burning hot red. He couldn’t contain it.
He exploded with laughter, a hearty, gusting noise, his eyes watering.
Irene suddenly appeared more disgusted than bashful. “You jerk.”
“I’m sorry, really. I couldn’t help it. You looked so fucking earnest. I just…oh, man. Wow. I had you, huh?”
Irene rolled her eyes, her disgust blunted behind the mask. Then she let out a small smirk, a small chuckle. “You did,” she said, stabbing at the fish.
She tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help it. Peter was still roaring, infecting the others, until Irene, too, was sucked into the sudden honest joy, laughing until her eyes watered.
THE SPOON PROBED THE creature’s eye socket, its tip forcing its way into the hollow cavity. The gelatinous membrane folded beneath the metal curvature of the utensil, yielding but not breaking. The creature, its head tied down to the edge of the countertop, writhed in panic and pain, mouth contorting. The spoon eased around the top curve of its eye and across the sides and down the bottom with a slippery squelch, as if Schauer were carving a grapefruit.
He pressed the spoon further down, the metal cupping the underside of the creature’s eye as he pushed down on the fulcrum. The eyeball popped loose with a wet burp and a splash of tears running in a rapid current down the side of the creature’s skull, flowing in all directions.
A rope of optic nerve came with it, and Schauer had to wonder at how fucked up the beast’s visual receptors were at having one of its six eyeballs dislocated and freed from its stationary orbit.
He held the spoon at waist level, a good few inches of optic nerve pulled taut, and took a pair of scissors to the cord. The nerve bundle was tough and he had to press hard several times, rocking the scissors back and forth, sawing through the nerve until it finally snapped.
He spooned the eyeball into an ice cube tray, very carefully. He didn’t want to drop the eye or upset its delicate stability. While not as fragile as egg yolk, he treated it as if it were.
Knowing what to expect, he was able to free the five remaining eyes with ease.
AS THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK in the foyer struck nine, the waitress promptly presented the plated entrees.
“Before you: a four ounce filet and a cucurbita medley roasted in orange butter.”
“Cucurbita?” Laura asked.
“Gourds,” Noel answered. He pointed his fork at each cube: “Pumpkin, squash, zucchini.”
“Ah, OK. Thanks.”
“Ashes, again,” Irene said.
“I don’t think it’s ashes,” Joseph replied. “I’m starting to think this meat has a natural sooty flavor.”
“Unless Schauer accidentally burnt everything or is just fucking with us.”
“I don’t think so, Irene. Joe may be on to something.”
“Joseph.”
“Apologies,” Peter said. “Anyway, I concur. It’s not ashes.”
Noel lifted the filet with his fork and examined the underside. The meat was cut to squared perfection, the size and shape of a deck of cards. Visually, it was unlike anything he’d seen before. Not a white meat, like pork or chicken, but a sickly gray. It had been grilled, and the exterior bore perfect crosshatching, but as he cut into it the tender meat oozed a faint, milky juice, revealing an ugly, bruised center.
True to Schauer’s habits, the meat was grilled to medium rare, but, oddly, it lacked any sort of pink coloring. More to the point, Joseph couldn’t think of any animal that exhibited such characteristics. He just hoped it was cooked through enough to kill any parasites or bacteria. The last thing he wanted was a case of trichinellosis or brucellosis. Not that he thought Schauer was capable of making such an amateurish mistake. No, more likely it was bit of trickery by way of molecular gastronomy.
“You think he added food coloring?” he asked, noting how intently Noel was studying his food.
“He does enjoy a culinary sleight-of-hand now and then, but this is above and beyond.”
“I feel compelled to eat, but a part of me can’t get over the strangeness. The taste, and now the appearance, it’s all somehow…off. I can’t think of a better way to explain it,” Joseph said, pushing aside thoughts of E. coli and tapeworm and salmonella.
“Me neither,” Coraline said, cutting off small piece of filet and running it through the orange butter. The acid cut through the nutty bitterness of the meat nicely.
She chewed slowly, unable to take her eyes off Noel. His hands were strong, but untarnished by hard labor. Short nails, clean. A faint network of scars topped the knuckles of his left hand, and she wondered, briefly, how his flesh would taste against her lips. She felt a sudden desire to suckle the inside of his elbow, to nibble his shoulder and the side of
his long neck before taking a plump ear lobe into her mouth, his hands roaming across her body, strong fingers gripping her thighs.
“Are you OK?” he asked her.
“Oh, yes, I’m good.”
“You’re staring.”
“Lost in thought, I suppose.”
“Good food can do that,” he said.
“It awakens the senses,” Joseph added.
She turned to him, mustering up a plastic smile, wanting nothing more than to stab her fork into Joseph’s face, over and over. She could imagine the tines piercing his cheeks, ripping the silverware free in a spray of gore, and then hammering it back into his head, his plasma hot and sticky as it splashed across her, his screams drowning the world as he writhed to escape. He couldn’t flee, though. She had her free hand wrapped in his hair, her knees squeezing into his hips, and she was stabbing him again, and again, and again.
She forced herself to turn away, afraid that he would register the homicidal intent in her eyes. Noel was as much of a no-go. She stared at her plate, forcing herself to consume even though eating was now the last thing on her mind.
FOR THE FIFTH DISH, Schauer planned to serve small, delectable hachis Parmentier, arranged in a beautiful, flowery presentation, as if he were serving each guest a corsage.
Standing over the beast, he was absorbed by the creature’s inelegant beauty, bordering on pure ugliness. With the spidery arrangement of eyes removed and set into the blast chiller, the head was bifurcated with gory holes.
The cranium was an odd construct, dissimilar from anything he had seen previously and yet strangely recognizable. The skull was warped into multiple layers and planes of bones, an almost hexagonal configuration that was disorienting to study. The dense plates of bone curved and folded back over upon themselves, creating a multistory maze of patchwork lattice.
Its mouth was a brutal affair, hidden behind multiple tusks, some of which reached up across the front of its face while others curved below the reaches of its soft chin. The sharp bones reminded Schauer of a spelunking expedition he had once been on, and he marveled now at the familiarity of stalactites and stalagmites that breached this being’s head.
Beneath the gore-stained protrusions was a smeary hole and a thick plank of forked muscle. A tongue. Getting to it required him to saw through the tusks, and throughout the procedure the beast grunted and undulated beneath the heavy leather straps, its muscles straining.
Removing the cage of bone, he got his first good look at the unadorned mouth. His first thought was of a parasite – a disc-shaped funnel filled with pointed teeth, similar to a lamprey, built for sucking. Yet it possessed a jaw and thick musculature and very long, frighteningly prominent incisors built for tearing and rending.
The bone cage was set to the side, near the severed stingers he had removed prior to butchering the tentacles, a plating design crystalizing in his mind’s eye.
He drew a paring knife across the creature’s cheeks, its milky blood streaming as the meat was peeled away and set aside atop a sheet of brown butcher’s paper.
With the heavier chef’s knife, he focused on the creature’s abdomen, carving free a thick brisket. After loosening the straps enough to turn the beast over, then retightening and securing it in place, he turned his attention toward the meaty shoulders and butchered a shapely chuck. From the lower back, he removed a sirloin cut.
He took the brisket, chuck, and sirloin and placed them in the blast chiller. Turning his attention back to the creature, he carved away at its ribs and around the curve of its back. He set the rib eye roast aside on another sheet of butcher’s paper, and began trimming meat away from the bone, cutting it into a tomahawk steak. This he seasoned with rosemary, thyme, and mint.
Finished, he sat atop a bar stool and poured a glass of white wine. His forehead was slightly glazed with sweat, his once-white chef’s coat messed with fresh spatter. He needed a small rest. He sipped and waited, counting down the minutes in his head until the appointed time arrived to remove the meat from the blast chiller. Meat ground better when partially frozen, as the grinding process generated heat. Heat melts fat, and he could not abide losing any of the succulent flavor and juices, or risk making the meat mealy.
One by one, he fed the cuts through a grinder. Working his fingers through the ground mixture to combine them, he was careful not to overwork the meat, for that would make it tough.
He took a good amount of the bluish-gray matter and sautéed it until the color was even and cooked through. While that was cooking, he mashed the baked potato and set the skins aside. When the meat was done, he stirred in the potato mash and poured sauce lyonnaise over it, a compound of the white wine he had opened, and vinegar and onions. He mixed it well, then spooned the mixture into the potato skins he had shaped into cups.
The cheeks were warmed through in a pan with butter and a red wine reduction, thyme, and rosemary. He finished the small cuts with a dash of black peppercorn and Mediterranean Sea salt.
He arranged the cheeks and hachis Parmentier on a long wooden board, separating the individual portions with the tusks, cleaned and arranged in a standing crosshatch formation, as if it were a perverse sort of rib cage. Of course, the display stood in mimicry of the creature’s mouth, an ode to the cheeks, which he knew would be succulent and tender, perhaps even the best cut from this…thing. Schauer was a cheek man. Fish cheeks or beef cheeks were one of his specialties, and always lent themselves toward terrific dishes overflowing with flavor.
This would be no exception.
“TUSKS!” LAUREN SAID, SURPRISED and delighted. Childish wonder filled her eyes as the serving board was laid between her and the other guests. She dug in her purse, removing an iPhone.
“Anyone mind?” she asked, waving the phone toward the meal. Before anyone replied, she was already swiping the screen to camera mode. The display told her she had no service, but she thought nothing of it. Schauer was famous for interrupting cellular service during his tastings, wanting his guests to focus solely on the food and texture and tastes, and not on social media or phone calls or the silly apps that occupied much of their daily lives.
“Ah, you’re one of those,” Joseph said, good-naturedly. When no one else objected, he too began taking photos with his phone.
“One of what?” Lauren asked, clueless.
“A voyeur,” Peter said.
“When it comes to food, we’re all voyeurs,” Noel said.
In her mind’s eye, with each click of the shutter, Lauren was already picking out in-app filters, Diptic arrangements, and calculating the number of immediate ‘Likes’ the image would win her. A cold blue filter, maybe, hashtag foodporn.
“Elephant?” Irene asked, a slice of cheek aloft on the tines of her fork, her gaze naturally turning toward Noel.
“No,” he said immediately. “Elephant meat is a very dark red, and it’s very lean. Not nearly as fatty as the dishes we’ve been served. It’s also quite a bit more gamey, sort of like elk.”
“He could be using pork fat. It’s certainly tasty enough,” Peter suggested.
“I think it’s seal,” Coraline said.
Joseph shook his head. “Seal meat’s pretty dark, too. And sort of fishy tasting. It’s definitely got the fat component, though.”
“What else has tusks?” Lauren asked.
“Hippos,” Peter said.
“Hippo meat’s purple,” Irene said. All eyes turned to her. “What?”
“Hippos are endangered,” Laura said. “And besides, hippos don’t have tusks.”
“They do,” Peter said. “Their incisors are ivory. Big, too, but not as big as these.”
A small lull settled over them, as they thought about what the meat was. Eventually, their eyes migrated toward Noel.
“I’ve never had hippo,” he said with a shrug.
NORMALLY SCHAUER BLANCHED AT food photography during a meal, and found it obscene. Watching his guests on the monitor, the video feed piped in from a closed-circuit ca
mera in the chandelier over the dining table, he found himself surprisingly pleased. The photos would never make their way into the world, but the obvious admiration of his efforts buoyed his spirits. The snapshots, perhaps, were their way of memorializing the food, and in effect, the creature itself.
He abhorred social media and the instant documentation of one’s life without any pause for reflection. After one gentlemen – Frederick Hansworth – took to Twitter to broadcast his location and alternately praised and condemned Schauer’s dishes based on some backwards system of rating that only Hansworth truly understood, Schauer had been forced to install cellular signal dampeners. He hated the false publicity those damned tweets and fucking status updates brought his dinners as they made weak-kneed efforts at capturing his glow within their own pathetic radius, as if they were somehow equal to him. Or, worse still, that he was somehow subservient to them.
Hansworth! Fucking Hansworth.
The name stabbed at his brain, an invective vulgarity. The first and last time he had ever allowed the man into his private domain; afterwards, he had banned the oaf from his restaurants worldwide.
Of course, he had kept tabs on Hansworth. At this very moment, if he so chose, he could learn the location of Hansworth in a heartbeat. Enough time had passed, the dust settled, that anyone who proposed a correlation between Hansworth’s disappearance and Schauer’s rage would be seen as a mad conspirator, or tabloid gossiper.
Temptation lingered, though, and Schauer’s mind turned toward formulating a tasting meal around long pig, his long-simmering hatred for vile Hansworth returning.
He forced the thoughts away. Now was not the time to have tonight’s vision clouded by such pettiness. Besides, Hansworth would not be long for this world, with or without Schauer’s direct intervention. He took some solace in that, at least, and it sent a small ripple of pleasure through his core.
“GOD, I’M GETTING STUFFED,” Irene said, patting her prominent belly.
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