Blue Meat Blues Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The sky was coming over orange, the tar had boiled away

  There's nothing I despise more than the open sky.

  I was home. A form of home. Home enough.

  The bar was dark.

  Not a stylistic choice.

  Dad was at the bar, grinding idle circles into the wood

  He walked up to the bar - Dad still tracing obsessive circles

  The parking lot crawled frantic with black silhouettes.

  His face was disturbingly close

  The tar hadn't got to me

  “You deserved that; I hope you realize.”

  To this point the day had been a waste

  The front door was ajar

  “So I guess that’s how you got all…”

  Chin on the asphalt, tar pushed between my lips.

  The sun was directly overhead

  The crowd was all breath and sweat and rust

  I was lost in some sort of violent daydream

  He was the youngest person I’d seen in over a decade

  I had no idea how much I needed to tell him

  She was old. Too old.

  The water ran clear for a few months

  A heavy fist beat at the door

  But I was old now. Old and dry and angry.

  I crawled out onto the awning

  It was early twilight, the dull purple of the sky

  I was half-asleep and dreaming

  I waited for the sheet of tar to pass

  “You’re late”

  The timing was perfect.

  At this stage I couldn’t remember

  “These city smoothies.”

  My mouth was warm.

  Fats was still sitting in front of the cages.

  I had emptied the meatbin and stacked the meat

  The meatbin bell rang out and slapped the walls

  “Lay him out on the floor - I’ve got somebody on the slab.”

  “What the fuck is this you son of a bitch?!”

  I looked along the barrel of the gun

  I found him one block from the Animal Hospital

  There were still a few pockets of ferals

  The Tarboy had dragged himself across the room

  The feral I had freed from the cage had been stuffed

  The Tarboy had worked quickly.

  The blood had pooled at the back of my skull.

  “Look at yourself!”

  I’d somehow dragged myself into the tar-damp basement

  The bar looked dead. There was no trace of smoke

  I propped myself in the doorway

  The Animal Hospital was warmly lit

  If he heard me land on the awning

  My senses staggered back; one by one.

  Consciousness again.

  The tar had boiled away, the trees had grown dense

  I’d lost it. At some point the brief fragments

  Consciousness hit like a wall. Cold and jagged

  She stretched up from the slab

  I guess it was morning. The sky was a smug yellow

  The tar fell and my body burned.

  I wasn’t asleep.

  Morning rolls over. The sky bleeds

  He dragged us onto the cement.

  I felt nothing. No inertia.

  The city was grinding. Humming. An anxious sound

  Evaluate the door

  Blue Meat Blues

  Copyright © 2017 by Joshua McGrath

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  ISBN-13: 978-1540720887

  ISBN-10: 1540720888

  The sky was coming over orange, the tar had boiled away, and my teeth were vibrating from the blues.

  I broke into a careful jog. The road was still slick with oil, but the air was cool and only faintly spiked with the taste of burning hair.

  From memory the feral was… two blocks up and one block over; overshadowed by the warped frame of a billboard. Somebody had defaced the canvas with old world propaganda; a giant human figure, empty eyes and long limbs - tar etched into brown.

  And in a feral scrawl; “Be Human”. The sepia caption of the old world.

  It was quiet. So quiet. The mute thud of my footsteps on the asphalt, the beating of my heart and the hiss of tar gnawing at my boots.

  I’d seen nothing move since I left the bar.

  Just the droplets of tar thrown up by my feet and the tyre iron thudding like an anxious metronome against the back of my leg.

  I guess the world was still winding up.

  I slowed a little at the corner, threw a cautious glance around the brickwork and pulled the tyre iron from my belt.

  Nothing. Just the decaying billboard, cut diagonally by a thin stream of black smoke, framed by the alleyway.

  I stopped and flattened myself against the wall, searching out my heartbeat with greasy fingers.

  The tar-painted man on the billboard watched over the scene with feigned concern.

  There was something unsettling about it. Something vaguely nauseating.

  As if… after years of sepia silence - this was the shocking conclusion the world had come to deliver.

  Be human.

  Maybe it was the blues. Maybe it was the shine.

  Maybe the cumulative effects of drinking brown water had finally gotten to my brain.

  I didn't know.

  Bad omens.

  I closed my eyes and shook my head.

  I wasn’t there to speculate on symbolism or to become some feral art critic.

  I was there for justice.

  I laughed.

  Not justice… definitely not justice. More… satisfaction.

  Not even that.

  I was there to hurt somebody. Badly. That was the headline.

  I flipped the tyre iron, caught it and flipped it again, straining my ears.

  The distant crackling of a fire.

  The slap of the tyre iron against my palm.

  The wavering hum as it spun in the air.

  The smoke was cutting from low and to the left.

  There should be just one feral there.

  That was what she’d said.

  One feral - a man. Tar-burn across half his face.

  Another black-meat maniac.

  He’d killed a few people down by the river.

  I mean… so had I.

  But here we were.

  And he had a… what was it?

  A machete? A shovel? Something sharp.

  I remembered thinking: “Be careful, be careful” but…

  I’d been distracted by my own reflection in the off-white of the woman’s eye and I had missed what she was saying.

  I had looked down at her and asked her to repeat it - but I was choking on the rot in her breath and my words were lost in the obscene swelling of her stomach.

  The air was growing thick with tar fumes. I flipped the tyre iron one last time and stepped out into the alley.

  No more distractions. Climb down out of your head.

  Wipe your palms. Tyre iron in hand.

  And go.

  Ten aching strides - the lactic acid in my calves raced into my stomach, my lungs filled with exhaust and my whole body was singing.

  Beautiful, sweet burning. My forearms twitched painfully.

  I hit the corner of the alley and took a blind turn to the left, eyes filled with smoke, tyre iron wide and to the right.


  I took a wild leap over the fire pit, caught a lungful of smoke, and stumbled awkwardly - landing with one foot on bare skin.

  This was it.

  He scrambled to his feet - his face twisting in shock.

  Two careful steps backward.

  Tears were running down my cheeks.

  I saw the veins writhing in his neck, his eyes locked on mine - his skull bisected by a grim purple scar.

  And I waited. Counting heartbeats. His mouth opened and closed, madly attempting to process what was happening.

  I watched his hands for some signal, some violent flag-fall, stretching this tiny window of excitement for as long as possible.

  He crouched just slightly, something in the fire popped, a sharp hiss as droplets of tar sprayed onto the ground, and I swung the tyre iron wide and caught him in the temple.

  The vibrations ran up my arm, a sick thud - he let out a cry choked with rust and I kicked him into the wall.

  He stumbled and his legs folded beneath him - hands like spiders - searching for some way to defend himself.

  If he was lucky, he was still half-asleep - enduring some horrible nightmare.

  I steadied myself and watched him twist like a marionette in the dust.

  And I was lost for just a second - the heat of the morning sky on my neck, the rush of blood in my ears. His hands, his fingers, biceps and triceps stretching and retracting. Sick hypnosis.

  And from somewhere outside the sphere of this self-indulgent reverie he threw a wide, stinging hay-maker that caught me in the neck, and for a moment I was locked in deafening red, choking on a mouthful of bile.

  I staggered backward, trying to shake off the shock.

  Don’t think about blood clots. Don’t think about crushed arteries. Don’t think about your brain slowly starving - drying out and crumpling like paper.

  I could see every knot in his torso. Every screaming blood vessel that was trying desperately to continue their existence. Every muscle twitching with adrenaline.

  He kicked out with a long, sharp leg that caught me on the hip, and I threw myself forward, firing my knee up into his kidneys.

  I put my foot down behind his legs and shot an elbow into his face. His broken teeth tore into my skin. The sleeve of my jacket folded into the wound and it felt like sand on raw nerves.

  He stumbled back - all frantic claws and saliva, and I pushed him into the wall - swiping his arms away with one hand and bringing the tyre iron down on his head with the other.

  Again and again. Wild, clumsy slashing. Knocking chunks of brick from the wall, catching him on the temple, the bridge of the nose, his wide, bald scalp.

  And he was sinking. Quickly sinking. Folding down into the dust. His head split open and weeping, his fingers impotent, clutching at my jacket.

  I hit him again with the tyre iron - three times in quick succession - bam bam bam - diagonally across the scalp. Break apart the hemispheres. Sever the connections. Smash the pipes.

  One final exhalation. The air was thick with the smell of earth. Wet earth. Twisting flowers. The smell after true rain.

  I pinned his wrist to the ground with my boot and bent down - bringing my face in line with his.

  There was nothing there.

  Stale air.

  Thick eyes swam behind dark water.

  He looked so natural.

  In perfect symbiosis with the world.

  As if he was dead to begin with.

  And I…

  I was just some sick, timely reminder.

  I let him slide down the wall and I crouched, tyre iron resting against my boot.

  The fire continued to sputter. My teeth continued to hum. My chest was hot and my heart was beating heavy.

  Silence. I counted my heartbeats.

  Silence. I drew a vacant spiral in the dust.

  Silence.

  Good morning, world.

  I kicked dust into the fire and watched it grow damp and black.

  The embers sputtered and gradually fell silent.

  He had been sleeping in the dirt, under a thin piece of wood propped against the wall, the roof stained black.

  I looked for the shovel. I looked for the machete. But there was nothing.

  Just one decaying tin can half-filled with black water.

  No meat. No rough. No defining possessions.

  Who was this man?

  Just another feral twisted up with black meat.

  I tapped his pockets with the tyre iron. Silence.

  Goddamnit.

  I threaded the tyre iron back into my belt and kicked the tin can.

  The water disappeared into the dust.

  The tin was old and brittle. I pressed it down with my boot until it buckled and folded.

  I carefully pried it open again and repeated the action until it split into two jagged halves.

  Goddamnit.

  I wrapped my sleeve around my hand and picked up the sharpest half, crawling over to the body.

  He didn’t seem much like a feral anymore.

  He didn’t seem much like anything anymore. Just another slab of meat.

  A sad a’la carte product of a burnt-out world.

  I held his head down with my boot and spat a tight stream of bile into the ashes of the fire, stretching out his ear between my thumb and forefinger.

  The jagged tin sliced through the cartilage without resistance and a thin, diluted line of blood snaked down his face.

  The ear was purple and pocked with corrosion.

  That would be proof enough.

  And if not?

  Well… just one more candidate for the meat-bin.

  There's nothing I despise more than the open sky.

  Puffy white clouds, the lonely seagull, the mindless blue facade over the implicit infinity of space.

  It really emphasizes the creeping fungal nature of humanity.

  Give me tall buildings. Give me smog. Give me the frantic grinding of plane gears as they struggle against the middle class overlord of gravity. Give me foaming contrail conspiracy theorists.

  The ocean had been black for weeks. Something about lost freighters; decimated fishing societies; choking black clouds.

  Nothing that impacted my day-to-day. Food was still flash-frozen and months old; misted with a fine vapor of water to give the illusion of freshness.

  We stood at the windows of the office. The arrogant blue face of the sky was coming over black. Fingers of tar consumed the clouds and coiled around the sun.

  A communal animal panic vibrated through the synthetic carpet.

  “I wonder if the bus is running?”

  But nobody answered.

  It was before midday. The overarching implication of hunger.

  I wonder if lunch is being served?

  The loudest unasked question.

  And as the last scrap of blue gave way to black; we turned back to our computers - pulling down speculation and crowd-sourced guidance to the tune of:

  Stay indoors, await further information.

  The concept of personal space dissolved into animal huddling. Like mice; shoulder to shoulder by the water cooler as the first droplets of tar pushed their way through the pipes and spread an oily skin over the surface of the water.

  I knocked on the plastic container with two knuckles but the tar strangled the ripples.

  A static block of liquid slowly losing clarity.

  I turned to the boss; some inbred sense of authority prevailing; and raised my eyebrows:

  “Half-day?”

  His wide face was blank; eyes the same tone as his skin; hair slowly retreating to some imagined oasis at sides of his head.

  His mouth moved but nothing came out.

  I tapped my pockets as if miming that I had something important to do and hit the fire escape, out into the darkness.

  The streetlights weren't on. The system didn't cater to special circumstances. The black sky reflected a solitary red light from a distant radio tower.

  I lit a cigar
ette as the first wave of tar fell. Heavy and lukewarm; the impact pushed me to my knees.

  The choking stench of oil and burning hair, vague taste of salt as it pooled at the edges of my lips.

  My white shirt ran brown. The plastic cover of my security pass hissed and spat chemical droplets. I unhooked it from my belt and threw it on the ground.

  I could see my coworkers lined up at the windows, back-lit by cold fluorescent.

  Another wave of tar. My teeth cracked together.

  I reached for the door but it was locked, the card scanner blinked red. I gestured wide and frantic to the faces at the window but there was no recognition.

  Dead-eyed fish in a middle class aquarium.

  I had made my choice, I guess.

  The sky offered no hint, solid black and weeping heavy tar.

  It's time to go home.

  I was home. A form of home. Home enough.

  I slipped into the booth and pulled the jar in front of me.

  I poured a careful pool of shine into my palm - pushing the jar back into the center of the table. Out of reach. Out of clumsy reach.

  I swear the shine hissed as I rubbed it across the wound - the skin on my forearm was ragged and black.

  Teeth. Teeth. Jagged and crawling with bacteria - the one great vector for disease.

  I remembered his grimace - teeth veined with black. God knows what grim new plague had lurked between those jaws.

  But I guess it was another successful morning. Another win. In the smallest way possible.

  I was still alive. I had that rubbery gray chunk of skin and cartilage in my top pocket and I was set to head down to the river - collect my reward, collect my adoration - that little pat on the head that would initially fill me with joy but would inevitably grow hollow and insulting.

  I propped the tyre iron against the vinyl beside me and fished a handful of blues from my pocket.

  Away from the sun, the tar on my jacket was starting to set - fracturing into metallic slivers.

  I idly peeled it away and stacked it on the table. It was sharp like ceramic. I licked the tiny balls of blood from my fingertips.

  I thought about the black diamonds of tar in my lungs. And in my gut. I imagined the irreparable damage it was doing. Slicing its way from throat to stomach, intestines to bowels.

  Never turn to look into the toilet bowl.