Catholic Guilt and the Joy of Hating Men Read online

  vegans are f**king

  delicious

  HOW CAN you tell who's vegan at a dinner party?

  Don't worry... they'll be sure to let you know.

  That's not my joke... I read it on the Internet somewhere. It's funny because it's true, just like it's funny that vegans get so damned angry at people who make fun of them.

  I mean... come on, it's just a joke.

  But I'm not all about hating on vegans. I like vegans... they're fucking delicious.

  That last one's not a joke.

  My name is Marie-Claire Grimson. I'm a cannibal.

  I also like paintball and modern art.

  Larissa Huong had impeccable taste. Fancy cruelty-free clothes, high-end animal-free furniture, a hybrid convertible that makes very little sense with Beantown winters... those things were all warning signs that I just didn't bother noticing. I didn't even know that PayPal cheques could bounce.

  Her apartment manager had let me in, no problem; even with my hair dyed pink I still managed to play the delicate and grieving card, telling him that Larissa is my best friend... or was... and cue the tears... Mom always tells me it's never the hair and makeup, that it's just about the boobs... yeah... but she's been a good mother to me in other ways.

  The manager had left me alone in there since the Patriots were playing, locking the door up behind me. I grabbed everything I could that would fit in my purse, mostly jewelry and what I'm hoping is acid... I knew I'd only get away with taking one outfit, so I chose the one with the tags that seemed the most Italian... I can't remember if Italy's just for shoes.

  It doesn't really matter... I won't get nearly enough for it on Craigslist. Tasty little Larissa owes me two hundred bucks.

  As I was just about to go, I heard a voice that sounded familiar, echoing up the hallway from the doorway of apartment 1A.

  "She's in there right now," the woman said. "She's robbing that dead girl blind."

  "Look," I heard the manager say, "I don't want to get involved in this. You're telling me that girl with the pink hair is a murderer? You gotta be high on something, lady."

  He sounded different when he spoke to her, like he felt she wasn't even worth talking to.

  I had a feeling I knew who it was.

  Some feet started stomping down the hall towards me. Then I heard another set in pursuit. I wouldn't have time to duck out before they reached me.

  And if it really was Eleanor, I'd be better off confronting her with a witness present.

  There was banging on the door, and some screaming, and after a few seconds more I heard the jangling of a keyring. The door opened to a very annoyed apartment manager and a very puffy-looking Eleanor. Her skin was bright red and her dreadlocked hair was so dirty and matted that it barely looked blond anymore.

  She'd gone over to the dark side.

  "You look different, Eleanor," I said, remembering how put-together she'd once been, not that she'd ever looked that good. "Your hair..."

  "I look like someone who's happy now," she said. "And if you'd had your way, I'd be halfway through your lower intestine."

  "You girls are friggin' loons," the manager said. "Get out of here before I call the cops."

  "You aren't going to search her?" Eleanor asked.

  The manager shook his head and started back towards his apartment.

  "So you've moved up to real life stalking," I said. "Threatening emails weren't doing it for you?"

  "You're a serial killer," she said. "I'm not going to stop until I see you strapped to a gurney with a needle in your arm."

  "Then you'd better get me a gig in Texas or something. Someplace with deep-fried green beans and cowboy hats."

  "I'm sure I can rent my own gurney."

  I had to roll my eyes at that. "Listen... I really have to go. We just got a new PVR and I haven't had a chance to set it up to tape Jon Stewart."

  And that's when she spat in my face. Her loogie tasted like smoked tofu.

  If that's the worst my newfound nemesis can do, I'd say I have things pretty easy.

  It's about time someone gave it to you straight about the world we live in. So many of us grew up watching McDonald's commercials and that Simpsons episode with Lisa and the Gazpacho and the "You don't make friends with salad" song... we live in this fantasy world where we let someone else do the butchering for us and we call the end result "barbecue". It's bloody disgusting... yeah... I meant to do that.

  But don't worry, my dear. Marie-Claire is here to preach the gospel, to let the truth set you free.

  Eating beef is way worse than eating people. It's not like cows fill out living wills before they're shot in the head with a bolt gun. They're not given a choice... no one asks them if they're looking for a way out from the cut-throat world of feedlot cliques.

  People just drag them into the slaughterhouse and make that choice for them.

  That's not something I'd ever do.

  My parents introduced me to it, after coming back from an anthropology expedition among the Korowai of New Guinea. They'd both wanted so badly to get a taste of the forbidden long pig, but somehow they'd never gotten the chance. By the time they'd come back home they were completely obsessed with the idea.

  Two days on web forums with all caps and blinking text found them a guy in Arizona who had just what they needed. There are some people pay big money to get frozen when they die. Other people want the same thing but can't afford to freeze more than the head; that leaves a whole lot of surplus parts, most pretty old and tough but you can marinate the stringiness right out if you're patient enough.

  Now I've always been one of those girls who didn't like trying anything new, but before long I wanted a bite of whatever mom and dad were eating. That's the same way they got me to try asparagus for the first time.

  And I liked it. The asparagus and the other thing.

  But all good things come to an end, and the brownshirt fascists in Washington decided to override states' rights once again and my parents and I were left without a supplier.

  Mom and Dad got separated a few months later, and while the official blame was on taking opposite sides on something called the Yanomami Controversy, I blame the change in diet. You'll get the same kind of crash if you dump carbs.

  I rarely saw my father after that.

  A few months after he left I had half-joked to my mother that we should try eating homeless people.

  Her reply changed my life.

  "There's plenty of people who don't want to live anymore," she said. "Why don't we just eat some of them?"

  It's been three years since she said that. We haven't gone hungry since.

  There's a lot of traveling involved in my job, not only meeting up with the terminally despondent but also with transporting clients to my DIY chop and cremation shack just off Route 62. After the first half-dozen gigs I decided to buy an old school bus that had been converted into a camper, one with such musty old canvas that the smell of death would be a much-needed improvement.

  In theory I could have lived in that bus, but I chose to stay at Mom's place in Worcester. But I still ended up spending most of my time on the road.

  My next gig was at an apartment just off-campus from Yale. I'd done my research by phone and Facebook, and I'd already gotten to know quite a bit about her, an existential Master of Fine Arts student with no urge to finish her studies.

  They start with the light stuff, screenshots on Reddit with quotes from Ricky Gervais or Richard Dawkins. Then they move onto the hard stuff, full-on books from Hitch and friends. Some people don't think a universe without any gods is a wondrous thing. Some of those people get depressed and lose their sense of purpose... and some of them see my ad for life-ending counselling. It takes a few weeks to weed out the rotten fruit, but it's worth it in the end.

  I parked the old school bus a good block away. She was supposed to be waiting at the door, but I couldn't see her; it's not unusual to get cold feet.
I buzzed her and she asked me to come up. I figured it was probably around 70/30 that I'd be getting my money and meat tonight.

  But then the door opened to four dreadlocked women armed with frying pans and duct tape. One of them was my precious Eleanor. It wasn't going to be my night.

  "Get her!" one of the women screamed as the others tried to corral me into the kitchen.

  "Meat is murder!" another one shrieked as she tried to brain me with a skillet.

  I ducked to the ground and somersaulted past them, coming up against the deadbolted door. As I made my way through the locksets I felt them grabbing me.

  "I help people," I said as I finally pulled the door open. "Please don't hurt me."

  But they had me then, my arms forced behind my back as they started to tape me up.

  "You don't help people," Eleanor said. "You were going to eat me, bitch."

  I wondered what they'd do with me, if they were going to beat me up and leave me in a dumpster, or if they were going to drag my bound ass down to the police station. Either way, I knew I wasn't going to be reimbursed for mileage.

  As they started to shuffle me out the door a stocky man appeared from the hallway, stepping alongside me. He was wearing a ball cap and carrying a square leather bag over his shoulder. He looked at me and smiled.

  "Hazing?" he asked as he started to unzip the bag. "I love college girls."

  "We didn't order any pizza," Eleanor said.

  "I'm pretty sure you did. Cheese and bacon."

  "We're vegans, asshole."

  "I don't judge."

  I took the opportunity and pulled away from my captors. I pushed past the delivery man and ran out into the hallway and down two flights of stairs, almost falling a few times since I couldn't grab onto the railings.

  By the time I reached the bottom, the pizza guy was right behind me. The vegans were nowhere to be seen.

  I'd made it out.

  "I'll help," he said. He started to tear at the tape and any of my attached arm hair. "My name is Michael."

  "I'm Marie-Claire," I said between curses.

  "It's nice to meet you. Would you like to have coffee sometime?"

  I felt like I owed him so I told him yes, despite his being at least thirty and oddly unashamed of being an overgrown pizza boy. And maybe because he was nothing like the men I'd dated before, by the end of our first date I knew I'd want to see him again.

  So that crazy bitch Eleanor wanted to kill me and somehow that made me want to date a guy who delivers pizza as a career.

  It's funny how the universe conspires against you sometimes.

  I dated Michael for three months before I told him what I did for a living. I figured by that point that if he really was husband material he'd be too comfortable with me to let an alternative lifestyle get in the way; I'd been more than open-minded about his foot fetish.

  We were laying on his pull-out bed after a really good home-cooked dinner and even better sex; he had one arm wrapped over my hip and the other cradling my head.

  I felt safe with him. That's not something a girl's supposed to say these days, but that's still how it felt.

  Now I wanted Michael to love me, and I was pretty sure he did, but I needed to be certain of it...

  I took a chance and I told him.

  "I'm not like most consultants," I said. "My job is to help people."

  "You're right," he said, "that's nothing like the consultants I've known."

  "I'm serious... some people want to die, and I help them do it. Everybody wins."

  He looked at me intently, obviously searching for the right words. "I'm sure you honestly feel that you're helping them... and it's not my place to judge you." He didn't seem too impressed, but he hadn't pulled away.

  "I'm actually pretty picky," I said. "I won't take just anyone. Younger's always better, women are more tender... vegans are the best."

  "I don't follow."

  "My mom and I eat them."

  He laughed. "I guess you need to have a sense of humor in your line of work."

  "I'm not joking."

  His face got really serious right then and I was glad I hadn't deleted my eHarmony account.

  I reached up and kissed him on the lips.

  He didn't kiss me back.

  "I'm not a bad person," I said.

  He didn't answer.

  I looked down at the bed, but I could feel him still staring at me. I thought about just grabbing my stuff and leaving, not saying another word to him ever again.

  But then I felt his hand brush the hair away from my face. "I want to try some," he said.

  I looked back up to him. "You're serious?"

  He nodded. "I want to know what it's like."

  "That's... that's good," I said, the aroma of dinner, pineapple and ginger and fresh-cooked meat, still wafting on my breath. "Because you've already tried it."

  "I did?"

  "Polynesian style."

  He gave me a smile and then he gave me a kiss.

  And I started to believe he'd stick around for a while.

  I was relieved when Michael said he wanted to come with me on one of my gigs, not just because it meant he supported me, but also because I'd started to worry about falling into another trap set by the four vegans.

  After the incident in New Haven, I'd started to get threatening e-mails and phone calls, so many that I had begun to put off checking my messages for as long as I could. They said they would get me, that they'd teach me a lesson... I never would've figured on people who love animals being so dead-set on gutting a human being. And I'm not sure how they get enough protein to have the energy.

  I took Michael with me to a late-night call in Framingham, to meet a woman in a red Subaru by the Sudbury Dam. When we found the car he waited in the camper and watched while I walked over to meet her.

  I came up to the driver's side door and waved.

  She lowered her window, and I could that she was a pretty and well-dressed young woman. I started to wonder if it was a bad idea mixing Michael with cute chicks who have nothing to live for.

  "I'm Marie-Claire," I said.

  "Danae," she said. "I'm glad you're here."

  Something seemed off about her. I glanced around looking for anything suspicious, but the parking lot was pretty empty.

  "You've got a note ready?"

  She held up some sealed envelopes. "One for each of my parents. And a scented one for Dr. Oz."

  "So it's okay to leave your car here? There's a place where we'll go..."

  "I don't need it."

  She opened her car door and stepped out, leaving her keys in the ignition.

  We walked back to the bus together. Her gait was steady and she didn't seem nervous at all.

  I introduced her to Michael, who obviously had no idea what to say. They sat together at the kitchenette while I drove towards the Interstate.

  "Thank you for helping me," Danae said. "For some reason I just don't have the guts to do this by myself."

  "I understand," I said. "No one wants to be alone when they make such a big decision."

  She didn't say anything in reply. I glanced back and saw her smiling at Michael. I wouldn't say I was jealous... it was just that her behavior wasn't making a lot of sense.

  ...I wasn't jealous.

  "Can I ask you why you want to end your life?" I asked.

  "I don't know," she said. "I just don't feel like I connect with this world, you know?"

  "I know."

  "My boyfriend broke up with me last week... god... it turns out he was dating my roommate at the same time." She sighed. "But I'd still take him back if he'd have me."

  I could see Michael's face tense up through my rearview mirror.

  "That's unfortunate," I said to her. "There's nothing worse than feeling like you have no one to turn to."

  "Hold on," Michael said.

  "Don't interrupt," I told him. I knew I was losi
ng her, that it didn't feel right... but it wasn't his place to speak up.

  "No, seriously..." he said. "Danae, I don't know you very well, but I think you're a good person. I'm sure there are people out there who care for you deeply."

  "I don't know," Danae said.

  "Shouldn't you wait until you're sure? This is a pretty final step."

  "It's her decision, Michael," I said. "It's not up to you."

  "No, he's right," Danae said. I could hear her starting to cry. "God... I don't want to do this. It's not too late, is it?"

  "It isn't too late," I said. I knew I'd lost her. I put on the brakes and prepared to turn the camper around. "Hopefully your car is still there."

  I didn't have anything else I wanted to say, and I did my best to tune out whatever else that ditz was talking to Michael about.

  After we dropped Danae off and took enough money from her to pay for our gas, I drove Michael back towards New Haven. He sat up in the front with me, but I didn't feel like talking.

  "You're staying the night?" he asked as we pulled onto I-84.

  "I'm still mad at you," I said.

  "She didn't really want to die. You know that." He put his hand on my lap. "It was just like what happened with Eleanor. How many unsatisfied customers do you want?"

  I realized right away; we hadn't talked about that night. He shouldn't have known her name.

  "What did you just say?" I said.

  He pulled his hand away. And he hesitated before he spoke. "The girl who ordered the pizza that night in New Haven. The order was for someone named Eleanor."

  I slammed on the brakes. Michael's head hit the windshield hard enough that I almost thought he'd cracked the pane.

  "Get out," I said.

  "I need to tell you something," he said.

  "I don't want you to tell me anything. Just get out."

  "Please, Marie-Claire... it's important."

  "Get out!"

  So he did, stepping out into the woods of southern Massachusetts. He was staring at me with a plaintive look... I was tempted to run him over.

  He'd known about Eleanor, showing up at just the right time with a pizza box and a phony smile. And now he'd done his utmost to talk another one of my clients out of dying. Was he a plant? Some kind of pro-life zealot who didn't mind eating a little girlsteak on occasion if that's what it took to earn my trust?

  I felt betrayed and heartbroken. I felt like I was losing my mind.

  I drove away, leaving Michael standing on the shoulder, looking surprised that I'd carried through with it.

  I didn't know how he was going to get home and I didn't care.

  I turned down the next four good clients, despite some very tasty-looking profile photos; I felt like I was still being hunted, as though Michael or Eleanor and the Dreadlock Girls were watching me, waiting for me to slip up.

  I didn't know if I could go out again. I didn't feel confident that I'd be able to get the job done.

  But I still owed money on the bus cum camper, and there was no way I could let it be repossessed; the damned thing's filled with a sheepdog's worth of hair from New England's tastiest missing ladies.

  So when the next solid call came along, I had no choice but to take it.

  She lived a long way from Yale University and Michael the so-called pizza guy; that made me feel a little less uneasy. Her name was Lima and she was a laid-off line cook in New Hampshire, twenty-five, vegan and unhappy. It all sounded right.

  She sounded a lot like me, actually. Except for the vegan part.

  I arrived just after lunchtime at her apartment. I'd decided to meet her upstairs, and I waited for a samaritan to let me in rather than buzz her. I stood outside the door of her suite for a good ten minutes, listening for voices or for any other sign that I was walking into a trap.

  All I heard was a very poor rendition of Rebecca Black's "Friday". That didn't worry me too much.

  We sat together on her leather couch, talking about the decision she was making; I even read her goodbye notes as a kind of test.

  Lima seemed perfectly legit; I told her I was willing to take her with me.

  She put on a sweater and an expensive-looking silk scarf and climbed into the camper with me, sitting in the passenger seat as we headed south on I-89. We talked for quite a while, and from what I could tell she was the right mix of sensible and scared.

  "I'm embarrassed," Lima said after an hour or so, "but I need to go pee. Can we stop somewhere?"

  "I guess," I said. "Does it matter where?"

  "Anywhere."

  There's nothing innately suspicious about bathroom breaks, but I was feeling paranoid. Since Lima didn't have a place in mind, I stayed away from the upcoming service station and decided to pull off the Interstate completely. I took her to a restaurant right next to the covered bridge in Contoocook.

  "I'll wait here," I said.

  Lima went into the restaurant and I waited, flipping through the first few pages of a Stephen King novel that Michael had once lent me. I read a King story once where a man stranded on a desert island had started to eat parts of himself. I wondered how many hours of waiting in the bus it would take before I started to chew on my left arm.

  The door opened sooner than I'd expected and I turned to give Lima a smile. But looking back at me instead was Eleanor. She was pointing a handgun at me. I wasn't sure it was real.

  "Get up," she said.

  I stood up from the driver's seat, and she shoved me towards the back of the bus.

  The door opened again and Lima stepped inside.

  "Don't come in here," I said. Then I noticed the two women behind her. Both in dreadlocks, one holding a knife.

  I had a feeling I wouldn't get a chance to escape this time. I don't know how many pizza places they have in Contoocook.

  They taped us up on the floor, back to back, stuffing a couple of my dirtiest dishcloths into our mouths.

  Eleanor was beaming like it was her wedding day, a smile filled with stress, anticipation, and a little bit of relief. "Now you'll know what it feels like," she said to me as she stuck the handgun into her ugly canvas belt.

  I said a silent prayer, hoping she'd forgotten to put the safety on.

  The three vegans took us back onto the Interstate, but I couldn't see enough from my place on the floor to know where we were headed. I could hear Lima sobbing quietly, and for a moment I wondered if a kidnapping was just the shock she needed to get her life back on track.

  I wondered if Michael was in on it; was he following behind us with the fourth vegan? Was he coming along so he could laugh at me when Eleanor finally got her chance at whatever revenge came from the mind of a woman who'd forgotten how to bathe?