The Disassembled Man

by Nate Flexer

Born in New York City , NATE FLEXER currently lives in Colorado where he teaches high school English. He has had several short stories published in such crime magazines and e-zines as Crime Spree, Thuglit, Hardluck Stories, and Darkest Before Dawn. He recently completed The Disassembled Man and is seeking a publisher or agent.
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The Disassembled Man

Chapter 1

I was hunched over a trashcan vomiting an evening’s worth of burritos, whiskey, and misery, when this burly fellow reeking of sweat and two-dollar cologne grabbed me by the shoulders, spun me around, and slammed his meaty fist into my jaw. I performed a drunken pirouette, mumbled a pair of Hail Marys, and crashed to the alley asphalt. He stood over me and grinned. With pockmarked cheeks, a flattened nose, and a cruel mouth, he had a face that even a blind mother couldn’t love. Not that I’m one to talk.

"Scarlett told me about you," he said. "She told me all about you."

"What the hell are you talking about? I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m a good boy."

He pressed a steel-toed boot into my chest. "She told me how you been showing up at the club night after night to watch her jiggle. Told me that one night you even followed her home. Said she spotted you climbing up a mesquite tree, trying to get another peak. You’re a sick fuck, ain’t you boy?"

I spit out a loose tooth and wiped off some blood with my forearm. "Scarlett is a goddamn liar," I said. "I’m no peeping Tom. I’m an upstanding citizen."

But the ugly son-of-a-bitch didn’t believe me. Without fair warning, he swung his leg back and kicked me three times in the side, causing me to fart and spit up bile. Then he squatted down next to me, patted my cheek with the palm of his hand, and said, "Listen to me, you freak. The name is Ponso Arguello, and Scarlett Acres is my property until further notice. So from now on, don’t talk to her, don’t look at her, don’t even think about her. ‘Cause next time, I’m not gonna be so gentle. Next time they’ll be scraping your face from this here pavement."

He got back to his feet, kicked me one more time for good measure, and strode slowly toward Main Street. With great effort I managed to pull myself to a sitting position. Then I shouted after him. "To hell with you. You’re not so bad. You’re not so tough. Next time you’re gonna wish you didn’t mess with Frankie Avicious. ‘Cause I’m a mean motherfucker. I know Kung Fu. I know Tae Bo." But Ponso Arguello didn’t turn around, didn’t even slow down.

Feeling defeated and more than a little bit tired, I lay back down on the asphalt, using a half-eaten rotisserie chicken as a pillow. I stared up at the bone moon and pictured Ponso loving my beautiful Scarlett. And as a filthy breeze washed over my face, I made a promise: one of these days I’d teach that boy a lesson or two.

#

I slept in my car that night—-a monkey shit-brown Beretta with three missing hubcaps and a rusted hood. I woke myself up by hacking a pint of blood. I pried open my eyelids with my fingers. Everything hurt. I felt as if I’d gone twelve-rounds with a hyperactive orangutan then gotten kicked in the groin by a twelve-year old girl wearing soccer cleats.

I fumbled for a cigarette, found a soggy one still stuck on my lower lip, and lit it. I sucked down the nicotine, carbon monoxide, tar, cyanide, arsenic, ammonia, and the other 4,000 or so chemicals with great relish.

I rolled down the window. Outside, the desert sun was blazing and the air was still. Eight in the morning and it was already hotter than a fireman’s scrotum. I wiped the sweat from my forehead, hit the engine, and drove. I turned on the radio, but it was just talk, talk, talk, and that made me good and depressed. It was the usual topics: greed, drugs, and murder. And that was just the sports news.

The slaughterhouse where I worked was a sprawling concrete complex on route 95 called Sunshine Foods. Steam billowed from smokestacks like a modern-day sacrifice to God. Black ladders zigzagged up the windowless walls. Across the highway from the plant, tagged cattle were packed in the stockyard grazing, blissfully unaware of the savagery that awaited them. Everything smelled like manure, rotten eggs, and burning blood.

The parking lot was filled with beat-up pickups and worn-out cars. I drove slowly to the entrance, a familiar shroud of dread covering my skull. In the booth a fat man was reading a newspaper and didn’t bother looking at my ID card when I flashed it to him. He just nodded his head and opened the gate. I parked my car in the back of the lot and turned off the engine. Workers were walking through the parking lot with their heads down, carrying their lunch boxes and thermoses. I got out of the car and shielded my eyes from the sun.

Inside the locker room, a bunch of Sunshine employees were changing into their work clothes. They dressed in silence except for one poor son-of-a-bitch who sat on the bench rubbing his cross and praying in Spanish. Me, I never cared much for prayer. It always seemed an awful lot like begging, and I’d be damned if I was going to get down on my knees and plead to some Devil-God who got a hard-on by seeing me fail.

I opened my locker, and a few dozen cockroaches scurried out looking for a new crack to hide. Then I began dressing. I put on my gloves and chain-mail apron—metal armor that covered my body, gladiator-style. I stuck my hardhat onto my head and tucked my pants into my boots. The factory whistle blew. Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go.

I walked toward my station. The disassembly line was filled with catwalks, conveyer belts, and pipes. Workers with knives and hooks were attacking dangling sides of beef, struggling to tear off as much flesh as possible, while our foreman, Pete Baxter, shouted at them in Spanish, telling them to work faster, faster. About twenty feet in front of them, a burly man with a Paul Bunyan beard stood at the ready with a power saw, waiting for the next skinless steer to chop in half. His goggles were covered with blood and brains. He nodded at me solemnly, as if we were at a funeral. I guess we were. Now the stink was getting bad. I dodged the carcasses swinging from the blood rail like Walter Payton avoiding tacklers. As I reached the next level, I could hear the drum-like sound of cattle being knocked unconscious. Electric knives whirred, peeling flesh off carcasses and decapitated heads, slicing tongues from mouths.

I approached my station, the "sticker" station. In technical terms, my job was to make a vertical incision along the carotid arteries and jugular veins, causing the cow to bleed out so the other workers could safely skin, eviscerate, and split the animal. In not so technical terms, my job was to cut the throat of each and every goddamn cow that set foot in Sunshine Foods.

The early-shift sticker flashed a grin when he saw me. "Okay amigo, now it’s your turn," he said. He finished a final kill before stepping out of line. I quickly took his place. Within seconds the next steer swung my way. I gripped my knife hard and stuck the cow in its neck. Textbook. The blood splattered on my goggles, and I wiped it off with my sleeve. Then, a few seconds later, the next one arrived. I greeted it the same way. Its legs kicked in reflex, and I heard it groan. Eight and a half hours to go. I took a deep breath and looked down at the floor. My boots were submerged in blood.

#

A few days earlier, some Guatemalan immigrant had gotten pulled into the cogs of a conveyer belt while he was cleaning. No one there knew how to turn off the goddamn machine so they just sat there and watched as his arms and legs and chest and ass were shredded into a bloody mess. The plant was closed for a half day while they pretended to fix the machinery malfunction. This afternoon, Richard Richardson, Director of Operations, was coming to tour the plant and speak to the workers in order to allay any fears that Sunshine Foods wasn’t one hundred and ten percent committed to worker safety.

We had been warned about his arrival and given an updated protocol. While he was here, no cattle were to be legged or skinned alive. If meat dropped on the ground during processing, we were expected to rinse it thoroughly before placing it back on the conveyer belt. Workers were to report immediately if the sewers got clogged up due to coagulated blood or fecal matter. Additionally, there was to be no cursing, laughing, or loud conversation. The line speed would be slowed during Mr. Richardson’s visit to make it easier to follow these guidelines. This, they kept reminding us, was a special day.

So work was pretty trouble-free that afternoon. I only had to stick one or two cows per minute and most of them were even unconscious. Big Dick didn’t show up until the end of my shift. He was a short man with a large round gut and a red leathery face. His eyebrows looked like gray caterpillars, and his lips resembled bloated sausages. Baxter gave him rubber boots to cover his Italian shoes, but he refused the hardhat, choosing instead to wear his trademark white cowboy hat. A real man of the people.

For twenty minutes or so, he, Baxter, and a group of newspaper photographers walked around the plant, talking and joking with the workers. Dick even used some halting Spanish to speak with the Mexicans. They were undoubtedly impressed.

At some point Baxter led the group to my station. I had just finished a kill. I was about to open up my arms and give Dick a great big bear hug, but before I could, he quickly stuck out his hand and said, "Hi, I’m Richard Richardson, President of Operations of this here company. What’s your handle, son?"

I nodded my head slowly and returned the wink. "Frankie Avicious," I said.

His sausage lips upturned into a grin. "And how long have you been working for Sunshine Foods?"

"Five short years," I said. "Sped by faster than a cheetah with a firecracker up its ass."

"Then I take it you enjoy your job?"

"Enjoy my job? That’s funny, sir. That’s very funny. No sir, I don’t enjoy it at all. You see, here at Sunshine we workers are treated nearly as badly as the cattle. The supervisors spend their shifts sticking prods up our asses, figuratively, occasionally literally. The wages stink and so do the carcasses. But you already know that Dick, and it doesn’t bother you one bit. Because for you and all the other sons-of-bitches sitting in your leather recliners, smoking your Cuban cigars, and drinking your fifty-year old scotch, it’s all about the profits, isn’t it? Keep that killing line moving, meat is money, to hell with worker’s safety. Yeah Dick, I’ve dislocated my shoulder, broken three fingers, ruptured my spleen, stabbed myself a dozen or more times, lost the will to live. And that was just this morning. You think that I enjoy working for your goddamn company? Well, if you believe that, then I’ve got a nice oceanfront property up my ass for sale."

Or maybe I said, "Yes sir, I enjoy my job very much."

Mr. Richardson patted me on the back. "Yes Frankie, I’ve got a good feeling about you. I’ve got a feeling that you, as much as anybody, know what Sunshine Foods is all about. Sure, it’s about the wholesome products that we produce and package for this great country of ours on a daily basis. But that’s not all. No Frankie, it’s about the people. Good honest hard-working folks, like yourself, working together to create a better tomorrow. You may not believe me when I tell you this, son, but we’re all in this together. I may have the fancy title, but I’m no different than you, Frankie. And I’m certainly no different than poor Lorenzo Sanchez, who lost his life so tragically yesterday. My heart goes out to him and his family, and I want to assure you and the rest of the dedicated employees that they will be compensated generously for their loss, just as your family would be if, God forbid, something were to happen to you. Because you’re the people I go to church with, the people I go to the grocery store with, the people I rub shoulders with. The people, Frankie. The people are the heart and soul of this company, and I aim to keep it that way. You keep up the good work. May God bless you, may God bless Sunshine Foods, and may God bless America."

I nodded my head, thanked him sincerely. The cameras clicked. The next cow came down the line, and Baxter squeezed Big Dick’s shoulder and pulled him back. I grabbed a hold of the steer’s neck, reached around and stabbed its jugular vein. The blood squirted from its throat and splattered on Dick’s cowboy hat. For a moment he seemed stunned. He just stood there, his mouth slightly ajar. Then he removed the hat and tried wiping the blood off with his hands.

"Goddamn it, Avicious," Baxter said. "You’re always fucking things up."

But Dick just shook his head and laughed. "Oh, it’s no big thing," he said. "I can pick up another one of these any old day. Besides, I think this young man has quite a future in the company. I consider him family."

And I was. You see, Richard Richardson was my father-in-law.

Chapter 2

I should tell you about myself, not that you care. I was born and conceived in the same place: the back seat of a piss-yellow ‘64 Chevy. My parents were decent, God-fearing folks who went to church whenever they weren’t too drunk or stoned to crawl out of bed. Dad was a part-time night custodian, part-time auto mechanic, and a full-time bastard. He was as dishonest a man as I’ve ever known: the kind of fellow who’d pickpocket his own wallet. He also had a hell of a temper, and if he suspected, just suspected, that mom was being unfaithful, well, he wasn’t opposed to pressing a lit cigarette against her thigh, or grabbing her by the ponytail and smashing her pretty face against the coffee table.

I loved my mother the way a son should love a mother, and that’s all there is too say about that. The whispers that I heard, the sideway glances, those were just small-minded people looking to stir up resentment. But Dad listened to them, yes he did. And as I became a man, he became more paranoid, more suspicious. Mom and I might go out for a bite to eat, or maybe to a movie, and Dad would sit in the kitchen and drink and drink and wait and wait.

Then Mom got pregnant, and that was a hell of a thing. It could have been anybody—Tim Walker, Jeb Pooley, Pastor Duncan. Maybe even Dad himself. But his brain had been so badly contaminated by the local bacteria that he couldn’t think straight. He borrowed Lucky Pincer’s bowie knife and carved the word "SLUT" onto Mom’s forehead.

What he did to me was even worse.

When I was fifteen years they buried Dad and sent Mom to prison. I moved in with my Aunt Rosie. She was a miserable old lady who ate pickled herring by the pound, suffered from frequent asthmatic attacks, and spent her days rearranging a considerable collection of antique dolls. They were all over the house, those creepy sons-of-bitches, just staring at me, waiting for me to sin. There was nowhere I could go to escape their watchfulness, not even the bathroom or my own bedroom. I blame them, along with an increased appetite for whiskey, for the immense amount of anxiety I felt during those years. And that anxiety was my downfall. Because it caused me to act mean. I started getting into fights. Violent fights. They—my Aunt Rosie, the school principal, a psychologist—gave me a lot of chances, but I didn’t change. Not much anyway. So they put me in a reform school in Casa Grande. Three years later I was convicted of first-degree assault.

I served a nickel’s worth. They said I was there in order to be rehabilitated, but that was just a line. I didn’t get better. If anything I just got meaner and angrier. I made it through, though. What doesn’t kill you doesn’t kill you.

Two weeks after I was granted parole, I met Ruth Richardson. I was at a little downtown tavern called the Looney Bin, eating cows’ tongues and drinking Jagermeister when she sat down next to me. She told me it was her half birthday. I bought her a Mai Tai. Less than an hour later, I performed cunnulingus on her in the restroom of a Sinclair station. It was love at first sight.

Within a month, Ruth was already talking marriage. Me, I just blew it off. Then I met her old man. He was so goddamn rich that he used twenty-dollar bills to wipe his ass. I figured that I had finally caught a break after a lifetime of crap luck. Without thinking twice, I pawned my soul for an engagement ring and drove her fat ass down to the Justice of the Peace.

A few weeks after the papers were signed, Richard Richardson handed me a cigar and told me that he’d be more than willing to set me up with a job in his company. Naturally, I was thinking a nice desk job where I’d have a pretty secretary who would pour me coffee and call me "sir" and let me gaze at her round booty as she bent down to pick up a dropped file. Instead, he got me a job inside the rendering plant and later at the slaughterhouse. "A fellow like you—an ex-con I mean—is lucky to get regular work at all," he said. Lucky. Like hell. I couldn’t have gotten a break if I’d smashed my own fingers with a hammer.

#

Well, after work I was plenty angry. I hadn’t expected to be treated that way. So ashamed of his daughter’s husband that he had to pretend that we were strangers. Couple that with the beating Ponso Arguello had given me, and I was damn near ready to explode.

I climbed into my car and pounded on the steering wheel. It was all wrong. This job, this wife, this life. I straightened up and took a few deep breaths. I knew I needed to do something productive before all the rage and regret boiled over. I started thinking and thinking, trying to figure something out. After mulling through countless possibilities, I finally came to a sensible, albeit not completely original decision. I decided I was going to drive straight to the Big Bust Gentlemen’s Club and watch Scarlett Acres take her clothes off.

#

The club was smoky and seemed silent despite the techno music blasting from the speakers. I quickly scanned the joint for Scarlett’s protector, but I didn’t see him. A young girl with vacant eyes and badly shaved pubic hair was swaying back and forth on the center stage. An old man with a blonde toupee sat alone watching her, a shit-eating grin on his face, a wad of dollar bills in his grubby fist. A couple of mustachioed Mexicans with cowboy hats were sitting at the bar. I sat down next to them and rapped on the counter. A brunette who was dressed like a stripper but was too old to get paid for it, nodded at me. "What can I get for you, sweetheart?"

"Everclear with a chase of whiskey," I said.

"Six dollars." I gave her five singles and four quarters and told her to keep the change. Then I sucked down my drinks and ordered two more.

It wasn’t until nearly seven o’clock that my love took the stage, blowing kisses to all the cockroaches and maggots that were hanging from chairs. Scarlett Acres wasn’t much to look at. She had bleach-blonde hair, an acne-scarred face, and a gap between her teeth. Her nose was too big and her ears were too small. About the only thing she had going for her is that she was built a bit lopsided. What I mean by that is she was one hiccup away from giving herself a pair of black eyes.

I found a seat in the corner, concealed by a shadow. I drank my poison and watched the show. The music was terrible and so was the dancing. Scarlett flopped across the stage and yanked off her clothes with all the grace of a two-bit whore. The set ended. She got down on her knees and hoarded the scattered dollar bills. I got up from my seat and stumbled toward the exit. I knew what time she’d be finishing. And I’d be sitting there waiting for her.

Outside the air was still and the moon looked mean. I leaned against the brick wall. I lit a cigarette and tried to make smoke rings, but I didn’t know how. A scorpion scurried across the pavement and I stomped it dead with my boot.

An hour passed, maybe more, before Scarlett appeared through the heat and melancholy. She was wearing a tight pink shirt and a tighter black skirt. She was chewing gum and walking briskly. I didn’t know she could do both of them at the same time. She didn’t see me until it was too late. I snuck up behind her and grabbed her arm. She shrieked like a stuck pig.

"I’ve missed you, precious," I said.

"Ow. Let go, Frankie."

"You’ve got a boyfriend," I said, squeezing harder.

"You…you’re hurting me."

"He’s a tough guy. Likes sneaking up on innocent drunks. Smashing in their faces."

"I can’t control him," she said. "I never told him to do that to you."

"Did it on his own, huh?" I said. "Without any encouragement? You’re lying."

"Go home, Frankie. My manager is gonna be coming out the door any minute now and…" I let go of her arm and gave her a nice little shove. She just smirked. "I thought you would have learned by now to leave me alone."

"I’m a slow learner," I said. "I’ve got the IQ of a corkscrew."

Scarlett fought back a grin. Then she did something that caught me by surprise. She leaned forward and gave me a long kiss on my mouth. There are a thousand different kisses. This one was the kiss of death. "Poor boy," she said. "Lovesick for the wrong girl.

I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fists. "One of these days, Scarlett, you’re gonna understand. You’re gonna understand that you and I are meant for each other, that there’s no other way."

"Frankie. I’m just a stripper. I’m not so big into love."

"Then what about your boy Ponso Arguello?"

She shrugged. "What can I say? He’s got some money. He buys me nice things."

"And that’s all it takes?"

"I’m a shallow person, Frankie. I don’t deny it."

The door to the club opened. I could hear the music, but it was muffled, blurry. A man appeared: her manager. Scarlett took a step forward and called for help. I grinned, baring my teeth. "I’ll be seeing you," I growled. "And Scarlett darling, I ain’t even close to through with you."

###

Copyright © Nate Flexer 2008

Read Nate Flexer's article – Jim Thompson's Psychopathic Narrators