Dead Clown Barbecue (12 page)

"Such as?"

"Baby Killer, for one. But I don't let it bother me. I hold my head up high as I walk into my factory each morning. For I know that I am in the right. Cooing aside, babies contribute nothing to society."

"Not as newborns," I agreed. "But when they grow up —"

"Oh pish-posh. I've heard that argument a hundred times. Let me ask you something. Are you a hard worker?"

"Yes, sir."

"And do I pay you a fair wage?"

"Absolutely, sir."

"Well, let's imagine that I hired you expecting a hard worker and paid you a fair wage. But for the first twelve or thirteen years of your employ, you did nothing at all. Would that be a sound business decision for me?"

"I guess not."

"You
guess
not? You
know
not! Yes, babies eventually become productive citizens, but until that time they're the epitome of laziness and wanton consumption. By the time they're ready to contribute, it's too little, too late. That's why I chop them, grind them, and burn them. Do you understand?"

"I think I do."

"Excellent. Feel free to stop in with any other concerns. My door is always open."

I walked to the lunchroom, feeling at peace with the world. And for the next few months, I was one of Mr. Twitcher's best employees. Garry and I even beat the baby-chopping record. Only by three, but we still beat it!

Sometimes I'd make a game of it, tossing the halves into the air and trying to catch them in the open bag. Unfortunately, Mr. Twitcher didn't approve of horseplay in the factory, and we were both reprimanded.

Then one day we came into work and saw a great big tent next to the machine. Well, not a tent exactly, but rather something covered with a huge white sheet. Mr. Twitcher stood in front of it, proudly, and gestured for us to gather around.

"Behold!" he shouted, tugging off the sheet. "My Miracle Puppy and Kitten Dicer!"

It was truly an impressive machine. The steel gleamed in the fluorescent lights. Unlike the Baby-Chopper's single slicing implement, this contraption had no fewer than eight blades. Awestruck, everybody moved closer to get a better look.

"So we're killing puppies and kittens now?" Garry asked.

"We certainly are! Lots of them! And I'll give an extra day's wages to the first person who can tell me the best part of my new invention!"

I immediately raised my hand. "It can chop eight at once!"

Mr. Twitcher shook his head. "No, no, no, no. One at a time. That's the only way to do it, Joey, one at a time! Who else has a guess?"

There were other guesses, none of them correct. Mr. Twitcher grinned. "It won't kill them right away!" he announced. "Eight blades of the sharpest steel, but they won't damage any vital organs! The canine or feline will remain alive to die a slow, agonizing death as we watch!"

Everybody applauded.

"That would've been my next guess," Garry muttered, although I doubted his honesty.

And so Mr. Twitcher expanded his empire. We chopped and diced all day, and though I couldn't explain it, another mild sensation of guilt began to wash over me during the following weeks. I started to wonder if I was sick. Perhaps I had a brain tumor, or something even worse.

I went to the doctor and had a full physical examination. He assured me that I was perfectly fine.

So what was wrong with me?

I lay in bed, again unable to sleep. I thought about the last puppy. It wore a collar that said "Woofy" and had held onto its chew toy until its final moment of life. I couldn't get the image of the puppy's soulful eyes out of my mind. Why? Why did this torment me so?

And the truth instantly became crystal clear.

Killing puppies was wrong.

Killing kittens was wrong.

And, yes, even killing babies was wrong.

There was no moral grey area here. Every single weekday I walked into Mr. Twitcher's factory, and I did terrible things. Ghastly things. Unforgiveable things. I was worse than the mugger who stole an elderly woman's purse. Worse than the vandals who covered exquisite statues in spray paint. Worse even than the businessman who cheated on his taxes.

In fact, I was worse than the first two put together.

Well, this was going to stop. The next time a precious kitten was dismembered, I would not be the one to pull the lever to release the stainless steel blades! Tomorrow morning I was going to march right into Mr. Twitcher's office and tender my resignation.

I felt as if the weight of a thousand anvils had been lifted from my shoulders. I now understood the sense of happiness, the bliss, the feelings of self-worth enjoyed by those who didn't murder babies and kittens and puppies as part of their daily employment. I was one of them now. I was pure.

I almost got out of bed and marched to the factory right then and there, but nobody would be at work in the middle of the night and my moral victory would go unnoticed. Instead, for the first time in my career, I showed up to work fifteen minutes late.

"Where've you been?" Garry demanded. "We've got a baby backlog!"

"I don't care," I said, calmly.

"What?"

"I don't care. I'm not killing any more babies."

With some effort, I climbed on top of the Miracle Baby-Chopping Machine, standing on top of the slab, although not where the blade could get me. Climbing on the equipment was strictly forbidden, but I just didn't care anymore, not even when I saw Mr. Twitcher come out of his office to see what was going on.

"There is evil in the world," I announced. "We may think it exists only in faraway lands, but it exists right here in our own town. In fact, it exists underneath my very feet. I've been walking around with blinders on, but no more. No more! Only yesterday I was like the rest of you. I gave no more thought to chopping up a baby than I did to eating a bagel. And that is deplorable. More than deplorable. Yesterday when I looked into the mirror, I thought I saw a man, but instead I saw a beast!"

"Get the hell down from there!" Mr. Twitcher shouted.

"I will," I said. "I will get down. In fact, I will get down from this whole appalling operation. Because no matter how you justify it, it is flat-out wrong to murder babies just because you don't like them. And the same is true for puppies and kittens. They may not pay taxes, but they have almost as much of a right to live as we do!"

I gazed into the faces of my co-workers. I knew they did not believe me. They thought I was a madman.

But you know what? That was okay, because I didn't speak my words of wisdom for them. Nor did I make this speech for the babies of the world, nor the puppies, nor the kittens.

I did it for myself.

I climbed down from Mr. Twitcher's machine and walked out of the factory, forever.

Please don't call me a hero. I'm just a regular man whose eyes opened just a little bit wider that day.

I kept in touch with Garry. He told me how Mr. Twitcher unveiled a third machine, this one capable of stretching a panda bear to twice its normal height before the cuddly creature split. Garry's eyes gleamed as he described the device, but my own eyes were unimpressed.

Because I won't torture an innocent panda bear. I'm not that person anymore.

Sometimes in life, you have to take a stand for what you believe in. That's what I did that warm August morning. And you can do it, too. You may not save any lives, and you may not make the world a better place, but if you can stop yourself from making it worse, then you've done your small part to help.

Me, I can look in the mirror again.

And I like what I see.

THE CARVER

Though Frank always thought that using those trace patterns to carve impressive jack-o-lanterns was cheating, he had no such reservations about using them on humans.

"Why are you doing this?" his victim wailed.

It was the sixth or seventh time the man had asked that. Frank wasn't sure why he cared. Frank knew that if
he
were strapped to a chair with a trace pattern taped to his face and a madman slicing at him with a scalpel, the motive would be irrelevant. Maybe the man was just trying to fill the awkward silences between screams.

"I'm doing this because I'm insane. Doesn't my mad cackle make me sound insane?" Frank asked, knowing perfectly well that it did.

"Please . . . just let me go!"

"That would be kind of silly. I went to a lot of trouble to get you. You resisted when I tried to put the burlap sack over your head. Remember that? You bit me on the finger. Right here. You didn't quite break the skin but you came close. After enduring that, why would I just let you go?"

The man began to weep.

Even though he fully and cheerfully identified with the label of "psycho sadist," Frank didn't like it when they cried. Screaming was awesome. Choking and gurgling were also nice. But when his victims cried, there was always a tiny part of Frank that thought,
Am I doing the right thing? Could I somehow put my cutting skills to better use?

He always got over it quickly, though. "Stop crying," he said.

"Please," said the man, still crying, "my wife is pregnant."

"Is she?"

"Yes."

"Why aren't you wearing a wedding ring?"

"I'm allergic."

"To what? To gold?"

"Yes."

"I think I've heard of that, actually. But how come I've been tracking you for the past couple of days, and I've never seen you hanging out with any pregnant women? You tried to pick up that one lady at the bar, but I didn't really get a 'pregnant spouse' vibe from her. I mean, I couldn't hear the whole conversation, but she did kind of shake her head at you a few times and then leave with a different guy. Based on what I observed, if you really do have a pregnant wife, then I should be mad at you, and torture you longer and more ferociously."

"Please . . ."

"You already said please. Manners don't help."

"I didn't do anything to you."

"You're right. You didn't. And if I kept shouting 'Revenge!' the whole time I was cutting you, that argument would have some substance. But since I've given no indication that my actions are vengeance-based, it was a pointless thing to say."

"I'll do anything."

"Like what?"

"Anything."

"Would you stab a baby?"

"What?"

"If I brought a baby in here right now, would you stab it? Not dozens of times; just one really good stab. Maybe in the soft part of its head. Would you do that?"

The man didn't answer.

"Hey, for all you know I've got a newborn in the next room and this could be your key to freedom. Would you, or would you not, stab a newborn baby in the soft part of its head if I promised to let you go?"

The man was silent for a long moment. "Burn in hell," he finally said.

Frank desperately wished that he had a baby in the next room, so he could bring it in and see if the man would really stab it. But he didn't have one, and he didn't have any way to get one outside of fathering one himself, which would take too long.

"That's a no, huh?" Frank asked. "I can respect that. If I were in your position, I'd be all like 'Bring that baby in right now! Hell, line ten of 'em in a row and I'll stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab . . . uh, was that nine or ten? I think it was nine. Stab. But you're a better person than I am."

Frank slashed the scalpel across the man's chin. The man winced. Frank wished he'd winced louder.

"Don't take that as a big compliment, though," Frank continued. "I'm morally reprehensible. Most people are better people than me. Not Hitler, and not Saddam, but I like to think that I'm around the Jeffrey Dahmer level. Did you know that he was trying to make people into zombies? Seriously. He wasn't trying to create an army of zombies or anything like that, but he did want to make a couple of them to do his bidding. If I was going to let you live, you could look it up."

He slashed again. Damn. That wasn't quite where he was supposed to cut. It was hard to stay on the lines. Oh well. Close enough.

"You never really answered the baby question," he said. "You told me to go to hell, but that's not a definitive answer. That was basically expressing your disapproval of the idea while leaving the option open. I think you'd do it."

"I wouldn't stab a
doll
for you."

"Is that so? You just said that you'd do anything."

"Changed my mind."

"My, my, my, well, well, well, look who's all rebellious now! I'm gonna have to siphon out some of that testosterone or you might just kick my ass. Where did this sudden courage come from? I like it. Make you a deal: I'll let you go right now if you wet your pants. Ready . . . set . . . wet 'em!"

"I'm not doing anything for you."

"It's not for me. You'd be wetting your pants for yourself. You can leave that part out when you talk to the press if you think it might interfere with you getting a movie or book deal."

"Go to hell."

"You've already said that. I still think you're being kind of politician-y about it. Go on and wet them. Wet them or I'll stab you in the chest."

"You'll stab me anyway."

"No, I won't. Not in the chest. Do it."

"Never."

"Never? That's kind of melodramatic. You sound like a superhero. Maybe you're counting on your chest of steel to deflect my knife. Do it."

"No."

"I'm not asking for number two. It's no big deal."

"I'm not doing it."

"A few drops."

"No."

"C'mon, only a few . . ." Frank frowned. "You just made me act whiny. None of my victims have ever made me act whiny before. How the hell did you do that?"

The man didn't answer.

"I'm serious. It's really kind of upsetting that you drew that out of me.
You're
supposed to be the whiny one. I can't believe this happened. Damn."

Actually, Frank had behaved in a faux-whiny manner with at least three of his former victims, and it amused him that the man's eyes seemed to light up with the thought of somehow having obtained the upper hand.

"I'm kidding, of course," he said. "If you'd really wet your pants I would have scolded you then stabbed you."