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Brian licked the saliva from his
lips as he watched the saw cut through the rib cage.
Congealed blood flew from the tip of the saw and bounced off the window. The butcher’s apron was covered in dried
blood and stringy byproducts. The sight of
all this violence was just what he needed. It
had been far too long since he had performed the beautiful art of butchering. Brian was too engrossed in the carving of the cow
to notice he had popped an erection that caused the crotch of his lint-balled sweatpants
to protrude in obvious sexual arousal. His
breathing was heavy like that of begging dog. Several
old ladies had noticed his excitement and made a hasty exit from the meat counter. The skinny butcher looked up from his carcass and
held a bloody-gloved finger to signal Brian to wait a moment. Brian nodded politely. The man placed the saw down and exited the
freezer.
“What’ll it be
buddy?”
“I was just admiring your
work,” Brian said.
The butcher stared at him
bewildered.
Brian noticed the butcher’s
curious gaze, and his cheeks reddened with embarrassment.
“What I mean is, are you
looking for any help? I just got laid off
from Morgan’s Department Store, and I need a job.”
“Funny you should
ask,” the butcher said. “My
part-timer just went away to college, and I could actually use a another hand. You have any experience?”
“I use to help my dad cut
up our deer meat every hunting season,” Brian smiled.
Not to mention the eight bitches I’ve sliced up across Manchester, he
thought.
“Well, I’ll tell you
what. You can run the counter and when things are slow I’ll train you to cut.”
“That sounds good,”
Brian said, using every once of his willpower to hold back his excitement.
The butcher took his glove off
and extended his hand across the counter. Brian
met it with his own and gripped it firmly.
“Name’s John
Rancor.”
“Brian De Novo.”
John smiled thinly and withdrew
his hand. Brian suspected John had heard
about him but kept his mouth shut.
“Come in tomorrow morning
about seven, and we’ll get some paperwork out of the way and start your
training.”
“Seven it is,” Brian
repeated. “Thank you for help.”
John shrugged his shoulders, placed his bloody glove back on his hand, and went
back to his side of beef to make it into someone’s steak or pot roast.
Brian turned and strolled out of
Rancor’s Butcher Shop and onto the bustling late afternoon streets of
Manchester’s business district. People
filed past him, and he imagined they were cows wandering through a pasture. He examined each one. Some had too much fat others were too thin and
stringy. When he found one that was just
right, he reached into his coat pocket, clutched the cold handle of his knife, and
followed her.
Brian woke at five-thirty the
next morning with a newfound meaning to his life. She
was the last, he told himself, as he stared deep into the eyes of his mirror image. He turned the faucet on and scrubbed the dried
blood from his hands.
Brian stood at the entrance to
Rancor’s shop and watched the people gliding by without any regard for one another. They hurried to get to their meaningless careers
earlier than the others. What a pathetic
existence, maybe I’m doing them a favor by killing them, he thought.
“No, no,” Brian
mumbled to himself. “It’s time to
change that kind of thinking and become one them. I
have this wonderful new job, and I really should give being a career guy a try.”
John Rancor turned the corner
and hurried down the sidewalk like all the other zombies.
His thick down filled coat gave the illusion that he was larger than he was. His thinning salt and pepper hair stayed firm in
the chilly morning breeze. He fumbled in his
pocket for the keys and stopped next to Brian at the door.
“How long you been
here?”
“Half-hour,” Brian
said in a blasé tone.
“Well let’s get inside
out of this cold,” John said as he put his shoulder into the door to jar it open.
John flipped a switch and
showered the room with buzzing fluorescent lights. He
walked over to the TV and turned it on. The
people on the other end gabbed about the local weather and current events. John flipped up the drop down counter and made his
way to the back of the store.
“Wait here,” John
advised. “I’ll get the paperwork,
and we can fill it out in here.”
“Okay boss,” Brian
said. It felt funny to call someone boss;
I’m use to being the boss, and not the bossed he thought.
John came out with a couple
pieces of paper and sat down on the stool near the cash register. Brian leaned on the counter across from him.
“I’m sorry,” John
said. “I’ll get a seat from out back
for you.”
“Don’t bother, this is
fine,” Brian insisted.
“All right, let’s get
started then,” John pushed a paper and a pen over the counter to Brian. “Just fill this out, and we’ll go over
it when you’re finished.”
Brian snatched up the pen and began
writing. John took out a set of butcher
knives and began sharpening them. The
newswoman broke through the white noise of the shop with urgency in her otherwise pleasant
voice:
“Now
our top story, Manchester Police officials have found what appears to be another slaying
by the Manchester Mangler. Three University
of New Hampshire students have been found murdered in a parked car at Peace Park. Although the murders differ slightly from previous
ones, the Manchester PD believes that the murders are the work of the Manchester Mangler. Captain David O’Hare said that three victims,
two females and one male, were killed in the same grizzly manner as eight others in recent
years. He also stated that although there was
a male victim amid the slayings, which is not in the style of the Mangler, it probably is
a case of the victim being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Stay with us throughout the morning for more
updates on this breaking news story.”
“Sick, isn’t it,” John said catching Brian staring at the TV.
Brian returned his attention to
his application. Who in the hell did that,
Brian wondered? (I hate copycats.) He
scribbled more answers on his application and slid it back to John. John spun the paper around and examined it.
“Brian, I need to ask you
something.”
Here it comes Brian thought,
“Go ahead.”
“Are you the same Brian De
Novo that was accused of being the Manchester Mangler?”
Brian felt an urge to reach
across the counter and slit the little bastard’s throat but instead he took a deep
breath to calm himself.
“Accused is right,”
Brian began. “But I wasn’t
convicted. I’ve been suspected of many
murders. When I was twelve, they said I
killed my mother. Fact is she blew her brains
out with the same shotgun that I hunted with, and my fingerprints happened to be on the
weapon.” I haven’t lost the gift to
tell a lie, Brian thought. “I must
confess that I did kill my father. We were in
a car accident when I was eighteen. I picked
my father up at a bar to drive him home, and I was rather hammered myself. I slammed into an oncoming car. I was the only one who was wearing a seatbelt as
well as the only one to survive the crash.” I
wasn’t too drunk to know what I was doing though, Brian remembered. “After getting out of prison for vehicular
manslaughter, I got myself together and got a girlfriend.
She was the first victim of the Manchester Mangler.” Guess she shouldn’t have fucked that yuppie
and let me find out, Brian mused. “I was
acquitted because the prosecution didn’t have enough evidence to convict me but ever
since then I’ve been the main suspect in every murder the police have deemed the work
of the Mangler. Every time someone is killed,
local, state, and federal police organization harass me, but they never can pin it down to
me.” Brian knew they’d come calling
about this murder too, and for once they would be after the wrong guy. “So yes I am the same Brian De Novo the
police have accused of being the Manchester Mangler, but no, I haven’t killed anyone
intentionally.” Since last night at
least, when I dumped that chick in the trash bin after giving her a permanent smile from
ear to ear, he thought.
John stood up and walked around
the counter. He put a hand on Brian’s
shoulder and gave it a reassuring fatherly squeeze.
“That’s too bad,”
John said. “I was kind of hoping to meet
the man whose work I’ve admired so much.”
John
grabbed a tuft of Brian’s greasy hair, yanked his head back, and slid the highly
polished steel blade across his throat.
© 2001Jason
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