The Republic of Wine

carried a naked meat boy into the lecture hall in a specially designed gurney. The women would have been considered good looking, but their pale faces made me squirm. They set the gurney on the chopping block, then stepped aside, their arms hanging down stiffly. My mother-in-law bent over to inspect the pink meat boy, poked him in the chest with a soft, dainty index finger, and nodded with satisfaction. Then she stood up to remind the students one more time, with great solemnity: You must never ever forget that this is just a little animal in human form. She’d barely gotten the words out when the little animal in human form on the gurney rolled over. The students let out a suppressed gasp. Everyone, myself included, thought the little guy opening on his foot. In a strangely beautiful manner, a string of bright red drops of blood like gemstones hung down to merge with a glass jar under his foot. The lecture hall was unusually quiet. All the students - male and female - their eyes bulging, were staring at the meat boy’s foot and the string of blood that hung from it. The camera from the local TV station was also trained on the foot and the blood beneath it, which sparkled in the bright lights. Gradually I heard the students’ heavy breathing, deep like the swelling tide, and the clear, crisp, ear-pleasing sounds of blood dripping into the jar, like a creek flowing through deep ravines. My mother-in-law said, The meat boy’s blood will be completely drained in about an hour and a half. The second step is to remove the innards while keeping them intact. The third step is to loosen the hair with water heated to 70 degrees … I really don’t feel like describing my mother-in-law’s actual cooking lesson, which was boring and nauseating at the same time. Since night was falling, Doctor of Liquor Studies’ brain, which was full of wonderful ideas, and stimulated by alcohol, had to concentrate on creating a story entitled ‘Swallows’ Nests’ instead of wasting his talent on a banquet for cannibals.

Chapter Seven
    I
    The lady trucker’s comment knifed into the investigator’s heart. He pressed his hand against his breast like a love-struck teenager and bent over in agony. He saw her pink feet, which were livelier than her hands, rubbing back and forth across the carpet. His heart was inundated with a wicked passion. Clenching his teeth, he cursed - ‘Slut!’ - before turning and striding toward the door. He heard a shout thud into his back: Where do you think you’re going, you whoremonger? Who the hell do you think you are, bullying a woman that way?’ He kept walking. A sparkling drinking glass whizzed past his ear, bounced off the door, and landed on the carpet. Turning to look back, he saw her standing there, thrusting her chest out and breathing heavily, moisture glistening in her eyes. Beset by mixed emotions, he struggled to keep his voice under control: ‘How could you be so shameless as to sleep with a dwarf? Was it for money?’ She burst into tears, sobbing and sobbing, until suddenly she raised her voice, hoarse yet shrill, setting the metal decorations of the frosted-glass hanging lamps tinkling loudly. She tore open her blouse, began pounding her breasts, scratching her face with her fingernails, tearing her hair, and smashing her head against the cream-colored wall. In the midst of her frenzied self-abuse, she shrieked hysterically, nearly bursting the investigator’s eardrums:
    ‘Get out - get out - get the hell out -’
    The investigator was scared witless. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He felt as if the Angel of Death were rubbing his nose with its cold hand and red-painted nails. Spurts of urine ran down his leg. He knew how inelegant, not to mention uncomfortable, it was to be pissing his pants, yet he couldn’t help himself. It was all that kept him from falling apart. But even as he was pissing his pants, he experienced the joy of shedding an enormous emotional burden. Voice cracking with emotion, he said:
    ‘Don’t do that… please, I beg you …’
    Unmoved by his plea or by his loss of bladder control, the lady trucker forged ahead with her self-abuse and loud wails. As she banged her head with increased vigor, the wall protested loudly, until it seemed inevitable that it would soon be splattered with her brains. The investigator ran over and threw his arms around her waist, only to have her straighten up and break his grip. Now she changed tactics: