Long Pig

Cannibalism was fairly common in the new world, taking two distinct forms. Either you ate the vanquished, or you ate the old and wise from your own tribe. Diaz, with Cortez, chronicles the ferocious Aztec rituals, and, in his detailed journals, actually includes some recipes. The prisoners were forced to climb the 114 steps to the top of the stepped pyramid, bent over tautly so the priest could slice under the rib cage with an obsidian knife and rip out the still beating heart. The body was then rolled down the back side of the steps, the arms and legs were cut off and cooked with squash, the torsos were tossed to animals in the zoo. At the other extreme is a kind of stew you make from the heart and brains of your grandfather. Cultural conditioning. Gruesome reading before breakfast, but I have a strong stomach. When Pegi arrives at the museum I head right out to Market Street for scones, warm from the oven. Hot coffee and a warm pastry is a great way to start the day. Finish mopping the floors, collect the trash, haul away everything that can be recycled; the recycling center is behind the library, so I take back some books and get a large volume of John Updike's non-fiction, essays and criticism, "More Matter". I'm not that big a fan of his fiction but I like his non-fiction well enough. Another sequence of storms forecast and it's important to have tobacco, booze, and a good book. I finish painting early enough to run out to the ridge and get my mail and still get back to town for Happy Hour at the pub. Pegi requested I not sleep on the ridge lest I not make it in to work tomorrow. Ice and snow by early morning. I'm a cheap date, free heat and hot running water, I'll agree to anything. Astra surprised me today, at lunch. There was a table of four that came in before me, I was sitting at the bar, in my usual place, and she took their orders, then came up behind me, asking what I wanted; an egg salad on toasted sour-dough, slaw on the side, and she put my order in first, so I would be served first, so I could eat and get away quickly. I'm a regular, I warrant special treatment. Nothing ever was. Yet it is. As I mentioned earlier, all of these people touch me now, as if I'm family, and I'm like a guppy, straining for breath, little swollen lips pursing in and out. Something might be better than nothing. I'm not sure. Nothing is comforting in many ways: what we expect, what we end up with, the tail end of the story.