K had just come to the awkward conclusion that he was, in all likelihood, a cannibal. Over the years he’d eaten a lot of street meat and once it was covered in all those hot sauces and yoghurt sauces you really never knew. You couldn’t tell what you were digging into as you sat on some filthy stoop hungrily raking it in during a pinched lunch break. Certainly if perfectly nice folks like Helena Bonham Carter chopped people up into mince pies what was to stop all the other perfectly nice folks out there, finding themselves strapped for cash, from doing the same? Well okay Helena was only playing a character, but we all know, all too well, that the line between fiction and fact is thin. One person sees it and says: Woah! That was entertaining but thank goodness it doesn’t really happen in true life, and another responds: The movie is based on a real story you know! And another simply thinks: That is a good idea! I have an old coal-chute in the back of my house! If I select my borders with care I’d have it made! It may be a stretch but only a little one. I read the newspapers. So went K's thoughts. They went in, then out again, leaving only an after taste, a taste for flesh to be precise.
Hungry he decided to try a different vendor, one, he'd noticed, who preferred to set up his cart in a side street away from the throng. Why? K asked himself. What is the man hiding?
I’ll take the lamb with rice. Thanks. The price was certainly right. On the main street he usually paid $4 but here (where was here?) it only cost $3 and for a heaping pile of food. He chose a different stoop from the usual and sat down next to a lady with reddened eyes. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in a while. That or someone close to her had died. Why so sad? K asked. My child is missing, she responded. Oh, pull the other one! He thought but he only nodded in response and then he got down to the business at hand—eating.
As he chowed down his mystery food he pondered the fact that he’d never encountered fingernails or any other such tell tale signs. But then again he’d never found chicken claws in his food either. Meat was meat. The meat he was eating just then was distinctly darker than the usual and made all the more disturbing by the lady staring at his food in horror.
What? K edged away from her but she kept staring. She didn’t respond because she was far away deep in her worst, most inarticulate fears. K continued to eat. He was hungry. When all you’ve been doing is xeroxing legal papers all day one gets hungry. You’d only know if you’d held a similar low wage job.
The lady was staring again.
The lady was staring again.
K looked daggers at her.
Would you stop staring at me!
Oh, I’m sorry! She responded polite as could be, only it reminded me of. . .then her voice trailed off as she sighed a deep sigh.
Would you stop staring at me!
Oh, I’m sorry! She responded polite as could be, only it reminded me of. . .then her voice trailed off as she sighed a deep sigh.
Of what? Said K a hint of gentleness in his voice.
My son you see he. . .it was. . .he couldn’t have been gone more than. . .I can’t.
Can’t what?
Can’t talk about it, she said and then she got up and walked away.
K looked down at his empty styrofoam container and the two little bits of gristle he’d shoved to the side. Looking down the street he could see the vendor serving up another plateful to some other poor unsuspecting stranger. He got up, tied off the plastic bag, dropped it in the nearest garbage can, and headed back to work.
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Originally published in Manhattan Comic News in 1990
Originally published in Nicholas Blechman's 
