You should write a book!

Forbidden Stories - The Cannibalism Story (TW)

I'd been living with the local Romani for about a month at this point, and we had done some crazy shit. I was 12, so I thought this kind of thing was normal, or at least as normal as what rich kids got to do. 

One of the best, least dangerous ways for us to make money was selling guns and ammunition. I was the youngest person in our little group, so I didn't really get to ask many questions. It's important to note that all of this was happening in about 1990, so it was before people were randomly shooting up schools and churches and stuff. Hell, it was even before Waco, so guns seemed like a harmless thing to sell. We'd somehow convinced ourselves that guns were less harmful than drugs, because drugs could affect children. Do I need to reiterate that I was 12?

Anyway, so this was maybe my third delivery day, and we'd start early in the morning, and deliver things all day. The rule that they drilled into my head, over and over, was "Ask any questions before you give them guns, because after you give them guns... they have guns." This will be important later. 

We started at about 6am and delivered guns all day. We stopped for breakfast and lunch, but then traffic made it hard to stop for dinner, so we just kept working. It was almost midnight when we delivered out last set of guns. 

As a cover, and maybe just because it was an added revenue stream, we would also deliver fresh fruits and vegetables. This was about the time when a lot of the kind of people who would stockpile guns were worried about secret chemicals in things - fluoride in the water, chemicals in meat, etc. A lot of preppers (though I don't think we had the word back then) would only eat fresh-grown stuff or stuff they hunted or found. 

I was 12, and even though I was pretty strong for a 12 year old, guns and bullets are heavy, so I wasn't much use to carry those, but I wanted to help. I was 12, and I thought I was a man, and needed to earn my keep. As a result, for most of the deliveries, the guys would carry in the guns and ammo and then I would unload the fresh produce. 

This last delivery was weird. There's a giant bridge over the Atchafalaya swamp, and it goes for what feels like forever. There are signs up that say that traffic is controlled by 'snipers' and 'helicopters' but I never saw either. A lot of crime happened or was covered up on those bridges and tons of people would just pull over for a second and dump evidence into the swamp where the gators would get it or it would just disappear forever. This last delivery was in a house just out from underneath those bridges. 

To this day, the only thing that bothers me is that he had an underground walk-in freezer in a fucking swamp. The engineering required to keep a place like that watertight seems impossible to me, even now. I don't remember the guy's name, but he was quiet, friendly, but a little weird, and he bought a LOT of ammunition and one supposedly special gun. I remember that it looked cool, but I couldn't tell you what it was. It was ugly and kind of blocky, and at the time, I thought the Uzi was the height of cool. 

Anyway, I stood and talked to the guy while the rest of the guys unloaded the ammunition. The guy saw me standing there and probably heard my stomach growling, and was sympathetic. I was 12, and I hadn't eaten in 12 hours. No one feels hungrier than a spoiled tween whose never missed a meal in his life. I thought I was starving, so when he offered me gumbo, I grudgingly accepted. 

Gumbo is a famous cajun dish of meat, rice, and veggies in a roux. I'd had it before, and loved it but hated some of the vegetables that usually go in it. There's a joke about gumbo that you put anything in it, and whatever doesn't crawl out, that's your gumbo. There were stories of Cajuns putting lizards, bugs, whatever into the gumbo, that just added to the flavor. And weirdly enough, it does. Gumbo is delicious. But this particular gumbo was different. 

It didn't have any okra, which was good. I hated okra. But the pork that was in it tasted off. Nearly spoiled. I was poor enough that I'd had meat that was almost bad before, and the pork in this gumbo was just before the line of being 'bad.' It was 'be stuck in the bathroom for a while' bad, not 'hospital' bad. But I thought I was starving, I'd been working all day, everyone was in a shitty mood, and was tired of me whining about being hungry, so I ate. I finished the bowl just as everyone else was done unloading. 

They all piled back into the car and everyone but me and the driver, whose name was Marcus, went to sleep. We'd been up a long day and done work. We were exhausted. But I still had work to do. The shack guy went over to talk to Marcus about money while I unloaded the fresh produce. Like I said, feels impossible to this day, but this guy had a little staircase in his shack that lead down to a walk-in freezer. It looked way nicer than anything on the ground level, and despite being in a fucking swamp, it was clean and dry. I opened up the weird door that I hadn't ever seen before, but I've seen a ton since while working in restaurants. 

I walked into that freezer like a man freed of the weight of the world. It was so fucking hot outside. I'd been working harder than I had in my life that day, and I'd probably sweated off ten pounds of my already skinny frame. It was so delightfully cold, I set the produce down and just sat there, breathing in the cold. 

I probably wouldn't have noticed the other door if I hadn't stopped. It was little, and wooden, and had a padlock. It was really out of place in the white and metal racks of the rest of the freezer. The padlock was undone. 

I was 12. I didn't think why someone might have had a small padlocked room in a lockable walk-in freezer. I just went over and opened the door. 

Inside was a small room. My mind says it was darker than the rest of the freezer, but I don't know. Maybe the contents overshadowed it. In the room was one of those long wooden cutting tables, and a butcher knife with the point embedded in the wood. Resting on top was the bottom parts of a human leg and foot. There were clear cuts on the meat, and there was a bucket with bones beside the cutting table. 

Maybe it was the unnatural cold, or just how surreal the whole thing was, but I didn't freak out. I left the produce down there, went up to the ground level where Marcus and the guy were talking. The guy was holding his new ugly gun. Apparently, Marcus had sold him a strap and he was seeing how it felt. I politely said goodbye and sat in the truck waiting for Marcus. The words kept pounding in my head, "Don't ask questions once they have a gun."

Marcus came over and started the car, and we drove for a while in silence, or as close to silence as you can come with 3 gypsies snoring in the back seat. I got to ride shotgun, since they were all asleep, and that was rare. It wasn't until Marcus turned up the music that I had a sickening thought. 

I got Marcus to turn down the music, so I could talk to him about the man and his freezer. "What do you mean you saw a leg? Like an alligator or a cow or something?"

"No, man, like a person leg. Like a human person's leg."

Marcus stopped the car on the side of the feeder leading up to the highway. "Like a human leg, like from a cartoon? Cause cow leg bones look pretty similar to human leg bones." He was right, but I wouldn't find that out till I was 16.

"No, man. It still had the fricking foot!" I didn't curse much when I was 12. 

"Holy shit, dude. Well, I'm glad we're done with that guy, then," he said, turning the radio back on. We drove back onto the large bridge that lead back to New Orleans and what we called home that summer. "I'm just glad I didn't have any of that gumbo," he said, maybe just to himself. 

To this day, I don't know for sure. Not for sure. But every now and then, when pork is prepared a certain way, or it's just starting to go bad, the smell or taste will remind me that I might know what people taste like.