Old Order Read online

  “What’s that for?” he asked.

  When she didn’t answer, only stared at him, he asked louder, “For Christ’s sake what is that for?”

  The old woman’s face was bereft of emotion, but the set of her mouth, the penetrating stare were the same as the woman in the painting, the wheat woman in Deek’s bunkhouse.

  Voices to his left. Richard turned and saw Deek Flowers, naked at the edge of the crowd. But where Deek’s genitals should have been there was only an ugly red scar, which he rubbed and rubbed, his tongue licking at his upper lip. Flanking Deek were two more eunuchs, and they too were pawing at their scars.

  Deek caught Richard’s horrified expression and winked. “Don’t worry, Hoss. At least you’ll still be able to dip your wick after the procedure.” Deek grinned. “I’d rather be a pig than a worker any day.”

  Richard followed Deek’s glance and began to scream, his mind unhinging and his throat burning raw, and the scream razored on and on and he voided his bowels on the muddy concrete, yet he hardly noticed as he saw, illuminated by the flickering candles, what lay to his right.

  Fastened to a long iron rod were several chains. The creatures collared to the chains were barely recognizable as human. Their heads were cleanly shaven, the looks on their slobbering faces an obscene mixture of dullness and sexual desire. Like the women, the chained men were naked. Richard wept in horror as he made out the faces of Thomas and Jim McCarrick. They were metamorphosed into primitive beings, their features slathered with slop, their penises jutting up expectantly.

  Several rough hands pushed Richard’s head down and held it still. Through the tears he could see Susan looming over him, her pretty face gleaming cruelly. Daniel continued to undulate as Susan peeled back one of Richard’s eyelids.

  Agnes stepped closer and brought the ice pick down slowly, almost delicately, toward the upper rim of his left eye. He bellowed for mercy, gibbered and wept, but the ice pick drew closer, closer, until its steel tip bit into the soft red bed of his orbital cavity, and the exquisite pain made the world go white.

  As his mind faded, the ice pick burrowing, grinding, probing, severing nerves and sanity forever, he thought of how different Thomas and Jim McCarrick looked from their pictures, how the shaved heads and idiot grins transformed them into animals.

  Then Richard thought of Daddy, of slaughtered pigs, of the blood dust spraying over all. No matter how deeply he receded into the barn, Daddy always saw him. Daddy’s eyes, red-rimmed and crazy…Daddy’s cold blue eyes…Daddy’s eyes….

  * * *

  After a time Richard opened his eyes. The women were gone, the ferring house silent. He realized he could move his arms and legs now, though the collar bound him to the iron bar. There was an emptiness in his belly. He hoped there would be food soon.

  Richard thought vaguely of the ceremony. He remembered little and didn’t care about it much. There was a song and a woman on him and something sharp. He thought of the way the woman had felt and wondered when she would be back. He glanced at the sleeping men beside him. He hoped that when a woman came she would choose him.

  Richard stayed awake, waiting for the food. Waiting for a woman.