CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella by George Saunders Page A

barely fits in his jar and the lid has made a flat place in his head but he looks nothing like me and nothing like Bud. How I remember Bud paying off Dr. Cardilla so I could hold each of them a few minutes longer. For all his horrible faults Bud made good money. He made good money doing odd jobs for the frightening Quinn brothers, such as killing a Chinese on our back lawn. I was making dinner when I witnessed that. When Bud fell asleep I snuck outside and looked at that poor Chinese in the moonlight. One leg was pulled up and his hands were in fists. The next morning when I went out to cut lilacs he was gone. I believe Tom Quinn took him away in his milk truck.
    Of course not a cent of Bud’s money is left, because I was bilked by a nice boy claiming to be a Mormon. He’d certainly done his homework by studying the Charleston. We danced it for hours. He was no more Mormon than the man in the moon. What a fool I was. He brought his children over and I made them cookies shaped like their hands, using wax paper and a color crayon. I gave him my savingsand for several months he sent me photos of a ski resort he said we owned together, and then he sent me one last photo, of himself naked atop a young woman in a steam-bath. That I feel was the cruelest part. That and a very filthy letter.
    He seemed so nice.
    As I approach the Babies I see that the vomit is the least of my worries. Six Months, Eleven Days has been knocked from his shelf. His jar is broken and a stream of formaldehyde is running towards the escalator.
    Mr. Spencer comes around the corner with a Trustee and at the top of his lungs demands to know why I’m not wearing protective gloves. For a second I think he’s being considerate of my health but then he explains to the Trustee that oil from my hands will discolor the baby and require its replacement.
    Then he says: Sometimes I think I should insist on an age cut-off, this is like working with human vegetables.
    They walk off and I think: All right for you buster.
    I do what I can for that poor little dead child, then stop by my locker for the rat poison and proceed to Our Nation’s Bounty to send another see-through cow to God.
    Our Nation’s Bounty is a far cry from a meadow. I was once a farm girl myself. When Father came in smelling of compost my sisters and I would run for the closet. He would either beat us or stroke us excessively. Still, when he died I was sad. Our Nation’s Bounty has a barn façade and a few real tractors and a stuffed farmer but they’ve located it next to Riches from the Bowels of the Earth and in my opinion cows aren’t stupid. What I mean is to say is, certainlythey are stupid, but they have sound enough instincts to know that a functioning scaled-down coal mine with collegiate tour guides in hard hats is not part of any farm.
    The cow looks up at me kindly as I come in.
    I kneel down and pretend to Windex her panel. Inside there’s plenty of activity. The idea was to provide school-children insight into the digestive process of a large mammal. They claim the dyes aren’t toxic. I would think however that the flesh/Plexiglas junction must be a source of constant irritation. But compassion is not why I’ve killed six to date. I’ve killed them because I like to make Mr. Spencer sad. Because of me he’s pinned down in Cleaning, and Curation is out of the question. Because of me the see-through cow is a boondoggle and a white elephant and Spencer is a laughingstock.
    It feels good to finally be asserting oneself.
    They must put artificial flavoring in the rat poison because every cow so far has gulped it down like candy. This one does too, while whipping around its tan tail. She swallows the last of the batch, then turns her head towards the geodesic dome and begins foaming at the mouth.
    As fast as I can, which I admit isn’t very fast, I race down to the basement and take my break.
    Within the hour Mr. O’Connell the cow contractor comes in with his briefcase, looking