In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

40 the taxidermist’s answers Just about anything’ll whiten up. Cleaned a buck last week some guy’s uncle shot in 1952. Skinned the head, removed the tongue, detached the jaw to save my beetles some work—three days it was white-white, beetle-bleached. Stink a bit? The neighbors petitioned the health department twice, but I’ve lost my sense of smell. When it’s real bad my right eye waters. The wife asks do I want chili or soup, but I can’t taste the difference. Don’t tell her. Just say chili one day, soup the next. Brain’s the first thing to decompose, but the beetles won’t touch it, so I use this gas-powered hose called the brain-blaster. And bone saws, duct tape, plastic wrap, couple chemicals like magnesium carbonate. That’s it. Plus six million carrion bugs. They’ll smell a carcass twenty miles away—the dead get famous quick. Eat skin, fur, whatever you feed ’em. Feathers, hair, whiskers, eyeballs, beards, tissue. Done some forensic work. Human hip bones, human skulls. Had to go off the radar there. Under the table, you know? No favorites. If forced to say? I guess that lynx skeleton chasing the skeleton of a snowshoe hare, or that covey of Hungarian partridge hunched there, ready to flush. You know the ground’s made of bones, right, you’re walking on bones. No more than the next guy, I don’t think. That rot there is the stench of life. As long as those beetles don’t peel off the carcasses and come crawling for me, I know my blood’s not cold. Hold your hands out. Both of them. Go on, reach toward it. Feel how warm it is? ...

Share