By Joshua Ryan
Back at the House, the atmosphere seemed to be changing.
Everybody noticed it — things were different. Cicero was snapping at everyone, at least everyone whose existence he noticed. Sacky complained about “these constant ALTERATIONS in my menus” that were made by Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Thomasen. Marky complained about being rousted “in the middle of the night” — meaning his jerk-off time after dinner and Sacky’s kitchen wine — and having to drive Mr. H and Mr. T to the Parrot Lounge and wait in the car till they “came out with something or other,” a something that spent the night in their bed and was returned to obscurity the next morning, “after stinkin up my car.” Then it all stopped, as suddenly as it started. The Misters decided to try something else.
Late one afternoon, right before dinner, a new workie arrived in the back of a truck and was hauled out of its cage and led to the barracks. Its name was Jody, and it was a very cute young man, or had been before it got put in a workie suit. Clearly, it had done service in some other venue besides Hamilton Farms: there was fuzz on its head, and it still had eyebrows. But it had big brown eyes and a nice slender body. This was no field hand. Wherever it had been, it had been given easy treatment. To its body, anyway. The brain might be different. Its eyes were scared — very scared. Which is normal, when you’ve just been shipped somewhere in a cage. Cicero stood in the door of the barracks and told Nob to “take off its hair and move it up to the House. That’s where it’s gonna live.”
