The Hellish Takeout
Jack Hawkins
Do you enjoy helping others?
1. Yes
2. Maybe
3. No
Nora selected one for Yes, her eyes merging with the blue radiance of the monitor. The input device attached below was not all that dissimilar to a typewriter, each satisfying staccato click of the machine echoing identical noises from neighboring rooms—other kids crawling toward their destiny. Sure, organizers could have easily adapted The Test to touchscreen decades ago, but according to Bailiwick, there was value in the sensory elements, the resisting friction of a tester’s finger depressing the keys: 1, 2, 3. From questions one to six-thousand two-hundred and fifty-eight, each input indirectly asks, “Are you sure this is your final answer?”
An immoderate amount of time passed.
What is the most important meal of the day?
1. Breakfast
2. Lunch
3. Dinner
Three, based on gut instinct. At this stage, it was more advantageous to react rather than question. Nora, along with all other citizens obsessed with getting a good Test result, had taken a rigorous course on decisiveness and understood that going with one’s first guess was oftentimes the most reliable way to receive desirable results. Overthinking only muddled things. In hindsight, she wondered what the course’s purpose was in the first place.
With whom do you most identify?
1. The Romantic
2. The Boresome
3. The Slothful
Two, simply by process of elimination. No chance in hell three was accurate. Also, while she had a handful of boyfriends over the years, nothing ever stuck, ruling out one. More importantly, that first option carried with it an idealist connotation, and that was something Nora firmly stood against. Goals were supposed to be attainable things that one could realistically achieve.
She could still hear the old elementary school PSAs ricocheting around the back of her head, those three smiling actors on the class projector screen.
“After The Test, Bally made me a firefighter!” said the barrel-chested man.
“He made me an artist!” said the woman in a beret.
“And me an actuary!” said the archetypal nerd.
Small time. Nora knew she could do better. She had studied incessantly, spending entire afternoons in her school’s library reading everything she could find related to anatomy in hope that it would influence her final result. Even if it was subconscious, Nora needed to think like a surgeon if she was to become one.
Then the card popped out.
Ten hours had passed, making her testing time much lower than the national average. Nora had fallen into such a solidified routine that she had nearly forgotten that there was an end to the questions, but there it was, the topmost portion of that ghostly white slip of paper, beckoning from the monitor’s base. She had seen her parents’ test tickets, but this was so real, its heat so visceral one could taste it. The ticket was hers, and there was no point in stalling.
Pulling it out, Nora read the card six times over before emerging from the box-shaped room. In the testing hallway of spotless concrete, there was but a single proctor present beneath the domineering overhead lights.
“Excuse me!” shouted Nora. “Ma’am!”
It was a long hall, and the old woman couldn’t be asked to budge an inch. Nora jogged up to her.
“Is the machine broken?” the proctor asked, her voice nasal and invasive.
“No—I mean, I don’t think mine is.”
“Well, it either is or is not, so tell me: were all responses submitted without error?”
“Correct.”
“And the test ticket received?”
“Yes.”
The proctor eyed Nora with an added hint of suspicion. Her wrinkles each underwent a form of mitosis as her stolid face scrunched up.
“No tampering done to the machine, was there?”
“What? Never! It’s just that my ticket— Wait a second . . .”
Nora frantically started pulling out her test ticket, but stopped as a veiny hand clasped her wrist.
“It’s your job!” said the proctor in a hushed voice. “Whether you like it or not, it is your job, girl. Even if I was your mother, I wouldn’t budge on this matter because there are no retakes. I’ve already had to deal with one whiny little chit this morning who refused to accept that—wouldn’t stop bawling. ‘Oh! But I don’t want to be a bus driver!’ Wouldn’t shut up about it. For both our sakes and Bailiwick’s, please end this little charade.”
“You’re not listening!”
“Congratulations on entering the workforce.”
“But there’s no way I can get a job with this thing!”
The proctor rapidly sped off in the opposite direction, leaving Nora with the cold finality of the situation. On the embossed surface of her test ticket was a single word: CANNIBAL.
The portable heater did jack-shit to warm the office. Seeking relief, the Ballyburger manager burrowed his head—plus four or so chins—behind his sickly yellow collar. It was late, and he didn’t care. The chair bent back, eliciting a chorus of strained squeaks that threatened to overpower Nora’s ongoing tirade.
“. . . So you see, despite what my test ticket says, the metaphor is plain as day. Question: what does cannibalization require?”
She gestured to the manager who replied not with words, but with an empty, unblinking stare.
“Ergh . . . It relates to the acquisition and absorption of smaller companies by a large corporation or conglomerate, and over the last fifty years, Ballyburger has become the nation’s primary distributor of food for low-income families simply because it has done just that—cannibalize all competitors by being better, cheaper, and overall—”
“Are you done?” he interrupted.
She knew he wasn’t listening. It was utter humiliation, kowtowing to someone who had no ambition, no drive. To Nora, his lot was the most despicable of all, yet she needed him. Thus far, employers amusedly waved off her test ticket as a prank; others found it in them to give her a stern lecture on “the immorality of tampering with Bailiwick’s grand design.” Most often, though, they simply asked her to leave. Now, only desperation fueled her.
“Sir! Perhaps you don’t understand. As a government sanctioned disposer, I can offer an invaluable service to your establishment. I looked at job statistics, and my position most definitely falls under the ‘miscellaneous’ category, only thirty-two hundred-millionths of the population—a measly few hundred! I’m a goose that lays golden eggs. I have leapt onto your lap and am begging, ‘Squeeze me!’ For the sake of reason, don’t waste this opportunity.”
“Are you done wasting my goddamn time?”
He was living up to his image as an immovable object.
“Please,” was all she could say. “I’ve tried every other restaurant near my house, two slaughterhouses, and even a role in a local production of Titus Andronicus. This is all I have left.”
Nora was talking to no one. The manager had fallen fast asleep.
While it was true that each festerslum had an official name, they often clumped together on maps around the innermost parts of cities, so people tended to treat them as singular entities. It was fair, considering how they were all the same anyway. The typical festerslum was an overcomplicated, haphazardly wrought network of buildings densely crammed together both horizontally and vertically. Most of these facilities housed citizens who performed the menial jobs few wanted to do, but which nevertheless needed doing. Each cubic structure homogenously blended like a million little growths shoved into the earth and built upon. There were so many, in fact, that there were predictions of the most overladen festerslums potentially sinking within a few years’ time. This was, of course, trivial rumor.
In one festerslum, the overcast sky darkened, a precursor to poor weather. Thanks to her speechifying, Nora had just missed the bus home and would need to wait for the next one, whenever that would be. Walking was out of the question, as her place was situated a good distance away near one of the docking districts. Perhaps because her mental faculties were less than stable, she exited the Ballyburger’s neon light, deciding it was best to meander about the area. There was no rush to get back to Mom and Pop. They were expecting a paycheck from her that did not exist.
Nora thought back to the first post-Test night. Back then, she imagined it would be bothersome, facing her folks after so much sermonizing, talk of “pushing boundaries” and “rising above one’s station” only for Bailiwick to slam her with a joke of a test ticket. But no, there was no fanfare, just a cursory embrace and a nonchalant inquiry as to what she got. To this, Nora had to lie, said she’d swung a waitress gig someplace nice. The falsehood was spur of the moment and did nothing to improve matters. Now, Bailiwick’s efficiency when it came to monetary distribution was working to her detriment.
The hell am I doing?
She shouldn’t have been so hard on herself. Festerslum streets were drafty, claustrophobic little things, so narrow that they were practically interchangeable with alleyways. A crew of drunkards were there, impoverished district filth having recently gotten off their shifts. Bodies were splayed everywhere, a few twitching spasmodically. The area was a rat king of humanity. One glass-eyed worker in dun overalls proffered an emerald green bottle. She sat against the graffitied brick wall and accepted, which was not a good idea by any stretch, but something needed to be done to slough off the anger.
“You should know that none of this is my fault,” said Nora to glass eye. “It’s because everyone in my family specializes in the murder industry. It was trout for my old man. I remember spending my summers out by the quays reading or watching ships appear from the fogbank. It was only when I realized how much shit was in the air I breathed that I stopped. My old man spends the better part of the year on these huge, labyrinthine fishing vessels, always falling short on his quota. Even at something so basic, he still manages to suck. I tell ya, the biggest mistake anyone can make is expecting someone else to perform at a base level competency.”
Nora puked into a puddle right next to her. Before receiving her Test result, she honestly believed that, by now, she would have been able to afford her own apartment. She would have spent her days studying underneath a consummate professional medical practitioner. That was the future she desired, but in this brief life, she was stuck here.
“My mother—bugs, pest control, though she usually does a shit job on the undersides of furniture. That’s what she’s always arguing with her clients about. So yeah, their professions never won me a ton of friends at school. But look on the bright side. Now I have you guys. So, is anyone feeling hungry?”
The penetrating windchill cut through her woolen coat as the rain introduced itself, seeping through a gridded sky of telephone wire, plip-plop. Mind afuzz, Nora began the confused trek back home, balancing herself with garbage cans. Disoriented, she went full speed ahead through a gross sea of refuse—shattered Styrofoam and used bifurcated needles cast in sludge.
“That’s right. It has to be a glitch on Bally’s end. He misconstrued my desire to be a surgeon with my family’s professions. Yes, that must be it. Otherwise . . . otherwise I failed. I was never meant to be happy, and that can’t be right. . . .”
Nora came to her senses prone on a broad flagstone path. There were sounds of revelers in the distance. Miners? Perhaps, as they were known to cause a ruckus after the Test dropped a fresh group of disillusioned eighteen-year-olds in their hands. She envied them, their capacity not to care after a single debaucherous night.
Pushing her aching body off the ground, Nora noted how much later it was. The whole world was pitch black, only illumined by small spotlight islands incrementally spaced along the paths that stemmed out from the park’s central hub.
I left the festerslum?
Her eyes adjusted, bringing into view sparse trees in unlit areas suffused with darkness. It was in that moment Nora understood where she was. She recalled commercials from her youth that reportedly depicted festerslum parks to show how they weren’t inhospitable shantytowns. Even as young as she was, Nora knew damn well that it was Bailiwick’s obligatory smokescreen, an oasis amidst a dumping pit. In truth, the park’s dimensions were only about the size of half a football field. She was so proud at having puzzled it out as a kid and believed that the act of knowing placed her above the rabble who failed to see beyond the deceit. Back then, few respected Bailiwick more than she.
As Nora was starting to get her bearings, a pronounced cranial sting propelled her into another haze. She was still hungover or possibly sick from ingesting something dodgy. Either way, her reedy appendages weren’t providing much support. She needed to stop, to lie down and lose herself to Goya-inspired nightmares of masticated flesh as the world swallowed her. That was what her body told her, but before it could initiate the shutdown sequence, a man entered her vision.
The figure walked away, his thin silhouette outline limned in faint overhead light that showered him in dim sepia. Nora cohered several bits of information: He did not see her. He was alone. He was likely homeward bound after a late shift and physically tired. In other words, there was no reason not to follow him.
“Hey, sweetie!” said Nora seductively. Though, in her current state, she came off more as the token lecherous tavern wench from a pulp fantasy work.
The man didn’t seem to notice her. It was also equally possible that he didn’t desire to deal with her and concluded it best to push on. This was fortunate for Nora, as she was far from proficient in the field of stealth, intentionally hopping from spotlight to spotlight as if it were a game. She followed him through the sinuous park trail and eventually reentered the festerslum.
Decades ago, before the land became festerslum, there were accounts of hikers heading toward beautiful sunsets that were actually forest fires. “Earth’s natural siren song” they called it. Nora felt that same sense of dread the deeper she delved along the festerslum’s less-trodden paths. Her cognitive capabilities were steadily regaining solid footing, yet she still chose to tail the man. Nora told herself that she would call the ridiculous thing off as soon as he got on a bus or entered a crowded area, but no such triggers occurred. He was too easy a target.
She entertained the idea jokingly at first—her target. It was stupid, so stupid. Although, with the guy so close, she had the creeping feeling that her plan could come to fruition. The twisted, knotted routes grew less difficult to traverse with practice, yet as the alleys got tighter, Nora decided to take a risk and use her phone’s light as a guide.
Before she could turn it on, out cried a blaring ringtone. In the microseconds between when the device fell from her hand and when it vanished from sight, Nora saw that it was a call from her mother. She swore under her breath and reached down to get it only to be met with a rusted sewer drain. The phone had slipped through. It was gone, but as her fingers frantically groped the darkness, they brushed against the surface of a heavy brick, no doubt dislodged some time ago from the adjacent ruddy edifice. Nora grabbed it and resumed her pursuit.
The ultimate destination was a dilapidated apartment complex. As with the rest of the festerslum, it was a nondescript structure wedged tightly in place between two other buildings. The briny scent of decayed citrus wafted through the air. All windows were either closed or coated in some grayish substance. One thing was certain, the place didn’t radiate life.
Nora wanted to click her heels together and wake up, but she kept going. She ascended to the second floor, wincing as her footfalls transitioned from hard-packed soil to metal stairs. From there, she could see the figure standing before his door. He put the key in. It stuck. He jimmied it.
This is your only shot.
Nora quickened her pace.
That’s right. This is all a test to see if I have the gumption to do what few others can, to weed out the undedicated.
On the second floor, she rushed to him, brick raised above her head. He had gotten his room open. This was good. She could make it.
Nora collapsed by the door as it shut, hyperventilating.
I couldn’t do it. . . . No way in hell could I have done it. What was I even planning? Why did I even come here? Damnit, I’m so—
The apartment door reopened. A man’s face poked out, perfectly visible. He had a hale and hearty complexion, likely early twenties.
“Time for a quick bite?” he asked.
Another round of laughter as the room filled with smooth jazz melodies on a vintage record player. Davis, ’59.
“Wait!” said Nora. “Let me get this straight. You guys reverse TP-ed a house?”
The man, whose name was Lew, sat opposite to her at the dining table. On it rested a plated assortment of celery sticks and stale pretzels.
“Like I said, we were high as shit, but yeah, we took that stuff down. Only problem was when the sad sonuvabitch came out thinking we were the bad guys.”
“Aw,” said Nora with feigned sorrow, “but you innocent boys were performing your civic duty for the good of the community. How could he not see that?”
They had been talking for nearly an hour about random, inane miscellany. Normally, Nora would have snaked her way out of conversing with Lew, asked for a phone, then immediately left, but the apartment was so disarming, almost enchanting with its mollifying ambience.
The darkness in the living room space was countered with faint holiday lights festooned along the walls. On the edges of the room, there were beanbags and various weights for exercising. Nora couldn’t help but notice the sloppily taped-on band posters. She recognized a few of them: Peccant Pie, Fun is Infinite!, Dead Jim, and so on. It was nice having a shared interest in underground grunge records. Overall, it was a small space, but effectively utilized.
“I do miss them,” said Lew, “but Jacobs is always busy with his gig down in the sewers, Arby with his cushy paralegal position, and Matthias? That guy’s a trucker. He’s probably halfway across the country right now.”
“All because of Bally?”
“All because of Bally. But good things aren’t meant to last forever. That’s what makes them so special. We met. We laughed. We said farewell.”
Nora repeated those words in her head. It was enough to make her smile, an expression that she hadn’t cared to make in ages. The intense nostalgia for something she had never experienced—it was a strange emotional cocktail welling within her.
And call her crazy, but she was actually starting to like the guy.
“You know,” said Nora, “all this time, I thought I needed to do well on the Test to be happy, that I was only as good as whatever I did . . . but I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way.”
Lew raised his eyebrows. “Really now?”
“Yeah, screw Bally! Do we truly need to follow him? What’s stopping people from just living? Why can’t we do that for once?”
She put her hand on his, expecting an answer, but it felt cold. There was no passion, just one person’s hand resting limply atop someone else’s.
“Would you care to know my opinion?” said Lew.
Nora nodded.
“I believe that Bailiwick is the best thing that has ever happened to our nation.”
“Oh my god!” The frustration was palpable.
“Hear me out. It’s—”
“Boilerplate propaganda! How can you live here knowing that you’ll never leave? Is this seriously your idea of happiness?”
“You’re making fun of my life choices.”
“I’m not, because you’ve never made any real choices in the first place! All I’m saying is that it’s pathetic seeing someone who doesn’t even try to do better.”
“Hey, I’m doing as well as I can, understand? And I mean, look at you. You think you’re one to talk? Sorry, but why do you think you were outside my door tonight? You ignored what you were supposed to do.”
That was it? He deduced that she was a common thief, a ticket shredder? The insult gave her gooseflesh.
“You have no idea what I was supposed to do,” said Nora, her voice even and low.
“I know you well enough. You didn’t get the job you wanted, right? Welcome to the club, but don’t pretend you’re crusading for equality. You’re just dancing around how you’re mad that some people are lucky because they get to do what they want, but guess what? That’s tough. Nobody asks to be born with their natural talents. Regardless, it’s an act of cowardice to neglect one’s own potential, yet you have the nerve to accuse someone who follows their path without deviation of being worthless. Well, I beg to differ. Those people merely understand that there is more to the world than themselves. They want to make everyone happy, and you know what? I think that’s commendable. I think it takes guts to follow your destiny.”
Nora stared at Lew wide-eyed. Jesus, is that how I’ve sounded for all these years? This is insanity.
“Look,” said Nora. “I’m sorry to offend. You’re not going to change my mind, though. I want to be happy, and I want to be good at something I love.”
“Do you know why Bailiwick was instituted?” asked Lew.
“ ‘To counter workplace dissatisfaction.’ That’s what all the propaganda said, at least. All poverty, prejudice, and political discordance had their roots in people not liking how they spent their lives, at least according to Him. That was how it started, but Bally became more than that. Nowadays, he practically controls every facet of one’s livelihood.”
“Small-scale control. Bally doesn’t institute drastic change all at once, no-no-no. That never turns out well, even if said change is for the general good. Bally does things slow, deliberate-like. Then, before you know it, we’ve got ourselves a whole nation of peace with everyone getting to be their best selves. It’s freedom, but a controlled freedom. Meanwhile, pure, anarchic freedom only leads to chaos.”
“Bally is an amalgam of ones and zeroes, not a god. We just treat him like one.”
“I hate to tell you, but there isn’t any difference. Is there?”
Nora sighed. “I really don’t think my job is for me. It’s hard to explain.”
Lew gripped her hand tightly.
“In that case, maybe I could help.”
“Yeah, dude. I don’t think you’d want to.”
“Genuinely, I do.” Lew allowed his eyes to wander aimlessly around, like he was looking for something. “I just need to use the john first.”
Lew rose abruptly and headed off to an adjoining room.
“Wow,” Nora muttered, “all right. I don’t think he could’ve killed the mood any harder.”
It wasn’t long before the gurgling started, those deathly pleas for air. She rushed into the bathroom to find Lew, neck sliced open along the voice box. The knife was in his hand. He wasn’t going to make it. She knew this. She knew everything about how the body worked. She had to try, though. She always had to try.
Using her medical expertise, Nora ripped his shirt from the neck hole down to make an impromptu cloth. As she did so, a test ticket fell out of his front pocket. On the embossed surface of his test ticket was a single word: LIVESTOCK. By the time it sank in, Lew was gone.
Tears came quickly. The composure she had maintained her entire life was broken in an instant. Lining the shelves were pristine hacksaws and unopened bleach containers. She would soon make use of them. This was the way the world worked. She was alone. The jazz played on. She opened the medicine cabinet. There was a cookbook bearing Bailiwick’s insignia front and center. She started reading.
An envelope passed underneath the apartment door. Within it were three items: four thousand dollars, a new cell phone with all her prior contacts, and a letter:
Hello! Congratulations on making it this far!
I don’t mean to hurry you along, but . . .
that body needs ice, pronto!
From here on out . . .
this will be your base of operations.
You will meet LIVESTOCK at designated locations . . .
With the next arriving soon.
Further information will be sent your way when the time comes . . .
but I wish you love and luck until then!
B.
Copyright © 2023 Jack Hawkins