Conscientious Ethical Dismemberment
By Chelsea Cain
Pat is from Mendocino County so she doesn’t fuck around. The first thing she does is strip her victim. She plans on burning the body parts, and clothes are full of nasty chemicals - flame retardants, and other toxic fumes from the dyes. These chemicals leach into the ground water, the particulate matter floats into the air. She wears industrial nitrile gloves as she uses scissors to cut off her victim’s stiff bloody jeans, his underwear full of shit - this is normal, they almost always shit themselves when they die - she fillets his golf t-shirt, she pulls off his socks. She cuts the clothing into strips and drops the pieces into a bucket full of 3 parts warm water and 1 part white vinegar. She used to use bleach, but she read an article in The Atlantic about the long-term atmospheric consequences associated with bleach production. In waterways, bleach can form dioxins, which are bad for fish and wildlife.
Her victim is naked on a burlap blanket, his limp penis flopped to one side. She used to use plastic sheeting, but plastic releases fumes when burned that can cause long term and irreversible occupational asthma.
She makes an effort to kill healthy men from out-of-state. This victim is from Idaho, which is good, because they don’t put fluoride in their water, so that’s one less thing to worry about. She’s tried to research exposure to fluoride as it relates to burning corpses, and has found very little data. Better safe than sorry.
Healthier men are on fewer medications. Again, this limits the impact on the environment. Kill an old person and you’re looking at a body full of Warfarin, Omeprazole, Simvastatin, Lisinopril, Hydrochlorothiazide. People don’t think about the fact that the medications they take can travel in smoke if they happen to end up in a burn pit.
Pat gets her lady shaver, adjusts her plastic serving apron, and squats down next to her victim’s head. Hair dye, Rogaine; you never know what’s in hair. Pat has made a practice of shaving her victim’s heads. She runs the razor over the man’s skull, letting his hair feather down onto the burlap. Taking these extra steps take time, and time is precious in Pat’s situation. Dismembering a body that has entered rigor is not an experience that Pat would like to repeat. After her first kill, Pat took a long hard look in the mirror, and realized that she needed to up her game.
So she signed up for a five day class on observational slaughter and hands-on butchery at a nice organic farm near Fort Bragg. At the end she was sent home with a half hog.
She’s a vegetarian. But was too polite to say.
Obviously Pat is not planning on eating her victim. That would be disgusting. She doesn’t have to worry about gutting, or butchering her victim alive so the meat tastes good. She doesn’t have to worry about preserving meat cuts. She has room to play.
But she did pick up some good tips.
Today she locates the base of the man’s skull. Her six-inch boning knife slips in easily. A sharp knife is key to avoiding injury. A dull blade is far more dangerous.
She cuts into the jammy flesh, exposes the slippery white of the vertebrae. She could insert her knife between the skull and the first vertebrae to separate the skull from the backbone, but this takes patience, and Pat isn’t very patient. She is a mother. She looks for shortcuts.
So she is a fan of the bone saw.
She adjusts her mask, tightened the nose wire for a close fit to her face, and makes sure her safety goggles are tightly secured. Bone saw dust is a real hazard. The fine particulate matter, if inhaled, can cause all manner of respiratory issues and transfer harmful pathogens.
She turns on the saw and moves it through the backbone. Its fine teeth sink through the spine easily. It sounds like a dentist’s drill. A fine mist of blood and bone dust blooms from the cut. And then it’s done. She sets the bone saw aside. Wipes her brow with her sleeve. Then gets back to work, methodically cutting around the head until only the trachea and esophagus are attached. She digs a gloved hand into the neck to find the Adam’s apple, feeling for the hard structure where the esophagus and trachea fuse together. Then uses the knife to cut through it. The head, still wide-blue-eyed, comes loose with a satisfying snap.
Then Pat inspects the torso for scars. Even a healthy looking man from out-of-state might have a pace maker or a brain stimulator, and those come with lithium batteries implanted in the chest that can explode in extreme heat.
She’s relieved to see there’s no scarring indicating an implant. Because digging out those batteries is a bitch. Again, this is why she avoids killing old people.
She gets back to work.
It only takes six Joni Mitchell songs to dismember a body. The head, the arms, the legs (in two pieces, four pieces total). The Circle Game. Big Yellow Taxi. Both Sides Now. Etc.
Does Pat feel bad? Yes. She worries about her back, about lifting with her knees, about mercury poisoning, and blood borne pathogens.
She worries that maybe she should be composting. She tried that once - a bathtub-sized hole filled with a thick layer of wood chips and straw to soak up fluids. Body parts slung on top, soil filled in loosely on top.
But the truth is, the fire pit works best. It takes time, sure, all night stoking the fire, to keep it hot, hot, hot. Then a day or two, grinding the bones. A shovel works for that. Just to get them powdery. She could probably use the powder for the garden, but again, who knows what these young healthy men expose themselves to? Could you get herpes from human compost?
Pat makes a mental note to check.
Chelsea Cain is a New York Times bestselling author, comic book writer, and Scottish royalty.
