MY DINNER WITH MORRIS FINK

 

MY DINNER WITH MORRIS FINK

 

It was a Friday afternoon in February, and I was just clearing off my desk in preparation for departing the office for the day.  After a stretch of unusually disagreeable weather, I was looking forward to a weekend of repose.  During the week, the town of Norwich had been assailed mercilessly by three separate days of snow, followed by a quick thaw and then an overnight freeze-over.  This left the streets slick with an impenetrable rind of ice.  The mere act of walking had become a treacherous feat, and via typed bulletins and telegraph dispatches that crossed my desk, I had learned of numerous accidents and casualties all along the New England seaboard.  The worst of the wires reported a seagoing tugboat named had lost the two coal barges she had been towing up to Providence from Norfolk.  It appeared that all eight men and one woman, the wife of one of the barge captains, had been lost at sea when the barges sank.  The tug had circled for hours during the night, searching for any survivors.  The seas grew to mountainous heights, the winds blowing at near hurricane force.    The tug’s master decided to head to the refuge of Providence, rather than risk the tug and her men to join those victims from the barges.

               Satisfied that all was in order at my desk, I made my way to the cloakroom at the front of the newspaper office.  The entire office seemed dark and deserted at this hour, and I was startled when I heard a voice call to me from one of the editor’s offices.

               “Alice, can you come here for a moment?” The voice belonged to Mark Woburn, the second editor for the paper, who was peering up from his desk with a hopeful expression in his eyes.  I tried to hide my disappointment, as I disliked being asked to handle one “final detail” before heading home for the night.  During the six years of my employment with the Norwich Register, these last-minute requests usually resulted in my prolonged confinement to cover a proofread or layout that had been abandoned by one of the tenured staff members who had elected to remain at the gin mill up the street, rather than bother with some tedious assignment best left for “one of the office girls.”

               “Yes, Mr. Woburn,” I responded, making a grand show of pinning my hat on, hoping he would take my hint that I fully intended to go home at that moment.

               “Sit please,” he said, gesturing to a plush red-leather chair that stood next to his Chippendale.  I regarded the chair for a moment, then sat, remaining silent.  I didn’t want to come across as being too anxious.

               “Alice, I just received word that Mr. Morris Fink has taken up residence in Exeter, and he has finally agreed to tell his story.”

               My mind scrolled in silence.  Since becoming a journalist for the Register, I’ve committed hundreds, if not thousands, of names and dates to memory, and prided myself on recalling past stories and the significance of certain individuals at a moment’s notice.  After rummaging through my memory bank for several moments however, I came up blank.  The name meant nothing to me.

               “I’m sorry, Mr. Woburn, should I know this Fink?” I asked at last, feeling a little crestfallen, as I had no point of reference.  Woburn seemed not to notice my discomfort.  He ruffled through some dog-eared papers on his desk.

               “Fink was a seaman aboard a freighter that wrecked near Hobart.”  He looked up at me, his eyes drawing to a suspicious squint.  “You know where that is, don’t you?”

               “Of course I do,” I said, giving a slight hiss to me response, “It’s in Tasmania, off the southeast coast of Australia.”  I puffed up my chest a little.  No one at the Register could outsmart me when it came to geography.  This seemed to have the desired effect, as he slunk down a bit, returning his gaze to the papers.

               “…anyway, he was rescued after a month.  When he was discovered, he was the sole survivor.  One of over thirty men who had shipped in the Manchuria.”

               Despite the lateness of the day, I couldn’t help but feel intrigued.  Maybe it was the thought of a man returning to the modest state of Rhode Island after the tragedy he surely had faced.  Maybe I was still feeling the somberness of the story of the lost coal barges that foundered in last night’s fearsome storm.  Nevertheless, I pressed him for more details of the man’s plight.

               He looked at me, his face now drawn and sullen, then cleared his throat. 

“The ship was carrying a general cargo in her holds and eucalyptus log wood on deck when she encountered a storm.  Her rudder became disabled and the ship came to grief near Swan Island.  A fishing trawler discovered her and sent word to the authorities in Tasmania.  A government steamer was dispatched and landed a boat alongside the wreck.  They found Fink alone in the mess deck of the Manchuria, or what was left of her.  The ship had broken in half.  Fink was in a bad state; emaciated and raving.  He had lost his ability to communicate and had to be subdued in order to remove him from the wreck.”

I felt somewhat deflated at this, no longer reveling in my arrogance. I urged him to continue, and so he did.

“The man was given sustenance and some clothing by a seaman’s mission in Hobart.  After a week of care, Fink departed Hobart aboard a ship bound for San Francisco.  His activities in California are clouded in mystery, but he was reportedly found spending time in opium dens of that city.  Finally, he signed aboard a ship as an ordinary seaman bound for New York.  From there, he received his discharge and took a train to Rhode Island, where he found employ as a walking guard for the railroad.  Word got out that he was now in our midst, and we sent a telegram to the railroad, asking him if he’d like to share his story.  We were quite frankly, surprised that he welcomed our inquiry.”

I nodded, attempting to draw together the story in my mind, feeling at once a prolonged empathy for this poor man.

“We’d like you to meet with him and get the tale directly from his own lips.”

I nodded again. “It would be an honor to do this," I replied.  He gave me a warm smile, and asked if I could go presently, and meet with the man that Sunday. I agreed to this, and asked for the details of my travel.  He told me he would wire for the train tickets and that he would arrange for a coach to get me to the man’s house.  He asked if I needed an escort.  I waved off this seemingly unnecessary precaution, certain that the man would be anything but a threat, after all he had encountered.

That Sunday, I duly arrived at the train depot in Exeter, that old farming town whose simple country lanes bespoke of its agrarian past.  As I awaited the hansom cab, I shivered in the winter’s embrace, pulling my cloak around me tighter, trying to prevent that all-encompassing chill from invading my body.  As I watched the platform empty of travelers, I began to  fear the coach would fail to appear, and I would be left to fend for myself in a strange town.  After a wait of about an hour, I heard the clomp of a horse drawing near and saw the driver perched above the carriage as it rounded the corner of the station.  I identified myself to the driver, who said nothing, and only bent down to pull the door of the cab open.  I took my seat and the horse began its unhurried gait towards the main road.

I attempted to engage the driver in idle conversation.  After replying with only the most curt replies, I resigned myself to taking the remainder of the ride in silence, and busied myself instead in noting the signposts that carried the names of the roads we traversed.  Nooseneck Road was the first, and the name gave an added chill to my already weary spine.  I wondered how a road should come to have such a dreadful name.  Finally, the horse turned down Purgatory Road and at this the driver cast a brief glance over his shoulder.

“Not much longer now miss,” he said, his face shadowed by the brim of his old-fashioned top hat.

The coach came to clumping halt about a mile up the road.  It wasn’t much of road, at that.  It was not much more than a matted path of hardscrabble earth.  An ancient fence composed of lichen-stained field stones demarcated the property.  A single, decrepit-looking structure stood in the clearing of the field.  On all sides of the clearing was impenetrable, dark forest.  The pine and spruce trees here seemed to whisper to each other of centuries-old secrets held by that homestead.  I suddenly wondered if my lack of an escort had truly been a mistake.  Before the thought could manifest itself any longer, the door of the cab opened abruptly, and I saw the driver standing on the side of the cab.  The man held out a hand.  Thinking he was being a gentleman and was looking to help me from the coach, I held out my own hand, but he rudely waved it off.  Instead, he only rubbed his fingers together in the manner I recognized as that of someone demanding payment.  I had been under the impression that the editor had arranged payment in advance for the jaunt, but by the looks of the driver’s cold, expectant eyes, I figured I’d better submit payment, and settle up with the paper at a later date.  I fished into my clutch bag and retrieved the fare and paid the man.  He immediately returned to his perch, abruptly picking up the reigns.  As soon as my feet landed on the stone-studded earth of the road, the cab started forward, turning in a semi-circle to start its lonesome journey back into town.

I watched as the carriage departed, hoping that somehow the man would return to this place after my interview was complete.  I figured it would be a trip of about an hour back to the train station by foot, but I was confident I knew the way back, if I was left abandoned at this place.

Fortifying my resolve, I looked back towards the house.  The roof sagged at the end, and the old clapboard siding was in desperate need of repair.  A column of gray smoke rose aloft from the chimney.  At least it appeared that Fink, or someone, was at home.  I walked up the path, carefully watching my footfalls, as I didn’t want to twist an ankle on the stones.  I picked up the hem of my shirt as I trudged forward, and was glad when finally the door was in front of me. Before knocking, I glanced around the crumbling platform that passed for a front stoop.  A battered tin pail, its bottom long rusted-through, stood to one side.  A single rusted horseshoe was nailed above threshold, its points aimed upwards towards a gray, leaden sky.  I caught a faint whiff of cooking from within the house.  My stomach took notice.  I had not eaten that day, too caught up in the details of my travel to find sufficient time to eat anything except for the hard roll and coffee I had taken earlier that morning.

I poised my gloved fist at the door, its boards weathered to a silver, in keeping with the cedar homes that were very much the standard of this region.  Before I could beat on the thing, the door was abruptly pulled open, revealing the shadowy interior of the house.  I was greeted by an impossibly tall man, his head stooped, as though he could not fit underneath the ceiling within.  The man was thin and wiry, and his free hand worried a tousled salt and pepper beard that reached down to the top of his chest.  My eyes met his own, and my heart started at the sight.  The man had a haunted, pained look, and his eyes glanced from side to side, as if he were surveying the land behind me.  As though he were expecting to see people in the distance.

“You must be from the newspaper,” he said, attempting to craft a smile, but failing miserably.

“Yes, I am Alice Wilson, of the Dispatch.”

“Well, I’m pleased to meet you,” he responded, although I wasn’t sure that I believed him. “Come in, come in,” he entreated impatiently.

I walked in, unsure if the smell in the house was at once appealing or revolting.  I sensed the aroma of some kind of meat, mixed with herbs.  Rosemary, bay leaves, and something else.  Mold, dirt, or some kind of damp foulness that crouched in the dark corners of the house.

I peered into the sitting room which was just off the kitchen.  There were no lights on but I could see the place was cluttered with wooden crates overflowing with canned fruit and tins of meat, some looking rusted and foul.  Also scattered about the room were discarded clothes and oil skins, and all manner of rubbish.  The man led me into an impossibly small kitchen.  The old timbers under foot were sloped and leaning, as if the house was settling into the earth.  The ceiling was stained with leaks.  A single oil lamp provided flickering illumination, its glass was soot-streaked and only gave off a begrudging light. 

He held out a hand towards a weathered table, next to which stood two mis-matched wooden chairs.  The cooking range was a black iron affair, one which resembled the ones I had seen on old fishing boats.  The side of the stove bore the foundry markings of a place in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.  A large tureen stood steaming atop one of the hot plates.  Fink stepped over to swirl a ladle around in whatever was inside.

“I hope your hungry, because I’m fixing to have some stew,”

I watched him as he fussed with the coals inside the stove, a shower of red sparks popping angrily as he forced a poker into its belly.  The man shut the stove door and turned to face me.  His demeanor seemed somewhat more relaxed now, and I took a seat, trying to steady my nerves, which had acted up as soon as I had entered the place.  I chided myself, upset to become flustered over what would surely prove to be an uneventful interview.  I pulled out a pencil and my writing tablet and arranged them on the table before me.

“What are you going to do with those,” he asked, blinking peevishly.  I was taken aback, not sure what he had expected from a journalist.

“Well, I plan to make notes about your story,” I answered.

His face became troubled, the bushy eyebrows of his brow knitting together.  Finally, he nodded and returned to the stew pot. He pulled two chipped bowls down from a shelf and ladled the contents of the pot into each.  He returned to the table and placed the bowls down, then produced two spoons. He walked over to the oak-sheathed ice box and pulled it open.  He drew out a bottle of milk and placed this on the table.  Two tin cups came next, and he filled each.

“I hope you’re hungry,” he repeated, this time with a relish that I found unsettling.

He sat and folded a pair of enormous, scarred hands on the tabletop.  Looking down, he began to recite the lord’s prayer.  I normally would have joined in, but instead I just watched the man, his lips rumbling with his incantation.  I found the words of the lord somewhat off-putting coming from this uncouth, hulking figure.  When he finished, he looked up at me, a wry grin on his face.

“Well, dig in, then.”

I looked down at my bowl, and tapped at the meat with the tip of my spoon.  The meat was cooked soft and brown, but I wasn’t sure if it was beef or mutton.  Cubed carrots and potatoes swam in a rich gravy.  I scooped up a portion and took a bite.  The meat was flavorful, and the gravy seasoned to my taste, not too salty and not too bland.  I rinsed it down with a swallow of milk, which was cold and creamy.

“So, Mr. Fink,” I began, resuming an air of professional curiosity, “I don’t wish to trouble you too much, and I won’t take too much of your time, but if you don’t mind, I’ll ask you some questions, and take my notes, and I’ll be off before night falls.”

The man had ladled four spoonfulls into his mouth to my single bite, and he nodded enthusiastically, wiping his chin on the back of his sleeve.

“Sure, sure, miss,” he replied, “anything you like.”  A dribble of gravy slopped onto his chin, and he made no move to clear it away.

I nodded, and moved the bowl to the side, replacing it with my pad.  This distracted Fink, who gave a slight scowl.  He stopped chewing.

“Aint you going to eat first?”

Realizing that he may be offended if I refused his meal, I leaned to side and took another bite, not wanting to lose the man’s cooperation.  This time, I it down on a rather gamey, sinewy morsel of food, and I swallowed it without chewing.  I immediately took a long draw of milk after.

This seemed to mollify the man, and he continued with his own meal.

               “Tell me a little about the ship, the Manchuria.”

               The man took a final bite, then returned to the stove and refilled the bowl, the contents splashing messily on the stove top.  Once he was again seated, he began to speak in a measured, thoughtful manner.

               “Not much to tell about her, to be honest.  She was an old Scotsman, built in the 80’s.  She was a four thousand tonner, under the command of Captain Howe.  We loaded cargo in Melbourne and topped off with lumber in Hobart. We were bound for Brisbane.”

               My pencil began to work.  I took another sip of milk, trying my best to diffuse the unpleasant sensation I had in my mouth from the last bite.

               “About a day out of Hobart, we got hit by a cyclone, a dead muzzler.”

               I stopped writing, looking up, not familiar with the term. “A…muzzler?”

               “Yup, wind coming right on the bow, knocked our speed down from twelve knots to a crawl.  By the second night, the mate reckoned we were moving at two knots.  Two knots astern.  We were going backwards.”

               I ventured another bite of stew, followed by more milk.

               “I hope you like the stew.  If you ask me, I think it needs some more parsnips.”

               I looked down at the mess in the bowl and ventured a grin.   “Yes, it’s wonderful,” I said. “Please continue.”

               “Well, the captain ordered full power from the engine room, and we fought our way around Cape Portland, and then the wind blew on the beam.  It got real ugly at that point.  Some of the lumber lashings began to break, and the wood started going overboard.  By the third night, we had trouble with the steering gear.  We lost two men overboard, when they tried to get back to the steering quadrant.  That’s when we knew we were in trouble.”

               The man turned then to adjust the flame on the lamp, and I was glad to see the fire chase some of the shadows away from the little room. He filled our cups with more milk, and came back with a loaf of crusty bread, which was delicious, and I dipped it in the gravy.

               “It was the beginning of the midnight watch when one of the steering chains parted, and we fell off in the troughs.  The captain ordered me and the carpenter up to the bow to ready the anchor windlass, as he knew it would only be a matter of hours before we blew up on the lee shore.”

               “What happened next,” I asked, wetting the tip of my pencil with the tip of my tongue.

               “We were in about a hundred fathoms when first light broke, and we could see Sawn Island off to port, maybe only two miles off.  The captain had us lower the starboard anchor to act as a drag, but it was no use, the wind had us going sideways.  The captain then ordered the crew to ready the lifeboats.  The wind was blowing a steady forty or fifty knots.”

               I held up my pencil, to give pause to the story.  “Isn’t there anything you could do?  Send a telegraph or something?”   

               The man shook his head grimly.

               “No, the wireless rig was destroyed in the storm, we were on our own out there.”

               I swallowed hard, then nodded, turning to a fresh page on the pad.

               “Anyway,” the man continued, swiping the crust of bread along the rim of his bowl, then stuffing it into his mouth.  “When we were a cable length off the shore, we let go the port anchor, but it was still too deep, and the brake failed, so when all the chain ran out, it parted, and we lost that gear overboard.  When we were within a quarter mile, we released the port anchor.  It struck bottom at about twenty fathoms, but it wouldn’t bite.  We kept dragging towards the beach.  We could hear the breakers piling up on the reef as we approached.”

               A sharp wind had kicked up outside, and I could hear it pulling at the loose siding, creating an unnerving racket that made it difficult to concentrate.  A moan came from the flue, sounding like the voice of a tortured soul wailing.

               “At around seven that morning, we could feel the bottom under the keel.  The ship was shuddering as it rose and fell with each swell, pounding itself on the coral.”

               I felt the man’s body tighten up, as if he were caught in the pinch of a vise.  “That must have been awful,” I half whispered.  I didn’t know what else to say.

               “Aye, it was.  The captain had the crew muster at the lifeboat stations, but we could see that trying to launch the boats under those conditions would have been suicide.  The ship slammed to a halt about 200 yards from the beach.  With each roller that came in from sea, we slammed down onto the reef.  Bang!” He clenched a fist the size of a coffee can and slammed it onto the table, making the utensils dance.

“Bang!” The fist came down again.  

I flinched, my heart beginning to race.

“The chief mate launched the port boat, along with about a dozen men aboard.  I remember we were all lined up at the rail, the sound of the wind screaming in the rigging, as we watched the boat go down.  As soon as they released the falls, the boat slammed up against the side of the ship.  The men tried to get the oars shipped but two of them got snapped off like twigs when the boat hit the ship again.  I saw the arm of one of the oilers hanging over the rail when they struck a third time.  When the boat drew away, the man’s arm flapped from side to side.  Every bone must have been crushed from that blow.”

I suddenly felt very warm, and wished that a window was open, despite the icy wind that was buffeting the house.

“Then, the boat was overturned by a swell that rolled in…” Fink’s voice trailed off as his eyes screwed up to the ceiling, recalling what must have been a terrible sight. “I saw the heads of some of the men surface, but some never came up.  The men that could swim tried to make it to shore, but one by one they disappeared.  Two of the men who were wearing lifebelts made it the furthest, but they were dashed onto the rocks until their bodies came apart at the seams.”

I wished that I had a brandy at that moment, I was having difficulty keeping notes, as my pulse was racing.  Before I could say anything, Fink resumed.

“The captain told the rest of us to find shelter where we could, but by now, the ship was beginning to lay over to seaward, and her decks were continuously awash.  Then, we felt the ship’s keel begin to buckle.  We could see the bow raise up and slam back down.  Then, the bow broke free and settled under.  We knew we didn’t have long to go then.  The captain launched the boat with the remaining crew, including me aboard, but it was smashed against the ship, and we all got dumped into the sea.   Me and three other men were able to climb up the manropes that were hanging down from the davits and were able to reach the deck.  We watched the captain, and the others try to swim back, but they were all exhausted by then, and one by one, they were gone.”

I watched the man try to collect himself, his hands trembling ever so slightly.  He pulled a flask from his boot, took a sip, then ran his hands through his hair.  For the first time I saw a white, zig-zag scar etched under his hairline.

“What happened then?” I asked, my pencil poised above the pad.”

Fink looked wounded, his face now weary and pained.  He exhaled, then pursed his lips.

“The storm blew itself during the day.  Me, the carpenter and the two other seamen gathered up some of the stores from the mess and tried to make a plan.  The ship was broken in half, sitting with her decks awash.  We could see that the island wasn’t anything more than sand dunes and rocks.  We weren’t going to find any food or shelter there.  We decided to stay on the ship.  Of course, without lifeboats, we weren’t in any position to try to make it for the island, not unless we wanted to jump off the ship and try to make a swim for it.”

I could tell now why the man was so adamant about eating.  Each meal eaten after the ordeal he had suffered must have been regarded as a sacrament. I looked down at my pad, then caught a glimpse of the now-cold stew in the bowl. I thought I saw what appeared to be a black afloat in the broth, but when I fished for it with my spoon, it disappeared.  I suddenly lost my appetite.

I steeled myself for my next question.  “So, I am told you spent a month aboard Manchuria before you were rescued.  What happened during that time?”

The man stood up abruptly, his chair tipping back, threatening to upend.  He made his way to the stove and brought the thing over to the table.  He held up the ladle and pointed it in my direction.

“Care for some more stew miss?”

I smiled but shook my head, and waited for him to re-fill his bowl.

“So, by week’s end, the rest of our food had run out…”

Something struck me as odd about this, and I held up a hand.

“Sir, you mean to say, you had eaten all of the stores aboard within a week? I mean, four men went through all of the provisions by then?”

The man glowered at me, then diverted his eyes, seeming to take interest in something outside the window just then.

“Like I said,” his voice returned, somehow sounding winded, hollow. “We had run out of rations, and we were deciding how we were going to get to the island.  We figured we might find some turtles or waterfowl ashore.  Something, anything.”

“Go on,” I said,” keeping my eyes locked on his.  Something told me that the most important part of the tale was about to unfold.

“We tried to build a raft to get to shore, and we saw the weather building over the course of 24 hours.  The night before we were going to head for shore, another storm blew up.  It was another cyclone out of the nor’east.  The remaining section of ship felt like she was beginning to work on the reef, and we were worried the whole thing would go down, so we tried to launch the raft.”

“You mean, you had built the raft?”  I asked, feeling an uneasy sensation in my stomach.

“Well that’s what I said…”

I looked down at my pad.  “No, you said you tried to build the raft.”  The man’s face flushed, and he regarded me with a cold, hostile stare that made me wonder if I had been too forward.

“Well, we didn’t, I mean it was part of a raft…”  He looked lost for an explanation.

“That’s okay, I won’t interrupt, please continue,” I decided to let him off the hook. I would learn the details in good time, and there was no need to press.  He seemed relieved.

“Well, the storm hit, and the other men were…” his voice dropped, as though he were preparing an answer that would satisfy me. He returned his attention to the clouds racing by outside.  “They were doing something on deck, and both of them were washed overboard, leaving me alone on the ship.” 

My pencil stopped scratching on the pad. I looked up, and leaned back in my seat.

“Both men were washed overboard?”

“Yes that’s what I said.”

“What happened to the third man that was with you?”

“There were only two men with me.”

I looked down at my pad, re-reading my notes, but decided I wouldn’t try to correct him, not then, anyway.  I nodded.

“So, the food was all gone by then, so I had to eat…”

“Yes, that must have been awful,” I agreed, “What did you eat, and did you have water?”

The man’s mouth worked, as if it were forming an answer, but he stopped, and he turned silently away from me, returning yet again to the stove.  His head dropped down, hanging low between stooped shoulders.

“You’re right miss, there were three men.  That it, there were three until the day of the storm.”

“Tell me about that day,” I said, not liking the dark atmosphere that had suddenly filled the room.   It was as if the air had suddenly been sucked out of the kitchen.

“I had to eat, you understand,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.  “After the storm there was only two of us remaining, myself and Willis, the carpenter.  I don’t know what came over me, so help me God…”

At the change in his demeanor, I suddenly felt the urge to flee, the smell of the coal stove mixing with the stew, and the underlying stench of mold had triggered in me an overwhelming desire to leave this place, whether I heard the remainder of the story or not.  I rose as silently as I could, and gathered up my pad and pencil, no longer interested in taking notes.

“What did you do, Mr. Fink?  Did you do something to Mr. Willis?”

The man rested both hands on the large pot that contained his stew.  He remained that way for some time before he began to speak again.

“I had to miss, it was just survival, I mean anyone would have done the same thing if they had been in my place.”

“What did you do to Mr. Willis,” I repeated, more forcefully this time.

“I woke early the next morning and found him lying on some folded tarps on the bridgewing.  He was just lying there, kind of snoring, just as peaceful as can be.”

“And then what happened,” I asked, taking one step closer to the front door.

“What happened, you ask?  Well, I saw him lying there, and I looked over at Swan Island and saw nothing but bleak sand and bone-white coral, and I decided I had to act fast.  I picked up a dog wrench, the kind we used to secure the doors aboard the ship, and I fell upon him.  I struck him as hard as I could.  I hit him until he stopped screaming.  And then I hit him again, until he stopped moving…”

My mouth turned dry as cotton.

“What on earth did you do that for?”

“Well, like I said, there was nothing to eat, except for some moldy turnips and maybe a few tins of salt pork, but it wouldn’t last for long.  I figured that if there were two men aboard, we would run out in a week.  But if there were only one of us, well then, that man stood a chance to hang around for a while, maybe even until help arrived.”

“So, you murdered him, in order to preserve your stores?”

The man turned around to face me now, one hand stirring the ladle in the pot. “Well, it would appear so, wouldn’t it, miss?  But Willis would serve me in another way.” 

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow…” I said, not quite sure what to make of his reasoning.

“As soon I reckoned that Willis was gone, a funny thought struck me, and to this day I will never know what made me think this.  Maybe it was just brute, blind instinct, but something inside my head told me that Willis had become more useful dead than alive.  I knew that if I threw him overboard, he would just be… going to waste.”

I took another step towards the entrance, feeling revolted by what I knew the man was about to tell me.

“What do you mean, go to waste?” I asked.

“Willis stood about six feet and weighed near 200 pounds, so I figured he could help… sustain me for some time.  So, I brought up some of the knives from the steward’s room, along with a whet stone, and I butchered the man where he lay.  I wrapped the pieces in butcher paper and salted it down.  That night, I made a fire in a steel drum, and I ate what may have been the tastiest cut of meat I had ever had in my life.  Amazing what a man will do to keep himself alive, don’t you agree miss?”

“I…I’m sure you were mortified by what you had to resort to, in order to survive,” I stammered, more horrified than impressed by the tactics the man had employed.

“I would have agreed with you, if it weren’t for one thing, miss.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Fink?”  By now I was ready to charge out of the house, professional decorum be damned.

“Well, by and by, I was rescued by the cutter from Hobart, and when their men came aboard, it’s a good thing they didn’t search the ship too thoroughly, for they may have found the bones of poor old Willis.  The bones I had not only picked clean, but I had sucked the marrow from.  The men only busied themselves with the logbooks and after interviewing me, they started back to Hobart.   I found my way back to the states, and you know what?”

I did not say anything, I just watched the man, who was now standing fully erect in his tiny kitchen.  He now looked every inch the brutish seaman who had abandoned his humanity only to embrace wholeheartedly the guise of the savage.  The man smiled and continued.

“I never did find another meal that had the succulent flavor of Willis, so I knew I had to sup again, and found several more subjects to nourish me, for once you acquire the taste for something, no substitute will do.”

“You mean, you murdered again, not for survival this time, but merely to satisfy your…hunger?”

The man merely shrugged at this, his hand reaching into the pot now with a fork, retrieving something from within.  I watched as a large, oval section of meat rose from the pot, hanging flaccid from the fork.

“You know, when you make this stew, some parts aren’t the best to chew on, but you add them in for flavor…”  With this, the strange cut of meat turned on the tines of his fork, and I could make out several holes in the thin cut.  It took me a moment to realize the holes resembled the eyes, nose and mouth of a face.  I nearly fainted a bristly cluster of eyebrows appeared, framing the eye openings. 

I shrieked in terror, as the man picked the skin up in his hands and began to gnaw at it, the flesh slapping noisily against his cheeks.  He now turned to me, his eyes wild, his face slick with grease, and may God strike me down if I’m lying, but his lips smacked.

He thrust his jaw in the direction of the kitchen table, the flickering lamplight making crazy shadows dance on his face.  “You didn’t finish your stew.”

I looked down at the bowl and felt my stomach lurch violently.  This man, this murderous cannibal, had served me his accursed dish.  I turned and darted for the door, barreling past the man and bursting forth out, and into the cold dusk.  My mind screamed and gibbered within my skull, trying to make sense of the insanity that had just played out within the house.  I sprinted towards the gate at the front of the property, nausea coming in heaving waves.  Once I was on the road, I came to a crash stop, my back hunched over as I tried to wretch up the meal I had just consumed.  Tears streamed down my cheeks.  I forced a finger to the back of my throat, trying to bring up the unholy stew.   I choked and gagged, but couldn’t purge what I had eaten, save for some ropy strands of spit and mucous.  That’s when I looked up and saw the silhouette of Fink standing at the open door of his house.  I couldn’t discern his expression, only that he stood there motionless.  Was he beckoning me back into the house?

To my lifelong appreciation, I saw the form of the hansom cab rumbling up the road towards me.  As soon as the carriage was in reach, I leaped into the seat and shouted for the driver to head as fast as possible back to the train station. 

I can’t recall with any detail what transpired between my ride to the station and my trip back to Norwich.  I only know my mind was engaged in continuous prayer and self-loathing.   I felt that I could never again walk amongst society without a stooped head.  I had unknowingly accompanied Fink in a mortal sin that I could never receive absolution for.  I was condemned now, every bit as much as Fink was.

Once seated in the warm, safe confines of the Pullman car, I faced the window, hoping the familiar sights of the world outside would re-center me, and bring me a sense of normalcy.  However, everything outside of the window was just a black blur of lights and shapes and shadows.  The scenery mirrored the bleakness I felt within my soul.  With each station that the train passed, I felt myself moving closer to a life that and a place that I couldn’t hope to communicate my transgressions with.  Would I even be able to speak in confessional of the monstrous rite I had partaken in? 

At last, the train halted at the Norwich station, and I gathered myself up to face the cold evening.  The hour was late, and as my feet crunched on the remnants of old snow, I paused, unsure of where I was headed.  Did I dare go back to my house, or where?  Where could I go, that my sin would not weigh so heavily on me? 

I was startled as a young woman turned the corner with an older gentleman, who tipped his hat as we crossed paths.  As the young woman passed under the glow of the streetlight, I noticed the soft, flushed pallor of her wind-chilled cheeks, and found myself wondering, what they might taste like if stewed with parsnips.