27 Jan The Plucking

The following anonymous tip was deposited into the mailbox of the Lincoln Police Station in Lincoln, Nebraska.

* * * * * *

The ice cream place on the corner of N 48^th Street and Vine is a front for human trafficking. It used to be called Soft Serves (and still might be) but they could’ve changed it by now and I refuse to even drive near it anymore to double-check. I won’t venture any more north than 30^th these days if I can help it. Had to even change my primary but didn’t tell them why. I should also clarify that the company who supplies their product (I think it’s called Utterly Fun Milks and Cheeses or Utterly Fun Dairy Co. or something like that (their logo is a stupid-looking cow wearing sunglasses)) may also be in on it but I’m not sure. Hell, I’m not sure of anything anymore. For all I know they might’ve cleaned house and jumped ship to some other place by now (somewhere also in cahoots with Utterly Fun if I’m right) and you’ll write off this tip as nothing but a waste of your precious time. Don’t. For the love of God don’t wait around like I did just to write this all down. I would’ve reported it sooner, but I was afraid of The Plucking and didn’t figure it out until last week when the radio—

I’m getting ahead of myself. But the end of the story is that Soft Serves is trafficking people. Maybe even children.

About a month ago (which pains me to admit how much time has passed), I went into what was then called Soft Serves for my bimonthly ice cream run. If you asked my wife, she wouldn’t’ve known about any of these, and what she didn’t know wouldn’t’ve kill her (she’s always on those fad diets you see on TV). This wasn’t my first time in the place, in fact. My runs went back for quite some time. Enough time to get to know the owner and be recognized for it, at least.

On the trip before last (which by my high school math was about six weeks ago now), the guy behind the register (a pimply-faced kid I had seen there before—quite often in fact) had let it slip that the place would soon be “under new management,” a small detail that makes all the sense in the world now. At the time, I think I was preoccupied with my double scoop of pistachio (and getting home before my wife would make a comment about it) and the comment didn’t really register. It was just one of those niceties, y’know? Like asking about the weather.

The conversation went something like this:

“Hey, I’ve seen you in here before. D’ya know this place is going under new management soon?”

“Really? Burt’s leaving?”

“Burt’s retiring.”

“Geez. 66 already, huh?”

“Yeup.”

And that was the end of it. I got my double scoop of pistachio (dubbed by Burt the “Post-Game Pistachio,” aka number 46 on the menu (the place was and/or is sports-themed)) and walked out the door. Never a second thought about the whole “new management” thing. If anything, it was resolved in my mind. Burt was retiring, and good for him. Lord knows I wished it was me. Besides, Burt was always the kind of guy who liked training the kids and stuff, hence the one with all the acne. He told me once, “My first job was scooping ice cream. I s’pose I get to be the ‘cool’ boss I never had.” It only made sense that he’d let it go. For the “next generation” or some Burt-ism.

I guess that’s how this all happened. Because I forgot Burt left. Because I didn’t read the menu and just went through the motions like I always did. Serves me right, I guess.

When I went in about a month ago (my last ice cream run I’ll ever have—just thinking about the stuff makes me sick now), the place was much quieter than usual. All the same junk was still there—all the sports memorabilia and crap on the walls—so the notion that there was a new menu and new ownership didn’t even cross my mind. So, I ordered my usual. Number 46. Two scoops (which I indicated by flashing a peace sign).

The man behind the counter (and I do mean man) was anyone but the zit-faced teenager I had run into last time and seemed to study me as I called out the number. I’ll describe him for you to the best of my memory. If I had to guess he must’ve been around forty to fifty, maybe forty-five give or take. He was short, somewhat tan, and had dark hair (it could’ve been either black or brown). He didn’t talk much but his voice was pretty deep, and he had some sort of tattoo on his forearm. Don’t recall what it was. I’d say if you had him in a lineup, I could pick him out, but I have no intention of coming forward for my own safety, lest I’m completely wrong about all this.

“Forty-six?” he seemed to clarify.

“Yeuh.”

He then nodded and looked around at the three or so others enjoying their desserts. Then he said, “Sit and I’ll get you.”

“Don’t you want me to pay?”

“You pay later.”

I nodded back but I knew he could see the look of confusion across my face. Never in the two or so years I had been going to Soft Serves did they ever ask me to pay later or sit down. It was ice cream, not filet mignon. You scoop it and you hand it over. I guess I figured maybe they had to get a fresh tub of pistachio from the back (I knew it wasn’t a popular flavor, hence it being demoted to number 46 out of a potential fifty on rotation).

I did what the guy asked and had a seat. At about this time (which was probably around five fifteen if I had to guess), one of the people sitting at a table beside me got up and left, and a new one entered with the rattle of the cowbell tied onto the door. All the while, I could hear a sort of murmuring from the back room. Not loud enough to’ve distinguished what was actually being said, but a noise, nonetheless. Before long, the man came out, took the new person’s order, and handed them their cone within thirty seconds. I stood as they walked out the door, the cowbell jingling again.

“Excuse me?” I asked. “I didn’t—”

The man waved his hand in front of his face, cutting me off. “Soon,” he said. “Soon.”

All I could do was nod back.

About ten minutes went by before both of the others finished their ice cream and left, leaving me alone in the place with the short, tan man nowhere in sight. I considered just leaving but as soon as I stood he rounded the back room’s corner and waved me on to approach. I did.

“Still waiting,” I said. I stopped before the counter.

He nodded and continued to wave. “Come,” he said.

“Back there?”

He nodded again.

I had never been in the back room of an ice cream shop, but it’s about what you’d expect. There’re racks of cups and spoons and napkins and stuff, a few big freezers, and along the back wall (where I assume the wall rolls up so that the dairy trucks can make their deliveries) a dozen or so big boxes. Crates, actually. The first red flag that should’ve waved in my mind was why these weren’t being refrigerated. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess.

“46?” the man asked over his shoulder, approaching the boxes.

“Yeah,” I said. “Two scoops.”

The man stopped in his tracks, shooting a fast-paced glance at another guy—who I also didn’t recognize (similar build, slightly taller, thick mustache)—and turned on his heel.

“Two scoops?”

I nodded and my eyes drifted behind him toward the crates. On them were stenciled the words Utterly Fun. I didn’t know how large containers of ice cream were (and still don’t) but their sheer size seemed like overkill for the kinds of tubs you usually find in Baskin Robbins. And considering they weren’t currently being refrigerated meant something else was inside. But what?

The man before me then said, “Come with me,” and marched directly at me. I began to pivot my body back to where we came in when he grabbed me by the arm tightly. Later, I’d find a bruise but at the time I was so consumed by the crates that I didn’t even make a sound. I just let him do it. However, before he could spin me completely around, I caught a glimpse of something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. On the opposite side of the crate, previously blocked by the man’s body, was a small hole drilled perfectly into the wood (probably by a drill bit). I couldn’t see inside but I didn’t need to. Something had moved in there like one shadow being replaced by another. And then, just out of my peripheral as I spun, I saw the finger emerging from within and nearly screamed. What came out instead was more like a choke—a cough at best and a gasp at worst—and the man heard it. He shot a narrow glance over his shoulder and kept pulling me closer and closer to the front room until we reached it.

“Have a nice day,” he said, letting me go. I took a breath of the fresh ice cream-scented air, far cooler than the atmosphere of the somewhat stuffy back room, and turned to face him.

“W-wha—?”

“I said have a nice day, sir.” The “sir” was firm, like the stamp at the end of a letter.

I said, “Uh… okay,” and walked through the door with that cowbell jingling over my head, never once looking back while rubbing down the hairs on my neck. I strut swiftly to my car—like a man almost late for a meeting—and threw myself inside. The sun was now setting and whereas I’d always admired the orange-yellow of its light, that night the dusk was haunting.

I stomped on the brakes, turned the key, and pulled the shifter into reverse. I immediately began to back up and then my foot slammed itself down once more as the white dairy truck directly behind my car grew in the rearview mirror. I had nearly hit it.

I honked once politely, waved my hand, then twice aggressively. When the truck didn’t move, I rolled down the window and yelled, “Hey! Tryin to move here!” while simultaneously flopping my hand around in the air which had a sort of chill to it. At first, I thought the thing might’ve been parked there but upon a second glance I realized its headlights were still on, and there was someone in the driver’s seat.

Looking at me. It was just a shadowy outline of a person, but I knew they were facing me. I ducked down and for whatever reason held my breath (as if that made a difference).

The truck honked once, and I knew from the sheer sound and length of it that it wouldn’t’ve twice. I stepped out of my car despite my better judgment, not turning it off, with really no other alternatives in mind, perhaps other than to ram the damn thing and speed my ass out of there. I should’ve.

“Hey! I gotta go, man!”

The truck rolled forward. It didn’t roll far enough to unblock my car, but it rolled far enough so that I was directly facing the driver through the truck’s window. With his silhouetted thumb, he pointed toward the back of the thing.

I shook my head and repeated, “I gotta go,” really enunciating each word like I was trying to speak with a deaf person. The driver didn’t really seem to care. Instead, he stared at me for a long moment, the two of us frozen in place in that ice cream shop’s parking lot. I shook my head again, thinking don’t do this don’t do this over and over again, hoping that somehow the creep would psychically understand me. He didn’t, of course. Instead, he bent down and nearly vanished from my view. From what I could tell by squinting, he was fishing through some kind of a box for something. When his head lifted back up, I could tell—even by his shadow—that something was covering his face.

A stray car rolled by on the road behind the truck and then, when the coast was clear, the truck’s driver’s side door popped open and the stranger emerged. It hadn’t registered to me that the parking lot’s dimly orange area lights had flashed on, and as the figure rounded the front of the truck and approached me, they served to reveal him.

The man (given his build) was about my height, dressed in some kind of tracksuit, and wearing a cow mask. In fact, the mask looked strikingly similar to the logo plastered on the side of the truck (Utterly Fun), which is a fact that just dawned on me. There were more important things to pay attention to at the time, but the image floats peripherally at the edge of my mind’s eye.

I stood my ground while curling my toes in my shoes. “Is there a problem?” I asked.

The cow-faced man looked blankly at me with the mask’s black, dead eyes. Then he spoke up in an unfamiliar voice. “We can do this easy. Or not.”

“Do what?”

Again, he gestured with his thumb, pointing it to the back of the truck. “Get in. I promise you’ll be brought right back to your vehicle when this is all said and done.”

I shook my head. “Just… say and do it now,” I barked.

“No good. Not here. Get in.”

I let out a shaky breath and thought about making a run for it, or hopping back into my car and trying plan B. I did neither. Instead, trying to keep cool, I agreed and followed the man to the back of the truck, which was already lifted open.

Unfortunately, in my panic, I didn’t get the plate number.

The back of the truck was a sort of freezer with cardboard boxes stacked on either side. In the middle of these—in what might’ve been called an aisle—was a single chair.

The masked man pointed at it. “Take a seat.”

I did, after jumping up and into the back of the truck. All the while, I had completely forgotten that I had left my car on until I still heard it running, even over the rumbling of the truck.

“H-hey, turn off my—”

The engine stopped before I could finish and the man in the cow mask glanced toward it and raised his hand. My keys were thrown into it.

“You drive. I’ll talk to him,” he said, clearly to someone I couldn’t see. He then lifted himself into the truck as I pushed myself backward in the chair. With every inch into the thing, the temperature got chiller, and now I knew why he might’ve been wearing the tracksuit-like outfit.

Before he slammed the back door of the thing, the final remnants of sunlight cast their eerie orange glow onto the stacked boxes to my left. From top to bottom, they read, “Rocky Road,” “Superman,” “Vanilla and Chocolate Swirl,” “Milk,” “Eggs,” and “Poultry.” To me, it was odd that such an array was combined into the back of a single truck, even to the point of cross-contamination, but I guess this is more common than I thought. Each of the boxes stared back at me by virtue of the stupid cow in the stupid sunglasses, grinning his cheesy grin. Then again, I guess that was the idea. Yet, despite how “kid-friendly” the thing looked, its wide-mouthed grin said nothing but HA-HA! You stupid bastard! You’re about to be skinned alive! See what you get for eating sweets behind your poor wife’s back? Your just desserts! Get it? Just desserts?

“I don’t know what you think I saw but I didn’t see anything I swear to God, man!”

The truck began to rumble forward and the cow-faced man in the tracksuit took hold of a nearby shelf railing, letting gravity finish the door’s descent. He stabled himself and then turned to me.

“What is it that you think I think you saw?”

I hesitated. “Uh… crates. Crates. Fucking crates, that’s it!”

He nodded behind the cow mask. “Anything else?”

I shook my head adamantly. “No, no… nothing.”

“Nothing in the crates?”

“No. What… ice cream? You think I saw your ice cream? Cause I didn’t.”

He nodded once more. “Didn’t see a finger? Eyeball?”

I choked on my words as the truck hit a bump. Before I could answer, he answered for me.

“Cause I think you did, but I think you’re mistaken. There’re chickens in those crates, you understand? Chickens. If you saw anything, it was a chicken eye or a chicken finger. Chicken toe, whatever the hell you call it.”

Chickens don’t wear red nail polish you stupid bastard, I thought.

God, I hope that was nail polish.

I nodded in agreement though, reading between the lines of what he was saying. “Yeah, that’s it. That’s what I saw. A chicken. It was just a chicken.”

“Mmhmm. But even still, we can’t have people knowin we keep chickens in crates. The fuckin snowflakes would melt over it. Ever heard of ‘cage-free’ eggs? That bullshit?”

I shook my head. “No one will ever know. I won’t tell a single soul about any of it. Any of it. I swear to God.”

“Swear to me.”

“I do. I do. I swear to you.”

The masked man nodded down at me as the truck took a turn. “Not good enough,” he said. “I’m gonna need some insurance.”

I nodded, acting agreeably as I could’ve been under all that stress. “Y-you want my car? You want my, uh… my credit card?”

He shook his head. “I want you to shut up.”

I agreed. He then got down on one knee, as if to propose, and looked directly at me through the mask. I could see his warm breath rising up through the slivers of eye slits in the mask and then realized that we were standing (well, sitting) in a giant freezer. My body had gone so numb that I hadn’t even noticed. But then I did. The air was ice cold, making it only harder to breathe.

“Do you know anything about chicken farms?”

I took in a gasping breath and shook my head.

“Y’know about how they process em though, right? How they lop their heads off? Scald em? That kind of thing?”

I nodded again.

“Well, y’know they do all that before pluckin em. Pluckin em alive’s worse.”

I agreed, thinking the hell’s this gotta do with me? Boy, if I only knew.

“I’d like to show you,” he said.

Show me? I thought. Show me what? Show me—wait, where the hell’s this truck taking me anyway?

Then I realized I hadn’t replied. “Show me… chickens?”

“Yeah,” he said. “What d’you think’re in these boxes?” he gruffed and kicked the one reading “Poultry.” “Not these though,” he said, eyeing the ones stacked on top. “Here.” He pried the top one open just enough to reach in and pull out a pint of Rocky Road. “Have some.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Have it anyway.”

I did.

Two spoonless mouthfuls into the Rocky Road (which if I even so much as smell anymore will result in my gagging), the truck began to slow. I could feel its tires squeal beneath me.

The man in the cow mask stood up straight and cleared his throat. “Now, I’m about to do something to you but you can’t freak out, okay?”

My heart stopped. “Uh… okay?”

“I’m gonna put a bag over your head. I’m not gonna put it on tight, I’m just doing it for privacy. Got it?”

I nodded, trying not to tear up. “Got it.”

The man approached me just as the truck stopped. He pulled from perhaps his back pocket a black sack of sorts. Before long, it was over my face, smelling of mildew, rust, and ass.

“Can you see anything?”

“No,” I lied, being able to see my feet if I looked down at them. I could also make out the moonlight pouring into the back of the truck as the door slid up, simultaneously filling it with warm air. Thank God for that warm air.

“I’m gonna take you by the hand and we’re gonna go for a walk, alright?”

I sniffled through the mask, burning and salty tears swelling in my eyes as the reality of the situation hit me like a ton of bricks. “P-please don’t kill me. Please.”

“I’m not gonna kill you. Yet.”

“Please, God. Please. I don’t wanna die.”

He got really close to me, practically touching the bag with his nose, and I could taste his sour breath. “Keep it up and you’ll find out that there’re fates worse than death. Much worse.”

I sucked back some snot and tried to control my breathing. He then started to pull my hand, but I didn’t budge. Aggressively, he pulled it again.

“I-I have a wife. You do anything to me, and she’ll know right away. She’s probably already worried sick.”

The man went silent for a moment, then said, “You have a wife… for now.”

I swear to God, if you lay a finger on her, I thought but didn’t say it. It was big talk for a man with a bag over his head.

Instead, I simply muttered, “She has nothing to do with this.”

“As long as you don’t tell her.”

“I won’t,” I said, and then felt the man tug at me again.

“46.”

“What?”

“46,” I repeated. “The fuck’s number 46?”

I heard him sigh. “Not for sale anymore. At least… not for you.”

It’s some kind of secret password then, huh? Some kind of code? Dammit, of all the stupid shit it had to be… it just had to be the same number as “Post-Game Pistachio,” didn’t it? Some “secret” that is.

Loosening my footing, I let him drag me off to God-knows-where. Which, based on what I then heard and smelled, was probably exactly where he’d discussed: a chicken farm. Perhaps a poultry processing plant or something. There’re some a ways away from Lincoln, but in the time it took for the truck to reach it from Soft Serves, I find the rural options highly unlikely. My best guess is that it was a small plant perhaps. A small, private farm, maybe. Like I said, though, I’m not sure of anything anymore.

What I am sure of is that that “rusty” smell inside the mask was even stronger as we approached wherever we were headed. I suppose it might’ve been genuine rust (especially if the rest of the place was as dingy as the room he took me to), but it also could’ve been that metallic, coppery flavor of blood. And even if it wasn’t, the sounds of buzzing and bawking meant bloodshed wasn’t far away.

I watched my own feet shuffle behind the man until we reached a small room where the ground’s appearance was about as putrid as it smelled. I heard the sound of a metal door slamming shut and then felt two hands on my shoulders shoving me into a seat. I took it, and then the bag came off.

“Now… some places pluck their birds by hand,” the man said, still muffled by the cow mask. “Some got a machine. We do a bit of both, I guess you could say.”

My heart thumped in my chest as I looked around. The room was small and dimly lit. It felt like I had just dropped my pants on the crapper of a fast-food joint—one of the kinds where you gotta eat in your car—and it didn’t smell much different. There were streaks of something, which could’ve been blood, along the ground and even some going up the walls. It was a dank place, rancid, and dark. Sounds echoed from beyond the room, but I didn’t pay much attention to them as the man spoke. When he stopped, though, one was clearer—closer—than all the others. In fact, it sounded as if it were in the next room over, only separated by the stained metal wall to my left. Initially, it sounded a bit like the truck with that rumbling kind of noise. But this was deeper, louder, and more metallic. It sounded like a chainsaw grinding on concrete or a car compacter chewing on a glass-bottomed boat.

The man behind the mask watched on as I winced at the sounds coming from behind the wall. I went to cover my ears, but his flattened hand stopped me as if telling a dog to stay.

“Wait for it,” he said. “Wait for it…”

All at once the machine-like noises whirred even higher and a shrill scream shot through the wall. At first, it sounded like an animal. But animals can’t yell out for God by name. This was a man, a man screaming like an animal.

I gasped and tried to catch my breath. “What the hell is that?”

The wailing on the other side of the wall continued as the mechanical noises grinded right along. “The Plucking,” the cow-masked man said.

Plucking? I thought. Plucking what? Humans don’t have feathers. What the fuck is being plucked?

“Y’know, some people got waterboarded down in Guantánamo Bay,” the man continued. “Said it was unbearable. And they’re supposed to be following the Geneva Conventions down there. Outside of that, though… some’ve been crushed, castrated, skinned… hell, even Christ was crucified. But nothin’s quite as bad as The Pluckin.”

The shrill screams continued, and the wall began to rattle. After an agonizing moment of listening on in pale horror, the voice cut off in favor of a loud yet distinguished guitar riff. One quite familiar, in fact. It was Blondie’s “One Way Or Another” coming through what sounded like a crappy radio speaker. Despite enjoying much of Blondie’s music, especially “Call Me” (which was a song my wife used to sing quite frequently during our karaoke bar days), I can no longer listen to Deborah Harry’s voice without trembling and an awful, sour feeling bubbling up in my stomach. Same can be said for the taste or even smell of ice cream. Especially pistachio.

Now that I could no longer hear the screaming (despite knowing whatever they were doing to the poor bastard next door was still going on), I focused on mouthing my next words.

“W-what’s g-going on over there?”

“Plucking,” the man said. He then reached into his tracksuit’s pocket and rummaged around for something. I could tell he found it when his arm stopped twitching around. It was a photograph, printed out on an old piece of polaroid paper. “Trust me, you don’t want the details,” he said, “but this oughta paint a picture.”

I’ve done my best to forget what was printed on that piece of paper. Suffice it to say that most of the image was red. I could make out what might’ve been a person. At some point anyway. There was a head and two arms and two legs. Everything else was red. It was something you might’ve seen in a horror movie, or on one of those sicko websites where people pay top dollar for other people’s misery. I only got a quick glance, though, before I started vomiting onto the floor.

“That’ll be you,” the man said as I retched, waving the picture above me. “That’ll be you if you say one fuckin word about any of this. Got it?”

I nodded, still gagging.

Who was that? I thought, trying to shove the image out of my mind. Then a horrible idea came to me. Burt. What if Burt didn’t retire? What if—

“Say it,” the man gruffed.

“I got it! I got it!” I yelled.

“Good,” he said and pocketed the picture. Blondie kept playing from the other side of the wall as the grinding and twisting noises continued in my ear, giving me a massive migraine that I feel like I still haven’t shaken.

“You’ll never see me again,” I pleaded, trying to stop crying and shaking and gagging all at once. “You’ll never see me again; you’ll never hear from me again… I’ll never step foot in your store ever again. I didn’t see anything… I swear I didn’t. Not even your face. And I promise I don’t even remember what the other guy looked like anyway.”

“Which guy?”

“The one who took my order,” I cried.

“Oh,” the masked man said with a chuckle. “Who d’you think’s being plucked right now?”

My stomach sank, and then the bag was shoved over my head again.

What followed is a blur to me still, but much of it was more of the same. Except, instead of the truck taking me from my car to the processing plant, we went from the plant back to my car, which was still parked in the lot of Soft Serves, now empty. I had been sweating so profusely that the freezing truck quite literally made my skin icy, and other than the fact that the masked man spoke very little, the drive back was more or less the same as the drive there.

When the back door of the thing finally lifted open after what felt like hours, and the outside air hit me, I huffed it like a drug, maybe for no other reason than the fact that it didn’t smell like ice cream or blood. I wanted to cry but kept my composure as the man watched me jump to the concrete and gather myself.

“Remember what we talked about,” he said.

I nodded. “I do.”

“Good. Cause if we hear one fuckin word that you said anything… to anybody…”

“I know,” I said. “The Plucking.”

He nodded once, then hopped back into the truck. I stood in silence as the engine rumbled into acceleration and rolled from the parking lot, leaving me alone to bask in the orange-tinted light from above. For what must’ve been a good ten minutes, I just stood there, unable to move, trembling. My car keys were clutched tightly in one hand and the other was wrapped around its wrist.

Finally, I sighed and began to sob. All of this over a fucking Pistachio ice cream.

In the weeks that followed, leading up to this long-winded tip (and I do thank you for reading it up to this point as I try to recall all of the gory details that transpired), I was a nervous wreck, and my wife could clearly tell. Even as early as that evening as I slid into bed beside her.

“You’re home late.”

“Mmhmm.”

She turned over under the covers, which I was on top of. “Long day?” Then I guess she must’ve seen something on my face. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I lied. “Just tired.” At that moment, I wanted to cry again. I had never lied so bluntly to my wife before.

“You look like you need a hot shower,” she said, then sniffed me. “What’s that smell?”

“Just go to bed, babe,” I said. “I’ll shower in the morning.”

And even though I did, the smell never left my nose. In fact, for the last four weeks, I’ve smelled nothing but metal, be it rust or blood or whatever the hell it is. It’s like tasting your own mucus when you’re sick. Just worse, and it won’t go away. Still hasn’t, even despite my revelation (which I’ll get to).

Every now and again since, while watching a movie with my wife (and by “watching” I mean staring off into space while holding her closer than I ever have before), I’d hear the faint sound of the ice cream truck come rumbling by with its signature, high-pitched tune. I think it’s the same melody as “It’s a Small World” (y’know, like from Disney World?) only I’d fill it in with lyrics of my own.

If you start to cry, then just know you’re fucked

Cause if she finds out then you will be plucked

“Bit late for the ice cream truck, isn’t it?” she asked me. I tightened my arms around her as I got cold all over, despite now being under the covers.

“Y-yeah. Weird.”

And suddenly, a new song popped into my head. One that made my stomach churn and my temples pulse. The Blondie one.

I will drive past your house

And if the lights are all down

I’ll see who’s around

Is that what this is? Intimidation? Boy, did I think so. Especially if those neighborhood ice cream trucks sold Utterly Fun products, which they probably did. They were stalking me, harassing me… no ice cream trucks ran at seven o’clock.

Or did they?

No, this is just their sick way of keeping tabs on me, making sure I don’t squeal, I thought. Cause God knows if I do…

Then what? I didn’t even know what The Plucking was in the first place, only that it sounded painful, and that was an understatement. It was torture, nothing short of it.

But humans don’t have feathers, I thought. So, what’s to pluck?

Then an even darker thought ceased me as my wife watched the movie in ignorant bliss. Your eyes out, stupid. They’ll pluck your eyes out, or your teeth out, or your fingers off, or every hair on your stupid head. Maybe they’ll pluck the skin from your muscles and your muscles from your bones, or scald you just for fun of it. No feathers required. Maybe your entrails will be plucked from your body, or maybe they’ll just pluck you from your cozy, little house from your cozy, little wife. Don’t lie to yourself. There’s plenty to be plucked of a person.

Suddenly, the image of a memory popped into my mind. A childhood toy, actually. Mr. Potato Head. With no eyes, and no nose, and no teeth—

And after that, my stomach was in knots. I didn’t eat dinner (baked chicken, go figure) and I couldn’t go to sleep. At best, my head was on the pillow and my eyes were closed.

But it was easier to keep them open. At least, until the spinning ceiling fan started looking a bit too much like a saw blade. Then I closed them again and was back in the rusty room until morning, where I’d have to stomach watching my wife pluck her fingers with her lips after each bite of bacon.

The revelation came about a week ago and thank God for it. Thank God. Yes, I’ve sat on my hands ever since just in case I’m wrong, but something tells me I’m not. My wife tells me I’m not (yes, she knows now).

On my way home from work last Thursday (carefully avoiding any streets north of 30^th at all costs) and listening to whatever crap was playing on the radio, the song “The Tide Is High” came on, a song by Blondie. It was like an unexpected punch in the gut and immediately I switched the station to some stupid furniture store commercial.

No credit score? No problem!

No money down, zero percent APR!

Big selection? Yeah!

Big savings? Yea—

And then the ad abruptly cut off to one of those “you’re listening to LCWR radio, ‘The Tune’” or whatever. I guess somebody down at the Furniture Emporium cheaped out on those last three seconds of airtime. Then suddenly a lightbulb went off in my brain.

The voice cut off. It cut off just like… just like the screaming did when the Blondie song started to play.

Maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe it was just… a recording or something. Like on a tape or CD.

Maybe there is no plucking.

And even though I didn’t believe it yet, that thought gave me such a relief that I nearly got into a wreck trying to focus on the road. I nearly burst a blood vessel tightening my grip on the wheel.

Think about it, stupid. Why didn’t they just kill you? Because they don’t kill anybody. Because it’s just another liability for them. Because it would draw more attention to their real business.

And did the screaming even sound like the so-called guy from the ice cream store? Couldn’t he’ve been the one driving the stupid truck in the first place?

But what if I was wrong? What if it was all just wishful thinking? And The Plucking was real and not just a heavy dosage of psychological warfare. And if I was wrong about it, the consequences were beyond severe. Far beyond.

Think about that Polaroid picture, I said to myself.

Could’ve been chicken cuts, I replied.

That night, I saw a light at the end of a long tunnel. It gave me hope.

Even still, the ice cream truck made its rounds the next day, serenading the entire neighborhood with “It’s a Small World.” It drove especially slowly down the cul-de-sac where I live.

Or was that how slow it always drove? I mean, it’s gotta be pretty slow for the kids, right? And how’d they even know where I live?

Licensed plate, stupid. They know your plate number, remember? And if they’ve got the number, they’ve got your name. And if they’ve got your name—

But maybe it wasn’t them. Maybe it was just the ice cream truck. And if the ice cream truck thing was all in my head, maybe The Plucking was just a mind game too.

So, I googled it. “The Plucking.”

The only results I got were some kind of economic theory, guitar tutorials, and cosmetic hair removal.

Oh shit, I thought in a cold sweat while reading that last one. Maybe it’s some sort of long, drawn-out scalping method.

Or maybe it’s not real, stupid. Not a single result about torture, is there?

Maybe it’s a new method. Maybe it’s really underground.

Or maybe it’s not real.

And despite that nagging voice at the back of my mind for the rest of the day, I decided to come clean and tell my wife that I had been sneaking off to eat ice cream without her knowledge. She laughed at that, but as I kept going—telling her everything—her smile faded into panic and terror, into expressions I didn’t even know she could make.

You’re putting her in danger, I thought.

There is no “danger.” How do they even know what I’m telling her? Nobody bugged our house.

When I explained the whole radio thing—my revelation—she was hesitant at first to believe it. But as we kept talking the whole “anonymous tip” thing came up and it seemed like a careful solution in case I was wrong. Unless I was very wrong. It was her idea, and it was a good one. So, if this tip helps anyone (and we pray it does), thank her.

We’ve since taken the necessary precautions too. I bought a gun (won’t describe which kind for purchase-history-tracing-purposes but believe me it’ll do the job) and keep it under my bed. I also upgraded our home’s security system thanks to ADT and put in a vague word in with the Neighborhood Watch about those ice cream trucks (just in case).

I also got my hands on a phonebook and have started sifting through the “Burts” (you’d think for as long as I knew the guy I’d’ve had his last name or cell number… but you’d be wrong).

The final precaution was this tip. Our brave boys in blue.

So, thank you,

Anonymous

* * * * * *

Following the reception of this anonymous tip, the Lincoln Police Department began an investigation into both Soft Serves LLC and the Utterly Fun Dairy and Poultry Co.

Since, the anonymous whistleblower has not come forward.