Savory Flesh by Mark L. Stinson

Author's Note: You may find yourself thinking that with “Savory Flesh” I have gone too far...that I have written a story about the taboo topic of canibalism, and that perhaps it should not have been written. I did not write it first.

Albert Fish killed and ate a ten year old girl named Grace Budd in 1928. Not knowing Grace’s fate, for six years the Budd family hoped and waited for her to return. In 1934 Fish wrote Grace’s mother a letter in which he described how and why he had murdered and canibalized her daughter. It is perhaps the cruelest letter ever written.

I stumbled upon the letter in a book about serial killers, and before I was even done reading it..a letter of my own was formulating in my mind. Below you find the story that was inspired by that horrific letter. Would I have even thought to write this story had I not been so chilled by Fish’s original letter? No. Did I write this story to somehow pay tribute to Albert Fish or his actions? Most definitely NO!

I think my story delivers to its reader a painful gut reaction to evil. It communicates at a primal level the terror that Grace Budd must have felt the day of her death and the soul-rending grief that Grace’s mother must have felt while reading Albert Fish’s detailed and graphic letter. As a fictional story its subject matter is terrifying, but the fact that it is based directly on a real event, a real death, a real letter...that’s what gets you in the end. And here is the story:

My Dear Mrs. Mabry,

This is the letter for which you have waited some six long years. Perhaps I have been remiss in not contacting you sooner, but due to circumstances that will become clear as you read further, I had reason to fear that contacting you might lead to my ruin...even my death. I know that these last six years have been painful, empty years of wondering and vain hopes, but know that I had good reasons to wait until now to contact you. I hope that the message I wish to impart to you, earns me at least some forgiveness for my selfishness.

In 1976 a friend of mine shipped as a deck hand on the merchant steamer Providence, with Capt. James Fenmore. The crew was a rough bunch, a mean crowd of social misfits and criminals. Each and every one of them held deep within himself some hidden motivation to leave our land for the adventure of the high seas...my friend included. They sailed from San Francisco for South East Asia...more specifically, the Mekong River city of Pnompenh in Cambodia.

The trip was difficult, the small ancient steamer chugging its course against angry tossing seas. Within the hull the cooped up men fitfully argued and raged against each other, as a strange mixture of boredom and fear worked their nerves. Capt. Fenmore’s years of sea experience kept the boat from succumbing to the waves, and his skill with a old worn .44 quelled two mutiny attempts and sent four crew members to watery graves.

There was a great deal of relief among the crew when the Providence left the ocean and began chugging its way up the muddy Mekong river. Finally they would get to leave the stinking confines of the ship and stretch their legs at bit.

They talked at length about what awaited them in Pnompenh...fresh food, strong liquor, and young Asian women. It was this latter category of pleasure that their discussions focused on the most. They had heard rumored the sensuous beauty of Cambodian girls, and the fact that if one could not seduce a girl, they were easy enough to buy.

Upon arriving at the docks of the city, my friend Davis, and the rest of the crew went ashore to explore what pleasures they could find among the native population. Each one of them was nursing a thirst for liquor and women that would be difficult to satisfy in only one night. Davis and two other deckhands split off from the main group, in the hope that with fewer people, whatever pleasures they encountered could be shared less.

They found a dark dirty bar where no one spoke English, and such was their need that they did not wonder when the whores first asked for food in payment, and only reluctantly accepted their money. What was to be one night of release, carelessly blurred into three (or was it four) days and nights of sin. They consumed liquor by the bottle, until the liquor had lost its allure and they descended into the opium dens, with their communal water pipes and dreaming skeletal addicts. They slept with the cheap experienced women of the bars until boredom set in, moving next to the young girls sold by their fathers on the street.

What few moral boundaries they had brought with them to Pnompenh quickly dropped away, and depraved acts of abandon were committed by these three in a nightmarish fever of drugs and desperation. When they returned to the docks after days of drunkenness and whoring, their boat was gone. Capt. Fenmore and the Providence had returned to sea.

At the time, the mad policies of Cambodia's leaders had caused a famine. People were literally starving to death in the streets and in their homes. Food was extremely expensive and difficult to obtain...and meat a cherished commodity. So great was the suffering among the very poor, that in order to save their older children, parents would sell their youngest children to the Butchers to be cut up for food. This was the sacrifice they were willing to make to keep their other children from starving. Think how difficult a choice that would be, and yet it was a choice that was forced upon them by circumstance.

Such was the market for meat that young boys and girls were not safe out on the street. If they were out and about alone, someone that was especially greedy or hungry would snatch them up and sell them for meat. Occasionally parents out with their children would be beaten, and their children dragged away for profit and slaughter.

One could go in any shop and ask for steak-chops or stew meat. The Butcher would bring out part of the naked body of a boy or a girl, and just what you wanted would be cut directly from it. A child's behind, which is the sweetest cut of meat, was sold as veal cutlet...and it brought the highest price at the market.

My friend, Davis, in order to survive had to eat, and there were times when all there was to eat was the young flesh of children betrayed by their parents. At first he would only buy from shops that displayed the meat in a butchered state. The red lumps and chunks of butchered human flesh in the butcher’s cases were indistinguishable from the red beef that Davis had seen all his life in grocery stores and butcher shops in America. He would cook the meat very, very well-done, until he imagined that all the blood, fat, and taste had been cooked out of it, and then he would choke the meat down, all the while trying forget.

Eventually Davis ventured into the fresher shops that cut the choice bits of meat from the bodies right out in the open. It was the only way to ensure the freshness of the meat, and the quality of the cut. Becoming bored with the tasteless dry texture of the well-done style, he developed a variety of cooking methods for the forbidden flesh.

Davis stayed in Pnompenh so long that he acquired a taste for human flesh...a certain liking for it really. He never said so, but at times I suspected that his long stay was less the result of being trapped, and more the result of his new found preference. In Cambodia, along the muddy Mekong River, Davis could drink and whore, and easily satisfy his cravings for the sweetest and most tender of meat.

Eventually my friend returned to the city he considered home, New York City. He found that the patterns of habit are especially hard to break, especially habits that bring you joy and gratification. He stole two boys, one 12 and one only 6. He led them to his apartment, forced them to strip naked, and locked them in a closet. He took much care to hide his tastes, burning everything that the boys had worn.

Davis feared that his American stock of meat would disappoint him in some way. Either through some flaw in the innate quality of the meat, or through some failure in his techniques of preparation and slaughter. In order to assuage his fears, he dutifully spanked them...tortured them...several times every day and every night in order to make their meat good and tender.

The 12 year old boy was killed first, because he had the fattest ass and would clearly provide the most meat. Davis cooked and ate every part of his body, except the head, the bones, and the guts. All that week Davis boiled and broiled, fried and stewed, and of course roasted in his tiny little kitchen the delicacy he had procured. The little boy was next, and really Davis was quite surprised at how tender the little one was, despite his thin build.

At that time, I lived quite close to Davis, at 452 E. 101 St., the building just to the east. He would confide in me and tell me of what he had done, and of what I was missing out on. He refused to share, but he told me so many times just how tasty Human flesh was that I resolved to get some and taste it. I liked my friend quite a bit, and if he had eaten human meat with no ill effect, then I could see little reason to avoid it myself.

Where could I obtain human flesh, avoiding all fear of public condemnation...all fear of having to answer for what our society feels is a crime most foul? I pondered this question long and hard. I would have to stoop to kidnapping a child, a vulnerable child that had been left unattended, or had wandered away. After all, that is what Davis had done upon his return to New York. It is not like I could go down to the local butcher shop and ask for the meat off of a young child. Perhaps a park I thought...or a playground...or better yet, a shopping mall. Parents are always allowing their children to roam free, leaving them behind at a toy store or a record store, in order to go off and peacefully shop. I could lure one of these children to a quiet place of solitude with promises of candy or toys, and then spirit them away to my own personal butcher block.

I made quite the effort at this plan, I assure you. I would go to the mall in the early morning, when the shops were just opening, and I would begin my hunt. I watched for children walking by themselves, or left behind in the novelty shop, and I would approach them smiling. Often, before I could even get close enough to talk to them, someone would unwittingly spoil my plans by stopping to look at something close to the child, or occasionally a parent would return. Other times I would actually get up close to the child and begin weaving my web, but my will would falter, and I would walk away without having really tried to lure the child away. A few times I actually got children to come away with me to a lonely service hallway through an “employee’s only” door by the restrooms, but here again someone would stumble upon us and I would quietly slip away. Once I actually grabbed a little boy and began to choke him, when the little brat actually swung his fist with a strength uncharacteristic of a child, and struck me in my private region. As I fell to the ground clutching at my pants, and the boy twisted away from me running and crying, I realized that perhaps trickery and taking advantage of a misplacement of trust would work better for me than actually abducting a child with force. That is where you enter the picture.

On a Saturday, in June, 1992 I came by for a visit at your house at 521 W. 18 St. You had seen me at your church and I believe that this fact, combined with my gray hair and good natured manner, caused you to trust me. I brought you a cake and fresh peaches. You served me a wonderful lunch...pot pie and a tart lemonade that made my lips pucker. I introduced myself falsely as Mr. Lashbrook, for I had in mind that it would be better to protect my real name, and told you that I was a grandfather and that my wife had died two years before. We had polite conversation, and I remember laughing at your quick and witty humor. It was really a most pleasant visit.

Your daughter Grace...sweet little Grace...sat in my lap and laughed with us. She was only 7, and I am quite sure that she laughed only because we were laughing, and because she was happy. She even gave me a kiss on the cheek. I made up my mind there and then that I would eat her.

Three visits and several weeks later I told you I was going to my nephew's birthday party, and that there would be lots of children there, playing and eating cake. When Grace cried out that she wanted to go, you trusted me..."a family friend" to take her there. You chose a crisp little white dress for her, and I left your home hand in hand with my next meal, your darling Grace.

I took her to an abandoned house in Greenfield which I had already scouted out earlier in the day. When we arrived I told Grace to remain outside in the front yard, and I would call to her when the party began. As I entered the house, I looked back at her and she was picking wildflowers from among the weeds in the overgrown yard.

I ran upstairs, my heart thumping away in my chest. In an upstairs bedroom I stripped off all of my clothes and stacked them neatly in a corner. I knew that if I did not get my clothes off, I would get Grace's blood all over them. My butchering tools were still where I had stashed them, and when I was sure that everything was ready, I called out to Grace through a window.

I quietly hid myself in the closet and waited. I heard her calling out my name. She was looking for me and she was very scared. When she entered the room I sprung from my hiding place and grabbed her. When she saw that I wore no clothing she screamed and began crying. She tried to break free of my grip and run away, but I held her very tightly. She told me that she would go and tell her "Mama" what I was doing.

First I stripped her naked. I assure you she fought very hard. She kicked, she screamed, she even bit me...something I had not expected! I laughed at the irony. Here was the meal attempting to consume me, the one who had come to feast. I choked her with both of my hands until I was sure she was dead. Then I chopped her up into little convenient pieces which I would have no trouble carrying back to my apartment. For that is where I intended to cook and eat little Grace.

How sweet and tender her little ass was after I roasted it in the oven. The carrots and potatoes I had roasted in the pan with her seemed to have taken on some of her flavor. All in all, it took me 7 full days to eat all of the meat I had butchered, and it was 7 days of bliss.

In all matters, practice makes perfect...and since Grace, I have perfected my little hobby. I have grown bold, no longer playing upon the easily given trust of foolish parents. Those methods of fraud and trickery were dangerous, leaving too many loose ends for police and detectives to follow up. Now I simply take what I want. Many a child I have snatched and butchered...playgrounds and busstops, frontyards and shopping aisles, these are my hunting grounds now. All I have to do is bring them close enough to grab. “Little boy, do you want to see my puppy?” “Little girl, please help me find my granddaughter’s house.” And then they are mine. Mine to slaughter, mine to cook, and mine to eat. It’s funny though. Over the years not one of these children has tasted as sweet and as tender as your Grace. Not one.

But I have not written you this letter some six years later simply to compliment you on the taste of your daughter’s flesh. I have never been a father, but I know that that hardest part of Grace’s disappearance for you as a mother, was not knowing what happened. And though you probably feel like I have told you all that you would want to know, there is one more thing I must impart to you. I have hopes that this one last matter will bring you some small amount of peace...that it will serve as a small kernel of consoling knowledge.

You see, I did not touch or molest young Grace, though surely I could have if I had wanted to. Yes, I took her as a meal, but I did not rob her of that purity with which God gifts all young girls. I wanted you to know that young Grace died a virgin.