“Top of the Food Chain”
This story begins with a piece of grotesque imagery that is more in keeping with something from a biological horror story than an ironically satirical piece of black humor. Taking the form of a company shill appearing before Congress to explain why a massive biochemical disaster was not the fault of his company, tone become everything. And one the ways in which it is is conveyed is through the tonal disconnect at play in this example of imagery which begins with a tone-deaf comparison before proceeding onto a horrific portrait of suffering and leading to the typical adoption of a dismissive point of view:
“I mean it was utterly useless—we might as well have been spraying with Chanel No. 5 for all the good it did…Picture if you can, gentlemen, a naked little two-year-old boy so black with flies and mosquitoes it looks like he’s wearing long johns, or the young mother so racked with the malarial shakes she can’t even lift a diet Coke to her lips—it was pathetic, just pathetic, like something out of the Dark Ages. . . . Well, anyway, the decision was made to go with DDT. In the short term. Just to get the situation under control, you understand.”
“Greasy Lake”
Only one reference to the Vietnam War is made throughout the entire story and yet is enough to cement the story in its entirety as a tightly constructed yet quite expansive allegory about that controversial military conflict which ripped a nation in half. The reference is to bad military strategy by commanding officer overseeing all of the troops which were sent to Vietnam. Like all previous wars, public support and enlistment for the war began on a positive note with the expectation that if American could take care of Hitler in four years, Vietnam would be won almost over a slow weekend. Just like Vietnam, the boys in the story eventually find themselves in over their heads because things begin with misplaced expectations:
“The first mistake, the one that opened the whole floodgate, was losing my grip on the keys. In the excitement, leaping from the car with the gin in one hand and a roach clip in the other, I spilled them in the grass—in the dark, dank, mysterious nighttime grass of Greasy Lake. This was a tactical error, as damaging and irreversible in its way as Westmoreland’s decision to dig in at Khe Sanh.”
“The Hit Man”
“The Hit Man” is an oddly constructed story even by the eccentric standards of Boyle. In a way, it is nothing but imagery, separated into individual sections each with equipped with their own subtitle. A representative example of the whole is the entirety of the section subtitled “Stalking the Streets of the City.”
“He is stalking the streets of the city, collar, brim down. It is late at night. He stalks past department stores, small businesses, parks, and gas stations. Past apartments, picket fences, window. Dogs growl in the shadows, then slink away. He could hit any of us.”
“Stones in My Passway, Hellhound on My Trail”
Imagery is engaged at the end of this story to give readers a clue to what is taking place because the actual events are not entirely clear. The ending itself is unambiguous enough, but the details behind what led to the final image remains nebulous. Unless, that is, one has paid attention early on to descriptions of a poisoned dog and a jealous woman:
“Cramps. A spasm so violent it jerks his fingers from the strings…suddenly the voice chokes off, gags…His bowels are on fire. He stands, clutches his abdomen, drops to hands and knees…He looks up, a sword run through him, panting, the shock waves pounding through his frame, looks up at the pine plank, the barrels, the cold, hard features of the girl with he silver necklace in her hand. Looks up and snarls.”
