I live nextdoor to a cannibal.

How do I know?

Because he told me.

He’s not shy about it, not reticent. He’s very forthcoming.

I wondered if I should be nervous.

He looked at me appraisingly, and said, “You’re not my type.”

However, self-awareness leads me to consider mistrust, and self-examination leads me to the realization that my own current eating habits have expanded my waistline from 34 to 36, and my shoes are extra wide.

People say, “Forewarned is forearmed,” and “Better safe than sorry,” so I remain alert. I don’t want to be on the lunch menu.

I do notice changes in the neighborhood. Some people seem to have moved away, no one knows where.

I, like most of us, have considered cannibalism to be a thing of the past. Apparently I am wrong, as I am about so many things.

I know that cannibalism is at the limits of human decency. But I choose not to confront my cannibal neighbor, saying, “At long last, sir, have you finally flossed your teeth?”

I do remember, going to college, when as freshmen we all took a required course in history that they called humanities. We were introduced to and given the “big picture,” some of us for the first time.

Apparently mankind comes from an ancestry of ape, which diverged into at least three branches, ape, Neanderthal, and Cromagnon.

The apes are apes to this day, no matter what the movies say.

The Neanderthals were shaggy stupid, with pointy brains in sloping skulls, couldn’t walk erect, and carried clubs.

The Cromagnons were more modern, smarter, invented clothes and shoes, and shot arrows. In the quest for dominance, they won.

In the very early days, when food was scarce, people ate each other. They had invented fire, so they were not usually eaten raw.

The Neanderthals were strong but gentle, and could bash you with a club. The Cromagnons were more civilized and killed you at a distance with spears and arrows. They ate up the competition which vanished from over consumption.

Cannibalism has barely survived into the present day, mostly last century, mostly in remotest Africa or Borneo as part of a diaspora.

In the supermarket these days, you see a section of the meat counter devoted to bison or wagu beef, but not to people meat, not even at Costco.

“Eew!” people say, “Cannibalism!” as if it didn’t still exist, and should not be talked about in polite conversation. People don’t generally look at their neighbors with that in mind.

My own limited experience with the greater world does nonetheless dredge up examples, indicating a longevity in the public mind set, as if we all spring from a primitive consciousness still extant in the back of our brains.

I think, of course, of Flanders and Swann. Leave it to the British and their Music Halls to perpetuate the past. I have the recording. The opening number is a Swann Song, sung by Swann, who usually accompanies on the piano with both hands the darker voiced Flanders, whose popular favorites include, “I’m a Warthog Underneath.” Swann’s appropriately higher voice sings, “The Reluctant Cannibal.” Not only does this set the tone and the unexpected point of view, it strikes a blow for anticannibalism:


I don’t eat people.
I won’t eat people.
Eatin’ people is
WRONG!


And then, of course, there is the famous scene in the famous movie, Airplane, where our hero is reminded of the time he was shot down or crashed in the jungle and resorted, according to accusation and rumor, to, gasp, dare I say it, cannibalism! and he replied plaintively in his defense, “It was only a foot!”

It seems cannibalism is around us everywhere, Neanderthals have survived the menu, and limited brains with low frontal lobes are ruling the roost.

We all know that RFK Jr.’s brain worm died of malnutrition.

I endlessly devise scenarios, the hungry cannibal, alone in the desert, eats himself up, and leaves a note, “I was good to the last bite.”

I see it myself, awareness of the education process, eager young students lined up at the college door, ready to learn everything. And, at the other end, the exit door, they leave hollow eyed, clutching for money, as zombie college has eaten their brains.

But I digress.

I was talking about my neighbor.

You know the one, the cannibal.

The one who depopulates the neighborhood. The one who knocks on doors, begging a pound of flesh.

He keeps in touch with Washington, his job application open and active. He’s eager to help thin the government, vacate cabinet members, no questions asked or answered, ready to eat the evidence. He brings his own bag for leftovers, a “doggy bag,” because “They’re eating the dogs.”

I should have realized it would come to this. I remember the slogan, “Eat the rich.” I remember when young people were called “fodder.”

People would say, “Bite me!”

Children were taught to “Eat everything and clean your plate,” and “suck the marrow from the bones.”

I don’t know what it all means, but I recognize the pervasiveness. I think it has to do with people no longer being people. Humanity has lost the essence of the word humanity. The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, when famine rages and food prices rise, is serving up the population in meat pies.

I saw my neighbor today, sitting in his front yard, finishing his lunch, gnawing a bone.

“Anyone I know?” I asked, trying to joke, to keep it light.

“Not anymore,” he said, and licked his fingers.

I went inside my house and locked the door.