Still Life by Melissa Milgrom (thriller books to read .TXT) 📗

to Fishwick. The last time I saw him was at the WTC. He was wearing a baseball cap and binoculars and was almost arrested for birding too close to Lake Springfield's power plant. He told the cops, "You can't arrest me—I'm a judge!" They let him off. Taxidermy's British ambassador, Fishwick works for museums throughout Europe and judges international taxidermy competitions, where his ornithological expertise and unsparing critiques are legend. Even though he opposes hunting ("It's hard without a gun") and he believes that taxidermy is "not art," American and European taxidermists alike respect him (which for taxidermists, who are notoriously jealous, says a lot). Although I yearned to go back in time and watch herons (while reading Virgil) with Charles Waterton high up in a lofty tree, I was just as happy to be sitting here drinking pints with Fishwick. I love to listen to bird taxidermists describe birds, because their language is exacting and their observations are keen and passionate. Fishwick looks up, grinning, and says, "I've a tattoo of a ship on my stomach—see if you can find the mast." Riotous laughter erupts as I turn red and guzzle my beer, trying to regain my composure. The beer, however, gives me the courage to change the subject and ask Church and Spaul about Damien Hirst.

"He's cooked [dinner] for me!" says Spaul, beaming. "I get a big buzz out of just knowing that I've contributed to [his art]. I've signed it all—embedded in the plastic ... It's just a big buzz!"

More people join us. Everyone is drinking pints. Mayer tells them that I'm a journalist writing a book about taxidermy, which puts me on edge. Taxidermists often distrust the press, and for good reason. They resent the media's morbid depictions and how the media tend to focus on unscrupulous taxidermists, such as Sclare of the Get Stuffed shop, rather than on those whose passion evokes that of the early naturalists, for whom taxidermy was a zoological tool. Because of this, I expect the conversation to become guarded. I am wrong.

These serious naturalists do not want to talk about the Linnean Society or Captain Cook's voyage in the Endeavour. Instead, they talk about their most bizarre jobs, and they play up all the blood and guts—something their American counterparts would never do in front of a reporter. I'm surprised that they are being so explicitly gross around someone they've just met. I'm also surprised by my own reaction. Soon I'm laughing convulsively at stories I would have found repulsive a year ago: the menacing poodle made into a therapeutic rug to help rid a boy of his fear of dog bites; the man who asked to have his amputated leg made into a lamp stand; the pickled terrier whose sunken eyes needed replacements. They chat about blindfolded taxidermy: eating the specimens!

The women are as raunchy as the men. Ruth Pollitt, then the National Museum of Scotland's skinner, is describing her job. "I do all of the measuring, pickling, tanning, and finishing of the study skins and some skins for exhibitions, from mice to elephants. I've worked on three thousand mammals in ten years," she boasts. This year alone, Pollitt has prepared 360 felines for the museum's new Cats of the World Hall. That fact is astounding; I want to hear more. But Ruth is already on to another topic: the time she (and five others) skinned a giraffe in six hours. It was a highlight of her career as a skinner, and I sit with open notebook, eager to get it all down. But she's not talking to me specifically; she's talking to the taxidermists in the room, two of whom work with her at the museum. So she says instead, with a huge grin, "Giraffes are very well-endowed." Loud laughter. My ears perk up.

Taxidermists can talk endlessly about animal genitalia, penis bones in particular. I was surprised to learn that certain mammals have bones in their penises, and taxidermists collect them as trinkets or curiosities. Even the Schwendemans and Mayer have raccoon baculums in their studios, which Mayer says are fertility talismans. (After the show, I gave a raccoon baculum to a friend who had unsuccessfully attempted in vitro fertilization, and she got pregnant the next month.) As it happens, in addition to penis bones, Pollitt collects testicles, kangaroo scrotums, and other sexual things. "I collect the testes. I put them on a metal tray and prepare them later. We keep the penis bones. We have a national penis collection. The National Penis Collection of Scotland," she says, pausing, everyone doubled over in laughter. "You have to watch your bollocks in that place!"

A sociologist might say that taxidermists are purposely lurid, because by making fun of themselves, it's somehow less hurtful when outsiders call what they do strange. I'm sure there's some truth in that, but I honestly think everyone in the bar that night was simply drunk and having a good time. And because most guild members get their specimens from natural death, that also eliminates the guilt factor. Still, I had made a great effort to come to England to attend this show so that I could learn something about taxidermy. I had high hopes of getting some real information the next morning at the death mask demonstration.

When I walk in, Peter Summers, a soft-spoken, self-effacing taxidermist with the National Museum of Scotland, is adjusting his latex surgical gloves. On the lab table to his right is a mangy black domestic cat—the demonstration victim. The method Summers is about to demonstrate is the one he's currently using at the museum for the Cats of the World Hall. Mayer, who hasn't done a death mask in fifteen years, will assist him.

Dressed in a black T-shirt with white handprints over her breasts, Mayer scans the place to see if everyone has arrived, then she introduces the competition judges. Everyone boos. Someone shuts off the lights, and Mayer sits in the dark, watching Summers through the holographic