My Year of Meats

This chapter is prefaced by an excerpt from Shōnagon in which she describes the physical and emotional devastation left by a “fierce autumn wind” (243).

Jane muses about how “beautiful” she finds Colorado despite its dark history of hiding nuclear activity and poisoning many of its residents (245).

While trying to shoot some film, Jane and her crew stumble onto some private property. They trespass and later learn from a local waitress that they were shooting at one of the government’s highly guarded “atomic cities” (246).

They hire a college age driver named Dave who is “obsessed” with the ways in which cattle are ruining the West and contributing to global warming (250). He spends most of the drive filling Jane in on the ways the American livestock industry is environmentally detrimental. She jots it all down, hoping to use it in an upcoming show. Dave comments that all this knowledge is useless because no one takes action.

Two days have passed since John raped Akiko, but she is still bleeding and in pain. 

Jane, Dave, and the film crew arrive at Bunny Dunn’s in Texas. Bunny is buxom, blond, and spunky. She introduces them to her elderly husband, John, his son from a previous marriage, Gale, and Bunny and John’s shy five-year-old daughter, Rosie.