Animals in Captivity

By Kate Segriff

International award-winning writer Kate Segriff’s debut short story collection is a sleeper hit in the making, loaded with fierce, unapologetic writing about women struggling against poverty, addiction, and a world that wants to drag them down. With hope and hilarity, Segriff transports us from speakeasies to heavy metal concerts on Hudson’s Bay, where we meet neurodiverse miners, opiate-dependent, train-riding teens, and a tree-murdering grandma.   

In her unyielding debut story collection, Kate Segriff’s characters are fierce, unapologetic, and not afraid to plunge headfirst into chaos. Animals in Captivity takes us from the 1930’s to the present day, from Fogo Island, NL, to Lethbridge, Alberta, from speakeasies to heavy metal concerts on Hudson’s Bay, where we meet neurodiverse miners, opiate-dependent, train-riding teens, and a tree-murdering grandma. With matter-of-fact prose and dark humour, Segriff guides us through desperate times and unusual circumstances toward hope in an imperfect world.

For fans of We Want What We Want by Alix Ohlin, David Huebert’s Chemical Valley, and Cary Fagen’s Great Adventures for the Faint of Heart, Animals in Captivity feature a motley cast, each ready to snatch their due from the clenched hand of the universe. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Riddle Fence Debuts
• Release date: May 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9781738151578

Kate Segriff

Kate Segriff (she/her) is a Toronto-based writer and filmmaker. Her work has been published in Atlanta Review, The Malahat Review, Prism International, and Best Canadian Poets, among others. Her short films have appeared in over 50 independent festivals worldwide. She has won the Space and Time Magazine Iron Writer Award, the Pulp Literature Bumblebee Prize for Flash Fiction, the Wilda Hearn Prize for Flash Fiction, the Connor Prize for Poetry and the Edinburgh Short Story Award.

Book preview

Animals in Captivity

Darlene watches me feed the hogs. I can tell she has something on her mind, but if she wants to say it, she can go ahead. I’m not going to spend my day trying to pull it out of her. She’s in the wrong, she goddamn knows it, and the one who’s deepest in the shitpile is the one who’s got to start shovelling.

Why you always gotta make things so difficult? Darlene says.

Wasn’t me who pulled the rotten screw on a live grenade and then tossed it backward into our lives, I say. Believe that was yours truly.

Rotten screw, Char? That’s fuckin’ hilarious. Don’t think I didn’t catch it. You’re calling me a slut.

Your words, Dar, not mine. But you always were the smart one.

Darlene is my twin. Marni, our supposed cousin and sometimes hired hand, says that’s in name only. Yesterday, Marni remarked, Jesus, Charlene, how did a square face like yours pop out of the same hole as Darling Darlie?

Marni’s a skag, but you don’t have to look twice to see the truth in what she says. I don’t take offense. Marni’s been working with us off and on for three years now, and that’s been enough time for me to learn I’d have better luck milking a bull than getting a kind word out of her.

Darlene hops up on the fence with pep you wouldn’t expect from someone who’s seven months pregnant. I know she’s trying to get some physical distance between the two of us before she lays whatever rotten egg she’s incubating. Darlene and I have been swimming around together for twenty-eight years now, ever since we were duking it out for real estate in Mum’s yoot, and anyone who tells you twins can’t read each other’s minds is selling you bullshit.

I hadn’t realized I was lesbian until Darlene told me so. There’s us, ten years old, in the stands of the smash-up derby with our dad, and Darlene leans over to me and whispers, I know you’re thinking about kissing Lucy Lawless.

Turns out I was.

Darlene presses her palms to the fence rails and says, You’re first to know, Charlie. I’ve decided to move in with Big Chip.

Big Chip knows it?

Yeah.

Then I’m not the first.

Darlene shoots me a foul look. I ain’t gonna sit and argue with you, Charlie, my mind’s made up.

Well, unmake it. It’s the wrong decision.

I go back to feeding the hogs, and Darlene looks out over the field beyond the fence.

Corn’s about ready, she says.

I ignore her and keep scooping out the slop. The pigs shake their asses and fall over each other like they always do while they’re stuffing their mouths. They’re damn feral animals, if you want my opinion, but bacon’s got to come from somewhere.

Darlene grabs one of the cornstalks, bends it toward her, and lets it go. I gather up my pails and start walking. I’m halfway to the barn when she jumps off the fence and starts to follow me.

I ain’t gonna be some trash baby-momma in the delivery room alone, she calls across the yard.

I pause for a moment to consider what she’s peddling.

So, you figure that the presence of Big Chip will add a certain sophistication to that situation?

I understand how Darlene got to where she’s at. Me and Dar have lived on this farm our whole lives, and, since Dad died, we’ve been running the bitch mostly on our own. So, I know a few things about animal needs. I might not personally understand how you can look at a sight as sore as Big Chip and feel like it’s time to saddle up, but I appreciate that my tastes aren’t what many would consider common. The way I see it, Darlene dove into a rotten pond when her heat was up and she needed to cool it. I don’t fault her for that. What I fail to understand is why, once she came up for air and realized what a mess she was swimming in, she chose to put her head back under and drown.

Big Chip ain’t so bad, Darlene says.

I know what she means, even if I disagree with her. I don’t think Big Chip has ever smacked Darlene or stolen any of her money. He’s never been to jail, as far as I know. If you want to dig deep, he is a homeowner of sorts: he bought his trailer outright with the settlement he got from his back injury at the pit. Those facts alone put him miles above some of the skids around here, but they are hardly grounds for knighthood.

He ain’t so good neither, I reply.

Taken as a whole, Big Chip is a grade-A fuckhead. He sits in his trailer all day rolling joints and watching reality television. Half of what comes out of his mouth is cuss words, and the other half is bullshit. Even if he didn’t call me a bull-dyke every time he saw me at Kool’s Variety, I would still walk the other way whenever I saw him coming.

Darlene is supposed to be the brains of the operation – if she weren’t around to do the taxes, Revenue Goddamn Canada would probably chew through us like a stick of stale jerky – so it chaps my ass she’s found herself in such a bloody state. I also feel rotten for our near-ripe baby girl – who me and Darlene have already named Lexie – because she hasn’t got a clue that her daddy is a sloppy shithead named Big Chip.

Dar, Big Chip doesn’t even know you’re smart. He’s probably never seen past your tits. He’ll make a mess of you and Lex in the span of half a second. The only reason you don’t know it is that you’re too charged up with hormones to know a sweet peach from a rotten fig.

I look over at Darlene and can see from the set of her jaw that any further argument will only drive her deeper inside her hole. I decide to leave it.

I’m going tomorrow tonight. You’ll have to drive me, she says.

I’ve got nothing more to add, so I just let my breath whistle out from between my teeth.

Me and Darlene both startle when Marni pipes up behind us. That woman is like an inland taipan. She’s got her teeth sunk in before you even know she’s spotted you.

Trouble in paradise, skanks? Marni growls, her voice worn raw from fifteen solid years of smoking.

Darlene and I raise our middle fingers to Marni in unison, and it’s nice to see we still agree on something. We should have gotten rid of Marni years ago for all the trouble she causes us, but she’s a good worker, and I can count on three fingers the number of people in this county who know the definition of a solid day’s work.

As I appear to be getting exactly nowhere with Darlene, I decide to take matters into my own hands and drive up to Big Chip’s trailer to have a word.

I ease out of the Chevy and trudge up to the trailer window. Big Chip is stretched out in front of the television like a side-lying swine. He’s watching that show where models get a chance to be porn stars and fall all over each other trying to out-trash the competition. He must have heard me coming up the lane, but he keeps his eyes locked on the tube. A gravel truck roars by on the road behind me, and Big Chip’s eyes don’t even flicker, so I know for sure the ass sees me. I hammer on the door, and, after a pause, Big Chip mutters.

Okay. Charlene. Come in if you fuckin’ insist.

When I enter the living room, I almost fall backward from the stench of old sweat and weed, and that’s saying a lot for some-one who spent the morning feeding hogs.

I get straight to it.

You’re planning to move my niece into this piece-of-shit trailer?

We both survey the trailer’s interior: its dirty carpet, taped-up window screens, and coffee table full of bongs and papers. I know Big Chip sees what I see, but either he chooses to ignore it, or he just doesn’t care.

You wanna live like an animal, you’re welcome to it, I say. But if you think you’re dragging our Lexie through your trough, you better think thrice.

Big Chip heaves himself around a little, and I think he might stand, but then I realize he is just digging himself deeper into the couch pillows. I notice there’s a baby doll sitting beside him, and I almost laugh. It’s the plastic kind with the poorly painted-on eyes and cheap little buttons on its dress. It’s something you might pick up at the dollar store if you’d never spent one hot minute alone with a baby and didn’t know jack about all the things they can choke on.

I don’t know who the fuck Lexie is, he says, but if you’re talking about Darlene’s baby, I’m gonna name her Cheryl, after my cousin.

Everyone in town knows Cheryl Chipchase died of an accidental overdose eight years ago even though the family tried to say it was a heart attack. I think the idea of naming a child after her is ass-backward – the kid’s already got enough challenges in the ancestry department with Big Chip’s name on her birth certificate – but I hold my peace.

Darlene can’t see a straight line because she’s impaired by her condition, I say, but what’s your friggin’ excuse? If you cared anything for the fetus that will shortly transform into your daughter, you would send Darlene packing until she comes to her senses and dumps you herself. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the best gift you could give our baby girl.

Big Chip struggles up from the couch, gets right in my face, and says, I guess if you were growing my kid in that ugly gut of yours, Charlene, it might be any of your fuckin’ business, but since you aren’t, why don’t you eat shit and get off my property?

There isn’t much you can say to that without hitting a wall, so I leave.

I am too worked up to go home and scrap with Darlene again, so I go down to Willies for a drink. Cindy Constantine’s Mustang is parked in the lot, and that means they’ll be rolling the hair metal playlist so the lads can watch Cindy shake. I know Cindy from high school, and she bothers me less than most people do, so I’m not necessarily disappointed to see her car.

I enter the bar and head for my usual table by the fire exit. I like to sit there because, even in my best moods, I am not inclined to strike up a conversation with most of the jerk-offs in this town. Apart from the sparse words I occasionally share with Cindy, I’d be just as happy if the whole goddamn town was mute. It’s not a particularly welcoming place for a woman like me, but the only thing my dad ever taught me was how to farm, so I haven’t got a ton of other options.

I sit at my table, knock back a Jack’s, and watch Cindy Constantine spin around on the dance floor in her acid-washed jeans to Vince Neil screeching that she’s Too fast for Love. A lot of folks say Cindy’s trash, but there’s something sort of elegant about the way she paints a figure eight with her hips.

The way Cindy moves gets me thinking. Cindy is known to make a few extra dollars for the favours she grants to the locals. Also, and perhaps more importantly, I am pretty sure she used to hang around with Big Chip.

The next time Cindy slides herself against the bar, I cross the room and move in beside her.

Hey, Cindy, I say, and she smiles up at me in a way most people in town don’t.

Hey, Charlie, you want a Mars bar? She grabs one from behind the bar because she knows damn right that I do. They had a vending machine back in our high school, and between the two of us, I think me and Cindy pushed the Mars factory on Sheldon Street into the black.

I need a favour, I say as I unwrap the bar and lick the already melted chocolate from my fingers. And I’ll pay you double your usual.

Cindy looks at me without blinking and says, No offense, Charlie, but I don’t do chicks. Not for cash, anyway.

I didn’t mean for me, you fuckin’ freak show.

Cindy takes a swallow of her beer and waits. She’s not one for chatting, which is a quality I admire.

I need you to go up to the trailer tomorrow around six, I say, and come on to Big Chip.

Cindy screws up her face, but I forge on. You don’t have to do him or anything, I say, unless you want to. Just get him to chase you a bit, you know?

Why would you want me to do that? Cindy says. Ain’t he movin’ in with your sister, Darlene?

So much for being the first to know.

Yeah, Cin, and how do you think that’s gonna end?

Big Chip ain’t so bad.

Cindy and I stare at each other, and I wait for her to reconsider, which she does.

No, you’re right, Charlie. He’s a piece of shit. Darlene should have got rid of that kid the moment she pissed positive.

Well, she didn’t, and now she’s horny to play house with Big Chip, and I think someone’s gotta set her straight before she takes my niece down with her. I don’t think she even really likes him. Maybe it’s just a grief thing since we lost our own dad so young.

She having a girl?

Yeah. We already named her Lexie.

No shit? That’s a beaut name. Kinda name I’d give a girl if I had one. Not that I ever will.

Why not? Seems like you’ve got lots of potential fathers.

Cindy rolls her eyes and snorts into her beer. She knows I don’t mean it badly. Me and Cindy aren’t friends exactly, but we’ve been razzing each other for a lot of years.

You had the kind of mother and sister I did, you’d think twice about bringing any more women into this world.

I know it’s not a pity party Cindy’s throwing herself. Those are just the facts. The story of Cindy’s early years would take most folks’ breath away. Cindy wipes the froth from the edge of her glass and licks it like it’s a dollop of fresh cream. I can guess where her mind has dropped off to, so I give her some space to climb back into the present.

What’s all this to do with me blue-balling Big Chip? Cindy says after a few more swallows of her beer.

I’m driving Darlene over to his place tomorrow night with her suitcase. So, I figured if she caught him in the act …

Cindy passes her eyes around the bar and chews on that information. Every so often, she looks over at me and then looks away, and I realize she is going to refuse me. Then, out of nowhere, the full extent of my asshole plan slaps me