Does Your Beef Swing?

“Look who finally decided to show up.”  Today I get to gloat about getting to work before any of the boys.  Grace had me come in at 8:30, when it was just her and Tommy here.  Usually the boys are here around 6 or 7am; I wonder why today’s different.

            Tommy tells me:  Kyle and Gus were supposed to drive down to Texas this weekend for a friend’s graduation.  They rented a car, packed their bags, picked up the rental car, and started driving south.  About three hours later, their friend called and told them that graduation is next weekend.  (Aww . . . they’re so pretty.)  So even though we’re staffed extra this weekend to compensate for their expected absence, now they have to work in order to make up the money for the extra car rental.  But, it’s also Easter Saturday, so we’re expecting to be busy anyways.

            The shop looks unusually clean.  Not sanitized, just picked up—decluttered.  I guess they finally had time to recover from the holiday rush.  I mean, they still need new floors and the back room’s ceiling is water damaged and caving in, but all the empty boxes have been cleared out (thrown away, not recycled, ugh) and things have been reorganized.  There are two new stainless steel rolling tables in back by the smokers so that Burt and Kyle have more room to work.  And there’s a new shelving unit back by Grace’s desk with all the backstock of non-meat food items (red beans and rice boxes, barbecue sauces, pickle jars, etc.). 

            Burt is nowhere to be found.

            Grace says he’s catching a ride with one of the boys.

            Tommy says, “I really don’t want to deal with him today.”

            Apparently they had to send Burt home yesterday.  They wouldn’t tell me the reason. 

            When he does arrive, he seems extraordinarily happy to be here. 

            Nicole texts Grace around 8:45am to say that she is on her way in and ask if we need her to pick up anything for us.

            Tommy grabs Grace’s phone and replies, “Nicole we open in 15 fucking minutes.”

            So Nicole comes in when she normally does (10, 10:30), and the boys show up when I usually do—9am—which means that as soon as we open the doors, we’re already two hours behind on smoking stuff.  Kyle gets right to work.  JohnJack is so quiet I barely even notice that he snuck in with Burt.  Gus smiles at me in a fairly good humor, considering that the last time we saw each other I wound up telling him to go fuck himself. 

            Let me explain.

            The last time I worked was Valentine’s Day weekend.  They sent Tommy home early, I stayed late.  Gus gave Tommy a ride home, and Tommy compensated him the only way he knows how:  by getting him stoned.  So Gus came back to the shop and decided that the funniest thing in the world would be to throw stuff at me while I tried to work.  And I decided that the appropriate response was to tell him to go fornicate himself. 

            Anyways, I’m glad he’s not mad at me.

            A stack of andouille sits next to the plastic wrap table, waiting to be weighed and made into one- and two-packs for the case.  Burt must’ve run out of the old casings; these have white casings on them instead of the usual red.  Nicole is having none of it.

            “With the dark meat, it just . . . it just doesn’t look . . . right.”

            I stare at the sausage for a few seconds before deciding, “It looks like a wrinkled dick with a condom on it.”

            After a brief silence, Gus says, “We were all thinking it . . . you said it.”

(Peep!)

            The shop bought a few pre-packaged legs of lamb for the holiday, most of which have already been sold.

            Lame.

            I was hoping I’d get to do something different today.

            Oh well.  I’ll start pulling tenderloins. 

            Moving heavy meat around has gotten much easier for me since I’ve been strength training.  I’ve gained about six or seven pounds.  My biceps have gotten noticeably bigger.  It’s amazing how quickly my quads enlarged back to the size they were when I was playing competitive U18 soccer.  All of my clothes fit tighter.  Frank says it’s because my shoulders, traps, delts, and glutes have grown muscle, but that’s all on my backside so I can’t see any of it; all I see is my gut pushing against my belt.  I suppose Frank knows what he’s talking about; he’s the expert on my backside. 

            I overhear two customers discussing lamb.  One suggests trying the real butcher shop up the street where I wish I worked.  I’ve decided that’s what we’re going to call them from now on:  The Real Butcher.  Where they butcher Real Animals, as opposed to trimming up Already Butchered Animals to make them pretty for the case, like we do at Burt’s. 

            The customer receiving the recommendation is not sold on the idea.  “That place is okay, but this place is better.”

            I cock my head to the side and scrunch up my face in confusion, “Think so?”

            He hesitates, “. . . yeah.”

            I’m keeping my mouth shut on that one.  I guess he doesn’t know where our meat comes from.             

            A few months ago, a guy came in and asked Burt if our beef is swinging beef or boxed beef.  Our beef is boxed.  But it turns out that this customer and Burt used to work at the same meat processing plant, but at different times. 

They start reminiscing like old war buddies, while I grab a small sheet of paper and write down the address for The Real Butcher, and then “swinging beef” underneath it. 

            I wait for their conversation to end, and Burt to go back to his smokers before handing the paper to the customer.  For some reason, my hand is shaking.

           

            Around 2 o’clock they are sending Tommy home.

            “When do you wanna start learning how to use the saw?” he asks me.

            “Now,” I say without pause.

            He looks surprised.

            “You know I’ve been trained on other bone saws.”

            “Really, where?”

            I tell him about the restaurant where I did my last Pig Day.  “You wouldn’t teach me, so I found someone who would.”

            “I just—this saw’s really old and it scares the hell out of me—”

            “I still want to learn, Tommy.”

            “Well I’m taking off, so not today.”

            Obviously.

            Around three o’clock they decide we’re slow enough that someone else can go home.  I volunteer, since I’ve been here the longest, and I know that the boys need the extra hours. 

            Nicole has been squirreling away several bundles of meat for me and the boys all day:  one-pound packs of ground steak, bags of stew meat, a small pork tenderloin, and other odds and ends.  We each have our own bag in the freezer.  When I get through cutting a whole ribeye, a wrap up the end of it for Frank.  The ends of primals are rounded and ugly and won’t sell in the case, but edible nonetheless.  If no one takes them, they just go to the grind.  Frank loves ribeyes but is extremely frugal, so even the primal end is a treat for him.  He usually buys the discount ground beef at Shop ‘n Save that’s about to go bad. 

            Today is his niece’s fourteenth birthday party, which is where I’ll be heading as soon as I leave here.  She’s the oldest of three, and her parents—Frank’s sister and brother-in-law—are even more frugal than Frank.  I asked him if they like to grill.

            “Are you kidding me?  For years they didn’t have a working oven or microwave, so they had to grill everything.”

            Next question:  do they prefer pork or red meat?

            “Definitely red meat.” 

            We’re all out of flank steaks.  I should just grab a few ribeyes out of the case, I know this.  But they’re all different sizes and small and weird looking . . . and two separate customers just came in asking for two-inch ribeyes, and the primal is still just sitting out on the board. . . .

            I grab my big knife.

            I cut off four steaks, about an inch and a half each. 

            The boys stop and stare.

            “I’m just mesmerized . . . by the . . . cutting,” John says. 

            “Are those for the case?” Kyle asks. 

            “. . . Sure. . . .” I lie, terribly.  I’m not fooling anyone. 

            Then I wrap the steaks in plastic wrap, and double wrap them in white butcher paper so that they can be frozen. 

            “How come all we get is stew meat and you get ribeyes?” Gus complains. 

            “Who says you can’t have ribeyes?  I’m not telling you what you can take home with ya,” I reply, adding the steaks to my bag from the freezer. 

            “See ya later, kiddo,” I pat Gus on the back.

            “Don’t call me kiddo,” he demands. 

            I raise an eyebrow.  “You have no idea how old I am, do you?”

            “Thirty-one,” a voice comes from behind Gus.

It’s Kyle.  He shrugs, “Tommy told me.”

“Bingo,” I say. 

Gus and John attempt—unsuccessfully—to mask their shock. 

“I guess we thought you’re so young because you act like you’re fucking twelve,” Gus retorts with palpable snark. 

“Yeah you act like you’re like, five,” John stifles a laugh. 

I’ll go ahead and take those as compliments. 

And I’ll take my ribeyes to go.