Goodbye for Now

I am the new Cory.

            With everyone else gone, I got promoted pretty fast.  Max has lime disease so he’s not even helping out for the holidays, I haven’t seen Miles in several weeks, and I (thankfully) have no clue where Luke Johnson is. 

            I’ve been here every weekend since I got back from visiting my baby brother in Maryland mid-October.  I decided to view Burt’s shop as a stepping stone—I’m not sure where I’ll be stepping to—but it’s given me renewed motivation to hunker down and devote my weekends to meat cutting.  Tommy even mentioned talking to Grace about getting me some night hours once the Thanksgiving rush begins.  I will be The Night Butcher!  I love it.  And, it doesn’t hurt that they really and truly need my help right now. 

I stand across from Tommy at the large white cutting board in the front of the store, cleaning and sharpening the two knives that I will use all day:  one small boning knife with a slight curvature, and one large evil-looking scimitar with a twelve-inch blade and a wicked swerve to it. 

            Nicole rings customers out, and charms them with conversation and free samples. 

            “At least you’re quiet,” Tommy mutters under his breath.

            Nicole is going through a divorce right now.

            Tommy keeps calling Nicole a lesbian. 

            He also keeps taking my knives.  He has eight knives on his side of the board—eight.  Yet every time I turn around, one of mine is gone.  So I get a new one, clean and sharpen it, and then he takes that one.  So I take back the first one I had.  This continues ad infinitum.             

Into the Mountains, Part III

This place smells of pot and incense.

There are no doors on the bedrooms, only curtains. 

There are footlockers underneath the beds . . . with no locks on them. 

This is one of the handful of hostels that exist in America.  They are advertised to possess a microbrewery and rooftop garden.  When we arrive we find a large banner stating, “Microbrewery Coming Soon!”  The sign is from 2012. 

 

 

We are the only guests tonight, so we have the run of the . . . house?  Naturally, the first thing we do . . . is jump in the shower.  Because even though we stayed in that fancy resort last night, we were both too tired to bother with hygiene.  Scrubbing down in that narrow wooden stall is the greatest feeling in the world right now.

Before heading out, we wander around the rest of the house.  There’s a great back deck with a hammock, but I want to check out this garden on the roof. 

Well, there’s nothing growing up here, but the view is spectacular.

Into the Mountains, Part II

Welcome back once again to our leading lady’s latest calamity.  Read on to find out if she makes it out of this blunder! 

The GPS returns us to the road in a rather roundabout way. 

“Now where are we going?” I ask.

“I guess to Marlinton; there’s got to be someplace we can pitch a tent there.”

It’s about 9:30pm.  This is when things start to go . . . wonky . . . for me.  You remember how we only got a few hours of sleep last night?  Yeah; now is when that starts affecting us.

The road twists and turns and the turns only get tighter and twistier the farther we go.  At some point my conscious mind takes a backseat and my lizard brain takes over, reacting only to the commands of the GPS and responding to the road before me, but nothing else.  As soon as a turn is completed, it image of it is wiped from my mind and no memory of it remains.  All that registers is the new turn rushing towards me in my little halo of visibility.  Nothing is taken in, nothing is processed, nothing returned. 

We go into Marlinton, and right through it.  The address Ally put into the GPS is for the Motor Inn—the cheapest motel in the area.  Her knee is pretty stiff from being cramped in the Jeep since ten o’clock this morning, so she’d prefer not to have to attempt popping a squat in the woods whilst wearing a full knee brace again tonight. 

All booked up.

We head back to Marlinton, toward an electric red sign advertising food and lodging.  Ally waits in the car.

All booked up.

Into the Mountains, Part I

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, we find our hapless heroine in an improbable and unintentional scenario resembling the start of a horror movie.  Read on to learn more of her foibles, mishaps, and misadventures. 

            I have no clue where I am.

            I can barely see, even though I’m wearing my glasses.

            My heart is hammering in my chest from that last turn I took way too fast.

            The pavement rises up before me, cuts sharply left, then seemingly before I’ve even completed that turn, it cuts right.  The night is black—trees looming overhead blot out any star- or moonlight that might otherwise reveal our path.  No street lights illumine this two-lane road, so I can only make out what the headlights show me, which means my range of sight is about 20 yards.  That seems on par with how often the road curves, though, so any attempts of further discerning would likely prove futile. 

My navigator is currently handicapped, so if anything were to happen, well . . . I’d rather not dwell on it.  The crippled leading the (semi-) blind down a dark, windy backwoods road—somewhat poetic, if you think about it.  (Just don’t think about it too hard.) 

Curving, unlit, two-lane backcountry roads are not uncommon in Missouri.

            That’s just the problem, though.

            I’m not in Missouri.

            I’m in fucking West Virginia.

"Peaceful Assembly"

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller 

There is a buzzing in my mind.  Unpleasant, erratic, insistent, distracting me from my work.  I am more afraid right now than I have ever been in my life. 

            This isn’t like the times when I was nervous about jumping off a rickety rope swing in backwoods Missouri, when my heart would race, thumping out of my chest, and my hands would shake.  This is painful.  I’m not shaking, my heart isn’t racing.  I would be sick to my stomach, if my stomach weren’t empty.  This is absolute terror, down to my very core. 

            I could die tonight.

            This might be my last meal, but I don’t have time to make anything fancy.  I just reheat a buffalo blue cheese sausage link in the microwave and wolf it down as fast as I can. 

            I look in the mirror.  Ugh.  My eyebrows are a mess.  I don’t want to die with bad eyebrows.

            This is silly.  Every day could be my last day.  Accidents happen all the time.

            My phone dings.

            Mom:  “I cannot stress enough what a bad idea it would be to go tonite. Please don’t go.”

            As much as I hate disappointing my mother, and my soccer team, and the social committee at work, some things are just more important.             

Meat People Meet Meat People

I often wonder if other people—“normal people”—have trouble with life the way I do. 

            As I sit at my kitchen table, picking fresh thyme leaves off their stems, I think . . . no.  No, normal people do not encounter the same issues I do.  Because they don’t need to grocery shop for two days before they can cook a meal on the third.  They shop at Walmart, which already has all the things they need.  The meals they make don’t take two to three hours to cook because they don’t make everything from scratch, including their laundry detergent.  They probably have hungry families waiting for them at home, wanting their meals right now.  So whatever premade stuff in a box or a bag goes into the microwave and voila, dinner is served.

When I do go to stores, I lose myself wandering around looking at all the neat things they’ve got these days:  things to make peoples’ lives easier, things that are absolutely superfluous to life, and so many things in the grocery store that simply aren’t food.  And ooh, frozen bibimbop at Target—who’d have thought? 

No . . . no I don’t imagine that normal people have these sorts of concerns.  

Log Jam

Get your head together, girl.  You’re going into the wild tomorrow.

            I can feel a tear hovering on my cheek; the breeze does nothing to disturb it.  The droplet lingers—frozen—then gradually evaporates.  I gaze at the stars the only way I know how:  in reverence.  I don’t pray, but this is what I imagine prayer to be like.  The wind gently brushes my sun-tipped hair away from my face; the ringlets scatter over my shoulders and flutter down my back.  Why was I crying?  I can’t remember.

Quitter

Let’s face facts, people.

I’m not a butcher.

Hell, I barely qualify as a meat cutter.

What I am?

What I am . . . is a quitter. 

Let them Eat Filet

The masses are clambering for filet mignon and my hands glisten with bacon fat.

            “Welcome to Burt and Grace’s meat shop:  the only place in town with one meat cutter on Memorial Day weekend,” Tommy gripes.

            “Hey,” I say indignantly, “don’t I count for something?”

            Tommy says nothing.

            “Don’t I count for . . . half of something?”

Tommy pretends not to hear me as he goes to help a customer.

In Like a Lamb

When the pit master of the best barbecue joint in St. Louis asks you if you want a random hunk of lamb meat, the answer is yes.

            The shop gets in legs of lamb around Easter—it’s the only time they have enough demand to justify carrying it.  They have frozen ground lamb year-round, but fresh cuts aren’t really flying off the shelves in Brentwood; you have to frequent the more ethnic areas of the city if you’re looking for lamb stew meat in the middle of July. 

            “What’re you doing here?” Tommy asks.

            “She’s here to see me,” Cory answers.  He’s mostly right.  I need jerky for a birthday party I’m attending tonight, and purposely waited all week till I knew Cory would be working so I could say hi. 

He’s boning out a leg of lamb.  He separates the femur bone from the pelvis, and holds out what is left of the pelvis.  “You want this?”

“Is that even a question??  I course I want it!”

Luke Johnson is hovering behind Cory.  He pokes his head around, scrunches his nose up in distaste and asks, “What’re you gonna do with that?”

“Throw it in a crock pot with some delicious sauce and cook it low and slow till the meat falls off the bone.”  Duh college boy.  Your parents own a meat shop and you don’t know what to do with a random hunk of bone-in meat? 

Cory points at me with his knife and says, “Yes.”  And that small amount of approval means more to me than he knows.  I wrap the lamb in plastic wrap and white butcher paper to take home.

The Butcher's Apprentice Will Return after a Short Break!

The Late Afternoon, Country Back Roads, Picture Show

I bought ingredients to make shrimp curry last night, so of course all I want to eat today is a cheeseburger.  There is very little in the culinary world that compares with the contrasting simplicity of fresh, raw onions atop warm, juicy, (and bloody of course) ground beef.  Add a squirt of ketchup and mustard to remind me of my childhood. 

            I want barbecue, and tacos.  And basically everything that I don’t have in my freezer right now, because I’m just not in the mood for ham or sausage.  (The sausage I’m actually saving for summer camping—made out like a bandit at Best of the Wurst last month.) 

            Right now the shrimp is thawing, and the coconut milk is firming up in the fridge.  When I get home I will sauté the shrimp with garlic and shallots in coconut oil while the curry paste and coconut milk melt in a crock pot with fish sauce and chicken stock.  I like to slice up a red bell pepper into cute thin strips, and grate a few carrots in the mix.  And of course, tons of cilantro and garlic chili paste to top it off.  Cilantro and Sriracha on everything, please. 

 

A Lesson in Boning, or I've Got a Bone to Pick

And now, boys and girls, it’s time for a little segment I like to call . . . “What am I Gonna Do with All this Fucking Ham?” 

December 20  

7:21am, received from boss at the day job

Good morning!!  Random question of the day… 

7:22am, received from boss at the day job

Do u like ham? 

7:25am, sent to boss at the day job

Good morning!  Of course I like ham, it’s meat =P     

The New(ish) People of the Shop, or A Few More Conversations with The Butcher's Apprentice

Miles

Date:  Actually Miles and I had this conversation more than once.  I guess he has a poor memory. 

Miles is asking me about my hobbies.  I tell him that I play soccer.

            “That’s really cool!  I bet you score a lotta goals!”

            “Actually, I stop the goals, because I’m a keeper.”  That’s right boys; line forms to the left.

            He looks at me very seriously.  “Now . . . why are you doin’ that?  Goalie is for the ugly girls.”

 

            “Wow, you seem to know a lot about soccer.”  Walkawaywalkawaywalkaway. 

A Leg in the Dark, or A Lovely Fucking VD Indeed

I’ve been remiss in my blogging duties . . . though not for lack of trying. 

            The words bounce around inside my skull like a bullet that hasn’t found its mark, yet when I put pen to paper they just won’t come.  I’ve got almost a dozen half-assed posts started since December . . . I just can’t seem to finish. 

            It has been a long, cold winter.  And it finally got to me.  Drove me back into myself; made me into a hermit.  I made pizza.

 

            Aside from that, I’ve been doing too much.  Doing leaves little time for writing. 

            So maybe it’s time for a format change.  Maybe a few half-assed paragraphs a week is all I need to post.  I don’t really need to finish every single one of them after all, do I?  This is supposed to be an ongoing journal of part of my life. 

            Thing is, my life has gotten so much bigger than just this one part. 

            Try to keep up. 

 

The Butcher's Apprentice Explores the Meat Sciences

(Courtesy of smbc-comics.com)

I have no idea what I’m doing here.

            I feel so stupid.

            What am I doing here? 

            Where am I even going?

            Oh shit . . . I’m lost. 

            I am so lost!  This is not where I’m supposed to be!

            Why did I think this was a good idea?

            “Permit Parking Only”?  I don’t have a permit!  Shit I’m gonna get a ticket.

I shouldn’t be here.  I’m too old to be here.  I don’t belong here.

            Oh god, what am I even doing??           

I don’t belong here.