II. 3:07 PM

Seventy pounds. A lot of meat, and a lot of meat to waste. So, when Macon lifted the case of pork in both hands, and he could feel the cardboard giving way in the center of the box, he knew he had to move fast. If he let the box break and the contents spill on the restaurant’s dirty kitchen tile, he’d have to find Jeb and tell him that there had been an accident. Of course, he might lose his job, but even if not, even in the best of scenarios, he’d have an hour of cleaning to do. The floor’s brown ceramic with pearl grout looked not so bad when clean, but was impossible to keep that way.

Macon heaved the case against his chest, and he could feel the last of the deepfreeze temperature still caught in the meat seeping into him, through his shirt and through his skimpy apron. A small trickle of blood escaped from the corner of the box and rolled down his forearm, shockingly cool. No bloodstains on his sleeves though, for Macon had rolled up them up. He knew the sorts of accidents which were most bound to happen. He’d made sausage a hundred times, this year alone. This work, the cutting, the mixing, he performed with gusto and repetition at Manny’s Pizzeria. This work, his life’s, the making of sausage, grinding of cheese, the steady, thankless mixing of the dough, day in and day out, year upon dusty year.

He thumped the pork down onto the cutting table and cracked the box open, separating the tape seals with the boning knife he would soon use on the meat. He transferred the slabs of shank, ten pounds apiece, to the stainless steel counter. They had thawed enough, he figured, so he placed one shank on the white plastic cutting board and simply began, no ceremony and little remembrance in the tendons of his arms. With a clockwork’s practice, he sliced through connective tissue and pockets of fat.

He wondered if his father’s shoulder would be so easy to strip.

Mason could see the separation of epidermis and dermis in his father’s skin, the dancing knife as it slid into Mica, pissy, angry, illbegotten old Mica, old and still around after all these years. Macon bet that flaying his father would be an easier task than the boning of pork, because there would be less volume in his father’s shoulder than a fat pig’s rump. Less volume meant less to get in the way, and less to avoid.

One by one, Macon worked through the six shanks, paring them into strips six inches long, two inches thick. They had to be that size to be fed into the grinder. Any smaller, and the feeding would take all afternoon, and as yet, he had three batches of dough to prepare. Cut them any larger and the pieces wouldn’t fit through the grinding chute.
He found a gland in the section he was cutting, and he cored around it with the knife. The gland looked like a small, white ball the size of a marble, soft to the touch, but tougher than the surrounding meat. He plucked the ball out and tossed it into the empty box where he’d put the other castoff parts. Very little wound up in the box, and that always amazed Macon, how efficient sausage could be. Getting the glands held the utmost importance in the entire process, though, because they could make the meat bitter if they wound up in the mix.

Mica must have a million glands in his sloppy flesh, so Macon believed. If he cut around in Mica’s shoulder, after he’d clubbed him, or held the pillow over him just long enough, Macon bet he’d find a village of glands within. All of them big, all of them strong, all of them pumping out bitter flavor into the old man’s meat.

Macon found another gland in the pork, and he cut that one out, too, pulled it loose, and tossed it into the garbage.

I. 9:04 AM

Macon shaved his skin to one click south of raw, studied his face in the mirror, scrutinized the lines that made up its borders, and pronounced himself a failure. Between last night and today, his lines seemed to have grown deeper and more resolute, trying, yes, but failing; his body fought a continual battle against an unrelenting front. The thrust of time, so he supposed. Its flank of age. The cavalry of merry old death. They came for him, inexorable as a flock of crows after carrion.

Though he shaved quick—in addition to raw—the old man needed only seconds upon waking to realize he wasn’t being attended to.

The hell? Mica yelled from his bedroom. Do I have to empty my own pan?

Looking into the mirror, there on his neck, Macon saw stray hairs growing up. He’d already done his cheeks and the razor had long lapsed dull, and he had been hoping that would be enough for today. Manny wasn’t the toughest boss, but he would rarely tolerate an unshaven man. Looks messy, he’d say. Looks like I got dirty men workin’ my food. Macon sighed, and then placed the disposable against his jugular, on the skin, just one last time. He knew at once the cheap blade would hurt like nothing. And it did.

C’mon, slowpoke, came the voice, a stubborn nail, yanked from wood. Get a move on.

Yes, Dad, Macon said. I will. He winced as a hair got stuck on the razor, got pulled out, instead of cut.

Make me some shredded wheat, too.

This, the only breakfast that Mica would eat, the one cereal, which he liked mixed with butter and bananas. No milk. A greasy bowl of broken wheat squares, cut fruit, and butter. Macon had once tried margarine, because Mica’s doctor had suggested such, but Mica could tell things like that, the taste of oleo from grade A butter, and he was not above the refusal of anything meant for his own good.

Macon slipped a corner of toilet paper against his skin where a follicle was bleeding and turned around. He opened the bathroom closet where three fresh bedpans sat, waiting to be filled. You see, it wasn’t that Mica couldn’t use the toilet. Standing up, Mica found hard, yes, but he could get to the bathroom with the walker, especially with help. He simply chose not to. Sometimes, Macon chose to see this as insult, one passed up and down in unlinked hands through their generations, given bad father to bad son, and reverse: Here, handle my shit. Do this like a good boy.

Mica yelled for service again. Apparently, his bladder was full, and needed so much relief, more than a bad son could give. Today would be the day, Macon thought. So easy to stab, so easy to cut. These were the things he had been trained to do, learned up slow and sure for all his life. His toughened hands were nothing if not the gold medalists of every wanting butcher. With his thick fingers and a good blade, he could carve dreams from a dead carcass, could feed a world of opened and starving mouths.

III. 9:45 PM

Here, father, just eat up.

Don’t tell me how to be. Not in my own house.

Here, now. Pick up the fork.

The old man lifted the fork and the steak knife as if they were weighted. They each angled backward from his plate, away from the chop. He began to rub the knife against the browned skin of the meat, poking it with the fork, not hard enough to sink the tines.

Let me, Macon said.

He took the boning knife out of his apron, where it had been banging against his side like a set of keys on a chain. His reflection caught in the polished metal, and he saw that his hairline had moved further back from that morning. Another flank surrendered. He shifted the knife to his left hand and approached his father. The pork steak appeared in tiny relief beneath his scalp on the knife.

Hurry up, the old man said. It’s getting cold. Can’t you move like your age? I’m the old bastard. I have an excuse.

I know, Dad. I don’t have any.

Dad? Dad? Who the hell is that?

I know, Dad.

Stop it. Call me Mica, or else don’t call.

Yes, Dad.

Macon was so close to the old man, he could see his father’s chest moving beneath his T-shirt. The old man smelled like liniment and crackers. There were crumbs all over his bed, decomposing in his sheets. Macon knew he’d have to clean those out after, the remnants of a progenitor. Suddenly, this seemed like such a task.

The old man looked up at him. Well? he said. Don’t just stand there like a shit-picker.
I’ve asked you not to eat crackers in bed.

I get hungry.

I didn’t give you any crackers.

I got them from Hendricks. Told him that I wanted to play cribbage, all he had to do was stop and get me some crackers. Shit-rock stupid. He fell for it. Cost me three games of my life, but I got the crackers.

The old man laughed and poked at his meat. But then, with no outward warning, he stopped and went blank in his eyes and soul, stopped all his chuckles, lost all his recall of all his many victories.

I wouldn’t, he said. I wouldn’t put up with me. I’d put that knife in my shitworks, if I were you.

Macon nodded and bent low, the boning knife secreted along the length of his thigh. He drew it out, leaned over the old man’s plate and cut a small, square chunk, perfectly bite-sized, from the pork chop.

But you’re a chicken-shit, the old man said. Some people are just like that.

Dad.

Macon stabbed the square of meat and held it on the point of his knife, before his father’s lips. The old man bent forward and worked his mouth as if suckling. Macon pushed the knife forward and the old man clutched the bite of meat in his front teeth, pulled it in, reaching out and enveloping it with the folds of his jowly maw.

He worked the piece over between his dentures for a minute or more, until the meat was soft enough to swallow. When he did, his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat like a knee. Macon cut loose another piece. He held it out to his father on the tip of his blade, and while he waited for the old man to chew this one, he made like the old man, just like his father, and he put aside his thoughts and his hopes, most all of his hopes, and then, he brushed a few crumbs of cracker off the sheet at his father’s side.

Story by Curtis VanDonkelaar
Photography by Winni Wintermeyer