The Butcher Shop

The carcass hung suspended in a numbed shadow of the mind, no more an animal, a form that once lived and drew a breath. It was now transformed into nothing more than meat. Headless, hoofless, quartered and stripped of hide, what remained had no identity but a shape, marked out in imaginary grid lines ready for the saw to reduce such bulk to cuts of beef. I spent my Friday afternoons in the company of victims of this deconstructed life, sweeping the floors and washing down benches glazed with grease and blood. My fathers butcher shop held a corner on the main road, our surname emblazoned in bold print across the top. Such, for me, straddled the distance between pride and shame. The grace to celebrate my fathers honest trade rubbed against the pose I was crafting to compete in the hierarchical orderings of a growing middle class. It clashed with my slide into becoming a snob. In truth though, I had no stomach for the trade. I would heave on the smell given off when hot water melted grease. Something in me recoiled on the sight and feel of blood. The brine vat was a dark cesspool that fouled every sense I had. As a small child I can remember standing beneath the carcass of a lamb and looking up into the hole of its headless neck. A drop of blood fell on my cheek. The vision of a crucified Christ flashed in my mind, and I, beneath the cross, was splashed with the guilt of His blood. From then on, there was a sense of the unholy that always lingered in the little Calvary of butcher shops.