Return to Meat

Abstract

Return to Meat Robert Webb (bio) I knelt on one knee on the skinning room floor, spastically sawing off what I thought to be the last set of antlers I would ever have to dismember. After wrenching the rack free and sending a splintered bone fragment flying across the room, I scraped the severed brain out of the remaining part of the skull into the bone can and handed the ten-point trophy to the hunter. "That's it for me; my deer cuttin' days are over. I'm headin' down to New Orleans to form me a rock and roll band," I said while untying my bloodstained apron. The hunter slowly took out a tin of Copenhagen, pinched a wad into his lip, looked me straight in the eyes and said, "You'll be back." "If I do, it'll be in a tour bus filled with drugs and groupies," I said. "Shit, I'll own this town in five years." The hunter smiled, shook his head, and walked out the door carrying his new living room decoration. I really thought I was saying goodbye for good to the slow drain of the meat business as I drove my van out of town while sailing my middle finger out the window. However, just like Roy Hatcher reminded me on my first day back, as I tried to tie a rolled rump roast, "look atcha, you don't know shit about nuthin', dickhead." On the morning of my return, I got a fresh new apron from the shelf and reluctantly headed for the cutting room. "Well, well, well, look who's back, Mr. big time rock-n-roll star," Roy sneered while balling a tub of burger. "I thought you was gonna be on the MTV," he continued. "I'm still working on it. We just ran into a few roadblocks, that's all," I said. "Roadblocks? Shit, we know all about those roadblocks, don't we boys?" he said while looking at the other cutters. "Steve here has been runnin' into roadblocks for 20 years." The room erupted into laughter as Roy reached into a box under the cutting table and handed me a knife, "I saved somethin' for ya', dickhead. I had a feelin' you would be back." It was mine from five years ago and it still had my initials carved into the handle. "Thanks Roy." "No problem, I even put an edge on it since Mr. Rock-n-Roll here never took the time to learn one of the most important skills of a meat cutter." [End Page 31] Again, the room broke out into laughter. "All right, enough of this reunion bullshit, let's get back to work," he demanded. I began to butterfly some back-straps when I noticed the same faded sticker remained on the base of the grinder: "Meat is Money, Treat It Accordingly." The same old radio hung from a coat hanger in the corner, tuned to the same country music station. The same guys stood around the same table doing the same job and telling the same jokes: "Hey, how do you starve a Mexican? Hide his food stamps under his work boots." The same smell emanated from the cans filled with waste–freshly sawed bone, puss infected arrowhead wounds, gaseous gut shots, and urine saturated road-kill rounds. These cans doubled as ashtrays for the chain-smoking cutters, and as soon as a cigarette was thrown into one, the room reeked of burning flesh. I excused myself to the store's only place of refuge–the bathroom. The pile of Hustler magazines was still stacked on the back of the toilet and the infamous sign still hung on the back of the door: "Happiness is my meat in your mouth." On my way back to the cutting room, Roy told me to go out back and unload an incoming "overgrown rat." By the time I got there, the hunter had already dragged his deer into the skinning room. "Name and phone number?" I asked without looking at him. "Hey, I remember you," the hunter replied. "The last time I saw you, you were bouncing off these walls like a...