The Butcher’s Table

I chop the meat. My job is one of transformation. We start with the husk of a living thing. It’s recognizable as a corpse. The bones are arrayed into a skeleton, the machinery of the muscles is still obvious, we can see the tendons that fasten it all together, and there is an image of the whole with all its functioning parts.

My work is dismemberment. People feel an intuitive repulsion for what I do, but that’s only because they see themselves on the table. Our skin is like a curtain. It’s our first outfit of clothing. Skin is what makes a person. Without the skin, you can see the parts and the mechanisms that give us movement.

Bones can break. Organs can be cut into. Tendons can snap. We don’t truly see a person as having any of those things. A person is a soul, and a being, and a personality. We do not like to recognize the insignificance, impermanence, and fragility of flesh.

Anytime a child’s eyes happen to fall upon my work they always grow wide as they recognize for the first time that what I’m working on is a leg, or a torso, or some other part of a being — a being like them. But it’s a truly beautiful process. I sometimes feel as though I’m an agent of the universe; there’s an almost spiritual quality to this blood-stained table.

Here I stand, a temporarily enduring creation: Time is an acid, and I have already begun to dissolve in it. I am in nature’s omnipresent stomach, waiting to be digested and turned into some new expression of energy. It is my job, in turn, to take something that was whole, and to break it down into pieces — to ready it for complete dissolution.

Eat, eat, eat. We call it the circle of life, but isn’t it the circle of death? The grasshoppers eat the leaves, the birds eat the grasshoppers, the cats eat the birds, and so it goes on and on. Everyone’s work is dismemberment.

Well, my work is done for the day. Physically, I’m tired. But I’m happy I get to do what I want to do. Still, it’s a great relief to be done laboring for the day, and it fills me with a singular feeling of excitement.

2

I love my girlfriend. She has a vitality to her, a joy. As she moves about, as she giggles and gets excited, it’s like an influx of light. I feel lucky just to bear witness to it, just to be welcome in this hallowed chamber, where anyone could sit, but wherein, on this night, I alone have been invited.

I love that she makes it okay to do nothing. The moments of silence, the moments of conversation — both feel just as full. I can outsource some of my living to her. I can feel happy when she’s happy. I can feel sad for her as an expression of sympathy.

To please a person feels simple. My own wants are less clear. I often know very little about which path is the right one for myself. I can see the good in both outcomes, frankly, so I vacillate in what I feel is good or bad for me, but her wants seem simple to me. Most of the time, I know exactly what I should do to please her.

I love that I can get off of work and finally be here, where I really want to be. With each sip of wine or beer, just sitting here on the couch becomes more and more enjoyable. The effortless diversion of the television allows me to melt away. I no longer need to live, just observe. We cuddle and stay completely still, as we just enjoy the embrace.

It’s regrettable that after a long day I tire so soon. I’m a staunch capitalist: We must all hunt or forage if we want to eat. That’s just the way of nature. But sometimes I think about just how little time is really left for me at the end of the work day.

And now, the limits of my consciousness have been reached. It’s time for bed. Eyes shut, ears rendered inactive by a complete silence, body laying as lifeless as those on my table, and slowly the mind fades to black.

3

I used to clean houses for work. There’s perhaps no more soothing activity than to put things where they belong. To collect and categorize, to separate and label, to designate a place and identity for one and a place and identity for another.

I do the same here at my current job. Give me the whole, and I find like parts in it, cut them out, and stack them together. Chuck, rib, loin, round, flank, brisket, and shank — and a pile of each. Again and again, I find, I separate, I organize.

I wonder if there’s a single job in the world that isn’t just the creation of order. Isn’t that what my being is as well? A circadian rhythm, a sequenced beating of the heart, an absorption of oxygen as a catalyst for energy release, and so on. I am a functional design because everything is in its place. It would seem even God just works at creating order.

I laugh to myself, as I recognize that’s exactly what they call it. All I do all day is fulfill customer’s “orders.” They need me to make sense of something for them. They need me to convert that body that gets delivered from the farm into something else — food.

The work is good because it’s like sleep. I don’t need to be all the way me for a repetitive task. I can drift off, let my mind go somewhere else, while my eyes and arms do the work they’ve learned by rote. Still, after a long day, I’m left tired, but excited to have another evening for myself.

4

My girlfriend is out tonight. It’s nice to spend an evening alone. I can finally just sit and not have to worry about being perceived by anyone. I feel no pressure to do this or that. I can sit here and do nothing if I so choose.

I wonder how I’ll pass the time? There’s that book I’ve been wanting to get to, and I believe a new season of Frontiersmen just came out. I’ve had the inkling to start painting again too, though I’m not sure what the state of my supplies are. I might need to get some new canvases. I also need to get to those messages my friends sent me earlier. First though, I think I’ll get something to eat.

A full stomach always leaves me feeling so sleepy! Still, it can be nice to just sit here in comfort, belly protruding, and just scroll on social media. It’s great to finally get some time to relax.

5

Something funny sometimes happens to me at work. As I go about the process of analyzing each piece of meat that comes across my table, and cleaving and hewing all the pieces from each other, I occasionally accidentally analyze my own hand.

Not much meat on the fingers, but maybe them and the metacarpals would make for good stew meat. And I have to catch myself and remember I’m not the food but the preparer of the food. What a hilarious thought to have!

A dissatisfied customer has given me some choice words. It’s always interesting the way I feel the criticism differently when I’m at work. How I respond to it is so not like me. It’s dispassionate and professional. After all, they didn’t insult me the man, but me the employee.

I’m grateful that I don’t have to bring myself to work — that I, in fact, become much better at my job by leaving myself out of it. I can’t imagine how exhausting it would be to come here every day and be a whole person. Here, I’m an organ, performing its simple functions, and following the orders that push me one way or another.

I walk across this place from one end to the other, tending to the job in the backroom until I’m called out front by another customer. They draw me forward and return me to where I was. I keep diligently to my task until they move me aside for however long they must.

6

I’m a bit surprised at the boyish giddiness I feel at being able to spend time with my girlfriend again tonight. It was only one night off, after all. In her eyes, I can see the same happiness and relief to be back in this space with me. Maybe this is what it means to be in love.

But there’s something more in the air between us. We’re maintaining eye contact for a moment longer; even as she walks to the kitchen to get something, her body remains slightly turned towards mine; the conversation is fluid and rapid; we smile constantly, but there’s a sinister bend to the eyebrows behind it all.

Our attention draws away from each other’s words, and away from the activities of the evening, and towards our bodies. I find that when she moves, my eyes shift to her legs, to her skin, to her breasts — there’s some added significance to them right now.

Does my breathing feel a bit heavier? Is my mouth watering? We talk but the conversation is just a cover; there’s another form of communication happening underneath it all. Casually, I touch her hand. She moves closer. We kiss.

I feel an animal running inside of my nervous system. I’m overtaken by an aggression, a hunger. This isn’t love. She’s not even a person now — I hardly am either. I want to take her, possess her, crush her, use her.

I grab her forcefully. I squeeze her arm and pull her towards me. I press my mouth against hers voraciously. She rubs her tongue against mine, forces me deeper into her mouth, and gently bites my lip for a moment before releasing it.

In a frenzy, I pull off her clothes and lift her from the couch. We kiss and caress each other violently. I lay her down on the dining room table. I stop to just look at her. The curves of her hips, the firm thighs, the tender breasts, the soft aspect of her ribs. She’s delectable. I tear into her.

We’re both lost in our shared pleasure. We push and pull at one another over and over again. The tempo and the mood changes every time our eyes meet. When we’re not looking into each other’s eyes, we can get lost in the flesh, but as we gaze towards one another, we return to being in love. Things slow, and grow more intimate, and more affectionate — until we return to the carnality of the act.

It’s incredible until I look at her once, and see that her eyes are closed, and she’s completely immersed in the sex. She’s unconscious but I’m conscious. She’s entirely trained in on the sensations, but I’m trained on her — no, worse, I’m paying attention to me looking at her.

Damn it. I’m in my head again. I start to lose my vigor. I made the mistake of being me, the man, not me, the one performing a task. She urges me to continue to do my job, to return to the push and pull. I can’t muster the same force again. The animal spirit had taken over for a time, but now I’m a whole man again: I’m useless. I needed to be a body right now, a motion, an action, but here I am thinking — an impotent failure.

I wanted to give her what she wanted. It’s not like I was actually at work, this was for pleasure. Here, I had this beautiful body sprawled out on a table for my use. I could finally do whatever I wanted, but I couldn’t even do that. This always happens to me.

7

Nothing has a shelf life like shame. I feel it gnawing at me the whole day. I feel like everyone sees it. My eyes are apologetic whenever they meet with another’s. Inside I’m begging the customers not to look at me too closely or for too long; I can’t bear for them to see me.

It’s wonderful to be in the back room where I can process in peace. I organize my thoughts. I digest what I need to. I separate the particulars: After all, what blame is there in something I can’t help? It’s not as if my girlfriend will judge me, though she may eventually leave me — or seek what she wants elsewhere. Let’s not follow that train of thought. That’s one piece to just discard.

Let me just focus on my work.

Enjoy this story? I’d recommend following it up with this one: “The Child”