Meat in the mail box

“Darren, fix the damn disposal!” , my aunt would call from the kitchen, her low, heavy voice bellowing up from under my door. I live with my aunt in Seattle. she's in her early sixties and lives off her disability check; we get along pretty well and sometimes she even lets me bring Alexandria over. When I opened my door, I knew the sink was going to be a bitch to fix: the noxious smell of Johnsons pre-packaged mac n’ cheese rushed straight up my nasal cavity. My aunt, she's nice, but sometimes she does things that make next to no sense. For example, every time she makes Johnson TV dinners she tries to rid the plastic tray by shoving it in the garbage disposal. You should see it; it’s fucking mad. She lumbers over the sink like an experienced plumber and shoves the tray as hard as she can into the little kitchen orifice. The tiny blades spin as fast as possible but the plastic is made of some kind of Korean polymer that you just can’t fuck with. The sound is pretty jarring and the leftover food residue on the tray gets launched in a circular trajectory, kinda like a sprinkler. She gives up when the disposal breaks down and then calls in the amateur. Honestly, my dad should be the one cleaning this mess up.

My father is an asshole and acts as if he knows some sort of ego-permitting truth. This truth, whatever it is, seems to make him feel better than everyone else around him without the slightest of doubts, always talking to others as if they were on some floor below him; I never understood it. In fact, I never understood any form of pretentiousness in the first place. There is so much pain in the world at any given time, and by being pretentious around other people, you only add to it. I guess the truth that he held in such high regard was the truth that he scored my mom. She was really pretty and kind. Her face made you miss old friends and stop watching porn; she was a really good human, a saint. Although my dad had scored with her – that is a truth – he did also ditch out when I was only four. Off to California he went, his sternomastoid unused from never looking back, “This is for Darren” he would say - blatant bullshit.  My mom died a while ago and I don’t know why I didn’t cry when she went, I guess I was just too angry. After she passed, my dad made efforts to see me more often. I think it’s only because his artistic career actually did take off and because he wants to keep his social image clean. When we do hang out, he spends most of the time on his phone, it’s a joke. Every time I try to say something, only really boring things come out of my mouth; the me that I think I am falls asleep when we're together and I know it’s because I just don’t like him and that he’d be indifferent either way.  But I don’t really care, not even trying to be edgy. In a way, I like my life the way it is. My aunt does some questionable things at times but I'd much rather live with her than my dad.

I'm twenty and don’t go to college; I work as a butcher's apprentice at a nearby meat market. My uncle in law- my other aunt’s husband -  is one of the head butchers. He was more than glad, maybe even enthusiastic, to take me under his wing. You wouldn’t expect it, but I plan on opening my own butcher shop when I'm all certified and done with my training, an estimated time of three years or so.  The work is cold, fast, and red; I’ve come to really like it. The chill of the meat cooler seems to freeze the smell of fresh cuts and at 6 AM, when I walk in to organize the new  shipments, crystallized meat odor melts in my nostrils; It’s not really pleasant, but It invigorates you, like taking a cold shower in the winter.  Alek Dumanov, one of the head butchers, is the most well known in the state. He makes cuts for big name restaurants, places where I can’t even comprehend the kind of food they serve. With his reputation and mastery, It’s quite an honor to have him show me the ropes. The guy handles slabs of meat like cookie dough; his forearms are as girthy as the neck of a bull, just as hairy as well. If I have been interpreting his accent correctly, he says I got a real knack for cutting. In his thick eastern block accent, over the churning sound of the meat grinder, he would yell, “YOU CUT LIKE PROFESHINELL, SMEWTH AD KLEEN”. Even though he Is old friends with my uncle In law, I know he isn’t bullshitting for one specific reason: he lets me use the bone saw on certain occasions. This a real privilege for an apprentice; my uncle-in-law is proud of me. I love to start up the machine; you unlock the safety case, flip this tiny red switch and then watch as a still chain blade quickly evolves into a flashing apparition. The sound is jarring, just like shoving Korean polymers into garbage disposals, but instead of a fruitless effort, you watch and feel thick bone separate with only a gentle push of the hand. And During those couple minutes when I'm working the saw - the brief period where I'm a bone lumberjack - I feel like I have complete control over everything in my life, feel like nothing is out of my hands; I recommend it. The shop is owned by the Dumav family and pressed in tightly between an organic produce store and an old pharmacy. You can see Mr. Sadvic filling little bottles with big pills at 8 AM, his gaunt fingers sorting through dietary capsules like tiny tweezers.

Since the butcher shop is so close to my aunt’s apartment, I end up having a lot of free time; I use this time to draw and sketch. I get told that my drawings are pretty odd and unusual, but people generally seem to like them. Some humans, who I'll never meet and who spend their days in old corners of the internet, really like my artwork and on some occasions, even purchase a couple pieces. I make about $100 a month from this, it’s not a lot, but the feeling is priceless. I use the extra cardboard from my work place to pad the drawings for shipping and then mail then off in an envelope.  The walk to the post office is always great, It is usually raining but only timidly,  and there is this ice skating ring that releases a thick eel of steam into the air - it looks as if it were a white tendril descending from the clouds. I’ll also pass by Alexandria’s house, she’s not often home since her hospital internship is so demanding but I’ll take some time to talk to her mom about simple stuff, namely the weather and the wet roads. After I check my envelopes in at the post office, I’ll examine the old abandoned shop across the street. It may be a while from now, but the run down shack will one day be my meat market. The building is a bit derelict: cracked cement floor, rusted plumbing, an intense rat infestation, the works. And on top of all that, some respectable, inveterate competition takes residence a number of blocks down.  All of this – including the cost of renovation – although intimidating, is not off-putting, simply because I have a lot more ideas than I do disadvantages. I don’t want to give away too much, but I'm going to fuse my artwork with my meat shop; It’s going to be great. In ironically bright neon it will read: “Darren’s cuts and grinds”, or something along those lines. Maybe I could even set up some sort of deal with the post office, send my meats off across the state at a low shipping charge. That’s the future, meat in your mail box.