The Butcher by Brandon Sharp

The Damascus steel, fresh off eight sets of eight strokes at fifteen degrees against the diamond rod, meets no resistance when you turn it on yourself by accident.  Across the web of skin that spans forefinger and thumb, a line of blood appears and lengthens until the bright sting of pain arrives.  You place the boning knife to the side of your butcher block with a gasp that you hope the other cooks don’t hear.  You hold the cut to your mouth and when you remove it from between your lips, you pretend what you see is a gash in someone else’s flesh.

Pressing a few c-folds to the wound, you scan the kitchen while your head stays down.  Chef works with six nonstick pans into: he ladles batter, swirls it, and turns out crepes.  Derek, next to you, and the other cooks don’t look up; they sweat over the sunchokes or leeks or langoustines before them.  This brigade demands a focus so intense that you’ve learned to recognize the others by their shoes. 

Blood continues to bloom into the paper towel compress.  You’re only five chickens into this case of twelve and there are two more cases to break down after this one.  After that:  tripletail and speckled trout to butcher for portions, mussels to scrub, veal racks to trim and tie.  All thirty-six chickens need to be submerged in brine in less than an hour.  The brine is scaled out but not yet assembled.

You snip off a three-inch length of green masking tape from the strip on the counter.  Above you on the dry storage shelf is an open box of cornstarch.  You remove a pinch and smear it into the wound and work it like spackle.  You secure and smooth the tape against your skin and slide a glove over that hand.

The prickle of adrenalized blood under your skin ebbs.  The ache in your hand radiates through your nervous system.  What the hell were you thinking spreading your fingers when you went to cut into that chicken leg?  Every shoemaker culinary student knows to keep their fingers to the left of the blade.  Here you are bleeding like it’s prom night and you think you’re next up for a promotion to sous chef?  That seam at the bird’s knee, the one spot where the blade will slide through and separate the drumstick from the thigh instead of stopping against bone, is easier to find with your fingernail than the tip of the knife anyway.  Idiot.

You grimace as the cut stretches open when you slice through the meat at the shoulder and pop each wing off clean.  By the time you’ve airlined the breasts, the thumb of your glove has filled with blood.  You reach down to the lower shelf for the pan spray and give your latexed fingers two quick blasts.  Once they are evenly slick, you pull another glove on top of the first.

This move does not slow the bleeding, but now your hand is more constricted.  Opening it against the elastic tug of two gloves induces cramping in the weak muscles and tendons at the back of your hand.  You’ve also lost the sensory connection between your fingers and the avian flesh.  You rush.  You miss an oyster at the hip of the next chicken and leave too much meat on the collarbone of another.  You twist at the stubborn wing joint of the next one and the twin bones of the flat dig into the cut.

You visualized yourself right here, leather clogs planted on the tiled floor, and you called Chef every single day until he hired you, but maybe this industry isn’t for you after all.  The world needs ditch-diggers and cart girls and there’s never anyone around at Wal-Mart for a price check.  You could work two jobs in the hours it takes to work this one, pay down the loans faster.  And wake up energized because you aren’t logging sadistic hours, maybe get a dog, hold onto a boyfriend.  Stop eating your most calorie-dense meal at midnight.  Drink a coffee before eleven in the morning.  Other jobs don’t expect you to bleed.

Sure, no one thinks they have a normal life, but you know for damn sure you don’t.  Normal lives belong to the guests who eat in the restaurant.  Imagine sitting down in the dining room, a life on the other side of the kitchen door, the time and money to do that.  And not just the time and the money but the ability to relax.  Without the second-hand stress of worrying if the hot line is cratering or your server got triple-sat.  Without pounding two cocktails before your appetizer.  Without an insecurity so consuming that you silently insult everything from the wallpaper to the bartender’s suspenders to the microgreens. 

Would that be normal?

“AMELIA!” 

Your own name is your favorite sound in the world, but this time it hits you like a late July thunderclap fifteen feet over your head.  You blink.  There is no chicken on your butcher block.  Your bloody, gloved fist rests on the table and your other hand holds the boning knife, tip pointed toward the ceiling. 

Vortices of ice water churn up your legs and you clench every muscle in your abdomen.  Your lungs and chest freeze over, but at least the bleeding stops out of fright.  You squeak out a “Yes Chef?”

“Those fucking yardbirds are going to come back to life just to peck at the mirepoix Derek is dropping everywhere if you don’t hurry up.”  Chef stares you down.  His eyes implore you to take action but you cannot budge.  “Derek, get the goddamn broom, what do you need, a permission slip?  A sweeping demo?  Amelia, move it the fuck along.  I hope the zombie chickens eat both of you filthy creatures.”

You exhale.  The bleeding resumes.  Someday you will be in command, and you will remember how much this all hurts.  “Yes Chef.” 

Brandon Sharp

Image: A black handled chef’s knife on a grey background – from pixabay.com