After The Flesh

by Colin Gallant

  Myself, my grades suffered throughout most of high school. I found myself slipping further and further away from scholarship territory. My mind just wasn’t in it anymore. It was as though as Freddy got smarter, I got dumber. But I can only blame myself. I could not focus on anything but him. Final semester closed and I posted ‘C’s straight across the board. I did manage to land an ‘unclassified’ status at U of C but that only allowed me to take two courses during the first semester. I could reapply later if my marks improved. Something would have to change if that were to happen.

  -

  That last summer in Prince William Falls passed in the blink of an eye. Freddy worked at Clausson’s and picked up almost every extra shift he could. He worked days. He worked evenings. He even worked the occasional night custodial shift when they were short-handed. Summertime was vacation time for many of the employees – those with families at any rate – and a good number of them had as many as four or five weeks to take. The standard seemed to be three weeks off while school was out and one or two in the fall during hunting season.

  I would have thought that working in a slaughter house would curb a man’s appetite for meat. But hunting was almost a universal interest for the staff. I don’t think there was a single vegetarian working at Clausson’s. It does make sense – of a sort. I guess a vegetarian working in a slaughter house would be the same as a non-smoker working for a tobacco company.

  Because of all the vacations and because he was finally eighteen, Freddy got his first shot to work on the kill floor. It was something he had wanted to try since John had told him about it back when he was twelve. But before you could work the kill floor you needed to go through a psychiatric evaluation. If you passed, you’d still have to come back for another one every three months.

  Freddy, who had managed quite well with Liza Harding, was expecting this one to go just as smoothly. He would not have been surprised to see the good doctor herself stroll into the small meeting room in the basement of Clausson’s administrative wing, her tight, jogger’s body wrapped in a tailored two-piece and her smugly superior smile hidden just beneath the calm, neutral façade of a professional.

  But Freddy had never met the plant shrink – he didn’t even know there was one. He met Anthony Larson that morning and was overjoyed.

  He did not want to be called doctor. “A doctor is what I call the guy that sticks his finger up my ass every year,” he told Freddy when they first met. “Call me Tony. We’re all friends here.”

  Tony Larson was a clock-puncher with the work ethic of a sixteen-year-old at McDonald’s. He was over-weight with thinning, greasy hair worn in a comb-over and he had a penchant for J.C. Penny. He was also a twenty-five-year veteran of Clausson Foods and had been with the Alberta plant since its opening back in the summer of 1986. He only asked Freddy four questions, his Bic pen scribbling away. He didn’t even look up until after the fourth. I suppose he did not want to see what was in Freddy’s eyes as he responded. He would be forced to think harder maybe - or question more. He had a good gig there and pulling too many people off the kill floor or making it too hard to get back on it was bad for business.

  “In more than a few words, what comes to mind when I say slaughterhouse?” Tony asked first.

  Freddy thought about it for a moment. Dr. Larson’s approach was entirely different. This was nothing like what he had expected. For that moment he was caught off guard.

  “Speak freely,” Tony assured him. “Say whatever comes to mind – even if it makes you uncomfortable. But don’t think too much about it.”

  “It’s hard to articulate,” Freddy began. “I guess I’ve never really thought much about it. Cows go in and steaks come out. It’s never been something I’ve contemplated. Sorry.”

  “Mmm-Hmm.” Tony scribbled on his pad before launching into the next question. “You are outside on a patio enjoying the summer sunshine. A spider crawls across the table in front of you. You kill it. How does that make you feel?”

  “I probably wouldn’t,” Freddy said after a moment. “I don’t mind spiders.” He was thinking hard. He did not want to be caught in a trap. For some reason Tony Larson was beginning to remind him of Rick Deckard in Bladerunner.

  “Just say you did. How would you feel?”

  “I don’t think I’d feel much – maybe a little sorry for the spider.” Freddy shrugged – not that Tony noticed. “But it’s not like I’d lose sleep over it.”

  The doctor scribbled a few notes, not speaking for nearly a minute. “You see a man slip on a banana peel on the sidewalk in front of you. He falls down. What do you do?”

  “No one actually slips on banana peels,” Freddy chuckled. “Do they?”

  Tony made a quick note. “Only in cartoons, I suppose. No matter. You are walking down a country road. It is a beautiful day. You see a dog lying in the ditch. It has been hit by a car and is dying. What do you do?”

  “Kill it,” Freddy replied almost instantly. “It’s gonna die anyway – better to finish it off, you know. Euthanize it.”

  Tony grunted and scribbled his notes. When he was done, he set the pad aside and finally looked up. “Alright then, Freddy – do you mind if I call you Freddy?”

  “You’re Tony. I’m Freddy.”

  Tony smiled benignly but his eyes were intense. “No bullshit now – why do you want to work to kill floor? Men who work the kill floor for too long usually give me all the right answers but they are all in fact quite screwed-up – Alcoholics, spouse-abusers and the like. They don’t sleep well and they typically suffer bouts of depression.”

  “Men like my father in other words.”

  Tony winced. It was clear to Freddy this man would have been happier not to have brought John Cartwright into the conversation. He probably would have been perfectly content to never hear John’s name spoken again. “Your father never suffered from insomnia.”

  “Only because he went to bed drunk most nights.”

  “Nor did he suffer from depression.”

  “He was definitely a drunk,” Freddy replied evenly, “and I can tell you firsthand about the abuse.”

  “Then I need to ask you again, Freddy – why the floor? No bullshit now. Why the floor?”

  Freddy sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He scratched at a work days’ worth of stubble on his chin. “Honestly?”

  “Honestly.”

  “I’m going to school in the fall and I could use the extra two bucks an hour.”

  “Can you honestly tell me you’re okay working down there? What I mean is-”

  “What you mean, Tony, is: After killing my father and watching my girlfriend die, how could I even consider spiking cows?”

  Tony Larson just stared at him, his jowly face growing ashen.

  Freddy chuckled. “Don’t tip-toe around it, Doc. I’ve already been through therapy. I can work the kill floor because of the extra lump of cash I’ll have in my account come September.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “And if I can’t, well, I guess I’ll be back in here talking to you.”

  -

  Freddy worked the kill floor for nearly three months straight. The kill floor gave him full time hours – or nearly full time. He worked on a crew of four, at least one of whom was also vacation relief. Four stations: Prep, shuttle, spike and clean. That was the line and each day the crew would rotate through. Freddy’s favorite position was the spike. But he told no one about that but me.

  The first man used a set of heavy-duty shears to shave a bald patch on the back of the cow’s neck near the base of its skull. He would place a device called the Matrix (or the cross-hairs, as it was commonly known) over the shaved patch, sizing the animal’s neck and skull. The cross-hairs indicated four points which he would mark with a blue Sharpie marker. The diamond pattern was somewhat reminiscent of a cross-hairs – hence the name.

  The second man would step in and fit a girdle around the cow. The animal was led down a ramp into a second ro
om where he attached it to a two-ton hoist. Simple enough. But if the cow was spirited it could become a bit of a work-out. John hadn’t been a big man for nothing.

  The third man ran the spike. His job was exactly what it sounds like. He put the device, a fairly hefty piece of equipment that looked something like an old sci-fi ray-gun, on the back of the animal’s neck and lined up four apertures to the four Sharpie dots. He pulled the trigger. As fast as a rifle shot, the pneumatic piston lanced out and retracted. The spike cut the brain stem, severing all connections to the body and smashing into the bony structures protecting the pituitary gland.

  Death was instantaneous – although the brain might live for thirty or forty seconds, struggling in vain to send the signals that would dump adrenaline into the blood stream. Adrenaline was bad. Adrenaline made the meat tough. It would not age well. The quality of the meat was vital. This was Alberta, after all. After a few weeks Freddy even claimed to be able to tell if a cut of meat had been killed cleanly or not. John used to say the same thing but no one ever believed him.

  The last man’s job was to hose down the room as the carcass was hoisted away to be processed. All traces of blood were washed away and the room was sanitized with a healthy dose of lemon-scented bleach. The next animal couldn’t smell the blood. It couldn’t smell anything but the sanitizer or it might get frightened and again adrenaline would ruin the meat. By the time the next cow was ready to be led in the room was spotless, smelling only of shit, sweat and lemons. They were led in one after another, fifteen animals each hour, as many as a hundred and twenty every shift. During the peak of barbeque season Clausson’s could run seventeen crews on each of two shifts and even put men on at night if needed. Mind you, in Alberta barbeque season starts on January first and ends on December thirty-first.

  They had an old am/fm radio bolted to the wall. The station was set to GEM 101.1 – all classic rock, all the time. CCR, the Stones, Jefferson Starship – or Airplane – Zeppelin and The Who were all favorites. AC-DC got a lot of play time as well. The Beatles got too much Freddy thought. There was a time when listening to classic rock would have put his teeth on edge. But there was something about the kill floor that made it make sense. Freddy found himself growing to like the oldies his father always cranked on the garage stereo. He soon found himself tuning to GEM in the car where even John would typically have preferred just the drone of the engine for company.

  Freddy never had a problem eating meat. He started eating beef more often – as often as he could. He came to prefer his steak blue rare and unseasoned. He would even let it cool when it came off the grill. For him meat needed to be served bloody and at body temperature. I let him have his steak and actually began to lean toward a vegetarian diet. He could have his steak. That was fine. Just watching him eat it would turn my stomach. The only problem Freddy ever developed from working the kill floor was an aversion to lemonade.

  -

  Freddy dated the same girl for most of that summer. Angie Cross was her name and she was my first. She was tall – nearly as tall as me – and she would be playing volleyball for some school down east in the fall. Angie was pretty. She had a healthy glow to her skin and her cheeks always looked just a little flushed, as though she had just come in from the cold. With her dark hair most often in a loose pony tail, there was something wholesome and pure about her. She was pretty - but not beautiful. At least not beautiful like Carrie.

  Angie was also quite free-spirited and completely incapable of being faithful to Freddy. I suppose some people would have dubbed her a slut; a mean, hurtful word for someone who was just about the kindest person I have ever known. She did cheat on Freddy constantly and he certainly had to know. Everyone else did. But he didn’t seem to care until it was with me.

  Two weeks before school began Freddy waited for her in the breezeway between her parents’ house and garage. It was late, nearly midnight and the shadows were deep. He waited until she came home, slightly tipsy from a girls’ night out, and kneecapped her with a crowbar. She did not even see it coming.

  It was a full athletic scholarship she was counting on. Because of her injury she never played volleyball again - not competitively at any rate. The police suspected a female, possibly the girlfriend of one of her lovers or a jealous ex-teammate. Freddy made sure not to be seen and he was quick to offer his support. Before starting his vigil outside Angie’s house, he stopped by McDonald’s and pilfered several fresh cigarette butts from one of the patio ashtrays. The cigarette butts all had a matching shade of lipstick on them. Angie was an only child. She did not smoke and neither did her mother.

  His attack on Angie was swift and brutal but Freddy did nothing to me. I heard the story first on the local news before he even told me about it in his flat, analytical way. I don’t know how he had found out about us. It was only the once and it had happened weeks prior. By all accounts she had been with at least two others during that time.

  Like most high school relationships, theirs ended with the summer. Angie Cross missed her first year at school. She spent most of that time learning to walk again. She took some correspondence courses and got some student loans. The next year she enrolled at U of C and went into sports medicine. That same year she met Freddy again. Freddy had not forgotten her.

  -

  Freddy said good-bye to his mother on August 28th of 1994. Maggie managed to be giddy, excited, reserved and weepy all at the same time. Her ability to demonstrate a broad spectrum of emotions was fully restored and so too was her confidence in showing them. Given the circumstances – Freddy’s leaving for school I mean – her display was nothing out of the ordinary.

  She knew nothing about Freddy’s secret fantasies about her, the fantasies that began to bloom after he observed her in her bedroom. She did not know that up until the first week in August Freddy would often borrow her underwear. He used them as a sort of make-shift condom as he masturbated. He imagined her panties as a personification of her own womanhood, himself inside her when he came. He washed them with his own laundry so as not to get caught. Freddy was always good at not getting caught. Only when the monster came out could he forget to be careful.

  The monster never came out during his simple sex fantasies – or I should call them his non-violent sex fantasies. The monster did arouse him however and it would be only then when he would be blind to his actions. The monster aroused him or it was aroused with him. But I think by this time the monster also began to scare him a little bit as well. The blind rage he felt must have been debilitating. In his rage he would lose control. And control was everything.

  Maggie embraced her son. She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her blouse and handed him a check for five thousand dollars.

  “God, mom!” Freddy’s eyes widened at the sight of it. “Where the hell did you get this?”

  “I’ve been saving up for years now, Honey,” she told him. “I don’t think your father ever really knew how much money I was making. Put it in a separate account and be careful with it. That’s emergency money. I’ll send you more when you need it.”

  Freddy laughed. He was getting pretty good at sounding human. He needed to around his mother. “You make it sound like I’m leaving for good!” He hugged her again. “I’ll be home most weekends you know. Promise.” To him Maggie had become Mom again. At some point he had either grown disgusted with his fantasies or he had grown bored of them, finding new fodder elsewhere. I believe it to be the former. Once we had left for school, he vehemently denied ever having them. It had taken him a few years but I think he just finally realized what mother was.

  Maggie smiled and sniffled. “You can’t afford the gas, Honey.”

  Freddy scoffed. “It’s not that much. Calgary is just up the road. Besides, the car gets great fuel economy on the highway.”

  “Whatever,” Maggie adopted a stern look. “But once a month is fine, ‘kay?”

  “Sure, mom. We’ll go out for steaks.”

  She made a sour face. “I can’t watch
you eat yours.”

  Freddy rolled his eyes.

  “You’re gonna get worms or something!”

  They embraced again and once more by the curb. I waited in the car, patient as ever, while they went through the routine. Freddy promised not to stay up too late. He promised to study and he promised to phone once in a while – collect even.

  Finally, we were off. Our childhood meshed together and fell behind in the wake of road dust and exhaust. With the clack of the gear shift finding first we officially became men – college men. The trials of our youth were forgotten, dismissed as trivial things in the face of what was to come.

  “Things are different now,” Freddy told me. He was wringing his hands on the steering wheel in both excitement and long pent-up frustration. “Different and better.” His finger rose to rub at his eye a moment but dropped back to slap the wheel. “Fuck, I’m glad to be out of this town!” It was an afterthought, spoken in the heat of the moment. But in that moment, it could not have been truer.