Carcasses of beef and half hogs coated with a thin layer of frost dangled from chains with hooks like punching bags.
The heavy freezer door slammed shut as Henry peeled his way through the divider of clear vinyl straps. With large headphones around his neck, he adjusted his beltless pants before they sagged back to their original place where his boxers burst out.
Henry threw a see through packaged old and dry looking USDA approved faded pale red steak onto a table. Ripping its plastic packaging open, he dropped the steak in a bowl and squirted some red food coloring from a bottle. Lathering the meat in the liquid until its color rejuvenated to a fresh appearance, he repacked and slapped it with a new USDA expiration date next to a pile of similar looking creations.
On another table, three whole chickens sat next to a towel bulged with concealment. Henry pulled the towel off, where three beer can sized bags of cocaine stacked in a pyramid. Wrapping each bag of coke thick with tinfoil, he shoved them into each chicken cavity.
The instrumental of a heavy aggressive horrorcore rap track boomed in Henry’s headphones as he shot a frozen air-sealed hunk of pork shoulder like a basketball into a duffel bag strung to a metal rack. Henry bobbed his head as the bass blared in his ears. In his imagination, he was on stage in front of a bouncing sold out crowd—
It’s funny all y’all think I’m the emcee
Cuz actually there’s a ventriloquist parakeet that rests on me and I’m the dummy
I’m sick ‘n tired a hearin’ this word ratchet
Some stupid ass term in every quote unquote trap rap hit
Habit only tells me to snatch the radio and smash it
While this dirty ratchet’s neck I’m plannin’ to grab it and snap it
Wrap the cadaver in plastic and pitch it into oncoming traffic so tragic
C’mon Xavier man I just did you a favor
Even the people who made her were thankful for my violent behavior
A savior I prevented your future from eva tryin’ to mate her
Henry picked up another piece of meat, a chuck roast, and spun around, putting his back to the duffel bag. He held the roast at the side of his waist, protecting it from an imaginary defender. Stuttering with his front foot and pivoting with his back foot determining his next move, Henry stepped back as if he were popping off a fade away buzzer beater.
THUD. The ham landed in the bag.
Kris stood behind Henry, watching him in her white deli uniform. Green embroidered cursive lettering stitched her name on the left side of her chest. The definition of a but-her-teeth, it looked like Kris’s jaws enjoyed gnawing on the head of a sledgehammer. Few remaining black teeth somehow grounded themselves in her mangled gums. “Henry,” she said with no response or recognition of her presence. Henry shot another hunk of meat like a free throw. “HENRY,” she said louder. Kris grabbed a sausage from a rack and threw it at his back.
Henry turned around and pulled off his headphones, the instrumental blasting through. “What?” He turned the music off on his phone.
“I need you up front.” Kris turned through the vinyl straps, then came back. She looked at Henry’s fingertips, tinted red from the food coloring. “Wash your hands.”
A big plastic spoon plunged into a bowl of ham salad.
Henry stood behind a long counter, preparing various deli salads, meats, and cheeses enclosed in a large glass case. On the opposite end of the counter, the butcher area, Kris flattened balls of ground chuck into hamburger patties with her palm.
Soft Celtic tunes played from the storefront’s speakers. A large shamrock featuring a mashup of half the Irish and American flags hung over the center of the automatic entranceway doors. The cash register posted near the entrance, glass refrigerators lined one side of the deli, the other, glass freezers. Four aisles of shelving stocked with domestic products and imported Irish chips, jams, candies, breads, teas, and beer spread out between both sides of refrigeration units.
Henry placed a brick of corned beef into the glass case and slid its door shut. He tossed his plastic gloves in a trash can then plugged a cord into an outlet on the counter behind him. Standing over a meat slicer, his reflection held in its chrome blade cover. He rubbed his thumb over the slicer’s blade, delicate, where the oil of his fingerprint stained its perfection.
Henry stuck out a hand as the cash register clerk, Gladys, an Irish immigrant with hearing aids who looked centuries old, hunched over a cane sucking on a cigarette. In the deli’s back alley, they stood near a rusty gray door on a little road covered in potholes. Gladys fidgeted with shaky hands, searching for her pack and gave Henry a heater. Henry leaned against the building’s decaying brick wall, took a few quick deep drags, then flicked the cig into a spiraling orange dot before walking back inside.
Pants crinkled at his ankles, Henry sat on a toilet. Scrolling his phone, he combed through Instagram pictures of a twenty-something goth tattooed chick before following the link to her OnlyFans page.
Twelve minutes later, Henry pocketed his phone and took out another device. An old Nokia flip phone. He texted a number—
Butcher be in
Henry doom scrolled social media with his normal phone, waiting until a response came through on the burner—
White or dark meat
Henry messaged back—
White
The contact—
Gotchu. I’ll hit u up
Henry pocketed both phones, pulled up his pants, and left the bathroom. Walking toward the deli storefront in the back hallway, Mick, the head butcher and manager, stood at the threshold of his office with crossed arms. “Twenty four minutes?” Henry turned around, uninterested. “How many times you do that a day?”
Henry shrugged. “Got stomach issues man.”
Mick approached Henry. A big guy but no brute, he’s worn smaller shirt sizes to appear muscular for years. “You got the work ethic of a nigger waitin’ for a welfare check.”
“Fuck’s that s’posed to mean?”
Mick inched closer to Henry. “Don’t think your uncle would be too keen knowin’ you’re stealin’ from him. And pushin’ drugs behind his back. Would he?”
“Fuck you.”
“Think you got boulders for balls talkin’ like that?”
“I don’t think. I know.” Henry eyed Mick. Then turned away.
“That’s right. Walk your ass to the front. You messin’ with shit you don’t even comprehend.”
Boneless skinless raw chicken breast slapped onto a cutting board. Henry slid a knife out from a wooden holder and sliced the slippery meat into cube-like chunks. On another cutting board next to him, bite sized pieces of green pepper, onion, mushrooms, and cherry tomatoes scattered in a pile. Piercing the hunks onto skewers, Henry assembled shish kebabs when the front sliding glass door sensor triggered a ring.
A young mother and her six year old son walked by Gladys, hunched behind the cash register. “Mornin’,” she said with her brogue accented weak voice. The mother gave a friendly smile as her son ran to a candy shelf. The mother gathered him and they approached the deli counter.
Henry continued with the shish kebabs as the mother waited. “Excuse me?” her voice penetrated his ears.
Henry set the knife down and stared at the wall in front of him. He wiped his gloves on the raw chicken, drenching them with liquid, and turned to the mother and boy. “Yea?”
The mother looked at her boy and gave him an encouraging nod. “Go ahead.”
“Can we have—”
“Please. Don’t forget to say please.”
The child recited the order, broken and not specific. It probably took the entire car ride to try and memorize. “Can we please have... turkey... and... tomato salad?”
The mother squeaked a little laugh. “Potato salad.”
“Potato salad,” the boy echoed. He smiled at his mother, looking for affirmation.
“Good job.”
Most would have found this interaction as a cute moment between a mother and son. But the entire altercation irked Henry to his core. He shot the boy’s learning activity down like a Flak 88. “What kinda turkey? And how much you want?”
The boy looked to his mother for help. She’d caught the annoyed tone of Henry’s voice. “Two pounds of the herb roasted.”
“And the potato salad?”
“Medium. You know what… sorry. Large please.”
Henry stuck his head into the glass case, facing various types of turkey meat. What’s the difference? he thought to himself. It’s all the same fuckin’ bird. He grabbed the closest brick of meat that was open and threw it on the meat slicer. Rubbing the chicken liquid all over the turkey, lathering some kind of sick marinade, he pumped out two pounds and bagged it.
Henry scooped potato salad and slapped it messily into a container. He placed the potato salad on the weighing scale as creamy excess ran down its plastic side. Henry handed the turkey and potato salad to the mother. “Thank you,” she said biting her tongue, choosing not to mention his complete lack of customer service skills.
“Thank you,” the boy repeated in a high pitch.
Henry’s face fused into a sardonic smile. “Have a nice day.”
The mother and son walked to the cash register as Henry turned back to the shish kebabs. He picked up the knife and muttered to himself, “Hope that gives you dysentery.”
Kris washed dishes in the kitchen. Industrial ovens filled a wall beside tower carts stacked with trays of Irish soda bread and pastries. As the faucet gushed while she stuck her hands in soapy water, Mick stood behind her staring at her ass. Grabbing the belt loops of her jeans, he whispered in an ear, “Lemme see you in my office. Just for a lil bit.” He slid his hands down her waist, grabbing a handful of her figure.
Kris rid him of herself. “How many times I gotta tell you to keep your fuckin’ hands off me?”
“Just can’t resist.” Mick grabbed Kris again, harder, pinning her against the sink.
Kris’s arm lashed into the basin, searching within the foamy water. “Let go. Or I’ll gouge your neck.” She held a potato peeler against his jugular.
Mick released her and kissed the air as the door to the deli counter opened. Henry stared at Mick, then Kris, then the potato peeler in Kris’s hand, held like a knife. “Fuck you lookin’ at?” said Mick.
“Don’t think my uncle would be too keen knowin’ you’re still harassin’ Kris.” Henry and Mick stood face to face, eyes locked like clashing daggers.
With a finger, Mick flicked Henry’s ear where a hoop earring dangled from his left lobe. “Wouldn’t feel too good, bein’ ripped off.” Mick played with the earring, tugging on it. Not hard, but just enough.
Henry stared back, seemingly unfazed. “Probably.”
Mick patted Henry on the cheek twice, then exited the kitchen into the back hallway. Kris tossed the potato peeler in the sink. “I’ll handle it.” Henry went back into the deli.
Mick grabbed a black corded phone on his messy desk and punched digits. He put it to his ear as the line rang. “Liam, it’s Mick how ya doin’? We gotta talk about your nephew. He been causin’ some trouble over here and—” Mick held the phone and listened. “Nah it can wait. I’ll talk to ya.” Mick clicked the phone back into its fixture.
Henry polished the blade of the meat slicer with a wet rag. Meticulous, making sure every nook was perfect, he cleaned the remnants of previously cut turkey. Kris watched his OCD from the opposite end of the counter. “Don’t gotta do that after every cut ya know.” Henry’s focus stayed on the slicer. He heard Kris. And yet didn’t. He admired the instrument. Its precision of how it cuts. Its body beautiful, like how one thinks a muscle car sexy.
The rusty gray door in the alley behind the deli groaned as Mick opened it to two white guys, both with their heads shaved number zero. One had a shirt with cut sleeves and a Celtic cross tattoo on his forearm. The other was obese, wore glasses, and walked like a penguin. The three of them went to Mick’s office and shut the door.
“What’s with the faggot friendly listing?” asked the obese one.
“What?” said cut sleeves glaring at Mick.
“If you look this place up on Google there’s a fag tag.”
Mick shook his head. “It’s meaningless. Do it to keep good in the public eye. You know how people are. All the politically correct woke shit. They’re fuckin’ stupid.”
“Any queers come here?” asked the obese one.
Cut sleeves scoffed. “Ass fuckin’ cock suckers.”
Mick shook his head. “Maybe a couple. Not many.”
“They buy all your sausage?” asked cut sleeves. They all laughed.
“Yea, and the fuckin’ trannies take all the skirt steak.” Their laughter consumed the room.
The bell sensor at the front rang as a woman hobbled in with a face of permanent disgust. “Welcome,” said Gladys. But the woman ignored her, bee lining right toward Henry.
Henry cleaned the slicer, unaware of the woman’s stewing presence, as she tapped the glass case with the rings on her fingers. Henry slammed the rag on the counter, familiar with the ring taps and condescending voice, before facing his most hated customer he referred to as the Bologna Bitch.
The Bologna Bitch pointed at Henry with a pudgy erect finger. “I want my meat sliced thin. Screwed it up last week and they were the worst sandwiches I ever had.”
I don’t give a shit about your stupid ass sandwiches you fuckin’ bitch Henry thought. But instead he forced out, “My bad. Bologna right?”
The Bologna Bitch nodded. “Three pounds.”
Henry slid the glass case door open and stuck his head inside. He grabbed bologna and put it on the slicer. As he cut, the Bologna Bitch barked even though she was too short to see what he was doing. “Thinner! I want it paper-thin. Understand?” Henry completely shredded the meat, then mixed it up with thick cuts. He sliced the bologna every way possible between shredded and thick, except paper-thin, then put the sliced disaster in a bag. “I want a large macaroni salad, a medium coleslaw, and a hot cream of chicken soup too.”
Henry moved to the salads and plopped them all into containers. He scooped soup into a to go cup, about to price the items on the scale. “Anything else?” he said clenching his teeth.
The Bologna Bitch erupted in a soft premeditated grin. “I change my mind. You could use the practice. Give me a large kidney bean salad, a medium pickled beets salad, and a cheddar broccoli soup.”
Henry stared at her. Absolutely infuriated. He imagined peeling off the soup cover, its hot steam rising. He thought about walking around the counter where the Bologna Bitch stood and throwing the hot contents of the cup into her face. He fantasized about the Bologna Bitch screaming in pure agony as the scalding soup burned her face and scalp to the third degree. Gladys and Kris would watch from their stations, he thought. “Bitch deserved it”, Gladys would say. And Kris would add, “Who the fuck eats bologna?” as I stand over the Bologna Bitch, watching as the burns somehow spread over the entirety of her old skin like a disease.
“Hello?! Are you deaf?!” Henry held the steaming cup of soup as he heard the Bologna Bitch snap irritated beyond belief. Henry looked at her, then the cup of soup, debating to fulfill what he’d just imagined. “Who’s the manager?” the Bologa Bitch said searching the store. “This so-called employee’s incapable of anything!” The Bologna Bitch watched as Henry moved along the counter, on his way to meet her, to fulfill his fantasy—
The front entrance sensor rang where a group of eight in grey hoodies, black pants, sunglasses, and different colored bandannas and keffiyehs filed in. Wielding an assortment of bludgeon weapons—bats, crowbars, hammers, nun-chucks, steel pipes—they spread out through the deli. The skin tones behind their clothes varied. Black, white, brown. Though it seemed the majority were white.
Two stood near the automatic entranceway doors, blocking people from coming in or out.
One wandered off to a wall refrigerator and smashed the glass.
Another walked the furthest snack aisle. Then knocked the shelving over, making the four aisles of products topple like dominoes.
Gladys stood at the register, hunched and watching.
Kris snatched a cleaver on a cutting board.
One of them approached the butcher’s counter by Kris. On his bandana covering his mouth, was a mutilated decaying pig head with dark caverns for eyes in a cop’s hat. An aimed red bullseye printed over a swastika at the center of its head. Pig bandana grabbed a ticket number, looked around as if not to be rude, then realized he was the only ticket holder. He stood patient for a moment, then pounded the bell on the butcher’s counter over and over.
Kris gripped the cleaver at her side. “What do you want?”
“Fresh premium cuts of the fascist pigs.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Get out!” Gladys managed to yell.
Pig bandana turned to Gladys. “Shut the fuck up.”
Two gray hoodies closed on Gladys from different angles. And then pig bandana. “Leave! Get out!” she screamed with her weakening voice.
Pig bandana looked at Gladys’s hearing aids and moved close to her. Real close. “If you don’t shut up, your hearing aids gonna need hearing aids.” He stepped away from Gladys to the center of the deli. “Search the back.”
Four of them rushed to the door that led into the kitchen. In front of the deli counter, Bologna Bitch kept low and watched them go by. She looked up to Henry and whispered, “Call the police.” But like when Kris spoke to him while he was cleaning the meat slicer, he heard the Bologna Bitch. And yet didn’t. He was admiring the surrounding chaos.
Pig bandana looked around the room, “Nobody think about doin anything stupid.” He pointed at Kris. “Especially you. I saw that cleaver.”
Bologna Bitch stood up. “Can I leave? Please. I won’t say anything.”
“That even a fuckin’ question? No. Absolutely not. Sit the fuck down.”
“Please, I—”
“Sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up!” yelled pig bandana. Henry smiled as the Bologna Bitch sulked to the floor.
The doors to the kitchen flew open as the four grey hoods manhandled Mick and the two shaved heads to pig bandana at the center of the deli. Mick had a bloody mouth, the obese one’s glasses were missing and he had a gash near an eye, and the shirt that cut sleeves wore was nearly torn down the center like a vest. Pig bandana stood over them. “How goes it, Fascist?”
Mick spat blood at pig bandana’s boots. “Says the clown hiding his identity, holding a crowbar, and making a mess IN MY FUCKING STORE!”
“You ANTIFAGS are nothin’. Just a buncha poser street punks,” said cut sleeves.
“Shut the fuck up Nazi.” Pig bandana swung his crowbar, smashing one of the shoulders of cut sleeves. He screamed in pain before the four grey hoods joined in, pummeling Mick, the obese one, and cut sleeves with their steel pipes, bats, and hammers.
“You’re dead! We’ll fuckin’—!” the obese one tried to say as all three of their bodies shriveled to the tile floor.
Bologna Bitch wailed in an uncontrollable panic. She got up and tried to make for the front door. But one of the grey hoods with a white and black patterned keffiyeh forced her to the floor. A hammer dragged along the skin of her arm, before she managed to rip the tool from the owner’s clutches. The Bologna Bitch drove the hammer into the person’s ankle as pig bandana ran toward her. “All you had to do was play nice lady.” He raised his crowbar, about to strike—
“Stop!” Henry yelled. All eyes held on him. “Fuck you,” he said pointing at Mick, the obese one, and cut sleeves who laid bleeding on the tile. “And fuck you,” he said looking at pig bandana and all the grey hoods. Henry fixed his attention back to the Bologna Bitch, rocking his head as he felt the moment.
Pig bandana stared at Henry. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m the butcher.” Henry stared at the Bologna Bitch then turned to the meat slicer, his reflection clear in its body. “Paper-thin.” He stroked the slicer’s blade with his thumb.