The New Butcher in Town Read online

  The New Butcher in Town

  By Nanisi Barrett D’Arnuk

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2017 Nanisi Barrett D’Arnuk

  ISBN 9781634864527

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * * *

  For Ti, Lucy, Harvey, and all the brood.

  * * * *

  The New Butcher in Town

  By Nanisi Barrett D’Arnuk

  I’ve been coming in here for years. It was the one butcher shop my mother trusted. Marvin Wright always chose the best cuts and treated his customers with the greatest care. I remembered when he was younger and had a lot of hair; now he was older and completely bald, whether by nature or by razor. He’d watched me grow up, too, and he always remembered me. He’d turned into a sharp old guy. (I say old with affection. He was probably the same age as my dad: forty-nine.)

  The Wright family owned a farm in the next county, so he always had fresh meat and would tell his customers when there was going to be a special slaughtering and would take orders for any special cuts.

  “Hey, Amy,” he greeted me. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine, Mr. Wright. You?”

  “I’m doing really well, but I think I’m starting to get old.”

  “You, Mr. Wright? You’ll never get old.”

  “Nope, not up here.” He tapped his head. “But tell that to my knees. I had trouble getting up this morning when I had knelt down to clean the showcase.” He laughed heartily. “How’re your folks? I haven’t seen your mom lately.”

  “They’re doing well. They’ve been away, went to visit my aunt in Florida for two weeks.”

  “Which aunt? Irene?”

  “No, Dad’s sister, Susan.”

  “Ah, didn’t know her as well. How’s she doing?”

  “Not too good, I guess. She’s got arthritis real bad.”

  “Then she should be in Arizona, not Florida.”

  “I know, but tell her that.”

  “Is she as stubborn as your daddy?”

  I nodded. “Guess it’s a family trait. Hope I take after Mom’s side!”

  We both laughed at the thought.

  “Oh, tell your Mama that we’ll be slaughtering some sheep next week if there’s anything special she wants.”

  “Ah! Save us a boneless shoulder roast, okay? I’ll see if she wants anything else.”

  “All right. One boneless lamb shoulder roast for the Gilberts.” He turned as he took the pencil from behind his ear and wrote it down on a clip board he had hanging behind the counter. He always had a pencil behind his ear. I can’t remember him without it. “So, what can I get you today?”

  “Mom wants two pounds of hamburger, two sides of pork ribs, and a slab of bacon.”

  “You must be having a barbeque this weekend.”

  “That’s right. We always have to have ribs for a barbeque. Junior and his wife will be over with their two kids, so we need burgers, too.” Roy Junior was my older brother.

  “How old are the kids now? I guess they’re not old enough to appreciate the best cuts, yet, are they?”

  “No, they’re only four and five. They got a few years before they’ll want prime.”

  “Well, until then, we’ll fill them up on good hamburger.” He reached into the refrigerator and took out a slab of beef. Then he turned and called into the back room, “Hey Jody! Bring out a double slab of pork ribs and a chunk of bacon, will ya?”

  “Be right there!” a young woman’s voice called back.

  “Got someone working for you?” I asked. Mr. Wright had always been the only one in the shop.

  “Yup. My niece came down from Wyoming to apprentice with me for a while. She’s doing pretty good.”

  “That’s great. It saves you from doing a lot of work, too.”

  He laughed loudly. “Yup. She digs right in, even out at the farm. Joseph was amazed last week, thought she’d turn up her nose and run away when we’re clipping the baby pigs out there.”

  My eyebrows must have been touching my hairline.

  “That’s one of the first things a farmer needs to know. You gotta clip their ears and tails, and you can’t let their boy parts stay on too long if you want good pork. That makes the meat taste funny.”

  “I didn’t know that. Do you have to do that with all the animals?”

  He nodded. “You let some be so they’ll sire the next herd, but over half will never do that thing.”

  “I’m glad we don’t eat humans,” I said with a chuckle.

  He nodded as he cut slabs from the beef block and fed them into the grinder.

  A tall, thin young woman came out of the back, carrying a stack of meat. “These okay?” she asked as she set them on the butcher block. Sheets of butcher paper were beneath each piece of meat.

  “Looks good to me. Just wrap them up and weigh them. Oh, Amy Gilbert, this in my niece Jody Wright.”

  She looked at me and smiled. “How do you do?” she said.

  “Hi,” I answered. I would have offered to shake hands, but hers looked a little bloody and slippery.

  She wiped them on her apron. She tore a sheet of white butcher paper off the roll above the counter and deftly wrapped the chunk of bacon. She tore another, too, and packaged the two slabs of ribs. “These for you?” she asked.

  I nodded. “For a family barbeque this weekend.”

  “Lucky family,” she said as she slid the bacon onto the scale. She wrote the weight on the paper and exchanged it for the package of ribs.

  Mr. Wright placed a large pile of hamburger meat onto the scale. “Oops. I must be getting daft,” he said with a chuckle. “Over-shot this one. This is two-point-two pounds. Want me to take some away or is that okay?”

  “Leave it,” I answered. “You can never have too much hamburger meat.”

  He laughed as he wrapped it in butcher paper and wrote the weight on the outside.

  He rang up the costs on the cash register, and I handed him my credit card.

  “Have a good barbeque and give your folks my regards,” he said.

  “I will, and I’ll have her call you if she wants more lamb.”

  Jody handed me a shopping bag filled with the meat.

  “It was nice to meet you,” I said, giving her my best smile.

  She smiled back and nodded. I walked out of the shop.

  Nice looking woman, I thought as I went out to my car. Very nice.

  * * * *

  It took me two trips to bring all the groceries into the house.

  “Mr. Wright said
to tell you hello,” I told my mother as I laid the final package on the counter. “He also said to tell you that they’ll be slaughtering sheep next week. I ordered a boneless shoulder roast.”

  “Oh, that’s good. I may call and order some chops, too. That okay with you?”

  “You know I love lamb chops,” I told her.

  “And his are always so fresh. It’s always nice to have some chops in the freezer in case company comes over. The way they raise their livestock out at that farm is so good. They’re always real tasty.”

  “He has his niece working with him. Says she came down from Wyoming to apprentice with him.”

  “Oh, that must be Robert’s daughter. I met her when she was just a little thing. I think she’s close to your age.”

  “She seemed to be.”

  That’s one of the things about living in the Midwest, you knew everyone and their families. It was hard to hide anything because everyone talked and talked about everything and everyone. If you wanted to live a different life, you had to move away…which I hadn’t done. I should have. I might have been a lot happier.

  I took a deep breath and helped Mom put the food up.

  “Those are nice looking peaches,” she said. “Want me to make a cobbler?”

  I grinned. “I’d love it,” I replied. Yes, that was what I’d thought when I’d seen them.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t send you shopping again,” Mom said with a big sigh. “It always causes me work.”

  “Want me to do it?” I asked.

  “Nope. I can get it done.” Mom was always complaining, but I don’t think she ever meant it. “What are you going to do today?”

  “I’m not sure. I got one of those job-ad flyers so I’ll read through it and see what there is out there.”

  “You don’t have to worry about a job, sweetie. I told you that when you moved back.”

  “I know, Mom. But it would be nice to have some spendin’ money. I need to keep gas in the car, too.”

  “You don’t go that far.”

  “I know, but I might.”

  She laughed as she put the last of the laundry onto the pile on the table. “You can take these up with you when you go,” she said, pushing a pile of my clothes toward me.

  “I’ll take yours, too.”

  “Just take the towels up. I’ll put your father’s and mine away later.”

  I nodded as I hefted the stack of towels and washcloths and my own clothes and headed for the stairs.

  I’d moved back home about a month ago. I’d been away to college for over four years, but, of course, I hadn’t studied anything that might prepare me to get a job. I’d studied English Literature. I could converse about all the classical authors and even about some contemporary Americans, and I could explain all of Robert Frost’s poetry, but the only thing it had prepared me for was an office job or a cashier’s post. I could write a dynamite letter and alphabetize with the best of them so filing would be my greatest asset. I’d put in applications at some of the stores on Main Street and at the mall, but no one had called me yet. I supposed I should make the rounds again to check.

  I’d lived for the last two years with Kelly. It had been a wonderful relationship at first, but after we graduated and had to get jobs, it fell apart. I guess there wasn’t much to hold us together, now that we were both out in the world…out in different worlds. One thing after another edged us apart. The first night she didn’t come home, I knew it was over. I guess that was because it didn’t seem to matter much. After about a week of not talking about it, I decided getting another apartment was foolish. I didn’t have a job that meant anything to me, and it wasn’t like I was enamored of Manhattan, Kansas. Even with its historic value, it was still just a college town, like thousands across the country. I’d loaded up my car and drove home.

  Good bye, Kelly. Good bye, Kansas State. Hi, again, Mom and Dad.

  I’d moved back into my old bedroom. It hadn’t changed. I guess Mom had always hoped I’d be back. It had that feeling to it that brought back thoughts of the good-old days; the days I was straight and happy. Not that I wasn’t happy now, but being straight had gone by the wayside years ago. I always laughed when I looked at the picture of me and Joey hung on the wall. It was our senior prom. I was in a long gown that was a little too tight for me, and he wore a full white tuxedo. A white tuxedo, not just a white dinner jacket, but the whole thing in white. Oh, how we had thought we were the most fashionable things in the world. Joey had married a couple years ago and had a kid already. That could have been me. What a difference a few years makes.

  I plopped down on the bed and opened the job-ads paper.

  “Let’s see what they have.”

  A mechanic at Sherwood’s Honda. No.

  The Methodist church was looking for a children’s choir director. No.

  A sales rep for Jersey pharmaceuticals. No.

  A buyer for Sherry’s Better Clothing. No.

  A night clerk at the 7-11 out on the highway. Hell, no!

  I read down the page and onto the next. There wasn’t anything I wanted to do or even could do. A Bachelor of Arts just didn’t fly in the real world.

  I folded the paper and tossed it into the waste-can. Nope. What would I do this week? I needed new shoes. These old sandals were getting torn up, and I hadn’t been out to the mall in a couple weeks. I still had money in my account, but it would dwindle eventually if I didn’t find a job. I’d have to be frugal for a while. Maybe there’d be sales going on as the stores started changing from summer to fall clothes. Maybe that would take my mind off…off what? There wasn’t anything for me to think about. Maybe it would get my mind onto something. Yes, that was a good thought.

  * * * *

  I stopped into Step for Less, the low-priced shoe store, but there was nothing there I wanted. Well, there was one pair, cute flats with long cords that wrapped up around your calf. They looked good on me, but I couldn’t imagine tying myself into them every time I had to put them on, or take them off, and the price was higher than it should have been for that quality shoe. So I left them there. I’d look elsewhere,

  I was in K-Mart when I heard my name called. I turned around.

  “Amy Gilbert! I knew that was you!” It was Sherry Finley, whom I’d graduated from high school with.

  “Sherry Finley,” I said as she gave me a hug and air-kiss.

  “It’s Sherry Straight now,” she said, flashing her wedding ring in my face. “Jeff and I got married two months ago. You remember Jeff, don’t you? He was a couple years ahead of us. He was on the football team.”

  “Yes, I do!” I said enthusiastically. Yes, I remembered Jeff Straight. Cute but he’d had one too many concussions on the field. “How’s it going?”

  “It’s wonderful. I love married life. We have one of those new apartments over behind Reynolds Ford. You’ll have to come over some time.”

  “Yes, I know that place. I’ll have to get over there.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Back home with my folks.”

  “No ring?”

  I smiled and shook my head. “No. Kelly and I broke up last month. That’s why I moved home.”

  “Kelly? You were with Kelly Feverson?”

  I had to laugh. “No, this was another Kelly I met at school.”

  Kelly Feverson was the top brain in the class. He was over six feet tall and over three hundred pounds around. He was a very smart guy, but everyone thought that was because he studied all the time instead of doing things with other people. I had never even known who his best friend was.

  “I couldn’t imagine anyone going out with Kelly Feverson.”

  “No, me either,” I responded.

  “Amy, I’m so sorry you broke up with your Kelly. Was it serious?”

  “We thought so…at the beginning.”

  She hugged me again. “Then come over. We’ll introduce you to some of the guys who live in that complex. Some of them are pretty hot. Not as good as Jeff, th
ough, but he’s mine.”

  “Yes, I’ll have to come over.”

  When hell freezes over!

  “Do you have a piece of paper? I’ll give you my number.”

  “Sure!” I reached into my bag and gave her my notebook. She took out her pen and wrote down “Mrs. Jeffery Straight” with her address and phone number.

  “Great! I’ll call.” I put the notebook back in my bag.

  “Well, I’ve got to get going. It was good to run into you.” She gave me another air-kiss, turned, and walked away.

  Oh, well. I had expected to run into old friends, just not ones that friendly.

  * * * *

  I was putting my packages into my car when I saw someone walk by.

  “Jody Wright?” I called across the next row of parked cars.

  She turned and looked at me. She didn’t recognize me.

  “Amy Gilbert. We met at your uncle’s store,” I called.

  Her face lit up. “I thought I knew you, but I couldn’t remember where,” she said with a smile. She walked between the two parked cars and came over to talk to me.

  “I know what you mean. I just moved back here a month ago. I grew up here, and I can’t remember names for the life of me.”

  “It’s a friendly little town, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Sometimes too friendly. Everyone in town will know your business before long.”

  She cringed. “That’s what I was afraid of,” she mumbled.

  “Do you live here or out at the farm?”

  “I’ve been staying upstairs over the butcher shop. It’s cozy, and there’s always food around.”

  “I imagine so, and very good food at that. How long have you been here?”

  “Just two weeks, but Uncle Marv and Uncle Joseph have been really putting me to work.”

  “Would you like to go out for a drink or something next week? Maybe we can both get to know this town better, or at least each other.”

  She thought for a moment as a smile started to spread across her face. “Yes, I’d like that.”

  “Great! I’ll come into the shop on Monday, and we can make plans.”

  “We’re closed on Monday.”

  “Tuesday, then. I’ll stop in.”