A Lost King: A Novel (8 page)

“Michael. Michael Christopher.”

“We should take a trip this summer and surprise Michael.”

“Are you losing your mind? I never saw the man. I don't know anything about him. What the hell do I want to see him for?”

“Just for those reasons. Don't you wonder about him? Don't you ever think about his life? Is he married? Has he got any children? How does he earn his living? Does he like music? Does he walk in the woods at night and listen for the song of the nightingale? Are there any nightingales in Vandergrift? Listen, Pa, listen.”

“There's no choice for me.”

“It's Michael Christopher! He's calling in the night. Hello, Michael, hello! Speak, Michael, speak! Tell us what you want us to do. Your cousin is waiting, Michael. Not your third cousin. Not your second cousin. It's your first cousin and you can tell him everything…. Do you know what, Pa? I'm going to make a song for Michael Christopher and his family. Would you like to hear it?”

“Play if you want to play. It's either talk or music with you.”

“Isn't it strange? I can't stop thinking about Michael. What do you think he's doing right this minute? Is he waiting for the song?”

“I'll tell you what he's doing. He's sitting there scratching his head. He's wondering where it all started and where it will end. And he's wondering what the hell it all means.”

By the time I started work on that new job I had promised to bring special chops and roasts and sausages to most of the neighbors. They invited me to join them for supper on those occasions. I told Theodore Ampazis that I would bring him a leg of lamb every Saturday.

“We'll eat it on Sunday,” he said. “I'll roast it for you with garlic and parsley and origan. And bay leaf and dill. Then I'll make some rice for you in the juice. And it won't be like smashed potatoes. You'll be able to count this rice. And then maybe you'll play the harmonica for me.”

“It sounds good,” I said. “I'll be eating like a king around here. I'm supposed to bring Florio some round steak sliced very thin. He'll put special things in it and then roll it up and tie it with a string. He'll cook it for three hours in tomato sauce. After that I'll have supper with Sophie Nowak. She'll make a pork roast or sausage with sauerkraut.”

“Is your father satisfied with this job?” said Theodore.

“He says the first step on the ladder is loose.”

It turned out that my father was right. I was thinking and talking so much about the job that I was bound to be disappointed. Truth be told I was more disappointing than disappointed.

Early Monday morning the man in charge of trainees at the main cooler made a speech to six of us about the door of opportunity. His name was Martin and he moved around us as though his shoes were hot. He kept talking about the door of opportunity while we washed our hands with a strong pine soap and put on white aprons and white hats.

“The door of opportunity is locked,” said Martin. “The lock on that door is a combination lock. The combination to that lock is hard work, loyalty, honesty, and hard work. Nothing else will spring the lock on that door.”

He opened a high, wide, heavy door. It led into the cooler. He stationed two of us at each of three wooden chopping blocks and showed us an assortment of shining knives. He explained that we were to get the feel of butchering by trimming meat off beef bones. The meat would be ground into hamburger or chopped into stew. It would be delivered that very day to Big Deal stores throughout the city and then sold the next day in weighed and priced packages.

“Now pay attention,” said Martin. “These bones must be clean as a hound's tooth. I mean when they leave your hands. They should look like the lions finished up on them. Trim off every bit of meat and fat and then drop the bones in these barrels. There's a barrel for each one of you. Try to fill your barrel with white bones. You'll see rib bones and neck bones. Chine bones and knuckle bones. White bones, white bones. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

Everyone glanced at me.

“But I want you to be careful,” said Martin. “Take your time. Don't cut yourself. Find the best way to get at the meat. Sometimes you'll come in at the top and cut down. Sometimes you'll get in from underneath or slice away at the sides. Get the feel of working with these knives. Try them all. You'll do it wrong for a while. I'll be back as soon as I can to show you how it should be done. One thing more. You'll come out of the cooler every hour or so for a five-minute relief. Now let's get with it.”

Martin went out. The tremendous door closed. It closed on a precise delicate click that seemed to send shivers through the walls to be sure we were sealed perfectly in that iron room. I felt sealed. I put the feeling out of my mind and turned to the work. I lifted a big bone to my chopping block and started to trim the red meat away. It took me an hour to strip that cold heavy bone. I kept turning it around and finding more meat. At last I dropped it into the barrel. I saw strands of meat on it and took it out of the barrel. I went over and over it. Martin failed to mention that the meat belongs on the bone.

I was taking that same bone out of the barrel for the third time when Martin came through the door. He moved around and watched for a while and then he told us to stop and watch him.

“Come closer,” he said.

He picked up a bone from the center block and swung it over to my chopping block. His control of it was perfect. He set it down without a sound. He rubbed his hands together as for a feast and then he started to sharpen knives one on the other. His hands flew like birds and the clean thin whistling of blade on blade was all round us in the cold air. He put one knife aside and studied the flashing blade of the other. Now he was going into a kind of secret menacing dance like a swordsman. He moved in to make a series of quick deep overhand cuts down along that bone. It was impossible to follow his knife. It was everywhere at once. Meat was falling and falling. In no time at all he stripped that bone so white it might have dried in the sun. It was a remarkable thing. I had an urge to pounce on that bone and hide it in my barrel.

“Get the idea?” he said. “Attack, attack.”

“Wonderful,” I said.

Everyone glanced at me.

“And now it's your turn,” said Martin, dropping the bone in my barrel. “Dig in there. Cut deep. Strip it away. Lions, lions.”

He went out.

I took another bone and started to cut the meat away. I stopped to sharpen my knives. I was sharpening those knives and listening to the whistling round my head like a flight of silver arrows. I studied the blade and then danced in to cut the meat. After a while I wanted to hear that whistling again and so I stopped to sharpen the knives. My hands and arms were beginning to ache a little.

I dropped the bone into my barrel and lifted another to the block. I was sharpening knives when the cooler door opened. Martin came in to inspect the bones in each barrel. He took the three bones out of mine.

“This one's all right,” he said.

“I think it's very good,” I said.

“Do you?”

“It's the one you did.”

“Then you know what I want. Take charge of these bones. Scrape them clean. You'll have to do better than this.”

At noon a distant siren called us to lunch. We marched out of the cooler. I ate a salami sandwich and a cherry pepper. Afterward I went outside to sit on the front step. A soft breeze was stirring the leaves of the willow tree on the lawn. White clouds drifted on the blue sky. The sleepy warmth of noon was stealing through me. Suddenly the raw ugly blast of the siren ripped into the air right above my head.

I went back to my block in the cooler. I looked around while sharpening my knives. The men seemed to be working faster. They were trying to fill their barrels with bones before the day ended. It was good to watch them work. The man across from me would lift a bone to his block and slap the bulge of meat with his hand in a reckless way. Sometimes he slapped it twice to show his contempt. The man beside him was an artist. He moved as though on tiptoe and then lunged to risk everything on a single daring cut. Sudden white bone thrilled him. He had reached through to the hidden beauty. The man at my block would cut and slash until it seemed he would throw the knife aside and tear the meat off with his hands. Once I heard him growling.

More and more often Martin came in to take bones out of barrels and inspect them. He kept finding scraps of meat.

“Look here,” he said. “Look at this. Here's a bone with two or three ounces of meat on it. Maybe more. What if you do twenty bones a day like this? You'll be wasting over three pounds of meat. Every day. Do you know what that amounts to in a month? In a year? I'll bet it runs to a ton of waste. Get with it.”

I asked him for another demonstration. He gave me a hard stabbing look while he sharpened the knives. He was studying the edge of one of those blades and then a moment later he was looking past it into my eyes. Suddenly his chin came down on his chest and he was dancing again as he moved in to cut quick and deep into that meat. His knife was flashing everywhere like a silver fire. Meat was falling away and hitting the block. All at once the bone was alone. Martin lifted it and turned it so we could study it. He presented it to me.

“Attack,” he said. “Nothing to it.”

I was watching him in amazement. Not a drop of blood was on his apron. His hands were opening and closing.

“Now it's your turn,” he said.

He was looking at me.

From then on he concentrated on me. He came through that door and over to my block as though I had sent for him.

“You handle that knife like a girl,” he said. “And you touch the meat like it's hot. Take hold.”

Once I put the knife down when I went over to get a bone. I swung the bone to the block and then reached for the knife. It was gone. I looked on the block and on the floor. I was looking and looking until Martin came over and lifted the bone. The knife was there. I giggled in a foolish way. Martin didn't smile.

“You work pretty slow,” he said.

“I'll do better.”

“Four bones in five hours. Some of these boys did more than ten. And not one of yours was really right the first time.”

“I'll get this one right.”

“You can't talk the meat off the bone.”

“No, sir.”

“Show me what you can do.”

I was sharpening the knives as he went through the door. He heard the whistling of those blades and he glanced over his shoulder. We were watching each other as the door closed.

The air seemed to be turning colder. Everyone was digging and slashing away. Aprons had gone dark with blood. Bones thumped into the barrels. I was thinking about the watermelon wagon and the old brown horse Tina. I remembered my first long look at Tina. Her great body sagged as though with the pity flooding my heart and then her body swelled as though with the big yell of laughter inside me. Thinking of her put an ache in my heart.

Martin came in again. Ruthlessly he plunged into my barrel. He counted the same four bones. He looked bewildered.

“You still on the same bone?” he said.

“I guess so.”

“What's the matter with you?”

“I've just about got this one.”

“Step it up, boy, step it up. You'll have to do better than this. Cut loose now.”

“Yes, sir.”

My right hand had gone numb. I switched the knife to my left hand. Now it was very hard to cut that meat. A kind of panic was growing in me. I was watching and waiting for Martin. Right about then I felt sure that one clean bone would save the day for me. I decided to steal a bone from the barrel of my neighbor. I would wait until he went over to the center block.

The cooler door was opening.

So frightening was it that I made a quick stab at my bone. I missed it. I cut myself down at the base of my right thumb. I dropped the bone into the barrel and closed my hand while it filled with blood. I put the hand inside my apron.

Martin came right over and lifted the bone out of the barrel. He took the other knife. His chin dropped on his chest and his eyes went narrow as he started to slash away at that bone. All at once there was about a pound of meat on the block. Martin turned to me. His dark eyes were snapping.

“Let's see your hand,” he said.

I showed him my hand.

“Put that knife down,” he said. “Before you kill yourself. Or get this boy beside you.”

I put the knife down.

“Come with me,” he said

I felt sick. I followed him through the door. I was looking at my thumb and when he stopped outside I bumped into him. I stained his apron with blood.

“What the hell's wrong with you?” he said.

“I'm very sorry.”

He took me into his office where I washed my hand. He put iodine on the cut and bandaged it for me.

“If you cut beef as deep as that you'd be all right,” he said.

“I guess so.”

“Take the apron off.”

I slipped out of the apron and started to fold it neatly. He took it away from me and then he swept off my white hat.

“Your apron is cleaner than your bones,” he said. “You're afraid to get some blood on you.”

“I'm trying my best.”

“Are you?”

“I really am.”

“So much the worse,” he said. “I don't think you'll work out on this job. I'm letting you go. I'll mail you a check for the day.”

“I'm sorry I couldn't do better.”

“Well, it's all right,” he said, gently. “Don't feel too bad about it. This work doesn't suit you. I can tell. You should be doing something else. What were you doing before this?”

“I was selling watermelons on a wagon.”

“Horse and wagon?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don't see many of them these days. That's a good job for you.”

“I'd like to tell you something.”

“Go ahead, boy. Have your say. Get it off your chest while you're here. You think I've been dogging you?”

“It isn't that.”

“What is it then?”

“Well, never mind.”

“Speak up. You'll be sorry you didn't.”

“Well, I don't know. It's just that I enjoyed watching you cut that meat. It was really something to see.”

“Is that so?” he said, studying me.

“I wish I had enough nerve to ask you to do it again before I go. I'd like to see it once more. I really would.”

“You kidding me in some way?”

“Why should I do that?”

“I don't know,” he said. “I don't know.”

He gave me a long look. He scratched his chin and then he took me back inside the cooler. He swung a big bone to my chopping block. He was watching me as he picked up two knives and started to sharpen them. He put one knife aside. Now he was moving around as though to find sure footing. During that moment he was watching me so close that he danced around to the side of the block. Suddenly he moved in to cut the meat. His knife was flashing here and there and everywhere. Meat was falling away. It seemed he never touched the bone at all.

I held the door open for him and followed him out.

“Are you satisfied?” he said.