LIKE HE NEVER DONE DID

Shawn wipes his buck knife on his jeans and looks at me and says Daddy used to hang deer out open like this cause it sweeten up the meat. Seem wrong. Dead thing tied up and run a tree. Guts knocked clean out and lay open for flies to fester in. But Mabel, she love it. She love anything Shawn say or do and she got right up close on that dead deer while he run his knife from pooter to rooter. She pointin out parts and parts of parts and Shawn tellin her what they is all while sippin hard on near gone pint Kentucky Tavern.

Jake’s .30-.30 lay on the sedan trunk. All Shawn got left of his brother since Wichita twister tore him from his truck and set him down mile from state highway to farm pond grave. Jake was on the way back from his high school graduation. He was still in his gown when the farmer found him. Shawn moved east quick as crow flies. Aint spoken to his folks since then. Ever time we see tornado on the teevee he get up and go to the kitchen and start to pacin and soakin in drink.

When they pull in that afternoon, trunk open, deer wrap up in painters tarp, I never known Mabel smile so big. She says I shot supper. Shawn shrugs and says he let her pull the trigger. He stand there scrapin leaves off his boots. She got Boonie Bear in her hand and blood streaked on her pink parka. Blood stainin her hands and settled into her nails and cuticles and blood on her cheeks and wisps of red in her blond hair and there Shawn scrapin leaves off his boots. There's blood heavy and rollin in the tarp and there's blood in the trunk, thick and standin. I press down on the felt liner of the trunk and it come half inch up my finger brownish red and smellin of death. And there's that deer's face and its tongue twist out side of its snout and its eyes black and dead and empty. How we gone get all this blood out my trunk I say. Shawn shrugs and coughs and sips his pint. I shot supper, Mabel yells, smilin, arms and hands in a slow pantomime of rifle fire.

Least our problems. Shawn been collectin severance since he lost his job from city police. Failed piss test three times. Chief took him off patrol and set him at a desk and that just make him drink more. He come in stinkin like a bottle. Sometime too drunk to drive to work so he walk. Finally had enough of that shit. His pay bout dried up. When it rains it pours I reckon. Cause here I lose my job drivin Morgantown school bus four weeks ago to the day. Thank the Jesus we got good people round us and they take care. They known hard times. No strangers to it. And they share some deer meat and dry beans and rice with us. But it aint last. Not with Mabel it don't.

So here Shawn take to huntin. He aint never been much a hunter. Cant say I member last thing he kilt. He borrow money from big Lester Robbins two door down to buy hisself some shells and some of them handwarmers and he start huntin Plemmons land bout hour north of here. Tommy Plemmons he good people. I even went steady with Lake Plemmons in high school. Lake’s Tommy’s little brother. He out in Afghanistan fightin war on terror now. He a green beret. Tommy must be proud of im.

Lester start comin over ever mornin sayin When Shawn gone pay me back my twenty bills. An I says You gone have to take that up with him. I act like I aint known of it. An he says a few weeks later, You tell im I gone take it out his ass if he aint pay me within the day. Next mornin Shawn go out the front door and there a big ass pile of human bein shit on the doorstep. Freshly goddam laid. You aint smelt nothin worse til you smelt human bein shit outside tollet water. I never known how bad it could smell. I tell Shawn he gone have to sell somethin to pay Lester back for them .30-.30 shells cause we caint have no human bein shit on our doorstep.

Shawn pawned his daddy's .38 and paid Lester back and bought a manual meat grinder and a bag of dry corn and some more shells at Walmart. Mabel help him cube up the shoulder and run it through the grinder and season it with McCormick Season All and seal it in big thick gallon sized Ziploc freezer bags. She write SHOULDER on the bag in black magic marker and write 11-12-06 below it. Mabel says This gone be for sketti. And she point at another bag of backstrap and she says This gone be for steak. Shawn smilin and puttin up the heart and the liver and the tongue. He says if you cut all them pieces up and mix em with oats and fry em they taste real good. It smell about like what Lester Robbins shit does, so I leave em to him.

Counter full of Ziploc bags and they labels and dates and the deep red meat and organs inside them. Mabel done turned all the raw meat into breakfasts and lunches and suppers and when she set down with grama's old chipped Service Merchandise tea service and have herself a tea party with Boonie Bear that afternoon she tell Boonie Bear he gone eat like he never done did. All on count of Uncle Jake’s gun. Daddy’s brother who up above shinin down on all four us from ways up there on in Heaven.

[Photo by the extraordinary Foster Huntington; used with permission.]

More Mr Huntington: http://restlesstransplant.blogspot.com/
http://picasaweb.google.com/foster.huntington