Joe by Larry Brown Page A

Thought we might cut it up in some roasts.”
     
    “I don’t believe I’d cut it all up into roasts,” Joe said. “Course you can do it any way you want to. I’d cut most of it up in steaks if it was mine.”
     
    “Well, you know how to do it? Stacy said he knowed how to cut it up and like to cut his fuckin arm off a while ago.”
     
    A drunk grinned and lifted a beer in a hand swathed with bloodsoaked paper towels. All the men were brothers.
     
    “Hell, let George cut it up,” said Joe. “George could cut it up if they give you enough time, couldn’t you, George?”
     
    “I could do as good as they doin,” said the blind brother.
     
    Joe unleaned himself from the wall and walked over to the table. “I hate to get a bunch of blood on these clothes. I’ll cut the loins off for you and show you how to cut up the hams. You can make roasts out of the shoulders if you want to. That’s about all they’re fit for anyway.”
     
    They stepped back.
     
    “Well, go to it,” said Henry.
     
    “You got a sharp knife?” he said, and laid his cigarettes down.
     
    “I got a filet knife right here,” said Henry.
     
    “Let me see that, then.”
     
    He had them turn the deer on its side and then he tested the edge of the blade against his thumb.
     
    “This is the best meat on it right here,” he said, and he put the tip of the knife just behind the shoulder and sank it into the meat.
     
    “Just hold it steady, now,” he said. He pushed the knife down until he felt it stop against the first rib and drew it down, slicing the backstrap away from the vertebrae all the way down to the hip.
     
    “Where did y’all get this deer?”
     
    “It was hung in a fence up at Mr. Lee’s old house a while ago,” Stacy said. “Me and Henry was comin back from town and seen it. I come home and got George’s pistol and shot it.”
     
    “What was it, a buck or a doe?”
     
    “It was a doe. Big old doe.”
     
    He cut in deeply just behind the shoulder and just ahead of the hip, then took the knife forward under the meat and sliced toward his belly with the tip until he could grasp a corner of the loin and pull it up. He worked the blade back and forth against the ribs, pulling the meat up in a single strip and keeping the blade close against the bones. It came up smoothly, the white sinew wrinkling over the dark burgundy flesh until he passed the knife all the way down the ribs and held in his hand a thick strip of meat almost two feet long. He laid it on the table.
     
    “That’s some good stuff there,” he said. “Look here.”
     
    He placed the top side down and cut and squared off the end and pushed the scrap aside with the knife. He cut off a loin steaktwo inches thick, then cut halfway through it again, so that when he spread it with his fingers it had doubled in size.
     
    “That’s how you do it. Butterfly steak. That’s the best meat on it.”
     
    He put the knife down and went over to the sink and started washing his hands.
     
    “Y’all can cut up the rest of it. Just saw the hams off and slice it all up in steak. I got to get on. When you gonna have another crap game?”
     
    “We gonna have one tonight,” Henry said.
     
    “What time?”
     
    “I don’t know. When everbody gets here. We got to get through with this deer first. We got to get some freezer paper somewhere. Reckon John Coleman’s got any at his store?”
     
    “Yeah, he’s got some. He keeps it.”
     
    “Well, just stick around. Stacy and George can finish this.”
     
    Joe picked up his cigarettes and lit one. He leaned against the sink.
     
    “I got to go to town first.” He grinned. “I got Curt out in the truck with me.”
     
    “What?” Henry said. “He scared to come in?”
     
    “Said you’s pissed off at him. Said he took a bunch of money off you other night.”
     
    “Why, the son of a bitch is lying.”
     
    “I figured he was.”
     
    “I’ll tell you what he got pissed off about. He got pissed